Midnight Dawn

by Jocelyn Adams

  Caine set his cup on the counter, drew up a chair beside me, and sat down on it backward, his arms folded over the back of it. “Why do you think you’re going to lose him?”

  I stared at him, uneasy for some reason. “Because Izan said I’d have to make a sacrifice to win this thing, but I’m not sure what it is yet. I was thinking about what you said about the other Architects, that their deaths made some sort of sonic boom. Now that I’m bonded with Asher, maybe that explosion will be big enough to trigger some sort of chain reaction that seals up the veil forever and somehow renders Baku useless. Hell, I don’t know. Izan said to follow my instincts, but they’re not giving me squat. Maybe it’s another of those have-to-feel-it deals I’ll figure out in the middle of the crisis.”

  He studied me for seconds before speaking again, his lids at half mast. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

  “You keep saying that, but it does. I get that Izan’s people really messed things up, especially for us and Baku’s bugpeople, but we have to think about all of the other realities, too. If I give Baku what he wants, we’d live for now, but how long before some advanced world with energy guns and resource-sucking spaceships would come along and devour the planet, and not just ours, but other peaceful worlds like Baku’s was?”

  “You don’t know that would happen. The only proof we have of the reason the founders tossed us into separate realities is Izan’s word, which is meaningless.” He seemed to realize he’d raised his voice, and sighed. “Please, consider writing your own future instead of the one Izan plans for you. At least think about it.”

  “A one in a thousand possibility is too high of a risk.”

  “Survival of the fittest. It’s the law of nature. If some planets fall, then so be it.”

  “We’re practically infants compared to all the others. Who do you suppose is the lowest on the food chain here?”

  His expression grew hard. “What would you do if it was Asher out there? How far would you go to bring him back?” Desperation rang in the words, and he pleaded with his jade-star eyes.

  “Why is this so important to you, because it sounds personal to me? What aren’t you telling me, Caine? I want to help you, but I can’t restore the universe.”

  Before he answered, Asher came through the front door. “Your dad’s in the infirmary out cold, but we should go right now. He’s feisty like his daughter, so it won’t be long until he comes around and wants to break a few skulls.” He smiled, and my heart kicked.

  Caine got up and stretched, all traces of anxiety gone. “I think I’ll find a cabin across the lake. I’ve come to enjoy some degree of solitude.”

  I stared after him as he left. Why would he be so affected by Baku’s plight to get back to the wife and children he lost in the separation? I didn’t even understand why the king was still looking for them. After all this time, they’d either be energy returned to the universe or wraiths like him. There had to be more to it, but it would have to wait until after I’d broken the news to Dad that his daughter was a demi-immortal guardian of the universe who hunted the dead for a living. Good times.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Hand in hand, Asher and I walked the trail around the lake in uneasy silence to the new infirmary. Some of the guardians had returned, moving bags and boxes into cabins. Some were brimming with excitement, laughing and playing. Others appeared downright terrified. Their lives, and everything they believed, had all turned upside down in the span of a few days. All because of me. I didn’t understand why all of them weren’t freaking like Taka had. He hadn’t come back so far.

  We came to the bungalow cabin with a green tin roof and mounted the steps where Remy stood guard at the door. “Okay, Addy?” he asked.

  I nodded, not sure what to say.

  “You’ve been quiet,” Asher said. “Are you ready for this, or do you need a longer walk?”

  So that was why he hadn’t said anything. He was letting me think. I squeezed his hand. “Thanks, but no. After this, we still have to figure out what we’re going to do tomorrow, reassure a bunch of guardians, and later I need some time to just be with you.”

  He played his lips over my temple, driving back the anxiety better than something soft in my hand ever could. “We’ll have more than today. Tell me you believe that.”

  I smiled and continued up the steps. “I want to believe it.”

  Would Dad believe I was his daughter? How hard would it be for Asher to restore his memories?

  Asher led me inside and over to one of the dozen beds covered in white sheets.

  The man wore green work pants and a blue plaid shirt like in my dream. His dark hair, the same espresso shade as mine, had gray patches at the temples. Fine wrinkles only added to his kind face I knew from my dreams.

  When he stirred, I sat on the bed and touched his arm. “You’re safe here,” I said as Sophia had once done for me. “You’re going to be a little disoriented and dizzy, but you’ll be okay.”

  His lids lifted, and honey-brown eyes stared back at me. The bed lurched, and in a flurry of arms and legs, he jumped up and stumbled into the wall, rubbing his eyes. “What the bloody hell’s going on? Why is everything so blurry?”

  “Just take a minute to adjust to this…um…reality.” I rounded the bed but kept my distance instead of leaping into his arms the way I wanted to. “Pick something in the room and focus on it.”

  He lowered his hands and blinked at me. “What is this place? Who the hell are you people?”

  “It’s kind of hard to explain,” I said, glancing at Asher, who had moved closer to me.

  “You’re real,” Dad said, coming forward. “I dream of you, but…you’re real.”

  “It’ll be hard to believe, but I’m your—oomf.” He tugged me to him and squeezed off the rest of what I wanted to say.

