A Queen To Come

by Frances Ellen

  Less than five minutes had passed between jumping out of bed and shimmering himself and his siblings to the Board Room. Axel Reed was there waiting for them, together with Jackson Kelly and Nicholas Nelson.

  For a moment Sky thought about asking Jackson what he had learnt from the Disciple he had been interrogating, but kept his mouth shut, knowing that now wasn’t the time for asking questions. Now was the time to strap on weapons and hear about what the hell had gone wrong.

  When Sky had woken, he’d had just enough time to check his bedside alarm clock to know that his mother and the other Ceders were already in Brazil somewhere, discussing plans with Tomas and Cara Mendosa. He desperately hoped their summoning was not related to the Ceders’ mission; from the tension in his siblings he could tell they were preparing themselves for the possibility of that news, too.

  “Your parents are in Gayle’s town as we speak,” Axel said as the Asters strapped on their weapons that had been laid out on the oak table once again. “But this is about something else.” There was a collective relaxing of the tension in the Asters’ bearings. “Just like with the Okoth family, we have received an emergency signal from Eileen Stewart. We don’t know what about; we only have the signal. You must go now.”

  And immediately the tension was back. Sky tried, just like his siblings, not to stare at Matu. Josephine was Eileen Stewart’s daughter. Sky glanced at Matu momentarily. His brother was methodically strapping on his knuckle knives as if it was any other mission, but Sky saw that Matu’s eyes were distant. His mind would be racing. They all knew what had happened to the other Affinites that were attacked. The odds were slim that they would go to Canada and find both Eileen and her daughter alive and well.

  Sophie gently laid a hand on Matu’s shoulder. “Matu?”

  Matu looked up at her. “I’m fine,” he replied gruffly.

  It didn’t sound convincing, but there was no way they could leave him behind. Sky just hoped that his brother could keep it together while they dealt with whatever was happening at the Stewart house. Sky wasn’t completely sure Matu would be able to. Matu was always calm and rational; able to focus solely on the mission at hand. He had been fine when they were in the Okoth’s house, and Reth Okoth was like a second father to him and Yaro like a little brother. But this was even more personal. This involved the girl he loved.

  Sky didn’t need Axel to have the map on the television screen zoom in to the little town in Canada, to know where to shimmer to. He’d been to Josephine’s house on multiple occasions.

  After checking with Matu, Sophie had turned to Axel. “An emergency at the same time as our parents’ meeting with the Mendosas? I don’t like this at all.”

  “It could be a coincidence. We hadn’t expected the attacks to stop until Gayle was here,” Lian said, trying to sound reassuring.

  Axel said nothing, his expression deliberately neutral.

  “I hate coincidences,” Sky muttered.

  “Go now,” Axel commanded, when they had finished strapping on their weapons.

  The Asters clustered together in a circle, each holding on to the person standing on either side of them. Sky placed his hands on Lian and Nathan’s shoulders and shimmered the five of them to the Stewart’s house in Canada.

  When the blue light vanished from his vision, Sky had expected the house to be in darkness. He had shimmered them right in to the kitchen, and even though he wasn’t always sure of his time zones, he had expected it to be dark both inside and out, with the wires cut. It was dark outside, but the lights were on.

  Sky had to blink a few times before he could take in the scene. The place didn’t look as bad as the other three homes had done. Sure, a few cupboards had been opened and their contents had been thrown out over the floor. But none of the doors of the kitchen cupboards had been pulled off their hinges and the drawers from a big dresser hadn’t been tossed across the room.

  “Over here,” came a voice from the next room.

  Sky and the others hurried into the living-dining room. Here, too, all the lights were on and the furniture seemed pretty much intact. The table hadn’t been thrown on its side and all the chairs were still standing.

  Even Eileen Stewart seemed to be in better shape than all the other Affinites they had encountered recently. Granted, she was alive, but she also looked a whole lot better than Eidi Okoth had done, who had only survived the Disciple attack by a stroke of luck.

