Copper Veins

by Jennifer Allis Provost

  “Only one way to find out,” Max replied. “Even if it’s been shut down, I can probably get the supplies I need to make one right at the Promenade.”

  “You can make portals?” Aregonda asked.

  “I know a few tricks,” Max replied. “Sara, Sadie, you guys down with a bit of shopping?”

  “Of course,” Sadie replied as I nodded, hoping beyond hope that the static portal was still there. If it was, I’d be home with Micah in a few short hours. If not… well, if it was shut down, we would just find another route to the Otherworld. I was going home to Micah, one way or another. If I could make that homecoming happen in a few hours, so much the better.

  I looked at Aregonda and asked, “So, when do we leave?”

  20

  After the rest of the resistance had come to an agreement as to who was traveling where, Sadie and I went down to the stream to clean up as best we could. Aregonda had supplied us with a lump of soap and a few washcloths, yet no matter how hard I scrubbed my hands and neck, I still felt dirty. It wasn’t that I was covered in actual dirt, but after our three days in the cell and the three since we’d escaped, I was feeling pretty ripe. Of course, I could have just stripped down and bathed in the stream, but there was one rather big problem with that—Jerome. For reasons that Sadie and I could not fathom, Jerome had decided that he was our guard. Chivalrous, yes, but also decidedly unhelpful when you wanted to take a quick bath.

  “Seriously, we’ll be fine without you,” I said for the umpteenth time. “Max is here.”

  “Are the drugs fully out of your systems?” Jerome countered. It irritated me that he knew our main weakness, but at least he hadn’t told anyone. Well, not that I knew of.

  I glanced at Max, who barely shook his head. “As I thought,” Jerome said. “Until you’re up to fighting strength, more protection is better than less.”

  I scowled, mostly because he had a point, and stomped over to where Sadie knelt. She was beside a pool, rinsing out the socks and shirt she’d worn the day before. Since Jerome had made it clear that he wasn’t going anywhere, and there was absolutely no way I was getting naked in front of him, I laid flat on my stomach and dunked my head in the pool, swishing my hair back and forth in order to loosen whatever bits of grime I could. If I’d been missing the Clear Pool before, I was positively pining for it now.

  After I’d squeezed most of the water from my hair and finger-combed it into something presentable, Max plopped down beside Sadie and me. “What I can’t figure out,” he murmured, “is which of you two Jerome there is desperate to see naked.”

  “Maybe he’s waiting on you,” I smirked.

  Max leaned back, buffing his knuckles on his shirt. “Can’t blame the man. My looks are legendary.” After Sadie and I stopped laughing, he continued, “Still, best to keep an eye on your boyfriend. I think he’s starting to get the wrong idea.”

  I nodded, ignoring the joke Max had made at my expense. I’d been thinking the same thing. “Hopefully, we’ll get to that portal and get back to the Whispering Dell,” I murmured. “I bet Dad’s already there.”

  “Or he’s still here, making some disruptions of his own,” Max said as he got to his feet. “Either way, let’s get this job done and move on.”

  “Agreed,” Sadie grumbled. “If I don’t find a working shower soon, I might go crazy.” I laughed inwardly—a pissed-off Inheritor was just what we needed.

  As we climbed up the slope toward the camp, I spied Aregonda speaking to Lopez. “What do you think of her?” I asked, jerking my chin toward the two.

  “More than meets the eye,” Max replied. “My advice—steer clear of that one.”

  “Which one?” Jerome asked, falling into step beside me.

  “Oh, you know,” I demurred. “How are we getting to this rally? Portal?” I asked hopefully. Mainly because if we had a portal, we could return to the Otherworld and skip this nonsense altogether.

  “We have a couple military-grade trucks,” Jerome replied. “We’ll drive in, right under the Peacekeepers’ noses.”

  “You gonna drive the truck?” Max asked.

  “No, I will,” Aregonda replied for Jerome, falling into step beside us. “Follow me. We’re ready to depart.”

