PHOENIX (The Weaver Series Book 4)

by Vaun Murphrey

  “It’s too easy for others to paint us as the monster because of what we can do. Sometimes Silver calls us a walking virus as a joke but I think she really has a little self-hate going on she won’t admit. Why do you think she’s so damn angry all the time?”

  Corinne vibrated like a struck gong. “Did you see how everyone looked at me in the operating room?”

  “Yeah I did. It sucks being different. The fear the people we love struggle to hide makes me want to cower and suck my thumb. I get furious about it and then I realize sometimes they aren’t afraid of me, but for me, and that makes their reaction bearable.”

  She sounded wistful. “You have so many people who care, though. I only have Kevin, and I keep waiting for him to get tired of how complicated I make his life with Melody.”

  I laughed. “Girl, you should see Silver lock horns with Mez’s mom! You and Melody don’t have anything on them!”

  Corinne’s guard inched down and her surface softened. “I believe I have need of you as well. Silver may not want to befriend me, though.”

  I toyed with the attachment to Silver’s pale lavender orb. “She will if you ask her.”

  A brilliant dot hurtled toward us on a collision course and then slowed at the last second to melt into Silver’s hide without a ripple. “Ask me what? Eh, never mind, Sil’s on his way.”

  I felt a flare of excitement from Corinne that I echoed. Like a shooting star through a wormhole Sil appeared in an energy storm of blue, white and orange. When he contracted, his essence settled into clearly defined sections of color. Sil’s center was midnight black with the same obsidian shine as his eyes, but the space between his core and his glassy, orange crust was a cotton-filled rolling cloud wonderland.

  Polite as always, Sil asked, “How may I assist you and who is this friend of yours I have not met?”

  Corinne hardened at his inquiry. I ignored her and addressed Sil. “This is Corinne Harris and she seems to be a trailblazer in the gifts department. From our touch she developed a malleable shield, she can move in short bursts of speed, has bolstered strength and she absorbed an ability on her own from her deceased mother that none of us have. She can manipulate blood.”

  The fluffy cumulus shapes went stretched and cirrus as my words piqued his interest. “Would she be amenable to further study?” Sil seemed to collect himself as the white turned to a serious opaque gray. “Excuse me for my eagerness. Knowledge gathering is my life’s calling. We can broach that subject later. I imagine Silver’s situation takes precedence.” He detached a fluff of himself that spread thin and foggy. “May I, Silver?”

  She didn’t hesitate, “Of course, Sil.” The pale lavender swirled, looking like grape flavored radioactive milk on her forcibly combined essence.

  His fog thinned to a fine mist and disappeared. I wondered if Silver could even sense his infiltration. The cloud that extracted itself from Silver moments later was thicker, as if the information it had gathered had increased its mass exponentially.

  Sil was silent and closed down for a long time. When he spoke the undercurrent in his mental tone was puzzlement with excitement thrown in. “I will need more time to assimilate this data in the lab. What is the outcome you hope for?”

  I sputtered, “I want my sister back! That should be obvious, Sil!”

  Silver sounded like Atlas crushed under the weight of planet Earth. “This isn’t my body.”

  Even in the Web I could picture the expression on Sil’s face as he worried over the problem. He would have his full bottom lip pinched between thumb and index finger, tapping his free fingers on the top of his desk.

  Sil was only half minding his words while his thoughts careened from one thing to another as he said, “Technically your friend’s unoccupied flesh would suit just as well as Cass’s does, if not better. You would no longer be conjoined and Mez could enjoy a full relationship with you, Silver. Have you fully thought through all angles? How has this development affected the Bindao? Does Mez know of your difficulties?”

  Earlier in the day when Corinne suggested something along the same lines about Kara’s body Silver had blown her top, but when Sil spoke it was from a place of pure conjecture so she let it slide. I didn’t. “I don’t want to hear about how much easier my sister and I being separate would make our life! That isn’t who we are! Drop it!”

  Sil’s orange crust solidified. “Pardon my insensitivity, Cassandra. I will refrain from suggesting reality in the future.”

  His censure was enough to make me spit.