  Eileen was sitting on the floor with her back against one of the two sofas in the living room. Her face was swollen and bruised and there were a few cuts up and down her arms. But her chest and abdomen seemed to be untouched.

  Her legs, however, were a different story. Her right leg was lying at an odd angle, with a bone near her ankle sticking out. And her left knee looked absolutely horrible.

  Sophie dropped to her knees immediately and covered the woman’s ankle with her right hand to start the healing. “What happened?” she asked.

  “Disciples came, like the others…” Eileen began, but Matu interrupted her impatiently.

  “Where’s Josie?” he demanded.

  Eileen looked up at the boy who had been in a relationship with her daughter for the past two years. She cast her eyes down and shook her head.

  “NO!” Matu yelled. He turned away from the woman on the floor, his hands clutching his head, his eyes closed.

  Sky watched Sophie as her Band glowed golden and the bone near Eileen’s ankle vanished under a fresh new layer of skin. He then turned to Nathan and Lian. “Check upstairs.”

  The two boys nodded and were about to head out of the living room when Eileen stopped them. “Don’t bother.”

  Sky frowned. “What are you talking about? What exactly happened here?”

  Sophie didn’t need to move her glowing hand over the rest of Eileen’s body for all the other injuries to heal. While she kept her hand on Eileen’s ankle, Sky saw the insides of her smashed knee move and knit together, until eventually the skin closed over the top and nothing was left of the injury. Behind him, Matu was muttering something under his breath. Sky couldn’t understand what he was saying, which made Sky extremely worried. Matu wouldn’t start muttering in Swahili unless he was close to losing control over his emotions.

  Nathan was watching Matu with narrowed eyes, too, probably judging whether Matu would manage to pull it together. It was Lian who placed a hand on Matu’s shoulder. Sky saw Matu was about to shrug it off, but he closed his eyes instead, and took a deep breath.

  Sophie cleared her throat. She had finished healing Eileen, and besides her ankle and knee, the Affinite’s face was also as good as new; the swelling had gone down completely and the bruises and shallow cuts had vanished, too.

  “They came for me.” Eileen pushed herself up onto the sofa. “They thought I might know Gayle’s location.”

  “Were they wearing brown leather with red lining?” Sophie asked.

  “Yes. They came with double-bladed axes.”

  Well, that confirmed what they already knew. All the Disciples taking Affinites were serving the same King. The same damn King the Asters knew nothing about.

  “I couldn’t tell them what they wanted to know. They brought Josie down. They thought that, with the right encouragement, I would suddenly remember Gayle’s location.” At this Matu hissed some more Swahili under his breath. Eileen spoke quickly and clearly. She had been trained to do so. She was talking about the infliction of violence upon her daughter, yet she spoke as if she was narrating a sports event. It was almost chilling to hear her speak so easily. “But as they were getting her, I managed to send the signal. They found out, and they vanished with her before you could come.”

  Matu was still turned away from Eileen. The distance in his eyes was gone now. There was a focus on his face, and Sky noticed that his hands were clenched into fists at his side. His brother was squeezing them so tightly that his knuckles were turning white.

  “How did they manage to get out so quickly?” Sky aske
d.

  “They flashed out of here in a bolt of lightning.”

  Matu turned back at that. “Lightning?”

  “Astaroth’s magic…” Sophie said. “He transported with lightning.”

  “We never knew he could transport others from this distance,” Lian said.

  “Well, now we do,” Sky snapped. It explained how this King’s Disciples were able to pop up and attack any Affinite house in the world, and be gone seconds later. How the Asters had always been too late.

  “You should’ve come to Saluverus,” Matu said accusingly.

  Eileen looked up at Matu. As she was sitting on the sofa, Matu towered over her. She didn’t seem to resent his anger. There was a sadness in her eyes. Matu was probably the only one in the room who understood what losing Josephine meant to her. “We were planning on traveling to Whitehorse early in the morning after we finished packing everything up here. I couldn’t have Disciples going through classified information while we were away. We knew this could happen.”

  “You should’ve come faster,” Matu growled.

  “You’re not hearing me,” Eileen told Matu through clenched teeth. “I said we knew this could happen.”

