We ordered our usual taiyaki pancake fish and snagged an empty table next to the koi fish fountain. I guess Connor knew something was up because after we had been there awhile he finally said, “Hey Patrick, can I ask you something?”
I just looked at Connor, if he wasn’t flat out asking what he wanted to know, he was afraid of what the answer might be. “You can ask, but I might not be able to answer.” I don’t know exactly when it had started, but now there was so much of my life I couldn’t share with him.
“Why do you arrive with Galathea every day? I know you’re engaged and all, but don’t you guys live on completely different ends of town?” I didn’t say anything. I was a terrible liar and Connor knew that better than anyone. “How long have you been staying with her, Patrick?” Connor asked in a careful voice.
“Since the day of the attack,” I admitted quietly to the koi fish in the nearby fountain.
Silence hung in the air broken only by the shoppers around us and the splashing of the fish. “That was like three weeks ago!” Connor finally shouted incredulously.
“Yep,” I replied, flicking some crumbs on the table to the koi.
“Wait, what about your parents? Haven’t they noticed you’ve been gone all this time?”
“Nope.”
Connor fell back into his chair. “I can see why you left.”
All I could offer Connor was half a smile, if you could even call it that.
“I knew they kinda left you alone a lot, but this is just plain neglect,” Connor stated with disgust.
“I’m eighteen Connor, they really can’t be held accountable for that anymore.”
“Yeah, but what about last summer? You stayed out for like, two weeks solid,” Connor countered, folding his arms across his chest.
“You noticed?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Dude, you wore like the same three shirts the whole time.”
“Busted,” I sighed with a self-deprecating smile.
“So did they ever find out?”
“If they did, they never said anything about it,” I answered before taking another bite of my taiyaki.
Then something occurred to Connor and he whipped his head back up. “What did you do when you weren’t at my house?”
“Wandered around,” I answered matter-of-factly.
“What about at night?”
“Rode BART,” I replied with a shrug.
“What?!”
“Joking! Geez, Connor. I stayed in a cheap-ass motel, okay?” I said, looking around at the other mall patrons who were now staring at us.
“And they didn’t ask where your parents were?”
“It’s the city, Connor. They have better things to worry about than kids needing a place to sleep.”
“Patrick, if you had just told me what was up, I’m sure my mom would have just let you stay over the whole time.”
“I’m pretty sure your mom would have called Child Protective Services, actually.”
“Yeah, you might be right about that one,” he agreed with a slight grimace.
We went back to munching our taiyaki, but then Connor stopped chewing and looked at me. “Hey Patrick, why are you marrying Galathea?”
“Because I love her,” I replied, slightly offended.
“No, I mean why are you marrying her in a little over three weeks?”
“I really can’t go into that, Connor.”
“Why not? I’m your best friend!” he nearly shouted, looking hurt.
I sighed and looked away, trying to find the right words. “I’ve gotten into a mess there’s no real way out of. But I can tell you this, the fewer questions you ask, the longer we can stay friends—okay?”
Connor was silent for a long time before he spoke. “There’s something special about that Galathea girl isn’t there, I mean something more than the obvious?”
“Yeah,” I answered as I twirled my wedding ring around on its chain, a habit I had picked up from Nualla.
“Are you happy?” Connor asked in a cautious voice.
I stopped twirling the ring around. “What?”
“Are you happy with her?”
I didn’t even have to think about that one. “Never been happier.”
Connor leaned back in his chair again. “Then I really don’t need to know your secrets, man.”
I just looked at him for a while before I spoke. “Thanks, Connor. You’re a better friend than I deserve.”
We both fell silent. Connor leaned on one elbow and stared at the koi fish. I went back to twirling my ring as I leaned my head back.
I was so tired; the truth of what I could now see without the help of the glasses seemed to be draining my strength. My headaches were also getting worse—if that was even possible. And I had the sinking feeling that if I didn’t become a daemon soon, the headaches would probably kill me.
48
Photograph
Friday, June 1st
PATRICK
By the time we reached Travis’ lab, I felt like I was going to be sick.
The more time I spent around daemons, the worse and more frequent my headaches got. I had been self-medicating since mid-April, normal painkillers at first then small amounts of alcohol, but even that had stopped working. I didn’t know how many more times I would be able to show up to school nearly drunk before someone noticed what I was doing. But keeping it from my new family was the worst. I really didn’t want to tell them that it was being around them all the time that was making me sick. They would do the noble thing and take themselves out of my life; I just knew it. And even though it was probably killing me, I didn’t want to be alone anymore.
“Here,” Travis said as he tossed a large manila envelope at me.
“What is it?” I asked as I dumped the contents onto the table.
“Your new identity. Birth certificate, passport, Blue Card, Driver’s license, and your fake ID when you hit the town,” he answered with a smug smile.
“But I don’t even have a driver’s license now,” I said, a little shocked.