  Happy sounds stuttered out in choppy spurts, and he swung me around. “You’re my girl, my own little girl. Uncle Ollie thought I’d spilled my marbles. Hell, I thought I’d lost my damn mind, but you’re real. I’m not nuts.”

  My own waterworks switched on. He hadn’t forgotten me, not really. God, I loved him, and he had to love me deeply if a memory wipe hadn’t worked on him, either.

  Asher came in behind Dad. “We had to take your memories of Addison to protect you, and to protect her. I can give them back to you now.”

  When Dad didn’t budge from his death grip on me, I nodded to Asher. Our power lit up under his skin, and he placed his palms on Dad’s temples. We both winced at the same time, and all at once, the fog in my mind lifted, and the rest of my missing memories poured in, including everything before my induction, right back to childhood. Board games by candlelight. Awkward talks by the fireplace. Him sitting in Grandpa’s library turning pages with me on a sunny Saturday afternoon even though he’d rather have gone fishing.

  After a while, Dad pried his arms off me and stepped back, turning to Asher. “The last thing I remember from the day everything went to hell is seeing you appear in the middle of my living room, so I’m guessing you shot me up with something and took everything of my daughter from me. The pictures off the walls. My photo albums, birth records, the whole kit and caboodle. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t knock your head in right now.”

  When had he done that? After I’d pushed Marcus’s soul out? Or while I’d been dazed after he’d blanked out my memory in the woods? Asher lifted his hands in a sign of surrender and half smiled. “It’s easy to see where Addison gets her tenacity from.”

  “It’s okay, Dad.” I looped my arm through his. “I have some things to explain to you, and some of it isn’t going to be easy for you to understand. And please don’t hurt Asher. He’s my…” I stared at the hot professor with no idea how to finish that sentence. My darkest fantasy and knight in shining armor? My infuriating, delicious dark god of war? My sweet, devious liar fiend of a boyfriend? Any of those would do.

  “Her fiancé,” Asher said in a way that made me shiver.

&n
bsp; Oh. That had a nice ring to it.

  Dad continued to glare at my man. “It used to be the gentlemanly thing to do to talk to a girl’s father before popping the question.” He picked up my hand. “No ring? Oh, hell. Please tell me you’re not—”

  “No, Dad,” I said. “We’re together because we love each other and for no other reason.” And because it would take two to imprison a king, apparently.

  He finally met my eyes, and the color drained out of his face. “Are you wearing contacts?”

  I sighed, took his hand, and led him toward the door. “Take a walk with me, and I’ll try to explain.”

  Chapter Thirty

  After I’d finished unloading the details of my life for the past few months, Dad sat beside me in silence, his bare feet dangling in the water off the edge of the dock.

  “Can you please say something?” I asked when I couldn’t take the quiet any longer.

  “Not sure what to say. Other realities with other kinds of creatures. Dead spirits or wraiths or whatever are possessing people. And my daughter is the head of some secret group that’s the only chance for us all to survive this.” He turned to me, then, worry clouding his eyes. “I’m really hoping this is some crazy dream or you’ve pranked me or something, because this can’t be real.”

  “I wish it was a joke, but it’s not. You’re actually taking this better than I thought you would.”

  “Oh, I’m pissed all right, and terrified, but I think some part of me knew you were something special right from the get-go. Your mother’s involved in this Mortal Machine business too, isn’t she?”

  I shifted my knee up on the boards so I could face him. “Why would you ask that?”

  He gave a bitter laugh and took my hand, folding it in his calloused one on top of his thigh. “Because it would explain a whole lotta things that never made any sense about her.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, like why she appeared out of nowhere in my headlights the night we met, and I almost ran her over. Like why she always said she didn’t want to talk about her past. Like why I found her outside shouting at the sky to some guy named Izan, begging him not to do ‘this,’ whatever that meant, after she found out you were in her belly.”

  I squeezed his hand. “She knew what I’d become and that eventually you’d lose me. That’s why she said it would be better if I was never born. At least, I’m hoping that’s why.” Tightness cut off my air for a moment before I went on. “The bad guy has her, so I’m guessing I’ll meet her for the first time when I face him at dawn. And it sucks, because I may never really have a chance to know the woman who found the strength to walk away from her baby so I could live.” The wraiths had been drawn to me, and her presence would have attracted them even worse. I cleared my throat. “Did you love her, Dad?”

  “Of course I did. I couldn’t have…well, you know…with someone I didn’t.” He gave a halfhearted smile. “She came around once in a while after you were born, always after you were in bed. I never mentioned it, because I knew how much talk of her upset you. I finally get why she told me never to let doctors look at you, even after the schools said you should see a shrink because of your anxiety.” He gave a tired sigh. “This whole business is why you spent so many nights sleeping outside my bedroom door, isn’t it? You were seeing these rift things eating away our house. And that’s why you had to dash off so fast that last time you came to see me.”

  “I didn’t know you knew I was out there. I didn’t understand what I was seeing back then, but I was scared and didn’t want you to worry, and I still felt safer being closer to you.”

  “Every time I came out, you’d run back to your own room, so most nights I just sat down on the other side of that door and listened to you cry. Didn’t know what else to do.”

