“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth yesterday and a cop had to call you today.” She lowered her eyes to the album in her hands. “I didn’t mean to be a pain but I’ll make it up to you. I’ll tell you everything tomorrow.” She paused for a few moments. “I called you because I knew you were the only person who could help me with everything.”
“I’ll try my best to help.”
“Will the cop tell my dad I’m here?”
“Not yet.”
“Thanks. Good night.”
I nodded and closed the door behind me. Before heading up the stairs and back to the kitchen, I pressed down on the laundry door to make sure it was locked. If she felt safe with me, I wanted to maintain her trust. It didn’t look like the adults in her life had made a good and lasting impression.
I found Oren still sitting at the kitchen table and hunched over the laptop keyboard, with Papan looking over his shoulder.
“Jason, do you know how annoying it is to have someone read over your shoulder?”
“I’ve got a pretty good idea now that you’ve mentioned it so many times.”
“What’re you two doing?” I asked, sidling up beside Papan and wrapping my arm around his waist. He felt like a formidable force, steady and sexy. I couldn’t wait to get him upstairs.
“It looks like your grandfather’s found out a few things.”
“Don’t call him that,” I blurted.
Papan looked at me with a bemused expression. “Why not, that’s what he is, right?”
I sighed. I wasn’t getting into this right now.
“Sierra has a few issues with that word, but I don’t mind.” Oren peered over his shoulder before pointing at the screen. “I’ve cracked the code, so to speak. I’ve found out that each of the six members of the Obscurus has a point in the upside down pentagram.”
“Okay, I kinda knew that already.” I’d read about the numbers.
“But a star only has five points,” Papan said.
“The leader goes in the middle and serves as a medium, for lack of a better word.” Oren turned to look at me. “The middle wields five times more power than the others. It’s Legion’s direct conduit, and I would guess the one responsible for starting this little sect.”
“It’s got to be Mace,” I said, feeling a throbbing pain in my brain. After everything the bastard had put me through, just thinking about him made my head hurt. The last time I saw him he was unconscious and bleeding on the floor after I’d smacked him upside the head. The night he strapped me down to a demented chair and tried to use me to tear down the barrier between us and the ghostly patch. “He’s got to be the center of all this.”
I didn’t know if he was still alive or not.
“I agree,” Oren said, turning back to the screen. “It would explain why he took a special interest in your recruitment from the very beginning, and ensured he would be in your life in some capacity.”
I tried to stay steady and not squirm beside Papan. I didn’t know how much he knew about Mace Clamber, but thinking about the jerk that seduced and took my virginity always made me uncomfortable. I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d already started the Obscurus back then, or was the ambition just a nugget of thought at the time?
“He wants me dead,” I whispered. Or at least, he wants to literally suck the energy out of my soul.
“So what happens now that you’ve taken out two of their members?” Papan asked.
“That’s a great question, Jason. If there needs to be someone at each point, one would wonder what it means now that Sierra has killed two of them. Leaving two vacant spots has to affect things, because even if Legion doesn’t need specific devotees, others will have to replace the missing points. It could be as easy as taking someone off the street and substituting them into that particular spot—so long as they have Sierra,” Oren explained.
“So you’re telling me that these idiots aren’t even important?” I asked.
“Well, I think they’re important because Mace went out of his way to find powerful disciples, and anyone he thought might be a shoe-in to get your attention.”
“I wonder if Jonathan volunteered for this, or if he was dragged into it because he knew me.”
“People do stupid things for power,” Papan said with a shrug. “Even if you asked him, I doubt he’d answer truthfully.”
“You’re right about that,” Oren said. “The control Legion has over each of these people grows, but it also wavers. It’s too bad we can’t monitor Jonathan to catch him out during one of his possessed episodes.”
“I’m not going to volunteer for that job, but I could look out during the next Hunters meeting.” I’d already tried keeping Jonathan close by remaining in an unhappy relationship for longer than I should have—I wasn’t about to do it again.
Papan glanced at me but didn’t say anything. He’d been suspicious of Jonathan since the beginning, so hearing about this ritual probably solidified his hunches.
“From what I can tell in the ritual’s description, they can’t use you as their source until you come into your full powers,” Oren said, frowning. “Not if they want to get it right.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Papan asked.
When Oren didn’t jump in with an answer, I assumed he didn’t know. But I did, and it was probably time to come clean about this too. “It means that I won’t get my powers until Grandma’s moved on.”
Oren swiveled around in the chair. “What do you mean? She died years ago, and would surely have moved on by now.”
I sighed, stepping to the sink, away from both of them. I looked out the window at the darkness outside, trying to hold back a strong feeling of déjà vu. The last time I’d looked out this window at night, Mauricio had been standing on the other side in his canine guise, minutes before he attacked me in my own home.
Turning away, I pressed my back against the sink and looked their way but didn’t meet either of their gazes. I’d been carrying this part of the story with me since it happened, just hadn’t found the right time to broach the subject and certainly wasn’t interested in telling it more than once. Now was the perfect time—I could tell them together.
