by Holly Hook
Xavier took a breath and let it out.
“He's gotten worse,” Trish said. Her voice was flat and her red eyes were dry but very sad. “I don't know how much longer it will take for him to turn. Xavier is very tormented. In my experience, that often makes the transformation work faster.”
“But he's strong,” I said.
“And very tortured,” Trish said. She wasn't even glaring at me anymore.
“I know he is,” I said. Indirectly killing his own grandfather had to do with that even though he acted in self defense. I knew what it was like to look at yourself like that. It was a pain I knew too well. “I know him very well. But there might be help. If I can get the piece of Death inside of me to awaken completely, it'll cure Xavier. My protection will flow to him.”
Thorne peeled himself from the wall. I could tell that my martial arts instructor was trying to hold his own emotions back. He hadn't eaten in a long time, either, because he gave off no scent other than adrenaline. Everyone's lives had stopped for this. Elsina's eyes were red. The Seer Mage's emotions had already poured out and more were building. It was stifling in here. I couldn't stand it. It was worse than any funeral I could imagine, though I hadn't been to any besides Leon's in my entire life.
Thorne spoke. “We should move Xavier to another place. Someplace confined.” He was in pre-battle mode. "We need to worry about ourselves."
“I'm not going to let him turn,” I said.
“He could turn before you help him,” Thorne said. “He will be a danger to us all if that happens."
"Don't talk like that!" Liliana shouted.
"I know that," I thought. If he turned, I would have to fight him. It would be my responsibility alone. My heart would break into a million pieces.
"We should close Xavier in here," Thorne said, "until we figure out where to move him. Everyone, out."
"I'm not leaving him!" Liliana said. Her lip was quivering as well.
I couldn't stand this. I wondered if this was what Normals went through at, say, funerals and bedside vigils. I had the feeling this was a pretty universal experience.
"We have to." Thorne motioned for her to stand and waved her towards the door. "Alyssa may be right that she can help. We don't know." There was every ounce of doubt in his voice. I wondered if he knew about this Dark Pentagram stuff and how special I was supposed to be. If he didn't, then he had nothing to hold onto. My words were nothing more than false hope.
I did the difficult thing and left Xavier inside as the rest of us poured into the hall. Thorne closed the door, but not before Xavier groaned one more time.
He was mentally in that place of death, of broken dreams and hopes.
I was the only one who could bring him out again. Where was my test? It had to come soon. It was all part of the plan. Even if it was Thoreau's plan, I had to go along with it, at least for now.
"Where do we move Xavier?" Trish asked. The look in her eyes was one of resignation, of one who had already started to mourn. To her, he was already worse than dead. Her eyes were also very hard. Trish had lived over a hundred years. She knew loss and pain. She had seen countless deaths and casualties.
"I was going to suggest my dojo," Thorne said.
I thought of his testing room with the blood stains on the floor. It was where I had used Xavier's magic for the first time against Allunna in that rigged fight and where Leon and I had met. It was a place full of both great and horrible memories. I didn't want this situation to stain it but we had no choice. Thorne's dojo was a place where people fought all the time. There were weapons there. If Xavier turned, they would be ready for him.
It also had some strong double doors that kept it closed off from the rest of the Underground.
"I'll carry Xavier there," I said.
"What about the danger to you?" Thorne asked.
"I'm safe from Shadow Sickness," I said, opening the door to Xavier again. He was lying on his stomach now, breathing heavily like he was in physical pain, too. "I even got touched by a Shadow Wraith and I'm fine. I should carry him. Let's all stick together. If something happens, I'll be the first to know." I said nothing else about my meeting with Death or Thoreau. I didn't want to heap on more bad news yet. I wanted to snap just thinking about it.
It felt right to do this. I slid my hands under Xavier and lifted him while Thorne took my sword that was actually his sword that I'd stolen. All he did was groan. Thorne said nothing about that. I was sure that Liliana had told him the full deal already--that we had stopped the worst from happening to the Underground and it had been an emergency. That was forgiven.
