by Holly Hook
"Hey," I said, checking the produce market again to find no movement.
"Hey," Liliana said with caution. I searched her voice for distress. It wasn't quite there, but she spoke with care.
"So have you been looking for the ATC place where they took our people?" I asked.
"Duh," Liliana said. "We've been looking for hours. Janine's better at this computer stuff than I am. But you might want to come back. She thinks she might have found something on the satellite maps."
"Really?" I asked. This could be good or bad.
"You need to see it," Liliana said.
"What are you skirting around?" I asked. I had the sense Liliana had something else to tell me and was putting it off.
"Nothing," she said, lowering her voice.
"There's something. Spit it out. Did Mack stop by George's house again? I swear, if I see that guy one more time--"
"Okay. Janine's not feeling well. I'm sure it's no big deal but you might want to know."
Chapter Nine
"Alyssa, I'm sure it's fine," Xavier said, walking down the street beside me.
I looked back to make sure Bathory wasn't following. Check. I wasn't sure what to do about her. Sure, I'd injured her, but she would be expecting that same attack next time and wouldn't fall for Xavier's diversion again.
"I don't know," I said. "She could have lost too much blood."
"If she had, she would have felt terrible right away," Xavier said. "It could be as simple as some dehydration making her feel like crap. Maybe Janine drank too much coffee after you, well..."
"Bit her," I said. "Just say it. I screwed up."
George walked beside us. He kept looking at me in a way I was used to people looking at me: with dread. I knew what he was worried about but I didn't want to wrap my mind around it.
I ran every word Liliana told me through my head. Janine was complaining about her limbs tingling. She felt sick to her stomach and weak.
That could mean a lot of things.
Plenty.
It didn't have to mean--
"You didn't screw up," Xavier said. "There you go, beating yourself up again."
"I so did," I said. Biting the guy behind the counter at the movie theater would have been easier. At least I didn't know him and wouldn't have to see the repercussions of it later. I should have done that. The only worse thing I could have done was bite Xavier.
What if--
The walk back to George's house didn't take as long as I'd hoped. I checked behind me to make sure Bathory wasn't following. If she was, she was being very stealthy and quiet, which I couldn't put past her. But I hadn't heard those doors to The Pit open and I hadn't heard a desk sliding across the floor in the produce market. I still didn't get why she had let us go so easily.
Liliana peeked out of George's curtains and opened the door for us. I found Janine sitting up on the couch, scrolling through a laptop and squinting at a picture on it. She was sitting at an angle so I was able to see a satellite map. Thankfully, she had turned down the brightness so it wasn't painful to look at. Other than a bit of sweat around her forehead, Janine looked fine. She smelled like scrambled eggs. Liliana had cooked her a high-protein meal, which she needed.
Janine managed a smile at me. "Hey. I think I found something interesting."
"I thought you were sick," I said.
"Well, I do feel a bit crappy," she said. "I think it's just because I've been looking at this screen for hours on end. Really, Liliana is freaking out over nothing."
"How, exactly, do you feel crappy?" I asked.
Janine looked at the screen again. "My stomach's a little upset after I ate and I feel tired, but other than that, it's nothing."
"You said your feet and hands were tingling," Liliana said. It was clear Janine was trying to downplay whatever this was. Liliana was more worried than she was. Either that, or Janine didn't realize the possible danger.
I had felt the way she described fourteen years ago.
The sickness came right after Russell Fox bit me. I remembered waking up in the hospital with my parents over me, worried sick and horrified at what the doctors said was happening to me. It had stayed with me for my whole life. I still remembered the weakness. The lights that were getting too bright. The sickness that slowly morphed into a new hunger over the next few nights as Mom and Dad drove me across the country to hide.
My Turning had taken only three or four days. Five, at the most.
What if Janine--
No.
Her mother had been fine after getting bitten by one of the mayor's servants. It was obvious that her mother wasn't descended from anyone who had been given Bathory's blood. But I knew nothing about Janine's father. In fact, I had never met the man. Janine had told me once that her parents had divorced back when she was five and her father lived on the other side of the country with a new wife. It was a setup a lot like my family, except that her father actually came out to visit her once in a while.
"It's probably from using the computer all day," Janine said. "I've also been on this couch and it's pinching my nerves." She shifted.
Xavier looked at me.
She might just be dehydrated and she had turned the screen brightness down to avoid a growing headache. Any Normal would feel like that after looking at it for so long. It was the same with the tingling. Carpal tunnel was a thing and sitting all day made anyone feel weak and tired. I might be over blowing this after all.
The dread curled into my stomach. I felt like it would never go away.
"So," I said, stepping closer. I sniffed, keeping it quiet. Janine smelled Normal--like food, and it made my stomach rumble again so I held my breath. "Where do you think this complex is?"
