When his glassy eyes found me, he laughed. His lips were so chapped that they bled as they stretched into a smile. “Do my poor eyes deceive me?” His voice was hoarse from neglect. “Has my bride returned?”
“Not yours,” I said through clenched teeth. “Never yours.”
“Never isn’t a word destiny understands,” Allister Leeman said. He tried to stand, but his shaky legs gave out from under him and he fell flat on his ass. I didn’t move an inch.
“Maybe it should buy a dictionary then,” I answered.
“You say that,” he grinned. “But you come to me in a coupling guise. Didn’t your mother ever tell you it isn’t polite to send a man mixed signals?”
Anger spiked in my chest. Before I could stop myself, I had run my heel into Allister Leeman’s gut. He groaned and crumpled into himself. Still, there was sly smile on his face that made me queasy. “Don’t ever speak of my mother, you trash!” I said. I knelt, so that I was inches away from his disgusting face. “You know why I’m here. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”
“I know why you should be here,” he said, straightening back up. His breath was rancid, like bad fish and sour milk. Up close, his eyes looked even more vacant than before. What had they done to him down here? “Where have you gone? Look at you; wrapped up in some promise you didn’t even make, so scared and out of options that you’ve run to me like a hungry child looking for a handout.” His smile vanished; replaced with a disgusted scowl. “What have you let them do to you?”
“I’m not here for an analysis. Just tell me how I-“
“You should be,” he spit out. “You are not a fool. You’re not some weak willed little girl who they can bend to their will. You’re the Bloodmoon. You are the thing that keeps them awake at night. You are what they have studied to combat for two hundred years and are still sorely unprepared for. You are the strongest person in the entire world. And somehow, you’ve let them beat you down, haven’t you?”
I opened my mouth, unsure what I was going to say.
“No need to answer,” he said. “I see the truth in your eyes. You’re broken. You’ve let them strip you of who you are.”
“This isn’t about them, you psychopath. This is about what you can do for me,” I answered. “You promised you could get me out. Now I’m calling you out on it.”
His eyes widened and then slid into merry little slits. He giggled like a schoolgirl. “Is that what I promised? Which one of my little fingers have you been talking to?”
Oh God. He had no idea what I was talking about. Flora sent me here under false pretenses. This was a trap, but to what end?
“Don’t take my word for it, but I’m guessing it might have something to do with him.” Merrin was beside me now, reading my mind in that really infuriating way. She pointed behind me. I turned to find a scruffy looking man standing by the door. No, he wasn’t standing. He was floating. Ezra, the floating amputee who helped blow my house up and whisk my mother away was before me. Last time I saw him was that night in Crestview. I hoped he had died in ruckus, but a part of me always knew better. Evil like the type that exists in Allister Leeman’s cronies doesn’t lay down that easy.
“You…” I muttered.
“Me,” he smiled, bobbing up and down in the air.
“You didn’t think my people were just going to abandon me, did you?” Allister Leeman was on his feet now, as though seeing one of his lunatic followers breathed new life into him. “My brethren are a loyal bunch. They’ve seen the injustice of the Council. Many of them have experienced it firsthand.” A flash of Flora holding her dead brother’s picture ran through my mind. “And they are willing to do whatever is necessary to right the wrongs perpetrated by those tyrants.”
“Including killing me?” I asked, turning from one of them to the other.
“Kill you?” Allister Leeman smiled. “Don’t be ridiculous. You, Cresta Karr, are my muse. You’re the wind that keeps me in the air. My people are your people, and one day very soon, you’ll see that. They’ll make you who you’re supposed to be.”
“Not gonna happen,” I answered. “You tricked me.”
“Sorry about that Bloodmoon. I needed someone who could bypass the security measures and get me down here,” Ezra grinned. “And you’re the one girl in all the world who can do that; not to be exploitive or anything.”
“They’re going to make a break for it,” Merrin said.
“I won’t let you take him,” I said, making myself a literal barricade between Ezra and Allister Leeman.
“You sure you can stop me?” Ezra tilted his head.
“Watch me,” I growled.