  Aregonda reached toward Sadie, who conveniently knelt down to retie her shoe. Aregonda frowned, the creases alongside her mouth deepening when Max also evaded her outstretched hand. There was my answer—Aregonda did work some kind of mojo via touch. I maneuvered myself so Jerome was between her and me, having finally found a good use for the big lunk.

  We filed into the back of the truck, and Aregonda drove slowly and carefully toward the rally, so slowly and so carefully that I thought I was going to explode. Would it have killed her to speed up a little? I wanted to get this stupid expedition over with as soon as possible.

  “Sis.”

  I looked at Max, my raised eyebrows asking him what the heck he wanted. “Check it out,” he murmured. I followed his gaze to his hand, splayed flat against the metal seat. Then the metal wavered, and when he lifted his hand a perfect impression was left behind. I touched a finger to the center of the impression—a moment later, the bench was smooth again.

  “Good things,” I whispered, then I looked up at Max and grinned. “Very good things.”

  We fell silent and bounced along on our way to the rally. Since the back of the truck was fully enclosed, I had no idea what direction we were traveling in. I only knew that we were going toward Portland, and that Portland had a few static portals that could get me back to the Otherworld and home to Micah.

  Eventually we arrived, though if I’d been driving we would have arrived about half an hour earlier. After Aregonda and Jerome had talked their way through a few checkpoints, the truck rolled to a stop, and all us Elementals dutifully filed out of the back. Once I’d climbed down from the bed, I looked around. We were parked in a field, and everyone was filing toward a set of gates, smiling and laughing as if there was a carnival on the other side.

  “This way,” Aregonda called. Apparently we were using the “hide in plain sight” approach. As we all queued up behind Aregonda and Jerome, my curiosity got the better of me. I left Jerome jabbering away at Sadie and strode up to Aregonda.

  “You did something to the guards,” I said.

  “Excuse me, dearie?” she hedged.

  “My name is Sara,” I corrected. “And you did something to the guards. That’s why you were driving, why no one searched the truck.” Aregonda pursed her lips, but nodded. “Is that the entire plan? To have you mojo the Peacekeepers into submission?”

  Aregonda’s eyes darted about, then she hissed, “I do not make a habit of speaking about my abilities in public.”

  “I don’t make a habit of accepting lies and half-truths,” I stated. “You want Corbeau assistance? You spill.”

  I could almost hear her grinding her teeth. “I have a talent for persuasion,” she admitted. “But I do not wish to discuss it here. Assist us with this operation, and once we return to the base I will tell you everything you wish to know.”

  “Fair enough,” I allowed.

  We passed through the gates with no delays or awkward questions thanks to Aregonda’s persuasive “techniques”. Beyond the gates was a large field with a tented stage at the far end. Along the way were food vendors, souvenir stalls, and even games like ring toss where you could win stuffed animals.

  “This is surreal,” Sadie murmured. “The only things missing are the swings and a roller coaster.”

  “This is what they do,” Max murmured, glaring at a poster of Langston that had been hastily tacked to an electrical pole. The picture wasn’t even all that flattering, depicting Langston in all his bug-eyed, fish-belly-pale glory. “Lull unsuspecting folks into a false sense of security, then brainwash them.”

  I nodded—before I’d met Micah, my life hadn’t been happy, but I’d felt safe. Well, safe-ish. I jerked my head to the side, and Sadie and Max followed me out of earshot of
the others.

  “I think you should tell us why you hate Langston so much,” I said. When Max stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked at the ground, I added, “C’mon. Sway us to your cause, and we’ll help you.”

  “Yeah,” Sadie chirped. “We’ll hate him too—we just need some backstory.”

  Max rubbed the back of his neck, refusing to meet our eyes. “I told you the story about how I made the girl at the Institute a flower?”

  “Yeah,” I murmured. Max said that he’d ended up in the tube after he’d made a leftover scrap of iron into a flower and presented it to a girl he was crushing on. “A lily, was it?”

  “It was.” Max raised his head, but still wouldn’t meet our eyes. “He took her from me.”

  “He—” I let the question hang unfinished—obviously, Langston had gotten between Max and the object of his affection.

  “If she was so easily swayed, why bother with a grudge?” Sadie asked gently.