“When Mauricio delivered me to Mace and I was strapped into the freaky chair, I crossed into the ghostly patch. It was the only way I could think of to save Ebony and the other girls, and to stop the gap from widening between the patches. Inside, I met Professor Spooker. He’d become a wraith and explained a few things.” I paused to wait for their reactions. “It seems that Grandma had told him some vital information she hoped he would pass on to me.”
“You met the professor and didn’t say anything about it until now?”
“Oren, I needed a little time to work through everything, okay?”
“Fair enough, but you’ve got to learn to stop omitting such important details from our conversations. How can I help you find your grandparents if you leave relevant things out?” He looked more frustrated than angry. I had that effect on him. “You kept the Obscurus to yourself and now this. Seriously, Sierra, you’ve got to stop.”
I ignored everything he said after the mention of my dead grandparents. “You don’t need to look for them anymore. I know where they are.” I licked my dry lips. “I saw them seconds before they were dragged away by shadows. So I doubt either one of us will ever get them back.” I sighed. “All I know is that Mace has been keeping Grandma’s spirit hostage all this time because he knew that once she moves onto the afterlife, I’ll get the full extent of my power and he wants to control when that happens.”
Papan whistled and Oren shook his head.
“He knows that if he doesn’t forcibly take your power before the fact, you’ll be too powerful to defeat.” My biological grandfather looked thoughtful for a minute, before adding, “Aha! He must have kept tabs on your familial line for years, but he’s only a young chap. Can’t be older than forty…”
“Actually, I think he’s a lot older than that,” I said, feel
ing my stomach churn. I didn’t even want to think about how old Mace had really been when I’d fallen for his charms. The fact he didn’t seem to age hadn’t struck me as strange until it was pointed out. “Professor Spooker told me he had a young assistant called Mason Clamber. If you do the calculations, it doesn’t add up.”
Oren’s eyes blazed with anger. “That means this Clamber has to be something more than human.”
“I guess it’s just another mystery to add to the mix.” Although I did have a theory from the bits and pieces he’d let slip during his cocky moments. “I think you’re right. He’s been chasing our line for a while. He probably knew that the longer he waited, the stronger the generation would become.” Not to mention that apparently I’m not just a spook catcher with blood from a witch carried down the line, but Grandma somehow exposed me to the demonic when I was a baby.
I still didn’t know what that meant, but it did confirm my grandmother knew I would attract the wrong kind of attention one day. Oren had called me a beacon once, and he was right.
“So this group of crazies wants to make sure your granny moves on when they want her to, and at the exact point when you inherit her power they’ll use you to open a door for this Legion demon?” Papan looked furious.
All I could do was nod.
“What happens to you then?” His eyes were shiny and glowed green.
“I don’t think I’ll make it out alive,” I whispered. Maybe this was the death Sally Grye had seen so clearly in the tea leaves.
“There’s no way I’m letting them do that to you.” Papan stood up straight, crossing his arms over his chest.
Oren nodded. “I agree. From now on, you’re going to have to be accompanied by someone wherever you go.”
“I will gladly be that someone,” Papan said, taking a step closer.
“Guys, I appreciate that you’re both worried but I can’t have a chaperone with me all the time.” I took a quick breath and exhaled. “As much as I’ve been putting off work, I need to get back to it. I was planning on starting up again on Monday, and I can’t drag one of you around with me all the time.”
“I’ll be there with you.”
“Papan, you’ve got your own work to do!”
“I can postpone it—”
“No, you need to do your thing.” I didn’t want to become some sort of responsibility he’d soon regret. “And I need to do mine.”
A small smile teased his lips. “Are you saying you don’t want me beside you?”
“The thought of having you beside me in the field has always excited me,” I said with a grin. “But I don’t want you to be my fulltime bodyguard.”
“I think I’d do a great job.”
“Papan, that’s not the point.”
“Besides, I want to be whatever you need.”
Oren’s chair screeched. “Okay, you two, I think you need to take this conversation upstairs and away from me.”
“Are you heading home?” I asked.
“No, if you don’t mind, I’ll stay here and keep deciphering the text. I can catch a few hours of sleep on the couch.” He looked down at the laptop. “Like I mentioned before, I can’t copy the file.”
“You can take the laptop home if you like.”
“If it’s all the same, I’d rather stay here.”
I suspected he wanted to stay as close as he could now that I’d confessed everything. “You know, there is a way to stop these idiots from using me.”
“Oh yeah, what’s that?” Papan asked.
“I need to get the full extent of my powers without their involvement.”
“You just said it wasn’t possible without Pepita. And if we can’t get to her—”
“Oren, that’s not entirely true. Since we know where she is, all we have to do is get my grandparents away from the shadows.”
Oren snorted. “You make it sound so easy when we all know that’s virtually impossible.”
“Hard, yes, but not impossible…” I met his gaze. “The one thing I’m now sure of after crossing into the ghostly patch is that if spirits can go into it, there’s got to be a way for me to do the same. Shadows cross in and out of our world all the time, so I just need to find a way to get in.”
