He turned his head and for the first time I noticed a tiny earpiece in his right ear.
“All of that, for me?” I asked.
“And Mom. She’s coming, too. But don’t act so surprised. You know how important you are. And not just to me,” he said, and kissed me lightly.
“So, is that, um, on right now?” I whispered.
“Not until we’re in the car,” he said with a grin. “Which means I should probably tell you again how beautiful you look.”
I blushed again. “Thanks, you too. Handsome, I mean.”
We stood there for another moment, our faces inches from each other the way we often did, breathing each others’ breath, when Mae, the dorm mother, interrupted.
“Now, I’m giving you two a little leeway since it’s Ember’s birthday and all, but you two know the rules,” she said, her arms crossed.
Taren and I both blushed scarlet now, and stepped back from each other.
“Sorry,” Taren mumbled. “We should take off anyway.”
Taren took my hand and led me out the front door. Before I was fully aware what was happening, we were walking down the path that led toward the parking area. My mind cycled through a litany of thoughts.
Are you crazy? It’s all well and good to wish you could leave the Institute, but there are Dahrak demons out there.
I suddenly wished I hadn’t read that article last night.
But it’s been months! And Indian food! And Taren went to so much trouble...
And Reds will go to a lot of trouble—
They’ll be guards everywhere protecting me. Besides, it does make sense to do a dry run with Gretchen and I about to travel to other Gates. For security. If we’re going to do one anyway, why not today?
“You OK?” Taren said, interrupting my stream of thoughts.
“Yeah,” I said, squeezing his hand. “Just excited. And maybe a little nervous. It’s been awhile since I’ve been out in the real world.”
“Trust me,” he said, “up here is as real as it gets. Down there, all they’re concerned with is Botox and carbs. Besides, I’m here. And as long as I’m here, nothing bad gets near you.”
He put his arm around me and squeezed my shoulder, which pretty much settled things as far as I was concerned. I smiled and leaned into Taren as we made our way toward the edge of the Sanctuary. This was going to be my best birthday yet.
4
Richard and Gretchen were waiting for us at Taren’s SUV. Her honey-colored hair fell just past her shoulders, the hazel eyes she’d passed onto Taren sparkled. The past couple of months had done her a world of good. Simply knowing the Gateway was closed had done wonders. I knew she blamed herself for opening it in the first place, carrying the deaths of those killed on her shoulders. But though she still had an air of fragility, lately a peace had settled over her. I’d have to get up the courage to ask her how she’d moved on. I still agonized over Tom—killed while I struggled to close the Gate—waking up with my cheeks wet with tears. Logic might tell both of us it wasn’t our fault, but a conscience couldn’t easily be swayed.
Gretchen pulled me into an easy embrace. She’d become almost a second mother to me, though I’d never tell my real mother that. Lord knows what sort of tailspin that might send her into. It wasn’t even so much that she was a mother figure as she was kindred—literally. We were two of the rarest kind, and there was a certain bond that had developed because of that.
“Happy birthday, Ember. I’m so happy to get to share this special day with you,” she said.
“Me, too,” I said. “I’m glad you could come.”
I wasn’t the only one who had been on lockdown. I searched her eyes for a hint of worry, but she seemed at ease, which helped me relax even further.
Richard and I hugged and he wished me a happy birthday as well. I liked Richard. He was a five years older than Gretchen, going on forty-six, with salt-and-pepper hair that matched his goatee. It was from him that Taren had gotten his agility and skill with a sword. Richard might be getting up there, but we was handsome in a way-too-old-for-me type of way, and with a sword in his hand he could outmatch men half his age. Like Taren, he wasn’t bulky, more lean and cat-like, with a fierceness that came out during battle. Or practice battle, anyway. Confined as I’d been, I hadn’t seen any real battles lately, which suited me just fine. I remembered the fighting and the carnage I’d witnessed all too well.
“Ready to go live, son?” Richard asked, indicating his own earpiece.