“You are fierce. Good thing you won’t have to do it.” Ezra shook his head. “I’m not here to break him out.”
“What?” Allister Leeman and I asked in tandem.
Ezra looked past me. “It seems Isis has had a change of heart.”
“What are you talking about?” Allister Leeman’s eyes were wide and angry. “Isis is under me! I’m the Raven! You tell them that!”
“Yeah,” Ezra sighed. “About that…” A strip of metal pulled itself from the wall as if of its own will. Sitting in the air, it straightened into a point and drove itself through Allister Leeman’s chest. His body went ridged. He grabbed at the metal strip frantically, trying to pull it out. But Ezra was a Mover, and every time Allister Leeman had almost gotten it out, he pushed it back in.
Blood splattered everywhere; across the walls, along the floor, all over my dress. Allister Leeman’s arms went limp. His face got pale and then his eyes went dark. Ezra flicked his finger and the man who killed my mother lifted into the air and then fell directly into my arms.
I crashed under his weight. He was coughing up blood, chocking on it. “I’m the Raven,” he muttered weakly. “I’m the..the Rav…”
For all the times I had pictured Allister Leeman dying, it had never been like this. It had never been so bloody, so gruesome. And I had never been the one holding him as he took his last breaths. The light went out of his eyes, his chest heaved and collapsed, and the raven on his neck flapped its wings frantically and then grew still. I looked down at him; a mess of blood and anguish on the floor. The man who killed my mother was dead and, as much as I thought it might go some other way, I wasn’t the one who did it.
“Such a shame,” Ezra said. He flicked his finger again and the metal piece fell, clanging against the floor. “He used to be such an inspiration.”
“What the hell?” I muttered, still cradling Allister Leeman’s head in my lap.
“The tide turned,” Ezra shrugged. “It happens, Bloodmoon. Still, there’s something to be said for what he accomplished. Sure, in the end, he lost. But he bet on himself, and that demands respect.”
The way he talked about him, with admiration, made what he had just done even worse.
“You killed him,” I said.
“Well yeah, but it was nothing personal. Allister Leeman was a pretender. We know that now. He needed to be cleared so we could make room for the genuine article.”
“He’s not the Raven,” I muttered to myself.
“It really is a bummer, isn’t it?” Ezra made a clicking noise with his tongue. “He was so sure, after all.” Smiling, Ezra started to float closer.
“Cresta, you need to run. Now!” Merrin said, crouched beside me on the floor. “Push the megalomaniac’s corpse off of you, and go.”
I gritted my teeth and stood, placing Allister Leeman gently off to the side. Yes, he was an insane bastard who deserved to die painfully. But he was a person, and no good would come from me treating him like anything less now.
“Cresta, run!” Merrin yelled.
“Not gonna happen,” I muttered. I was tired of running. I had run here, away from my wedding, and this is where it had left me. Besides, I had no idea where I would even go. The door disappeared behind me when the lights went orange. Still, there must have been a way into his cell, or else wouldn’t be levi
tating here in front of me.
Ezra stretched his arm out in front of him, extending his fingers so that his hand was a flat palm. I tensed, half expecting a metal beam to plow through me too. Maybe Ezra was going to kill me too. Maybe whoever that chick he was talking about, Isis, had tasked him with clearing the board of all its major players. I could only imagine what that meant for Owen. But the metal never came. Instead, a light blue flicker danced across his fingertips and disappeared. I felt dizzy for a second, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle.
“There,” he smiled. “It’s done.”
“You got that right, partner,” a low voice from behind growled. I spun. Royce was standing behind me. His hands were in his pockets and there was a playful look on his face. Even now he wasn’t taking things seriously. Or wait; maybe he was part of this too.
“Don’t make me hurt you, little Breaker,” Ezra growled.
“You won’t get that far,” Royce promised, his low voice picking up a little at the end.
Okay, so they’re not on the same team.
Ezra’s finger started to twitch, threatening to move.
“You sure you wanna do that, Big Man?” Royce asked, eyeing the finger. “Better make sure you can beat me to the trigger.”
“I’m not worried,” Ezra answered. “I’ve had a lot of practice.” His eyes slid over to Allister Leeman, lying lifeless on the floor.