  Matu frowned at the woman sitting on the sofa in front of him.

  “Get the box out of the bottom left drawer.”

  Matu did as asked and returned with a small hard-sided package in his hand.

  “Open it.”

  Matu did so again, and pulled out a small square device with a screen on the front and an antenna sticking out of the top. There was a little strip of space left at the bottom of the screen for a few buttons.

  Matu breathed in sharply and closed his eyes. “Is this what I think it is?” he asked ever so calmly.

  Sky looked from the device in Matu’s hand to Eileen. He didn’t want to get his hopes up, but…

  “I knew the Small Council was working on a technology to track Affinite essence in the Underworld. But I needed my own failsafe if we were going to stay here a while longer and risk getting attacked.” Eileen pointed at the screen. “It’s connected to a transmission chip I placed in Josie’s arm yesterday. If you’re right, then this won’t just take you to my daughter. It will take you to all of the other abducted Affinites, too.”

  Sky stared at the woman in front of him. She was such an unpretentious woman. She was short and skinny, with lifeless blonde hair that was already streaked with grey. And yet she was one of the highest-ranking Watchers, knowing what she did about the Small Councils plans and developments. How she’d managed to get her hands on a tracker and transmission chip, like each of the Asters had in their arm, was anybody’s guess. But Sky didn’t care. In fact, he found her utterly remarkable; she had just given them the only lead they had to all the Affinites in the Underworld. Then something struck him…

  It struck Matu a second sooner. “You didn’t just stay behind to pack all your things, did you?” You lured them here on purpose so we could get a location in the Underworld. The unspoken words hung in the air. Sky could barely believe it. That she would use her own daughter to help the Small Council and the Asters. Her own daughter…

  “Are you out of your DAMN mind?” Matu shouted. With the tracker still in his left hand, his Band blazed bronze as he flung the tracker’s packaging in his right hand across the room. With the magic he had subconsciously called up, when the packaging hit a large picture hanging on the wall, the glass of the painting shattered and fell to the ground, leaving the frame hanging askew. Matu advanced on Eileen. He towered over her as he shouted, “This is Josie! How could you do that to your own daughter! You should have kept her safe!”

  Lian came forward. He placed his hands on his brother’s chest and gently pushed him back. “Easy…”

  Matu let himself get pushed back, but the anger hadn’t left him. Instead another flood of Swahili words came out of his mouth as he turned away from Eileen and covered his face with his hands.

  Sky turned to Eileen and found the woman looking straight at him. Matu’s outburst hadn’t fazed her one bit. There was a coldness in her eyes. Sky could only stare at her silently, shocked at what she had done.

  “Call your Ambassador and give him the update,” the woman said. “Then use that tracker and go get my daughter back.”

  Chapter 12

  Madeleine Mayne watched the black car vanish back around the corner and into the town. The meeting had gone better than she had expected. Both Tomas and Cara understood the necessity of getting Gayle behind Saluverus’ Curtain as quickly as possible. Not just for the Queen’s safety, but also for the safety of all the Affinites around the world.

  With one hand on her umbrella, Madeleine used her other hand to fish her phone from her pocket and start dialling. The rain was coming down harder now. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Aside from the single street lamp above their heads there was no other light illuminating the space around her and Percy. Madeleine would’ve liked to use her shimmering magic to conjure up some of that blue light on the spot, but her magic could be tracked, and they needed to remain undetected until the future Queen was safely on Saluverus.

  Percy Kelly remained silent beside her as Axel answered after the first ring.

  “Madeleine,” the Ambassador said by way of greeting.

  Madeleine didn’t bother with any formalities either and got straight to the point. “The meeting went well. The trip will happen exactly like we planned it. Cara and Tomas are not happy about the timing, but they understand the necessity. They are on their way back now to tell Gayle everything. She will have the rest of the night and the morning to process it before she leaves.”

  “Good. The perimeter was clear?”

  “Yes. No Disciples around.”

