“What the—?”
My eyes flew open and I felt my hand bruise as it clenched around the sharp edges of the stone I’d forgotten I was holding.
“Why did you have me do that?” I said. “Why would you want anyone to do that?”
“It’s OK, Ember, just breathe.” Cole laid a hand on my knee.
“Answer my question,” I said.
“What is the universe made up of?” he asked.
“Which one?” I said sarcastically.
“Take your pick.”
“I don’t know,” I said, answering only because I wanted him to get to the point and I was at his mercy. “Atoms, molecules…stuff.”
“No,” he said, “not stuff. Energy. Most of the universe—yours and mine—is made up of dark matter.”
That rang a bell. “OK, so?”
“You feel most comfortable when you are drifting in your golden sphere, right?”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “Who wouldn’t?”
“Then let me ask you this, if the universe is made up of mostly dark matter, but you only want to be in the light, how do you ever plan on tapping your full potential?”
His words confused me. “I used to be in the dark all of the time,” I said. “It didn’t work out so well for me.”
I thought back to the night I tried to end my life and stifled a shudder.
“I know it didn’t,” he said gently. “But there is a vast difference between dwelling totally in darkness and not being able to touch it at all.”
“Why would I want to touch it?” I said. But even as I did, I was reminded of a conversation with Gretchen that seemed like years ago. She was trying to get me to be honest about my feelings, to open up to how terrified I was after the kidnapping attempt on my birthday.
“Because it is the center of a wheel that is the most powerful,” Cole said. “When you were drowning in darkness, it was most important to get you to embrace the light. But not to the exclusion of everything else. If you’d had longer with him, I’m sure your Master would have said the same.”
He might have. Cole was certainly sounding like Master Dogan. If Master Dogan had been a drill sergeant.
“So what’s the rock for?” I said, hoping that at least that answer would be one I could grasp.
“You remember what you felt? When you touched the darkness?”
“Yeah,” I said, my flesh pebbling even in the heat.
“Good. Put it in the rock.”
“Put it in the… Huh?”
“Metaphorically,” he said, exasperated. “Take what was most frightening about what you felt and imagine it being absorbed by the rock.”
I deflated. This was like what that shrink had me do with writing down things I didn’t like about myself and my life and then burning the pieces of paper. This is what a powerful Daemon had to teach me?
I rolled my eyes and made a half-hearted attempt.
“OK,” I said, “all of the badness is inside the rock. What now—chuck it?”
“No,” he said and pulled a small red pouch from his pocket. “Put it in here.”
I unwound a long cord from around the pouch and tucked the rock inside. Cole took it from me, and, to my surprise, made a loop out of the cord and placed it around my neck.
“I don’t understand,” I said, my hand closing around the soft pouch.
“You can’t,” he said. “Not yet. But there will be a time when what is in that pouch will have something very important to teach you. And when it does, you’ll be less afraid because you’ll have been getting acquainted with it.
“I don’t think I want to get acquainted with it,” I said.
“I know,” he said, flashing me a very rare smile. “Ain’t life a bitch?”
8
Cole was right, because if life at the Oasis wasn’t a bitch, I didn’t know what was.
Teaching me how to become a better Daemon seemed to chiefly involve exhaustion. Not just the mental exhaustion and lack-of-sleep exhaustion I’d grown accustomed to at the Institute, but complete physical exhaustion, as well.
At dawn, Cole led me through exercises to increase my ability to embrace and hold the power of the Chasm. Then came breakfast, which consisted of a soupy porridge with a handful of dried fruit and nuts, followed by more practice. Then came combat training.
At first I’d wondered why Daemons would bother learning weapons when they were a weapon. Why use a bow when you could levitate the arrow to the target? But I’d learned that different people had different levels of skill, and being strong in telepathy might make a person weaker in levitation. Not to mention that using Daemon power to defeat a squadron of demons might bring twice as many down upon you. Besides, Cole had insisted I learn, saying that his people didn’t have the luxury of choosing who fought and who didn’t. He seemed perplexed and a little disgusted at the Institute’s way of separating Keepers and Guardians. Explaining about the Marks hadn’t helped. In any case, whatever kept the enemy farther away was fine with me, so I’d gone to my first lesson hopeful.
“OK,” Helena had said that day, after she’d set me up with the smallest bow available. “Now exhale and release.”
I’d done as instructed, the arrow springing awkwardly from the bow, clattering to the ground only three feet in front of me.
“It’s OK,” she’d said cheerfully. “We’ll work on it.”
And we did, for hours. Long enough that my fingers became too cramped to draw back the arrow. I finally plopped to the ground in frustration and exhaustion.
“I don’t think this is my weapon,” I said.
That was a theory of Taren’s. I’d heard him tell a group of Guardians-in-training that while they would learn proficiency in multiple weapons, there would be one that they gravitated toward. One that was perfectly suited to their body type and their natural instincts when it came to battle.
Helena looked at me expectantly.
“Sorry—what did you say?”
“I said you’re probably right. Cole says everyone has one that’s perfect for them.”
“Of course he does,” I muttered.
