Jess noticed Bianca nod in the gloom. “Now we’re about to do the same with Earth,” she said. “You’re a force of nature, Jess, and I know in my heart you’ll be fine. I’m actually not worried. Believe that? I know I’m asking questions and talking like I am but I think that’s because it’s what I feel like I’m supposed to do. Play the concerned friend. You know. But I have confidence in you.
“It’s just ... wow. Even though we’ve been caught up in this it still hits me just how much things have changed.”
Jess gave a weak smile, realizing Bianca probably couldn’t see it in the dark. “It hits me too.”
Bianca snorted. “I mean, just think of all the school we’ve missed. We’re probably going to have to repeat the year. Summer school for sure.”
Jess chuckled. Good old B. “I don't think any more school is in our future. Maybe if we pull this off, one day they’ll give us an honorary high school diploma or something.”
“Eff that,” said B. “They better give us a P H D.”
Jess laughed and it felt good. It was true. Talk about a real-world practical assignment. If they hadn’t earned an honorary doctorate by now then no one had.
She started them walking again, covering ground slowly, making further distance on civilization. Her mind wandered with the pace, skipping from topic to topic, problem to problem, and as the silence stretched and one thought in particular came to mind she said audibly: “Nani is so amazing.”
The other two agreed.
“She’s already working up what I need. Setting a custom Icon with coordinates.” Icon was probably no longer the best name for the transit devices, but the word was ingrained by then. Everyone knew what they were, everyone used that word. “She’s got topographical info on the entire Earth so she can set non-interference filters to make sure I end up close to the ground and not in it.” She took another deep, cleansing breath, filling her lungs with the crisp, rain-wet night air. “She thinks that’s what skewed the coordinates on the first Icon, the one that connects here. The filters compensated for an obstacle at some point, or got reset or something. It’s incredible how much she understands. She’s so brilliant.”
Bianca agreed wholeheartedly. “I think I’m in love with her brain,” she said. Then, wistfully: “I may be sapiosexual.”
“Sapiosexual?” Jess got the root words but she’d never heard them combined like that before.
“I saw it somewhere. Someone who finds intelligence sexually attractive.”
Jess had to admit Nani was sexy smart.
By then they were walking parallel, a few feet apart. Jess looked left and right at both girls, catching sight of the sparkling reflection of red on the bracelet Egg wore. Mike’s bracelet, the one he’d given Jess over that wonderful birthday dinner in Vegas. Which she had, in turn, given to Egg. Such simpler times. Jess was happy Egg loved it so much. Egg always wore it, so far as Jess had seen, and as its shiny silver and ruby surfaces caught the light, a beacon against the dark that twinkled in the starlight, it made her think of Mike and, in turn, Zac and, of course, the other secret she was keeping.
“Guys,” she said, then wondered if she really wanted to do this now. For an instant she thought to say something else—she had to say something now that she’d spoken—but this was something she wanted to tell them, badly, and now seemed as good a time as any.
She decided to forge on.
“There’s something I need to tell you.” Again she stopped walking. Bianca and Egg took a few more steps and turned, looking at her in the gloom. She could see their faces well enough, but it was an eerie sort of setting; like looking at ghosts, or people who were half there. Maybe that made it easier.
“I’m pregnant,” she said into the silent pause.
The pause stretched, their expressions unchanging. Jess was sure something changed. Maybe their eyes widened, or their jaws went slack—she just couldn’t see it. To her it looked like they simply stood there staring at her, same as they had been. Of course, maybe that’s all they were doing. Maybe their reaction was to freeze in place. It was a bombshell and she was—
“Is it Zac’s?” Bianca asked.
Not exactly the first question Jess expected. “Of course it’s Zac’s!” Come on. What kind of—
“How am I supposed to know!” her friend defended. “I don’t know where you’ve been or what you’ve been doing all this time.”
Fair enough. There were a lot of missing gaps.
Still.
