“Hey!” Fec sat up, a sober expression awkwardly freezing his face.
“Not this again…” Kerif breathed, shaking his head.
Bruno began to rush towards Asher, ready to argue or plead, but Kittie’s scramble was quicker, dashing between the two men. She pulled down on Asher’s poncho and he stooped slightly to face her. “It would be unwise to go without me,” Kittie said, her voice low. “You saw what happened last time, and he’ll only get stronger. If he doesn’t finish the job, Za’in will send other Archs. I’m the only one here that’s seen them and knows what they’re capable of. He has an army. We only have each other. We can’t split up now.”
Asher closed his eyes for a moment, a tight smile gripping his face as his head was pulled down by a slight nod. “I understand. But you’re not the only one, Kittie. It’s been some time since I’ve seen the Arch that took Michael’s place, but I haven’t forgotten him.”
She blinked. “Of course. You know Tregenne. So then you know I’m right.”
He straightened, letting out a long, fatigued breath before exchanging a steady gaze with Kittie, visibly one of trust and shared knowledge. There was a solemnity to the growing bond between them, and the fusion of their skills and mysteries brought comfort to those that traveled with them, even though it was clear that their relationship was a constant reminder of what they both had lost.
“Kittie, even you will agree that this,” he motioned to the truck, “is a bulls-eye on our backs.”
“There are other pirate vessels…” she replied slowly, turning her head back toward the boys.
Fec removed his hat and they all cast down their eyes in mourning. Bruno yanked angrily on his hair. “Goddamned Za’in! And that Arch, burning down our ship…”
“I told you it was too dangerous to search for the same treasure as Za’in,” Vic offered in his usual cheerless manner.
Kayla had been passively watching the scene before her, but the last two statements sharpened her awareness. “Wait! Sebastian destroyed your ship? Why? Because he didn’t want others to have mobility?”
Kerif turned toward Kayla, spinning the ring on his thumb with his forefinger. “Well, not necessarily. We rode around for a long time before he took us down in Madeline—”
“When was that?” Kayla interrupted, her voice urgent and low.
Fec rubbed his knuckles over his eyes and tried to laugh. “Well, tha’ was th’ las’ time anyone was’in Mad’line!” His forced chuckles sputtered out into coughs as all eyes turned to watch him with appalled or pained expressions, followed by another of Kerif’s smacks.
“Was that almost six weeks ago?” Kayla asked quietly, turning her stare on Kittie.
“Yeah,” Bruno muttered.
“The night I met you both…what did you do?” She eyed Kittie accusingly, and then paused, dropping her head. Kayla’s soft laugh was bitter. “But the next morning was even more interesting.” She turned to the four men. “You came for me, ‘searching for the same treasure as Za’in.’ You were scared of Jeremy already and he knew you were pirates.” Kayla’s eyes darted as she remembered. “And then, he told you to go back to your ship… I’m sure he thought that was very funny, since he was the one that burned it down.” She shook her head, hard. “Why, Kittie?”
The small girl’s eyes were genuinely bewildered, as if there was something, for the first time in years, she didn’t understand. “I…wanted to be with him.”
“Christ! Why is that so damn important?” she cried. Her face was twisted in pain, a low sob escaping her throat as her Intercessor reflexively tried to release, but was caught in her swollen palm. Kayla recoiled from her own violence, knowing that question was as equally directed at herself.
Kittie closed her eyes, remembering. “Sometimes, when you set out to do something and you’ve been alone for so long, you just keep moving. You forget why. All you can recall is that you’re trying, you’re really trying, and you can’t let it all go. But then someone reaches out to you, and he needs to stretch out his hand as much as you need to grasp it…” She paused, silently reminiscing as Kayla pulled further away, unable to shake the vision of the first time she saw his face. She could see his eyes emerging from the darkness, his insolent mouth, and his rough, bandaged hand descending to meet hers, to pull her out into the world.