It took much less time to realize I was useless with a sword, and daggers—the weapon Taren made look so easy—took much more dexterity than I seemed to have.
Even Helena grew impatient.
“Come on,” she said, “there has to be something you’re good at doing with your hands.”
I shrugged. “I can draw. That’s pretty much it.”
The pen might be mightier than the sword, but not in this case.
“What about when you were younger?” Cole said, stepping out from a patch of shade.
I hadn’t noticed him lurking.
“I drew then, too,” I said, feeling irritable.
“What about when you used to march in formation with other children, throwing a silver stick in the air?” he asked.
I flushed. Damn him—had he missed nothing when he’d had access to my mind? He’d seen my memories of twirling baton in parades during second and third grade. Oh, how my mother had loved making my costumes and doing my hair in pigtails before each event.
“It’s called a baton,” I said, “and it’s not a weapon.”
“Show me,” he said, tossing me a stick.
It was gnarled, and the weight was too light, but I could work with it.
“It’s been a while...” I said.
My movements were awkward at first, but once I realized that no one here knew how embarrassing it was to have been a twirler, I began to relax, and the more I’d relaxed, the easier the baton flowed between my fingertips. Unlike daggers which made me sure I would cut myself or miss my target completely and hurt an innocent, the stick was harmless and flowed through my fingers like water.
I’d garnered an audience, so I went for a tricky move—tossing the baton in the air, spinning, and attempting to catch it behind my back. The stick clattered to the ground.
“Like I said, it’s been a while.”
&
nbsp; “Very impressive,” Cole said.
And though his tone didn’t sound teasing, I’d replied, “So I’m supposed to twirl a Dahrak to death?”
“In a manner of speaking,” he’d said, tossing me a thick quarterstaff.
I’d recognized the weapon from the training grounds at the Institute. Kat had used the time she’d beaten Tom.
A quarterstaff was longer and thicker than a baton, but the principals of movement were similar, and after a several exhausting days of practice, it seemed clear that I’d found my weapon.
I’d also found an aching back and an inability to lift my arms. Each night it was an effort to raise my spoon to my mouth for dinner.
The demon world was harsh—with not enough food and danger lurking around every corner—but there were also moments of beauty, like watching the delight that Grae brought to everyone. Even Cole smiled when Grae would run his soft hand along Cole’s stubble and giggle at a joke only a baby would understand. And there was the half-hour before what passed for sunset in this land, when the temperature was perfect and I could pretend I was watching the sun set on a smoggy night in the Valley.
On one of those nights—the forty-ninth, to be exact—I sat in quiet contemplation of the sky. Cole came to sit beside me.
“You’re frustrated,” he said.
Instinctively I checked my shield, but it was still in place. “What makes you say that?” I asked.
“You’ve got this thing you do with your brow,” he said. “And your hits were particularly hard in combat training.”
I was proud I’d been able to hit Cole at all. For weeks all I’d been able to do was strike the air where he’d been a second earlier.
“Still no word from Gretchen,” I said, drawing circles in the dirt with a twig. Why doesn’t she answer?
“It seems like more than that,” he said. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I looked sidelong at him. Did I want to talk about it? Cole’s and my relationship at best was teacher-student, and, more often, insubordinate-to-commanding officer—now he wanted a heart-to-heart?
He must have read my expression, because he said, “I’m not always a jerk. It’s just that the less approachable I am, the less anyone tries to approach me. And I need that right now, because…because I have nothing to tell them. Nothing good, anyway.”
I found myself shocked and a little touched by his vulnerability.
“That hopeless, huh?” I tried not to let my fear seep through my shield or my expression. I had to get home. I had to. “What about the plan you had before you knew about me?” I said. Cole looked up in surprise, so I added, “I’ve heard people talking about a plan. They said it wouldn’t work now, but why not?”
Cole shook his head and said, “It just wouldn’t.”
A battle of wills would never work with someone as stubborn as Cole, so instead of insisting on an answer, I softened my voice even more. “I’ve seen the way you live—what you have to do to survive. Whatever it is, I’m not going to judge you.”
“No,” he said, looking me in the eye. “You of all people wouldn’t.”
His words settled and I understood. Understood what the plan had been, and that he really did know me from the inside out.
“You, your people... You were going to commit suicide. All of you.”
Cole nodded, but remained silent.
“But now you can’t, because of Grae. Even if you can stomach killing yourself, you couldn’t possibly think about taking his life.”
“I thought about it,” Cole said, his shoulders hunched. “It would have been a mercy, but I just couldn’t...”
I reached out, placing my hand on his shoulder. “Of course you couldn’t. What a terrible choice to have to make.”
“When Grae was born alive, we all knew it couldn’t last. There hadn’t been a child among us for so long. But day after day, he grew stronger. And Sadah produced milk. Not the tainted liquid the rest of the mothers produced, but real milk. I know it makes me a monster. I know it does. But there was a part of me that hoped...”
Cole bowed his head. Tears streaked down my own cheeks at the thought of hoping a child would die because it would be a kinder fate. I wanted so desperately to comfort him, to unburden him of the guilt he was holding.
