by Nicola Marsh
Hunched over, I sent a silent message to Joss. “I’m okay, leave me be.” I knew he’d be down in a heartbeat if he picked up one iota of my distress.
Once I’d communicated to him, I let the vision come.
Cadifor towering over Keenan, pointing at an object hidden in the sleeve of his robe.
“The newcomer. Who is she?”
Keenan keeps his head bowed. “I don’t know, my lord.”
“Find out!”
The order, accompanied by a backhand, brings Keenan to his knees.
Cadifor yanks him roughly to his feet. “Do not return until you have her identity and something of hers I can use.”
As Cadifor turns, the object tucked into his sleeve falls to the ground.
A photo.
Of me.
I came to with a whimper, fear coursing through me like a river of fractured glaciers, sharp and unrelenting and brutal, slicing through any delusions of power I may have had. I’d been a fool, high on the thrill of belonging, on the mysticism of the ancient temple, believing I could do this. The cold perspiration drenching my brow, the icy terror flowing through my veins, gave me the wakeup call I needed.
Cadifor was real. Cadifor was scary. Cadifor was hot on my trail.
One of Cadifor’s consorts was out to identify me and take something of mine. To use? Use for what?
In the aftermath of the vision, I’d forgotten to block my thoughts, or to at least try some semblance of the skill I’d been practicing to ensure privacy from curious warriors probing my mind.
Joss launched himself from the trees and flew toward me. He skidded to a stop when he saw I was in one piece. “What—”
“If I’m to master the tasks, I needed to do this on my own.”
Sadness flickered across his face before he quickly masked it, confirming what I already knew. He cared behind the terseness, would do anything to protect me. It should’ve made me feel better. After what I’d just seen? It didn’t.
“Vision?”
I nodded. “Cadifor and Keenan.”
I wished I could save Joss the worry, but it was fruitless trying to hide anything from him. “What would Cadifor want with an item of someone’s?”
He paled, deciphering my indirect question immediately. “He wants something of yours?”
I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood. I nodded, the panic I’d barely managed to subdue flaring in an instant. Joss hadn’t answered my question; he didn’t have to. His pallor spoke volumes. Cadifor’s motivation for wanting something of mine couldn’t be good. I thrust my hands into my pockets so he wouldn’t see them trembling.
I tried to erase the residual terror from my mind. “He had a photo of me. Wants to know my identity. And wants something of mine he can use.”
“For scrying.”
“To see my future?”
Joss nodded, casting a nervous glance over my shoulder as if expecting Cadifor to materialize right this very second. “You’re a newcomer here. He may have suspicions about who you are. Having something of yours will strengthen whatever scrying spell he uses.”
He avoided my eyes, and I got the distinct impression he wasn’t telling me everything. Hell, what could be worse than a monster wanting a personal item of mine? Revulsion made me quiver. Not that I had a lot. Clothes and books constituted the bulk of my worldly wealth and he could have my oldest hoodie. If he touched one of my books, though, I’d kill him.
Joss’s palpable anxiety made my fear blossom as a horrible thought struck. “When you say something of mine, you mean like a hairbrush or a sweater, right?”
He paused, and I knew the answer before he spoke. “No, he needs something more personal. A hair, a fingernail, something of you.”
“Gross.” As if having the lord of darkness on my trail wasn’t bad enough, I now had to watch out for some creepy stranger wanting a piece of me?
“Let’s get out of here.”
He grabbed my hand and tugged. I didn’t move. “This telling the future stuff? How accurate is it?”
“Depends.” Taken aback by my question, he released my hand, started the pacing thing I’d come to recognize as his way of thinking, of dealing with stuff.
“Some are truly gifted scryers, others not so much.”
“Is Cadifor—”
“I don’t know.”
I appreciated his blunt honesty. Appreciated it, but didn’t like hearing the guy I trusted with my life had no clue whether Cadifor knew his scrying stuff or not. That was part of the relentless fear in all this, the not knowing. Every time I had a vision, it was supposedly a precognitive event, meaning it hadn’t happened yet. But if the future was dependent on free choice, the choices we all had to make, couldn’t it be changed? And if so, what did that mean for me? For Mom? For all of us?
