But logic didn’t always apply to my deck of tarot cards. They had the power—and so far as I’d seen, the will—to rearrange themselves as needed.
Just one card left; it was time for the big question. “What happens if I do nothing?”
I flipped the card over.
Death. The entire card was black, no hint of a design at all. It practically dripped with ink it was so saturated.
I dropped the card on the bed, hands shaking. I’d asked for clarity, and I’d received it.
Someone knocked on the door, and I shrieked, clutching my chest. As my heartbeat slowed, I realized Garth must’ve returned for round two of the discomfort championship.
“Hang on,” I said as I unlocked the door and yanked it open. I expected to see Garth standing on the other side, rumpled PJs and all, and I blinked when I saw who was actually standing in the hallway. “Lex? What are you—”
My older-younger—it’s complicated—sister placed her hand over my mouth and pushed her way into the room before I could say more. She held a finger up to her own lips, telling me to keep mine zipped, then nodded once, more of a question than anything else.
I mirrored her, giving her my word to hold my tongue.
Lex removed her hand from over my mouth and turned to shut and lock the door. A moment later—a much longer moment than it would’ve taken Nik—the room was sealed off from the outside world by a thin sheet of At. Looking so much like the finest layer of ice, At coated the floor, ceiling, walls, doors, and windows.
My heart gave a little flutter as the instinctive part of my brain couldn’t help but feel like it was being trapped. But one glance at my nightstand quieted the panic; an array of Sharpies lay scattered on the surface, any of which would work well enough in the creation of a gateway out of here. I’d never tried to draw one on a surface made of At, but I didn’t see any reason why it shouldn’t work. I knocked gently on the At-covered wooden doorframe as that thought came and went. Just in case.
Lex had to assume I could get out of a room sealed off with At, too, so I figured trapping me wasn’t her intention. There was only one other reason I could think of for why she’d done it: she wanted to seal in our sounds—our words—right along with ourselves.
“What is it?” I asked, taking a step toward her. Whatever she had to say, it had to be serious, but I couldn’t for the life of me guess what it was going to be.
Lex reached for my hands and gripped them tightly. “You have to do it, Kat—you and Nik. You have to save them . . . as many of them as you can.”
My eyelids opened so wide that it had to look like my eyeballs were about to fall right out of their sockets. “But Heru said—”
“I know,” Lex said, letting go of my hands and raising one of hers so she could chew on her thumbnail. Her other arm crossed her middle, her fingers gripping her side through her sweater. “I know what he said, but he doesn’t understand.” She turned away and shook her head, almost like she was having an internal argument with herself.
She started pacing around the room, still managing to punctuate her movements with her signature grace. “He hasn’t been anything even remotely close to human for five—six—seven thousand years.” She threw her hands up. “Maybe more, I honestly don’t know. But I do know that he’s lost touch with people—with humans. He’s too far from them now. He just doesn’t get it . . . how much every single one of their lives matters to someone else—just as much as mine or Reni’s matters to him. He’s forgotten what it’s like . . . what it means to be human.”
I watched her make her way back and forth across the room.
“It’s not his fault.” Lex paused and looked at me. “He’s a good person, Kat. You know that, don’t you?” She took a single, hesitant step toward me. “He wants what’s best for our people, but not at the expense of billions of human lives. He doesn’t want that.” Another step. “That’s what makes him different from the Senate. It’s why we’re fighting against them.” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as she was trying to convince me. “But he has to put our people’s best interests first. And our people have to see that he’s doing that, or he’ll lose their trust. He’ll lose them, and we can’t afford that right now.”
I wandered over to the bed and started gathering the scattered tarot cards, curious what the universe had to say about all of this. “So you’re here, why—to tell me to go rogue?” I laughed to myself and shuffled the deck on my palm, shooting Lex a sidelong glance. I considered telling her I was already planning to go against Heru’s orders, but I wanted to hear what else she had to say. Instead, I decided to dig a little. “You want me to do it now, disobediently, because then, whatever happens, it’s not Heru’s responsibility. His hands are clean.”
