Submerging (The Starlight Chronicles Book 3)

by C. S. Johnson

  “I was hoping she’d heal me before she left,” I muttered.

  “We’ll see her again,” Aleia reminded me.

  “A little more suffering won’t hurt you anyway,” Elysian added, too gleefully for me to refrain from kicking him.

  “That was brave of you to try to read that demon’s heart,” Aleia commended me, changing the subject as we headed upstairs.

  “Thanks. I wasn’t sure if it would work,” I admitted. “And the pain was pretty intense for a few moments.”

  “Before you destroyed him, it would have been,” Aleia agreed. “Your Starsoul is still alive, wrapped around your Soulfire. It would seek to protect you from evil’s power.”

  I thought about the other fenfleal demon I’d managed to destroy, the one who tried to take me down in Logan’s heart. That was what happened before, I realized.

  The cool air outside Lakeview Observatory seemed foreign to me. For a long moment, the strangeness of the universe hit me. It was a moment where I looked at my life and my body, and all around the world where I was, and I saw it with unfamiliar eyes. What was this thing called life? How strange was it that I was me, and Aleia was herself, and Elysian, and that we all had destinies bigger and odder than we could imagine, all wrapped up in the bigger fabric of fate being woven, even as it was already made?

  “Were you able to get anything else from him?”

  Aleia’s question broke my mystic meditation. “No.” I sighed. “I wish, but evil hearts don’t seem terribly complicated. At least, his didn’t.”

  “The fenfleal demon is typically very focused on the task at hand.”

  I stilled at the new voice. We might need to make a quick escape, I thought. Especially since Dante Salyards had decided to make an appearance after all.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  Dante’s dark look sent chills down my spine. “I think it’s time we had another chat,” he said.

  “I don’t want to, thanks,” I bit back. “We’re busy at the moment.”

  “Kid, come on,” Elysian hissed back. “Let’s talk.”

  “It would be the first time we had a talk,” Dante observed, not without some alacrity, and shifting his attention to the dragon on my shoulder. “Agent Salyards of SWORD,” he introduced himself. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  “The pleasure is nonexistent,” Elysian assured him.

  “Come now, why such hostility?” Dante nearly laughed. “We’re on the same side.”

  “Are we?” Elysian shot back. “You have a funny way of showing it.”

  “By introducing myself?”

  “By hiding your true intentions.”

  “I believe I told the ‘kid’ here, as you call him, that we were brought in to control the demon monster situation. Or should I say, ‘situations?’”

  “Did the mayor hire you?” I asked. “What are you planning with him?”

  Dante’s brown eyes—so like Mikey’s, but without the warmth of shared friendship and brotherhood—narrowed as they looked at me, much as Starry Knight had only a few moments before. “At SWORD, we have a policy of confidentiality when it comes to the exact nature of the interests of our company and our customers,” he replied easily enough.

  “Confidentiality is convenient enough,” I said. “But if you want us to trust you, you’ll have to break a few rules.”

  “How do we know whose side you’re really on?” Aleia asked.

  “We’re on your side,” Dante insisted.

  “Which side is that?” Elysian asked, as he began to transform. The long, scaly skin of his dragon form began to grow, and instantly I knew what he was planning.

  “I’m on the side that’s protecting Wingdinger, of course.”

  That was not the answer I had been expecting; nor was it what Elysian was expecting. I knew because he paused in mid-transformation.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “I’m on the side that’s protecting Wingdinger,” Dante repeated, his voice straining under impatience.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “I’m not in any danger.”

  “Even though Starry Knight is out to trade you to Orpheus in exchange for the Sinisters?”

  I had brushed off Mikey’s warning easily enough before, especially after a week without action, but hearing it from Dante, a man I did not respect as a father or see as a true ally, made me wary enough to reconsider. “What do you mean?” I asked again.

  “This is war, kid!” Dante snapped. “This is war, don’t you see? There’s a war going on, all around you, all the time. But now that you’re here, with your power, you’re in great danger. If we lose you, we lose all hope to make any difference in this world.”

