She offered it to the beggar, who squinted at it, frowning.
“I want a quarter,” he said. “Or a dime. Dollars don’t do me no good, Miss Casey.”
He knew her name? How the fuck did he know her name?
The unease she’d already been feeling changed to outright fear, and she threw the dollar at the man’s feet.
“That’s all I have,” she said, trying to sound annoyed instead of scared. “Fuck off.”
She turned and continued toward her car, walking faster than she might have otherwise. She didn’t look back.
By the time she reached the parking lot, she was almost running. She hit the button on her keychain to unlock her car when she was still fifteen feet away, and heedless of the wave of heat that came rolling from the interior when she wrenched the door open, slid in, slammed the door, and locked it. Only then did she look back the way she’d come.
From here, she could just see the little cluster of trees where the man had been standing.
There was no one there. Only her crumpled dollar bill fluttered in the breeze between the roots.
Well and truly spooked now, Casey started the car and pulled out of the parking lot, heading toward the highway, her heart hammering.
He just wandered off, she tried to tell herself.
As she waited at a stoplight, she fumbled with her phone until music began pouring from the car’s speakers.
“I’m yours…” Jason Mraz sang. It was an old song and had been one of Emily’s favorites.
The light changed, and Casey made her way onto the highway, forcing herself to sing along as she headed south, out of the Twin Cities.
She rolled down the windows, letting the warm wind blow through her hair. She turned the music up loud, and when the song was over, she played it again…and again…
It was time to start again…time to start somewhere new…time to get away from the things that kept her heart from healing.
Casey drove.
The Others
CHAPTER SIX
Mona lay staring at Garrett’s dark shape silhouetted against the orange flames of the campfire and realized she wasn’t going to fall asleep. The chirps and croaks of the night creatures, raising their voices in a buzzing cacophony, were certainly part of it, but mostly it was a different buzzing—the thoughts in her head—that were keeping rest away.
At last, she sat up, tucked the blanket in more tightly around Miraculum, and crossed the few feet to sit beside her husband.
He started as she sank to the ground beside him, dropping the stick with which he’d been prodding the fire and turning to look up at her guiltily.
“Some watchman you are,” she whispered, glancing over the fire toward where Michael, Haake, and the wizard slept, little more than dark shadows on the ground.
He grunted an embarrassed sort of laugh, slipping his arm around her and pulling her close. She rested her head on his shoulder, turning her face skyward. Above, just visible through the canopy of trees, the broad crescent of the moon hung motionless amidst a multitude of glittering stars. Idly, she traced the rough scales of his forearm until she reached his palm and entwined her fingers with his.
“Miraculum?” he murmured quietly into her hair, his voice like a distant rumble of thunder.
“Shhh. He’s asleep.”
“You should be too. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”
She didn’t say anything for a long while. The warmth of the flames and the coolness of his body made for a soothing counterpoint. Somewhere nearby, there was a rustle in the brush as some night creature scurried off in search of quieter shelter.
“There’s going to be trouble,” she whispered, her gaze shifting to stare into the flames.
“More than there is already?”
“I mean with Paige.”
She felt his whole body stiffen against hers—felt his chest expand and contract as he took a deep breath.
“Paige will do whatever it is she’ll do,” he said, his voice low and tight. “She’ll come around.”
“But you can feel it, can’t you?”
“Feel what?”
“Michael. He’s meant to be with us.”
Even as she said the words, she wished she could snatch them back. What she felt was surely her imagination, nothing more. She’d never had visions or cast spells; she was ordinary—happy to be so—and yet she could feel something growing stronger in the air between them all. An invisible net was tightening around Garrett, Miraculum, Michael, and herself that Haake and the wizard had no part in, and which Emily and her friends were straining to the breaking point with their departure.
She sighed, wishing fervently that she’d held her tongue. It wasn’t fair to Garrett; she knew the pain of Paige’s betrayal was still gnawing away at him, even if he wouldn’t say so. But now that she’d begun, there was no help for it but to go on.
“Paige isn’t part of it,” she said. “You can feel that, can’t you?”
“Not part of what?”
Mild irritation rippled through her then, coupled with a resigned sort of affection. Gods, but he could be thick sometimes. She reached up, her fingers searching for the gap in the armor that she knew was there at his shoulder. She pinched him…hard.
“Ouch! Stop that!”
“Shush, you’ll wake the others.”
“You’re the one pinching!”
“You know damn well what, Garrett. Don’t try to tell me you don’t.”
“Okay, okay. Just don’t pinch me again.”
“I think it’s Michael’s fellowship,” she said, moving to lie on her side and stare up into his face. With a sigh, he lay down beside her and wrapped his arms around her, her head pillowed on his chest as he stroked her hair.
“I think we were part of it before, in that other lifetime,” she went on, “but Haake wasn’t, and neither was Paige.”
“I don’t believe those stories.”
“The stories of the fellowship? Or that we’ve all lived this before.”
“Either…both.”
“How do you explain all this, then? How do you explain how Emily knew where to go?”