“I didn’t kill anyone!” Kittie’s voice was quiet and fierce. “Not for Za’in. I also have my own reasons to stop him, okay? I had to get close to Za’in, I did what I had to do as a soldier, but I didn’t kill anyone for him. We had orders. There were pirates in Madeline’s harbor and we had to get rid of them. Sure there are others, I know gangs exist all over, but these four, they had Nephilim relics. He wanted them gone. Otherwise he lets it go, usually. Even if they have some technology. There’s a lot he’ll overlook, especially lately. He’s been concentrating his efforts on preparing for the second Eclipse. Eighteen years ago he ‘brought down the wrath of God,’ as he’s fond of saying. Even if it was really just his own wrath, in the absence of our Creator. Even if all he did was play with the physics of a supernatural disaster. But this time, it’s different. It’s worse. He’s going to build a new race to ‘fall to earth.’ And once that happens…the former Earth really will pass away.”
“Is this common knowledge?” Kayla asked.
“You mean ‘does he know?’ ” Kittie glanced at Kayla’s flushed face. “I’m sure Za’in is satisfied that his hints have been enough notice. But, of course, he purposely misleads too. And you know Jeremy — this isn’t even on his radar. Now when I think of those things on his arms, I wonder if there was anything I could have said…”
Kayla’s eyes were still and hard. “I apologize for causing us to linger here, when we should be moving. It’s useless to do this now.” She turned to Asher. “Kittie said there are other vehicles running; there are pirates and gangs that Za’in ignores. We should take this truck. If we don’t, we may have more than just Za’in to worry about.”
Asher was watching the two girls carefully. “Alright. How much is left in the Core?”
“Far more than we’ll need,” said Vic.
“Fine.”
“What should we do with the bike? Return it?” Kerif asked regretfully.
“There’s no time. Destroy it.”
Kerif nodded and stalked back to the yellow house, leaving the rest of them caught in a tense silence.
“Shotgun!” Fec cried out.
*
Kayla stared through the streaked, plastic window at the miles of abandoned suburbs they left behind. She kept her head turned and chin tucked; even with the convertible top, attached with the pirates’ embellishments, enough wind and dust still found its way inside. Kittie sat beside her, her expression distant and troubled. Asher was behind the wheel and Bruno was at his side, poring over hand-drawn maps, some of which were on vellum, laid over antique diagrams. The other three sat in the back, cheerfully exposed to the elements. Kayla kept her fists balled tightly. The pressure caused her wounds to throb painfully, but she didn’t ease her grip. It was a reminder.
She unzipped the rear flap between their seats and pulled back on the first arm her fingers brushed against. Half of Kerif’s body followed. “Whoa!” He steadied himself, and then glanced down, grinning at Kayla’s hand grasping him above the elbow. “Hey there, lady.”
“You have to tell me about your relics,” she whispered, her head bowed.
Kerif’s discomfort was expressed in a grimace. He forced Fec’s head into the window with him as a needed backup. “Um, well, we had this ship…”
“Th’ Ugh was more like’a boat,” Fec muttered, trying to get comfortable in this tight spot.
Kerif hit him somewhere on the other side of the fabric wall. “We had this ship for a really long time — we pretty much built it and everything! It’s been hard getting on without it, actually,” he sighed. “But before it burnt up, we survived by hunting treasure. There’s a lot of Pre-Eclipsian spoils out ther
e if you know where to look, and there is always someone willing to pay. We never had dealings with Za’in. Shit, we wanted to stay away from that guy! But we knew the kind of stuff he was after, and it was kind of fun to try to find it first.” Kerif paused, looking up carefully at Kayla before he continued. “Then there was this old guy, Gabriel. He had a place in Azevin and he’d buy a lot of the stuff we got our hands on, especially the really worthless junk. But he was particular. At first he wanted busted electronics, car parts, jewelry — typical. Then he started requesting certain things, easy things, like stuff abandoned in old churches. Hell, everything was just left sitting in those kinds of places. Also, he was interested in bones and objects that used to be buried with the dead. We weren’t ever really grave robbers before, but we can’t afford to have moral dilemmas like that. Plus, that sort of stuff, you can just walk in and take without a fight. Easy. I don’t know if he used to be a priest or a scientist or what, but he was different. Peculiar, right?” Kerif glanced at Fec who was nodding. “He was powerful, though. He didn’t pay by trading with anything we were used to receiving.”