Having father and son on the same Guard detail was highly unusual—you can imagine the problems it could cause—but there really hadn’t been another choice. Neither Taren nor Richard was going to resign as the personal Guardians of Gretchen or me, so as much as Annys didn’t like it, what could she do? Taren had already proven he’d defy her where I was concerned, and I’d no doubt Richard would do the same if he thought it necessary. So, they worked together, for the most part without incident.
“Ready,” Taren said, with the enthusiasm of a kid with a new toy.
While they tested their “comms” I scoped out the rest of our detail. It was an impressive bunch. Four Guardians waited in a dark sedan, their identities obscured by tinted glass. In a silver SUV sat four more Guards, all with their fingers in their ears, seemingly talking to themselves. Looked like the comms were up and running. I noticed one of the men was Michael, Crystle’s ex. He smiled at me, but I fixed him with a glare and turned away. He’d broken the heart of my friend, it was the least he deserved.
Taren opened the rear car door. “All set?”
“Definitely,” I said, and slid into the seat.
He slid in next to me and placed his hand on mine.
We proceeded slowly down the hill and through Laurel Canyon. Richard and Taren were busy testing the range of their comms with those in the other cars, frustrated when a turn or a hill would disrupt their reception. It was a delicate balancing act, Taren explained, between traveling too closely and getting boxed in, and being spread apart where all manner of Los Angeles traffic could unwittingly cause problems.
By the time we reached the Valley, they seemed to have most of the kinks worked out. Richard allowed the lead car a generous berth, and though other drivers darted about, our caravan moved in smooth union. But not too much in unison, he explained, lest anyone watching get suspicious. Most likely it would be paparazzi, not Reds, thinking it was a celebrity to be photographed, not a Daemon to target, but either way, the less attention we attracted, the better.
“How was work last night?” I asked as Richard turned onto Ventura.
Taren’s brow creased. “Kind of weird, actually. We found this nest, and... ”
His voice trailed off and I felt my anxiety level rise.
“Who got hurt?” I said.
“No one,” he said quickly. “That wasn’t it. It’s just... It was a group of Monkeys, but they didn’t act like Monkeys.”
Monkey demons evolved from their Earth namesake, but had become exponentially more vicious, with razor sharp teeth that they never hesitated to sink into a human’s flesh. Notoriously brazen, they often struck even when hopelessly outnumbered.
“Why, what did they do?” I asked.
“They ran. Not just the young ones—all of them. We were only able to kill a few before they took to the trees and were out of reach,” he said.
“That is weird,” I said, adding it to the growing list. “What do you think it means?”
“I’m not sure,” he said, “but if it’s a demon doing it, it can’t be good.”
I wasn’t able to question him further because we’d arrived at the restaurant.
“Where’s Kat?” I asked, when I saw the Guardians in the lead car pile out and noticed she wasn’t one of them.
“She’s there already,” Taren said. “We sent her ahead to scout. Once we leave L.A., we’ll be on unfamiliar territory. We’ll need recon patrols to tell us what’s waiting for us.”
“Wow, no stone left
unturned, huh?”
“Not when it comes to your safety,” he said, his tone holding none of the levity mine had.
That Great India Cafe looked the same was comforting, but that it smelled the same was fabulous, and my mouth began watering almost immediately.
It was busier than it usually was at 12:30 on a Saturday, but looking around, I understood why. Most of the patrons, including some on the outdoor patio, were Guardians: chatting, laughing, and eating, all the while pretending not to know or notice me and my group.
Kat sat in the far corner underneath an archway interlaced with silk vines and flowers. She smiled broadly, flashing her perfect teeth, and bounded from her seat on the long banquet to greet me.
“Hey, Em. Happy birthday!”
We hugged and I inhaled deeply the strawberry scent of her shampoo.
“Are you sniffing my hair again?” she asked.
I laughed and pulled away. “I can’t help it. You’re the girl I’ll never be. Besides, if you don’t want people smelling it, you shouldn’t flaunt it like that.”