“Your funeral,” Royce chuckled. In a flash, Ezra’s finger moved. But before he could do whatever it was his awful mind was plotting, he went stiff. Looking to Royce, I saw that his eyes were glowing bright red. There was a devilish smile on his face as the light pulsated like the blinking 12 on an unset alarm clock. Ezra started coughing, which made Royce laugh almost uncontrollably. “Told ya you wouldn’t clear leather, Boy.”
Ezra threw his hands back and forth, trying to move things. But it was no use. Whatever mojo Royce had cooking up behind his eyeballs seemed to be taking precedent. Then Ezra’s coughing turned to hacking and, just as I thought Ezra was going to choke on his own tongue or something, his eyeballs started building.
“Royce, what are you doing to him?” I choked out.
“What I have to, Sweetheart. He’s not on your side.”
And you are? I thought, watching Ezra drop to the floor across from Allister Leeman. It seemed my old enemies were dropping like flies. Luckily for me, I had a whole new batch to worry about.
“I didn’t kill him,” I told Royce, glancing from Ezra’s body to Allister Leeman’s.
“I know,” Royce said. Looking up at me, I saw that his eyes had evened out, returning to their brown green combo. He flinched, pursed his lips, and asked, “How’d you get here?”
“I just sorta jumped down,” I answered shakily.
“Not you, Sweetheart. I’m talking to the tired looking mess next to you,” he said, pointing. I turned. Merrin was standing there, as she had been since I entered this place. And yes, she was tired looking (Though for Merrin, tired looking was still breathtakingly gorgeous…the bitch). But he couldn’t be talking about her. Merrin was literally trapped inside my mind. He couldn’t see her. Could he?
“Cresta, I don’t feel right,” Merrin said, and I noticed sweat collecting on her forehead.
“You know her?” Royce asked. He could. He could see her.
“She-She’s not here,” I muttered.
“Cresta,” Merrin grabbed her gut and faltered a little. “Cresta,something’s happening.”
This is it. She’s going to die right in front of me too, I thought. I wanted to reach out and touch her, but as I tried, my hand slipped right through her.
“This is a trip,” Royce muttered, staring at us.
“Merrin, what can I do?” I asked, starting to panic.
Her eyes went wide and she wretched, as if hit by another wave of pain. “Cresta, I-Fate’s hand! Cresta, I think I’m waking up!” She started to flicker in and out, disappearing and reappearing before my eyes. “Cresta.” She wretched again, and her face got white and calm. “I’m waking up.” She looked at me; a million emotions rushing across her eyes. “Cresta, they know.”
Merrin vanished completely, and before I could even blink, an alarm; the loudest most piercing right I had ever heard in my life, sounded throughout the Allister Leeman’s cell; throughout the woods; throughout the whole of the Hourglass.
My heart seemed to burst in my chest as I repeated what Merrin said, now that I understood exactly what it meant. “Oh God, they know.”
Chapter 20
Stay Out of the Damn Lake
The noise was deafening. I tried to cover my ears, but even muffling them with my hands did nothing to stop the spear of sound. I fell to my knees, sure that my ears were bleeding. The Council knew that I was the Bloodmoon now, and they were making sure that everyone in the Hourglass was in on the secret.
I thought about Sevie, standing there on that platform in his coupling guise. I had already missed the ceremony. No doubt he was crushed by my refusal to marry him. Now, knowing that I was destined to destroy the world, he probably felt relieved about the whole thing. I thought about Owen. We had tried for so long to keep this secret, to stop this very moment from coming to pass. A few well-intentioned missteps later, and all that effort had been for nothing. What would they do to him now? If I was the Bloodmoon, then he was the Dragon; no doubt about it. They’d likely lock him in some room and start training him for the foretold day when he’d stick a sword through me or something. The thought of that, and of the pain he was likely in, almost hurt more than the noise knocking at my eardrums. Almost.
“Stay still, Sweetheart,” I heard Royce say from somewhere over me. I felt his arms on my shoulders. He pulled me up off my knees. “Open your eyes,” he barked. It was weird; the noise was the by far the loudest thing I had ever heard, but I still had no trouble listening to Royce. It was like the noise was inside of me. “Open your eyes!” He repeated.
