Asher and Caine both stared at me for answers, but I shook my head. It wasn’t the time for that conversation. “I’m not helping you do shit,” I said to Baku, “so tell me what you want right this second. We’ve got things to do.”
“We shall see what you will and will not do, with the proper motivation. And what I want is to see how Izan’s champion is faring.” Sighing, he tsked at me. “Weaker than ever, I see. And I so hoped for success this time around, Adaline, or at least a challenge to make the capture worth the wait.”
Caine tensed beside me. Did that name mean something to him?
“Clearly you need glasses or something,” I said, “because I’m stronger than ever.”
“Is that so?” Baku took another draw on his joint, motioning to Asher with his free hand. “By all means, draw on this one’s power and dispatch my faithful followers again. Prove me wrong, and you won’t see me until I’m ready to take you.”
I didn’t like making the dragon mantis happy, but if he really would leave us alone, and I could kill a few more wraiths, I didn’t see the harm. “Fine, but just so we’re clear, you’re not taking me in any way, shape, or form.” Trying to block out Baku’s disturbing laughter, I thought of Asher’s storm. He still hit my senses like a normal mortal, and only intense focus let me sense his energy spiraling out of control within his Fort Knox of a soul, but I couldn’t open myself to it the way I had at the museum. A lot of straining and concentration lit up my arms only a smidge, and only with my own mojo.
“What’s wrong?” Asher said close to my ear.
I rubbed out the tingles he induced and lowered my voice. “I don’t know, but I can’t. I mean, I can feel your power there behind the Great Wall of Asher, but nothing’s happening.”
“You’ve broken her trust.” Caine tossed up his hand. “Splendid timing, mate. What the bloody bollocks did you do?”
“Still not the time for this conversation,” I said out the side of my mouth.
“Try to call my power,” Caine said.
I’d have sooner peeled off my clothes and danced naked in the street than invite him inside me like that. “No way. I can’t.”
“Can’t, or won’t?” he said.
Asher moved closer to me. “She said no.”
Caine shook his head. “I heard her. I was trying to determine if she’s not willing, or whatever you’ve done has locked up her chakras, making it impossible for her to blend her storm with anyone.”
I searched inward again, feeling completely isolated from my energy, and from them. “I think you’re right about my chakras.”
“Pathetic.” Baku waved at the infected, who closed ranks. “Stubborn fools. I swear you have to be the most infuriating, pigheaded race I’ve ever encountered. It’s a miracle you survived past your first generation.”
Time to go. I shoved Asher the other direction before the crazies completed a circle around us. “Run!”
Tucking the statue under his arm, Asher bolted. Dodged, kicked, and rammed. Everyone who got in our way went flying. Men in suits, boys in baggy jeans that showed their boxers above the waistband, women in couture, and even a blue-haired, shriveled old lady in her Sunday best. Instead of causing more damage to the people in my way, I tucked in behind Asher and ran, fighting to keep the painting from swinging wide and breaking against the gauntlet of bodies. Stupid leather pants. I’d have given anything for a pair of running shoes and jeans instead of the boots and leather. It was soft, but it still wasn’t as easy to run in as denim.
Kat can do it, the devil on my shoulder whispered in my inner ear. I ran faster, hoping to hell the pounding footsteps close behind belonged to Caine and not some moose with a bugman in him.
“What did he mean about the realities?” Asher shouted as he ran.
“Flee now, talk later!” I blasted back.
Where would we go if we couldn’t use the Shift, and I couldn’t unlock my chakras? Would I ever be able to summon Asher’s storm again? Pain rippled down my center, and I fought the tears trying to rush my lashes. Head in the game, idiot!
Had the wraiths ever overtaken the false realities before? Why had Izan let that happen, and where did the missing layers of the Shift go? Someone was tearing down our defenses, but who? I’d thought only Izan could do it. My mind tripped over the implications of that.
