The Guardian (Callista Ryan Series) (50 page)

             
Callie worked quickly then. She jumped into the minds of Sirens, quickly extracting the memories she sought before exiting one and immediately leaping into another mind. It became easier as the progressed. She learned that she didn’t need to stay in the original memory for more than an instant; it was like leaping onto a stone in the middle of a river while crossing to the other side. And using the same totem to pull her from each conjured memory was helpful, as she barely had to think about what to focus on.

             
At one point, she saw Adeline a few meters away. The ruby-haired Siren had filled the position of commander, roaring orders at her fellow Sirens as they became swept up in the chaos of the surprise attack. One Guardian attempted to stand up, his wings already outstretched, when Adeline struck him with an angry kick to the chest, winding him and effectively seating him once more. But Adeline was too far away, and people were swerving in front of and around her with speed too great, for Callie to insert herself into Adeline’s mind.

             
Silver wings were being strewn everywhere, each dripping with near-violet blood. Bodies were everywhere, both alive and dead, each running or flying or climbing into trees. All trying to survive. Callie peered through the battlefield to find her friends, and saw Alex relatively nearby. He was tearing wings off in pairs, flying from Siren to Siren, cold and clinical in his killings. He was a machine, well-trained and efficient, hardly visible as he flicked from place to place wrenching the lives from the women. His victims hadn’t even fallen to the ground before he was on to the next, their blood barely being spilled before they were forgotten. It was difficult to watch, but Callie knew that he was only acting in the interest of his people; people who, even now, were cowering in the center of it all. They were not the soldiers here. They were the ones who needed protection, the last of a noble breed on the verge of extinction.

             
Callie realized that he was purposely staying close to her. Every few seconds, he would throw a glance over his shoulder and ascertain that she was safe, before returning his attention to the battle at hand. Each brief look scared her a little more; it was a second in which he was vulnerable.

             
She turned her attention to a Siren who was only about fifteen feet away, and was about to enter her memories. However, at that moment, it was as if the Siren felt Callie’s eyes on her, for she turned and immediately spotted Callie amidst the foliage.

             
The woman’s eyes narrowed into black slits, and before Callie could blink, she had flown across the field and had yanked Callie forward by the hair, withdrawing her from behind the trees. Callie gasped as she was pulled into the clearing, a human in plain sight amongst warring gods. But before she could understand the enormity of the fear which surged through her at such exposure, the woman had braced her hands on either side of Callie’s face, as though to twist her head in a neck-snapping circle.

             
Callie, working purely from instinct, took hold of the woman’s shoulders and drove a knee into her ribcage. There was a loud sound of something cracking, and the Siren grunted, losing her hold of Callie’s head, but Callie suspected that the motion had injured her more than the Siren. She hopped backwards on her good leg, the kneecap in the other smarting with excruciating jabs of pain.

             
However, as soon as Callie saw that the Siren was beginning to stand up again, recovering from the blow, that same instinct compelled her to bring up her wounded leg and thrust a kick into the woman’s jaw. But before her foot could connect to that bone, the Siren had shot out a hand and grabbed Callie’s ankle. Keeping her clutch on Callie’s leg, the Siren stood erect, a lethal expression on her petite face, and then jerked Callie’s leg in a quick circle, causing Callie to spiral horizontally through the air until she landed face-down on the rock.

             
Searing agony flooded through Callie’s hip and consumed her until she had to scream in release, a series of faint pops telling her that the bone was broken. But the woman wasn’t finished. She straddled Callie, one foot planted firmly on either side of her back, and swiftly reached down to grab Callie’s elbow. She paused once she had gripped it, as though in tantalization, and then, with breathtaking force, jerked it across Callie’s back in such a way that both bent the elbow backwards too far and dislocated the shoulder.

             
Callie felt lightheaded as she heard herself shrieking in torment. She felt disconnected from her body, and the world began to spin. She glanced at Alex from the corner of her eye, her vision beginning to blur and fade.

             
He looked over when he heard her scream, despite the struggle he was having in killing the latest Siren. When he saw her lying on the ground, his face became a mask of guilt-ridden horror, and he quickly returned his attention to the Siren he was fighting and threw her over a nearby tree stump, holding down the back of her head with one hand while he messily tore her right wing from her back. Then, not bothering with the second wing, he lunged across the field on open wings.

             
The Siren was still focused on Callie when Alex knocked into her, driving her a few yards away, and landing in a sloppy tumble. Callie struggled to sit up, crying out when the movement snapped her hip back into place, and the bones began to heal in painful fusion. Alex and the Siren were rolling about on the ground, each clawing for the upper hand. The Siren managed to pluck out a few feathers in her attempt to rid him of his wings, which caused Callie’s heart to stop a few times, but each time she succeeded in that task Alex rolled them over again so that he had the advantage.

             
Finally, Alex pinned the Siren to the ground in what seemed to be an unbreakable hold. Callie sighed in relief, watching as he moved to strip the woman of her wings; however, at the same moment that he moved, the Siren rolled back onto her neck, bringing her knees to her chest, and then thrust both feet upwards, leveling a clean kick to Alex’s stomach. He flew backwards, the force carrying him almost all the way back to Callie. The Siren ascended into the air in a motion too quick for Callie to witness.

