02 Seekers

by Lynnie Purcell

  was no mistaking the feeling. Alex grabbed her leg in protest, but leaned forward at the

  expression on my face. “What?”

  “We’re being watched,” I mouthed at her.

  She sat up a little straighter and looked around. “Who?”

  I shut my eyes and concentrated. The pulse of people on the streets was increasing, but the roads were mostly empty. It didn’t take me long to find the trail of thought. I stood up and marched to the corner of the building, my sudden fear at being watched replaced by irritation. I yanked the boy I had just rescued around the corner by the front of his shirt. He yelped as I did, but I ignored him. “Why are you spying on us?” I demanded.

  He pushed away from me and fixed his ratty clothes primly. “Not spying…checking out. Big

  difference.”

  I searched his face for the truth and noticed something. I pushed him against the building again in reflex at what I saw. His face was perfect, not a blemish or scratch in sight. People didn’t just heal from a broken nose in a matter of thirty minutes. The only people that did were Watchers.

  He was obviously much too young to be a Watcher, but something strange was definitely going on. And that strangeness had me on the defensive.

  “How’d you do that?” I asked him.

  “Do what?” he asked, trying to push me off.

  I pointed at his noise. “Your face!”

  “I told you I had it covered.” He pushed at me again. “Let me go, will ya?”

  “Not until you tell me how you have it ‘covered’,” I said.

  Eli! The boy’s thoughts yelled out suddenly. His thoughts were worried that I meant what I said.

  He knew I could handle myself – he had seen proof enough in the alley – and was searching for help...

  “Who’s Eli?” I asked quickly.

  “I didn’t say nothing about no Eli,” he said.

  We stared each other down. I was annoyed I had given one of my secrets away to this street rat with questionable morals and even more questionable motives. His thoughts weren’t upset about the possibility of me reading minds – he was rather open to the concept actually – he just wanted to know how I was able.

  “Why are you here?” I asked.

  He looked down at the shirt I was clutching. I let him go slowly, seeing he wouldn’t answer until I did. “Look…you saved my life. Twice. I got curious. So sue me,” he said.

  “Maybe I will,” Alex said. “My dad’s a lawyer.”

  “Your dad’s a lawyer?” he asked.

  I scowled at Alex to shut up, but she shrugged indifferently in response. It wasn’t any worse than my slip.

  “Okay…” he said. “Let’s start over. Hi, I’m Spider, your run-of-the-mill homeless kid living day-to-day by the sharpness of his wit and the skill of his hands.”

  “Unless he’s caught by gang members,” I retorted.

  “They surprised me,” he said with shrug. “They’re very territorial, and I made them angry last month by begging on ‘their streets’ without paying my ‘dues’.”

  “They were pretty upset about you just ‘begging’,” I pointed out.

  “Well, I may have stolen the leader’s wallet, and they took it a little seriously,” he said.

  “Smart,” I said.

  He bowed ironically.

  “Did he say why he’s stalking us?” Alex asked me. “I didn’t hear.”

  “I do believe he gave a vague answer meant to throw us off,” I replied.

  “Gratitude,” he replied. “I wanted to say thank you.”

  “Uh-huh,” I replied. My eyes swept the streets and the skyline. The feeling of being watched hadn’t faded despite catching our watcher. Was it the mysterious Eli?

  “Does he strike you as the type to say ‘thank you’?” Alex asked.

  Spider’s brain was working two steps ahead of our questions, thinking of answers before we even knew the questions. I let him think he had the dime on us; it helped me hear two steps ahead. I could hear he was genuinely grateful, despite his real reason for being here – which he hadn’t thought of yet. That honest gratitude was the only that kept me from walking away – that and I wanted to know if we had been found…again.

  “Nope,” I replied in response to Alex’s question.

  “You know about them, don’t you?” he asked me suddenly, catching me off guard. “Those

  strange people.”

  “Vague,” Alex said, crossing her arms, mirroring my stance.

  I knew what he meant – the fight we had witnessed. “Yes.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Something you don’t need to know about,” I replied.

  “What if I did?” he asked.

  He had started to scramble his thoughts. He couldn’t block them out entirely, but he started thinking about technical things, things that were so over my head I felt insignificant. It was then I knew for sure he knew more than he was letting on. The only reason he would scramble his

  thoughts was because he knew about my ability. He wasn’t curious about how I could read

  minds, he was curious if the ability went beyond me. Spider knew about my world, and the only way he would know about my world is if he had encountered it before. Possibilities ran through my head as I searched for an explanation. One thing was clear: Spider wasn’t as ‘run of the mill’

  as he had stated.

  He crossed his arms and looked between Alex and me. “I just want to know what happened in

  the alley.” His green eyes flashed with an idea. “We can make a deal, if it’ll make you trust me.

  A kind of, I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.”

  “What kind of scratching?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Just tell me what’s going on, who, or what, those people fighting on the building were, and I’ll do whatever you want. I’m a good friend to have, doll. I can guarantee you that.”

  Alex pulled me away from him. “We could use someone who knows this town. We’ve not had

  the best of luck so far…”

  “I know that,” I said tartly. I didn’t need her to point out our lack of situation or my inability to get results. “What exactly did you want to know?” I asked Spider.