Buildings lined both sides of the street. What had to be many eyes stared down from the windows. “Shouldn’t we choose a quieter street since what we’re carrying isn’t exactly inconspicuous?” I asked. “Jesus, we just robbed the Louvre, and our getaway path is full of dead bugs and their king.”
“Say it a little louder, why don’t you?” Asher ducked in between two of the gray five-story structures with black iron grates half covering the windows. Caine came in after me, and I let myself breathe again when no white-eyed grinners arrived behind him. Most wraiths were confined to their host’s physical limits. Only Baku seemed to give his host body mega strength and speed.
After Asher checked behind some nearby dumpsters, he said, “Now spill it. What did Izan tell you?”
I relayed an abbreviated version of what mirror boy told me about Baku wanting to remerge the multiple, isolated dimensions into one universe and what he needed to get it done. Namely us. “He said something about a sacrifice, but I’m not clear what that means yet, so save the hurricane I can see brewing on your tongue. Basically, we’re in this mess because Izan’s people are coldhearted scientist pricks, and he’s nothing but a kid with a bunch of sandboxes he likes playing in. If he hadn’t taken a shortcut from one sandbox to another, the wraiths never would have found us.”
Both the guys went off in a profanity-filled rant until I said, “Yeah, city full of bad guys. If you’re done freaking, we need to jet.”
Asher exhaled hard, set the statue down, and gripped his hips. “I trusted that bastard, did everything he ever wanted of me, and for what? So we can be sent to slaughter to clean up his mess? And if he thinks he’s sacrificing you for anything, he has to go through me first.”
“As I said, we need to get rid of him as much as Baku,” Caine said.
Another ridiculous thrill went through me at Asher’s protectiveness, but I shook it off. “Um…I probably should have mentioned this is the last chance we get to learn how to protect Earth from the wraiths. Win or lose, Izan is going back to wherever he came from, which, from what I gathered from our conversation, is another time. I’m guessing our future, but who the hell knows?”
Caine took a few stumbling starts before saying, “Well, that’s the best news I’ve heard all century.”
“Except that if we don’t start the Machine this time, we’re probably about to become a wraith buffet,” I said. “Or easy pickings for the other worlds, if Baku gets a hold of me like he wants. I guess the bright side is that it’ll be over one way or another. Go team.” I rolled my eyes at my bad attempt at humor.
Asher squinted at me. Emotions passed across his face too fast to decipher as he said, “Okay, we’ll talk about this once we’re clear. Let’s get the pages out, and then we need to get to Gare du Nord. It’s not far from here.”
“I’ll cover you.” Caine took up a vigil at the corner. I got the idea he’d be as lethal as Asher in a fight, and I was glad to have him at my back.
“If we’re trapped here,” I asked, “is it possible the other teams are also trapped in the true reality? What about the facility?”
Asher closed his eyes, his lovely features twitching. What would that shadow beard feel like against my cheek? Rough, or prickly? Would he let me get close enough to find out? Would you give your head a shake?
“They’ve all made it back to the facility with the pages,” he said while I fumed at myself. “The wraiths seem to be concentrated around us.”
Thank hell for that. “What’s Gare du Nord, and why do we need to get there?” I turned the painting over and propped it against the wall, and my stomach clenched. No time for sentiment, Plaid, my inner voice s
aid in a great rendition of his pissy tone. Kat would just smash the thing without a thought. Lip curled up in a snarl, I raised my foot.
He grabbed my biceps and shoved me sideways, the contact searing. “What are you doing? I thought you said we needed to return the things we take.”
I glared at him, ignoring the ever-present itch to test the softness of the skin behind his ear with my lips. “What are you doing?” A quick step back ripped me out of his grasp. “Like you’ve always told me, it’s just stuff, and in case you haven’t noticed, we’re under attack here. And stop touching me.” Before I forget you’re taken and try to have my way with you against the dumpster. Seriously, I needed to evict him from my life and my head before I made even more of a fool out of myself.