“You’re right, the future can always be changed by the choices we make, so no matter how many hairs he throws into the scrying bowl, what you do can alter the course of history.”
“Wow, profound.”
He shook his head, a smile tugging at his mouth. “You’re either the bravest girl I’ve ever met or the dumbest.”
“I’ll take the first, thanks.”
Jerking a thumb toward the forest, he said, “After the morning you’ve had, you’ve earned the afternoon off. We’ll head back to my mom’s and you can crash.” I took a step. He held up a finger. “But whatever you do, don’t leave the cottage, okay?”
“Yes, boss,” I muttered, balking when he tried to grab me, enjoying catching him unawares. I goofed off for a while, lunging and dodging and weaving, surprised when my uptight, serious warrior joined in, a nice way to blow off the tension of the last hour.
I’d survived my first morning’s lessons at Eiros and finally controlled an incoming vision. Chalk up one to the Arwen hunter.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
When I’d agreed to Joss’s caveat of not leaving the cottage all afternoon, I hadn’t quite realized what I’d be letting myself in for.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Even though he didn’t live here, I hoped he might’ve left behind a few books. He had, but nothing cool; Drawing the Short Sword and Mastering Your Inner Fire: Pyrokinesis for Beginners didn’t do it for me. There were no magazines, no TV, and no iPod. Even me, Geek Girl, would’ve killed for a Teen Vogue or a Gossip Girl rerun right about then.
With Uriel a no-show all afternoon and Joss on secret sorority business, I’d explored almost every inch of the place. The only rooms I hadn’t explored were Uriel’s bedroom and Joss’s old room. Not that I wasn’t tempted. Anything to relieve the unrelenting boredom and give me insight into the guy I couldn’t stop thinking about.
He confused the hell out of me. He could be brash and abrupt and surly, yet other times he’d been caring and understanding and supportive. From his own admission it sounded like he’d been forced into protecting me, but that didn’t make any sense if I believed all that geis and bound-together crap. Unless he hadn’t wanted the job and had been blackmailed into it by the Sorority? Stupid conspiracy theories, but I was bored.
The thing was, whether Joss was grumpy or nice, I liked him. He wasn’t like most of the guys I knew, guys I’d grown up with at school who, once they hit puberty, talked about nothing but themselves. Who scored the most touchdowns, who had the biggest car, the biggest allowance, the biggest dick. Ironic, as they all did. They were all big dicks the way I saw it.
Joss was nothing like that. In saying less, he said more, conveying so much in a few well-chosen words, in a fleeting touch. And whatever his motivation for protecting me, having him by my side made me feel a whole lot safer.
Even mooning around over Joss couldn’t distract me enough. I’d cooked up a batch of vegetable soup. I’d wiped down the countertops. I’d even dusted, and I freaking hated dusting. I was about to throw a bunch of herbs into a stainless steel bowl and try to master scrying—if only to tell me when someone would return—when a noise at the window made me jump.
>
The sane thing would’ve been to back away from the window. But this new me, fresh from accepting the challenge to find Arwen and master a bunch of psychic challenges and the liberating experience of connecting with Bel’s fire, had me grabbing a knife for some meager protection and inching toward the window to peer out.
I flattened my back against the wall and edged toward the window, my heart thumping so loudly I could barely think past the noise pounding in my ears. I eased around the window frame, angling for a better view, peeking behind the gingham curtains …
Slam! A rock crashed through the window, showering me with glass. I screamed as a hand reached through the gaping hole and yanked me by the hair. Yelping, I dropped the knife; my first instinct was to save myself from being dragged through the razor-edged window headfirst.
I clawed. Scratched. Writhed. Used my body weight to launch forward. Away from the window, despite the sheer agony of having my hair pulled out by the roots. It worked. I dragged my assailant’s arms across the jagged glass in falling forward, resulting in sudden, welcome release.