Kayla searched his face. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve seen what Fec can do with his smokes, right? And the Cap’n with his coins? Well, he paid Vic and me the same way too.”
“Yeah, so get back to it, Kerif!” Bruno barked, his anger ending in a sigh. “We sat you back there for a reason, you know.”
“Okay, okay, I know.” Kerif retreated back into the bed of the truck, but motioned for Kayla to follow.
She peeked outside, shielding her eyes from the swirling dust. Vic was leaning against the side before he looked up, watching Kerif move to sit opposite him. They exchanged a glance, and then Vic raised his arm and pressed his palm forward in the air. Kerif performed a similar motion, but his hand was facing downward as it flicked a short, sweeping gesture. They continued to repeat these actions, their faces subdued with a mixture of concentration and boredom, as they kept their eyes on the tracks the truck left etched in the ground behind them.
Kayla stood hunched over, leaning further towards them as she tried to decipher the meaning behind this strange ritual. She followed the direction of their gazes, and it was then that she noticed the trail they left behind was being swept away, completely disappearing. With the forward motion of Vic’s hand, the wind near the tires strengthened, followed by Kerif’s smoothing gesture scattering the sand. Her unbelieving eyes darted between the boys and the ground. “How are you…?”
“Like I said, it was a trade,” he called out, his concentration unbroken. “You asked about our relics, right? Take a look at Fec’s wrist.”
Kayla pulled back as his scrawny arm was thrust suddenly towards her face. She noticed three raised lines running parallel to each other along the top of his forearm. “What is this?”
“Ol’ man Gabe put som’thin’ under our skin. I tried it first.” Fec grinned. “He said it would jus’ help us do wha’ we already do better. I did’n get it at first, but then he show’d me how to use m’ smokes. M’ brother, he’s strong. So, see, he’s movin’ the wind here. And Kerif, he changes th’ way things look.”
“Who is this guy? He sounds like—”
“Nah, nah, he’s jus’ a guy. He’s no friend of Za’in, I’m tellin’ ya. No way.”
Kayla stared off into the clouds of sand. “He told you to look for me, right?”
Fec frowned. “Well, yeah. But ev’ryone—”
“Kayla, leave it alone for right now.” Asher’s voice was severe, strangling her questions, but she was calmed by its strength. She settled back into her seat, zipping up the rear flap, again separating her from three outside. Her eyes rested on the raised lines that adorned Bruno’s left arm before she searched Asher’s face. She could only see a portion of his profile from her seat, but there was no ignoring the tension in his jaw and the weary recognition weighing down his sharp, forward-looking gaze. Kayla tried to relax into the gathering stillness. There was something familiar about the intensity that held Asher’s face motionless. She breathed deeply, as if that action could slow time, even as she understood it was a weak protection from the weight of the knowledge she’d have to bear when his silence was finally broken.
24
The smell of damp leaves and living wood filled Jeremy’s senses as he rested the crown of his head against the banyan tree. He pressed his palms to the wide trunk, the blackened bones piercing the bark as his bare fingers lightly stroked the rough surface. This was the place he saw her last. What happened to both of them after their moment here? His chest was tight with the memory of the pain that had kept him frozen that night as she stood before him, just moments before he had let it go and allowed whatever he was holding inside to rule him completely. He gripped the bark. He could see her face, pale and luminous beneath the moon. Her eyes were closed, but the pull of her brows expressed pleasure, he was sure of it. Is that how you remember things? Something was warmly constricting his fingers. “What?”
His memory dissolved and was replaced with another. The vision was inescapable and insistent, and although he wanted to reject it, he just let the images flood over him — he was becoming accustomed to these new additions to his reality. There were tears in Kayla’s eyes as she turned her head away. She was trapped beneath him, her hands bound together in his grip. She struggled in vain against his violence… “No!” Jeremy drew back fiercely, tearing handfuls of the banyan’s trunk out with each wild jerk of his arms, as he attempted to retreat from this image of the past.
