04 Last

by Lynnie Purcell

  “Because Odette said so?” I asked.

  “No,” Daniel replied. “Because keeping an eye on him is easier than wondering if he’s going to appear when we least expect it and cause problems.”

  “He already did that,” I said.

  “Once is enough, don’t you think?” Daniel asked.

  “I think Reaper should reinstate the arena rule just for Eli. I’d love to see the two of them duke it out biblical style.”

  “That’s because you’re a romantic,” Daniel said.

  “Come again?” I asked.

  “You want to see Reaper and Eli fight to the death for Alex’s affection,” Daniel said. “It’s very Austenian of you.”

  “Did you just make up a word to insult me with?” I asked.

  “No,” he replied. “The word is real.”

  I sighed as I thought about the situation.

  “I’m just worried about Alex. She won’t talk about it, but I see it. I mean, how would you feel if I was determined to hate you?” I asked.

  “I don’t think I’d like to think about that,” Daniel said.

  “He’s nothing more than a distraction…to all of us. Even Reaper is distracted by his effect on Alex. Reaper can’t be distracted like that.”

  “He’s no worse than Serenity,” Daniel said. “Having her around is like keeping a scorpion in your pocket. Eventually you’ll get stung.”

  “There will be a fight eventually,” I said. “If not Reaper, then Spider…my guess is that Spider gets to him first,” I said.

  “I pity anyone who stands in that boy’s way,” Daniel said with a smile.

  “What do you think Odette said that shook Spider up so bad?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe she told him about the end of the world,” Daniel said. “You should ask him.”

  “Spider won’t tell…not unless he wants to,” I said.

  “Ask anyway,” Daniel said.

  I nodded in acceptance of his advice and gripped his hand tighter. I was eager to let the past go for the brief time we had away from the boat and the drama that seemed to circle it. There would be time enough for worrying later.

  “I will bet you a hundred of your dollars that you can’t jump to that tree over there,” I pointed to a tree across from us.

  “That doesn’t seem fair somehow,” Daniel said.

  “Why? Cause you’re scared you can’t make it?” I asked.

  “No, cause if I lose I’m out two hundred bucks,” Daniel said. “And if I win, I gain nothing.”

  “Details!” I said. “Don’t chicken out just cause of the facts.”

  Daniel chuckled and jumped to his feet.

  “I’ll play, but only because I know I’ll win,” Daniel said.

  “Words!” I scoffed.

  His smile was boyish and charming as he looked down at me. Then, without looking, he jumped off the building. His aim was perfect. He landed in the tree, shaking leaves off the highest branches. The whole tree rattled with his hit. He used his momentum to gracefully spin and face me, his arm extended in a gesture that took in the landscape. The movement was perfect and entirely like him.

  “Anything else?” he called.

  “I bet you can’t jump back,” I said with a laugh.

  Daniel looked at me in consternation. Jumping up and defying gravity was a lot harder than using gravity to his advantage. I laughed again at the look on his face and felt some of the emotional dread of the day drain away. Everything would be okay as long as we had the laughter and each other.

  When we got back to the boat, I knew we were in trouble. We had spent the day – or night, depending on your location – laughing and exploring the ruins of the temple. It was more than a little fun and the biggest distraction I had in a long time. We were still laughing about our adventure as I landed us in our shared room. Despite our stealthy departure and arrival, our presence had been missed.

  “I looked for you.”

  Daniel and I, our laughter still in the air, turned to the bunk. Alex, her blue eyes annoyed, was sitting with the book next to her. It looked as if she had just shut the book. Her eyes x-rayed us in a way that sent tremors of fear down my spine. It was the sort of fear that wondered how angry she really was – screaming angry, or tear out my throat, after turning in to a Nightstalker, angry. She crossed her arms and let the look hover in the space between us for a moment.

  “I looked for you everywhere…” Alex continued “but you were gone. I thought maybe you had fallen overboard. Or had been kidnapped…again. Or Serenity had disappeared you for a reason I couldn’t understand. I was very worried.”