Slowly (cause it hurt like hell) I pried my eyelids apart. “I…”
“Don’t try to talk,” he said. “Just look at me.” Royce was not a bad looking guy. I mean, he was no Owen. But with auburn hair, a strong chin, and dimple that indented his right cheek (I wonder what happened to the other one), it definitely wasn’t hard to follow his instructions. “Stay still,” he said, as I wriggled. “Just keep looking at me.”
So I did, and as I looked at him, the noise started to decrease. The longer I looked, the quieter things got. By the time the nose went away completely, I had studied every line, bump, and curve on Royce’s face. And I was happy to do it. I would have stared at him for eternity if it kept the pain away.
“What happened?” I said once I was able to talk.
“The first thing was an A class alarm, letting everyone know that something is very wrong. The second thing-and I can’t be sure about this, because I couldn’t hear it- was probably the Council’s attempt to neutralize you.”
“And you stopped them?” I asked, steadying myself. “Why?”
“I’ve always had a thing for unavailable girls.” He looked me up and down again. “You don’t get more unavailable than the Bloodmoon on her wedding day.”
“You know who I am?” I asked, which was probably the stupidest thing I could have said at the moment, because Royce replied, “Sweetheart, everyone knows who you are now.”
My heart started to race. What was I going to do? I was trapped in the Hourglass, everyone knew who and what I was, and Owen-my only real ally in this whole place, was probably, at this moment, surrounded by people who wanted me dead. I was, as the kids say these days, epically screwed.
“We need to get moving,” Royce said, in a tone that was as close to serious as he seemed to get.
“We?” I asked, instinctively stepping away. Was he going to turn me in? There was probably a lot of glory in bringing in the Bloodmoon. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“You wanna reconsider that, Darlin’?” He asked. Then, digging around i
n his pocket, he pulled out a faded old picture. He threw it at me like it was on fire. Catching it, the image took my breath away. It was my mom and my dad…and my mom and my dad. Both sets of parents; the one I grew up with and the one that actually gave me life, were smiling, circled around a boy. And that boy was standing in front of me.
“You knew my parents?” I asked, looking from the picture to Royce.
“Still know half of ‘em,” he said. “Your momma sent me to get you, to bring you to her. And I always do what your momma tells me. Trust me, otherwise I’d never set foot in this awful place.”
He knew my mother. He knows my mother. I felt like I was gonna laugh, or cry; maybe both. What my mother told me when my locket opened; that she was going to save me, it was true. It was happening right now. But wait. How could I be sure that Royce was telling the truth? Was a picture enough? No, not in a place like this.
“This could be shade. You could be trying to trick me so that you could deliver me to the Council yourself.”
He scoffed. “The only thing I wanna deliver to the Council is a death blow. As for that picture, I’ve had it since I came here. Looking at it is the only thing that’s kept me from losing my mind down here.” Royce nodded in the picture’s direction. “But look at the damn thing if that’s what it’ll take. Really look at it. You’re the freaking Bloodmoon. If there’s shade there, you’ll see it.” His jaw set. “But do it quick. My guess is that the Council is pinpointing your location as we speak. So, the quicker we get the hell out of here, the safer we’ll be.”
I looked down at the photo, trying hard to look deep enough to see if it was the genuine article. “Screw it,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s not like I’ve got much of a choice anyway, do I?”
“Smart girl,” Royce grinned. Kneeling down, he pulled the shoes off of Allister Leeman’s corpse and began putting them on himself.
“You’re stealing from the dead?” I asked, appalled.
“He ain’t gonna use ‘em,” Royce said, lacing them up. “Besides, I need shoes, and I sure as hell ain’t gonna find them on that son of a bitch.” He motioned toward Ezra’s lifeless (and legless) body. “Now let’s get the hell outta dodge. Whatcha say?” He stood, grabbed my hand and pulled me forward. I jerked it away.
The Breaker's Promise (YA Urban Fantasy) (Fixed Points Book 2) Page 22