  Silver spoke over the top of my ire. “Thank you for coming so fast to help us. I know you’re busy. How’s Zik? Did he regain himself after Kai’s death?”

  Happiness and lightness exuded on radiating beams from Sil’s essence. “Oh yes! Zik is much recovered and back in the lab where he belongs. I will tell him you have inquired after his welfare. If you will please excuse me, I must get back to my work. When I know something useful I will contact you. It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Corinne Harris.”

  He faded into the distance on an orange trail of stardust.

  Corinne laughed and the sound was unexpected. “I like him, I think.”

  Silver shifted sideways in an unconscious drift toward me. We wanted to be one so badly it hurt. My twin’s mental signature was droopy with emotional exhaustion. “I think we should head back and maybe get a good night’s rest or something. We’ve done all we can do here.”

  No one argued. The first thing to hit my senses was the sight of pizza sauce smeared on a strand of stringy mozzarella. Condensation wasn’t a fine even coating on the soda cans anymore; fat rivers of water streamed on the sides to pool on the top of the dresser. Well, we needed to get eating out of the way so we could be done with it. I stretched first, with my arms over my head, then flipped my ponytail off my shoulder. Corinne came to just in time for me to grab our plates and shuffle flatfooted to the bed. Silver’s slice got tossed on the nightstand since I didn’t want the comforter messy, and I rolled my now cold triangle into an Italian burrito to chow down.

  The sensation as the energy field thinned and receded from my mouth and nose was welcome. All of us could manipulate the shield for bodily functions, even Reb and Ray. Embarrassing, demeaning and inconvenient would only be a few of the words I would use if Corinne was forced to help everyone she covered achieve basic bodily functions.

  Kara’s eyes were still closed and I had an inkling that Silver had stayed on in the Web to update Mez. I made short work of dinner, slid my empty plate under Silver’s still full one and wiped my hands on my thighs out of habit. Whatever food debris had attempted to transfer to the field had sloughed off automatically to dirty the carpet.

  Corinne was watching me with a critical light in her eye as she held out a Dr. Pepper in a rigid extension of her arm. Her sweater had a snag that was standing out in a dainty loop. It bugged me for some reason. I snatched the drink with a frown instead of a thank you.

  She fidgeted. “What did I do now?”

  I popped the can open. The crisp sound of the aluminum seal breaking knocked me out of my discontent for a moment. “It’s nothing.” The bite of the carbonation and the super sweet syrup rushed into my mouth as I tilted my head. My nose wrinkled and I set the can directly on the water ring of its prior resting place on the dresser.

  Corinne snorted. “Nothing is about as elaborative as fine, Cass.”

  I kept quiet unlike the growing unease in my head.

  Voice vacant and cold, she added, “Fine, I guess that offer of friendship was false then.”

  A low growl erupted from my throat. “Give a girl a minute! I’m trying to figure it out. You’re sort of a nag.”

  Corinne folded her arms across her front and laced her fingers together with a pristine unruffled expression on her face, as if she had all the time in the world.

  A slow dawning crept in as I began to speak. “I’ve been avoiding looking too closely at certain family members’ memories. I know I sho
uld just read the note Gerome left and see what he had to say but I’m afraid. The Warp Faction is a looming threat. I want the Soul Eater dead, and until Silver and I make that happen it’s going to hang over us. Unfinished business makes me antsy.”

  Lips barely moving to show teeth, Corinne asked, “Something unpleasant crossed behind your eyes when you looked at me. There’s more.”

  I shrugged. “The snag in your sweater.”

  Precisely plucked eyebrows plunged. “What about it?”

  “It made you seem vulnerable and real. I wish you were as hard as you pretended to be so you’d never get hurt. Losing another person is not an option. Silver’s not with me, Kara left, James is sad and hurting, Malcolm almost died and Gerome’s gone like your mother.” Surprisingly I felt tears well and my chin trembled. When the emotion started to drain I shook my head. “No, Corinne. I need this.” My shoulders bent inward, and as my face collapsed I covered my eyes with my hands.

  After a moment my shield dropped to be replaced by the arms of a new friend.

