Eternal Hope (The Hope Series)

by Rose, Frankie

  “Because only Reavers can house another soul and give them voice. Except for Daniel, of course. He’s special.”

  Daniel slapped a hand on Grayson’s back and gave him a false smile. “Thanks, buddy.”

  “My pleasure. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. Simeon needs to find his wife’s soul before he can force it into Farley. We thought when you were attacked in the mountains the other day that something drew the Immundus right to you, Farley. But what if we were wrong? What if it wasn’t you calling to them at all?”

  The room went silent again while everyone pondered Grayson’s words. Daniel was looking at Farley like he expected something to hit her any second. She was about to shake her head in defeat when it came to her. She screwed her eyes shut tight and groaned. “Oh, no. You can’t think…”

  “Think what?” Tess grabbed hold of her hand and dug her nails in, hard. She clearly had no idea she was gouging out chunks of skin. “They can’t think what?”

  “That they were coming for Oliver. They think he has Aria’s soul.”

  Tess recoiled like Farley had swung for her. “Don’t be ridiculous. Oliver only killed those three Reavers in the Tower. And they were all pretty new Reavers in the grand scheme of things. Simeon’s wife was killed, like, a thousand years ago. Her soul would be in a Reaver much older than Farley’s dad or the others.”

  “Not necessarily,” Grayson said. “The Reavers have been known to pass souls around like currency, sometimes as tribute to a Reaver ascending to the Judgment Seats. If you’ll recall, Simeon’s wife was a whyte when she was destroyed by the Reavers. Tricky area. We don’t know if the whytes actually retain part of their soul, but-”

  “They don’t!” Farley’s hands clenched so tight around the blanket it felt like her fingers might snap under the pressure. “There’s no way they keep any of their soul.”

  “Well, we don’t know that for sure.”

  “I know it for sure.” Her eyes stung like sulphuric acid was trying to work its way out of her tear ducts. “There’s no way any part of them remains after they turn.”

  Grayson gave her a strange look and bridged his fingers. He was about to say something else when Daniel leaned forward and whispered not-so-covertly, “Tobin turned Farley’s mother into a whyte. Farley had an encounter with her before she… uhh…”

  “Had a shotgun blast out half her intestines,” Farley finished. She looked at Daniel, a little more than vexed. How had the subject of her mom being turned into a whyte not been mentioned to these people? That definitely should have come up in ‘things not to talk about with Farley’ conversation. “Yes, my mom was turned into a whyte. So I have first hand experience here, and I’m telling you there was nothing left of her in that monster. Her soul left her body and was far, far away when what remained tried to kill a whole bunch of people.”

  If Grayson dared even suggest she was wrong, Farley was going to scream. The belief that her mother was at peace long before her body had done all those horrible things- before she’d bitten Tess- was one of the only things keeping Farley from the brink of a nervous breakdown. Grayson had the good sense to realize that now was not the time to argue.

  “I’m very sorry to hear about your mother. I apologize if I’ve been insensitive. Regardless, Simeon may believe that Oliver holds his wife’s soul. He’s probably interrogated a handful of Reavers and located the one who killed the whyte. I have no doubt in my mind that the Reaver in question told Simeon he passed souls to Tobin when he accepted the High Judgment Seat. Logic dictates that trail would have led Simeon directly to Oliver. Now, we know that one of the Immundus who attacked you in the mountains escaped. It’s not too difficult to believe that when Oliver ran off into the forest, he was captured and brought back here to the Tower. That would be why Kayden couldn’t sense him.”

  This was all too tenuous. Tess’ eyes were brimming with tears, but she was clenching her jaw like she refused to let them spill. Farley took her hand and squeezed it. “I don’t understand why Kayden wouldn’t be able to sense Oliver in the Tower, though. He found Daniel and I there.”

  “The messengers are usually blocked from sensing anything in the Tower. When it comes to people they have strong allegiances with, however- people they fiercely want to protect- they’d be able to sense when that person was in trouble.”

  Farley blinked. “But that can’t be right. Kayden barely knew me when he came to help us.”