  “Everything you know,” he said with a shrug.

  “It could get him killed,” I told Alex quietly.

  “Tell him that,” she said.

  “I’m not worried,” Spider said.

  “You should be,” I warned him. I stepped close again. “Because what you saw the other day was tepid compared to the fire you’re asking to jump into.”

  “Very scary.” He took a couple of steps around us. “We should get out of here. The rent-a-cop is going to come by in a minute, and he does not like my kind. He thinks we’re homeless on

  purpose.”

  I looked between Spider and Alex, trying to decide. Alex’s face was impassive but Spider’s face screamed something familiar at me; there was something about the shape of his eyes I trusted.

  Something inside told me I should follow him and see where this went. Plus, we needed help, and he was the only one offering it. Knowing it was stupid, I decided to put my trust him, feeling like doing so was asking for more trouble than we already had.

  “You first,” I said meaning for him to lead the way. “Make sure you keep your hands where I can see them, though.”

  “I wouldn’t steal from my savior, doll,” he said grandly, pacing away from us with long strides.

  “I have morals, you know.”

  Alex and I shared a skeptical look then turned to follow him. Our doubts trailed after us in curious acceptance of our choice.

  Chapter 10

  Alex hooked her arm through mine as we walked after him. “You getting anything from him? Up here?” She tapped her forehead.

  “Not really. He’s smart,” I said grudgingly, “and knows more than he’s saying. He’s blocking things out. What about you?” I asked her. “Is your gift
telling you anything?”

  “It’s not much of a gift,” she said. “I don’t always see convenient things. I can tell he’s more capable than his smart mouth would lead us to believe. He’s used to being underestimated and uses it to his advantage…Why do you think he wants to know about…you know?”

  “I have a feeling we’ll find out. Where are we headed?” I asked him, aware he was

  eavesdropping.

  He turned around and started walking backwards. “I got a place.” He wiggled his eyebrows

  suggestively.

  “What are you, eight?” Alex asked.

  “Eleven,” he replied. “So, what do you say?”

  “Not even in your dreams,” I replied.

  “Aw, that’s just mean,” he said in a mock hurt voice.

  He had led us to a small back street, which was isolated and closed off by cars and balconies. I slowed down. The eyes I felt on me were more intense now; closer. Spider had led us to the real watcher. I dropped Alex’s arm and took a stronger grip on the sword. Spider stared at me

  curiously as I slowed. Maybe he wasn’t as aware of our watcher as I thought. Maybe.

  A flicker of movement to my right had me reacting instinctively. The sword was out of the bag and hanging in midair before I fully understood the nature of the threat. Anger dominated my senses as the shadow shifted into a person. Spider had led us to a trap; our tentative trust had been misplaced. Alex took a step back as the figure materialized from the shadows at the end of my sword. His strange eyes, one blue, one brown, brought back a memory. He had been at the fire. He had locked eyes with me as everything had spiraled out of control.

  “Whoa, he’s a friend,” Spider said.

  I didn’t reply to Spider – he was too new an acquaintance to trust him at his word. I considered my options, automatically considering what it would take to end shadow-man before he ended me.

  Our visitor and I stared at each other assessing, probing for weaknesses. The tension from the moment locked my body into a strange sense of action. Our hotel wasn’t that far from here. A couple of blocks? Maybe, this was his territory to prowl – to find innocents to kill. For all I knew, he had set the fire. He could have gotten Spider to lead us here to finish the job he had started.

  “I’ve seen one of those swords before, Spider,” the man said. His voice was tight, controlled. It teetered on the edge of irritated anger.

  “She has answers,” Spider said.

  “She’s one of them. She probably started that fire at the hotel.”

  “Eli, come on! Look at her! She’s saved my life twice now. She’s not like the others.”

  Around the tension, I was surprised at how adult Spider sounded. He was the voice of reason – a mature voice of reason around Eli’s suspicion.

  Eli and I kept up our shared glare of distrust. My main concern was Alex. I wasn’t sure if I should fight or run away. What would be best for her? The last time I had gotten in a fight with a Watcher she had turned into a Nightstalker. This wasn’t the best place for that. Not just because it could get us killed. She dreaded turning again. She never mentioned it, but I knew.

  “Clare…” Alex warned, perhaps seeing some of my thoughts on my face. The fear in her voice was enough for me to seek out a better resolution than fighting.

  “Who do you work for?” I asked Eli.

  “Work for?” Eli asked back.

  “Marcus? The brothers at war? Someone else?” I listed them out for him.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eli said.

  “That’s what I was saying,” Spider said. He put a hand between us, pushing me back. “Why I need information. Please. This isn’t a trap, or whatever you think it is. I’m just trying to help out a friend.”