I wrapped an arm around his shoulder and leaned in close.
“You have nothing to feel guilty about, Cole. You live an impossible existence. That you have kept it together, not only surviving but creating all of this, is extraordinary. Anyone would have had the same thoughts. Anyone.”
He reached for my hand, gently unwrapping it from his shoulder. His hands were calloused and rough—as hard as the life he’d lived. His touch was gentle, though, as he held my hand in his for a moment. My heart pounded in my chest. I hadn’t meant to lead him on.
“I know,” he said, and I realized that in my shock at Cole’s revelation, I’d let my shield slip. “I know where your heart lies.”
“I’m sorry, Cole, I wasn’t—”
“Forget about it,” he said, rising to his feet. “Get some sleep.”
He walked away, leaving me feeling very alone and very awkward.
9
Taren
“How was a human able to open the Gateway?” I asked, pacing Master Dogan’s office. Kat was also there, along with my mom and dad. “Are you sure he wasn’t Daemon? Not even a little bit?”
The question was directed at my mother, who weathered it as patiently as she had the first few times I’d asked it.
“I wish I could say for sure,” she said, hating to disappoint me. “I’d worked with Antonio—after the breach when the asked me to stand in for injured Keepers—and I felt nothing. No resonance, like I do with Ember. I can’t say for sure that means he wasn’t a Daemon, but without proper testing, it’s all I have to go on.”
I could tell she empathized with the man, but I didn’t. I believed in protecting the innocent, but he was far from that. He’d been weak; that was all there was to it.
“Where was his Mark?” I asked.
“I’m sorry, honey. I never asked,” she said.
“I need to see the body,” I said. “He was a Keeper—if he doesn’t have a Mark, we’ll know he was Daemon.”
“The Italian Institute wouldn’t keep something like that...” Master Dogan’s words trailed off when he realized how hypocritical they were. It wasn’t like the L.A. Institute had shared my mother’s lineage. Not until she opened the Gateway and they had to. And Ember had been kept secret even from our own Council of Elders.
“I need to see the body,” I said again.
“Taren.” Master Dogan, who’d been quiet for some time, now spoke. “I understand you feel betrayed, but in some ways, this is actually good news.”
“Good news? What are you talking about?”
“The Elders have been scrambling to come up with how a demon—even a Root—could break through without aid from at the very least a Keeper on this side of the Gateway. While betrayal is inexcusable, it’s favorable to the alternative by a wide margin.”
I’d heard the whispers. If demons could open a locked Gate by themselves, there would be almost nothing we could do to stop them. What Master Dogan said made sense, but I still had to know: had the Italian Institute been lying all along?
Turned out, seeing the body was easier said than done. My request was vehemently denied, which only fueled my suspicions.
I was still angry with Kat, but the enemy of my enemy was my friend, so when she offered to help get us into where they were holding the body, I agreed. The burial was set for the next morning—I didn’t have time to stand on principle.
We waited until after midnight, then made our way to a cellar near the edge of the small village that housed the Institute. Unlike in Los Angeles, many people—not just students—actually lived on the property. It might have had something to do with the how little had changed in this part of Italy in the past two thousand years.
A Guar
dian stood watch in front of the building which only fanned the flames of my suspicion. There were still hundreds of Snakes wriggling around the Italian countryside, and the Elders thought it necessary to guard a dead man?
“You’re up,” I told Kat, folding my arms and leaning back against a building so that I was out of the Guard’s line of sight.
Kat didn’t reply, just stepped into the moonlight and sauntered over to the man, whose bored expression brightened when he saw her.
Her phasers were set to stun, and she’d clearly hit her target by the way his eyes roved over her body in the tight black jumpsuit she wore. I counted myself lucky to have known her so long I was immune to her charms—they were deadly.
Her tinkling laughter—which was completely done for effect—drifted over to where I stood.
Cue the hair toss, I thought.
As if on cue, she swept her hair over one shoulder. She claimed that baring her neck sent the unconscious signal that she wanted it kissed. Her body was turned in what she called an “open stance,” meant to be inviting, and when she brushed invisible lint from his shoulder, it was to establish physical rapport. She had attraction down not only to a science, but to a weapon of mass destruction. On behalf of my gender, I was glad she was gay.
I chuckled and turned away, leaning back against the building as I awaited the inevitable.
A moment later, a thud told me it was safe to round the corner.
Kat stood over the Guard, who lay unconscious on the ground.
“Pinch of death?” I asked, as Kat tossed me the keys she’d pilfered from the poor guy.
“Let’s not be dramatic,” she said. “More like pinch of wake-up-in-twenty-minutes-and-not-know-what-happened. Come on, we only have nineteen minutes left.”
Once inside, we each clicked on our mini flashlights, casting small pools of light into the small, cobweb-filled room. What had once been used for food and wine storage now seemed to house mostly junk. And the corpse of a man who’d helped open the Gateway to the demon world so that Ember could leave me.
Kat must have noticed the contempt on my face, because she said, “Easy there, you can’t kill him—he’s already dead.”
The Gateway Trilogy: Complete Series: (Books 1-3) Page 42