Frantic to escape, I tried to stand, slipping on the glass fragments covering the floor, going down in a sprawling heap. I couldn’t stay still, my hands and feet working in sync as I scuttled backward in a bizarre crab walk, desperate to get away from the gaping window. My throat, raw from screaming, convulsed as a leg appeared, hoisted over the windowsill and I glimpsed Keenan’s evil face leering at me.
Propelled by terror and adrenalin, I surged to my feet, slipping and sliding but not stopping for anything. I bolted for the guest room, slammed the door, and leaned my head against the wall as my legs gave out. I slid down the wall and landed hard on my butt, praying to Bel or Jesus or whichever god was out there to save me.
Heavy footsteps thudded down the hallway and I scrambled to my feet, pressing my ear to the door, then backing away the closer they got. Whimpering, I rested my forehead against the wall, shocked at the familiar burning, the blistering heat, the stomach-tumbling freefall. When I opened my eyes, I’d never been so glad in my entire life to be slumped in the stone shed by the river at C.U.L.T.
Alone.
I’d fallen off the old armchair and lay sprawled against the wall, my legs shaking so much I couldn’t have stood if I’d wanted to.
What the hell had just happened? One moment that lunatic Keenan had been chasing me, the next I woke up back at C.U.L.T.
My forehead throbbed and I tentatively probed it, surprised by its smoothness when it felt like a colony of worms wriggled beneath the skin. A residual heat lingered too, and I lowered my hand as realization hit.
I’d been powerless and petrified in that guest room in Uriel’s cottage, my hands a bloodied mess and useless to defend myself. Defeated, I’d rested my forehead against the wall and … the symbols. Hadn’t Joss mentioned something about the guest room being a safe haven in that house because of the symbols? Obviously, my third eye had connected with one of them and I’d ended up back here, thank goodness.
But my relief was short-lived when I imagined Keenan hanging around the cottage, waiting for the return of Uriel. I tried to stand and pain sliced through my forehead, an agony so intense I saw stars for a few seconds.
I collapsed against the wall and dragged in deep breaths, waiting for my vision to clear.
I had to go back; there was no question. Uriel could be in danger. Plus Joss and the rest of the gang would seriously freak when they saw the carnage in the house and would assume the worst: that I’d been taken.
My bleeding hands throbbed, shredded by the glass fragments. Common sense insisted I fix them before attempting a return journey. As much as I wanted to press the crystal to my forehead and return instantly to help protect the people I’d grown to care about, I’d be useless to anyone until I could use my hands in some capacity.
I braced for the pain, taking deep breaths to steady my wobbly knees as I stood. Thankfully, the excruciating roar in my head subsided to a dull ache and I managed to stay upright as my feet touched the ground.
At least I had a clear plan: head back to the dorm, clean up, and get back here ASAP before the sun set and I lost my opportunity to do my crystal trick. All without running into anyone and arousing suspicion. Easy, right? However, like the rest of my life over the last few months, nothing was easy, and as I limped across the school grounds and slipped into the dorm, the first person I ran into was Raven.
“Uh-oh,” I muttered, as she glanced at my hands, then my hair.
“Jeez, what happened to your hair?”
Trust Raven to make me laugh at a time like this.
“Your hands too,” she added belatedly, with a wry smile. “Seriously? The blood I can put up with. Your hair?” Her hand wavered. “Not so much.”
I needed to come up with an excuse, fast. Something I’d never been any good at, thinking on the spur of the moment. When I stood there like a dummy, she grabbed my hands and turned them palms up.
“You’ve got glass bits stuck in there. Want some help?”
I couldn’t afford the time but accepting her offer made sense. Tweezing left handed would be tough and this way I’d be out of here faster. “Thanks.”
I limped to my room, her constant sideways glances annoying the crap out of me. At least our silent walk down the corridor gave me time to invent an excuse.
As soon as we stepped into my room, I headed to the bathroom, calling over my shoulder. “I’m such a klutz. Wanted to master the next chapter in our scrying text to get Crane off my back, so I took stuff down to the river. I slipped, smashed the bowl on the rocks, snagged my hair in a tree branch, and ended up falling on top of everything.”
