by Gloria Craw
My special DNA gave me some pretty amazing recall. If you asked me what I’d been wearing three years ago on the same day, I could have told you. Not only that, but what I’d eaten for dinner and the time I’d gone to bed that night.
Another cool component was how quickly my body healed. I’d never been sick for more than twenty-four hours, and when I cracked a rib as a kid, it fused back together in a few days.
Then there was the mind control thing I could do. That was an entirely different level of freakish.
With few exceptions, the dewing could connect their mind to a human’s and manipulate their thoughts. The term we used for it was “joining.” I was a thoughtmaker and could join a mind to implant thoughts. Mine was the only kind of joining that worked on dewing minds as well as human minds.
Seeing Ian’s place ahead, I pulled up to the gate and entered the code.
He called his house “the compound.” His parents were the clan chiefs of the Thane clan and had more money than Midas. It was actually a contemporary-style mansion that fanned out in cube shapes, corners, and windows. It sat high on the east side and had an amazing view of the Las Vegas Strip.
I drove their long driveway and parked behind the house in the less formal lot there. After cutting my engine, I walked to the back door and let myself in. The others were in the big room that Ian called “disaster headquarters.” If troubling news was going to be discussed, it generally happened there.
Spencer and Katherine were sitting at the glass table in the corner of the room.
Katherine gave me a welcoming smile that was a little too big. Spencer smiled, too, but instead of looking welcoming, he looked apologetic. I didn’t like it. They were being weird. Something was up.
“I ordered Thai from Take Me Out,” Katherine said. “The delivery man should be here soon.”
“Okay,” I replied, thinking it was kind of funny that even sophisticated Katherine ordered takeout from dodgy places sometimes.
Ian was across the room. Like always, he seemed mildly surprised to see me.
Dewing had a unique energy force that only we could sense. It felt like a vibration against your skin and served as a kind of beacon, letting other dewing know you were one of their kind. From the feel of it you could tell gender, approximate age, and which clan they were from.
I was an anomaly, because I didn’t have a vibration. I could feel others, but they couldn’t feel me. Ian thought it was probably because I’d been raised by humans and I was sort of behind the learning curve. He thought I’d catch up eventually and be like all the rest of them.
Whatever the reason, Ian hadn’t fully adjusted to the abnormality and was usually taken a bit aback when I showed up.
A slow smile tipped up the corners of his mouth as I walked to him. My heart flip-flopped. In a white T-shirt that was a little tight across his shoulders and a pair of worn jeans, he was amazing to look at.
“Hey,” I said.
“How’s my favorite thoughtmaker?” he asked.
“If you mean your only thoughtmaker, I’m fine.”
He leaned in, so close his breath brushed my cheek. “You’re the only thoughtmaker I care about.”
It was a corny line and might have been creepy coming from someone else. Because Ian said it, it was just cute and funny. I pushed him away.
“You were right,” I said. “Your parents are acting strange.”
He nodded. “They’ve been whispering to each other since I got back.”
“Some kind of crap is about to hit the fan.”
“Unfortunately, I agree.”
We turned to look out the window. The lights on the Vegas Strip shone like colorful jewels sprinkled over black velvet.
“I’m getting tired of this view,” Ian said with his Australian accent surfacing for the first time in a while.
“How can you get tired of something so ostentatious?” I asked.
“Because it’s ostentatious. Give me the beach, some sunshine, and a surfboard. I’d be a lot happier.”
Spencer and Katherine had houses in several cities around the world, but the one Ian had grown up in was in Sydney. He never complained, but I could tell he missed his friends and surfing. I got the impression his parents were antsy to move on, too.
Their tie to Vegas was me. Since I’d killed Sebastian and concurrently saved Ian’s life, they’d stayed to look after my human family.
The intercom buzzed, making me jump. “It’s just the food,” Ian said, squeezing my shoulder. “You’re sure jittery.”
