by Eliza Nolan
* * *
I emerged from the forest on the edge of a swamp.
Aydan sits looking out over the water.
I take a seat next to her.
Her eyes are sad. "I messed things up really bad," she says. "And I need your help to fix it."
"Huh?"
"It's time I tell you everything." She sighs. "I suppose I should start from the beginning. It all started with a man. His was the first life I ever saved. You and I wouldn't be here now, in this mess, if I'd just let him die. But I couldn't, that's not who I am. Even though he was a criminal, I couldn't stand to see anyone hurt, let alone killed. So I saved him, and then I fell in love with him.
"But I was in charge of protecting the secrets of our people, and for that reason, love is a dangerous thing. My love for him gave him power over me. I trusted him too much, and I turned my back." Her face turns red and her jaw tightens. "I try to tell myself that he didn't want to take them, but the temptation was just too much. He took the books, with all our people's magic, all our power, and all our secrets.
"We searched for him for years, decades. When we finally found him, when I found him, he was an old man, drowning in gambling debt and living on the streets. He hardly remembered taking the books, and said he thought he sold them to a book collector in Istanbul. I followed the books to Istanbul where I spent most of my life, and many generations of my people, looking for them."
She squeezes her eyes closed, and a tear escapes. Taking a deep breath, she continues, "So many lovers, so many friends, I watched them all grow up, grow old, and die. Living two-hundred-fifty years felt like a curse at times."
"Hang on, I thought you just said you're two hundred and fifty?" I have to interrupt.
"No. I lived two hundred and fifty years, but that was two hundred and fifty years ago, I'm not alive now. If I were, I wouldn't have to visit you in your dreams, I would just walk up to you during the day, wouldn't I?"
"You were born five hundred years ago? And lived a quarter of a millennium?" I ask.
She nods. "Like I said, sometimes living that long felt like a curse, but it also gave me hope that I might one day find the books. And I came close.
"I followed the trail of the books from collector to collector. Eventually they were purchased by a foreigner who had them translated into English before taking both sets home with him to London. That's where the original books were lost, forever. The book collector's entire collection went up in flames, but not before he'd sold the translated versions to a wealthy trader who was on his way to the new world on a boat which left only moments before I'd made it to the port."
She sighs. "I passed on shortly after, as my time was up. Our people had to go to the new world without me. They've been following the books ever since.
"That I'm back and with you means that someone is using the books. They've set things in motion to create the next Phoenix. I thought it was a good thing at first. I thought our people had found the books. But you saw those men in the woods. They're not our people, which can only mean they're using the books to try to harness the power of the Phoenix.
"This power can create one very strong, magical person, who would live a very long time. In the wrong hands, the power of the Phoenix would allow someone to control, to devastate the earth's population. I've never heard of anything which can check this power. That's why it has been guarded so carefully, why I trained before I went through the rites. The power was made for us."
Chapter Eighteen
The hot sun beat down, and cicadas buzzed all around us. The train was silent. Stopped.
The sheer amount of vegetation bursting out of the earth was like nothing I'd ever seen. On one side of the train, massive, old oak trees lined a small two-lane road, which ran parallel to the tracks. An occasional car sped down the road, but it was more often empty. On the other side of us spread a lush green field, beyond that a mass of green tangle. A forest had been grown up and over with vines.
"Where are we?" I asked, thinking "the tropics" would be a reasonable response. Earlier in the morning we'd shed our jackets and sweatshirts. It was so hot and humid my brain felt like it was melting.
"About forty miles west of Charleston," Samantha answered, looking at her phone. "Maybe it's time to get off. We don't know if the train will even slow down when it goes through Charleston. I don't like the idea of jumping off a moving train. I've heard that if you're going fast enough it will suck you under - Game Over."
That was enough for me. I crammed my sweatshirt into my pack and we jumped off the side near the road.
"How's your shoulder?"
"Almost healed." She showed me the tiny cuts left from the huge gashes the train hacked through her the night before. They were scabbed over, and if it weren't for the dramatic slices in her shirt and the dried blood, nobody would know anything had happened.
"Any news on the dream front?" she asked as we walked down the side of the road.
"Yeah." I grabbed my necklace, its stone black. It looked the same as it did when my father gave it to me several years ago. But now, it meant so much more.
"I think this is connected to some old magic," I said, trying to explain what Aydan had told me. "Aydan said there were some books stolen from her almost five hundred years ago. Books that held the secrets of her people. Which, I guess, are also the secrets of my people."
"Your people? Goths you mean." She jabbed me with her elbow.
"You really are too funny. My mother's people, duh. I think the book Graham and his friend found in Charleston was one of those books. Now they're using this book to try to harness the power of the Phoenix."
"What's that?"
"Aydan said the Phoenix power allows the person to live two hundred and fifty years with some pretty sweet powers." Despite all the strange stuff going on, that couldn't be true, could it? It was all just too much. I shook my head.
"So, superhero Julia will save the day." She threw her hands up in the air and smiled.
I covered my face with my hand and groaned.
The road curved away from the tracks, and we followed it toward a driveway with a small sign posted next to it:
St. Augustine
Sunday services: 10 and 11
All Welcome
I turned down the church drive.