She didn’t believe me. I could see it in her slightly narrowed eyes, her thinly compressed lips. “You know scrying requires a steel bowl?”
Holding my cut hands up, I shrugged. “I do now.”
She took pity on me despite my sheepish smile and lousy excuse, not pushing for answers. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” She followed me into the bathroom, got the first aid kit from behind the mirror, and pointed to the bathtub. “Sit.”
I did as I was told, holding out my hands and holding my breath. One thing I hated more than a lord of darkness chasing my ass? Blood.
“This won’t hurt a bit,” she said, her tone teasingly gleeful as she took hold of my right hand and pressed the tweezers into my palm.
I gave a yelp and jerked back as the cold metal tip dug into my skin.
“Don’t be a wuss,” Raven said, holding my hand tighter. “What would Lissa do?”
I managed a small smile at her Vampire Academy reference as a distraction. “Considering she’s a mortal vampire, she’d probably suck her own blood.”
“Eeew!”
But Raven’s question did the trick as we started debating the strength of Lissa and Christian’s relationship, the whole Strigoi/Moroi thing, and how hot Dimitri was.
Every time the tip of the tweezers dug into my palm I flinched, biting back a host of words both of us had heard a million times before. Every time a fragment of glass dropped into the sink, I got angrier. Really angry. An anger I’d never felt before. An anger that served to fuel my hunger. My hunger to win.
What if Uriel had been at the cottage when Cadifor’s groupie broke in to get me? Would she be considered collateral damage, eliminated?
The thought of Joss losing another mom made me want to puke.
Raven finally plucked out the last piece and handed me a glass of water. “Here, you’ve turned green.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, gulping it down, forgetting how sore my throat had been from all the screaming.
“Could be worse,” she said, dabbing cotton with antiseptic. “Lucky you were wearing shoes.”
Glancing down, I wiggled my toes. If I hadn’t been wearing my favorite ballet flats, I probably wouldn’t be here. No way could I have run from that madman in bare feet; the glass would’ve hobbled me.
“So, would you do Harry Potte
r or Ron Weasley?”
I played along, bracing for the teeth-clenching sting of antiseptic.
“Harry in a heartbeat,” I said, letting out an almighty yell as she dabbed at my palms.
“There, all done.” She bandaged them, sat back, and dusted off her hands, admiring her handiwork. “Not too bad. You’ll get a sympathy vote at dinner.”
I slid off the bath rim and stood, glad I wasn’t so wobbly anymore. “I’m not coming to dinner.”
“Why not?” Raven rinsed off her hands, her curious gaze meeting mine in the mirror.
“I need to go see Nan.”
“On a Saturday night?”
“Uh-huh.”
Raven grabbed a hand towel and spun around to face me. “Weren’t you supposed to spend the whole weekend with her?”
I hated lying. Not that I’d done a lot of it, but the few times I’d spun Nan little white lies, I’d get so caught up in the web I couldn’t escape without the whole thing unraveling. “Yeah, but I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by the new lessons and thought I’d do some catching up in private, so I stuck around here today.”
“Cramming on a weekend when you could’ve escaped this place?” She shook her head and pointed at my hands. “Hopefully you’ve learned your lesson. No pun intended.”
I smiled and started shifting from foot to foot, eager to return to Eiros, my guilt at lying to Raven stinging as much as my hands.
Picking up on my edginess, she headed for the door. “Anything else I can do?”
Waving my bandaged hands in the air, I said, “You’ve done enough. Thanks again.”
She shrugged, suddenly bashful. “I guess if this telekinetic thing doesn’t work out, I can always resort to nursing.” She waved. “Later.”
I gave her a ten-second head start before bolting out the door, my feet flying along the corridor, out of the dorm, and across the lawn toward the river. A bunch of juniors saw me and cast curious glances my way, focusing on my head, and I belatedly realized I hadn’t done anything about my hair. I’d caught sight of it while Raven had fixed my hands. It wasn’t pretty. Thin and wispy at its best, it now looked like I’d seen a ghost, sticking up in crazy clumps all over the place.
