Inquest

by Gladden, DelSheree

  My chin quivers. I will defend my dad to the end because I loved him more than anything in this world, but regardless of my arguments I know what I felt that night. The terror in my dream was so overwhelming. The people were so filled with it all they could do was scream at me, but they knew something more. They knew there would be tremendous suffering if I didn’t wake up and stop my dad.

  “He couldn’t have known what he was doing was going to hurt me,” I say quietly. I have to believe that. If my faith in my dad is taken away from me…I just can’t handle that. He was all I had for so long. “He didn’t know.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t,” Milo says, almost like he believes it.

  “But what was he doing?” I ask. I’m not really expecting a response, but Milo surprises me completely by pulling me off the bed with him. He tosses me my lavender hoodie and tugs his suit coat back on. I hold the hoodie in front of me without moving.

  Milo turns back to me, and says, “Well, put it on. It’s snowing outside.”

  It seems to be a re-emergence of that bossy commanding Milo I met after Celia and I were attacked at the mall. I didn’t like being told what to do then, and I don’t like it much now. “Are we going somewhere? It’s the middle of the night.”

  Taking the sweatshirt out of my hands Milo drapes it over my head and pulls it down until my curls bounce through the top, followed by the rest of my face. I push my arms through the sleeves with growing irritation. “Milo, I’m not going anywhere in the snow. It’s too late.”

  “He won’t care,” Milo says. “He said we could visit at any time as long as it had something to do with you being the Destroyer.”

  “He who? Mr. Walters? Milo, you can’t be serious. I do not want to go to Mr. Walters’ house tonight.” I don’t want to go anywhere right now, but I especially don’t want to spend the rest of my night sitting around at one of my teachers’ houses.

  “Can you think of anyone else who might know what your dad was doing?” he asks.

  “Well, no, but why can’t we talk to him tomorrow?” I ask. I’ll admit that Milo is probably right about Mr. Walters being able to help me. That scares me to death. I’m not sure I want to know what really happened. What if Milo is right? What if my dad was trying to hurt me? I don’t want to admit that to Milo, though, so I dig up another reason. “I’m tired, Milo. Why don’t we go see him in the morning? We should be going to bed, not traipsing off to Mr. Walters’ house.”

  Milo’s hands slow in their work of pulling my hair out from my hoodie. “We should be going to bed?” The glint in his eyes is horrible.

  I just glare at him. “Why can’t we do this tomorrow?”

  “Because he’s leaving tomorrow morning, remember? His sister’s in the hospital. That’s why you don’t have to go to his class all next week.”

  It’s been a long week. By Friday, I don’t know that I caught much of anything any of my teachers said to me. Faking my way through every class, getting to know Celia, training with Milo, dreading going to the dance, it was a lot to deal with. Paying attention to lectures kind of fell by the wayside at some point. I vaguely remember hearing Mr. Walters say something about his sister. Waiting until tomorrow to ask him would have been fine by me—I need at least that long to prepare myself for the worst—but waiting a whole week? I can’t do it. Not if he really has some kind of answer for me. Five years. That is long enough.

  “You could have said that from the start,” I snap, irritated that I have to give in to him taking over again. “Fine, let’s go.”

  Milo and I hurry out to his car, and we’re driving down the interstate a few minutes later. I try looking out the window to distract myself from the possibility that I might actually find some answers. It’s thrilling and terrifying all in the same breath. I try closing my eyes but the images of the screaming spirits burst into my mind at once. Finally I scoot to the very edge of my seat and lean toward Milo. His arm comes around my shoulder automatically. Everything slows. The car keeps racing along the highway at ridiculous speeds, but I feel like I can finally take a breath. Whatever Mr. Walters tells us, I don’t have to hear it alone.

  That single piece of knowledge carries me up to his house when we arrive.

  Milo rings the bell and we wait. The upstairs light is the first to flick on. Then the hallway. The porch light buzzes to life a moment before the door pulls open. Mr. Walters’ snowy white hair is doing a wonderful impression of Einstein at the moment. His eyes blink rapidly before fastening onto me.

