I jump when Miss Simmons takes my hand, pulling me down the tunnels behind her. I expect to feel the familiar jolt I feel whenever I touch one of the Redeemers, but this feeling is different. Light, airy, and peaceful with only a mildly uncomfortable energy running beneath the calm.
“What are you?” I ask, stopping in my tracks. Her touch feels so familiar. I can’t take my eyes off her hand gripping mine.
Her blue eyes glisten as though she may burst into tears. The softness in her eyes fades, and she squeezes my hand with the force of a vice grip. A teeth-rattling jolt rips through me. It’s more powerful than any I’ve felt before and I swear my heart stops beating for a moment.
“I told you,” she says, forcefully. “I’m one of them.”
She drops my hand and walks ahead of me, her torchlight casting shadows across the dank, dirty walls of the tunnels. “Come on. You have a lot to learn and we don’t have much time.”
“Where are we going?” I ask, struggling to keep up with her suddenly brisk pace.
“The library. That’s where you were off to, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, but how did you know?”
“Where else would you find the information you need? Isn’t that where you found the book about your mother?”
“Did you know her?” I know it’s a stupid question the moment it leaves my mouth. There’s no way she could have. My mother was ten when she was taken. Miss Simmons looks to be in her early thirties, which would make her at least ten—or more— years younger than my mother. Not possible.
“I know many things. Many people.”
“But you couldn’t have known her. She had to be at least ten years older than you.”
“Ten years older than this body, yes. But not older than the soul inside of it.”
And here we go again. More riddles. Why can’t adults just tell it like it is? “And I suppose you’re going to make me go on some existential journey to discover what you’re talking about instead of just laying it out straight, huh?”
“No,” she says, turning down a new path in the tunnels and pushing against the wall. It moves, revealing a dark room. “After you.”
I glance at her, trying to read her face. I still don’t fully trust her. I root around in my chest, searching for the familiar feeling of power in the event I need it.
I step into total darkness, the room barely lit by Miss Simmons’ torch. I turn just in time to see the door close behind me, leaving me in total darkness. “Wait here.”
I run to the door, pushing and pulling against it, but it won’t budge. That bitch! Seriously? She could have at least left me a match or something. What am I supposed to do now? I don’t even know where I am.
Pure, artificial light fills the room. I clamp my eyes shut against the glare. After living for nearly a week with nothing more than the flicker of a candle, I feel like a bat blinded by sunlight.
“What took you so long?”
I shield my eyes, searching for my grandmother. “How do you have power?”
“Because I want it. I’m a Council member. I can have whatever I want.”
Envy doesn’t even begin to explain what I feel right now. If I could have a little light and a hot bath in my life, I’d be much more content.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“I sent Traci to find you and told her to bring you here. You want answers; I have them.”
I collapse into an old folding chair, ready for more non-answers. “By all means, enlighten me.”
“What do you want to know?” she asks, placing a bottle of water before me.
“Miss Simmons said something in the tunnels about souls and bodies and the soul being older than the body—”
“We bind,” Nana says, sitting across from me. “When our present body wears down and can no longer go on, we switch bodies. Our soul binds to the new body’s soul and we merge with them, eventually overpowering their soul and taking over their life.”
“So you kill them?”
Nana shrugs, shaking her head indifferently. “Not necessarily. More like we absorb them. We get their memories, their body and their life. They become a part of us.”
“So, you eventually become this amalgam of various souls?”
“In a way. I currently have eight in my system.”
She laughs at my shocked expression.
“Eight? How old are you?”
“Let’s just put it this way—I was a part of the original settlers of Highland Falls. All of us—the bound ones—are.”
I can already tell this is going to be the longest, mind-numbing night ever.
“I know you have a lot of questions. Highland Falls has an unbelievably long and complicated history. This town has known plenty of loss, has seen a lot of bloodshed and its fair share of war. We don’t have time to get into all of it right now. What we need to focus on is stopping this nightmare once and for all.”
“If you’re one of them, why do you want it to stop?”
“Because it got personal,” she says, looking away. “And I no longer agree with the cause. It’s time for it to end.”
“And how can that happen?”
“Everyone—everything—has a weakness. There are others out there who can harm us. They’ve tried for many years, but have yet to be successful.”
“What’s different now?” I ask.
“You.”
“Of course,” I say, throwing my hands in the air. “Caitlyn, the prodigy savior of Highland Falls. What the hell kind of bad teen novel am I living in? Could this possibly be any more cliché?”
“We’ve always known that there were others out there that use a different type of magic—a magic that counters ours. We ran into them when we first settled here after moving west to escape the witch trials of Salem. We needed a place where we could practice without judgment. We found freedom here. The natural resources we require for our magic were abundant. However, the Nez Perce tribe who lived nearby were peaceful people and didn’t take kindly to our dark ways. They had their own magical abilities, but we managed to overpower them and turned their land against them. Your mother is a descendant of their chief.”
It seems the more information I get, the more questions I have. “So then, what am I? A magical Native American princess?”