Janine had zoomed in on a low, gray building that was surrounded by a thin border that must be a fence. She switched the map to a 3D view and the map tilted, showing us the front of the bunker complete with its steel doors and the tall, barbed wire fence that surrounded it. It looked just like the place from the news broadcast, just minus the ATC vans and the agents forcing prisoners inside. Around the building, there was nothing but an open field and no tree cover, even though there was forest next to the complex. She zoomed out to reveal that the bunker was on a rectangular piece of land that was well outside of Cumberland, maybe ten miles outside the line that marked the city limits. The closest subdivision, the same one Trish and I had entered to save my mother, was maybe five miles away from the bunker. That opening to Death's underworld wasn't too far from the place.
"That wasn't hard to find," Xavier said. "This is another obvious trap."
"I think so, too," Janine said. "Thoreau made sure to make the media show that image of Thorne and Trish and all the others getting taken into that bunker for a reason. He wants us to know where the prisoners are. What kind of place is inside of there?"
"I have a few ideas," Xavier said. "It's either prison cells or there's another portal to the Infernal Dimension in there. I know there's no real ATC treatment center at the headquarters like they say there is. There's just Thoreau's portal. I'm wondering if it's like that in all of the centers and only a few people know the truth."
"Even a lot of the ATC people don't realize the truth," I said, thinking of the ones back at the airport who honestly thought the treatment centers were nice utopias for people like me to get cured. "Only the inside people know what it really is. I just realized that we've never really found out what actually happens to the people that get taken there."
A dark look came over Xavier's face. "If we're lucky, Thoreau put them all in a magic sleep until he's ready to force them into slavery when he merges the worlds. That means they're unhurt."
It was the best case scenario. Anything else would be too horrible to imagine. Elsina and Trish and Thorne might all be in the Infernal Dimension if the portal theory was right.
But that made it so much harder to rescue them.
I pulled out a small vial of black blood from my pocket. "We have something t
o open any portal we find," I said.
"What's that?" Janine asked.
"Demon blood. Of some sort." My stomach turned just looking at it. It was disgusting stuff. "It's what we need to open up portals. Where's your mom, by the way?"
"Out looking at apartments," Janine said. "She found another one about an hour ago that she's wanting to check out. Why?"
"I just want to make sure she's okay," I said. "Thoreau likes to go after everyone." I studied Janine's eyes, but they were the same color they normally were: brown. I couldn't remember how long it had taken for my eyes to change color when I turned.
My mother had slipped contact lenses into mine when I was two. I asked why. She had told me that she wanted to keep my eyes pretty.
I turned away and shook my head. Janine was fine. I was overreacting.
"She's going to be careful after what happened," Janine said. "She still has nightmares about the bite."
"Well, we know where to go," Xavier said. "We just have to get in there. That's the problem. They're going to expect us. Alyssa, you might want to stay behind."
I balked. "Excuse me?" I asked. "I have fire magic and death magic, plus War Magic, plus my fast healing and my fast speed, and you want to leave me behind?"
There was a look of real worry on Xavier's face. Did he still like me as more than a friend? The circumstances might not have changed his feelings for me--just his ability to express them. "It's obvious Thoreau wants you to go," he said. "And there is always the risk that he could force you to bite me. If we're apart, at least that can't happen. Thoreau won't kill me because as long as he needs you, he needs me as well. I think George and I should go. That is, if George is ready for another fight."
Xavier looked at Janine's cousin. The poor guy had been backed into a corner. I knew a man wouldn't want to wimp out in front of another guy, even if the other guy was younger. He also wouldn't want to send a kid out to do this on his own. George shifted and winced as if I had stabbed him again. "I wasn't much good in the other fight," he admitted.
"You did fine," Xavier said. "We were up against Elizabeth Bathory of all people. I should have known someone like her would be in the Dark Council. I bet she and Thoreau dated at one point."
I gagged as Janine sat up all the way on the couch.
"You were up against who?" she asked.
I told her what happened back at The Pit. "I swear, I never want to go back there again," I said. "There was more blood than I'd ever seen in my life and it was making even me sick."
"That's saying something," Xavier said.
"Hey," I said, facing him. "You know I hate what I have to do. I'm nothing like what she was."
"Well, the woman used to bathe in blood," Janine said. "At least, according to history."
"She's older than what you think," I said. "And worse than what you think." It was gross to think that she had given one of my ancestors on my dad's side of the family her blood, where it waited, generation after generation, to be awakened by Russell Fox. I wanted to kill her. Already my muscles tensed again, wanting another fight. I wanted to do it for everyone who had ever gone through what Dad and I had to endure.
And all this time, people thought it was a gene. At least I wasn't related to her. That was a relief.
I had met four of five Dark Council members. There was one more.
"Anyway, the bunker," Xavier said, getting us back to business. "I really think only George and I should go if there could be an Infernal portal there."
"But what if something happens to you?" I asked. "As you may have noticed, the supply of fighting Abnormals is getting lower and lower around here."
"I can fight," Liliana said. "Remember the police?"
"I know you can," Xavier said to her in a voice that said that she couldn't. I expected him to pat her on the head next. "But this is going to be extremely dangerous and I'm your older brother. I have to make sure I do my older brother job of protecting you."
"I'm almost fourteen."
"Exactly," Xavier said.
"You're not exactly an adult, either," Liliana said. "Alyssa's right. We don't have a lot of fighters left. And you don't know how you're going to get inside."