Lex swallowed, then nodded once. She was always pale, but now she was a ghost.
I rested the shuffled deck of tarot cards on my palm, letting the otherworldly energy vibrate against my skin. It almost tickled. I drew the top card.
Five of Pentacles. A test. Again. It was nothing new, but it reinforced my resolve to make shit happen. Redrawing this card also meant I’d get no more guidance from the universe right now.
“Hmmm . . .” I looked at Lex, considering. I might’ve been stuck in a tarot card loop, but that didn’t mean she was. “Here,” I said, closing the distance between us and holding out the deck. “Cut it.”
Lex raised her hand, pausing an inch or two from the cards. “Do I have to think about anything in particular? Like should I ask a question, or—”
I shook my head. “I’m sure your thoughts are focused enough. Go on. Cut the deck.” I had a pretty good feeling about what card she would pull, and if I was right, it would set her mind to rest. In a roundabout way, it would ease mine, too.
Lex cut the deck once, I restacked it, and then I drew the top card. And what do you know, my hunch was right on the money.
Strength. It was perfect. Representing courage, patience, and resolve, this card screamed that Lex was doing the right thing by listening to her conscience. It showed her riding on the back of a proud lion, totally unscathed, and the sun shining brilliantly from the top right corner.
“I think the message here is pretty clear,” I told her.
“Yeah, I guess.” Some of the color returned to my sister’s cheeks, but she didn’t look one hundred percent herself.
“Is there something else?” I asked her, touching her arm.
She bit her lip. “It’s Nik.” Her eyes met mine, then her gaze drifted over my shoulder, growing distant. “That look—while he was zoned out, I mean—I’ve seen it before. Many times. It’s his withdrawing-to-talk-to-Re look.” She pointed to the card—specifically to the sun. “You know that this is one of his symbols, right?”
I breathed out a bitter laugh. “I know the look,” I said, both comforted and disturbed that she’d come to the same conclusion as I had. I was worried about him, about his sanity, but whatever was going on with him would have to wait. “And yeah,” I told Lex, “I’m plenty familiar with the Egyptian pantheon, but . . .” I held up the card. “The sun’s been on this card since I first drew the design. That hasn’t changed.”
“Oh, I see.” She laughed to herself and shook her head, running her fingers through her hair. “Could you maybe try . . . you know?” Lex drew her bottom lip between her teeth, her gaze landing on my tarot cards. “You might be able to figure out what’s going on with him in a not-so-conventional way?”
I raised one shoulder, then let it drop. “I already tried, and . . .” I pressed my lips together, my brow tensing. “I got an answer, but I’m not sure what it means.” I gave her arm a squeeze. “But I promise to let you know as soon as I figure it out.”
Chapter Five
“What are you doing?” Dom asked.
“Finding Nik.” I snatched up one of the three sketchbooks strewn along the top of the dresser, shaking the broken bits of phone onto the floor, then grabbed a pen from the nightstand
and sprawled diagonally across the bed. It was past time to track Nik down. Whatever was going on with him, he’d have to suck it up and pull his big-boy pants on. We had work to do.
Thinking of him and only him, I uncapped the pen with my mouth and spat the cap onto the comforter. I pressed the pen to a randomly selected clean sheet of paper in the sketchbook before my mind even had a chance to formulate any kind of an idea of what I might draw.
Where will I find Nik?
I didn’t want to know where he was right now. I wanted to know where he would be when our paths converged. The intent was important, just like when I did my tarot card readings.
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and focused. Between one heartbeat and the next, something changed in the air around me. It felt electrified. I was ready.
When my eyelids lifted, I wasn’t seeing the piece of paper; I was seeing through the page, past the lines of ink even as I drew them with my pen. With some sense that went beyond sight and sound and touch and smell and feel, I found Nik.