  She knew this, because, as Cara and Tomas were walking away, she’d sent messages to the three other Ceders to come back to the meeting point. They had all responded with the same piece of information: they had detected nothing.

  “Check it one more time and prepare the place we discussed for transportation. Check the air routes again. I want nothing going wrong tomorrow, Madeleine.”

  “We’ll make sure of it.” Madeleine could hear the tension in the Ambassador’s voice. She pulled her phone away from her ear and ended the call. When she looked up, she saw Matu’s father, Diallo, appear from around the left corner of the town. Madeleine looked to her right and saw Nathan’s mother, Rose, and Katherine Griffiths walking towards her, too. The three of them had set up sensors all around the town. Those sensors would send a signal if any dark energy went past them into the town.

  Madeleine turned her attention to the empty street in front of her. She hadn’t realised how long she had been staring until Percy cleared his throat.

  “What is it?” he asked. She must have had a look on her face that revealed what she was feeling. She didn’t trust it. None of it.

  “Nothing to concern yourself with,” she replied coldly.

  Rose, Diallo and Katherine came up beside her. The rain was streaming down their faces. Thunder rumbled closer by. A flash of lightning lit up the sky for a brief moment. Madeleine didn’t like the feel of the storm; there was something about the lightning, its energy, that she couldn’t put her finger on.

  “Sensors in place?” she asked.

  The three Ceders nodded that all was fine.

  Good. Madeleine felt herself relax marginally. With the sensors working, no dark entity, whether Disciple or King, would be able to enter the town without them knowing about it. The Mendosas were safe for now.

  “We’ll go back to the car and travel to the place where they will be transporting from. We need to make sure it is still secure before we go back to Saluverus,” Madeleine said.

  No one disagreed with her as she turned her back on the town and headed down the darkened road running between the fields.

  Madeleine understood the need to travel from a different place. If the unknown King knew where the Mendosas had spent the last eighteen years of thei
r lives, he would no doubt use the lives of the people within that town against them. It wouldn’t be the first time. The location of where Gayle had lived until she was eighteen should remain secret for the rest of her life.

  Madeleine strode ahead of the others towards where they had parked their car, two miles off. Rain was clattering down upon her umbrella. Madeleine would have much rather shimmered, saving her this dreadfully wet walk, but she would have to endure it to remain undetected.

  Lightning flashed brightly over their heads, shortly followed by a clap of thunder. The storm had moved to right above them.

  Madeleine glanced up at the sky. Even though the meeting had gone well and everything was going to plan, there was a new sort of tension in her body that she couldn’t shake off. There didn’t seem to be any reason to feel that way, but she couldn’t help the bad feeling from spreading through her body as she, the other Ceders and Percy walked further and further away from their future Queen.

  Unfortunately, Sky couldn’t shimmer straight to Josephine. He couldn’t shimmer into the Underworld unless he had been to that specific place before. What also delayed them was that because Josephine was somewhere underground, the signal coming from the tracking chip in her arm was slightly erratic. The odds that Sky would be able to shimmer them very close to where she was, but on the Surface, were slim. All Sky could do was focus on the inconsistent signal from the tracker and see how close he could get.

  Nathan could feel the tension in Sky’s grip on his shoulder as he shimmered. Blue light filled Nathan’s vision and for a moment it felt like he was floating in space. The second the blue light vanished the Asters were enveloped in darkness and rain was crashing down on top of them.

  Nathan’s magic almost sizzled in his veins as it recognised where it was. Nathan knew instinctively that they were in the Amazon Rainforest, a place he had always dreamed of visiting; but that dream felt more like a distant spark as the cold mission state settled over him. He crouched down and placed his hands on the muddy ground. His Band glowed brightly as his magic rushed through his body towards his hands and into the ground. He could detect an Underworld tunnel right beneath them. Nathan closed his eyes, shut out the hammering of the rain and focused on his magic. Seconds later, mere inches away from his fingers, the ground started to open up. Nathan willed the earth to morph into what he needed it to become. It was barely visible in the darkness, but a long stretch of steps had materialised, leading right down into the South American Underworld.