Descendant

by Giles, Nichole

  The woman’s knees are pulled up to her chest as she alternates between sobbing and screaming. Shaking in fear, she raises her eyes at the sound of footsteps. Glowing veins of red mineral streak the black stone walls, the only light by which to see. A heavy metal door clangs open.

  The wrinkled man who enters has only wisps of gray hair hanging to the nape of his neck. A bronze cloak wraps around and billows behind him, shimmering in the unnatural light. A jeweled crystal dagger rests in a sheath at his waist, and around his neck is a white stone shot through with the same red mineral that shimmers in the walls.

  The woman huddles on the dirt floor, careful to stay clear of the glowing walls as tears wear rivulets through the dust on her cheeks. “Please,” she begs. “Please. She’s dying. I’m dying. Let me go. I can’t do what you want. I can’t.”

  With great effort, she lifts her head to meet the eyes of her captor. “Have mercy.”

  “Mercy? You mean the same mercy Damon showed me?”

  “No!” she cries, her voice feeble. “The kind of mercy I know you have in you. Or at least you did once. Be a man, Tynan. Keeping me captive is not the answer. Killing me and my child won’t solve anything.”

  His chuckle sounds morbid. “No. No, you ’re right about that. I have other plans for you and your ...” he grimaces as she sits straighter, her abdomen bulging, “offspring.”

  More shaking, more tears. “Please let me out of here. This room is killing us. Both of us.”

  “Soon,” he says. “Once my curse has fully developed, you will all be free. Free from my prison, free to kill each other with your very presence. Free to die. Over and over and over again.”

  The train jerks me out of the vision. “Come on, Abby, don’t do this to me now.” Kye’s arm around my waist keeps me upright, though my head lolls on his shoulder. The stranger advances on us. “Babe, snap out of it.”

  My feet find solid ground and I lift my head. My eyes struggle to focus on our pursuer. A crystal dangles from his neck—white with red streaks through it. “Who are you?” I demand, my voice weak.

  “That’s it. Come back to me.”

  Come back to me ... come back to me ... come back to me.

  A knight on a black stallion gallops across a field, his face handsome and strong yet twisted with tormented grief. The stallion grinds to a halt and the knight falls to his knees to pray. “Come back to me, Raina. Please. Oh please, goddesses Morrigana, I beg of you, bring her back to me.”

  “Abby!” Kye’s voice is now rife with panic. “Help me out here.”

  I’m falling, pushed into the arms of another passenger as Kye readies himself to fight. The passenger looks at me in disgust and shoves me to my feet. “What’s your problem, lady?” He doesn’t seem to notice the evil presence advancing on Kye.

  “Sorry.” My hand feels warm, and a surge of power ripples down my spine. I clutch Kye’s shoulder and the diamonds in my ring radiate with a soft, powerful glow. The bad guy flickers like a TV when the cable is about to go out. He roars a string of curses.

  “This isn’t over, Theron. I will have those Keys! After four centuries, my power will be restored.” His image fades and then, with a flash of light, he’s gone.

  The other passengers seem oblivious to the spectacle, and I wonder how that’s possible. Having others not notice what’s going on isn’t a first for me, but Akers isn’t here this time.

  Kye picks up our baggage, his eyes mirroring first fury, then despair. “You okay?”

  “Yes.” I hesitate. “Are you?”

  He shakes his head as the train slows to a stop and the doors open. “I can’t do this. I don’t know how to do this.” We move with the flow of passengers onto the platform and up the stairs.

  “What can’t you do?”

  “I can’t save the world from them, Abby. And neither can you. We’re doomed to fail.”

  “Wait.” I catch his arm, stopping him halfway up. “What are you talking about?”

  “Tynan!”

  “Who’s Tynan?”

  “The guy on the train.”

  A lady bumps into me and we start walking again. “You mean the ghost-guy?”

  “That was no ghost. I don’t know what it was, but you have to be dead to become a ghost, and I’m pretty sure Tynan is very much alive.”

