“What questions?” Lena asked again, but this time, she was asking Molly.
Molly fidgeted with one of her bracelets, finding the feel of it on her fingertips reassuring. “We were told that you knew the old songs,” she explained, surprised by how uncertain her own voice sounded. What was it about this woman that had shaken her so deeply? “Ballads you learned from your teacher about the history of the Echoes. Stories and legends that everyone else has forgotten. We were hoping you could tell them to us. They may have information we need.”
The corners of Lena’s eyes crinkled in an incredulous smile. “None of you have ever wanted to hear my songs,” she laughed, and for a second she truly looked like the young girl Molly had almost mistaken her for. “Why do you want to listen to them now?”
“Something happened,” Molly admitted, feeling as though each word she chose was another step deeper into a minefield she didn’t understand. Lena stood light on the balls of her feet, like a deer with its ears pricked up, on the verge of taking flight. “The Refuge was discovered and attacked. There is a man named Steele . . .”
“I know him,” Lena said flatly, her face suddenly serious.
Molly nodded, not entirely surprised. “He convinced one of the Echoes to turn traitor and bring him into our hiding place,” Molly swallowed. “He killed over twenty Echoes that night and would have killed more of us—all of us—if he could have. Some of us forced him out, and most made it through alive. But our home isn’t a secret anymore. Steele knows where we are, and he’s more powerful than any of us. He has resources, he has the support of all the Legacies who follow him. If we are going to have any hope of surviving him, we need to be stronger. We need to be able to fight.”
Lena’s eyebrows pulled together, her brow furrowing. “You think Malcolm’s old songs will help you do that?”
“Maybe,” Molly answered with a shrug. “Andrew has a plan. There are legends of a goblet that makes the voice of any Echo who drinks from it incredibly powerful. More powerful, even, than Steele. He thinks he knows where the goblet is, now. But it’s supposed to be hidden away. Guarded. He thought there might be something in the old songs about it. Something that would help him know how to get to it. What to expect.”
Lena’s face hardened. Her eyes turned cold, as though a light had been snuffed out inside her. “So, you are here for Andrew?”
“Not just for him,” Molly hurried to explain, as Matt and Thia shot panicked looks at each other. Clearly, mentioning Andrew by name had been a mistake. “For all of us.”
“I heard what you said before,” Lena went on, as though Molly hadn’t spoken. “That I hated Andrew for taking me out of the hospital. But you were wrong. I’m not angry at Andrew for taking me out; my fate was never in that place. The doctors there – some of them were kind, and some of them were vultures. None of them could help me. Andrew wasn’t bad for taking me out. But he took me to be an instrument played by his hand only. I am a student, and I am young. But I am not a pawn. The man who tries to make me into one will come to regret it.” She took a step back toward the darkness, and the shadows slid over her face, obscuring her eyes. “I don’t help Andrew,” she said, her voice ringing with anger. “Not now. Not ever.”
She turned, her braided hair flying over her shoulder, her back to them as she started to walk away.
Molly turned to look at Matt and Thia, who stared helplessly back at her. “Do something!” Matt mouthed silently, gesturing urgently with his hands.
Molly ran after her.
“Lena, wait!” she called. She reached out and, with a feather-light touch, lay a hand on Lena’s shoulder.
Lena’s body went rigid.
She froze in place, her shoulders hunching forward, away from Molly’s fingers. Her head snapped back, and eyes that were suddenly dilated and unfocused stared up into the air. Her mouth opened and shut silently, like a fish twisting in a fisherman’s net.
“What’s wrong with her?” Molly cried, staring at Lena. Frozen in shock.
A strong hand grabbed her shoulder and shoved her aside.
“Alright, which one of you idiots touched her?” a gruff voice demanded. Knocked off balance, Molly stumbled, barely managing to stay on her feet.
“Lena?” the old man said anxiously, moving so that he stood directly in front of her. He didn’t touch her, but crouched with his hands on his knees, so that his face was directly across from hers. “Snap out of it, dammit. Pull back. I’m right here, and I’m telling you not to do this right now.”