"Where are we going?" Samantha asked.
"To church," I said as I dug in my pocket and pulled out my phone, switching it on. I opened Clara's text with Luke's number. I didn't want to get him involved again. Graham said these guys had already almost sent him to the hospital, but it didn't seem like we had a choice. He knew Charleston, and we needed someone who could point us in the right direction.
I dialed the number. "Luke?"
"Hi, Julia?" a Southern drawl replied. "Clara said you might be calling. Where are you?"
I told him the name of the church. He agreed to come and get us with hardly a word, and we hung up.
St. Augustine was a small, white, wooden church, with a steeple that shot up in the sky higher than a building that size needed. We headed through the empty parking lot and checked the door. Locked. It was probably a good thing no one was around considering our appearance - Samantha with her blue hair and facial piercings and we'd been wearing the same clothes for the past three days. My jeans were dark blue when we started in Minneapolis, but were now closer to matching the black of my t-shirt.
We sat down on the front steps to wait for Luke.
Samantha dug out our last half water bottle and we passed it back and forth, finishing it off way too quickly.
"Where do you think they have Graham?" Samantha asked.
"A bedroom with matching antique furniture," I answered.
She raised her eyebrows. "So, you know where they're holding him?"
"I dreamt about him. They're keeping him locked up. They beat him." I thought about his face, all bruised and swollen, wishing I could dream my way back to him.
"Don't worry. We'll save your loverboy." She pu
t an arm around me. Sitting in the heat made me drowsy. I leaned against Samantha and shut my eyes just for a second.
A loud horn honking jolted me upright. I opened my eyes to see a guy in a red pickup in the parking lot of the church. He sat behind the wheel staring at us from underneath the brow of a dusty baseball cap. The guy looked like any kid we went to school with, almost familiar. He was long limbed and bony, with short, dark hair and a friendly smile. Maybe I'd seen a photo of him in Graham's room or something.
"Hey," Samantha said.
"You Julia?" he asked through his window.
"She's Julia, I'm Samantha." She skipped down the steps and shook hands with the kid in the truck.
"Hop in," he said. "Let's get y'all out of this heat and somewhere you can clean up."
We climbed in. I had to ride in the middle; one of the bonuses of being the smaller one.
"I have some bottled water if y'all are thirsty," Luke said.
"Please," I said. The few sips we'd had back at the church were hardly enough for this heat. I licked my dry, cracked lips anticipating the relief.
He reached behind the seat and grabbed two bottles. Samantha and I each took one. Without a word, I unscrewed the lid and gulped it down, not coming up for air until the entire bottle was empty. I gasped in some air and leaned back.
Now that we were safe in Graham's friend's truck, I started to get drowsy again.
"Thanks for helping us out, Luke," I said.
"Hey, don't mention it," he said. "We have a bit of a drive ahead of us, so feel free to take a nap on the way."
I did feel really tired so I rested my head against Samantha's shoulder and closed my eyes. I drifted off.
Chapter Nineteen
I lay on a bed in a dark room. A sliver of light came in from the crack under a closed door. My limbs were heavy, and my muscles weak. Had someone shot up my brain with Novocain? Functioning on any level seemed impossible.
I pulled my heavy arm up to my neck, searching for my mother's necklace. If ever there was a time I could use some super powers…
The necklace was gone. Crap.
I dragged my legs over the side of the bed and heaved myself up on my feet. Almost immediately, I sat back down. Major head rush. My vision filled with tiny dots threatening to erase what little I could see. I sat, trying to regain my strength. Why was I so tired?
I got up again, slowly this time, using one of the wooden bedposts for support. I half walked and half stumbled over to the windows and peeked out the heavy drapes. Darkness. But I could make out trees a short distance ahead. I peered down, just able to see the ground. I had to be two or three floors up. Where in the world was I, and how the heck had I gotten here?
I tugged the drapes open letting the moonlight pour in. Floral-patterned wallpaper decorated every wall, similar to the worn rug under my feet. The dark wood furniture - bed, dressing table, and dresser - were antique with ornate carvings.
As my mind slowly worked towards some amount of clarity, I realized I was missing something important. Where'd Samantha go? My eyes scanned the room again, but she wasn't here.
I dragged myself to the door and pulled it open a crack. A long, dimly lit hallway stretched outside. Not a soul was out there, so I slunk down the hall, leaning on the wall for support. At the end was a set of stairs descending to a lit room below.
I made it to the top of the stairs before exhaustion overtook me and I slid down the wall to the floor for a rest. Voices drifted up. Peeking through the oak banister, I could see a hallway, at the end of which was a door. The door opened. A man stepped out, but turned to face the room. I shrunk back into the shadows.
"So what, now you believe me? I thought you said you stopped their bloodline years ago, that there was no way she was even born," a male voice said.
"The man we hired brought us proof that her mother was dead. I was sure there was no way. But now that I've seen her, I know he lied," another man answered.
"If it's her, why don't we get rid of her?"
"Because we might need her. If the ceremony doesn't work, there are other ways to get the powers. We just need to make sure we keep her doped up, so she doesn't give us any trouble. Anyway, now that she's here, we can use her to get Graham to do what we want."