  Daniel and I looked at each other. His eyes were full of guilt and shame. He didn’t like being caught any more than he liked the worry he had caused. I could tell that he wasn’t sorry for the break from the ship, though, no more than I was.

  “I didn’t mean to worry you,” I said. “We didn’t think anyone would come looking for us with Beatrice’s lockdown.”

  Alex pursed her lips at my explanation. Her face hadn’t lost its hard edge, but her eyes were less intense. My apology had taken some of the bite off her anger, but she wasn’t done making us feel guilty.

  “I would tell you how much your sudden disappearance bothered me, particularly after what happened in the cave, but I am not certain that would change anything,” she said. “It doesn’t seem like you really care.”

  “Ohhh, that was good,” I complimented her. “Right to the quick…”

  “Thanks,” she said, a smile appearing on her face as suddenly as the dawn. “Where did you go?”

  “A temple,” I said.

  “Oh. Great. I got to worry, while you went and prayed.”

  She shook her head in irritation, but then the reason she had come searching for us won out over everything that she had been worried about with our departure.

  “I thought you would want to know that I found something new in your grandfather’s book,” she added.

  “What?” I asked.

  She picked the book up and let it fall open. It went straight to a placeholder she had tucked between the pages.

  “I was looking at the story of that historian lady again when I found it. I read the story then I just kinda flipped to the back on a whim.” She held the book out to me. “Your grandfather got tired of writing long-dead history. He went more modern.”

  I took the book she was offering me. The weight of it was significant, but the weight wasn’t what struck me. The text was different. It was less fancy and concerned with appearance. It had been sprawled on the thick parchment with sloppy handwriting that looked like Ellen’s when she was in a rush.

  I read the words eagerly.

  “My search for my family history has led me to Israel. I was contacted by a man who works for the government, after I sent a letter requesting information. He was very informative and promised to aid me in my search. He said he, too, is on a quest to uncover certain genealogical truths. I did not understand what he meant by that, but a fellow researcher of the truth is a brother in arms, in my opinion. The man is known as Jacob. He sent me records as far back as the 8th century. I was impressed by his record-keeping skills. I am still going through the notes and the copies of the documents he sent me, but it is apparent that Michaels did live in Israel for an extended period of time. How far back our line goes is a mystery. I cannot understand how the Michaels name has remained unchanged. It has to be an Anglicized form of the name, yet I cannot find any variations. It is as if the name has always been ours…without any variation. I am certain the new documents will provide the answers I seek. Cobb is coming by shortly. I’m certain he will be pleased at my findings. He has taken a marked interest in my research of late, no doubt because it was discovered the Michaels were the original founders of King’s Cross and that his family has ties to mine. We shared a great, great aunt on my father’s side. It is nice to have an ally in the search.”

  There was another entry dated two weeks later,
below the first.

  “Our family has more ties to foreign countries than I had previously thought. The documents Jacob sent me have proven illuminating. I have been immersed in them like nothing in my life. There is so much history there. A pattern is beginning to emerge, a pattern of my family. My wife has grown concerned at my obsession with my family history of late, but I cannot let it go. It consumes me. The documents…they hold the truth. I know it.”

  Another entry, a week later.

  “I have discovered something I had not previously known. The Michaels have a longer history in Israel than I thought. The 8th century was not the first time we visited the area. There are records suggesting our family was there before the birth of Christ! I am not sure how Jacob found such records, but it is very exciting. It seems that the 8th century Michaels where plagued with more than a fair share of problems. Their stay was not long.”

  Another entry three weeks later.

