Chapter Five
Celine woke with a start, her heart racing and head pounding. She placed a hand to her forehead and pressed hard to ease the deep thumping.
"You're awake," a soft voice said from nearby.
Although it hurt to open her eyes, Celine slowly peeled them open to glance around the room.
For a brief moment she thought she might still be dreaming. The lavish room was so beautifully decorated it felt like one of those silly dreams she had as a child filled with princesses and daring rescues.
Celine’s gaze landed on the statue in the corner, the bright blue eyes staring back at her until the reality of the situation came crashing back down on her.
This wasn't home. It wasn’t even a dream. She was really there.
A quick glance over her shoulder revealed two brown-cloaked man on either side of her.
She was at the compound of the crazy cult that, for some reason, looked more like some sort of Greek museum than a cult headquarters.
Celine focused on the blue eyes. She had seen those same blue eyes up close. They were no longer a dream.
"I don’t understand," she whispered as she tried to sit up on the settee.
A bony hand reached out and patted her arm as she did so. For the first time, Celine was sure she had laid her eyes on the woman she had meant to see from the beginning. Or sort of laid eyes on, seeing as the woman was wearing a white cloak that hid her face. She matched the description given to her by the other Azilians.
"I would be very surprised if you did," the woman said quietly, the sound almost unearthly.
Celine examined the woman as she moved past her. Her thick white cloak that seemed to cover everything but her hands. Maybe they had some sort of weird ritual that you couldn’t look at her face or something. There was a part of her that was intensely interested to see the woman beneath the cloak, while the other part was wholly terrified by what she might see.
"Are you Anassa?"
The woman nodded. "And no doubt, my child, you have many questions."
Celine frowned. For the first time, she realized just how alone they were. She also realized that there was something else even odder. Whatever she felt about her vibes and her potential gift for reading people, this was the first time she’d encountered a situation where she felt nothing. It unnerved her. It was like the woman wasn’t even there.
"Where's Atticus?" Celine said.
Truth be told, she wasn't certain if she really wanted to see him, but the idea of not seeing him only made her more anxious.
"Your other half is outside taking a moment with his people," Anassa said.
His people. Anassa only confirmed what she had been wondering. That Atticus and the others were the same.
Her mind stumbled over something the other woman said. "Other half?"
The cloaked figure nodded and made her way to the chair nearby. "You feel it inside you," the woman said. "The burning need when he is around. An ache as if you are not whole. He is your half, and you are his. Together you are one."
It was as if the woman had reached in and read what was in Celine’s very heart. She did feel the burning need when he was around. An ache she couldn't seem to touch.
"Why were his eyes blue, and why were they blue in my dreams?" Celine said.
Anassa moved the cloak slightly, and Celine thought she caught a glimpse of blue on the other woman’s wrist. The striking color was hard to miss against the lily white of her skin and cloak.
"He is cut from the cloth of the gods. As are you."
Once again Celine could feel the room spin around her. It hadn't been such a good idea to ask these questions. She wasn’t so sure she was ready for the truth, especially after the night she was already having. Still she had to know.
Celine leaned forward and placed her head in her palms. “And the dreams? A man from your group said you knew what was in my dreams. The Shadow Man.”
“Erebus,” the woman said. She spat out the name as if it burned her.
Celine glanced up to see the woman had gone rigid.
"Erebus uses dreams against us," Anassa said. "Using the Vestal link to pry open the passage between his world in our own. A path not meant for the likes of him."
Vestal link? Celine had no idea what that was. Did they all talk in riddles like this? Nothing the woman said made a lick of sense to her. She needed to find someone who would tell her what she needed to know in a way she actually could understand. She needed to find Atticus.
Celine stood on shaky knees and tried hard to stare down the other woman.
"I need some air," she said. "I need to get out of here."
She didn't know where the strange brown cloaked men were, but they weren’t there to stop her now. And quite frankly, she didn't really care if they tried. She was going to find Atticus no matter what.
Celine swung open the front doors. The two guards there frowned at her as she stepped outside.
“Are you supposed to be here?” one of the guards asked.
She stumbled past them, ignoring them as they called for her to come back.
When Celine reached the second gate, she stepped through and stumbled against the wall.
“Stop her!” one of the men shouted behind her.
A firm hand wrapped around Celine’s shoulders, and she relaxed as the soft scent of pine needles and sandalwood wrapped around her.
“She’s with me,” a gruff voice said.
Celine rolled back her head and wasn’t all that surprised to find Atticus. The guards who had been standing outside hurriedly moved in as he stared them down.
After a moment Atticus looked down to where she rested against him.
"Are you okay?"
Celine wasn’t quite sure what to say. There were about a million things she needed to get out, but all of them seemed to die in her throat.
"I, um," she said, fumbling with her words.
Instead she stared up at his phenomenally blue eyes. Something sparked deep inside, and she felt her heart thump in response.
A deep, low rumble filled the air, and after a moment she realized that it was Atticus. He pulled himself away from her and helped lean her against the wall.
Celine rested her head against the cold surface and stared out into the darkness around them. Slowly things started to seem less shaky.
She glanced at Atticus, his phone in hand as she watched her. Concern was etched across his face.
Celine opened her mouth but stopped when a loud screech filled the air around them. Several more echoed in the darkness.
Atticus stepped in front of her, his body shielding her from whatever was coming.
There was only a moment of recognition in his eyes before whatever it was that had screamed came crashing down on him.
She watched as Atticus fell to the ground hard. His phone clattered away from him.
Celine pressed her back hard against the wall as the creature that attacked him rose from the ground. Her eyes widened with fright, and her heart thundered.
Never in her life had she seen a creature like this. Something that might have once been a man but was now nothing but torn flesh and rage.
The creature turned to stare at her, blood red eyes pinning her where she stood.
"You smell like her," it shouted.
Celine shook as the creature started to head her way. It was nearly double her height. She cowered away from the beast.
It reached out and grabbed hold of her arm, its grip just enough to cause pain as it shook her.
Its fingers slipped away as Atticus tackled the monster from behind, knocking them both to the ground.
She heard the loud crack as she hit the ground, and for a moment, wondered if she'd broken her nose with the impact. When Celine opened her eyes, she could see that one of the lenses in her glasses had shattered.
"Flee into the woods," Atticus shouted at her. "I'll find you."
Celine struggled to get off the ground. She had badly scraped her knee during the fall and knew there would be blood if she looked, which wasn’t something she was good at handling.
The screams of the horrible monsters cut through the air around her. Their eyes glowed in the darkness around them. Shouts of men also filled the air.
The Azilians were under attack, and there was nothing she could do.
Celine tried to shut out the sounds going on around her and started to run as fast as she could. She pushed through the long field of grass and into the forest line. The thick canopy above her allowed little light as she moved through the dense foliage.
But still she ran.
Her legs ached, and her lungs burned as she made her way through the woods, praying that nothing was behind her. That nothing had followed her.
It was some time before she stopped running, before her legs gave out and her lungs screamed for air.
Panting, she leaned against a tree and closed her eyes. In the distance she could still hear the screams of the monsters. The lights of the compound were now long out of sight.
Celine sank to the ground. Her whole body shook as she did so. The adrenaline that had once coursed through her body was now spent.
With nothing else left to give, she pulled her legs up to her body and let out the tears she had been holding.
Celine cried until nothing else came out, and the world around her grew silent.
The only thing left to do was wait for Atticus and hope he would be able to find her.