Where the crapping hell was I? My heart raced; I wanted to run. But my body was drained. I shook, willing myself up, begging my legs to move. My energy levels depleted, I could barely hold myself in a sitting position.
Another man came to the doorway. Crap! It was Jack. How the heck had I gotten from Luke's truck to here?
He looked up the steps, right at me. "Looks like Luke didn't put enough sedatives in the water," he said as he walked down the hall and up the steps towards me.
"Awe for Christ's sake, Jack! Didn't you guys at least lock the door?" the other man said. "Now what are we gonna do?"
"Relax, she's still out of it. I'll just get her back to her room. We can lock her up until this is over." He reached the top of the stairs and picked me up.
I had no strength left to fight. I tried to shout out but could only get out a low groan. He walked back to the bedroom and dropped me on the bed.
Jack sat down next to me. "When I saw you during my initiation ceremony, I knew you were her, the one the book talked about. And when Luke told me you'd come down here for Graham, I was so excited. I know, it's silly, but I wanted to meet you."
"I'm the one…wha? Luke." I spat and drooled, licking my lips. It was like my mouth was full of marshmallows. Words weren't forming. But what did Luke tell him? He put drugs in our water? But he wasn't part of the group. Clara and Graham trusted him.
Jack chuckled. "After Graham called Luke and asked him to check into what we were doing, Luke confronted us. So we offered him Graham's place in the circle. Turns out Luke felt more than a little left out before and he jumped at the chance to join us. It's been nice having someone on the inside. Someone Graham trusts."
My mind strained. "No one can take Graham's place in the circle." That's what Aydan had said. The group that starts the journey together has to finish it together. That's why they kidnapped Graham. They needed him to finish the ritual.
"Bingo. Give the lady a prize. We tried with Luke, but he isn't one of us. His markings don't change, he doesn't get the headaches. It's Graham we need."
"So now Luke's just your lackey?" I wiped at my mouth.
Jack shrugged. "We keep him around because he's useful."
With that, Jack got up and left. The door slammed and a key turned in the lock.
I gave into the weakness; my mind shut down and my eyes closed.
* * *
The next time I woke, a tray of food sat on a chair just inside the door. I swallowed as the smell of cream soup wafted over. How long had it been since I'd eaten? How long had I been here? I dragged myself over to the chair and sat on the floor in front of the tray.
It was some sort of creamed soup with homemade bread. My mouth watered at the sight of it and I dove in. I was so hungry it didn't occur to me that it might be drugged, not until after I'd devoured the food and downed the water. By then it was too late.
My eyes rolled shut as my head hit the floor.
* * *
Luke picked me up and carried me back to the bed. I looked up at his face. "You're the Kitty Cat guy," I said, but it barely came out. Had he heard me?
I thought I'd recognized him before. He'd been that last one to go through the Beshi initiation; the one Aydan had told me wouldn't work. I'd stood over him as he lay on the ground meowing, mumbling about someone playing a trick on him and …what had he said? They would "kill his family and devour his soul." That's what he said.
"Don't you think you've caused yourself enough trouble for one day, little lady?" he said in his twangy Southern drawl. "Now why don't you just stay put until we can get all this taken care of? Then you can be on your way and we'll be on ours."
My limbs felt like lead again; I couldn't move at all. "Where is G
raham?" I managed to mumble, though it came out more like "wasgrahg?"
"He's fine," he said. "We're just making final preparations for the ascension into the next level. We're holding the ceremony tomorrow night. You should get some sleep now. You'll need your strength." He winked then leaned closer and whispered, "Kitty Cat's tired of playing these games." He fluffed up my pillow, then headed out the door, closing it behind him.
Wait, what did he say?
* * *
The door clicked open and closed. People entered the room. I was so doped up I couldn't even open my eyes, but I could hear them. There were at least two people talking; their words garbled at first. I could tell they were distressed.
"What did you do to her?" a voice said.
Graham.
"It's for her own protection," an older man said.
The bed moved as one of them sat down next to me and grabbed my hand, holding it gently. I tried to squeeze it, but I couldn't move. "If you hurt her, the deal's off," Graham said.
"We won't hurt her as long as you go through with the ascension," the voice said. "We didn't want to take Julia, but you left us no choice. We couldn't take the chance of you leaving without finishing the rites. The oath you took to the Phoenixes was serious. And you need to finish what you started."
They fell silent. A hand brushed through my hair. I wanted to open my eyes. I wanted to jump out of bed, grab Graham and run. I wanted to tell him not to do it, that it wasn't worth it. But I couldn't move. All I could do was lay there.
"It's time to go, Graham," the man said. "You've seen her like we promised. She's alive. Now you must keep up your end of the bargain. We'll have the final rites tomorrow night which you will participate in as you promised."
"I'm doing this for her, not the Phoenixes. If she's not freed or you harm her in any way, I'll come after you," Graham said.
"I know you say that out of anger, Graham, but everything will change for you after the ceremony," the man said. "It's time to go make preparations."
Graham squeezed my hand. The door closed. Their footsteps faded with my consciousness.
