Evanescent - By Addison Moore Page 0,2

me to read anyone’s thoughts through the simple act of touch. Of course, Wes can read my thoughts, too, but for far more nefarious reasons. I wonder if Wes would be so eager to kill for me tonight if he knew I was playing him. That I was onto his little game and was determined to take him and the entire lot of our vermin breed out of the celestial picture?

I’m pretty sure the repercussions would be huge. Cooper Flanders would wind up dead—or worse. He would disappear from the planet if Wes knew he was working with me to dismantle the network of body snatchers I bore my allegiance to.

“State your lineage.” Blaine howls it into the wind like a battle cry that carries for miles.

He points to the person on my left and progresses from Count to Count as each of the hooded entities state their father’s name and pledge themselves as a member of the Countenance.

“Conrad Paxton.” Wesley sounds off with the lusty cry of a soldier reporting for duty. “I bear the blood of the Counts.”

I’m thrown for a moment. Who the hell is Conrad?

A beat of unnatural silence ticks by, and suddenly all eyes are on me—the last and final inquiry of the evening.

“Laken,” Fletch hisses. “Wake up.”

Crap.

I give Wes a nervous look.

“Say your father’s name and state the Countenance.” Wes seems irritated that I haven’t been paying attention.

The smooth scent of the evergreens wafts in with a chilled breeze. The cries of the peafowl scream into the night like small children begging for mercy.

My father?

Shit.

In the fertility of my imagination, my father is a tall man with broad shoulders as wide as a baseball bat. He speaks seven different languages, is well versed in Shakespeare, and often recites scripture from the King James Bible—words stream from his mouth like a song. In reality, my father was a phantom who bent my mother over at a truck stop and inseminated her with a rush of seed in a heated exchange of lust that could only be classified as primal and dirty. That’s how I came to be, my sister before me at a bar, and the younger one after me in the depressed state of a trailer that still lies on the property. I gleaned this knowledge through one of my mother’s drunken confessions, her midnight murmurs that were often laced with the kind of clarity only 80 proof Bacardi could afford.

“God Almighty,” I say it crisp and clean. My voice echoes through the emerging fog like a siren.

A titter of laughter follows suit.

“Bold profession.” Blaine steps onto the stone and catches the sword in his hand as if he were challenging me to a duel. The whites of his eyes glow from beneath his hood as the only discernable human feature. “Do you think you’re special, Laken?” He cuts the words with a hint of sarcasm.

“I do.” I’m betting the tip of my blade finds its way between his thighs in under thirty seconds.

Wes takes up my hand as the entire group steps onto the Stone of Sacrifice—each with a silver seam of metal erect at the wrist.

Shit. She can’t remember her dad’s name?

Wes sighs and a plume of disappointment explodes from his nostrils. Wes as the fire-breathing dragon amuses me.

Fletch shakes out a barbaric cage comprised of long wooden sticks, and a small flock of peacocks strut out in a flurry. A lone male trots to the center of the stone and fans his feathers in a display of his God-given resplendence.

“Let us begin.” Blaine touches his lips to a ram’s horn, and a dull moan escapes the curved ornament.

The birds scatter in a frenzy.

“God, forgive me.” The words quiver from under my breath.

The cloaked figures come in low and begin jabbing their knives at the feathered creatures.

This is my moment. I won’t let the blood of my mother and sister rest quiet. If I’m going to integrate myself as one of these demons, I’ll need to make a point—dirty my hands with blood. Blood is truly the only language these monsters understand.

I jostle my way into the crowd. My blade hacks its way through the throng of winged creatures with the intensity of a medieval executioner. The serrated edge of my knife dips through the cartilage of one of the unfortunate beasts and sticks, forcing me to step on its body to pull my weapon free. It lets out a scream that carries to eternity, and beneath its painful warble, I hear