“I’ve been thinking about the way you called my power back in New York, and the way you used the Shift to fight once, slipping in and out of the first layer without actually asking it to take you anywhere. I don’t know how you did it, exactly, but you disappeared for a split second and came back. Maybe you could call the Shift not to you, but to the pages, so they’ll pass out of the art without hurting it. Since I’m sure you have no trust issues with the pages”—I caught a barb in that statement—“and I’m not sure that involves your chakras at all, there should be nothing stopping you. If it doesn’t work, we’ll smash them and go.”
Could I do that? I thought about smacking myself on the forehead but didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of figuring out something I hadn’t. I concentrated on the threads connecting me to the page sandwiched between the paint canvas and the backing. Could I send the pages into the Shift, out of the object, and into my hand? Why not? I transported people without touching them.
“The wraiths don’t want the pages, right? I think I might have figured out how to call the paper out, but they’ll need to be in the Shift for a second.”
“Try it.”
I bristled at his short, clipped order, but I did as he said. Thoughts locked onto the page in the painting, I called the Shift, not to me, but to the old paper. My brain hurt for a second until the yellow page with tea-colored writing appeared in my hand. “Hot damn,” I said. “It worked. I guess you’re not just a pretty face after all.” Throwing his usual insults back at him wasn’t as satisfying as it should have been. Drowning in a sense of wrongness, I considered apologizing.
Kat wouldn’t apologize.
I was really starting to hate my own stupid conscience.
Avoiding his gaze that seemed to be strip-searching me, I summoned the page out of the sculpture by his feet, and when it zapped into my hand, folded both papers, tucking them into the pocket of my leather pants. My curiosity could hardly wait to see what the book would show me once I reassembled it.
After a few false starts at saying something, he moved the sculpture and painting into a doorway in the alley. “I’m sure someone will return these. If not, at least they won’t get damaged here. It’s the best we can do.”
“Whatever. Not our problem.” God, I hoped someone didn’t steal them. I kept my eyes averted so I wouldn’t get caught staring at how his jeans fit him, or how the soft cotton hugged his pecs. Not that I noticed.
“Will you tell me now what I did to break your trust and why you’re acting like someone you’re not?” He used that tender voice that could render me into a sighing idiot if I wasn’t ready for it. Which I wasn’t. And it did.
I cleared my throat. “How would you know who I am when you can barely stand to be in the room with me? Maybe you just haven’t noticed that I’m no longer the doe-headed redneck girl I was when you recruited me.” I was still a coward, apparently, because I couldn’t make myself turn around to see the expression that went along with his painful silence.
“We need to go, boys and girls.” Caine trotted back to us. “I can hear lots of foot traffic along the intersection back that way, and I doubt it’s a mob in a rush to get home from work at two in the afternoon.”
As we moved toward the street, I asked, “Caine, did you know I could call the pages to me?”
“Of course. The book is part of you, as you are part of it.”
What the nine gates of hell did that mean?
“That might have been helpful to know before we were in the heat of it,” Asher growled.
“Nobody asked.” Caine shrugged. “I assumed you already knew, and I thought the Machine must have been strapped for cash, so you lifted a bit of art.”
Asher tossed up his hand. “Just why are you here if you’re not going to offer up any information?”
“Listen to me, you ignorant prat,” Caine said, but I put my hand up to him.
“None of this is his fault,” I said to Asher. “If we’re going to stay ahead of them, we need to go now.”
The two sentinels shared pointed looks before they nodded. We rushed onto the sidewalk and continued the way we’d been heading. “You still haven’t told me what this place is and why we need to get there,” I said. “Nord means north in French, I think, but I don’t know what gare means. I have a feeling it’s been a long time since I took it in school, am I right? Only you would know.” I stopped. “Wait, it means north station. A train station, right?”
“What do you mean, only he would know?” Caine asked. “Why wouldn’t you know?”