“I’m not saying magic doesn’t exist. I’m here, aren’t I? I’m as much a creature of magic as you aren’t. But I don’t believe that we just keep getting reborn to live the same lives—”
“Who said anything about them being the same?”
“That’s beside the point.“
“Paige isn’t part of it,” she repeated.
She waited, hoping he would say something more. It didn’t really matter; she knew him well enough to read his silence like a book. He hadn’t spoken of the betrayal because he’d been doing everything he could not to think of Paige at all. He’d left whatever he felt to fester in the darkest recesses of his mind, no doubt fed by a misplaced sense of responsibility. Every choice has its price, he would be thinking. And yet he’d done the right thing. They’d all done the right thing—the only thing they could. It was Paige who had betrayed a lifetime of friendship. Paige had wounded Garrett, fundamentally, back in Hellsgate. She’d left him and those with whom he’d chosen to travel to fend for themselves, when it would’ve cost her little or nothing to have helped them flee when Marianne had come for Emily and Michael.
“You don’t want that to be true,” Mona said finally, her voice softening, “but it is, and if you don’t start accepting what is happening here, there’s going to be trouble.”
“Trouble how? Trouble with what? We’re going back to Paige and the others, and Michael is going to organize us. Whether or not he’s the reborn spirit of some king no one remembers doesn’t matter. Michael’s the one to do what needs to be done to end the constant warring. I think the wizard’s got that much right.”
“I think it does matter, Garrett. I think it all matters, and whether or not we succeed—whether or not Michael succeeds—may depend on your ability to separate what you have with Paige from what Michael needs.”
; “Paige and I don’t have anything anymore,” he said, unable to hide the bitterness from her. She watched, her heart breaking a little, as he raised a hand to wipe at the corners of his eyes. It was a human gesture, one he’d doubtlessly learned from her and Paige and the other human children he’d grown up with.
“She’s your sister, Garrett. Siblings stand by each other in the end.”
“She’s not my sister…not really.”
“Families aren’t only bonded by blood,” she said, the words catching in her throat. “And blood alone isn’t strong enough to hold families together.”
They lay there, holding each other and letting their love, as much as the fire, warm them against the chill of the night.
And some time during the dark, still moments before dawn, Garrett fell asleep that way.
Gently, Mona extricated herself from him and went back to sit beside their son, resolved to finish the watch. It was some time before she realized that there were now only two dark shapes asleep on the other side of the fire.
***
“Have you searched for him?”
“Of course I have. He’s gone.”
Mona hefted a drowsy Miraculum into her lap and leaned back against the trunk of the tree, only half listening to the exchange at the other side of the camp. The boy looked curiously around them at the early morning sunlight, then glanced up at her with a small smile. It was strange, watching him grow the way Karikis children did; if he’d been fully human, he’d still be a screaming, wailing infant. He’d grow like this for the first year or so, she knew, before his development would slow. In a way, she was grateful; his Karikis strength made it easier as they traveled than a newborn human baby would’ve been. Still, a part of her wished…
Stop that, she told herself, horrified. The fact that she was here with her son at all was a miracle. She had no right to wish for more.
“I’m sorry,” Garrett was saying. “Damn it, I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
With a sigh, Mona hoisted Miraculum into her arms and got to her feet.
“It’s okay, Garrett,” she called over to her husband. “I finished your watch.”
All three men turned to face her, and she had to bite her tongue to hide her amusement. Their expressions were all so comically different! Michael seemed mildly bemused; Garrett looked relieved; the wizard simply glowered.
“You saw him go?” the wizard demanded. “And you didn’t wake someone?”
“No,” Mona said calmly, matching the wizard’s tone. “I noticed he was gone shortly after Garrett fell asleep. I think he stole away before that. You’ve seen how he moves.”
The wizard’s brow furrowed. “You still should have told someone.”
“Why? So you could track and hunt him down like last night’s rabbit and drag him back to camp?” She turned to Michael. “Look, I don’t know how much you remember about…” She hesitated uncomfortably. “…About before, but Haake told us all, back in Hellsgate, that he’d never go back to Coalhaven. Something happened to him there—something terrible—and he was bound to sneak off eventually. Let him go, I say. Let him find a life for himself somewhere else.”
“He knows too much about our company,” the wizard said grimly, turning to Michael himself. “We should try to find him. It isn’t safe to let him run off. If Marianne finds him…” He let the thought hang unfinished in the air between them.
There was a long silence as Michael’s gaze shifted, meeting each of theirs. Mona could almost see the wheels turning behind his dark eyes, and she marveled at the difference wrought in this boy who stood now on the brink of becoming a man with the weight of worlds upon his shoulders. He was handling it well.
This is why, she thought. This is why it has to be him.
“No,” Michael said.
“No?” the wizard echoed.
“Let him go,” Michael said. “Mona’s right. If we keep him here against his will, it makes us no better than Marianne, who held me against mine. The more resentment we engender, the greater a threat he becomes.”
“Sire,” the wizard said with an air of forced patience, “this is not a game of knights and castles. The fate of a world hangs in the balance, and that balance shifts with every choice you make. Misplaced chivalry will do you no favors.”