“Something like that,” she says with a small smile. “You have your mother’s abilities, but you’re also like me. When your mother married your father and conceived you, she passed on both sets of abilities. We never knew this was even possible.” She watches my face as I try to process this information.
“So, then, Dad has powers too? Is he a Redeemer?”
Nana laughs and shakes her head. “No, he’s not. Your father was never taken through the ritual. There is magic in his blood, and evidently it can be passed on to his offspring, but he was never activated. He could be if he chose to, but I’ve fought against it. I’ve done my best to protect him. Anyone born of a Redeemer parent can be turned. As the years have passed, there are more and more of them out there. It’s one of the reasons people stay here, and if they ever leave town, they always end up coming back. They are bound to this place. If you’re born and raised in Highland Falls, you can never truly get away.”
“Ever?”
“They can leave,” Nana says, “but they’ll come back. The land owns them. Everyone born here is a child of Malahas. We are her life force. We feed her with new souls. That’s what keeps the town and the residents alive. It’s what keeps us so prosperous.”
“Malahas?” Here we go again.
“According to the tribes of the Pacific Northwest, she is a demon—the kidnapper and eater of children. To us, she is a queen and our secret to eternal life and prosperity.”
A shiver runs down my spine. “She really eats children? Does she, like, barbecue them or something?”
Nana laughs and it startles me. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her laugh like that. I didn’t
know she even had a sense of humor. “Their bodies and blood feed her. Their souls are bound to her—they are the Redeemers. They are an extension of her. They are her energy. She is in each of them.”
That’s why I always catch a glimpse of a kid or a teenager whenever I smoke a Redeemer. Am I a child killer? I suddenly feel sick to my stomach.
“So, how do I kill her?”
Nana laughs again. She has a weird sense of humor.
“Malahas is an ancient being, and damn near impossible to kill. Unless, of course, you manage to catch her when she takes over a human body. This doesn’t happen often. She has yet to find a body that can contain her. Her power is too strong. She tends to wear them out very quickly. The most likely way is to cut off her food supply.”
“And how do I do that?”
“Easy. You have to kill the unbound and everyone on the Council. All of us.”
Chapter Nineteen
Did she seriously just ask me to kill her?
“You do realize what you’re asking, right? If I kill the Council, that means you.”
“Yes, I know,” Nana says, standing and walking to a shelf on the other side of the room. This space is a lot like the room Trevor and I invaded that first night here, but not as large.
“And how exactly do I do that? No one has ever taught me how to use my powers. They just sort of pop up, and they’re kind of all over the place.”
“That fool mother of yours should have taught you how to use what’s inside of you. She did you a great disservice by trying to hinder their development.”
Anger rolls like a wave in my chest, and the familiar flutter of power grows in intensity. How dare she talk about my mother like that?
“My mother loved me. She was trying to protect me.”
“Yet, all she did was put a rock around your neck and send you here every summer. Here—the place where her greatest enemy lived. Quite a risk if you ask me,” Nana says smugly.
“She had shared custody,” I say. “She had to let my Dad see me.”
“Yet she didn’t teach you how to protect yourself from this.”
Nana sends a fireball in my direction and I duck, the heat stinging my head as it whizzes over me. “She was a stupid woman.”
My feet fly out from under me, and I land on my back, gasping for air.
“Protect yourself. Show me what you can do. You’re supposed to be our greatest threat. Prove it.”
I feel myself being pulled to my feet. Nana whips her hand in a very dramatic circle over her head, conjuring another fireball. It hovers menacingly above her palm. “Wanna play catch?”
Energy swells in my chest, and Nana’s fireball disintegrates. The power inside of me is too intense. I have to get it out and I have to do it now.
I pulse, releasing the power outward from my back and my chest. A wall of fire circles me, cutting me off from Nana.
“Very good, my dear. Bravo!” Nana claps, walking about the room with a huge smile plastered across her face. When I realize she’s no longer a threat, the power inside of me begins to falter and the flames drop to barely an inch.
“How did you do that?” she asks. “How did you steal my fire?”
I look at her, dumbfounded. “I have no idea. I wanted you to stop. I imagined that I had your fire. When it disintegrated from your hand my entire body felt like it was about to burst.”
“It became yours,” Nana says, amazed. “Let’s try again. This time, try and summon fire on your own.”
“How?”
“Just try,” she says expectantly.
I stare at her, concentrating on her face, imagining her bursting into flames.
Nothing.
I pull the energy from my chest and place it just outside of me, willing it to make fire, but nothing happens.
“I can’t,” I say, releasing my energy.
Nana holds up a finger and a small flame flickers above it. “How about now?”
I pull my energy forth, this time wishing for Nana’s fire to be mine. No sooner has the thought entered my mind than a tower of flames once again encircles me.
“That’s incredible,” Nana says. “It’s almost as if you can siphon my powers. Try this.” We go for several more rounds, moving from fire, to water, to levitation.