  “So how did he get in the train with us? And then out again?” I shade my eyes as we step into the too-bright sunlight. “It doesn’t make any sense. If he wasn’t really there, how bad could he hurt us?”

  “He can always hurt us, and I don’t want you to think otherwise.” Kye shades his eyes too and peers around at the classic-style buildings with the beautiful large windows and artful spires. We’re on the east side of the city, near the park. “The fact that he’s able to appear like that a thousand miles away from where he’s trapped—that’s a bad sign. His powers are stronger than ever, which means someone’s helping him from the outside, feeding him or sacrificing for him—I don’t know. Something. There’s no telling what he can do.”

  “Oh.”

  “Also,” Kye continues, starting down the street, “never underestimate the power of the Dark Prince of the Elen. He has more Gifts than we’ll ever know.”

  “But he left us alone just now. Why?”

  “I don’t know. It bothers me. It shouldn’t have been so easy. Something’s up.”

  I stop to wave my arms at a cab. It doesn’t stop. Neither does the next one.

  Kye keeps walking, but when he realizes I’m not with him, he turns around. “What are you doing?”

  I roll my eyes. Isn’t it obvious? “Hailing a cab.”

  “You’re doing it wrong.”

  Aiming a scowl at him, I drop my hands to my hips. “Then you do it!”

  He holds out an arm, whistles, and a car stops against the curb. “Where to?” the driver asks.

  “Battery Park,” Kye says. Looks like I’ll get some sightseeing in after all.

  In a low voice I ask, “Why are you suddenly so sure we’re going to fail?”

  Kye leans against the seat and closes his eyes in exhaustion. “Didn’t you hear what he said?”

  “About him getting the Keys and having his powers restored? Yes, I did.”

  He opens his eyes. “No, not that.”

  I start to brush the hair off his forehead, but he captures my hand and presses it to his cheek. “What are you talking about?”

  “We’re cursed, Abby. You and me. I didn’t put it together until he said it, but I should have. It only makes sense. The missing piece of our puzzle. You’ll be the great love of my life, and I’ll be the great love of yours—and in a few months, we’ll be forced to separate forever.”

  He’s talking gibberish. With a touch as soft as a breeze, I trace the lines of his face. “You’re exhausted and you’re hungry and you’re hearing things. Tynan didn’t say anything about a curse.”

  “No, he didn’t.” He sighs, closing his eyes again as my finger traces his features. “It’s part of the story you haven’t heard yet, and one I would never, ever guess applies to me.” He opens his eyes again, an ancient agony in their depths. “I can’t save you from this, and I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

  His throat is working, and I watch—baffled. “Kye, what are you talking about? I didn’t hear your dad or Tynan say anything about a curse.”

  “No. But, Abby, Tynan called me Theron.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Mermaids and Symbols

  “Yes, and he called me Raina,” I say. “He’s obviously confused.”

  Kye squeezes his eyes closed and takes a deep breath. “You know what? We have enough to worry about. Right now, we should concentrate on tracking down that Key.”

  Part of me wants to pursue his thoughts, find out why he looks so devastated, but instinct tells me to let it drop for now. He’s right about needing to focus on the task at hand. Finding the remaining Keys is starting to feel like a race.

  The cab drops us at Battery
Park, where Kye gets us tickets for the next ferry. We have thirty minutes to wander the park, hunched against a chilly breeze that’s blowing off the river. We have our picture taken with a person dressed as the Statue of Liberty, and I buy two “I ♥ NY” T-shirts. It would be a crime to leave here without one for each of us, and I want tangible proof of where we’ve been, what we’ve done. Something to prove that this experience was real. We run onto the ferry, laughing, and elbow our way to the front, dropping our bags at our feet.

  Kye stands behind me, arms braced on either side of my waist, hands on the rails. The wind sends my hair flying, so he catches it and tucks it in the neck of my coat, leaning his chin on my shoulder while we watch the great American icon growing larger. My eyes drift closed as I breathe in the salty air. Kye breathes too, but his nose is in my neck. I cringe, realizing I haven’t showered since yesterday. He doesn’t seem to mind, though, and replaces his nose with his lips for a too-short second.