His wide forehead was creased with wrinkles. Thick gray eyebrows gathered like clouds above eyes as black as a gathering storm. His face was a study in valleys and ridges, everything rough, hardened, and worn by age. His thin, colorless lips pressed tight with displeasure as he stared into Lena’s face.
“Come on back to me, child,” he whispered. “You don’t have to be alone in the dark.”
Lena blinked. Her fingers uncurled from the tight fists that had formed at her side.
“Malcolm?” she whispered, blinking rapidly, like someone waking from a terrible dream.
“There you go,” the old man grunted approvingly. “Come on back now. Easy does it. You’ll be alright in just a minute. Just breathe.”
Lena gasped and shuddered. Her legs buckled, and she crumpled to the ground.
Matt darted forward, reaching out his arms to support her. Malcolm straightened and shoved Matt away so hard that he fell back several paces.
“What’s the matter with you?” he roared. “Are you as stupid as you look? Do you want to send her right into a seizure? She can’t bear to be touched. Try to lay a hand on her again, and I’ll break every one of your fingers.”
“Sorry,” Matt held his hands up and backed away. “I didn’t know.”
“Course you didn’t,” Malcolm ran a hand through the frizzled gray hair that rose like steam from his scalp. “You haven’t got the sense God gave a goose. If you didn’t have a map, you probably couldn’t find your ass with both hands. Just give the girl some space.”
Molly looked down. Lena was clutching her face with her hands. Her hair fell like a black curtain around her, and her shoulders shook.
Malcolm crouched on the ground in front of her, taking care not to touch her.
“Listen to me, Lena. Listen!” he whispered hoarsely, “Whatever you saw . . . wherever it took you . . . the darkness does not own you. You own it. You ride its waves. You watch, and you listen, and then you pull away and come back into the light. You don’t have to be afraid of it. One day, it’ll answer your call like a hound dog coming to heel.”
Lena looked up at her teacher through the veil of her hair. Her eyes shone. “Maybe,” she shook her head doubtfully. “You keep telling me that. But I’m not there yet.”
“Well then, that’s why you’ve got me.” For the first time, Malcolm’s lips bent into a crooked smile. “You wouldn’t want to make a geezer like me feel useless in his old age, would you?”
Lena gave a watery laugh.
“That’s my girl. Now. You tell me. What are you?”
Lena pushed her hair out of her face.
“Come on now, don’t pretend you don’t know it. What are you?”
Lena sighed. “A fighter,” she answered, with a roll of her eyes. But the words seemed to steady her a little.
“Damn straight,” he murmured, his brow crinkling, and the corners of his mouth lifting in a lopsided grin. “Go on,” he whispered, “say the rest. You know you want to.”
Lena laughed. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she looked back up at her teacher, her eyes were shining. “I’m a badass bitch with an axe to grind,” she recited with a smile.
Her teacher chuckled and slapped his knee. “That’s my girl,” he crowed. “Those bastards will never know what hit ‘em. Right back up again, now.” He motioned impatiently, and Lena nodded and rose to her feet.
“Now, I’ll ask the three of you again,” the old man rotated ar
ound slowly and faced them, glaring at each of them in turn. “Which one of you is the idiot that touched her?”
“I did,” Molly answered. Malcolm had positioned himself between her and Lena, so Molly had to crane her head to the side in order to meet Lena’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for . . . whatever that was . . . to happen. I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay,” Lena shrugged. “I mean, it isn’t the kind of thing that I’ll ever get used to, really. But I know how to get out of it now, at least. And it wasn’t your fault.”
Molly wondered what Lena had been seeing as she stared up at nothing with a look of horror on her face. What was it about her touch that had such an affect and could cause Lena such distress? But she had a feeling the question wouldn’t be welcome.
She also had the feeling that she really might not want to know.
