AetherBlood
Page 20
That silenced the elders. Each one looked for a distraction, suddenly fidgeting with their hands and rearranging their legs. Cyril was the first to break the tension and she wished he would have kept his mouth shut.
“Because they need you for something.”
“For what? And why me?”
“I’m not sure. But it’s the only thing that would make sense. Perhaps it’s the sword they need and you’re the only one that can wield it–”
“So why not just kill me and take the sword?”
Liam winced at her side and she regretted not choosing better wording.
“That I do not know. It is quite difficult to sever the connection between an AetherBorn and the sword, at least from my experience.”
“But not impossible?”
“No, not impossible.”
“So, they could? Kill me for it, that is?”
He looked up from his lap. “Yes.”
“So, if it’s not the sword,” she took a deep breath, letting the air sit at the top of her lungs before breathing out. “Then it’s me. Somehow they need me for this garbage.”
“Great,” Liam growled, “just great.”
She couldn’t disagree with him. She was sick and tired of being some ploy in Demas’ plans and yet somehow, she always ended up in the middle of them. She almost wished that he would kill her and get it over with so she could stop living in constant fear. If only it were that easy. Too many people depended on her for their safety, at least if he still needed her for his pathetic plans, she had some time to figure out how to stop him. And keep everyone safely away from him. For now.
“I don’t think we should trust Hemera,” she said. “But I do think we should use this information for now.”
“You sound like you have a plan,” Elena said, her tone vividly cold.
I guess she’s still pissed at me.
“Not yet. But I will. Just need a bit more time to figure it out. But if he’s not going to kill me, I suppose I have the time after all.”
She smiled.
Liam frowned.
“Now that we’re back home,” she changed the subject, “we should probably figure out what to tell everyone.”
“You mean about–” Harvey whispered.
“Leah.” Her eyes burnt at the mention of her friend. “When is the funeral?”
“Tuesday.”
“Has anyone talked to Zag?”
Myriam straightened the folds in her skirt and cleared her throat. “He’s been avoiding all of us.”
“So not just me then?” she said, her mouth a thin line. “I’ll go talk to him today.”
“Maybe you should give him some more time, Rue?” Liam asked.
“We don’t have more time. Not if we want to live.”
With that she nodded to them and got up to leave. Her steps were heavy the entire way to the door. She dragged one of her legs behind her, still unable to put pressure on it without causing her wounds to bleed. She tried to concentrate on the pain to keep her mind from racing. It was circling like a hamster in a wheel, always landing to one place. Leah’s body in the car lot. Her blank stare. The way her head wobbled from side to side as Cyril performed the compressions. She would never forget that image and as long as she lived, she’d make sure Demas wouldn’t forget it either.
Chapter 51
Lobster traps
Ruby’s outstretched hand hovered over Zag’s bedroom door for a few minutes before she finally willed herself to knock. Her knuckles barely met the metal, and she was about to knock again when Zag’s voice rumbled from inside.
“Come in.”
Her chest rose and fell as she tentatively slid the door open. Zag was sitting down on his bed, surrounded by books and papers. It looked like a hurricane blew through his bookshelf, landing him perfectly in the eye of the storm.
“Uhm, what’s going on?” she asked, trying to make sense of the mess.
He tucked a pencil into a half-bun of red hair and looked up. “I’m trying to figure out how we can trap them.”
“The deities?”
“Yah, girl! We can’t hurt ‘em, we can’t kill ‘em. So, what’s left? We’re gonna have to trap ‘em!”
“That’s great but–” she hesitated, “Zag, are you sure you’re alright?”
“More than alright. I’m really close!”
“Not what I meant.”
He paused writing, the pencil making a dark mark in the paper as he pushed it down. “I know what you meant.”
“And?”
“And I need to keep working.”
She said nothing. She understood him perfectly. If she had lost a family member, the last thing she’d want is to be reminded of it. There was nothing she could do for Zag now except to help him forget, even if for a brief moment. Besides, she could do the remembering for both of them for now.
“Ray’s been helping with some of this stuff. Wanna see?” He shoved a pile of papers her way.
“Uhm, sure. Ray, huh?”
“What?”
“Nothing. You two are pretty chummy.”
“Sorta. She’s nice.”
Her mind flashed back to Ray’s hand in his at the lot. “Just be careful, okay?”
“Yah, okay.” He rolled his eyes, “So you wanna know what this is or what?”
Ruby nodded her head and sat next to him, flipping through the pages in her lap. From what she could tell, they looked like the drawings of a crazy person. Somehow resembling her grandmother’s journals from her time in the hospital. If there’s one thing Ruby learned, it’s that sometimes what might seem like gibberish could actually hold all the answers she needed.
“So, what is this?”
“Girl, what isn’t it?” He tapped the pencil on one of the chicken scratches on the page. “I’ve been wracking my brain on how we can catch these bastards. I mean, no offense, but even your powers don’t do much, and you’re like the strongest thing we got going for us!”