As the image took shape, items of familiarity became clear in the background. Trees, some with bare branches like gnarly, bony fingers, others rife with pine needles and dangling patches of moss—they surrounded the mouth of a cave. Silhouetted in the opening stood Nik, shadows surrounding him like a cloak. He stared out at me from the page. It was like he could really see me. Almost like the image of him was beckoning to me, waiting for me to join him.
I scanned the sketch for any hint that might tell me exactly where he was, but it could have been any cave opening in the Pacific Northwest. “Come on . . . give me something to work with,” I pleaded as my pen continued to move over the page. “Anything . . .”
It wasn’t like there were loads of caverns in this area. Sure, there were some lava tubes and there was a ton of sandstone that could’ve been eroded by wind or water to make shallow caves, and there were mines, but those were mostly sealed off. This cave mouth had a distinctive, natural look to it, ruling out a mine.
“Little sister . . .” Dom was back. I’d totally forgotten about him. Another set of eyes. Another set of memories. An entirely other set of experiences in this region that might just lead me to the cave. To Nik.
I rolled off the bed, landing on my feet and tearing the sheet from the sketchbook. “Do you recognize this place?” I rushed to the standing mirror, holding up the drawing for Dom to see.
His stare moved from my face to the paper, his eyelids narrowing as he focused on the image of Nik in the cave. He studied the picture for several tense heartbeats but eventually shook his head. “I’m sorry, little sister, I do not recognize that place.”
I exhaled heavily. “S’alright.” I lowered the sheet of paper and let my head fall backward so I was staring up at the ceiling. “Nik just seemed so bothered . . .” That mattered. It had to. He’d had a look in his eyes as he’d drawn away, something that made me think he’d fled to somewhere specific, somewhere familiar. Somewhere that meant something to him. Somewhere where he could work through whatever weird internal shit he’d been struggling with back in the study. “He went somewhere specific, he had to . . . somewhere he’s been before,” I added.
“Well, there’s one person who knows Nik better than anyone else . . .”
My eyes snapped open, my gaze locking on Dom. “Aset.” Nik’s mother, Heru’s twin sister and an ancient goddess in her own right—hell, she’d been the inspiration for the Egyptian goddess Isis—was the only person Nik had kept in contact with during his years of estrangement from our people. The two of them had traveled the earth together for thousands of years, aiding Lex during her trek through time. Most of Nik’s life had been spent at his mother’s side. If anyone knew where he might be—where that cave was—it was Aset.
“Dom, you’re a genius!” Or I was a moron. It was a toss-up.
Hastily, I folded the drawing in half, then folded it again and again before stuffing the wad of paper into the back pocket of my jeans. I rushed to the door and yanked it open, then ran down the hallway. I took the stairs three at a time, my socks sliding on the hardwood floor when I reached the bottom. I skidded several feet to the side before course-correcting and heading straight for the door to the basement. I was sure to find Aset in the high-tech underground laboratory she, Neffe, and Mari holed up in most hours of the day, working tirelessly alongside dozens of other Nejerets in their search for a cure for the Cascade Virus.
“Aset,” I called, pulling the door shut behind me and launching myself down the stairway. I was halfway down by the time the heavy door thudded shut behind me, and I reached the bottom of the stairs in four strides. “Aset!”
It was bright in the lab. It was always bright down there, florescent lights mixed with UV bulbs used to trick the brains of the Nejerets who worked down there into thinking it was daytime pretty much all the time. So long as they ate regularly and enough, they wouldn’t require much in the way of rest. They could operate full-speed-ahead for days before their bodies were worn down enough that they required regenerative sleep.
As I barreled into the lab, a dozen or so heads turned my way, each from a different workstation among the rows of counters and shelving and cabinets and invaluable lab equipment. I ignored them, skimming past each face until I found Aset.
She was working at a station in the back-right corner of the vast room, Heru’s daughter, Neffe, standing beside her. Their heads were angled together, and the two appeared to be deep in conversation as they traded off looking into an elaborate, high-powered microscope. So far as I could tell, they were the only two scientists down here who didn’t seem startled by my sudden arrival. In fact, they hadn’t even seemed to notice me.