“Perhaps you are right,” Michael said, turning toward the old man with a flash of anger in his eyes. “Perhaps it will come to that in time. But I will not start that way. If I’m the one to bring these worlds together, then you need—”
He broke off abruptly, apparently thinking better of what he had been about to say. Instead, he and the wizard merely glared at one another, both oblivious to Mona and Garrett watching them.
Finally, Michael stooped to pick up his pack, turned, and started away between the trees.
“Let’s go,” he called over his shoulder to them. “We’ll stop for breakfast after we’ve made a little distance.”
He went stomping through the brush, and then the woods swallowed him.
Mona glanced at Garrett and found him looking back. She could see the uneasiness she felt in her own heart mirrored in his eyes. It was one thing to whisper by the light of the moon about how the wizard wasn’t part of the mysterious bond they felt forming between them and quite another to watch their ties with the old man begin to fray.
“He’s not the man I thought he’d be,” the wizard murmured, almost to himself, before gathering up his own pack and heading off between the trees after Michael.
***
Haake watched them go, the leaves of the tree in which he perched tickling the sides of his face. He hadn’t heard every word, but he’d caught enough. He gritted his teeth as Mona’s words reverberated in his head.
“…Find a life for himself…”
Stupid bitch, he thought bitterly. All of them had thought he’d just follow along behind like a good little puppy while they traipsed back to Coalhaven. They were no better than any of them—worse maybe, with the wizard always calling Michael “sire” and “my king” and shit.
But Mona was the worst of all.
“… Find a life for himself…”
What did she know? What life was there left for him in this world? Even now, all he could do is follow them until he had his bearings and could head…where? He wasn’t sure. Maybe the Reavers would have him, but the thought of sinking so low repulsed him.
His limbs trembled, and a few leaves, already turning color, drifted down from his hiding place.
No no no no no…
The Reavers would be just as bad. Damn it, was there no one in this world? No one he could turn to? It wasn’t fair. His friends were gone, lost in the bowels of the Brood or traitors to it. His brothers were dead, sacrificial offerings to the dragon.
“Not everyone is gone,” a voice said behind him, and Haake nearly fell out of the tree. He clung to the branch beneath him, twisting around to see who had spoken. Was this some trick of the wizard? Did the wily old bastard know he was up here?
A few feet away, sitting in the fork formed by a pair of tree limbs, was a small, slight man in torn trousers and a worn coat whose best years were far behind them. The man’s beard was streaked with gray, and his mismatched eyes studied Haake with a bright good humor. He winked, and a milky film appeared over the darker of his two eyes, almost glittering in the morning sunshine.
“Who the hell are you?” Haake hissed, looking nervously back at where the others had vanished between the trees.
“Oh, don’t worry about them,” the man said, chuckling. “They won’t hear our little chat. No, not one whit.” He paused as though considering, and then he added, “They haven’t got a single wit between them!” He let out a hardy guffaw, and the thick reek of old whiskey and stale tobacco enveloped Haake. He coughed involuntarily, but this only seemed to make the man laugh all the harder.
“Who are you?” Haake repeated, sputtering and choking amidst the fumes.
“Oh, so sorry. We haven’t been properly
introduced now, have we, Mr. Haake. My friends call me Jack, and I can help you.”
“I don’t need help,” Haake snapped. He meant it to sound defiant, but the words came out truculent, even to his own ears.
“Don’t you? Well now, that’s very odd. I could have sworn you were just lamenting the loss of all your friends and your family and those you could trust. I thought you were wondering just where the hell it was you were going to go, since you aren’t a…what was it? A good little puppy? Yes, I think that was it. And you certainly can’t go back to Coalhaven now, can you, Mr. Haake? Not after all the…uh, shall we say unpleasantness?…that went on there.”
For a heartbeat, Haake only stared at the old man, sure that this was some kind of hallucination. He couldn’t know these things about Haake. He must be seeing things again, the way he’d—
Best not to think about that. Not right now. Not ever, actually.
“Oh, I’m no delusion, illusion, or any other sort of -usion. I just want to help you.”
“Help me what?”
“Find a life for yourself, maybe?” Jack grinned at him. It was a devilish sort of grimace, full of good cheer and something else—something darker.
“I want to belong somewhere,” Haake said, the words spilling out of him in a rush, as if they were being spoken by someone else. What was he saying? He was better alone; he’d always been better off on his own—always. Hadn’t he?
“Well now,” said Jack, still smiling that toothy grin, “I think that can be arranged. In fact, I dare say a whole family could be arranged for you, Mr. Haake.”
“How?” Haake asked, and he realized that there was something very strange happening to him. It was as though his ears were full of cotton, and his mouth was going numb. It made it very hard to speak and even harder to think. “Why?”
“Now, now, my good man, you don’t expect me to give up the goods without a little something in return, do you?”
“Oh, no, of course not, Mr.… Uh… Mr. Jack, sir. Of course not,” Haake said. He found himself smiling; all at once, all of this seemed very funny to him. He lay down upon the branch, letting his feet dangle, and stared up at the leaves that were just starting to change on the bows above him. He giggled.
Haven Divided (The Dragon's Brood Cycle Book 2) Page 8