  “What does that have to do with Starry Knight?” I asked.

  “She’s offering you to Orpheus in exchange for the Sinisters. Her sisters,” Dante emphasized with disgust. “Orpheus wants you out of the way, and she wants the Sinisters returned. Seems like everyone else wins.”

  “But she’s my ally,” I insisted, remembering her sitting beside me in the woods. Remembering her healing power wiping away my wounds. Remembering her determination to protect me. Remembering her lips on mine.

  “Don’t be foolish. She’s your enemy.”

  Folly and Foolishness’ warning rang through me. She wooed you, and then destroyed you.

  “If that’s true,” I said, slowly putting my words together, “then why didn’t she capture me tonight?”

  “Orpheus wasn’t around. She wouldn’t want you to get suspicious or fight her about it. It was a fenfleal demon, right? The Sinisters don’t have connections to all demons, especially those.”

  “But—”

  “Maybe you should ask yourself why she would make such a trade,” Dante said. “You, for her sisters. Seems like a pretty likely swap, doesn’t it?”

  “I’m not one to trade my friends in for family who had abandoned me,” I shot back. “Unlike you.”

  “But she did make the deal. I was there. I heard it,” he insisted. “And you leave my son out of this, do you hear me?”

  “I wouldn’t have to keep him out of it if you hadn’t come back,” I argued.

  “It’s not something that’s good for him,” Dante insisted. “You shouldn’t have allowed him to get mixed up in this; you probably shouldn’t have gotten involved in it either.”

  His words, so similar to Starry Knight’s, only made me angrier. I was ready to get into a full-fledged battle with Dante. It was one thing to make me doubt, but it was another to make me believe something else altogether.

  But before I could unleash all my hard-learned logic and rhetoric skills on Dante’s unwittingly tragic form, I belatedly heard another newcomer arrive behind me.

  “Dad?”

  I felt the world slip away as I turned to see Mikey’s eyes. They were wide, and full of recognition and hurt as they moved from me to Dante.

  “Mikey.”

  I wasn’t sure at first if it had been my voice or Dante’s who had said it, but as Mikey turned his gaze to me, I knew was me. Seeing the shock mixed in with hurt on my best friend’s face as he saw his dad for the first time in nearly nine years had to be the most horrifying thing I’d ever seen.

  After a long moment, probably the longest moment of my life, Mikey turned around and ran.

  I didn’t blame him, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to follow him. At least not right away. I had to deal with his father first.

  Dante’s face was livid as he looked at me. “Did you tell my son about me?” he demanded to know.

  “No,” I sputtered back, trying to work through my shock at Mikey’s arrival. Why had he come here? I hadn’t called him. Surely the news people hadn’t managed to come yet, had they? I glanced around. No one was in sight.

  Dante was the only one, and he was looking at me curiously. “I thought I would give you the chance to tell him you were here,” I said, deciding to hit back as much as I could. “I didn’t want to di
sappoint him.”

  “Well, he was disappointed anyway,” Dante retorted, suddenly cold. He sighed. “Never mind. We have business to discuss.”

  The coolness of his gaze, along with the apathy he cloaked himself in after he’d just seen Mikey, made me furiously angry. “I’m not going to work with you.” I signaled to Elysian and nudged Aleia. “We’re leaving.”

  Elysian transformed, saying nothing (for once), and Aleia and I hopped up onto his back. Before Elysian took off, I turned back to Dante and said, “Stay away from us—and Mikey, too, if you know what’s good for you.”

  It was the most blatant and dangerous threat I’d ever muttered at that point in my life. But I meant it. I didn’t want Mikey to keep paying for all the problems his dad had created, both between them, and between Mikey and the rest of his world.

  In my anger, I allowed Elysian to fly through the city, staying on the topside of the city cloud cover, as I stewed. I hated Dante, I thought. I hated him, and I hated what he had done to his son, and what I’d let him do to Mikey and me because of my silence.