I jogged toward them, making a beeline for the two petite, exotic-looking women. Medical geniuses, both of them.
“Kat?” Mari snagged my arm, slowing me, but I pulled free.
“Not now, Mars,” I said, continuing onward. “Aset, can you take a look at this and tell me—”
Neffe jerked back from the microscope and leveled a steady glare on me. She was always so prickly, especially around me. “Can’t you see that we’re busy with—”
Aset placed her hand on Neffe’s forearm, then looked past her niece to me. Her irises were a kind, honey brown. Her eyes were always kind, like nurturing and warmth and motherliness were a part of her DNA. Something that had clearly skipped over Neffe. “Kat, dear, this really isn’t a good time.”
“There’s no such thing as a good time anymore,” I said, coming to a stop a few feet from them. I slapped the picture on the counter. “Just take a look at this and tell me if you recognize where it is, and then I’ll leave.” I raised my hand, palm to her. “Promise.”
Aset’s lips pursed, and she breathed in, but her eyes slid down to the drawing. As soon as she saw the picture, her eyebrows rose, and I knew she recognized the cave.
She looked at me, then back down at the drawing. “This is Nik?” Though he was her son and, undoubtedly, she would recognize him anywhere, the drawing of him showed him deeply ensconced in shadow. It was a valid question.
I nodded. “Where is he?” I tapped the picture with my pointer finger. “Where’s this cave?”
“Just north of here,” Aset said, glancing that way. “Just across the Agate Passage, in the northern hills of Port Madison.”
Port Madison, a fragment of the traditional land and now the home reservation of Garth’s people, the Suquamish. I’d only ever been there once, and even then, only to the museum that stood where the Suquamish people’s enormous longhouse had been over a century ago.
“Nik and I lived in that cave for many years,” Aset said, her gaze growing distant. “It was a home of sorts, a long time ago.”
“Can you take me there?” I asked, snatching up the drawing and folding it up once more. I stuffed it back into my pocket.
Aset bit her lip. “No . . .” Her brow furrowed, and she shook her head. “Kat, dear, I really can’t waste time doing—”
“Dear,” she sighed. “Anything that distracts me from my work right now is a waste of time.” She placed her hand on my shoulder. “I’m sure that Garth knows where it is; his ancestors were the keepers of our secret location all those years ago. I doubt they’d have forgotten that place. I just saw him,” she added. “He’s probably still up . . .”
My thoughts spun. Asking Garth to take me there was out of the question; he was still too sensitive to pretty much everything. He needed to rest, to get used to what it meant to be Nejeret. But his family—that was another matter entirely. There was nothing stopping me from going to them for guidance.
“Thanks,” I said, spinning around and jogging back toward the stairs. “You were a big help,” I tossed over my shoulder, meaning every word. “Really.”
Now the only thing standing between me and tracking down Nik and his mysterious cave was Garth’s family. Easy peasy.
So, why did it feel like hurdling a mountain?
Chapter Six
“Nice place,” I said, scanning the property on the opposite side of the street from where I’d parked my bike. A steep gravel driveway curved up the hillside, half of a timber frame home just visible at the end, the rest of the property masked by dense woods. The short ride here was my first chance to ride the Ducati in what seemed like forever, and being back on the bike had felt amazing. True, I’d only ridden for a few minutes, having gatewayed to the museum—my only anchor point in Port Madison—straight from the garage in the compound on Bainbridge, but it was long enough to bask in the thrill of the cool, damp air slamming into my body.
“What are you going to tell them?” Dom asked. He was watching from the mirror pendant. I’d unzipped my coat and sweatshirt enough that he would have a good view.
I pulled my left hand from my pocket and pushed back the hood of my sweatshirt from my head. It had been drizzling when I first parked, but it was dry enough now. “I don’t know yet,” I admitted.
The Kat Dubois Chronicles: The Complete Series (Echo World Book 2) Page 40