  “My wife has fallen sick lately. I have not had as much time for research. Cobb has come by many times to see how I have progressed. I have noticed a change in him. It is as if he is younger, less weighted down by the years. I will have to ask him his secret. He brought his cousin, Nicolas, with him and his daughter, Amanda. I feel tied to the girl…her mother was a cousin of mine. The girl will be beautiful when she grows up. I just hope she will not be like her parents…”

  “It goes on and on,” Alex interrupted my readings. “About fifty pages worth. I only got to the third one when I realized you would probably want to see it for yourself. Then, I couldn’t find you…and, well, you know the rest.”

  “I already apologized. What do you want, for me to beg for forgiveness?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  I set the book on the bed and got on my knees in front of her. I took her hands in mine and looked up at with all the pleading I could manage.

  “Please forgive me? Pretty, pretty please, find it in your heart to forgive my unforgivable trespass?” I asked.

  Alex’s expression turned lofty. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Forgive what?” Beatrice asked from the doorway.

  Daniel and I looked at each other, then at Alex. Beatrice had commanded us to stay on the ship. What would she do when she found out we had left? Beatrice was all warmth and loving tenderness, but from the look on Daniel’s face, I could tell she was not above wrath when she was disobeyed. And, while Daniel was a world-class liar, I got the feeling he didn’t like to lie to Beatrice. Alex saved us from the lie; she was not as shy about lying to Beatrice as we were.

  “Clare insulted the Breakfast Club,” Alex lied easily. “She was begging for my forgiveness.”

  “Oh, I see,” Beatrice said, accepting the lie easily.

  Beatrice stepped in to our room, leaving the door open so that there was space to stand. Her eyes roamed around the room in a quick survey. Her warm eyes filled with worry as she looked at us.

  “I wanted to check on you, before you left to find the sword,” Beatrice said.

  “You don’t want to come?” I asked.

  “I think there are plenty of others eager to help,” Beatrice said. “And I’ve had enough excitement this century.”

  “That’s fair,” I said.

  Beatrice looked at Daniel. “I know telling you to ‘be careful’ is a meaningless Mom thing to say but…”

  “I will,” Daniel promised.

  Beatrice smiled hopefully and nodded. She touched Daniel on the cheek in parting. She turned away, but stopped in the door. Her back to us, she had one last thing to say.

  “And next time you decide to disappear without permission, tell Alex,” Beatrice said. “Her pacing down the corridor was very distracting.”

  Daniel and I shared a guilty look, while Beatrice left the room, her words lingering in the space between us. Alex stood; she was having trouble keeping the smirk off her face.

  “I’m going to take a shower, then eat something, then we can go rescue a sword,” Alex said.

  “Okay,” I said.

  She left, closing the door behind her.

  “Let’s not do that again for a while,” I said.

  “Yep,” Daniel agreed. He looked around the room. “I think we should shower and get ready as well. It’s going to be a long day.”

  I nodded in agreement. The day ahead had all the earmarks of being difficult. Searching for a sword that may or may not be burned to ash was not the best way to begin a task. The search was likely to result in nothing more than disappointed hope. I wasn’t sure what we would do if we couldn’t find the sword and were forced to trust in Odette completely. Daniel, for one, would never have it.

  After we were clean again, we met in the cafeteria. I was the last one to arrive. Reaper and Spider were sitting at a table with Daniel, Jackson and Margaret. Alex was in the corner talking to Beatrice and Han. Serenity and Eli were at a table as far away from the others as possible. Serenity had taken Reaper’s words seriously. She didn’t try to flirt or take advantage of her sexuality. She merely watched the others talking and laughing. In her eyes, I saw something I had never seen before: jealousy. She was jealous of something. Was it the sense of family that swirled around the room and connected everyone but her and Eli?

  “Finally,” Spider said when he saw me. “We’ve been waiting forever.”

  I ignored him. “Are we ready?” I asked the group.

  “We’ve been ready, doll,” Spider said.

  I felt a presence behind me. I shifted out of the way of the door and Sara moved past me. She looked rushed, as if she had five places to be at once. She held out her hands without any preamble and urged us with an impatient sigh to hurry up. As she waited, I heard her muttering under her breath about needing a pay raise and being underappreciated.