  Grayson just gave her a look that implied she was incredibly stupid. He looked at Daniel.

  “Oh.” Maybe she was dumb after all. That made more sense. Kayden had sensed Daniel was in trouble and came running. Daniel started cracking his knuckles viciously.

  “So we’re just guessing this is what’s happened, right?” she said. “We don’t know for sure?”

  Grayson drew his lips into a thin line and pulled out a small white container of dental floss. “Yes and no. I had my suspicions so I called a couple of friends and they confirmed Simeon has someone under lock and key. No one saw Oliver go in or out, but it makes sense.”

  Tess’ chin dimpled as her lips quivered, like she was on the verge of an hysterical outburst. “Then we have to do something. We have to go get him back.”

  “We will. We just have to figure out the best way,” Daniel agreed. “It would be better if we could guarantee he was definitely there, though.”

  “Couldn’t Kayden just go and check? He could be in and out in a second. No one would even notice.”

  Grayson wound out a length of floss around his finger, studying it like it held the answers to all their problems. “I already spoke to Kayden. The Quorum found out he healed a human and revised the parameters of his duty with us. He’s not permitted to do anything or go anywhere unless it is to directly keep Farley from harm.”

  At his words, Tess burst out crying. She buried her face in her hands. “It was me. He healed some stupid bruise on my face and now Oliver’s stuck in the Tower and it’s all my fault.”

  Farley pulled Tess to her. “It’s not your fault. Maybe I could go into the Tower and then Kayden would have to come. It would be a way to work around the rule.”

  “No!” Daniel growled, leaning forwards. “We’re not putting more people in danger. That’s just ridiculous. We just need to give ourselves a minute to work this out.”

  A minute to work anything out wasn’t going to happen. A loud, grating buzz ripped through the room, making Grayson jump half out of his seat. He looked a little sheepish when Daniel motioned to his cell phone on the kitchen counter. He went and collected it.

  “It’s Cassie.” He held it to his ear. “Yeah?” He didn’t sound particularly pleased to hear from her, which made Farley feel slightly smug. Yuck. When had she become this petty? Daniel frowned, and locked eyes with Farley as he listened to the girl on the other end of the phone. “Jeez! You’ve gotta be kidding me? No, no, just get on the bus.” He snapped the phone shut and threw it onto the sofa like he was disgusted with it.

  “What’s wrong?” Grayson asked.

  “Anna, that’s what’s wrong. She’s gone missing too. Cassie stopped at a service station to use the bathroom, and when she came out your Jeep and Anna were both gone.”

  “Anna’s taken my car?”

  “Looks that way.”

  Grayson snapped his floss. “What is it with people stealing my car?”

  “We only borrowed it,” Farley corrected. “Maybe Anna borrowed it, too?”

  Daniel shook his head. “Cassie’s been waiting there for three hours. No sign.”

  Cassie waiting on the roadside for three hours with two black eyes was a mildly entertaining thought, but Anna disappearing wasn’t. They were misplacing people left, right and centre. “I’m not stepping foot out of this hotel room,” Farley declared.

  “Good. And neither are you.” Daniel pointed at Tess. “I’ve got to go and pick Cassie up from the Greyhound stop.” He snatched up his keys and exploded into the elevator like a whirlwind without even sayi
ng goodbye.

  Farley stared after him for a moment before she realized Grayson was looking at her. “What?”

  “Oh, I’m just curious,” he said, pulling out a fresh length of floss. He never actually seemed to use it, just arranged it in tangled white piles on his knees. “Before, you mentioned we thought Oliver had Aria’s soul.”

  “Yes?”

  “I was wondering where you heard that name?”

  Farley rolled her eyes skywards. Would admitting that Simeon told her his wife’s name be a big deal? “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe from Agatha?” she lied.

  “Huh.” Grayson tugged at his floss, organizing the lengths in perfectly straight, equally distanced lines on the coffee table. “That’s odd. It’s always been a bit of a mystery to the people of the Quarters. Her name was never recorded.”