"I went with you to the last place that had a portal," I pointed out.
"I didn't want you to," Xavier said. "Anyway, we'll find a way. They're not expecting George. Thoreau hasn't even seen the guy before. He might be a help."
George took a step back. He was getting really cornered into saving people he didn't even know. If Xavier kept pushing, he was going to back out. He had been ready for battle before The Pit, but Bathory had brought the grim reality of war to him and he wanted no part in it now.
I wondered if he would have nightmares.
I would.
"Look, it's obvious that George shouldn't have to go," I said. "I'm going. I have the best advantage here. Going by yourself is just going to get you captured, and then Thoreau's going to dangle you over a lake of fire until I come and get you."
Xavier paled. He was thinking. "You might be right," he said. "All right, Alyssa. You come with me but I don't want you going into the Infernal Dimension."
"Why are you so obsessed with me not going in there?" I asked. "I'm fire proof. I'm the best one to go in."
"Because Thoreau obviously wants it. I bet your father's still in there, sleeping."
"I hope." My chest ached just thinking of him. "Wait. Your parents are in there, too. It's obvious he wants you to go in as well."
"But I'm not the Dark Pentagram," he said.
"And you're also not fire proof," I said. "I have a major advantage here. If there's a trap, we'll just have to deal with it. There's no other way we're going to reach our families."
"Just let her go," Liliana said. "I think she's right. I'm going to have to start calling you an idiot again, Xavier."
He sighed. "All right," he said. "We'll see how it goes. It's just...I have a bad feeling about this."
"So do I. So it must be Tuesday."
"What's new in our universe?" he asked.
"We've stayed alive this long," I said. "We can do it again."
"Okay," Xavier agreed. "We're in this together. Now, we need to think of how we're getting into that bunker or whatever. Does anyone have any bright ideas?"
Chapter Ten
"Turning myself in worked before," I said about an hour later.
"But that wasn't a great idea in the first place," Xavier said. "The whole thing resulted in you waking up magic from Death inside of you."
"You would have turned into a Shadow Wraith if I hadn't turned myself in," I said.
We had been arguing for the past hour over what to do. I had proposed that we turn ourselves in mainly because I had gotten to Thoreau himself--and a portal--by doing so, but I could see Xavier's point about trying it again. It was too risky and the ATC would disarm us and up security. Going into the bunker in chains or worse, zip ties, would not help our chances of rescuing our people.
"This is different," Xavier said. "Our people are obviously bait. You can't be falling into any more of Thoreau's plans. You did what he wanted while I was sick."
The words hurt. "So you really wanted to be a Shadow Wraith?"
"My point is, we can't keep doing what he wants." Pain came over his face and he leaned against the kitchen table where we sat. Janine's mother still hadn't come home, but she had called and told Janine that she'd be back after getting some stuff from the store.
"What about Transposing?" I asked, trying to chase away the feeling of stupidity. Ever since I had fallen into Thoreau's hands the feeling of shame had stayed with me.
"I've thought about that," Xavier said. "The thing is, I can't visualize what the inside of that bunker looks like. I need to be able to do that and the only way we're going to find out that info is if we look inside. It's not going to work. My magic has a lot of limits."
"You can glamour my sword to look like a cane. Can you glamour us?" I asked.
"I'm
not good at that kind of magic," Xavier said. "All Mages can glamour things, but my ability there is limited."
"You can do rites," I said.
"All Mages can do those, too," he admitted. "I don't know any rites that would help. I know one to fortify weapons and one to put protection around a place, but I don't have an iron ingot or dragon blood on hand."
"That's nice," I said. I had the feeling Gaozu wouldn't lend us any even if he was in the area. I had the feeling he might be. The entire Dark Council seemed to be gathering for the coming apocalypse. The date of their meeting was supposed to be getting closer, after all, even if they weren't going to hold it at the ruins. Xavier and I had drained the magic there for the next century while bringing Leon back to life.
If Thoreau was still going with his plan, that meant that they didn't need the ruins in Turkey to merge the worlds.
There must be another place.
I thought. Liliana came and got a glass of milk, then joined Janine out in the living room. They were watching an animated movie and eating popcorn. Both of them gave off a scent that reminded me of the theater. My stomach growled, but I wasn't about to lose control yet.
I was getting hungrier and hungrier. The more I fought and got involved in the Abnormal world, the more my nature woke up.
It scared me, thinking of how far it would go, especially when I thought of Bathory. Until a few weeks ago, I had pretty much been a Normal girl who went to high school and played soccer.
Now I was this.
And I didn't think I could ever go back.
"Would another Mage be able to glamour us?" I asked. "Like Mack?"
"But you have an unfulfilled deal with him," Xavier said. "I don't think he's going to help us again."
"I know I do," I said. "If we approach him and tell him that we have to do this to reach Death--and it's possible we'll meet her in the bunker--he might help. He wants her to take his Dark Magic away so he can be Normal. It's not that I can blame him. Death only surfaces once a century and he's probably scared his chance is about to vanish."