“Who are you?” Malcolm asked her, his eyes narrowing. “And why did you come barging down here in the first place? We’ve made it as clear as we possibly can that we don’t want visitors.”
“I’m Molly, and we really didn’t mean to bother you,” she explained earnestly. “We just wanted information that might help us fight Steele.”
“Oh, yes. Steele.” The old man shook his head. “That little bastard. I imagine that, once again, he’s been making the world an even more miserable place than it already is. Hasn’t he?”
“He killed more than twenty Echoes the night he found the Refuge,” Thia explained, coming to stand at Molly’s shoulder.
Malcolm grimaced. “Aye. No big surprise there. That boy is about as evil as they come.”
“That’s why we’ve got to stop him,” Molly said eagerly. “I’m pretty new to all of this, to be honest. But I saw what Steele is. And I know that people like him don’t stop hurting others unless someone stands up and makes them stop.”
Malcolm snorted derisively. “Standing against something evil is easy,” he said with a dismissive flick of his hand. “Finding what you ought to stand for—that’s hard. That’s where the well-intentioned fools all stumble.” He gazed at Molly intently and then gave a shake of his head. “You don’t look like a fool, though,” he admitted grudgingly.
Molly gave a small smile. “I try very hard not to be.”
“Either way, it don’t make much difference,” Malcolm shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans and rocked back on his heel. “Andrew’s going after the goblet, isn’t he?” he leaned forward and stared at Molly hard. She nodded.
“Ach, I’m too old for this shit.” Malcolm groaned. He turned his head to the side and spat onto the ground. “Listen up.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “I’d no more help Andrew get his meaty fingers on that cup than I’d give a toddler a shotgun and then tell ‘em to run along and go play in the backyard. You are in way over your head.” He lifted his eyes to glare at Matt and Thia. “All of you. And if you don’t know that already, you’ll learn it soon enough. Lena and I’ll have nothing to do with.” He turned his head to gaze at Lena. “You ready to go then?” he asked her.
“Almost,” she whispered, stepping forward, her eyes focused on Molly.
“You have a tattoo of a key on your arm,” Lena observed.
Molly started. Tyler had said something about a key while he was doing his best to kill her. She had been trying very hard not to think about it.
Lena’s eyes unfocused a little.
“The man who holds a key in hand thinks himself powerful,” she said, her voice a little distant. Molly felt a shiver curl around her spine, “he forgets; it is the key that decides if the lock will slide open, or seal shut.” Her eyes snapped back into focus. “Your choices are your own,” she told Molly, a fierce edge of anger in her voice. “And you are the one who must live with the consequences. Choose carefully. Because whether you turn to the right or the left, there will be no turning back. Once you pick your path, you will walk that road for the rest of your days.”
There was a beat of silence. Everyone stared at Lena, except for her teacher. He stood, his hands still shoved in his pockets, and stared down at his workmen’s boots, a solemn expression on his face.
After a minute, he looked up.
“You’ve said your piece?” he asked Lena, who looked over her shoulder at him and nodded. “Then we’re done here.” Together, he and Lena began to walk farther down into the tunnel.
“I’m sure you can find your way out!” he yelled to them as they went, not bothering to look back.
Molly, Thia, and Matt stood and watched them go. Molly felt as though she had just received a powerful sucker punch right to her gut.
“I honestly have no idea what just happened,” Matt said, shaking his head, his eyes wide and fastened on the patch of darkness that seemed to have swallowed Lena and her teacher.
“We got turned down, that’s what,” Thia answered.
“It isn’t just that, though,” Matt protested, holding up his hands. “I mean, I’m not fully human. I’m descended from the Sirens for shit’s sake. I can take people’s free will away from them with just the sound of my voice. And even I thought that was freaky.”
“Lena’s an Echo, right?” Molly asked.
“Yes,” Thia shrugged, “but I have a feeling that isn’t all she is.”