  Thirty Six

  Trouble

  Deception was a chess game Farley had never really mastered. Tricking her mom into believing she was going to the movies with Tess when they were really going to a house party never really worked out the way she planned. Most of the time her mom gave her a tight, knowing smile and told her not to do anything stupid. This agreement- Farley trying to lie and her mom pretending not to notice- had worked out well for the both of them providing she was home by midnight. But Grayson wasn’t as easy to appease as her mom.

  “I can’t understand why you wouldn’t tell us you were transported into Simeon’s dreams. That’s astronomically important. And while we’re at it, why were you sunbathing with him when you should have been trying to escape?”

  “We weren’t sunbathing. It was nighttime. And Simeon was just sitting there. It wasn’t like he was attacking me or anything. He actually wanted me to leave him alone.”

  Grayson polished his glasses on the bottom of his shirt. “Obviously this is part of his plan- to pull you into his memories and force you to empathize with him. It’s a subtle but strategic beginning to the torture I was telling you about.”

  Farley drew the covers up around her shoulders, careful not to disturb Tess, who had fallen asleep. Out of the window, a helicopter choppered across the skyline, an angry black hornet patrolling the decaying, elegant ruin that was the City of Angels. “I don’t know about that. How is acting all depressed supposed to torture me, apart from make me feel socially awkward, that is?”

  “Who knows? I can only guess. Don’t be fooled into trusting him, though. He’s drawing you into these memories for a reason.”

  “Not according to him. Simeon told me I busted my own way in.”

  Grayson’s brows pulled together. “He said you did it by yourself?”

  “Yep. He was pretty pissed about it, too.”

  “Interesting.” Grayson didn’t have cogs in his head that turned when he thought. His brain was more like a high-tech server that made the odd electronic beep before it quickly and efficiently came to a conclusion. “You feel like testing that theory?”

  That didn’t sound good. Farley was ninety nine percent sure she was about to turn into one of his scientific experiments. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you could try and do it again. See if you can find out anything about Oliver. This could be the proof we need to confirm our suspicions.”

  “I wouldn’t even begin to know how to get back there,” she said. “I just went to sleep last time. I wasn’t even thinking about Simeon.”

  Grayson thought for a minute and then said, “There’s no harm in trying. All you have to do is take a nap.”

  She sighed. “Fine.” A nap didn’t seem so bad. At least he wasn’t asking her to swallow vials of noxious-looking fluorescent green liquid. She snuggled down into the blankets beside Tess and closed her eyes. The reverberation of the helicopter still stalking across the skies of the city batted against the windows- a sound not entirely conducive to drifting off. The fact that she could feel eyes on her wasn’t helping, either. She cracked an eyelid. “I can’t do it if you’re watching me.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  Grayson got up and disappeared into the bathroom, probably to wash his hands eighteen times one way and then twenty four times another. She had no idea what he was planning on doing when he was done. She shifted on the sofa, trying to get comfortable. It took seven minutes for the average person to fall asleep, or so she’d read somewhere. Right now that figure just seemed ridiculous. Who fell asleep in seven minutes? Clearly not people caught up in the dealings of Soul Reavers, or people who were assailed by images of their dead mother trying to kill them whenever they closed their eyes. Tess snorted softly, burrowing into Farley’s side. She didn’t seem to have any problems falling asleep and her life was pretty messed up. Farley was still internally complaining about how difficult and unlikely the whole thing was when sleep gently washed over her, proving her utterly wrong.

  *******

  The Great Room was full. Not full like it had been the last time she was there. Less than a hundred people from the Quarters had been invited to that party. The crowd here was closer to a thousand, and most of them weren’t people from the Quarters. They were nearly all Immundus.

  At the back of the room, Farley blanched and scurried to hide behind a pillar. This was definitely not what she’d had in mind. A nice trip to the beach would have been preferable, but apparently you didn’t get to choose where you ended up. The Great Room was the same as she remembered it: sandstone block that glowed a soft yellow for the most part, occasionally lit pink where the light dipped and played tricks across the walls. The intricate sconces that adorned the walls in place of windows were more garish than she recalled, though. They were the dismembered heads of animals, each face distorted unnaturally like gargoyles. The flickering light from the torches above them guttered and strengthened, making the grotesque animal faces with their protruding tongues come to life. Farley didn’t trust the lion mounted closest to her on the wall. Its eyes looked real, and it was staring right at her. She cowered back behind the pillar. The last thing she needed was all those Immundus realizing she was there. She scanned the crowd, searching for Simeon. It didn’t take long to locate him.