He fought to control his breathing, to steady his shaking body. “Fine. I’m crazy, right? Possessed? Okay. I’ll talk to you…I’ll fight with you. Maybe I’ll even end up doing what you want. But leave that alone. Don’t give me any fucking commentary on that night.” His anger fed on the knowledge that his apparent inability to die left him nothing with which to bargain or threaten. This sort of talk was useless now. But the Other remained still and silent.
Jeremy released a long, heavy breath, then raised his head and turned his back on the tree. His truck was gone. He walked slowly out into the dirt, kicking up dust with his boots. The tracks he made that night were still there, but there were no other imprints left in any direction. It was as if the vehicle had lifted gently into the sky and disappeared. He was strangely untroubled as he continued moving forward, giving in to the pull of some unknown destination. Jeremy walked through the empty streets, his dull eyes sweeping over the lonely, dark houses. An acute pain suddenly gripped his spine, traveled up to his neck and shoulders, and stiffly pulled his chin towards the yellow house at his right side. He turned sharply, treading over the stone-strewn path that led to the door, even as each step sent a tremor up his legs. His breath caught in his throat when his hand closed around the doorknob, but he swallowed back that tightness and stumbled inside. She had been here.
The worn, wooden floor seemed inviting, and he no longer wanted to battle his unsteady legs. He let himself fall to his knees in the center of the room, the bones on his arms scratching the wood panels as he bent to feel the cool floor against his forehead. That chill stung his brain, freezing his eyes wide as another vision flooded his consciousness. She was lying in that man’s arms. They were huddled on this floor, in this same spot, and he was stroking her hair, whispering gentle words that had the power to stop her tears. Something warm was pulling at Jeremy’s chest. He could feel the ache that lived in Kayla, not disappearing, not healing, but being pressed against something soft and clean, as if her anguish was being packed with gauze. Serafin could comfort her. His hands were steady against her body, but he wasn’t restraining her movement. She reached for him too. He wasn’t trapping her, unlike…
It took a sudden burst of violent movement to break the illusion. Jeremy sat back on the floor, slumping into the sagging couch. His laugh was weak and bitter. “You really are an asshole.”
Have I shown you anything that wasn’t true? You can evade reality for only so long, Saro
s.
“This isn’t my memory. How do I even know it’s real? It’s bullshit,” he said quietly.
The power you carry with you came from an Angel. You’re tied to that Nephil now. You’ll follow where she goes and, at times, you may suffer some of the same things she experiences. You want to be free of it? Bring her to me.
He stared down at his blackened palms. “Even before this, wasn’t she—”
She was never yours, Saros. Even with your reckless, emotional insubordination, I still gave you this gift. You finally have the power to defeat your rival, to claim everything you’ve wanted on this earth, but you know there is only one way skyward. You’ve seen where going against rationality has brought you — to the disorder and fearfulness of an animal. You’ve seen where you’d still be now, without my intercession.
Jeremy was silent for a long time, his unfocused eyes blurring the sharp black patterns that wound up his arms. “You’re counting on my…hatred…to destroy both me and her.”
His body was moved by the warm vibration of a chuckle from somewhere deep within. Saros, your simple logic is so—
“…charming.”
That voice momentarily froze the movement of his neck, and he was unable to look towards the sound. “Ev.”
A husky giggle immediately met his reply. “Oh, you remember me, do you? You don’t match my fond recollections at all. Saros, you look like shit.”
He didn’t stir.
“Don’t be like that. I guess I should be fair. I can see that certain parts of you have been enhanced. C’mon, at least look at me. You’ll see I’ve improved too.”
“I don’t care, Ev. What do you want?” Jeremy made his way slowly to his feet, his eyes regarding her dispassionately.
Dominion of the Star (Descendants of the Fallen Book 1) Page 17