“I even took the liberty of changing your school records, though you might have to go in and make sure they print the right name on your diploma.”
“You left my birthday the same,” I said, looking down at the birth certificate.
“Well yeah.”
I looked up at him, pretending this all didn’t feel as weird as it did. “I just thought you would change it to match your brother’s.”
“Actually, oddly enough his birthday is the same as yours,” Travis said, leaning against the table next to me. “Weird, huh?”
“Yeah,” I agreed uneasily.
“Anyways, even if it was different I would have just changed the records. First thing that tips people off that it’s a fake ID, is when you don’t even know your own birthday.”
“You watch way too many spy movies, Travis,” Nualla said, rolling her eyes.
I sifted through the pile of stuff; they all looked incredibly real. I picked up the driver’s license which I wouldn’t be using anytime soon. To be honest, I had never even tried to drive a car before.
I was about to shove everything back into the envelope when I saw a photo among all the other documents. I picked it up and looked at it closer; a happy family looked back out at me. A father, a mother, and two sons; the youngest was maybe three, at best. I turned to look at Travis and Nualla. “Who are these people?”
“That would be my family; it was taken just before the accident,” Travis answered with a sad tight-lipped smile.
I looked back at the picture. Travis was nearly the spitting image of the father, right down to his pale blond hair and tall movie star build. The mother was a beautiful Japanese woman with long draping black hair and ey
es the same black blue as Travis’. But it was the youngest boy that caught my attention. He had the mother’s dark hair, but the rest of him was a blending of the two. I had to admit I could easily pass myself off as the boy in the picture.
As I ran my finger over the photo, there was a sharp, shooting pain in my head, then a flash of blurry images, and then nothing.
NUALLA
“Is he okay?” I asked, looking anxiously at Patrick lying unconscious on the floor. He had been standing just a second before looking at the picture, and then he had just collapsed to floor like a sack of potatoes.
“No, he most certainly is not okay,” Travis snapped angrily.
“I’m fine,” Patrick said in a pained voice as he opened his eyes.
“No—you’re not,” Travis countered, offering Patrick his hand.
When Patrick was sitting solidly in a chair, Travis folded his arms and glared disapprovingly at Patrick. “Let me guess, you’re tired all the time and your headaches are getting worse?”
“How did you know—?” Patrick asked, totally caught off guard.
“Besides the fact that you look like death warmed over; I can smell the alcohol on your breath.”
I just looked at Patrick in shock, and he looked back at me guiltily. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything, Nualla, it’s just with everything else that was going on, I didn’t want to worry you. It’s just a headache, really.”
“Didn’t either of you read the book I gave you?” Travis asked angrily.
We both just looked at him and Nualla shrugged. “I was busy.”
Travis stomped over to the other end of the room grabbed something off a shelf and walked back over. He slammed a book entitled: So You’re a Marked One onto the table in front of us.
He flipped it open to a page about two thirds of the way through and began reading. “‘Once the headaches reach a constant level it is imperative that you, the Marked One, undergo the daemonification process as soon as possible.’ You know why it says that?” Travis asked as he looked at us with anger only barely masking the fear behind it. “Because if you don’t you’ll die.”
“Oh fuck, seriously?” Patrick said, nearly falling out of the chair.
Travis took a few deep breaths as he rubbed his temples. “Yes, ‘seriously.’ The headaches are your body’s way of saying it has become unstable.”
I looked frantically at Patrick. “Should we change him right now?”
“No, he’ll probably be fine for a little while still. We’ll go take his blood and send it to Parker at the lab. If Parker thinks Patrick won’t make it to the wedding, we’ll start the transfusion right then and there,” Travis stated in a weary voice before he looked at me. “If he does that again, or anything similar, you call me. I don’t care where you are or what time of day it is, you call me.”
“This is crazy! We should just forget everything and start the transfusion now,” I said, starting to pace across the room.
Travis grabbed my wrist and pulled me back to face him. “Nualla—you deserve a big beautiful wedding and I, for one, am going to make sure you get it.”
“Travis, it’s not really that important.”
“Don’t you even try to pretend it isn’t. You only get to do this once,” Travis said before a crooked smile crossed his lips. “Okay well you’re doing it twice, but most of us only get to do it once.”
We stared each other down for a while, but like always, I folded. “Fine, let’s go take his blood.”
“We’re taking my blood?” Patrick asked apprehensively.
We both turned to look at him; he looked worse than he had before if that was possible.
“Yeah, think you can walk?” Travis replied, taking a few steps closer to stand next to Patrick. It could have been my imagination, but he seemed protective of Patrick all of a sudden. Like a real older brother would be. But it was probably just wishful thinking on my part.
“Here, put these on, they’ll probably help a lot,” Travis said as he handed Patrick a pair of glasses similar to the ones he had made before. But these were more streamlined and normal, less steampunk, more like something he could wear in public without drawing too much attention.
