Palace Of Flames (Book One of the Damnata Series)

Chapter Twenty-Four: Crash

The Nocturna House, London

[Seth]

I can't help but feel smug when I see Jake and Alex Illingworth practically dragging Laurence into the Nocturna House. The Fallen Angel is unconscious; beaten, bruised, bloodied. I suppress a smirk of mild amusement.

But my amusement and superiority are replaced quickly with an instinctive, habitual sense of worry and protectiveness as I see Kristy's heartbroken and crushed gaze in the back of my mind. It makes me want to kill Laurence for getting his arse kicked and for making Kristy so distraught.

I mean, who gets their backside handed to them on a plate by Silvano Damnatan? That's just asking to have the piss ripped out of you.

It's all made even worse when Kristy actually walks into the room, her eyes red and slightly puffy, brimming with unshed tears. She meets my gaze and tear trails down her cheek slowly. I sigh, pulling her quickly into an unusually sympathetic hug, and soon she is all cried-out, childishly sniffling and hiccuping at various intervals. I just shush her gently, rubbing a hand up and down the small of her back slowly to calm her.

After a while she pulls away, stepping back from me. Her back is to me in an instant, and she pulls a hand slowly through her thick man of auburn hair, her sigh deep, as though she is an old, weary woman carrying the weight of the world's troubles on her shoulders.

"They're not going to give up this easily." She whispers.

"How do you mean?" I ask, just looking at the back of her head. This is the first time in a while that I've actually felt sympathy for anyone.

"Well, Laurence isn't dead, they don't have control over me yet, the Militia of the Damned are pretty much ready to fight the Damnata for power over Damnatalia. A few attacks thrown at them won't be nearly enough to stop them. They want the Oracle, and they will stop at nothing to obtain her powers." She turns quickly to meet my gaze, and I can practically feel my heart crumbling in on itself as I see the large, woeful, innocent depths of her chocolate brown eyes, widened with sadness and heartbreak. "I always kind of knew that I'd lost the moment I'd challenged them."

"Kristy-"

"No, Seth. Stop. I don't want your reasoning. I don't need pity. I just...I want to be normal. I want to get rid of this Oracle, but I can't, because it's me. I'm the Oracle. And nothing I do can make things go back to normal. I just want to be human, be in my band again, talk to my old friends again, do what I do best: sing. I don't want Protectors, I don't want Vampiires from anywhere and everywhere hunting me down, I don't want to know about Jake and Alex being Werrwulfen, or the Diurna, or the Nocturna, or the Militia of the Damned, or the Damnata. I just want to be normal. I just want to be Kristy Motionless. The girl whose father was supposed to have died in a car crash, not mutilated by Vampiires. I don't want any of this, don't you see?"

I just look blankly at her, and then she just...faints. I flit forward, quickly catching her millimetres before she hits the ground, and pull her up into my arms, simply shaking my head sadly as I carry her through to the infirmary - yes, the Nocturna House has an infirmary.

I can hear Alyssa and Autumn arguing over pulse rates as I walk into the infirmary, and they briefly glance in my direction before looking at Kristy. They both shrug, and then continue their argument. Just as I lay Kristy gently down on one of the beds, Mikhael walks into the infirmary. His eyebrows are deeply furrowed, and then he just sighs as he sees Kristy.

"Again?"

I nod slowly, solemnly. "Yes. I think she's near blossoming. I believe she will blossom soon."

"Ah. Of course. The Militia are downstairs, by the way. They want to know how Laurence is progressing."

"I don't know. Where is he?"