I was. The atmosphere was too strained for my liking.
When we sat down to eat, Katherine wouldn’t look me in the eyes, and Spencer, who had a seemingly endless supply of energy, was uncharacteristically quiet.
I chewed and swallowed pad thai until I couldn’t take the tension anymore.
“Let’s just get the bad news out of the way,” I said. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Chapter Three
I almost choked when they told me. “Am I hallucinating right now?” I asked.
Ian paused with his chopsticks to his mouth. “How much MSG is in this?” he asked. “Because I can’t have heard that right.”
Katherine squared her shoulders. “You heard correctly.”
“Nikki Dawning almost got me killed,” I said. “You can’t seriously want me to go looking for her.”
Ian shook his head and laughed. Not the amused kind of laugh…the you’ve got to be kidding me kind of laugh. “You’d have to look underground anyway,” he said caustically. “Nikki is dead.”
“She’s not,” Spencer replied while turning a glare on him.
“If she’s not dead, she doesn’t want to be found,” I said in a voice laced with dislike. “She disappeared the night we fought Sebastian and hasn’t been heard from since. She’s been missing for three months.”
“Maybe she hasn’t contacted anyone because she can’t,” Katherine suggested.
Ian took another bite of food. “Here’s a thought,” he said. “Maybe she can’t contact anyone because she’s dead.”
Apparently, he’d tested Spencer’s patience enough. “Stop it, Ian,” he snapped. “We’re being serious, and frankly, it has nothing to do with you. We’re asking for Alison’s help.”
Ian’s back went ramrod straight and his mouth tightened. The worry line just above his right eyebrow, the only imperfection on his face, deepened. “It has everything to do with me,” he replied. “I found Alison. I brought her into this. She wouldn’t be sitting here eating bad Thai food if it weren’t for me. I owe her. We all do, and I’m not going to be silent while you ask her to do something this dangerous. Especially when it involves Nikki Dawning, who pretty much wrapped her up like a birthday present and turned her over to the master of evil.”
Spencer leaned toward Ian in an intimidating sort of way. Ian leaned right back. From their turquoise-colored eyes to their blond hair, father and son were mirror images of each other. Spencer was a powerful man in a powerful position. He was used to getting his way. Ian, who would inherit the clan chief position after him, was just as stubborn and did not intimidate easily.
Katherine looked at them and breathed a long-suffering sigh. “Let’s make a deal,” she said. “Ian, you be quiet for two minutes. Then you can tell your father how you disagree with everything he said.”
Ian shoved back in his chair and threw his hands up. “Fine,” he replied. “Go ahead and talk. You were just saying something about Nikki being dead.”
For a moment, I thought Katherine might reach over and slap him. Which was completely crazy because I’d never even heard her raise her voice to him. She was always collected, calm, and serene. Watching her expression change from empathetic to angry was impressive.
One look at his mom and Ian got the message. He might bait his father, but he wasn’t going to tangle with her. My already-deep respect for Katherine rose another notch.
She turned her lovely amber eyes on me. “We be
lieve Nikki has been kidnapped,” she said.
I glanced at Ian and figured he was thinking the same thing…karma had come back around to kick her square in the butt. Jazz hands.
Kidnapping wasn’t new to me. Sebastian had drugged and abducted me, too. And it was Nikki who’d told him where to find me. She’d been responsible for putting my family in the biggest danger.
“Perhaps what comes around goes around,” I said.
“You may never forgive her for what she did,” Katherine said. “I’m not suggesting you should, but you wouldn’t want her to be hurt if you could stop it.”
I kept chewing, thinking maybe Katherine didn’t know me as well as she thought she did. Nikki had screwed me over, and I’d seen enough of her at school to know she wouldn’t hesitate to throw even a good friend under a bus if it suited her. I wasn’t the kind of person to throw another under a bus, but if Nikki landed there, I wasn’t in a hurry to help her up.