  It was some time later when Aleia tapped me on the shoulder. “Can you put me down?” she asked.

  “Huh?” I jolted out of my waking nightmare. “Oh, yeah. Where do you need?”

  “Just down there,” Aleia said, pointing to a quiet spot in the northern district.

  A few moments later, I took her hand and helped her down from Elysian’s back. The pavement felt cold to me, pushing through the protection of my boots.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I appreciate the ride.”

  I looked around. The place was familiar to me. Recognition burst through a moment later. We were in front of the church where, a few months ago at Christmastime, I saw Lady Hope dancing with some of her children over a manger scene.

  “I’ve been staying here,” Aleia explained.

  “As a nun?” I asked, incredulous.

  She laughed. “More or less,” she confessed. “I’ve found the company to be very pleasing.”

  “Well, I guess that’s good,” I muttered, silently cringing. It would not have been my first choice.

  “Why don’t you pay me a visit tomorrow?” Aleia asked.

  “I have work in the morning,” I recalled. “But we can do later on in the day.”

  “Alright,” Aleia agreed. “We’ll work out a plan tomorrow. Try to go home and get some sleep, Hamilton.”

  “I’ll try.” No promises.

  ☼21☼

  Conflicted

  Aleia’s words had echoed through me as the night passed, and my own attempt to get some rest proved to be an exercise in futility. I tried, but I did not succeed until the latest hours of the night, where the darkness covering the world was ready to release it.

  Fortunately, two things saved me from falling asleep at work. Rachel’s Café began catering the mayor’s office, as Stefano had mentioned, so I had plenty of her coffee. I also managed to stay awake because Gwen texted me a lot, heralding in a new source of trouble for the day.

  I’d forgotten I left her, along with Adam, at Rachel’s to go to the observatory and fight off the demon, so we were not having much of a good conversation. But it was one conversation from which I was unable to excuse myself.

  Which was only fair. Well, probably still less than fair to Gwen, after all the times I’d skipped out on her.

  It was fair enough, I decided, after reading a rather lengthy, tearful-sounding plea to meet with her in Shoreside Park after I was done at work.

  And while I was pretty sure she was angry, I was determined to reason with her. At least about our friendship, so our break-up story wouldn’t be so damaging to my reputation.

  I studied her as I came close, trying to read her emotions carefully.

  “Before we say anything else, I want to say I’m sorry.”

  The words coming out of my mouth sounded fake to my ears, but I reasoned it was only because I was not used to apologizing, and I largely didn’t believe in it. But there are exceptions to every rule, and if a woman is upset with you, that’s usually the exception. And seeing Gwen’s face as she turned to look at me through her sad, beautiful, honey-brown eyes, I had been pretty sure it was time for the exception to prove the rule.

  “Let me buy you dinner,” I suggested, scooting closer to her on the small park bench, and hoping I didn’t look as tired as I felt. “Rachel’s is right over there, right? We can get some coffee, too, or something else? You had a lot of fun the time we . . . uh, we went . . . ”

  I paused here, trying to recall the last full date we had. “You liked going to the track meets, right?” I asked. “We can find something like that to do.”

  “Hammy—”

  “I was thinking of seeing if you wanted to maybe have dinner at my parents’ house, too, sometime, if you would even want to meet them. They’re not exactly the—”

  “Hamilton—”

  “Please, Gwen, don’t be mad at me. I just totally forgot to get something at my house the other night, and then I had to go somewhere for the mayor—”

  “Please stop,” Gwen interjected. “As I told you in my messages, I’m fine. I don’t need to be bribed or cajoled into being your girlfriend, you know.” She sniffed. “It’s actually a bit insulting when you try, too.”

  “I wasn’t trying to bribe you,” I muttered back.

  “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

  “What is it?” I asked, feeling a trickle of dread descending into my stomach. Was she going to ask for a “break?” Was there an “anniversary” thing coming up I needed to make a big deal out of?