  “She loved me,” Max insisted. “Me, and only me. He…he did something to her, I know he did.”

  Aregonda picked that moment to join us—she’d been eavesdropping, most likely. After we made our way back to the Otherworld, Max and I were going to have a serious conversation about two women—the one harassing us now, and the one who’d broken his heart. “It is time for us to move into position,” Aregonda said.

  “You do what you need to do,” Max said. “I have my own ideas.”

  Aregonda’s nostrils flared as she snapped, “We have planned this operation for weeks.”

  “Yeah?” Max said, his head swiveling around until Aregonda was locked in his gaze. “I spent years being tortured by them. I get to mess with them however I want.”

  Aregonda pursed her lips so tightly I wondered if she would burst a vein, then she nodded and walked away.

  “You’re definitely Mom’s kid,” Sadie murmured.

  “You know it,” Max said. “C’mon, let’s do some damage so we can get out of here.”

  With that, Sadie and I followed our brother—a man of questionable sanity at best—toward the front of the crowd. I had expected this to be similar to the rally Max and I had attended for Mike Armstrong, with politicians in the crowd and people with signs. Instead, the audience here was downright cheerful, as if Mike—and Langston—had already been elected and this was a celebratory speech. It made me wonder if some Peacekeeper had distilled Aregonda’s power of persuasion and released it as a gas.

  Anyway, we stationed ourselves near the left side of the stage, about four rows back, my sister and I flanking Max. As I watched him staring at the stage, I realized that not only did I have no idea what Aregonda and her people were doing, but I didn’t know what Max had planned either.

  “Hey,” I whispered to Sadie behind Max’s back. She shook her head and jerked her chin—when I looked over my shoulder, I understood why.

  “Hello, Jerome,” I greeted my Peacekeeper shadow. “What’s up?”

  “Here to help, nothing more,” he replied. “What’s Max’s plan?”

  “You’ll have to ask Max about that.”

  I supposed Jerome would have asked him, but the loudspeakers crackled to life. After a few ear-splitting moments of feedback, some game-show announcer announced that Langston Phillips was about to take the stage.

  That was when all hell broke loose.

  The metal supports of the stage flew out from under the decking and twisted themselves into a horribly complex knot. Then the metal morphed into a giant hook and snatched Langston right off the collapsing stage.

  I shrieked, demanding to know why Aregonda would orchestrate such a blatant display of Elemental abilities in the midst of a Peacekeeper rally, when the metal hooks dragged their quarry across the field and deposited it at Max’s feet.

  Oh. So my brother, not the wacky resistance, was responsible for this chaos.

  Awesome.

  “Max,” I screamed against the wind. Where had this fricken’ wind come from, anyway? “Max, what are you doing?”

  “Giving him what he has coming,” Max said. The metal hooks dragged Langston onto his back and curled around his limbs, pinning him to the ground. “Not so smug when I’m not a prisoner, are you, pal?” Max demanded. “Different playing field, huh?”

  “Still mad that she preferred me?” Langston sneered. “Me, a real man, as opposed to you?”

  A band of metal clamped over Langston’s mouth, yanking his head down into the dirt. Langston’s face went red, then purple.

  “Max, you’re killing him,” I said, not that he was listening to me. “Max, you’re better than this.”

  “Am I?” Max asked, turning his wild eyes toward me.

  “You are.”

  Max and I both looked up and saw Juliana walking toward us. The supernatural wind tore at her hair and clothes, but she ignored it. In fact, as she approached us with her long dark hair whipping around her, she looked like some sort of pagan goddess. Mom would have approved.

  Juliana knelt next to Langston, but she didn’t comfort him. Instead, she looked up at Max. “Max, don’t do this,” she pleaded.

  “Why not?” Max shot back. “He killed Greta, Galen, all of them! He deserves to die!”

  “That he does,” Juliana murmured. “But you don’t deserve to be a killer.” Juliana started pulling the metal restraints out of the ground. Amazingly, Max let her.

  “Jules,” he began, but Juliana held up her hand.

  “Go. Just go,” she said, then she pulled the last restraint free. Langston reached out to Juliana, but she evaded him. “Get up on your own,” she hissed. “I wasn’t helping you.”