  Silver stretched her consciousness down the line to Mez. She’d been hoping he would seek her out first. Maybe he’d already tried and couldn’t get through? When she hailed him time slid by in a sludge of apprehension.

  Finally his light appeared, flaring with solar urgency and impatience. “What is it? Are you alright? What has happened to you, Min Leoght Cor? You are…different.”

  How to begin? A surprising amount of hurt welled up that he hadn’t come running when he felt a disturbance on her end. “You would know already if you’d checked on me, Mez. I guess me falling off the radar isn’t enough to pull you away from your duties.”

  For that matter, why hadn’t Kal noticed? Her head was a snarl of anger. It felt good to aim it somewhere. Even if it was one of the people she wanted to hold close the most.

  Mez’s yellow crust hardened. “I did want to come to you but Kal said I must trust you to handle it. That you would not appreciate my interference.” He paused and his orange core began to spin. “On Axsa you were determined I should let you take care of yourself. All of a sudden I am wrong now?”

  The tears Silver wanted to cry manifested in a sparkling mist around her. They looked like sharp diamonds, used to cut, not decorate throats and fingers.

  “I don’t want to fight. I’m sorry. Please come home as soon as you can. I need you, Mez, more than I ever have. I’m so alone.”

  The pain of her separation from Cass bled through her connection to Mez until it felt like a flood of blood from her soul. She cut the connection in an abrupt slice of thought and closed her mind to the Web.

  Chapter Nine: The Juice

  Silver’s voice brought me back from my crying jag.

  “What’s going on? Why are you crying, Cass?”

  I still had my face buried in my hands and stuffed against the soft slick ends of Corinne’s hair by her ear. My situational awareness sprang up. I absorbed the feel of circles being rubbed midway down my spine. Moisture, warm and uncomfortable but beginning to chill, was trapped in the finger cave over my eyes. Peach taffy colored light broke through the gaps in my digits. I moved to withdraw and Corinne released her hold with no hesitation; maybe she was glad to be rid of the close contact?

  My shirt sleeve made an excellent hanky as I wiped away the watery evidence of my breakdown. Silver looked worried with a small amount of jealousy thrown in Corinne’s direction. “Today got to me, Silver. It hit me when I wasn’t expecting it is all. I miss you.”

  Mollified but still wary, Silver scooted to the side of the bed to attack her pizza. I smiled when she ate it in exactly the same fashion I had earlier, finishing up by wiping her hands on Kara’s dark blue skinny jeans. In our deceased friend’s body Silver could rest her Converse clad feet flat on the floor. James’ request from earlier resurfaced.

  “Do you think you could alter Kara’s appearance in some way, Silver?”

  It was Corinne who made the leap the fastest. “To make it more bearable for James?”

  My twin licked the corner of Kara’s mouth and ran a hand absently through her short black hair. “I can try. What would you suggest? I can either bend light or do something permanent but it’s all just window dressing. I’m still squatting in Kara’s body like a warty toad. Circumstance has made me into a Soul Eater, Cass.” She looked haunted and gaunt.

  My index finger shot on a direct line to my sibling. “Don’t ever compare yourself to the Soul Eater again, Silver! This was done to you, not the other way around.”

  She sighed. “If I induce a cellular change I’ll need a lot of energy and our tesseract is broken still. We need a fourth.” She turned on Corinne with a snide ripple to her upper lip. “Care to audition?”

  I sniffled. “That’s actually not a bad idea, Silver.”

  Corinne pulled the cuffs of her sweater into her fists and clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth. “How much would you suggest I do at one time? I’m overloaded as it is!”

  I cajoled, “You’re perfectly capable of delegating more of your business duties to some other poor sap and accompanying us wherever we go. I doubt that will be necessary all the time though. Kara stayed at the house a lot unless we had an emergency. You said you guard the core, and James is the big picture.”

  She rolled her eyes and bit her lip. “I don’t like being anyone’s beck and call girl.”

  Silver looked down her nose. “Aren’t you doing that now anyway? I know you try to mind everyone to the point of exhaustion. Kevin told me when he was worried about you once. He asked if I could make you sleep without you knowing I’d done it.”

