The power inside me, however, lay dormant. It was as if it sensed the newcomer was not a danger to me.
Stacy, seeing that I wasn’t looking at her any more, turned to follow my eyes. “Who are you?” she asked the strange woman.
Stopping an arm’s length away, the woman took a heavy breath and extended her hand toward me; this time holding it out in greeting.
“Hello, I’m Darcy Anderson. I’ve been looking for you.”
* * *
“Hey, kid.”
I turned and saw the leader of the bikers looking at me. He jerked his head toward the highway.
“You hear that?”
It took me a moment, but then I detected the faint sound of police sirens wailing in the distance.
Darcy said, “I’m not sure about you, but I would rather not have to explain what happened here to the cops.”
Shooting a quick glance at Stacy, who looked more confused than I felt, I said, “We should take off.”
Without further prompting, Stacy turned and headed back to the motel room, presumably to get our stuff.
The biker and his gang came up. He gestured to one of his guys, who went around to the driver’s side of the SUV and checked for the keys; they were still in the ignition. The man reached in and pulled them out.
Jangling them, he tossed them to the leader, who said, “We’ll hold on to these for a while. You’d better make yourself scarce, kid. Don’t worry about the pigs; we know how to handle them.”
I nodded and reached my hand out to shake his. “Thank you.”
He returned the handshake, glancing at Darcy. “Not at all.”
By then, Stacy had returned with our jackets and her purse. The three of us headed to my mother’s car and we all piled in; Darcy threw her pack in the back seat and crawled in after it.
I steered the car onto the highway and punched the gas.
In my rearview mirror, I saw—miles behind me—several cop cars pull into the motel parking lot.
It was only after I had gone past a long curve in the road and put the motel far behind me that I let out my breath.
Chapter Nineteen
We were heading south, and everyone kept silent for several minutes until Darcy asked, “So where are we going?”
I didn’t have time to reply. Stacy turned in her seat to face our new passenger.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” she said, “but can someone explain what the hell is going on? Who are you? What happened back there? Why did Al and his thugs run?”
I said, “Actually, I wouldn’t mind hearing the answers to those questions, either.”
I flicked my eyes up to the rearview mirror. Darcy was framed in the reflection, and though she smiled at Stacy, I could tell it was a mask of politeness for our benefit. She was hiding some kind of darkness or pain. I couldn’t tell what it was exactly, but it was familiar.
I caught my own reflection, and it suddenly came to me that we shared something deep and profound. That bond was more than just a common loss, or feelings of guilt or anger. There was something much deeper inside.
A thought fluttered across my mind: She had lit Nick’s sleeve on fire … from a distance, I suddenly realized. Tom’s gun hadn’t glowed like a hot poker of its own accord. Al’s gun didn’t spontaneously explode. The hood of the SUV hadn’t been hot because of a running engine.
Darcy had supernatural powers; maybe not the same as mine, but she had them all the same.
There were forces at play here that were not natural. A quick shudder traveled up my spine even as I felt my stomach sink. I tried to reconcile the truth of it.
A part of me had wanted to think I was imagining things, that it was my mind playing tricks on me to cope with the extraordinary events of the morning. I knew now, deep down, that there was a dark and terrible power inside me. That power had created the tornado that ripped through my house. It had changed the direction of the bullet that killed my mother.
Darcy caught my eyes in the mirror and said, “You felt it before I showed up here. It was like a static shock or a needle in your guts.”
“I felt something,” I said, not wanting to admit more than that.
She took a deep breath. “I assume we have a bit of a trip ahead of us?”
I nodded.
“Then I’ll go first.”
As if searching for the best place to start, she sat back in her seat and looked down at her hands.
“You and I have the same affliction,” she said, and I could feel the torment in her words as she spoke them. “For years, I thought it was something like a curse, a punishment for the sins of my past. It was only a few weeks ago that I found out it was much worse than that.”
She closed her eyes as she began her story. “I got married too young, and it went sour within the first few months. Eventually, it turned violent. We got into a fight; he beat me so bad I thought I was going to die. Something happened then that I couldn’t explain. Something inside me rose up and set fire to the house.”
I gulped as I listened. Her story sounded familiar to me.
She continued in a small voice. “Fire. I don’t know how, but in defending myself, I set my house on fire. I fell unconscious as soon as it happened. My parents were upstairs. The firefighters got me out, but they were too late to save them. I lost so much that night…”
Sharing a look with Stacy, I said, “I’m so sorry.”
Darcy shook her head. “I blamed myself for years. Everyone blamed me. But a few weeks ago, I learned a different story.”
A little too sharply, I asked, “How?”
“A friend. A dear friend,” she said. “Someone who was…” Several moments passed before she finished. “…like us.”
“Was?” I asked, and then bit my tongue when I saw the pain in her expression.
She said, “Neil didn’t know exactly what we were, but he had lived with this thing since he was a boy. I had learned to suppress it over the years, but he taught me how to control it—at least, to some degree.”
“Control what?” I asked, pressing. “What is it?”
Before Darcy could reply, Stacy interrupted. She was visibly upset. “Now everyone hold on a minute. I don’t know about you, but I’m having a hard time with this.”