And suddenly Bianca was proud. “So you and Zac finally did it!” Of course she was proud. Her voice had an edge of Go Jess! in it. This was Bianca and she was Jess and, no matter anything else that had changed, Jess was still her hopeful project. Doing it with Zac was a huge score. B knew nothing yet of the farm, so for her this revelation was monumental. Even if a baby threw a curve into the equation. “When?” She wanted to know. She came closer, close enough to see clearly and Jess could see her eyes were wide. Tentatively she reached to touch Jessica’s tummy.
Jess looked down; stuck it out a little. Totally flat. “Nothing is showing. I’m just a few days along. It’ll be a while before I’ve got a baby bump.”
“A few days?” Bianca withdrew her hand. “So how do you know?” Egg had come closer too.
“The doctor told me.” That and ... she kind of just knew. Best not to say any more in that direction. Jess wasn’t even sure how that was true, only that it was, and trying to explain her impossible intuition would lead nowhere fast. Explaining any of what had happened would, at the moment, be a losing proposition.
She moved on, emotions welling unexpectedly as she bit them back. “I’m going to be a teen mom,” she did a good job of keeping her voice level. “On top of everything else I’ll be a teen mom.”
Bianca dismissed it with a wave of her hand. “This isn’t Kansas anymore. This is a whole new world, Jess, a new existence. Those morals, that reality ... they’re a thing of the past.” She seemed to be looking for a cue as to what to do next. Hug her friend and be happy? Be supportive? Console her?
But Jessica’s dilemma was more than that. “How can I do this?” It was a question with no answer. “How can I bring anyone into this?” She was glad for the darkness. “A baby? How?”
And she was crying. Having thought she’d contained the sob, having thought her guard was up and this was merely an analytical disclosure to her friends—so they would know, nothing more—and suddenly the whole thing was washing madly over her like a flood. Suddenly, out of nowhere, she was standing alone in the dark, facing such a vast unknown, trembling under the stars in the middle of a wide-open field, so far from home—so far from ever going home—staring helplessly at her two best friends through blurry, watering eyes, and right then she needed someone to hold her more than anything in the world.
Bianca grabbed her first, followed immediately by Egg, their arms circling her tight. Jess pulled her own arms from the middle to hug them back as she sniffed away the tears.
“You’re so strong,” Egg stroked her hair, speaking softly in a tone of marvel. It wasn’t just an idle statement to boost a friend’s confidence. In Egg’s eyes Jess was a powerhouse, nearly infallible, and that conviction was strong in her voice. “You’re the strongest, most amazing person I know.” She believed it. Truly.
Jess sniffled loudly.
Right then she felt very weak.
And very small.
CHAPTER 15: A SUMMONS TO WAR
Life in the castle wasn’t terrible. Galfar was getting used to the enforced hospitality of the Brotherhood of the Fist, though the fact that he was, at the heart of it, imprisoned, made it feel as if he was enduring rather than appreciating his time.
His staff clacked hollowly on the stone steps as he made his way carefully down to the Great Hall.
A few times he and Haz debated making a run for it. When Jessica made it to the city and the majestic Erius returned riderless across the vast plain, coming to them full of vigor and a sense of th
e momentous, the impulse had been strong. But they hadn’t. In the end they chose to go with the Fist, Galfar wanting to be on hand for the coming of these final days. As well he wanted to challenge Cheops with the selfless nature of what he and Haz had done, the choice they made in favor of the Prophecy and what it meant for the future and, in turn, to remind the great Cheops, leader of the Fist, how he himself had failed to act.
That went better, and worse, than expected.
For his part Haz was afraid they would be killed or, far more terrible a prospect in his mind, locked away and left to rot. Neither happened. Cheops was furious, no doubt, for now the herald was lost, gone into the city—the Necrops, where he and his Fist dared not go without going to war—and so the Prophecy was suddenly completely out of his hands, but he remained civil. Still, it ground at him. He no longer held control over how things would unfold. The girl was in the wild, the Prophecy was quite clearly at hand … anything was possible.
