Eternal Echoes, Emblem of Eternity Trilogy Book 2 (24 page)

“Hurt the witch!” Robert yelled, staggering as he tried not to fall.

“I’m going to enjoy this,” Hannah said. Blood dripped from her lip where I’d hit her. She came closer and grabbed my arm. She began to twist it. Slowly. I could feel the muscles starting to tear and knew my shoulder would be out of its socket soon. And that was probably just the beginning. They didn’t want me dead, but they didn’t need me fully functional either. “Torture is something I excel at.”

I had a feeling I was about to get first-hand experience. Then I remembered my SOS bracelet. I started to move my hand to press my index finger to the orchid when a sharp movement from the corner of my eye caught my attention. Out of nowhere, a man rushed into the room.

A passerby who heard the commotion, maybe? A friend? An enemy? If so, fighting one enemy was better than fighting three, so I hoped he was there to help me get rid of his competition. I didn’t even get a good look at his face.

He took a step toward Hannah, grabbed her by the wrist, and with a swift punch to the gut, she went down, the wind knocked completely out of her. Hannah seemed to be the one controlling the powers. With their Tracker out, their MVP was down for the count. Thank the Goddesses I wouldn’t have to worry about fighting her powers now, too.

I grabbed Robert by the shoulders and kneed him in the groin. He went down, writhing. I stood back, watching as the mysterious stranger gave Brian a punch to the side of the head that knocked him unconscious. He paused a moment to glance at me before taking two long strides to Robert, pulling him up by the front of his shirt. Robert’s face was still contorted in pain from my knee. The stranger moved his until his nose was within two inches of Robert’s. “You’re not playing by the rules.” Robert winced. If he was afraid of this guy, I wondered if I should be too. The stranger held Robert’s eyes. “I suggest you start. And tell the others to do the same.”

Robert nodded his assent. The stranger seemed to think he’d made his point, and dropped Robert back in a heap on the ground. “Get out of Gunnison and return to your region. Don’t come back.”

Robert nodded and stood shakily, rousing Hannah and Brian. I stared, dumbstruck, as they all stumbled out of the house—a house they seemed to own, or at least rent—obeying the stranger completely. I watched from the window as Robert and Hannah got in the Porsche, and Brian took the Corvette. Of course they were the ones driving the sexy cars. You must get some sort of sexy car signing bonus when you agree to join the Amaranthine or Daevos. I made a mental note to be suspicious of anyone driving those types of cars in the future.

It wasn’t until I saw both cars pull away from the house that I was ready to deal with the guy who was still here. The fact that Robert had been scared of the new guy worried me. I shifted my head taking in his black jeans, red sweatshirt with Western State emblazoned across the front in gray letters, coat, and brown hair that fell below his ears in a way that was messy-on-purpose. It was the first time I’d really had the chance to get a good look at him since the fight started, and I almost staggered.

I put my hand against the wall to steady myself, my eyes never leaving his. I recognized him. He’d been in the store in August while Jasmine and I were getting school supplies. He’d been watching me then, and it looked like he hadn’t stopped. I remembered the angry red vowmark that wrapped around his arm. He was a Daevos member who had taken a lot of souls, and he’d been watching me—for a long time. I’d thought he was part of Caleb’s Clan. Caleb’s Clan was dead, so I’d guessed wrong. The fact that he’d saved me from this Clan did nothing to dispel my concern about who he was and why he’d been watching me for months—or what he wanted from me now.

I thought about running out of the room—or the window—but decided it wouldn’t help the situation. He’d been watching me long enough that he knew where to find me. And if Alex and Emil weren’t here helping me already, they didn’t know what was going on yet. They must still be in their meeting, which meant they wouldn’t be at my house, or monitoring me with Alex’s ring.

I studied him cautiously. Hands on his hips, he slowly surveyed the disaster we’d made of the room, stopping on me and watching me steadily. He took more than a minute before he finally said in an exasperated voice, “What are you?” His tone held a hint of southern twang, and judging by the black and red flannel checkered coat he wore over his sweatshirt, I could easily see him riding a tractor on a farm with a piece of straw hanging out of his mouth. Given the size of his shoulders, I imagined he also had some talent with a pitchfork.

A laugh escaped me at his question. Seriously? The guy who’d been stalking me since I saw him at the store last autumn walks in, helps me defeat the Daevos who are trying to “borrow” me, and has the nerve to ask what
I
am? “What am I? I’m pretty sure the question is who the hell are you?”

He smirked. “You’re as feisty as ever, I see.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I saw you at the store in August. I remember you were
very
interested in the bra display.” I stepped back, examining his chest, “What are you, a 48 A?” He glared and I continued. “After you found your bra, you followed me around the store before you disappeared and I never saw you again until now. Who the hell are you, and why have you been spying on me?”

He regarded me with unsettling quietness. “To answer your first question, I’m someone you should know. As for the second, because you need watching.”

I lifted my brows. “Wow. You’re excellent at informative answers. Let’s try again. I’ll go slow so you understand. Who. Are. You?”

He shook his head in disbelief. “You know, despite your belief that you’re indestructible, you’re not. Tonight’s a pretty clear indication of that, don’t ya think, darlin’?”

“Darlin’?” That’s it. I was going to kill him. Use my powers and tell him to go straight to hell. I wondered what would happen to him if I actually did that. Hmm. I shook my head to get back to the current crisis at hand.