  “Oh, Dad. I’m so sorry. I wish I could have said something, but I didn’t think you’d believe me, and I couldn’t risk getting locked up in some loony bin where I couldn’t run from the rifts.” We stared out over the water for a while, and my mind drifted back to Mom. “I know you don’t like talking about her, but can you tell me what she’s like?”

  “Wow, uh…” He scratched fingers through his short, graying hair, and laughed. “She has red hair and the personality to go along with it. Family meant everything to her, even though she’d get angry when I suggested starting one. Every time a lady with a baby’d go by, she stopped and stared with this adoring smile on her face. And she had this intensity to her that grabbed hold of me, you know? Fiercely kind, but also had this fire in her belly that made me think she’d stand her ground against anything. Under that, there was this softness…oh hell.” He pressed a hand over his eyes.

  I looped my arm around him and rested my head on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Dad, you don’t have to say any more. I should probably warn you that if I do manage to bring her back here tomorrow, she’ll look exactly the same as she did the day you met her. Part of this gig is that we’re sort of…immortal if nothing damages our vital parts.”

  His back went ramrod straight. He stared at me as if I’d pulled a Houdini and appeared out of thin air. “That would explain why Glenna stopped coming around after you were about seven or so.” Leaning harder into me, he patted my knee. “So, not only have I raised a warrior princess savior of the world, she’ll also be eighteen forever. As far as strange days goes, I think this one takes the cake.”

  Shifting to look at me, he gave me that stern glance he did whenever he was about to talk about something serious. “You never actually went on any archaeological dig in South America with that professor fella, did you?”

  “Well, no. Look, I’m sorry I lied to you, but we couldn’t exactly tell you the truth about why I was dropping out of university.”

  “Uh-huh. You didn’t really murder two people and rob a museum, right? I saw you on the news. Didn’t know it was you at the time, but I had this feeling…”

  I grimaced. “No to the first, but I guess the museum part is technically true. Only because I had to, though.”

  He sighed, giving me a dad look, head tilted forward, one brow raised. “You love him?”

  “Yeah, I really do.” I smiled, couldn’t help it.

  “He’s good to you?”

  Wow, how to answer that one… “We had a bumpy start, but only because he was trying to protect me, kind of like Mom did. He’s been looking out for me since I was little, even though we never saw him. Can you be nice, please? He’s had a hard life with an abusive father, and he adores you. And respects you.”

  A smile picked up his lips. “Oh, stop with those big eyes. Never could say no when you did that, but that don’t mean he and I aren’t gonna have a long chat, man to man. You’re my baby, and if he doesn’t treat you right, he’ll answer to me.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but he held his hand up and said, “Just tell me what I can do to help, and don’t start shaking your head. I might be old, but I’m not useless. If you think I’m going to sit on my thumbs here in this…whatever this place is while my baby goes to war, then you don’t know me like you should.”

  “I don’t want you involved in this fight, Dad. You can’t see them, anyway, but…” Movement farther down the lake caught my eye. Kyle stood at the edge of the water, gazing over it as if thinking about jumping in and never coming back up. “Maybe there is something.”

  “Name it, and it’s done.”

  “Uncle Oliver told me you helped him, you know, before he decided to come out. He wasn’t specific about what you did, only that it changed his life.”

  “My baby brother was gonna kill himself because he loved a man, Addy.”

  “I know. Do you see that guy down there with red hair?”

  “Yeah. He in a bad way, too?”

  “You can cut through the crap better than anybody. His name’s Kyle, and his partner in the Machine is a man I’m pretty sure he’s had a crush on for a while and can’t accept it. Maybe you could take him fishing, maybe giving him a good
working over. You know, the kind of talk you give me when I need one, and I don’t even realize what you’re doing until I suddenly get what I’ve been missing.”

  I summoned my storm and imagined two fishing poles, and a moment later they appeared in my hands. Another bit of concentration assembled an aluminum boat with a motor at the end of the dock.

  “Whoa, you always been able to do that?”

  “No, that’s new.”

  He gave me a wary glance before he smiled. “You’ve always been handier than a shirt pocket, but that is something else. I’m not sure if I’m ever going to get used to all this, but I’ll suck it up and do my best.” Taking the rods, he kissed my forehead. “What are you gonna do?”

  “There’s a bunch more people out there who are afraid and lost, and we need to plan for tomorrow. When you’re done, come to the meeting hall farther down this trail, the one with the red roof.”

  “You got it. And Addy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Your man ever tries to take you from me again, I’ll hurt him where it counts.”

  I laughed and started up the hill to the trail. Strange that my life had been in shambles only yesterday, and today, piece by piece, I was finally beginning to get a glimpse of the elusive happiness Asher had promised. If only I didn’t have a dragon mantis threatening to take it away from me, I might have raced out to grab it with both hands.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Only thirty-five of the fifty or so guardians had come back to our new village, and they all sat like lumps in their chairs under the roof of the meeting hall. They stared at Asher and me with glassy eyes as we took turns relaying everything Baku had told us about Izan’s people planting artifacts and separating the realities, and how Izan said I could succeed where all of the other Architects had failed—leaving out the sacrifice part.