“I’m pretty sure that sentiment is not in the grrl power handbook,” she said dryly.
“Oh, hush. You’re too pretty to read,” I said with a grin.
It was a running banter we’d developed. Kat, being the gorgeous, she’d-be-a-supermodel-if-she-wasn’t-busy-saving-the-world type, played the frivolous pageant queen and I, being the way-too-serious-tortured-soul type was all about the cause. It was silly, of course. Beautiful as she was, Kat could kick my ass in a second if she were so inclined, and I...well, I was slowly but surely becoming a girl. Not the girliest of girls, but definitely a girl.
As Taren and his parents were greeting Kat, my mother burst through the front door, holding a covered tray in her hands. She looked flustered.
“I’m late,” she said when she saw me, her face falling. “I wanted to get here before you did.”
“It’s OK Mom, we just got here now. You’re not late,” I said.
“I was supposed to be early,” she said, “so you wouldn’t see the cake.”
“Oh,” I said, “well, there’s a cover over it so I still can’t see it.”
The tension in her face softened. “Well, I guess it wasn’t much of a surprise that I’d be bringing one,” she said.
One of the waiters came to take the cake off her hands and Mom pulled me into a tight embrace.
“You look so beautiful, baby,” she said, her voice breaking. “Like a woman.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
I checked for signs that things were about to go south, but her breathing was even, her heartbeat steady. She wasn’t having an episode, just normal mom emotions. I led her over to our table.
“Rachel,” Gretchen said, “I’m so glad you could make it.”
Mom stiffened. “She’s my daughter. Where else would I be?”
Uh oh.
Gretchen’s cheeks colored. “Of course, I just meant...Taren told me you were having trouble getting off work on such short—”
“I worked it out,” Mom said. “I wouldn’t miss my baby’s birthday for the world.”
“Mom, sit next to me,” I said, patting the chair to my right.
I had to nip this in the bud before it went any further. Mom had grown touchy about my closeness with Gretchen. No matter how I tried to reassure her that no one could ever take her place, the tension was palpable when the two were in the same room—which thankfully wasn’t often. My only contact with my mother these past few months was by phone a few times a week, and the twice weekly visits she’d been granted by Annys. Mom knew the deal with the Institute and took it surprisingly well, but she didn’t like being separated from me, and she definitely didn’t like that I was being mentored by a woman slightly older than her. Were it not for me, the two might have bonded over their shared battles with mental illness (Mom’s due to bipolar disorder and Gretchen’s brought on by the demons) but adding me into the equation seemed to super-charge the situation. In truth, the animosity was more on Mom’s side than Gretchen’s. The tension Gretchen felt had more to do with being on the defensive all the time, fearing to say the wrong thing that might set my mother off. I could relate.
Mom gave a tight smile and took the chair beside me. As usual, Kat could be counted on the lighten the mood.
“Rachel, you look stunning. Is that dress new?” she asked.
Mom beamed. It wasn’t that she was only concerned with looks, but she had learned at a young age that looking good was her ticket to people being nice to her, and with a childhood as rough as hers she needed all the kindness she could get.
“Yes, Kat, thanks. It is.” Of course new to Mom meant a thrift store find, but Kat was right, she did look great; red was her color. She turned to me. “I tried to get them to let me take you on a shopping spree, but Annys wouldn’t allow it.”
She and Annys weren’t strangers to conflict, either.
“I tried, too,” Kat said, taking a seat beside my mother. “It was a definite no-go.”
“Well, that would have been great, but believe me, this is plenty. I love seeing you all outside of...outside of work,” I said, realizing that now that I was away from the Institute I had to watch what I said.
A tightness formed in my belly and I quickly scanned the restaurant. Was that guy wearing sunglasses a Red? Or just B-list actor pretending to want anonymity? I forced myself to relax. It was broad daylight and I was surrounded by Guardians. Even if he was a Red, he couldn’t get near me, and besides, he looked kind of like one of the guys from a past season of The Bachelor.