So wrapped up trying to comprehend what was happening to me, I hadn’t fully been aware that every time the power had manifested, Stacy had either not been there, or had not seen it. Tom had knocked her out before I had summoned the tornado. And earlier, she had fallen to the ground when Al’s gun exploded, and hadn’t seen what Darcy had done to him and his men.
I felt frustrated that she hadn’t fully believed me all along. At the same time, I was flattered that, even though she thought I was out of my mind, she had stuck with me and had been so supportive.
Looking at me pointedly, Stacy said, “You’ve been going on and on about some kind of super power. I’ve tried to be understanding. You’ve gone through a lot. I get that. But let’s face reality, here. There’s no such thing as magic.”
“It’s not magic,” Darcy said matter-of-factly.
“What?” Stacy asked.
Reaching her hand between us, palm facing up, Darcy answered, “It’s elemental.”
And with that, a ball of fire coalesced, the flames flickering and dancing from her skin, which remained white and unmarred by the blistering heat.
Stacy jumped back, hitting her head on the window, and let out a shriek of surprise.
Darcy chuckled softly and closed her fingers, snuffing the flame. “Sorry.”
“What the hell was that?” Stacy asked, her eyes wide.
“My great-grandmother called it ‘angel fire’. I can summon fire, and control it. Neil could control water.” She looked at me. “What is your power?”
I spoke without having to think about it, and as the words came out, I knew them for truth. “Wind.” I remembered the tornado. “I can’t control it, though. It just happens.”
Darcy nodded. “Contro
l will come in time. Perhaps I can help with that.”
Spreading her hands out in a stopping motion, Stacy, her voice becoming panicked, said, “You said it was an affliction. What, are you guys, like, infected or something?”
“No,” I said right away.
At the same time, Darcy said, “Yes; sort of.” She looked at me, then back to Stacy. “What makes you ask that?”
“I don’t know.” Stacy shrugged. “It just would make sense, wouldn’t it? I mean, if any of this made sense, that is.” She tilted her head. “A few days ago, Rich had to wear glasses. Today, he can see things I would need binoculars for. Something changed in him.”
I looked at her sharply, and she said, “I guess I believe you now.”
Darcy gave me a look I couldn’t interpret.
“What?” I asked.
“Your vision got better?”
I nodded. “I’ve had cataracts since I was a kid. It was getting worse. Once this thing happened to me, my sight cleared up.” I glanced back at her through the rearview mirror. “What?”
“It’s probably nothing. Neil also had some kind of secondary ability. He called it a heightened intuition. It was like some kind of gut instinct or something. He knew things, like if someone was going to bluff at cards; that kind of thing.”
“Do you have any other abilities, besides being able to control fire?”
“No. Not that I know of.” She thought about it a moment. “Neil did say that I could both create and control fire.” Looking up at me, she asked, “You can’t create air, can you?”
“Not that I can tell.” Then I asked, “Do you think this is something like a virus? Only, instead of making us sick, it makes us … extra-human?”
“Virus? I don’t know.” Darcy paused in thought. “My great-grandmother thought it was a family curse. If it’s a virus instead, maybe it’s genetic.”
I twisted around, and almost lost control of the wheel. “Your great-grandmother? That’s the second time you’ve mentioned her.”
“Yeah. I found an old journal of hers. She also had this affliction, and kept it hidden all her life. She was worried that one of her children would be cursed by a … a fallen angel … because our bloodline was tainted from thousands of years ago when these angels mixed with humans.” Darcy let out a hollow laugh. “I’m not sure I believe that, but I do think this power is passed down from generation to generation. Neil had never been close with any of his relatives, so he didn’t know if it was true for him.”
“Fallen angel?” I asked. “Is that some kind of demon?” The thought was disturbing, and though I had come a long way in what I could accept, I wasn’t sure I had gone far enough to believe I could be possessed by a supernatural being.
Dismissing that line of thought, I frowned, playing back the scene from David’s office with his father. I remembered the anticipation on David’s face when Terrence Matheson died, as if he were expecting something to happen to him. He was waiting for something to be passed from father to son.
But nothing had happened to him. Instead, it had happened to me.
The thought was so wild that my mind spun. It made no sense. I wasn’t related to the Mathesons in any way. My father had split before I was born. I knew his name and knew where he was living—though we had never met. I put the thought away for later consideration.
“You keep saying ‘was’. What happened to Neil?” Stacy asked. “You two were together, weren’t you?”
Darcy made a choking sound. “He was shot and killed a week ago.”
Her words hit home. My mother! I fought to keep the memories from welling up.
Her words caught in her throat. “They buried him a few days ago.”
“I’m so sorry,” Stacy said.
Darcy forced a smile. “He left me with a mission: to find others like ourselves and figure out why we have these powers.” She patted my shoulder. “That led me to you.”
“Led you to me? How?”
“I heard a story on the radio about a tornado ripping through Seattle, and thought it was strange enough to check it out. I hitched my way here.
