Chapter Eleven
Angel’s heart pounded faster, and her guts twisted with primal fear. She spun, reached under the seat for her gun, and unholstered it with mad speed. Then she continued to turn in a slow, searching circle, holding the gun in both hands. She kept it pointed toward the ground, but she nudged the safety off and eased onto the trigger.
In the back of her mind, there was a voice that spoke rationally to her. It told her that people who were going crazy were also convinced that they weren’t crazy.
She licked her lips as her head began to ache. Damn it, she thought, still unable to see a single thing that was wrong with her surroundings. Her vision had adjusted to the relative darkness and she could see into the shadows beneath the trees, around the few other cars there, and into the alleys between buildings. She appeared to be alone.
She waited for the voice to contradict her thoughts again, to give her proof that despite her warding against probes or mental influence, something out there had somehow managed to read her mind. She expected something like, “No, you’re never alone.” Or some equally creepy shit like that.
But this time, there was no reply.
She waited another thirty seconds. A full minute. Two minutes.
Still there was no reply. And now the strange feelings that had come over her earlier were gone too. The chills, the sensation of being watched, the dizziness were all gone.
Angel took a deep, shaky breath. She reholstered the gun and placed it back underneath her seat. Then she sighed, running an equally shaky hand through her hair. “Okay, it’s official,” she said, fully disheartened. “I’ve finally come unglued.”
For half a second, she thought about calling Darius. But he couldn’t help her if she was nuts. No healer could fix what was wrong with Angel because it was too complicated and completely normal. It was the result of something that happened long ago. One would have to turn back time and change fate. Not even erasing her memories would work. In forgetting where a wound had come from, the scar always remained.
In an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess, the heroine and Gabrielle had painted the picture perfectly while resting on the shore of a lake.
Xena said, “See how calm the surface of the water is. That was me once. And then....” She threw a stone into the lake and the water became troubled. “The water ripples and churns. That’s what I became.”
Gabrielle pondered it, then said, “But if we sit here long enough, it will go back to being still again. You’ll go back to being calm.”
“But the stone’s still under there,” Xena told her. “It’s now a part of the lake. It might look as it did before, but it’s forever changed.”
That was what happened with mental trauma, and no amount of memory erasing could fix it. The neurons of fate had made their scarring journey, burning the pain into the mind like a brand.
Also, there was always the chance Angel wasn’t crazy, and there was something out here with her after all. As a warden, she had to consider that. It would have been stupid not to.
On that note, Angel got into her Jeep, locked the door, and prepared to reinforce the wards on the vehicle so she could drive safely home. She was half-way through the first extra layer of wards when her phone buzzed in her jacket pocket.
She swore, pulled the phone out, and looked down at the message that flashed for a few seconds before it disappeared. It was from Gabriel. It was probably the message that had been sent to all clan members, the one Jake had replied to earlier.
He’d waited a very long time before contacting her with it. Which meant this was something urgent and big and even though he’d probably wanted to avoid getting her involved, he no longer had any choice in the matter.
The notification vanished before she could read the entire message, so Angel swiped on her phone and opened it properly.
All fields. Wall break from Unseelie Realm Prison. Terrors, cantorips escaped into mortal realm. Two or more Terrors in Manhattan area. Possible unidentified dangers. Dire were suspect at helm; stay alert. Meet in quadrant two ASAP.
Angel gazed down at the message and took a deep breath. It’s about time, Gabe. Bizarrely, a feeling of tranquility stole over her. She almost laughed at that – her, feeling peaceful at the thought of a job that was possibly fatal. She was running a little low on energy, both physical and magical, after all.
But mentally, the job was just what she needed right now. It was the perfect distraction. It was like she always said: Bullets and beer. Now was clearly not the time for beer.