  “Libby? What time is it?” he asks.

  “It’s a little after eleven o’clock,” I say. “Sorry to wake you, but we really need to talk to you before you leave.”

  Mr. Walters nods blearily, his gaze slowly sliding over to Milo. His face scrunches as he peers at the young man in front of him. “Who are…” His eyes widen. “Milo? Good gracious, boy, what did you do to yourself? I barely recognized you in proper clothes.”

  I don’t even bother to stifle my laughter. Milo takes it with his customary shrug.

  “Could we talk to you about something?” Milo asks.

  “Does it have to do with the Destroyer?” he asks. Milo nods. “Then yes. Come in, please.”

  We troop inside his retro style (and I don’t mean the good kind of retro) bungalow. The “grandma used to live here” theme is carried into the living room with patchwork throw pillows and quaint pictures of cottages. To be honest, I expected something a little more…intimidating from a former Seeker. Milo looks like he’s thinking the same thing.

  “Sit down, sit down. I’ve got to catch a flight in the morning, so let’s not waste any time. Why are you here?” Mr. Walters asks.

  “How much do you know about my dad’s death?” I ask.

  Mr. Walters’ head tilts to one side. “As much as anyone, I suppose. There weren’t very many details released to the public.”

  I take a deep breath. “I want to tell you the rest of the story.”

  Curiosity strong enough to kill a dozen cats piques in Mr. Walters’ eyes.

  “I want to tell you what really happened,” I say shakily. I knew this was coming. It is the price for getting the key to unlock my guilt. So with as much detail as I can remember, I tell Mr. Walters everything. I don’t leave out anything, not the way my dad had been clutching my hand, not the look of terror in his eyes when he first realized I was awake. He listens to what I have to say with an eager expression. When I finish he leans back in his chair and presses the tips of his fingers together.

  “So you want to know what your father was doing to you that night,” he says slowly.

  The tone of his voice, his confident posture, they all give me hope.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t have an answer for you, Libby.”

  My shoulders fall.

  “But that doesn’t mean there is no answer. We’ll just have to find it,” he says. “What other talents did your father possess besides Perception?”

  “Vision and Concealment,” I say quickly, latching onto this slim chance of finding an answer with all the strength my spent mind and body can manage.

  Mr. Walters nods. “The three hallmarks of a very powerful Inquisitor. Now I believe you’ve mentioned previously that your father knew you were Cassia before he died. When did he find out?”

  “About a year before his death,” I say. “A few months before my tenth birthday he started testing me, to be sure. I didn’t realize what he was doing at first because the tests were little things like him purposely throwing a ball farther than I should have been able to reach, timing me when he called me, seeing how I reacted to his emotional changes, things like that. I knew by then that I shouldn’t react in any way that would give me away, but I didn’t fool him. His Concealment probably clued him in to what I was doing. It was impossible to lie to him.”

  “But even just suspecting something was up wouldn’t be enough to make him say anything, right?” Milo says. “That’s a pretty big thing to lay on a ten year old if you a
ren’t absolutely certain.”

  “Indeed.” Mr. Walters rubs a hand up and down his neck as he thinks. “Was it his Vision that finally convinced him?”

  “I think so. We were sitting on the couch one day watching TV and I leaned my head on his shoulder. His whole body went rigid. I was about to call for my mom when he grabbed my arm hard enough to leave bruises. He shook his head over and over again until it passed.” Milo glances at my arm as if expecting to find those long ago injuries. My dad had held me so tight. Remembering the fear in his eyes makes me shiver. He never did tell me what he saw, but part of me wonders if he had seen his death and knew I was the cause.

  Mr. Walters is the only one who seems unfazed by my experience. It’s just another clue to him. “Given how powerful your father was, and how connected the two of you were, it doesn’t surprise me in the least that he would discover who you were. I think it’s safe to say that whatever he was trying to accomplish that night was related to your being the Destroyer.”