“Cool. Thanks.”
“Whatevs. So, I started thinking about that mirror room in the Aether Plane. You said they were like doorways, right?”
“Uh huh…” she tried to follow his logic without success.
“But Demas still needed you and the sword to open it. So, they weren’t doorways. You follow?”
“What were they?”
“Cages. Sorta. Like lobster traps.”
“Okay, you lost me.”
“Lobster traps are like funnels. Kinda sorta. The lobster goes in but ‘cause of the way the traps are made, they can’t get out.”
“Right,” she nodded, still lost. “So, you want to lobster trap the deities?”
“Hell, yeah, I do! The mirrors are the traps. They could get in, but they need you to get out. Lobsters!” He smacked his hand on the papers, sending a few strays to the floor.
“But the mirror room won’t work anymore. Whatever happened when I stole their powers when I was there must have broken this trap thing. Otherwise they never could have gotten out in the first place.” She chewed dead skin off her lip and slouched down.
“Who says we need the room?”
“Okay, you lost me again.”
“We don’t need the room; we just need the mirrors.”
“Hello? Reality check. The mirrors are in the room!”
“Girl, we don’t need those mirrors. We just need a mirror.”
Her eyes formed into saucers and she had to forcibly close her mouth. “You want to make your own plasma mirrors.”
“You got it! We’ll need your powers of course. And Nola and Rays. I think if you can connect to the plasma and use that to form the doorway, then the girls can keep the connection to the plane open until we can put the trap together.”
“So, when they pass through the plasma, we’ll redirect them into a part of the plane that has no other portal access.” She said, finally understanding.
“Exactly! The plasma will stop them from getting out and since there are no other portals
, they’d be stuck!” he hollered.
“And Ray knows the best place in the plane to do this?”
“She says she does.”
“You really think this could work?”
“Yo! I don’t even know if we can make these mirrors. But it’s worth a shot.”
She pushed the papers off and bolted up. Excited but scared at the same time. If they could make this happen they would save everyone! “But how do we even get them into the mirrors?” she asked, suddenly deflated.
Zag flashed a set of teeth. “Every lobster trap needs bait.”
“Zag!” She yelled and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. “You’re a freaking genius! Seriously!”
“I know,” he blew a self-assured breath at his knuckles. “Oh, Rue?”
“Yeah?”
“Love the new hair.”
“Thanks. Leah cut it.”
His eyes lowered. He grabbed a random piece of his own hair, inspecting the dead ends. “I know. She was always great at that stuff.”
Chapter 52
On board
Ruby interlaced her fingers and pressed until the blood rushed into them.
“Is everyone on board with the plan?”
The prolonged silence filling the center’s library worried her. She had half expected the elders to be leery of the idea, especially Liam, but seeing Jake and Nola dumb founded was starting to make her doubt the whole thing.
She looked to Zag for support but even he looked uncertain.
“So, you want to trust Hemera?” Liam asked.
“Not trust. Just use,” she folded the corners of Zag’s papers in and out. “We just need to play nice with her long enough to trap her in the mirror.”
“And she’s going to volunteer to get in there?”
Ruby rolled her eyes at him, “Obviously not. We won’t tell her she can’t get out. Make it seem like we’re using her to trick the rest of them.”
“I don’t know,” Jake said, shaking his head. “This sounds like it could go south pretty damn fast.”
Great! Now these two agree on something!
“She’s our only chance right now.”
“And you’re sure we can’t do this without her?” Elena asked.
“Honey, no.” Zag yelped. His back straightened when he suddenly realized his mistake. “Sorry. Elena. We need her to get the others.”
Elena shook her head and trained her attention on Ruby. “Can you walk me through it again?”
“Sure. We get Hemera in the mirror and use her to get Nyx to us. I have a feeling that won’t be hard to pull off. We’ll need to make sure there’s only one way in so we can ambush her when she comes for her daughter. Once we trap her, we can worry about the other two.” She paused to make sure Elena was following, “Use Nyx as bait this time. I doubt Eros will come alone so we need to be prepared for both him and Demas showing up together.”
“We’re caging them all?” Cyril asked.
“Not all of them. Demas doesn’t survive this.”
Another silence filled the room. Liam reached for her hand.
“I won’t go through with it unless you’re all on board,” she said. “But I think we need to do something.”
“And you think you can actually make these plasma mirrors or whatever?” Nola raised an eyebrow and leaned back in her chair; arms crossed.
“I’ll need your help with that. Ray’s too. But yeah, Zag thinks we can.”
“Look, I don’t know the first thing about this mirror room you were in but I’m assuming it can’t be that easy to just make a cage like that.”
“Oh, girl, it’s the opposite of easy!” Zag said. “That’s why she’ll need both of you. If not more.”
“Rue, how are you even going to connect to that much plasma?” Liam turned to her, concerned and unyielding.