  Before long, I’m aware of an eerie ringing that sounds almost melodic. At first I think it’s a police siren, but then the pitch changes. It reminds me of the faerie song we heard in the forest.

  “What is that?”

  “There must be mermaids in the river.”

  We’re surrounded by people, but none of them act like they hear anything unusual. On our right, something resembling a fin catches my eye. “Look.”

  Kye grins. “Shall we see if they’ll wave?”

  “Is that a good idea?”

  His breath is warm on my neck. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “All these people. Don’t you think it would be kind of a big deal if the general public were to see a mermaid? The story would be headlined for weeks.”

  He presses closer, wrapping his arms around my middle. “Unless they’ve eaten faery food or have a specialized Gift, they can’t see her. Only those who possess certain magics can see magical creatures—well, most of them. Our eyes have an extra sensitivity that others don’t.” He pauses, and I think about Finn stopping the bus in Yellowstone. How no one noticed him. I thought that was Mr. Akers’s doing, but maybe not.

  Kye cups his hands around his mouth and makes a strange, deep-throated noise to answer the mermaid’s song. Something blue bobs in the water. I don’t realize it’s a head until a long, thin arm sticks up and waves with webbed fingers. Bright blue hair flies wildly around a pointy, angular face. Her skin is a shade lighter than her hair and blotchy with what looks like scales. Sharp, white teeth gleam as the sun breaks through the clouds and a beam illuminates her. If Kye hadn’t told me what I was looking at, I would chalk it up to being a trick of the light.

  Kye waves back and calls out again. The head bobs, then the mermaid slips under. With a puff of steam in the cold air, she pops back up, jumps like a dolphin, and dives head-first into the river with a splash. Drops rain down on us.

  Farther out, another arm waves, another fin dips. “It’s a pod.”

  “Where do they live?” I ask.

  “Way, way, way below the surface. So deep even submarines can’t go there.”

  I fill my lungs with the briny air, my ears straining for the mermaid song as it grows more distant. They’re swimming away. “I’d love to see an underwater city. Have you seen one?”

  He snorts. “I’ve never been to a mermaid colony. Humans can’t survive at that depth. But if I could, I would totally go there. Probably the coolest thing I’d ever see. Dangerous, though.”

  “And what we’re doing now isn’t?” I lower my gaze as realization opens a hollow ache in my chest.

  “Scariest thing I’ve ever done.” He quirks an eyebrow as he closes the distance between us, making it clear that he’s not talking about looking for the Keys or facing down people like Juri.

  Heart racing, I let go of the railing and turn into him, winding my arms around his neck as his lips crush mine. His hands thread into my hair, gripping, while he presses me against the railing. When his teeth graze my bottom lip, I taste desperation, an unquenchable thirst. It no longer matters that there are mermaids in the river, or that we’re searching for an object that could help us save the world from a demon army. It doesn’t matter that mythical creatures really exist. The only thing that matters is that I’m here with Kye and my world feels complete because of it.

  We jerk apart when the ferry docks and I’m finally able to catch my breath.

  A crease forms between his brows as a mix of emotions tangle in his eyes. “Sorry. I’m not helping us focus, am I?”

  Feeling bold, I wind my arms around his neck again and drop a kiss on his chin. “I don’t mind. In fact, feel free to distract me anytime.” He grabs me, pulls me up until only my toes touch the ground, and leans his forehead against mine, closing his eyes as he breathes me in.

  The ferry is mostly empty when we disembark, following the flow of traffic.

  “Now what?” I ask, still a little punch-drunk from his kisses.

  “My dad thinks it’s hidden in or around the statue.” He digs in his backpack for the paper Eoin gave him and studies it, turning it front to back and back to front as I crane my neck and stare at the towering structure.

  “That’s what we’re looking for, I think.” He traces a circle around a symbol that resembles a flaming cinnamon roll.

  “Where should we start?”