“And that’s where the word impossible comes into play.”
“I didn’t figure you for a pessimist.”
“I think he’s just been realistic, Fox.”
I glared at Papan. “Not you too! Think about it. If I can help Grandma move on, I’ll get my powers and the Obscurus gets nothing.”
Oren rubbed his whiskered cheek. “As insane as it sounds, the theory might be probable. It would require intense research, though.”
“Without even knowing where a portal is, no one’s going anywhere,” Papan said.
I sighed. “Yeah, I know. It’s just an idea at the moment.”
“Come on, Foxy. I think it’s time you get some rest.” He winked.
My lips spread into a grin. “I like the sounds of that.”
“Good, then it’s settled,” Oren said. “You two need to let me be.”
I looked at Oren. “By the way, I don’t mind you staying, but I think you’ll be more comfortable in Grandpa’s room.”
He looked at me, one eyebrow raised. “Are you sure?”
I nodded, even if I wasn’t really.
Oren smiled and stood. “In that case, I’ll head down right now so I can be as far away from your room as possible.”
“Good night!” I called. “Try to find a way to get into the shadow patch.” If he didn’t, my backup plan was to speak to Burr, the Tailor from the Patch Watchdog.
When Oren was gone, I casually strolled up to Papan.
“So having me by your side excites you, huh?” he teased, with a sparkle in his eyes.
“It also scares me.”
“Why would it scare you?”
I took another step, bringing my body up against his. I tilted my head back and met his shiny green eyes. “Everything about being with you has always excited and scared me because the idea of it is so…exhilarating.”
Papan took my hand. “Why don’t we head upstairs and I’ll show you just how exhilarating I can be?”
I pulled away, raced out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Before I could reach the bedroom, Papan had scooped me up and kicked the door closed behind us.
When he threw me on the bed and stripped my clothes off, he showed me a whole new meaning to exhilarating.
Chapter Seven
I placed a mug of hot chocolate in front of Willow. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.” She wrapped her hands around it and smiled. This morning her long straight hair was held away from her face by a ponytail. She was wearing a pair of faded blue jeans and a red and black flannel shirt. “I haven’t had one of these in so long.”
“You’re welcome.” I had to admit that having my half-sister stay with me was bringing out a side of me I thought wouldn’t resurface after what happened with Ebony. I’d tried calling my friend this morning, but she hadn’t answered. I wasn’t going to give up on her and left another message.
I handed Oren his cup of tea and returned to the kitchen counter to take Papan’s mug and a plate full of toasted sandwiches. I placed everything on the table before clutching my own coffee. I sat down next to Papan and across from Willow, glad I’d decided to sneak out of bed early. Papan caught up with me in the shower, but I couldn’t stop to think about that right now. Not without blushing.
“Did you sleep well in the old man’s bedroom?” Papan asked Oren with a grin.
“I did, nice of you to ask.”
“What about you, cutie, did you have a nice night?” he asked Willow.
Her face turned red as she nodded and avoided looking at him. “I haven’t slept so well, or for so long, in ages.”
I bit down on my tongue to keep from asking where she’d been staying for the last few months. Right now we had to start from the beginning.
“Okay
,” I said. “We all had a nice night but now need to discuss what we’ve been putting off. Willow, I know this is probably going to make you uncomfortable but the clock’s ticking and if we’re going to help you, we need to find out what’s going on.”
“I’ll tell you whatever you need to know.”
“Why don’t we start with why you ran away from home?” Oren suggested before sipping his tea.
Willow took a drink from her mug before placing it back on the tabletop and sitting back in the chair. She crossed her legs and said, “I ran away because I couldn’t take it anymore.”
My heart sank, because I instantly jumped to the obvious conclusion. “Was your dad abusing you?”
“Not sexually, if that’s what you’re asking, because that’s what most assume when a teenager who lives alone with her father runs away.” She met my eyes. They were sad and filled with disappointment. “But Dad never touched me. He was an awesome father, until he noticed I was changing.”
Okay, her last statement totally contradicted the first one.
“I don’t understand what you mean,” I said.
“My father’s never had any problem getting a woman. He has a string of them, and a little black book he keeps in his office drawer. He doesn’t think I know about it but I’m not stupid. I’ve heard the noises in the middle of the night and to be honest with you, I never cared. I was actually happy for him—glad he found others to fill in the gap my mother left when she died.”
So far, I had no idea where this was going.
“But last year when Stitches died, something happened. I didn’t let him go until the very last breath…he was all I had left to remind me of Mum.”
“What do you mean by that?” Papan interrupted the flow. “And who’s Stitches?”
“He’s a dog,” I answered.
“Yeah, Stitches was my dog,” Willow said to Papan. “My father freaked out when Stitches died, but it also confirmed what he’d always secretly wanted.”
“What was that?” Oren sat forward, placing his elbows on the table.
“When he died, I did too.”
“What do you mean, Willow?” Oren asked.
I recalled what she told me the first time we met. She claimed she’d died several times already.
On Pins and Needles: Sierra Fox, Book 3 Page 12