“If you manage to get a handle on this, you’ll have quite the arsenal of powers. You’ll never meet anyone more powerful than you if you can steal their power, and enhance it with your own.” She stares at me in awe. I have to admit, I feel pretty badass.
She grabs a chair and sits, indicating I should take a seat at the table across from her. “I wonder if that’s the extent of the Redeemer inside of you. Can you scan?”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Are you able to see my souls? When you look at me, what do you see?”
“Umm,” I stare at her, wondering if this is a trick question. Is Nana insecure and looking for a compliment, or is she being serious? “I see an … older … woman. Young looking,” I add. “Definitely, very well put together.”
Nana laughs again. That’s three times tonight. Evidently, I’m hilarious. “I meant what do you see inside of me?”
I stare at her blankly and she smiles. “Concentrate. You have to want it. Just like you wanted my power, you have to want to see inside of me.”
I focus intently on her face, her neck, her hands. Nothing.
“Look for my soul.”
I stare even harder, letting my mind drift a bit. Suddenly, it’s like Nana stepped behind an X-ray machine of sorts. She’s there, but writhing inside of her is what appears to be a braided rope of red and blue.
“I see … something. A rope or something. It’s red and blue.”
“Very good,” she says. “That is how you can identify someone who is bound. The red is the human soul. The blue is the Redeemer—the part of Malahas that gives us our powers.”
Wow. New trick.
“This will be helpful in identifying your enemies. Careful though. We can feel it when you begin rooting around.”
“So that’s it?” I ask. “I can siphon powers and see souls?” I’m not sure if that provides the awesome factor I’d hoped for. I mean, the savior of an ancient tribe of Native Americans should probably be a little more badass, or maybe just a little less sixteen-year-old me.
“That’s part of it, but there’s more. Much more. This, along with your obvious animal control ability and your weather manipulation, just proves you are who I thought you were.”
“Here we go again. What does that mean exactly?”
She quickly scans the shelf behind her, grabbing a thin, hardcover children’s book and hands it to me. “This.”
I look at what she’s placed in my hands. The cover boasts a picture of a very large totem pole with the colorful head of some sort of bird perched on top. “The Legend of Thunderbird?”
“That’s you—or, at least, a version of you.”
“I’m a totem pole?” I give up.
“No, you are a thunderbird—or the essence of one. You’re not literally a bird, but you possess the same energy of the legend of the thunderbird.”
I stare at her blankly. I’m a friggin’ bird, but not really? This makes absolutely no sense.
“In Native American legends, thunderbirds were very powerful creatures. They can change the weather at will. They can cause great winds, thunder, movement of clouds, and lightning. They can summon intense storms and just as quickly push them away. They harvest power and use it to their advantage. They also have power over other animals—bears, wolves, coyotes, cougars, and especially crows.”
I shake my head in response. I’ve never done any of those things. Have I?
“Yes. It’s you, Cait. You are the thunderbird. You have the power. The Redeemers cannot harm you, at least, not as easily as they can harm humans or others from your tribe because you have the power of Malahas and her dark demons coursing through your
veins. You can walk among us and not be harmed. You’ve broken through. You’ve opened the road for your tribe to come in and reclaim their land. Something they’ve tried for centuries.”
“So, what? They can’t even live here? Do they drop dead if they set foot in Highland Falls?”
“No, but if they are found out, they are quickly killed. But now they have your power to help them. They have tried and failed to reclaim their land for centuries. They are a powerful people, and over the years they’ve grown stronger. I’m surprised they haven’t tracked you down before now. You are their greatest weapon.” A knowing look passes over her face, followed by a sly smile. “Or maybe they have found you. Maybe your mother knew what she was doing after all.”
This is too much. More questions push at my lips, but I don’t know which ones to ask first.
“Your mother did her best to protect you from the Council. In fact, she did a very good job of it. How clever of her to send you here every summer to visit. She used the oldest trick in the book by hiding you in plain sight. The Council never suspected a thing, but I knew. I knew who your mother was, and I had a feeling of what you were. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that the Council figured it out. Your mother’s protection stone had masked your power when you were younger, but as you grew into puberty, your powers grew stronger and it could no longer hide who you were and the threat you posed to us. That was when they realized they had to destroy you. I just don’t think they realized how well protected you are by the other side. Those crows you conjured the other night were quite unexpected.”
This is crazy. “I didn’t conjure any crows. That wasn’t me.”
“Yes, it was.”
So, they were protecting me. “So where were these crows the other night when Monique was attacking me?”
“Haven’t you noticed the lack of animals the last few days? The lack of life in general? The only living things right now are humans. The land is dead. Everything in this town is dead. The life has been sucked out of it. The fog is the only thing alive right now. Everything else is hanging in limbo until the sacrifices are complete and Malahas has been fed. She is the life force of this town. When she sends her energy out to gather more souls, it drains the energy from the town and everything else. The animals flee, taking refuge outside of the town limits. Animals know things—especially when danger is coming.”
Fingers in the Mist Page 18