  “Where are we going?” Reaper asked as the others moved to take Sara’s hand.

  “The bunker,” Daniel said.

  Sara held out her hand to get a picture to place with Daniel’s words. Daniel shared the image of the spot and took his hand away. Daniel came to me and laced in fingers in mine. He looked at Han and Beatrice, saying ‘goodbye’ in a glance.

  The others looked at us oddly, wondering why we were not hitching a ride with Sara. I smiled at them, proud to have mastered one thing about my increasingly weird talents, and focused on the ruined remains of the bunker. It wasn’t difficult to imagine the place. I had seen it enough in my nightmares.

  I pulled in a deep breath and let my mind search out the place I had never wanted to see again in my life. The shift between light and dark was easier than before. I walked the darkness, the feeling of Daniel on my hand the only thing that kept me moving forward.

  Chapter 8

  Tall trees arched over our heads. A bitter wind blew through the forest, rattling the tops of the trees but leaving the forest floor barely touched. Rain dripped from the sky, wetting everything in its path with a fine mist. The sound through the trees as a thousand drips came from the branches was deafening. My boots kept the moisture at bay. Alex hugged her arms around her chest at the cool wind and the wet rain. None of us had thought to bring our jackets. After Alaska, we had assumed North Carolina would be warm.

  In front of us were the ruined remains of the bunker. The ground was sunken in. Concrete was piled in the hole. Fresh leaves, dirt and branches were scattered over the top of the concrete, hiding the worst of the rubble from view. Around the edges of the bunker were different marks, almost like tools had dug in to the ground. I looked at the marks in concern. Had someone been digging?

  “We should have brought shovels,” Alex said, not noticing the marks.

  “We won’t need them,” Reaper said confidently.

  He jumped in to the hole the concrete was covering. As he did, he took off his jacket. He didn’t offer it to Alex, but I saw him flick his eyes in her direction. His glance was lingering as he set the jacket on a rock, off the ground and away from the moisture. It was a subtle hint for her to take it. S
he ignored his obvious invitation as we all moved to the hole to help.

  Sara looked at the rubble with a frown. “I could try to walk to the room down there,” she suggested. “I just need a visual.”

  “If it’s caved in, it’s suicide,” Reaper declined her offer. “We’ll do it the hard way. Why don’t you go back to the ship and get some rest? The others shouldn’t have any missions until tomorrow.”

  He had heard her grumbling complaints. He knew she was looking for a break.

  Sara looked at us as we started lifting rocks out of the hole. Her face was thoughtful. She didn’t take long to think.

  “I’ll help,” she said.

  She jumped in to the work without waiting for a reply from Reaper. Reaper didn’t argue with her; he was too focused on moving rocks.

  Alex, Spider and I had to take breaks from the lifting but the others were like machines. They lifted rock after rock without any hint to the backbreaking work I knew they were doing. I envied their limitless strength and endurance. I wished again for my body to adapt to that special talent, instead of ones I barely had control over.

  After a couple of hours of backbreaking effort, the hole had transformed. Rocks and rubble were thrown to the side of the hole, wherever there was room, and getting in and out of the hole was harder. Despite our progress, the bottom room remained untouched.

  “This is going to take forever,” Spider complained, stopping to rest again. “Even with super-humans.”

  “It would go faster without your complaints,” Eli said.

  The aura of joking camaraderie we had built up switched to a tension-filled silence. Daniel and Reaper glared at Eli while the others looked between Eli and Reaper, seeing if there was going to be another fight. Spider’s face was a contrast of hurt and the desire of violence. He wanted a fight. But a fight was the last thing we needed. Fighting between ourselves just wasted time. I wasn’t happy about Eli’s presence, but he was necessary right now. He was part of Serenity’s deal to help us. And I felt her help would mean world’s more than his. She had probably only brought him along to irritate us. Before Reaper could act out the fire highlighting his silver eyes, I turned to Eli.