  Langston attempted a laugh and ended up spitting bloody phlegm onto the grass. “Still can’t manage to man up?” Langston croaked, glaring at Max.

  “Yeah?” Max retorted, then he hit Langston so hard teeth and blood joined the phlegm on the grass. Before I could react, Juliana was standing between them.

  “No, Max,” she said. “You’re not a murderer. Langston is, but you’re not.”

  Sadie took Max’s elbow and said, “She’s right. Let’s get out of here.”

  Langston tried to get to his feet, only to stumble and fall in the mud. Max grabbed Langston by the hair, wrenching his head around before shoving his face into the phlegmy mud.

  “I have not forgotten,” Max hissed. “I will never forget.”

  “You’ll forget when you’re dead,” Langston screeched, then his head lolled to the side. Behind him stood Aregonda, her scrunched face telling me that she was responsible for Langston’s sudden stupor. So, she could do a bit more than persuade, and she didn’t need contact to do it.

  “He won’t remember any of this,” Aregonda bit off. “Get to the truck.”

  With that, she walked toward the parking area. Sadie and Jerome immediately followed, but I found myself staring at Juliana. Max was staring at her too, his expression a mixture of fury and confusion.

  “What?” Juliana demanded. “Get out of here while you can.”

  “And if we don’t want to?” I countered, just to be a jerk.

  “Listen, since your stunts at the Promenade, there’s a reward out for you,” Juliana replied, her eyes darting between me and Max. “All of you. Get out of here, before some bounty hunter spots you and tries to cash in.”

  “What is it with you?” I wondered aloud. “Are you evil or what?”

  Juliana shrugged. “Depends on who you ask.” With that, she helped Langston to his feet and guided him toward the stage. For a moment I thought Max was going to follow, then he spat and walked off in the direction of the truck. I watched as Juliana practically dragged the much-larger Langston along for another moment—no one stopped to help, which made me wonder if Langston wasn’t as loved as the PR campaigns would have us believe. Or maybe his swollen, bloody face had made him unrecognizable. Then I turned and ran after my siblings. It was past time we left the Mundane world.

  21

  Leaving the rally was, in
a word, interesting.

  In more than one word, it was something along the lines of “holy crap, I think I might really die today.”

  After Juliana had convinced my brother not to lower himself to Langston Phillips’s standards, Max, Sadie, and I ran toward the parking area, intent on getting out of the ensuing commotion. Aregonda was less than pleased when we caught up to her.

  “Why did you do that?” she shrieked at Max. “We planned this disruption for months!”

  “Yeah, well, you never shared those plans, did you?” Max retorted. “I was forced to make my own plans.”

  Aregonda’s face turned from red to purple. “Regardless of if we shared them or not, you acted out of turn!”

  “Out of turn?” Sadie repeated. “Listen, woman—”

  Aregonda made a grab for Sadie’s arm. “Do not doubt your betters, child.”

  I grabbed the back of Aregonda’s shirt, lifting her up a bit. “Do not doubt the Inheritor, adult,” I said in Aregonda’s ear. I released her shirt, letting her fall to her knees. Max jogged up beside me.

  “Thanks,” he murmured. “What’s the plan?”

  “We get to the truck before Aregonda and Jerome, get out of here, then you tell us what the hell just went down with you and Langston,” I replied.

  “I’m down with sixty-six percent of that,” Max replied. Based on our luck of late, those were damn good odds.

  We ran toward the truck, dodging rally attendees and Peacekeepers alike. Somehow it had gone dark and it was almost impossible to see anything at a distance, but that midafternoon darkness made it easier for us to blend in with the freaked-out masses. By the time we reached the parking area it was choked with people running in all directions, screams for both Elemental rights and eradication competing for airspace. Yeah, Max, great plan you had back there. Suddenly, Jerome was in front of us.

  “This way,” he shouted, and we followed him toward the edge of the field. He opened the door to a military truck, then hopped behind the wheel while we climbed into the back and he burned rubber out of there. Finally, someone with a driving style I could appreciate.