The Fist chieftain cared little for the stolen armor and sword, that much became certain. The sword had been for the longest time, in his mind, scarcely more than decoration for an underused, undervisited room. He knew nothing of its value. What he did value were the implications of Jessica’s arrival and, now, her escape. Galfar had to admit Jessica had turned out to be far more even than the ancient priestess predicted. She was a force for change and Galfar had no doubt she would usher in the remainder of the Prophecy.
In the end all that mattered was that she was on her way and what would be would be. After all was said and done Galfar and Haz had not been punished. They had, instead, been denied the right to leave, made to stay in the castle and wait and, since that moment, had been biding their days. Until what transpired had never been made clear, and by now Galfar had come to expect it would be quite some time before anything changed in that wise. Though this did not trouble him overmuch, he was getting old and he’d always imagined spending his final days in the village where he’d spent his life. With the people he knew, secure in their admiration of his wisdom, his role in historic events; cracking the little jokes he always cracked, making them laugh. Spending time with the old lady who owned the feed stand.
He’d begun to contemplate action.
“Father,” Haz called, off to the side as Galfar reached the last step and walked more steadily out onto the wide stone floor. He found his son, sitting with a girl—always with a girl—guitar in hand, probably having been regaling her with song or stories of his supposed exploits.
Yes, thought Galfar, Haz is not minding this imprisonment as much as he claims.
Quickly Haz said goodbye to the girl, who fluttered her eyelashes and giggled at his departure, stood and came over to his father, guitar in hand.
“A messenger came,” he said as he walked up. Haz was getting tall, Galfar noticed—as if he were somehow more grown this morning than when he saw him last night. Galfar seemed to notice a change in his son each time he looked at him these days, Haz turning quickly into a young man.
That or I’m getting more stooped. Galfar smiled to himself.
“From where?” he put both hands on his staff and pulled himself a little straighter. They were far from any town. The castle wasn’t on any major crossroads. What business would a messenger have there?
“From Arclyss.”
Arclyss? The word rang in Galfar’s mind. The Despoiler. And as Haz’s words impinged on his lax, early morning walk, snapping him fully to the present, he noticed what he hadn’t yet processed.
The castle was busy.
Warriors walking more briskly than usual for that hour, with more purpose, most of it funneling to a commotion across the Great Hall near the entrance to the throne room.
He turned and made for it, Haz in tow. If a messenger had truly come from the Necrops this was unprecedented.
He must speak to Cheops at once.
At the entrance to the throne room he was jostled by the big, moving bodies, but with Haz’s help found his way across the activity to the leader of the Fist, who sat in his throne speaking with an advisor. Cheops noticed him, finished with the advisor, sent him off and turned to Galfar.
“Well, Watcher,” he growled. “Now we have been visited by one of the fiends from the Scourge. Are you satisfied with the chain of events you’ve set in motion?”
“A messenger came?”
Cheops harumphed.
“Everything that happens has been foreseen,” said Galfar. “You know this. The herald has come. No matter how we prefer things to be, the Prophecy is unfolding. We must do what we will.”
Cheops grumbled, eyes flitting to the activity all around.
Galfar looked around too, then back. “For what do we prepare?” There was much too much intensity among the Fist.
“We prepare for war.”
“War? What was the message?”
“It came from the Despoiler himself. He demands audience, with me.”
“Demands?”
Cheops snorted. “The fact remains, he wishes to meet me on the open field. An audience, he calls it. I call it a summons.”
“I do not think he means to go to war,” said Galfar. “I suspect he has news. Remember, these things that transpire affect him too. The whole world is subject of the Prophecy. Arclyss will know this.”
Galfar could tell Cheops just wanted him to be quiet.
“It matters not,” the big, red-haired war chief spoke gruffly. “This does not bode well.”
Galfar wondered if Jessica would come with Arclyss. Surely she’d found him, and undoubtedly this meeting to which the Fist were being called had everything to do with her. What had she been up to inside the bowels of the Necrops? Had she found the Codes?
