by Lola StVil
“No,” Nexus says firmly. “You know how Aziza can shoot fire from her hands? Well, Rye’s godly gift is super strength. That gives him great strength of mind too. He is the only person who could resist a possession. The Horsemen are no fools, Sailor. They won’t attempt to take over someone who can fight them when they have a wealth of other options.”
“So why the secrecy?” I push her.
I am relieved to know that Rye can’t be the Horseman. I really think that’s the one thing that could have broken me. But I know there’s a reason Nexus and I are out here alone, and her secrecy is only making me more aware of it.
“Rye already knows the signs,” Nexus says.
“You’re lying,” I state.
She frowns at me and I relent a little.
“I believe Rye knows the signs. But that’s not why he isn’t out here. Tell me the truth, Nexus. No more riddles,” I say.
“Fine,” Nexus sighs. “Rye is a great leader. Loyal. Moral. But he has his faults like anyone else. And in this case, his loyalty will let him down. He is convinced no one on the team would succumb to a possession. He overestimates their strength that way. And I need to know you’re looking for the signs. If Rye knows you know them and are actively looking for them, he will try to explain them away. And something tells me his influence over you is stronger than you know. You can’t afford to let him talk you down from this, Sailor, or you will end up dead. Is that blunt enough for you?”
I nod, remembering how Rye was so sure Nexus was wrong about this.
“He thinks if it is one of the them, it’s a betrayal because they should be strong enough to fight off the Horseman,” I say.
“I know,” Nexus says. “And that’s my point. Not only will he try to convince you it isn’t a member of his team, but when he realizes he’s wrong, he will get in your way when you try to separate the souls. He will be convinced that the team member deserves to die for betraying you. I guarantee you this isn’t a betrayal, and I think Rye will be more likely to see that once the Horseman is gone and you’re left with a broken team member.”
“Broken?” I say.
“Not physically, but one riddled with guilt. Only then will Rye see they are genuine and realize he had it wrong all this time.”
I nod my understanding.
“Okay, that makes sense.”
“Rye knew I wanted to talk to you alone. When he asks what we spoke of, you must tell him only of the shrinking of the spear. Tell him that it took you some time to master growing it.”
I nod again, although I don’t like the idea of lying to Rye. My discomfort with the idea must show on my face because Nexus reaches out and touches my arm and smiles reassuringly at me.
“You’re doing it for him, Sailor. Can you imagine the guilt that would eat at him down the line when it clicks that he was never betrayed and he let not only a member of the team but a member of his only living family die? He already lost his family once, Sailor.”
That makes sense and it convinces me Nexus is right and I have to do this.
“Okay, I’m in. What signs am I looking for?”
“The same sort of thing as what you have been looking for now. A member of the team trying to get you to split off from the others. Anyone with a vested interest in the spear.”
“There’s more,” I say.
Nexus wouldn’t have pulled me all the way out here to tell me shit I already know. She nods her head.
“Yes. You are perceptive, Paradox.” She smiles. “I think you’ll learn the identity of the Horseman easily enough if you follow those instincts. Do you remember how Pestilence spread disease when he became aware of who he was?”
I nod my head and shiver at the memory.
“And War will cause an actual war?” I say.
“He could, but I think he’ll be more subtle than that. Being around War makes people testy and irritable. You will find that arguments spring up over nothing. That the team and anyone else who regularly comes in contact with War will be fighting and bickering over things that don’t matter. Where War goes, chaos isn’t far behind.”
“Great,” I say. “Nexus, how am I supposed to watch for signs and figure out who is the Horseman when just being near him will make me angry in general?”
“That’s the beauty of being the Paradox. His presence won’t affect you in the same way it affects others. Now enough talk. Rye is going to be sending out a search party if you’re not back soon.”
She stands up abruptly as she says it. I remain on the ground for a moment, my mind reeling with all of the information. I get to my feet after a second. I follow Nexus back through the woods. When we reach the edge, she turns back to me.
“Remember, Sailor. Be on your guard and don’t let that weapon out of your sight. Now go and enjoy your pizza. You deserve it.”
She vanishes before I can say anything else, and I shake my head, trying to remember everything she’s told me. The main thing that keeps coming back to me is the effect War will have on everyone around him. It’s not going to be pretty, and the sooner we fix this thing, the better.
I head for the cabin and step inside. I can hear chatter from the game room and I make my way towards it, ducking into the kitchen for a slice of pizza and a beer on my way. I enter the games room. Jinx and Mel are playing a video game. Ya-Ya and Sunday are playing pool, with Rye and Aziza watching on. I stand quietly, observing them for a moment.
Rye spots me and waves me over with a grin.
“I was starting to think Nexus had kidnapped you.” He laughs.
“She tried, but I fought her for the pizza,” I joke.
“Seriously, what took you so long?” he asks.
“She was making the spear smaller with an enchantment so I can carry it easier. It took me a while to get the hang of making it grow again,” I say.
The lie comes easily, and I tell myself it’s okay because it’s for his own good. It doesn’t make me feel any better, but at least when it all comes out, which it’s sure to at some point, I can say I lied because we weren’t alone and I didn’t want to say too much.