Xavier felt heavier than usual. His eyes fluttered open for a second and he faced me as I turned to the side to take him through the doorway.
"I'm going to help you," I said, but he closed them again as if he didn't want to even consider any hope. Where he was, hope was a joke.
"Alyssa," he managed before slipping away again.
It didn't take that long to carry Xavier to Thorne's fighting room. There weren't many people in the Underground. Many had been taken away when they were scared to the surface by the theft of Leon's body. Some simply hadn't come back yet. The few people we did pass looked on as I carried Xavier, trailing behind everyone else in case the worst happened. Every step was torture. Every time Xavier shifted brought terror up inside of me. What if he was turning? But no. His form remained the same as ever.
Even Janine stayed quiet and Liliana had stopped calling her brother an idiot. This was sucking the life out of everyone.
Janine's phone buzzed with the latest social media news. It was the only thing that cut into our silence during our walk. I checked the hallways around me, the ceiling, even the floor for any sign from Death.
"Come on," I muttered. "I need my test. Give me my test now."
Nothing. Janine's phone buzzed another time. I wanted to snatch it and throw it against the wall. I wanted to kill and destroy something but there were no enemies here. The only one was the Shadow Sickness itself. Death had left me to figure things out on my own. She could have easily reversed Xavier's illness.
Thorne opened his doors and the faint odor of dried blood filled the air. We paraded in and Trish spread some hay on the floor. It was my cue to set Xavier down. It was so undignified, putting him on straw, but there was nothing else. He groaned once I let go of him but it might have been the fact that he was being moved again. He may or may not know that I was there.
Janine's phone buzzed another time. I couldn't take it any more.
"Can you please turn that off?" I asked.
She fished it out of her pocket. "I'm sorry," she said. "I have it on for alerts. Don't you remember that this saved you? As far as I can tell, cell phones are nonexistent down here."
"I'm sorry," I said, stepping away from Xavier even though I wanted to lie with him, arm over his form. "I shouldn't have gone off on you."
Janine scrolled through her phone. "It's a story about the ATC again," she said. "They're questioning...um, Alyssa? This says they've taken your mother into custody."
Chapter Fourteen
I seized the phone from Janine before she had a chance to protest.
I wasn't as good with phones as her--my best friend was a phone and social media guru--so it was a good thing that the story was still up. It was one of those Facebook news stories, without any photos. It was just one headline and a very big wall of text.
Melissa Wilson, Mother of Alyssa Choy, in Custody By ATC.
My mother's second married name. Wilson. It was the last name of the guy she married after leaving Dad. He had the perfect Normal kids she wanted, ones in sports who were bound for perfect Normal careers. I didn't even know my step-siblings' names. As far as I knew, they also pretended that I didn't exist. Never once had they sent me a Christmas card.
"Why would the ATC want my mother?" I asked. I wasn't sure how to feel. Mom had last called Dad and I to check in two years ago. It had been crickets after that.
; "Because they think she's still connected to you?" Janine asked.
On the floor, Xavier rolled over and groaned as if warning me not to do anything. He was talking less and less. When he had first come down with Shadow Sickness, he had been talking some. Now he had reverted to a tormented baby, helpless and lost.
"But she's not," I said. "I bet she doesn't even know where Dad and I were living for the past couple of years. Honestly, I think she wouldn't care if the two of us got snatched by the ATC. She's probably glad they're after me. Or horrified, now that the attention is on her."
"But she's your mother," Janine said.
Trish drew close to me and looked at the phone as well. So did Thorne. I dropped my sword to the floor, where it landed by a blood stain.
"She's an Abnormal hater," I said, skimming. "I bet she voted for Thoreau. Looks like she's been living right outside Cumberland for the last few years so she could have. It says they took her from the west side."
"I think Thoreau has something to do with this," Thorne said in his heavy, you're-not-doing-something-stupid tone.