  On the dais at the far end of the hall, a single chair stood in the center. Before, there had been three, and Elliot, Tobin and Jacob had sneered down at her from them. Not anymore. The lone chair was the most elaborate of the three, the High Judgment Seat. In it sat a wizened, pasty white form that sent a shot of terror burning through her. It was the specter from the tomb.

  His hair was almost all gone, and what remained was tufty and lank, the color of dirty ash. Skin hung off his face in paper-thin folds, so pale it was almost translucent. She could almost make out the thin thread of blue veins running through his cheeks and around his mouth. The only familiar thing about him was the eyes; they were still a soft brown for the most part, although they were clouded over and milky with cataracts. He hunched over in the chair, swamped by the loose brown robe he wore, and swept his head from side to side like he was searching the crowd.

  Farley dropped to a crouch and swallowed hard. Could he see her? Her heart was pumping so hard it felt like it was going to smash right through her ribs and tunnel out of her chest. She placed a hand over it as though that might calm it down. This was not the Simeon she’d wanted to come and see. She wasn’t ready to admit the probability that this wasn’t one of his memories, either- that it was real life and she’d unwittingly broken into the Tower. Exactly what Daniel had told her not to do.

  She pulled in a lung-splitting breath, blowing it out in a shaky stream. Everything was going to be okay. She’d wake up soon and then start knocking back the espresso in the hope that she’d never sleep again. In the meantime, she might as well accomplish something by taking a look around. Oliver probably wasn’t in the room; Grayson had said Simeon had someone under lock and key, which probably meant he was keeping him in a cell somewhere. Farley had woken up in a cell the last time she’d been here, before the Immundus had dragged her in front of Tobin. She’d been drugged up to
the eyeballs, though, and there was no chance of remembering where those cells were.

  Her eyes flickered to the back of the room behind her, where a huge set of carved wooden doors towered up to the ceiling. The scene sculpted into the wood depicted a fight for survival between a whole zoo of animals, tearing and gouging at one another. It was pretty scary stuff. Shots of deep blue flashed in the rich brown wood, where some kind of stone had been inlaid, making up the eyes of a leopard or the curved line of a bird’s wing. Those doors looked pretty heavy. She didn’t know if she could pull the damn things open, let alone do it undetected.

  She hissed out a string of curse words and peered back up at the dais. Creepy Simeon was twitching his head towards the ceiling in what looked like some kind of nervous tic. His lips were working overtime, barely forming words, clearly talking to himself. He didn’t look like he was enjoying the conversation. One minute his forehead lifted where the faint outlines of his eyebrows remained, and he opened his eyes wide, talking the whole time. In the next second, his face screwed up in a mask of pure rage. He bared his teeth, tensing his body so hard he shook in the chair. When he opened his eyes, he stared furiously out over the sea of Immundus and started screaming, “No! Get out! Dogs, all of you. Get out!”

  The Immundus beneath the dais stopped their rowdy conversations and looked up at him for a minute, every single one of them falling silent. Adrenalin burned through Farley, a shot of fire racing around her veins. Thousands of Immundus were about to start pouring out of the Great Room. They would discover her and hand her over to Simeon for sure. She waited. The sound of Simeon’s chair, rattling with the force of his angry convulsions, echoed around the room for a second before a wall of sound exploded again. It was boisterous and chaotic- the sounds of shouting and fighting.

  Farley looked up through her cracked fingers and had to do a double take. She really hadn’t been expecting this: nearly every Immundus in the room was locked in a brawl of some description, swinging punches or picking someone up and flinging them into groups of other people. It was bedlam, and Simeon didn’t even seem to notice. He ticked his head towards the ceiling again, and occasionally snapped his teeth angrily over his shoulder, like he was trying to bite someone.