“Asher wiped out my life before I came to the Machine. I can’t remember anything but a few blips and echoes from before my induction, and I think it messed up other stuff, too, because there are a few other gaps in my memory, including most of the day I fought Marcus.”
Over his shoulder, Caine glared at my sensei. “What the bloody hell for?”
“I asked him to,” I said. “We were afraid Marcus would use my family to coerce me into opening the doorway so the dead could be reborn through me.”
“And if that prick had pulled a complete stranger and threatened his life to make you comply, what would you have done?”
“I’d have done whatever he said.” It seemed so obvious, I felt like a tool.
“Yes, as would any of us. Our traveled roads and the ones we love are what make us strong. Is memory wiping common practice among the new guardians?”
“Yeah, thanks to Marcus,” I said. “Now that I’ve realized no amount of erasing will remove some things, maybe it’s time we retire that lie.”
“What are you talking about?” Asher asked, sounding winded.
When he slowed as if arranging words in his head, I kept moving to the next intersection, wishing I’d kept my lips zipped.
“Nothing. Just something Sophia is dealing with, and no, I’m not telling you jack, so drop it,” I lied through my teeth and considered checking the pavement for a crack to crawl into.
I tested my breath for snow, and when I didn’t see anything other than a woman walking an ugly rat of a dog down the sidewalk, started across the street. “You still haven’t told me why we’re going to this train station.”
Asher fell into step beside me, exhaling hard. “A few months ago I visited Paris.”
“Okay, why?”
Caine rushed ahead and turned to walk backward with obvious interest in our conversation.
“I told you Izan had been dropping clues,” Asher continued, “giving me urges to go places and do things, which is why I knew about the traitor in the Machine. First, I had an overwhelming urge to visit a lowlife in the Bronx who specializes in fake IDs, then to a stack of cash someone had buried in a grave in a little town in Ontario not far from where you grew up. Then I came here and planted a bag with cash, fake passports, and clothes for you and me in the train station we’re heading to right now.”
So I was Canadian, then. I kept plodding along the street while that percolated. “Are you saying Izan knew all of this was going to happen before it did?”
“That sounds about right,” Caine said. “Knowing that invisible git, he’s planned this down to every finite detail, since long before you were even born. Maybe even how you were conceived and to whom, si
nce you told me Glenna is your mother, giving you the greatest potential through genetics and upbringing.”
How had Mom met Dad? Was that part of Izan’s plan, too? How much had he meddled in my life? Lousy, cryptic asshole.
Scrubbing a hand over his face, Asher let out a sigh. “I’d like to say that’s ridiculous, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. Which also means…dammit.”
“What?” I stopped and grabbed him by the arm, letting go when he held his breath.
Caine glared at the sky. “Which means it isn’t Baku who’s locking up the Shift and filling it with wraiths, it’s Izan.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “Why would he do that? Why go to all of the trouble and planning if he didn’t want me to win?”
“Oh, he wants you to win,” Caine said. “If he’s doing this, then trust that this is what you need to do. He won’t clear the Shift for us until we’ve done whatever he wants us to.”
“Which is what? How can forcing me into a road trip with Grump Master-A and a Thor look-alike have anything to do with defeating the wraith king?”
Asher paled, and before I could ask him what he’d thought of, we arrived at a building that said “Gare du Nord” on the outside, and he rushed ahead.
Panting more from fright than exertion, I followed him inside the sardine-packed joint and down an escalator while doing my best to have eyes in the back of my head the way he seemed to. I wasn’t sure what I thought of Caine yet, but I was damn glad to have extra eyes on the masses at the moment. Where were they all going at this time of day? Get out of the way, people!
The chatter from the room pounded against my ears. “Why is everyone speaking English?” I asked. “This is France, right?”
Caine squinted at me, and Asher said, “They’re speaking French.”
I shook my head. “Listen to them. It’s English with an accent.”
Midnight Dawn Page 20