  My anger spoke to me – it told me to do the easy thing and start a fight. The sword agreed eagerly, thirsting after the blood of another Watcher. The part of me that reminded me of Daniel was saying other things, suggesting temperance instead of violence. I choose to listen to the Daniel-voice…for now. I lowered the sword from Eli’s neck in a tentative form of trust, but I kept a tight grip on the hilt. The tense silence hummed down to merge with the increasing traffic on either end of the road. Eli’s eyes made me uncomfortable as they bored into my face with an intensity that went beyond human. I waited for him to speak, to do anything, but he didn’t feel compelled to talk first.

  “So, who wants to start first?” Spider asked.

  “I don’t think this is the best place to do talking,” Alex said. “We don’t know…”

  “There’s no one around, and I’m not taking you anywhere unless I know you’re not one of

  them,” Eli said.

  “One of who exactly?” I asked.

  “The ones who hurt people. The ones who haunt this town for victims.” He pulled his hood up to shadow his face against the rising sun. He glared at the light in strange hatred. “The evil ones.”

  “I’m not one of those,” I said.

  “What are you? What am…”

  “What are you?” Alex repeated, astonished. “Clare, he doesn’t know.”

  “I’m beginning to figure that out,” I said slowly. “How could you not know what you are?”

  “I-I…” Eli searched for the words.

  Spider interceded. “We’re street kids, doll. We only know what the streets tell us. The streets don’t know nothing about the freaky stuff Eli can do. They just know he’s different, and that difference has chased him for a long time.”

  “That has got to be…”

  “The single most frightening thing I’ve heard,” I finished for Alex.

  Eli didn’t know what he was, or what was happening to him. I had been blessed with Ellen, then Daniel, to tell me what was happening. He had no one. I understood him being paranoid about who he asked; especially if he had noticed the bad Watchers running around town. The miracle was that Marcus’s Seekers hadn’t found him yet or that he hadn’t otherwise been attacked by a wayward Watcher. I didn’t know how they were able to track Watchers the way they did, but I knew they were good at it. Two of them had tracked me for two years and that was no mean feat with a gypsy of a mother who had a knack for disappearing.

  My suspicion wavered at the questions in Eli’s eyes and Spider’s genuine concern for his friend.

  Alex and I shared a questioning look. If we told Eli who he was and what that meant, maybe, he could be the key to finding the people we were looking for – if they were still alive.

  “Are you sure we’re alone?” I asked Eli.

  He nodded in affirmation.

  “I swear to you what I’m about to say is the truth,” I said. “Try to believe me.”

  Again, a silent nod.

  I launched into the story, secretly waiting for him to scoff, or laugh, or try to kill me. He didn’t.

  He simply watched with those odd eyes until I had finished. His intensity was disarming. He flicked his eyes to Spider when I’d explained the majority of what he needed to know – about Marcus, the war, who he was, and what that meant – and Spider perked up.

  “So everyone has a unique talent?” Spider asked for Eli.

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “That explains why you can heal people, Eli…” Spider said.

  That also explained why Spider’s broken nose was suddenly unbroken. Eli scowled at Spider, obviously not wanting us to know his talent. Spider ignored him with a familiar shrug. While Eli was the superhuman in the group, I got that Spider didn’t always agree with the way Eli acted. It was curious Eli put up with it, especially since he seemed so impatient.

  “And this Marcus person is the reason for all the stuff starting to kick up around town…all the disappearances, and the other ones moving through town?” Spider asked.

  “Yes,” I agreed. “That’s why we’re down here. Marcus is up to something – he’s set up a nest here to recruit new members and sell others for money. Daniel is trying to figure out what his p
lans are with me, and why he’s stepping up his game. Only things went bad. We’re trying to find Daniel and our other friends, and make sure they’re okay.”

  “I got all that from the first time you told the story,” Spider said.

  “She’s doubly serious about it,” Alex replied.

  “We’ll help,” Eli decided. “Don’t think I won’t be watching you, though. Telling the truth now doesn’t mean you aren’t lying about something,” he said. He turned and walked off, his long legs taking him out of eyesight quickly.

  “Friendly,” I said, wrapping the bag around the sword again.

  “That went well,” Spider said with a clap. “I guess that means you are officially invited.”

  “Invited?” I asked.

  “We’re going to help with your search...it’s only fair after what you’ve told us. That means you can stay with us for a while.”

  “Oh…we’ve got a place,” I said, wanting to maintain a level of privacy.

  Trust wasn’t instantaneous for me, even though Spider seemed to be telling the truth. They could be hiding something. After everything that had happened in the past two days, it seemed as if everything was a hidden threat and trust was a luxury.

  “Not like this. Come on.” He waved for us to follow, ignoring my refusal.

  Alex shrugged. “First good thing that’s happened in days.”

  “First thing that appears to be a good thing,” I corrected.

  She made a face of agreement, but we followed him regardless. We caught up with his quick

  pace and walked through the streets of the French Quarter. Occasionally as we walked, Spider bumped into the tourists around us, his quick hands always finding a wallet or piece of jewelry which didn’t belong to him. I didn’t say anything. I just watched, curious and envious of his practiced skill.

  “So…you two aren’t really homeless?” he asked stuffing yet another wallet into his ratty clothes as we turned the corner of another street.

  “We are, but we aren’t,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “We have a home, yes, but it’s too dangerous to go to it right now,” I explained.