Spencer and Katherine exchanged a look. I figured they hoped I’d show more sympathy. Instead, I kept eating. The kuay tieu was surprisingly good.
“You should know Nikki’s parents got a package yesterday,” Spencer continued. “It had pieces of her in it.”
“What, like hair or something?” I asked, only mildly interested.
“Fingers,” Katherine replied.
The food in my throat turned to acid and started crawling back up. “Gross,” I muttered.
“The blood was relatively fresh,” Spencer added. “It happened recently.”
Ian shifted position. Undoubtedly, he wanted to ask questions, but his two minutes of silence weren’t up.
I swallowed deeply. “How can you be sure they were…Nikki’s?”
“Amelia confirmed it,” Katherine replied. “And a mother would know.”
“Someone from the Truss clan has her,” Spencer said. “Katherine saw it.”
Katherine was a futureseer. She joined a human mind and caught glimpses of what would happen to them. Most of the time that future involved a dewing as well. I’d been told she was never wrong. I had bet my life on one of her visions before. I trusted her, and that made it worse.
“Whoa,” I said, putting my hands up. “Someone from the Truss clan has her?”
Katherine nodded. “I saw her in an airport,” she said. “Someone was gripping her arm to prevent her from leaving. They were Truss. No doubt about that. I heard him say, ‘When you’re clan chief, you can do what you want with her.’”
“The Truss are a mess,” Spencer added. “Sebastian had no children, so there’s no clear heir to the chiefdom. Twenty of the oldest clan members called the Elders have been trying to hold things together, but it isn’t working. Sebastian’s pride, ambition, and greed have infected them. Many of the Truss have been fighting over land and assets. There have even been a few murders. If someone doesn’t take leadership, reestablish order, and uphold our rules and traditions, we worry there will be more blood spilled.”
Katherine held her hands together so tightly that her knuckles turned white. “Murder of any kind is beyond atrocious,” she said. “Our population is too small to survive another rash of them. Not to mention the thousands of years we have respected human life and civilization. We will be at risk of exposure, too. Humankind is unlikely to hold our lives in such regard.”
The dewing had evolved faster than humankind. Not only was our technology centuries ahead, we were socially and emotionally advanced. We hated bloodshed, both human and dewing. Our policy was to live and let live, one of many reasons Sebastian and his viruslike tendency to slaughter people was such a huge problem.
“The Truss Elders don’t trust us,” Spencer said. “Let’s face it, some of them hate us. They have very little desire to come back to the clans. They see it as losing autonomy and freedom. But for the greater good of the dewing and humans, it’s the right thing to do. Our survival depends on it.”
I understood where he was coming from. It was possible we could become an extinct species. A pair of dewing could only have two children…one to take the place of each parent. If we didn’t survive long enough to have kids, our population would decrease and never recover that number. Fewer Truss meant fewer pairs, which meant fewer children…which meant fewer of all of us.
“The Elders condescended enough to let us know they’ll decide on a new clan chief before the end of spring,” Katherine said.
“We know names of the candidates, but nothing about their personalities, political beliefs, and plans for the future,” Spencer said. “We need personal observation to find out about those things, but of course, the Elders don’t want our interference.”
“In my vision, someone said ‘when you’re clan chief,’” Katherine added. “That leads us to believe whoever has Nikki is one of the candidates. That’s part of the reason we want you to find her.”
“What will you do if you don’t like who the Elders appoint?” I asked.
“We have ideas,” he replied.
“You’ll kill them?” I surmised, my stomach churning Thai food. “I thought we were done with that.”
“If the Elders choose someone like Sebastian, a much greater number of lives may be lost. We have to do what’s best for all the descendants of Atlantis.”
Spencer’s lips mashed into a thin line. “We’ll do it quietly, and because the infrastructure and security Sebastian established has crumbled, we can do it in a way that won’t be traced back to us.”