  He eyes the blueprint side of the page and retraces the symbol again. “Well, this is just a theory, but if I were going to hide something that important in a public place, I’d make sure to put it wherever it’s least likely to be accidentally found.”

  I stare up at the towering copper giant. “Okay. Translation?”

  His eyes follow mine. “Inside, at the top.”

  I don’t believe we’ll be allowed to go up there—there are signs indicating that it’s highly unlikely—but strange things happen when Kye’s around, so I follow him in the museum entrance and up some stairs. The guards stop us, informing us that the statue is closed to tourists for the day. We thank them, then wander to a display and pretend to be interested in the architecture. We wait. Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. At last, the guard closest to us is distracted. An elderly man doubles over coughing and needs assistance. While the guard’s back is turned, we slip past him and sneak up the stairs, holding our baggage to our chests to minimize sound.

  As soon as we can no longer see the ground level behind us, we run. This is our only chance, and if we’re caught, things will become extremely complicated. As it is, I’m afraid they’ll figure out someone’s up here before we find the Key. We keep going until intense pain in my ribs forces me to pause for a breath. I sit to rest on one of the steps and Kye sits next to me, not nearly as winded. “Why aren’t you tired?” I ask, forcing musty air into my lungs.

  “I run a lot.”

  “You suck. I run a lot too. But not stairs.”

  “I could piggyback you.”

  “Shut it. I don’t need you to piggyback me.”

  He stands and pulls me up. “We’re halfway there.”

  After what feels like miles and miles straight up, we make it to the crown. Kye half-drags me up the last step into the small space. I lean against a window, panting, and stare out. The sun tints the clouds pink, highlighting the New Jersey skyline. “That’s something you don’t see every day.”

  Kye grins, wiping beads of sweat off his forehead. “Look fast. We should get to work before we lose the light.”

  We search the crown—the ground, the windowsills, the walls. It doesn’t take long, but it feels like hours because I’m so worried about security catching us.

  When we’re sure it’s not here, Kye starts up a ladder affixed to the wall. “It must be in the torch.” We climb the narrow passage to the torch and emerge in a room only big enough for a few people. He slides his hands along the walls in the poorly lit room, and I mirror his actions on the opposite side, working toward him. “What if it’s not here?”

  “It has to be,” he says. “My dad seemed positive the
Key was re-hidden in the statue. Downstairs I read that the torch was closed in 1916. It makes complete sense that the keeper would hide it in the one place no Elen can look.”

  “Why can’t they look here?”

  “Why would they? She’s only been around since 1886—about three hundred years too late to have been an original vault for one of the Arawn Keys. But more importantly, this beautiful lady is copper, and copper is poisonous to Dark Elen.”

  This surprises me. “If it’s poisonous to them, how is it not poisonous to us? What about cooking pots and pennies and all the other things made of copper?” I remember the ugly copper clock Gram hauled from house to house with every move. Every time, she insisted on hanging the hideous thing next to the front door.

  “It has something to do with the metal content in their systems. Every time they steal someone else’s power, their blood metals rise. They can handle being around some metals, but not copper. It does something to their brains. Scrambles them, shuts them down. Like turning off a power switch.”

  The idea makes me shudder. “How exactly do they to steal powers?”

  “Something to do with the Arawnian Dagger and cutting out people’s hearts—”

  “Ew. Okay, that’s enough.” The room is too dim. I pat the top of Kye’s backpack. “You wouldn’t happen to have a flashlight in here, would you?”

  “Wouldn’t that be nice.” He’s still running his hands over the walls. “I had one, but lost it in Yellowstone.”

  “Yeah. If searching for stuff in dark places is going to be a regular thing, it might be good to pick up another.” I lean against the wall, close my eyes, and beg my mind to guide me to the symbol. Focus.

  “How did you do that?” Kye breathes, sounding amazed.

  “What?”

  “Your ring. It’s glowing.” I open my eyes. A bright beam reflects off the windows and casts rainbows on the walls, like color showing through a raindrop. My whole body vibrates with warmth. Power. Love.

  “Huh. No idea.” I grin. “But we should take advantage.”