"Maybe he thinks the bait he has isn't enough," I said. I read the article, skimming for any piece of information. Despite my efforts to look tough on the outside, I was doing the opposite on the inside. My mother had left us, but she had never done anything like wish for our deaths. Mom had never turned us in when she could have. She had called in every once in a while up until recently. I liked to think that the ATC possibly tracking phone calls had something to do with her not calling anymore, even though I logically knew that the more painful explanation was more likely.
The point was, she was still my mother, the same one who with Dad, put up with my Turning for six years. She hadn't gone over the edge until I screwed up in the second grade and bit Hannah.
Xavier finally spoke. He opened his eyes and faced me. The magenta in them had dulled to a scary shade of near-gray as if someone had washed the color from them. His own turning was getting closer.
"You can't win her back."
"That's not what this is about," I assured him, even though I doubted that on some level. "This is about her being trapped."
"You can never win them back," Xavier said, sitting up with force. He glared at me with hate and anger, hate that I knew wasn't directed towards me. "Once they're gone, they're gone."
"This is about Thoreau and what he's going to do to her," I said. Something felt strange about this whole thing. It was too timed, too perfect.
Was this the test from Death?
Xavier flopped back down and let out a breath. He put his hands over his face and bent one knee up, then down again like he was just twitching. He was gone again. That moment of lucidity had vanished and I was back on my own.
"He's losing it," Thorne said.
"He's already lost it," I said. "I think I see what I have to do." I raised the phone closer to me, even though I could see the text very clearly. I scrolled down while Janine and Thorne and Trish all watched. Elsina was just now pushing the double doors open--her slow speed had caused her to come in last, but that gave me an idea.
"Elsina," I said. "Do you have any idea where one Melissa Wilson would be?"
The old woman stopped, her very blue eyes locked on Xavier and first and then to me. Her expression was unreadable.
"Melissa Wilson?" she asked.
"You're a Seer Mage. You should be able to see things." I had the feeling that her being here was no coincidence. I wondered how much power Death had. It was certainly enough to make Janine's phone buzz over and over for the same alert on my name, an alert we would have ignored otherwise. I handed her Janine's phone. "Find her. Please. There's a test that I need to do for Death and if I pass--"
The Death inside of me awakens--
"--Xavier is protected from turning into a Shadow Wraith."
Elsina took the phone and looked at it like it was some alien device. She had obviously never seen a cell phone. It wasn't like Xavier ever carried one.
"I don't understand," she said. "I can't read this."
"Please. Just tell me where this Melissa Wilson is," I said.
"Alyssa," Thorne said. "I know I don't have the strength to stop you, but Trish does."
But Trish didn't move. She glared at Thorne. "I am willing to allow Alyssa to do what she needs to do to save Xavier, even if it's very unlikely that she will do so," she said. "Even if she dies and takes Xavier with her, it will be a better fate than what waits. I will hurt you if you try to stop her."
Liliana looked at me. Hoping. Silently pleading. I nodded to Elsina, hoping she could work some magic, that Death would allow her to see what information she needed.
Elsina's arms were shaking. She clutched the phone like it was some precious jewel and closed her eyes, focusing. The woman was as desperate as any of us and perhaps, feeling guilty. It was she, after all, who had first gotten that vision of Thoreau unleashing Leon's energy through the Underground. It was her magic that first sent us on that mission in the first place, that ultimately got us to those ruins which sped up Xavier's curse. I could see the horrible responsibility weighing down on her.
I watched as she focused and focused. I didn't know much about how Seer Mages did their magic, but I knew their visions came through at unpredictable times. At last, Elsina's eyes popped open and she looked straight ahead like none of us were there. It was as if she were seeing something in another world.
“There's a house,” she said in a voice that was stronger than I expected. “An old house. The number is...one six six seven.” She sounded like a robot as she spoke.
“Which street?” I asked, reciting the number back to myself in my mind.
She turned her head as if looking up and down one. “It is an old street,” she said. “In disrepair. I believe this is the east side of Cumberland. I do not know the street.”