“I was fine. You saw me fight,” I answered. I paused to worry about everything he’d witnessed. Although, I’d covered for myself pretty well. The only time I’d used my powers was to fight back the cold Hannah was using to turn me into an incapacitated snowflake. It seemed like everyone knew about my powers anyway. At this rate, I might as well announce my supernatural abilities on Twitter.

He gestured to the room where I’d fought against my former classmates. People I thought wanted to be my friends. “What were you planning to do once you stopped them? Hold them frozen for the rest of the night? Or were you going to try a new action verb?” he asked. Another thought seemed to occur to him. “How do you do that anyway? I’ve been trying to figure it out for months.”

I was uncomfortable he’d been watching me close enough to know I had powers, and when I’d used them. Especially since I’d only used them twice before tonight: once in the cave against Caleb, and once against the shadows in Denver. I waved the question off because, one, it wasn’t important at the moment; and two, I didn’t have an answer for how my powers worked, or why they sometimes didn’t. Plus, I wasn’t giving a Daevos member any more information than I had to. “That’s not important.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Seems pretty darn important to me. If you can do that, what else can you do? And how many people know about your magic tricks? Are you aware of how valuable you’d be to both the Amaranthine and the Daevos? You’re far more powerful than any other Tracker.”

Yes, I’d already considered all of those issues and moved them to the back of my mind in the file labeled “Things I Can’t Deal with Yet.” Kudos to farmer-boy for bringing them back to the forefront and being a major contributor to the ulcer I was about to develop. Alex and Emil had been concerned about the same things.

Aside from his questions, I was also unnerved at all his paranormal knowledge. When I’d seen him in the store with Jasmine last summer, I’d noticed the scar on his arm that I now knew was a vowmark. But it still caught me off-guard to hear him talking so freely about the Amaranthine and Daevos. Those were topics I only had two people to confide in about.

Really, it had been a hard night, and it was completely my fault. I didn’t have a problem taking responsibility for it. It was stupid of me to come out alone just to prove I could. I should have stayed at the kitchen table doing my homework like I said I would, waiting for Alex and Emil to come back. My body ached from the fight, the pain becoming more obvious as I rolled my neck from side-to-side. I was exhausted, and ready to go home to deal with the wrath of Alex…and probably Emil, too. Neither of them would be pleased I’d left. I turned to the guy, throwing my hands in the air. “Seriously! Could you just tell me who you are and what you want!” I refrained from adding, “you lunatic.”

He shifted his legs to a shoulder-width stance, crossing his arms over his chest. “What I want is to stop having to trail after my sibling to save his butt and keep the Daevos off his tail. But since he’s with you, that’s pretty much impossible because you’re trouble and always have been. As for who I am, I’m Tate Stone, Emil’s brother.”

I stared at him, open-mouthed. He responded with a smug grin. I wasn’t sure if I should be scared, or relieved I finally knew who the dude stalking me was. As he watched the thoughts play across my face he said, “But, the biggest question—and one I’ve been trying to figure out for a very long time—is, what are you?”

I turned my head slightly, eyes narrowed in confusion. “What do you mean?”

He hit his shoes against the door frame, knocking snow off them. He must have been watching from outside before he came in the house to help me fight Hannah, Brian, and Robert. “Don’t lie to yourself, Cass—” he stopped, catching himself. He looked at me and continued with a correction, “Evie. You know you have special powers. I’m pretty sure you knew it in past lives too, you just didn’t say anything.”

His tone made me feel like I was being accused of something. Since I couldn’t remember it, I certainly couldn’t defend myself. I made a mental note to find out what my relationship with Tate had been like in 1760. So far, I didn’t think it had been stellar. “I don’t remember two hundred and fifty years ago, so I can’t answer that. As for now, I have no idea where my powers come from, and neither does anyone else. I know as much as you do. That I’m a Tracker.”

He shook his head, his mouth lifting slightly in a smile that indicated he didn’t believe me. “You have abilities no other Tracker I’ve ever met seems to have, and trust me, I’ve met a lot.” He leaned back against the blue, orange-peel textured wall of the room, regarding me with curiosity. “I think your soul’s been around a lot longer than any of us realize, even Emil. He thinks he knows everything about you. I think he’s wrong. I think we all are.”

The night had been stressful enough; I didn’t need this discussion too. I was going to need cookies to keep going. “It takes a long time to get to know someone,” I rationalized. “Just because there are people in my life who have known me for centuries, it doesn’t mean they really know who I am.”

“Exactly my point.”

“That means you and your theories could be wrong too.”

He slowly pushed his head down and lifted it back up in acknowledgment. “Could be. But I’m not.”

“So what are you saying?” I wasn’t clear on the point he was trying to make.

“I’m saying that if I’m right, you’re the most dangerous of us all.”

I didn’t take Tate’s assessment well. I’d heard enough from Emil and Alex to know they thought there might be something more to my powers. They were concerned, which made me concerned, and having a new Daevos member express his concern, too, made me four-cookie-level worried.

However, I was seriously lacking in cookies at the moment, and needed another way to displace my anger and stress. I helped alleviate the knot in my stomach with an icy glare as I punched Tate hard in the shoulder. “What the hell? If you really are Emil’s brother,” I narrowed my eyes as my gaze raked over him, trying to see the family resemblance, “you used to be kind of related to me. I’m guessing you haven’t spoken to me in centuries, then you stomp in here, take over my fight, and tell me I’m some sort of danger to you? Nice. Real nice. I bet we were
great
friends back in London.”