  My mind tries to veer away from that line of logic given Milo’s skepticism of my dad’s intentions, and my old recollection of the intense pain and fear I felt that night. But if anything would drive my dad to drastic measures, it would be my dark future. He had to be trying to help me, though. He wouldn’t have tried to hurt me. He wasn’t Lance.

  “But what could he have possibly been trying to accomplish other than killing her?” Milo asks. His half-apologetic frown to me stings. If he knew my dad he wouldn’t be so cynical. Dead Guardians, secrets, danger from who knows what, parents who pretend he doesn’t exist, maybe his doubt doesn’t have to do with my dad, but with his own history instead.

  I force my mind off Milo’s past and back to my own when I realize Mr. Walters is speaking.

  “…no way to know for sure. The talent I think we should focus on is Spiritualism. I believe we’ll have the best chance of uncovering the truth by looking into this talent.”

  “But,” I interrupt, “my dad didn’t even have Spiritualism.”

  “Yes, I know, but you do,” he says. “I never met your father, Libby, but I have heard from many people who did know him that he was a very kind and compassionate person. It seems likely to me that he was trying to help you in some way, but despite the power behind the talents he had, the lack of certain other talents could have caused him to make a very bad judgment about his course of action.”

  I feel like we’ve been here forever. So much has happened today, and it’s all starting to catch up with me. It’s getting harder to concentrate by the second. I’m not sure what he’s trying to say to me. Forget tact. “What are you talking about?”

  “You were warned, were you not? By spirits who were able to contact you because of your Spiritualism.”

  “Spirits?” I ask. “It was just a dream, wasn’t it?”

  “You said yourself it wasn’t a normal dream, that it felt too real. That is exactly how people usually describe their first trip to the spirit world. You weren’t having a nightmare. I’m confident you were pulled into the spirit world in order to be warned,” Mr. Walters explains.

  “Oh,” I say, feeling incredibly stupid for never having realized that myself. I’ve only ever dabbled in the side of Spiritualism that dealt with pushing people in the direction I want. I’ve never even tried going to the spirit world on my own. I didn’t see the point.

  Mr. Walters gives me one of his long-suffering looks and continues. “For whatever reason, they knew what you father was doing was wrong and tried to prevent it from happening. If your father had had the same talent, I believe they would have warned him as well,” Mr. Walters says.

  “So what are you suggesting?” I ask.

  He blinks at me as if it should have been perfectly obvious by now. I stare at him blankly. He sighs, giving me the impression that his opinion of my mental capability has just dropped dramatically. If I weren’t too tired, I would set him right. Instead I simply wait for him to explain. He does so with exaggerated patience.

  “I am suggesting that we go back to the only beings that seem to have any idea about what happened that night. You need to make contact with the spirits who warned you five years ago and ask them what they know. It couldn’t be simpler.”

  “Simple?” I say. “Spiritualism is my weakest talent. I don’t think I could contact a single spirit, let alone find the exact ones that warned me to wake up.”

  His brow crinkles. The displeasure is clear on his face. “Who is your Spiritualism teacher? Mrs. Sanchez, right? Go to her Monday and…”

  “No. She won’t help me. She won’t even answer my questions in class. Like all my teachers, she just pretends I don’t exist. You’re the only one crazy enough to want to help the Destroyer gain power,” I say.

  “It’s not crazy to try and help someone reach their potential,” he argues.

  “It is when they’re going to destroy the world!”

  “But you’re not going to destroy the world, are you? Unless your plans have changed.”

  I wonder if I could blame strangling him on exhaustion and get away with it. “I’m not going to destroy anything, and you know it.”

  “Libby, I told you the first day we met that if you expected to survive the next two years, and hopefully longer, that you were going to have to embrace who you are. Since you did not take me up on my original offer, I expect you to follow through with your decision. Dedicate yourself to all of your talents, not just the ones you think are the most useful. If you hadn’t been shirking your duty to develop your Spiritualism, contacting those spirits and getting the answers you need would be a very simple task.”