“Halfway between Tacoma and Seattle I felt a weird tingle run through my stomach; it got stronger whenever I turned in this direction. It was kind of like a compass, or one of those radar blips. I paid the driver twenty bucks to head this way.” She laughed. “It obviously wasn’t enough for him to stick around.”
I stared back at her through the rearview mirror, and then glanced at Stacy. “I felt something odd when Stace and I were in our room eating.”
Darcy took a deep breath and smiled without humor. “Neil told me something like this was what led him to find me.”
“Maybe the things inside us are connected somehow, and can sense when others are near,” I said.
She nodded. “Now it’s your turn. How long have you been like this?”
I didn’t want to tell the story. It was too fresh and painful. Stacy put her hand on my arm gently, and when I looked at her, she nodded. Her eyes told me that everything would be all right, and it gave me enough courage to recall everything that had happened over the past two days.
When I was done, I looked at Darcy expectantly. There was a part of me that felt she would think I was making it all up, or I was deluded—despite everything she had done and said.
Darcy said, “I think we need to talk to this David Matheson person. He seems to know something we don’t.”
Somehow, hearing it from someone else erased the doubt in my mind. David had not set things up this morning to wrest power of the company from his father; he had set it up to inherit the elemental power from him. Their conversation made sense to me now.
The only thing I couldn’t figure out—and what had obviously shocked David—was that I had somehow inherited the power rather than him.
Could Darcy be wrong about it being passed down through bloodlines? Maybe it had to do with proximity when the possessor died? I kept thinking about the rosary Terence had ripped off his neck. What did that have to do with all this?
“I sure could use a few answers,” I said.
Stacy shook her head and set her jaw. “Not until we get my brother back.”
Nodding, Darcy said, “Of course. I’d be happy to help.” She looked back and forth between us. “So what’s the plan?”
Chapter Twenty
I didn’t have a plan, but in light of our attempted abduction, Stacy said she thought our best bet was to head for Vancouver that night.
“Won’t the game shop be closed?” I asked.
“We’ll have to hang out somewhere until morning.” Stacy pulled her cell phone out of her purse. “You were right, I guess. I shouldn’t have used this. Chuck would never have tried to contact us this way.” She pulled the battery out, rolled down the window, and tossed both into the ditch. “At least it didn’t have GPS on it,” she added.
Then she reached inside my jacket pocket and pulled out the prepaid phone Chuck had given me. “This number would be on my brother’s call list. Best to be safe.”
I shrugged. “Get rid of it.”
Stacy pulled the battery and threw it out.
She rolled up the window and asked, “So is there an on and off switch to these powers? How does it work?”
Darcy considered her answer. “Emotions are the trigger. Before I could learn to control the power, I needed to learn to control my emotions. If I get angry or scared for my life, something inside kicks in to protect me; unfortunately, it goes off more like a nuclear bomb than a carefully aimed rifle shot. It’s been extremely difficult to keep my emotions in check recently.”
She spoke the last sentence in a small voice, but the underlying pain came across loud and clear. She had mentioned her boyfriend, Neil, had been shot earlier in the week. I could only imagine what kind of effort it took for Darcy to contain her rage over that.
I knew I had been teetering on the edge since my mother died from the bullet I had deflected, and I knew that if I hadn’t had
Stacy to keep me centered, I might succumb to my own grief and anger. But for me, those feelings would be directed entirely at myself. It was my fault that she was dead. I knew it was something that I would have to face, but the pain was still far too fresh for me.
“I’m sorry,” Stacy said in a soft tone. “If you don’t want to talk about what happened…”
Darcy put on a brave face. “Thank you, but I can’t let myself think about it too much.”
I knew exactly what she meant.
After a moment, I asked, “Is it easy to learn? The control? Can you show me how right now?” I glanced at Stacy, who looked as if she were going to object. “We’re going to have plenty of time before the game store is open, and I’m not tired anymore. Maybe we can pull over somewhere?”
I was genuinely curious about this new power of mine, and since Stacy had never witnessed it herself, I was a little eager to prove to her that I wasn’t making it all up.
With a glance at Darcy, who gave a slight nod, Stacy said. “All right. But let’s put more distance between us and Seattle first.”
* * *
We stopped at the Toutle River Rest Area halfway between Olympia and Vancouver. Even this late at night, the area was busy, and as I pulled into a parking stall, I gave Stacy a questioning glance.
“I’ve been here before,” Stacy said. “There’s a walking path leading off into the forest to the west. Unless we go completely off the highway on a side road, we won’t find anywhere more secluded. I don’t want to get caught on some farmer’s field and get shot at.”
In the trunk of my mother’s car, I found the emergency kit she had always kept, and pulled out a flashlight. I tested it, and it worked.
The night air was cool, and Stacy and I threw our jackets on.
I said to Darcy, “I have a blanket in here.”
She shook her head. “The cold is good. I’m not used to it, but it’s keeping me awake and alert.”
Together, the three of us made our way to the path Stacy had mentioned, and headed into the forest. After what seemed like an hour, we came to a small man-made clearing. There was a bench carved out of a tree stump, and a picnic table bathed in moonlight. A metal garbage can was chained to a table leg.
Angel's Breath: The Second Book of Fallen Angels Page 12