“Well, whatever she is or isn’t, this whole day has totally sucked.” Matt took the flashlight from Thia’s hand and shined it onto the map he was holding, squinting at it resentfully, as though it was making his life difficult on purpose. “And now we have to go back and tell our fearless leader that we couldn’t get him what he wanted. I’m sure that’s going to be a totally enjoyable conversation.” He grimaced. “Come on. I think there may be another way out of here. One that, you know, involves less likelihood of death-by-metro.”
“Well, that’s something, at least.” Molly sighed and turned to follow Matt down the tunnel and deeper into the darkness.
Jake
“Come on,” Jake felt the mattress shift as Molly sat down beside him. She lay a warm hand on his shoulder. “Wake up?”
Jake didn’t open his eyes. He just moved so that he curled around her, and wrapped his arm around her waist. He turned his face away, hoping she wouldn’t see the sweat that covered his brow, or notice how fast and uneven his breathing was.
The dream was still pulsing inside him, more real than the world he was waking to.
He had been so happy in the dream.
The pinch of the needle had been so welcome as it settled into his skin, the scratch to a burning itch that tormented him every waking minute of the day. Then he had felt it: the familiar burn that inched through his body, the way his mind went blank and his muscles unclenched. His head fell back as his breathing slowed. His mind flew free. He was in a place with no pain, no regret, no need to worry about the future. Just miles and miles of blue sky. He could fly here forever. Perfect ecstasy.
Then the dream broke and flew from his fingers like water from a shattered glass. Reality crashed back down on him.
Now he felt like throwing up.
He was still clean. It came back to him in a blinding wave of remembered reality. He blinked back tears, pressing his face against the pillow so Molly wouldn’t see them. He didn’t know if they were tears of relief or unbearable frustration.
He felt so empty. He needed her.
He pressed close against her body, breathing deeply, pulling the smell of her deep inside him, like cleansing incense into a defiled temple. He never had dreams like that when she slept beside him. If only he could be with her all the time, hooked to her, like she was an IV, pumping life-giving sanity into a tainted system that still seemed bent on self-destruction.
He forced himself to sit up, swinging his feet onto the floor and leaning his face into his hands.
“Are you okay?” Molly asked, her voice anxious. Her hand flitted against the wounds on his back. He knew she wanted to check them to see how they were healing, but she was afraid of hurting him.
<
br /> “Yeah,” he muttered into his hands, his voice as rough as gravel, “just sore.” He was glad of the injuries now. They had made it so much easier to hide the truth from her. He rubbed his face roughly to make sure his cheeks were dry, digging his knuckles deep into his eyes, glad when it hurt. He was so fucking sick of himself. He wanted his hands to sprout claws and rip his own flesh from his body, searching way down deep to the core of himself, trying to find something, anything, that was pure.
Something that was worthy of sitting next to Molly, and of having her look at him with so much love in her eyes.
He looked back at her, and it hit him, just like always. She was so, so beautiful. All of her was beautiful, the hair that hung down past her shoulders, the eyes the glittered in the semi-dark of their room. The voice, that fell like dew from her lips, so ensnaring that he felt almost sure he could wake from death itself if she called out to him. And most beautiful was her heart. A heart so generous and forgiving that she could look at him—him—as broken and tarnished as he was, and think that she saw someone worth loving.
Jake loved her for being wrong about him. Loved her for her ability to see something inside of him that no one—least of all himself—had ever seen before. But he never forgot what he really was. He reached over and wrapped his fingers through hers and held on tight.
He was a disease, bound at any moment to infect the world around him. A ticking time bomb, doomed sooner or later to explode in a haze of destruction and pain. How much longer would he get to be close to her like this? How many days, or hours, or even minutes could he possibly have left before she realized her mistake?
Molly thought that her voice had cured his addiction. She thought it was that simple: she could tell him not to feel the need, and the magic living inside her could sweep his sickness away. Jake knew how deeply wrong she was, but he let her believe it.
Magic Cries Page 2