  She sighed. “Do you still want to be my boyfriend?” she asked. Before I could ask why she would even say such a thing, she said, “Let me explain. You’re busy. I know that. And I’m just asking because I can handle working around your schedule if you need it. I didn’t realize when we started dating that you wouldn’t have a lot of free time, but that’s not your fault.”

  This was not going the way I’d expected, especially after ditching her, and then forgetting I’d ditched her. I had fully expected a letdown and a breakup; I was prepared for it, even.

  She looked up at me with big eyes. “A few months ago, I wasn’t sure about giving you a chance. I was upset with my parents for liking you better than Tim, and I was afraid of all the stuff going on, you know, because of the city’s troubles, and . . . well, I thought about what you said before, about committing to something. And it was right. Hearing it from you was just what I think I needed to see you’d changed.”

  She has no idea how much has changed, I thought.

  “And I’ve realized this past week especially, how much you’re trying to do such a good job with everything that it’s stretching you a bit thin.” Gwen continued, “So I was worried you might feel like you’re too busy for me, but I really want to be your girlfriend still.”

  “You do?” I asked, surprised. “But what about all the times I’ve run out on you or forgotten stuff or been called away on business?”

  “Well, you told me why you had to go, right?” Gwen sighed. “I mean, most of the time.”

  “And what about the times I’ve called you and had to hang up suddenly? Doesn’t that annoy you?”

  “I can text you from now on,” she assured me.

  This was strange, I thought. “What about all the times you’ve been upset with me?”

  “I’ve forgiven you, haven’t I?”

  “I guess, but—”

  “Hamilton, are you trying to dissuade me from continuing our relationship?”

  No. Yes. Maybe. “No, it’s just . . . I mean—”

  “I don’t feel like I am good enough for you.”

  Her admission floored me. “Of course you’re good enough for me, Gwen,” I insisted, immediately backtracking. “I mean, who else is this patient with my schedule, unpredictable as it is? And you help me out tons by keeping Adam out of my hair.”

  She laughed. “Well, good to see I’m
useful.”

  I took her hand. “Gwen, you’re so pretty,” I said. “And smart, and funny, and you get along well with my friends. There’s no way there is anyone better out there to date than you.”

  “I love you, you know.”

  “What–huh? Uh . . . ” If her previous admission had floored me, this one managed to push me through the floor of reality and into a hole.

  Gwen gave me a small smile. “I know you have a problem with love,” she said. “I mean, look at how your parents treat you, and how you don’t really have anyone to turn to in your life with your problems. So don’t worry about it right now. But I wanted you to know I’m here for you.”

  Her comments were unsettling, and not for the reason I thought they were. “That’s . . . well, thank you.” I kissed her cheek and smiled (awkwardly, no doubt) before hugging her.

  “Do you think you could love me back one day?” she asked.

  The old Hamilton Dinger would not have hesitated in the least to say “yes.” He might have even managed to zealously declare he was already madly, passionately in love with her, even if he wasn’t.

  The new one screamed at me to say absolutely nothing, because it was better than lying to her or misleading her.

  Some kind of a compromise resulted from the internal standoff inside. “Of course,” I muttered into her hair. In the split second after, I shoved the guilt and shame down by telling myself Gwen would always be one of the loveliest people I knew, and I loved her as a friend if nothing else.

  I took a long moment to hold onto her, to imagine how pretty she looked, and how pretty and perfect we looked together.

  Then the moment passed, and I was somewhat relieved.

  I glanced at the time. Aleia had asked me to meet with her today, I recalled. She hadn’t said a time, but I could probably head over, I decided.

  But after looking at Gwen’s face, I changed my mind. Like my guilt before, I shoved the instinct to run away down. I had to give her some time. I had to do something for her.

  So we talked, and we walked, hand in hand, all the way around Shoreside Park. I listened to her tell me about schoolwork and Adam’s latest antics, how her parents were going on vacation this summer, and other stuff like that.