“Want to play doubles, Sailor? Me and you versus Rye and Sunday,” Aziza says when Ya-Ya announces she’s bored of pool and she’s going to paint her nails.
“I’m just going to sit and eat this, and then it’s game on.” I grin.
I take a seat in the corner of the room where I can see everyone and look around. Ya-Ya is swearing at her pot of nail polish. I tense up for a moment, but then I see she’s smudged a nail slightly and her cursing makes more sense. Mel and Jinx are bickering about the game they’re playing, and I turn my attention to them. It doesn’t stay there long when Sunday shouts, “Bring it on.” I turn my head in that direction and see him going for Rye with a pool cue.
I start to get up when I see he’s laughing and so is Rye. Rye picks up a pool cue of his own and they proceed to sword fight with the cues with Aziza looking on shaking her head.
The whole team is acting weird and it’s not helping me one bit. I keep watching them, waiting for Mel and Jinx’s bickering to take a dark turn, or for Sunday and Rye to turn their fight serious, but it doesn’t happen and I realize something. No member of the team is really acting weird with each other. This is how they always are together. Loud. Bickering amongst themselves. It’s me who is acting weird. I’m letting paranoia take over my senses.
I’ve had the weapon for less than an hour. It took a few days for Pestilence’s plague to start to spread. Maybe it will be the same with War’s influence. Until something bigger than this happens, I need to just act normal and not give him any chance of noticing anything out of the ordinary
I finish the last bite of my pizza and go back over to the pool table.
“Let’s do this,” I say to Aziza.
“Are you two ready?” she says to Rye and Sunday, who are still fighting with their pool cues.
“Once I win this we will be.” Rye grins
.
She laughs. “Oh any excuse.” She turns to me. “They’re afraid of getting beat at pool by two girls.”
I nod my agreement.
“They’re only putting off the inevitable though.” I laugh.
Rye and Sunday exchange glances and drop their pool cues to their sides.
“Oh it’s so on.” Sunday grins.
He sets the game up and nods to us.
“Ladies first,” he says.
I step up to break and get one of the balls in on my first try. I miss on my next shot, and Rye steps up to take his shot. We play for a while, and eventually, Aziza and I win the game.
“Best of three,” Rye announces.
We keep playing. Jinx and Mel have finished their game and have wandered over to watch us.
“You know, it feels kind of wrong playing pool and having fun when we know War is loose,” Mel says.
“He can wait one night before we kick his ass,” Aziza says.
“You make it sound like it’s going to be easy,” Sunday says with a frown.
“It will be. We have super Sails.” Aziza laughs. “And the way she’s kicking ass here tells me War will be no match for her.”
“On what planet is she kicking ass here?” Rye asks as he shoots in the eight ball with ease, winning the game.
“You’ll see on the decider,” Aziza says.
“Seriously though,” Sunday says as he sets the next game up, “if you thought Pestilence was hard to take down, you haven’t seen a thing yet. War is stronger, faster, and more clever than Pestilence could ever hope to be.”
“You sound like you’re the president of his fan club.” Jinx laughs.
Sunday frowns and shakes his head.
“I just think it’s important that we don’t get too cocky. We have to be sensible about this and go into battle with a plan, that’s all.”
“And we will,” Ya-Ya says. Her nails are finally finished and she wandered over to join us around the pool table. “Once we actually figure out who the hell he is.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard,” Mel says.
“If he has an effect on everyone around him like Pestilence did, then he’ll be revealing himself to us.”
“Enough,” Rye says. “Tonight is a celebration of getting the weapon. We’ll talk strategy tomorrow after school.”
“I still can’t believe we have to go to damn school around this thing,” Jinx moans.
“For once, we agree on something,” Aziza says.
I feel a tingling in my chest as I lean down to take my shot. We are losing badly and I really need to make this shot count, but the tingling is turning to burning. I straighten back up and rub my hand across my tattoo where the burning is coming from.
“Are you alright?” Rye asks with concern.
“She’s fine.” Sunday laughs. “She just doesn’t want to admit defeat.”
I can feel beads of sweat starting to form on my body even though I’m suddenly icy cold except for the hot patch around my tattoo. My body begins to shake and I see the team exchanging worried glances.
“Shit, Sailor, what’s wrong?” Sunday shouts.
I open my mouth to tell him I don’t know, but I can’t speak. My vision blurs and I see something: a room full of people that isn’t the team and the room isn’t this one. The people are talking, debating, and I know instantly where it is. My vision flickers again and I see a tunnel filled with faceless figures. They’re running, excited. They’re on a mission and they’re close to winning it.
I feel my knees buckle as my vision swims in and out again. Warm hands catch me around my waist and hold me up as I am dragged to a chair and set down.
“I’ll get a cold washcloth,” I hear Mel say.
I can feel Rye taking my hand in his as he crouches beside me.
“Sunday, get in her head and pull her out of there. We are not having a repeat of last time,” Rye shouts.
I feel Sunday take my other hand, but as his fingers brush mine, the vision goes away and I can see normally again. The burning in my chest stops and I take a deep, shaky breath and then I sit up straight.