Was the future truly at hand?
**
“Here’s the harness,” Nani brought a unit over from the jumble of items on the work tables; technology, machines and devices of all kinds, things she’d been working on or developing in her lab there in Osaka. The thing she handed Jessica was like a small, flat backpack, a compact armored shell with sturdy mounts. Jess took it.
“It’s light,” she said, hefting it and examining the shell. Inside that hard case was, presumably, the transfer device.
“This it?” she tapped it.
Nani nodded. “Ultra-tough armor plating. Should be able to survive anything you can.” She pinched her lips a little at her own choice of words, but Jess paid them no mind. They all knew she was leaping back into danger. No need pretending they didn’t.
She turned the shell gently in her hands. This was Nani’s own variation of the Icon and its original configuration, which included a harness that could be worn. This particular unit was keyed to two locations on Earth, at Jessica’s request, no record of Anitra that would cause problems if it fell into Kel hands. When she strapped it on the first activation would take her to the Bok hideout in Spain, the farm and the place she intended to begin her search. The second activation would take her home. To the gate.
She’d chosen to start at the Bok farm as her recollections continued to coalesce, strengthening her conviction, and she was hoping information there would point her in the right direction. She recalled the binders in the vault.
Further, she’d become convinced the Bok would, in fact, divert the Kel as long as they could. The Codes were probably still safe. Though working directly with the Kel as the new leaders of Earth, surely in exchange for what they knew, the Bok, and especially Lorenzo, were far too sly, far too selfish to give up secrets early. Eventually, yes; all would be for sale. However Lorenzo would milk the Kel relationship for all it was worth, stringing them along with promises, doling out one clever bit of information after the other and saving the best for last. Jess was sure of it. Just as she was sure Lorenzo had what she sought. Long ago she, Jessica, acting then as the Kel priestess, Aesha, transcribed information that would lead to the Codes, though she currently, a thousand years later, remembered little of the specifics of those events. Only that it was don
e, and that the Bok, her creation, would have it. Lorenzo, though he would have no understanding of what he held, would know at least that what Aesha left in the trust of his ancestors a thousand years before was of the utmost importance. There was no doubt he would hide it with a vengeance from the Kel.
But he would never be able to hide it from her.
I am your priestess, she thought grimly. And I’m coming for you.
She studied the transit harness in her hands.
Once the interrogation of the Bok was complete and she found what she was after, the second activation of the harness would take her home. Home home. To the woods in Boise behind her house. A location in relative proximity to the gate, her next point of escape. Through the gate she would take the Codes, hiding them on another world altogether—the one place on no one’s radar.
Galfar’s archaic world. It would serve as their sanctuary.
She noticed Nani was looking at her, a little uncertainly, and realized she’d been daydreaming. Then realized it wasn’t that, but, rather, Nani was tentatively waiting to say something. Jess returned her inquisitive look.
“What?”
Nani spoke quietly: “I heard.”
Heard? There were so many thing she could’ve heard. They were alone in the large room, filled with lots of stuff, and so far they’d talked only of the mechanics of Jessica’s plan.
“About the baby,” Nani clarified.
“It wasn’t planned, you can imagine.”
“Of course not! But when I heard you were pregnant I didn’t go, Oh no! That’s terrible! How can she have a baby now!” Nani regarded her, almost with a sense of reverie. “Believe it or not my first thought, the very first thing that popped in my mind was the thought of you holding your new child. A crystal clear image. I don’t even know where it came from. Just, there you were, smiling, the baby in your arms, making little baby sounds.” She shook her head in wonder. “So vivid! It was so vivid, like a waking dream.” She drifted wistfully in memory of it. “Clear as day. Instant happiness, a feeling of how incredible it would be to be your child, of how lucky your baby will be. It was really only after those initial, happy thoughts that I began to think about the practical.”
Star Angel: Prophecy Page 18