“We’ll need to be somewhere where I can have a better hold on the plane. I think I’ll need to be almost in both places at the same time to make this happen.”
“The old library,” Jake whispered.
“It’s the last place I remember having that much control over the plasma. It’s also the only place I was able to pull that much plasma out.” She remembered the plasmic rain she poured over the library hall when she came back from the room of mirrors. Looking around the room, she could see the ones that were there remembered it too.
“It’s also the place that Demas is planning on opening the Gates of Tartarus,” Liam snapped. “No way! Too dangerous!”
“Would it help if I told I want you there the entire time?” she purred, hoping to sway him.
“Not enough for me to get on board with it!”
“Liam…”
“No, Rue. It’s not happening. For all we know, they’re already there and you’re just, what? Going to show up with some picture frames and hope for the best?”
“They’re not picture frames,” Zag said, annoyed.
“And they’re not there,” she added.
“And you know this how?”
“Hemera told me.”
“What? You went to see her again without telling any of us? How could you put yourself in that much danger? You said it yourself, we can’t trust her!”
Crap. Should’ve led with that.
“I had to get more information. We didn’t exactly have all the time in the world at the car lot,” she glanced at Zag, who seemed unaffected by the memory. Either that or he was turning into an excellent actor. “And I was going to tell you, I swear.”
His eyes narrowed and he looked away. This was not the end of this conversation; she was sure of it. She felt like an idiot. She had just smoothed things over with him and promised to be forthcoming only to mess it up again. Why hadn’t she just involved him from the beginning? When this is all over, she would have to make it up to him big time. Just because Liam was an elder now didn’t mean that she should treat him like she would the rest of them. He wasn’t her subject; he was her boyfriend. What type of person forgets that?
“Ruby is right. It’s our only shot.” Cyril’s voice almost knocked her off her chair.
Was he actually agreeing with her?
“I say we put it up to a vote. All in favor?” he asked and quickly raised his own hand.
Her eyes drifted from person to person as their hands slowly joined his. Elena, Myriam, Harvey. She watched as one by one the entire room had their hands high in the air. She turned to Liam who sulked in his chair, his hands fisted on the table.
“I can’t do this without you, you know?” she whispered.
He didn’t meet her eyes. One by one, he unlocked his fists and raised his hand slightly.
“Okay. So, we’re doing this,” she said to no one in particular.
There was a light shuffle as everyone lowered their hands back down. Some looked at each other, others stared at her with a questioning intensity. She wondered if she should say something encouraging, dredging her mind for words of strength and power. She had nothing. Instead, she slouched in her chair and looked down at her nails.
“Great,” Liam said. “Just great.”
I guess that’ll do, she thought and finally took a breath.
Chapter 53
On the wrong end
Four long hours later and she was back in the old library, huffing and puffing from overusing her powers. When the six of them first squeezed into the building through the small window Ruby nearly had an aneurism. Her body shook, a volatile reaction to her memories of the place. Now, however– while she stood covered head to toe in sweat and black fog– memories were the last thing on her mind.
“I can’t do it!” she shouted, dropping her arms to her side.
The small amount of plasma she had managed to pull through dripped from her fingertips. It made nearly silent splashes when it hit the floor before disappearing in a cloud of black fog. The drops reminded her of the rain she had poured down the last time she was here. This was somewhat like that except much more useless. She was useless.
Zag kicked the large silver frame on the floor and relaxed his shoulders. “Don’t harsh this with your drama, girl! It’ll work! We just have to readjust some stuff.”
“Yeah, like this whole plan,” she huffed.
He ignored her comment and nudged the frame again before getting back to his notes. His face scrunched and he was all but biting off the tip of his pen while he read over them. Nola, Jake and Ray huddled around him, each one trying to look over his shoulders.
“He’s right, you know?” Liam whispered in her ear. His chest pressed against her back as he wrapped his arms around her middle. “You’re being too hard on yourself.”
“Someone has to be. I was so sure this would work and right now, I’m thinking we should just run off and hide somewhere and hope he never finds us.”
“Yeah, but did you really think this would be easy? You can’t tell me you honestly thought that you could reconstruct something you saw in some surreal version of reality with the snap of a finger. We don’t even know how the mirrors work exactly.”
“That’s my point, Liam.” She sighed, resting her palms on his warm forearms. “Whoever created the mirror room knew exactly what they were doing. It had to be an AetherBorn, I could feel her energy all over them but whoever she was, she was way stronger than me.”
“You’re pretty damn strong too.”
“I feel like I’m trying to recreate a cake without a recipe. Just dumping in random crap and then wondering why it’s falling flat.”
“Yeah, but that’s what’s so great about you! You come up with these risky plans and yeah, they might not work sometimes, but when they do– it’s freakin’ magic, Rue. You’re magic.” He leaned in close, his breath tingling the side of her neck and making her knees weak.
“I thought you hated all my plans?” She teased, hoping that he wouldn’t catch the blood rushing to her face.