“I’m okay,” I say. “But we need to get to the town hall. Now.”
“You want to go to the council meeting?” Aziza asks with a raised eyebrow.
I shake my head. Dammit. A meeting is going to make this even harder.
“No,” I say. “I want to get into the tunnels beneath the town hall.”
“Why? What did you see?” Rye asks me.
“The next Soul Gem is there. And so are the Boundless.”
CHAPTER TWENTY: ANOTHER SOUL GEM
We reach the town hall with no real plan in mind except getting inside. In that sense, the council meeting will work in our favor… it means the building won’t be locked up. But in another sense, it will work against us as the place will be busy. Whisper has an open-book policy with its council members, and the whole town is always invited to council meetings and allowed to have their say. The place is going to be crawling with people.
“Shit,” I whisper, ducking behind Rye as we slip into the meeting room.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“My dad and Raven are here,” I say. “If my dad sees me here, he’s going to want to drag me to every one of these things. I’ve always refused to come and Raven only comes to keep him happy.”
Or at least that’s what she always says. Maybe she has known all along that one of the Soul Gems is beneath this place and that’s why she’s here. In my vision, I saw the Boundless were here, but they all wore long hooded cloaks that kept their faces concealed from me. It could have been Raven. It most likely was her.
Right now though, we have bigger problems than Raven. Like how we are supposed to get through the door we need to get through to enter the tunnels. The door is on the other side of the room and the room behind it is off-limits to members of the public. Sneaking through it in front of a crowd this size is going to be almost impossible.
“We need to hide somewhere until everyone leaves and sneak back in,” Ya-Ya whispers.
She gets an angry shush from someone in the crowd. She glares at him until she looks away, but the man was right. We’re making too much noise and starting to attract attention.
“Just sit down for now,” Rye hisses.
We take seats at the back of the room and I switch off as the mayor drones on about budget cuts and sensible spending. The meeting starts off civil enough, with people making their points logically and calmly and listening to each other. It’s not long though before people are shouting over each other.
I am on high alert, but looking around at the crowd, no one seems shocked or like this behavior is out of place. Either War has them all on tenterhooks, enjoying the arguing, or this is normal for these kinds of meetings.
The arguing begins to settle down as the mayor bangs what looks like a judge’s gavel on the desk loudly. A few people still mutter, but the room as a whole settles back down and I relax a little. This must be normal for these things, as I don’t think War’s influence would be as easy to subdue. The mayor starts to talk again and then a woman in the row in front of us jumps to her feet.
“Mayor, I don’t think we were finished discussing the last point. I am sick to death of being silenced and having you cut us off at these meetings when you think you’re done,” she shouts.
The mayor looks shocked, as do a few people in the crowd. Every eye in the room is on the woman who is working herself up into quite a frenzy.
“You talk about budget cuts, but you don’t tell us what this achieves. Where are we expected to find the extra money we need to keep Whisper safe? Do you really think the sheriff and two deputies are enough for the whole town? It’s like we’re inviting crime.”
“Mrs. Hammond, I’m sorry your husband had to be let go, but—” the mayor starts.
“Don’t you dare interrupt me again,” Mrs. Hammond shouts. “The
people in this town deserve to feel safe in their own homes, at school, at work. And we demand you reinstate the deputies you’ve let go. And before you start in about budget cuts, I don’t give a fuck about that. It’s your job to find the money, not ours.”
The crowd is growing increasingly restless now, and someone else jumps to their feet and starts in on the mayor. Another man jumps up and begins to defend the mayor, pointing out that Whisper is a safe town (if only he knew) and that extra deputies are just a waste of funds that could be used to fix the cracked roads.
Before I really know what’s happening, it seems the whole room is on their feet. Everyone is shouting and screaming and making their points, but no one is listening to anyone else. Even the mayor and the rest of the council are up and shouting.
“Now,” Aziza hisses, nodding towards the door.
She’s right. The people are no longer content to stand in their spots and shout. Everyone is milling around now, shoving each other, shouting louder than ever before, and this chaos will perfectly cover us slipping through the door. I glance along the row to make sure we’re all ready to go. I feel my heart skip a beat when I see Jinx. He’s standing directly behind Mrs. Hammond and it looks like he’s whispering in her ear. He pulls back from her and she shouts again, so loud her scream cuts through all of the noise.
“If the mayor won’t give us our town back, then by God we’re going to have to take it,” she yells.
This gets a cheer, and as one, the crowd surges forward towards the council. Rye takes my hand and pulls me away as the crowd surges again, and within seconds we’re across the room and through the door. I find myself standing in a conference room that’s empty, and as Ya-Ya slips in last and pulls the door closed, it’s quiet enough to give me time to process what I just saw.
“That worked better than I expected.” Jinx grins.
I whirl to face him. He’s going to just admit what he did? Is War about to come bursting out? My hand instinctively closes around the spear in my pocket, but I don’t pull it out yet or go to touch my tattoo. I want to hear what he has to say and see how the rest of the team react. They don’t know what I know, and if they think I’m just attacking Jinx for no reason, they’re going to get in the way and that could be deadly.