  I feel like sticking my tongue out at him. Maybe I’ll just settle for spitting in his coffee when he isn’t looking. He’s such a smug, irritating, bizarre, know-it-all, bossy…

  “What offer?” Milo asks, interrupting my internal tirade.

  Oh no. I groan and close my eyes.

  “What was that, Milo?” Mr. Walters asks over his shoulder from where he’s standing at a rather large bookcase.

  “What offer from you did Libby turn down?”

  “Oh, that,” he says with a shrug. “I offered to kill her.”

  The air bristles around Milo. “You what?”

  “I gave her a choice. Die or become the Destroyer. She needed to realize that those were the only two options available to her,” he says. The casual, unconcerned quality of his voice is so frustrating. But he’s not done yet. “I believe Libby made the right choice. There is more to being the Destroyer than mayhem and destruction.”

  “Like what?” I ask. Anything to get us off the topic of one of my teachers offering to murder me.

  Mr. Walters gives me a dry look. “That lecture is for another day. We have more important things to discuss right now.” He sets a stack of books related to Spiritualism on the coffee table and returns to his chair. He’s about to speak when Milo interrupts him.

  “There’s something you’re holding back. What aren’t you telling us?”

  For the first time in possibly ever, Mr. Walters looks completely caught off guard. “Excuse me?”

  “Maybe you don’t know exactly what Libby’s dad was doing, but you have an idea, don’t you?” Milo accuses. “Something Libby said tipped you off. You moved on too quickly. You never leave an unanswered question that fast. What are you keeping from us?”

  Milo sounds so sure. And Mr. Walters is squirming. I can’t believe it, but Milo’s right. I don’t know how he saw it, but he’s right. “Mr. Walters?” I ask.

  “I’m not certain,” he says slowly, crossing his arms across his chest, “but I think…I think your father was trying to steal your talents.”

  Chapter 20

  Betrayal

  The truth of Mr. Walters’ words slap against me like an endless tide of betrayal. I want desperately to deny what he said. There is nothing left for me to defend. The proof is in my own memories. After waking up, I felt as if I was being drained. Of everything. I was so weak
I could barely move. I felt disconnected from the world in a way I had never experienced before. The world around me felt plain and ordinary.

  I grew up with my talents from birth. Plain and ordinary were completely foreign to me. It was beyond terrifying. I can’t imagine living my life feeling so singular, as if I were one tiny rock in a vast forest instead of part of something immense and unending. Given the choice of casting off my future to be free of my destiny and living such a barren existence, I don’t know that I could choose something so bleak.

  “I’ve never heard of someone stealing another person’s talents,” Milo says. His voice sounds far away and thin. I’m too wrapped up in my own emotional turmoil to be present in their discussion. I can only listen through a haze.

  “It is called a Serqet, and it’s not openly discussed. I have only heard of it myself through some less than legal inquiries. I have never heard of it being performed successfully. In every case both people involved died,” Mr. Walters says.

  “Doesn’t that mean it’s impossible, then? If no one can do it…”

  “No one has been able to do it, yet. That’s hardly the same as something being impossible.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “There has yet to be someone powerful enough to accomplish stealing a talent. If someone powerful enough were found, they could do it,” he says. “Apparently Libby’s father thought himself able to do it, or I doubt he would have even considered it.”

  “Or he didn’t know how difficult it was,” Milo offers.

  “Or how dangerous. I still believe that Mr. Sparks would not intentionally harm Libby.”

  “Maybe,” Milo mutters.

  “The thing that bothers me the most is where he got the idea from in the first place. He shouldn’t have even known about the process in the first place.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the technique was developed by the Concealers. They can find the root of the talents and, if strong enough, use their ability to reveal things to actually pull them out and transfer them to themselves. Only a person gifted with Concealment can employ the Serqet. And even though Andrew had Concealment, he was in training to be an Inquisitor. He never would have been considered for a position in the Veil.”