“So,” Richard said, eying his menu, “what’s good here?”
Mom snorted. “Boy did you just open the floodgates.”
She was right, but I couldn’t help it—I loved Indian food and this place was one of my favorites. It wasn’t long before we’d ordered a feast.
Moments later we were diving into appetizer plates filled with samosas, onion bhaji, and aloo tikki.
“So Kat,” Mom said between bites, “I haven’t seen you in weeks. What have you been up to?”
“Work,” she said, piling pumpkin chutney onto a lentil cracker called papadum. “And nothing but. There are so many new students. Between training and patrolling, I’m leading a pretty dull existence.”
It was true. The breach at the Gateway had been a wake-up call for the Institute. They couldn’t manufacture more Keepers—the Marked ones seemed to be born into random families at random times—but they had redoubled their efforts at finding them as well as admitting scores of new Guardians-in-Training. And now, what had been all theory—fighting actual demons—was a reality. It was imperative that the demons not get a foothold, and that meant opening wide the doors of the Institute, however much the Elders might go on about protocol.
“And you, Taren? The same?” Mom asked.
Mom’s tension with Gretchen didn’t extend to her son. She genuinely liked Taren. She saw that he was as protective of me as she was (or tried to be—it’s hard to be protective during a manic episode) and she knew he treated me well. For his part, Taren wasn’t quite as easy around her as Kat was, no doubt out of respect for his own mother, but he was trying. It helped that he had spent the past year since his eighteenth birthday in and out of mental hospitals. He was done with that now. As good as he was at going undercover and finding Marked ones, his skills were more needed on the front line in the fight against the demons. And once Gretchen and I hit the road for our around the world and back again Gateway tour, he’d be traveling with us.
“Yeah, work has been pretty all-consuming. It’s good, though. We need the new recruits and they’re a good lot overall—eager to learn, wanting to make a difference, willing to make sacrifices.”
I lowered my eyes to my plate. I’d seen firsthand the sacrifices the Guards were forced to make. Duty had been drilled into Taren since birth, making it second nature, but hearing him speak that way about such young kids made me cringe. Taren noticed. Had we not been a
t a table with our parents he might have reached across the table and taken my hand, but instead changed the subject.
“Enough about work. We finally have a day off, we should talk about anything but,” he said.
There was an awkward silence while we collectively racked our brains on what to talk about aside from the Institute. Other than my mother, our lives were consumed by it as of late. We were saved when the main course arrived.
Dish after dish was piled on the table, each one heaping with more deliciousness than the last. We spent the meal raving about the food and even once we’d each insisted we didn’t have room for another bite, stuffing in a few more. I was especially enthusiastic—the memory had to last me a while. Who knew when I’d get Saag Aloo next? Probably not until we went to the Gateway that was actually located in India.
As our plates were cleared I excused myself and headed to the restroom. As I waited my turn in the small hallway, Michael approached, pausing at the door to the men’s room.
“Happy birthday,” he said under his breath.
I gave him a tight smile; weren’t we supposed to be strangers?
“So, um, how is Crystle?” he said, just as quietly.
Was he being serious? He’d dumped her; now he was suddenly concerned with her feelings?
“What do you care?” I said, hoping my hushed tone didn’t dilute the heat of my words.
He blushed scarlet, which looked especially out of place on such a big man and hurried into the men’s room. I felt a flash of guilt, but really, what did he expect? He’d broken the heart of one of my closest friends.
I’d just retaken my seat when the cake arrived, candles blazing. The whole restaurant, which mostly included people who knew me even if they weren’t letting on, joined in singing, “Happy Birthday.” Mom had outdone herself with the cake. It was rich dark chocolate with a mocha layer in the middle and the creamiest frosting I’d ever tasted. It was a unanimous hit.
The Gateway Trilogy: Complete Series: (Books 1-3) Page 22