             
Callie winced as she stood, limping towards Alex. He stood up awkwardly, and Callie saw his large shoulders rising and falling in shallow pants as he struggled for breath.

             
She helped him to stand, using her good arm, trying not to let her face betray the pain radiating from her other shoulder. “Are you alright?” she asked.

             
He nodded, and spoke in broken sentences laden with a thick accent that Callie had never heard him use before. “Get…back behind…that tree,” he gasped.

             
Callie’s eyes widened as she saw one of his ribs, which was sticking out from his chest so that the blood-coated bone poked through his skin, beating slightly to the rhythm of his heart. She felt sick, and he looked down to see what had captivated her attention. Without second thought, he clasped a palm over that broken bone and grunted as he shoved it back into place. She whipped her head away, not able to watch.

             
“Go,” he growled, agony roughening his voice. She turned and fled, her knees shaking and weak as she ran back to the patch of forest at the edge of the cliff. The day was beginning to get the better of her; she felt as though she were slowly losing her sanity.

             
As she ran, she felt a cool breeze licking at her back. And then she heard the rush of wind as it was cleaved into by a foreign body. And then she knew, even before she turned around, what was about to happen.

             
“
No!
” Alex roared, the word stretching into a dismayed howl.

             
Callie spun around, her stomach sinking. She barely saw the silver wings descend upon her, the furious mask of hellfire that the returning Siren wore, the wide-eyed shock on Alex’s face, before she felt the push of two small hands like twin bullets against her chest.

             
Before she lost her footing and stumbled back, her heel catching empty air, her body’s weight pulling her downwards.

             
Before she realized that she was toppling over the edge of the cliff, sinking lower and lower until Alex’s face disappeared atop it.

             
Before she remembered, mid-fall, that this would be at least a five hundred foot drop before she hit the stream below.

             
Before, as her vision went black and the thud of her heart ceased to sound, she understood that the last thing she would ever hear would be the tortured terror in Alex’s voice as he cried out after her.

Chapter
Twenty Seven

Farewell

             
There were man
y
moments in Callista Ryan’s life that she wished she could remember. The first day she rode a bike; her father had told her tales of that day for years afterwards, about how she had
insisted
that he let go each time, even though she had continuously proceeded to crash within seconds of his compliance. The first time she saw the ocean. Every Christmas that she had still listened for hoof prints on the roof, lying awake in wide-eyed anticipation. The last words her mother had spoken before she’d died. The entire night in which she’d first met Alex.

             
But the moment that she woke up, soaking wet and suffering from a massive headache—all over her body….That was a time she immediately wished she could forget.

             
The first thing that Callie was aware of was the sound of trickling water to her right. That, however, was quickly overshadowed by the dull, throbbing ache which initiated in her skull and extended down her neck, into her shoulders, out to her fingertips, and all the way down her legs. Her heart was beating at a fast clip, much too quickly for Callie to believe that she’d simply been asleep a moment ago. She had yet to realize where she was; all that she knew was that something terrible had happened.

             
Slowly, hesitant to move any small part of her stinging body, she lifted her eyelids a fraction of a centimeter.

             
The sting of sunlight made her wince, but through the intense rays she saw a man, crouched over her, his black hair dripping with water, the droplets from his hair comingling with the tears which streaked down his cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered then, his voice rasping in strain. He held her limp left hand with both of his, nestling it tenderly. 
He knelt next to her, his back hunched over her near-lifeless form, his head hung as he sat stricken with silent grief. Before Callie recognized the man, she recognized the expression.

             
It was desperation, the same she had worn when she had woken up in her hospital bed and been told that her parents hadn’t survived. It was the same aimless sadness, the same panicked sense of loss, of
being
lost, that she had gleamed a hundred times in the mirror after that day. This man had lost something that he loved. Before she realized what she was doing, or with whom she was interacting, she found herself reaching a hand out to that man, placing a comforting palm on his cheek in empathy.

             
He froze, and then his eyes were suddenly pinned upon her, wide with disbelief. Something in Callie’s brain clicked into place when she saw the shadows in those grey eyes, their shallow walls lurking just below the surface, guarding the man who lived within.

             
Emeric. The name had hardly registered in her mind when she gasped and pulled her hand away, ignoring the screaming protest of each of her muscles as she crawled backwards, away from him.

             
As she moved, he didn’t seem to register her fear. He looked after her as though he were seeing a ghost. “Callista,” he whispered, his jaw going slack. “It can’t be. It isn’t possible.”

             
“Stay away from me,” she said, her throat aching with the words.

             
When she saw that he wasn’t about to move, she looked around, trying to remember how she had gotten there. She looked up, and saw the huge drop of the falls, rushing into the water next to her. And then she realized that she was soaking wet, just as Emeric was.

             
A vague part of her mind uncovered a misty memory, something at the fringes of her subconscious.

             
“I…I fell,” she said, astounded. She glanced at Emeric, wondering how she was still breathing right then. “Did you catch me?” she asked.

             
He stood up slowly, his face etched with amazement. “You were dead,” he muttered, and Callie suspected that he was speaking to himself more than to her. “You—how are you alive? You were….” He shook his head, uncomprehending.