I gulped. “When you say we, I hope you aren’t including me. I don’t regret that Sebastian is dead, but I do regret killing another living being. It haunts me. I’m afraid it always will.”
“We’ll keep you out of that part of it,” Spencer said. “I promise.”
I continued to feel unsettled and anxious, but I said, “So you want me to casually stand around the Truss candidates and listen for information about Nikki.”
Ian pointed to his watch for permission to speak. He’d been quiet long enough, so Katherine gave him a nod.
“Why does it have to be her?” he said angrily. “You use humans as spies all the time.”
Katherine shook her head. “Humans work well sometimes, but they report a myriad of things that we have to sort through to get relevant information. It would be a lot more difficult—and time-consuming—to get the right kind of information out of a human report. Alison knows what we’re dealing with. She’ll know what to listen for.”
“As far as we’re aware,” Spencer added, “she’s the only one of us who doesn’t have a vibration. She feels completely human. She could be in the middle of a group of Truss, and they would never suspect she’s dewing.”
“Some people know about her,” Ian protested.
“Only ten of us, and it’s in their best interest to keep her identity a secret,” Katherine said. “Most everyone else thinks the daughter of the White Laurel is just a myth.”
“It’s too dangerous.” Ian clenched his hand into a fist.
“There are precautions in place,” Spencer said. “We have made arrangements for her to stay with someone. His house is off location, so she won’t be spending nights where the Truss are meeting. We don’t expect problems, but he’s agreed to protect her if it comes down to an essence fight.”
“I’ll protect her,” Ian interjected, “because if she’s going, I’m going.”
“We expected you’d say something like that,” Katherine replied. “But the place we’ve arranged for Alison to stay at, the only place within reasonable driving distance, is less than a mile from where the Truss will be.”
Spencer gave him a stern look. “You can’t get that close, Ian. There’s a chance, slim as it may be, that one of the older Truss will feel and identify you. They distrust the Thane clan more than any of the others. It’s possible they’ll pack up and leave before we can get the information we need.”
“Theron’s vibration won’t concern them,” Spencer followed up. “His family has had a place up there for years.”
>
“Theron,” Ian said disbelievingly. “You asked Theron to look after her. He hates your guts.”
Spencer shook his head. “Be that as it may, he agreed to help.”
“Why don’t you just napalm the Truss?” he asked with disgust. “They’ve been nothing but trouble for decades. They’re weak now. Maybe it’s time to finish them off.”
“It’s not like they had any problem murdering my clan,” I added.
It was true. My clan, the Laurels, had been the most vocally opposed to Sebastian’s plans. He’d ordered the Truss to kill them. Within just a few short weeks, every member of my clan had been murdered.
Katherine shot us both a cutting look. “Every life is precious,” she said. “Shame on both of you for speaking so lightly of it. I sympathize with Alison, but vengeance won’t bring her peace.”
Spencer shook his head. “The clan chiefs explored a napalm type of option several years back. Aside from the fact that genocide is revolting, we can’t kill them off. The survival of our species depends on keeping them around.”
He ran a hand over his forehead and then pinched the bridge of his nose before continuing. “As far as we know, the Elders are considering three couples to lead them. The first is especially concerning to us. Not because of what we know about them, but because of what we don’t know. Yvonne and Robert Truss are the youngest of the candidates, which might make them easier to work with, but for the last ten years, Sebastian employed them. I have to wonder how much of his ideology infected them.”
Katherine focused on me. “He makes this sound as though it’s all about politics. But Nikki’s parents are our closest friends. They’ve been a mess not knowing what happened to her. Now they know she’s alive, but someone is hurting her. Every day they can’t help is more excruciating than the next. Imagine your parents in the same position.”
She’d hit the right button. I hated Nikki Dawning, but I did feel for her parents. They’d been nice to me. And if they were my parents, I would want to help them.
“I’m not saying I’m in,” I stated, “but what’s your plan?”