Death would want me to know. Thoreau certainly did. I had no doubt the two of them were allowing Elsina to see this. Powerful beings like them could block Seer Mages and they usually did—unless they had some ulterior motive.
Elsina opened her eyes, focused on me and shook her head. “I did not see the name of the street,” she said.
I turned to Trish. She had lived in Cumberland the longest. “Addresses,” I said while Xavier groaned again. “Do they repeat or do they tend to be one address for a whole city?”
Trish grabbed Janine's phone from Elsina and looked at it. “The east side of the city is mostly houses,” she explained. “Parts are old and run down, built when I was young and still Normal. The part Elsina's talking about must be the old district.” Trish shocked me by pulling up the web browser on the phone and doing a search. I hadn't realized she knew how to use cell phones. She was really smart, I supposed. “There is a one six six seven Burn Lane in that area. I see nothing else with that address where she spoke of.” Trish had pulled up a satellite map of rows of big, old houses like Elsina had described.
The old woman had gone over to kneel next to Xavier now. Janine remained silent, which was strange for her. Thorne stood behind Trish, his jaw working. Liliana waited over by the wall like she wasn't sure what to do.
“I'll set the GPS,” Trish said to me and me alone. “If we move fast, we should reach the place before sunrise. Bring your sword. We'll be cutting it very close.”
It had already been two thirty in the morning when I left the ATC building. My stomach rumbled and my limbs begged for sustenance that didn't come from a blood bag. I needed to fight for real. Death hadn't counted and I hadn't vented my killer urges enough in the ATC building. In fact, I hadn't at all. Trish grinned at me and the red in her eyes was more intense. She was ready for a fight as well.
“This is the test Death has sent me,” I said. “I know it is. I don't know what I'm being tested for, but I have to take it.” I eyed Xavier on the floor. He was on his back, lips moving with silent words. I ran over, leaned down, and kissed him. “I'm going now,” I said. “If I pass, you'll be cured.” My pi
ece of death—whatever it was—would awaken and pass to him through our bond. He would become immune to Shadow Sickness.
I had to accept Death, whatever that meant.
Trish nodded to me. “We go now,” she said. “Xavier is the son I never had. I will help save him if it kills me.”
Chapter Fifteen
Trish and I ran through the Underground together, dodging both Abnormals and even a few Normals. She led me up a ladder and through a trap door I had never used before, which took us out next to a used car dealership. Florescent paint on windshields advertised low prices on cars that probably all had something wrong with them that the dealer just didn't mention. I smelled leaking oil everywhere and even some that was burned.
“We don't have any good choices here,” Trish said, eyeing the cars. “But we have to take something. We're not going to run across the city. It would drain our strength and we'd never make it in time.”
We climbed the chain link fence and into the dealership. There was no dawn light yet, but I knew the night well. The crescent moon was rising, something that phase of the moon only did right before dawn. Only a full moon rising told me that the night was early.
Trish stopped at each old car and sniffed, then waved me to a rusted Corolla and yanked the driver side door open, breaking the lock. I did the same on the passenger side.
“This one has some gas,” Trish said. “The others are so drained they might stall out on us. I don't smell any major oil leaks.” She tore at the dashboard, exposing wires. We were about to hot wire a car. “If you ever need to do this, Alyssa, pick a Toyota. They're the immortals of the car world.”
“Got it,” I said, propping my sword between my knees. We were getting along better. That was a start.
She got the car started and drove it through the closed gates of the dealership, which flew open and swung behind us. The engine purred. It was in good shape. The brakes were a bit weak—the car might just need new pads—but everything else was pretty good.
The traffic was low this time of the night. I watched as the faintest pink glow appeared on the horizon. Trish drove quickly and ordered me to watch for cops. We couldn't afford to get stopped. I doubted Trish had a license and we still had the price painted across the windshield. My vision didn't fail me. At one point, I saw a police motorcycle in an alley and ordered Trish to slow down, which she did. It was clear she was experienced at this.