  Corinne pushed the sleeves of her sweater to her elbows and wiped her face of all expression. “Did he now?” Her cheeks looked like rosy cherry blossoms as her fury escaped. “Did you tamper with my body or mind without my permission, Silver?”

  My sister ground out, “Wow, you think I’d really do that behind your back?”

  Blue ice-chip irises thawed minutely and Corinne reverted to her normal pale coloring. “I apologize. The idea of anyone manipulating me without my knowledge makes me uneasy. I had no inkling I’d made Kevin desperate.”

  Silver picked at the hem of Kara’s beat up Concrete Blonde t-shirt. “He said you have nightmares and you talk in your sleep.”

  My eyes felt dry and itchy. I faced the mirror and groaned at my red, swollen features. I looked like Sloth from The Goonies. The drawer handle felt refreshingly cool on my heated flesh as I pulled it open. A headache was beginning to form in my temples so I snatched out a pair of socks with poor humor and used one for my still soggy cheeks and the other to clean up the condensation rings on the dresser.

  I watched Corinne and Silver’s silent appraisal of one another in the mirror.

  Finally my twin relented. “Alright, I’ll quit picking fights with you if you quit picking them with me. I can’t guarantee anything but I’ll make the effort to be more pleasant. Will that make you try out for our vacancy?”

  Corinne drew in a deep breath. “Why would you even want me? You hate me.”

  Silver mumbled something unintelligible.

  I perked up. This should be good. A stray whisper caressed where Silver would have been inside, like an aftershock of her thoughts, and a feeling of abandonment swamped me. How did people live all by themselves in their brains? It was lonely.

  Corinne prodded, “What was that? I couldn’t quite hear you.”

  Our eyes tucked in Kara’s epicanthic folds narrowed to slits as Silver forced her head up, face twisted in a sucked lemon expression. “I don’t hate you!”

  Picking at the snag on her sweater Corinne whispered, “Fine. I’ll audition.”

  My phone chose that moment to ring. I dug it out and looked at the number on the screen—Chavarria. Telling him to take a hike once today wasn’t enough? What the hell, I was in the mood to tear someone a new anus anyway. I answered, “Reading Rainbow, I can be anything.”

  “Que?”

 
Silver smirked at my television show theme song reference but obviously Chavarria didn’t get it. I mouthed his last name at my sister and she waved a hand for me to get rid of him. “What do you want, Marco? I already told you we aren’t interested in your help.”

  His voice lowered like he had his hand over his mouth on his end. “The police have a suspect in custody for Malcolm’s hit and run.”

  I stared at my boots, following the grain of the leather with my enhanced vision. My heart beat faster. “Oh?”

  He got wise. “You’re interested in what I have to say now aren’t you? Terca como una mula.”

  “At least insult me in Ingles so I can ignore it faster, Chavarria. You want I should hang up on you right now or what, dude? Malcolm is law enforcement; you’re redundant for information gathering purposes.”

  The Agent laughed then got deadly serious. “This suspect looks like someone near and dear to you that I know to be dead. This suspect has asked for you and your sister before he’ll give a statement. This suspect turned himself in. Interesado? Venga mula loca!”

  Empty air followed that command. I looked at the screen with my heart burning a hole through my sternum. Something in my face made Corinne raise the shields. Silver stood in front of me and closed her hand over the phone.

  “So? Spill it, Cass.”

  I jerked into motion and tore out of my twin’s grip. “Corinne, get in the Web and call James up here. Tell him to bring Malcolm.” She closed her eyes.

  Silver crossed Kara’s arms.

  She took a deep breath and just when she was about to lay into me I said, “Per Chavarria, the person who was responsible for Malcolm’s brush with death today is someone related to us that should be deceased. They’ve asked for us.”

  Silver rubbed Kara’s neck with one hand and scratched her stomach with the other. I could feel the blank spots in the energy field where she’d thinned her protection to fidget. An image of Malcolm’s blood floating in a rippling sphere came unbidden and I grabbed her wrists. As she stared I sealed the holes then pulled her closer until we were nose to nose. She was forced to bend to my level.