Once Patrick put them on, I could see a visible difference in his face. Like he had been squinting into the light, and now someone had removed that strain.
“Does it help?” Travis asked hopefully.
“Oh gods, yes,” Patrick answered, rubbing his temples.
“Okay, ready to go then?” Travis asked, moving toward the door.
“To get blood drawn?” Patrick asked uneasily.
“Yeah,” Travis answered, raising an eyebrow suspiciously.
“If I throw up or pass out, I am really, really sorry,” Patrick said grimly.
“Do you feel that bad?” I asked anxiously.
“No, it’s just—the needles,” Patrick shuddered.
“Seriously? Elevators and needles; you guys are hilarious,” Travis snorted, a tiny smile threatening to creep across his lips.
“Hey, if it’s so funny, what are you afraid of?” I asked, crossing my arms.
“Never gonna tell you.”
We stood outside the clinic waiting for them to be finished with Patrick. Travis was being unusually quiet which made me more than a little nervous.
“I know you, you’re not telling me something,” I said, looking at him suspiciously.
“I didn’t want to say something in front of Patrick because it’s a little—well, weird to be perfectly honest.”
“Does it involve you and me?” I asked hesitantly.
“No, I’ve uh…I’ve tried to stop thinking about us like that,” Travis answered with a crooked smile. After a few moments he looked away again, back at the medical clinic door. His expression was unreadable. “What I didn’t want tell him was, my brother was also named Patrick.”
49
A Truth That Changes Everything
Friday, June 8th
PATRICK
The ceremony was done. We were now high school graduates running out to face the brave new world. The auditorium lobby was swarming with hundreds of happy people, smiling, taking pictures, congratulating each other. I searched the crowd for my new family. It felt a little strange to say that, while at the same time it just felt right. Like, now that I was part of them I was whole; as if I had been unknowingly incomplete before.
When they had called my name—my new name—during the ceremony, heads had turned and there had been more than a few confused whispers. I had just smiled like an idiot. Travis had said that he had changed the records, but somehow I hadn’t believed him until I actually heard them reading off “Patrick Centrina.”
But now all that was over. I could leave my old life behind and just be Patrick Centrina. Well, at least for another week, that is. Then I would become Patrick Galathea and leave the rest of my human life behind. I wasn’t afraid anymore that I might die. Maybe it was because I had faced death so many times already in the past few months. Or that Travis had assured me that, as a Marked One, I had a ninety-nine percent chance of living through this. Or maybe it was because I believed that the universe wouldn’t have put me through so much just to kill me.
With Nualla’s hand firmly clasped in mine, I pushed past some people and walked straight into one of the last people I ever thought I would see again, especially here.
“Mom!” I yelped, releasing Nualla’s hand in shock.
My mother smiled down at me like she always did, but this time something seemed—off. There was something unnerving about her—well other than the fact that she had two dusky red horns growing out of her pale blond hair. “Patrick, sweetie, why didn’t you tell me your graduation was today?”
I just stared at her dumbly, unsure of what to say.
What exactly did you say in a situation like this?
She ignored my shock and continued on as if it was any normal day, and I was sitting on the couch watching TV. “If I hadn’t found the invitation in the mail, I might have missed it.” Her eyes drifted to Nualla. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to you friend here?”
“Patrick, we should go,” Nualla said uneasily behind me.
Normally I would have listened to her—just walked away. But standing there, something inside of me finally snapped. My vision flashed white, and I could feel it bubbling up inside me; anger. I had held it in for so long that I hadn’t even noticed it had been there, building through the years, threatening to boil over.
“No, I have something I need to say to her,” I stated through clenched teeth as I stared down my mother. “‘Why didn’t I tell you?’ Because I’ve been gone since the day of the attack. Four weeks! Have you called me even once in all that time? No! Did you even notice I was gone?” I shouted at her.
My mother looked around nervously; people were staring, but I couldn’t give a crap. “Patrick honey, I know I haven’t been home a lot lately, but I’ve been really busy at work and—”
“What kind of mother doesn’t notice for four fucking weeks that her son moved out!” I screamed, my anger ripping through my throat.
“Patrick, what’s this about moving out? You can’t move out, you’re still a child,” my mother stated in a patronizing voice.
“My eighteenth birthday was months ago! But like everything else in my life, you missed it!”
I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up to see Alex. He smiled reassuringly down at me before glaring at my mother. The rest of my new family moved closer around me, letting me know I wouldn’t have to face this alone. I felt a slight impact to the air that signaled they were throwing up their illusions, a sensation I wouldn’t have been able to feel or even notice a few months ago. And that’s how I knew that this conversation was heading into a territory humans weren’t meant to tread.
Daemons in the Mist (The Marked Ones Trilogy: Book One) Page 30
