by Angie Martin
He nodded, apparently not wanting to launch into an argument over me getting too lost in the chronicles to eat. “I’ll come get you for dinner, then.”
I lifted my hand in a quick wave and stumbled out of the gym. In the elevator, I depressed the button to go down to my room for a shower. I clasped my hands together to try and cease my sudden trembling, and a rush of cold sweat coated the back of my neck. Aftereffects of adrenaline, I told myself, but it was more than that.
So much more.
Chapter Twenty-four
A rgh!”
My vocalized frustration summed up my day in the library. I had gone back and forth, finding book after book, but none gave me any clues as to the possible evolution of blood seekers.
I thrust my elbows onto the desk, and my head plopped onto my open palms. Meant to be deep, calming breaths, several loud sighs escaped my lungs. My jaw tightened, and my bottom teeth clamped down on my upper lip.
The most important job I had – providing crucial information to night stalkers for upcoming missions – and I was failing on my first assignment. I internally pummeled myself at my incompetence. Though part of me said there may be nothing in the chronicles and that was why I couldn’t find it, something else told me that I had to keep searching. That the information was there, somewhere, in the library.
Lifting my head, my arms thudded against the desk. I looked at my mini-collection of fourteen books piled up and shook my head.
“Your problem is you’re trying too hard.”
I hated having Mr. Smith in my head, both in waking and dreaming hours, and it irritated me more that he was right about so many things. However, in that moment, I needed his candor more than I realized.
After standing, I stacked the books in my arms and returned each one to its rightful place in the library. I returned to the center of the library, where the desks were, and raised my eyes to the writing curving over the archway separating me from the hall that led to the rest of the complex.
Et toto corde et pura mente invenies quod quaerere.
“The pure mind and heart will find what they seek,” I translated out loud.
I needed to find a way back to that purity. Humble, unassuming, with no expectations of self. The library lived. It breathed. It would provide me with answers if I sought them with the proper mind and heart.
Closing my eyes, I blew out all the air in my lungs. I cleansed my mind of everything, even Mr. Smith, and focused solely on the chronicles. My mark ignited at the base of my skull, warming me with a familiar, calming sensation. The humming of the library started low, in the depths of my soul, and slowly rippled through me until it was all I heard and felt.
“Evolving blood seekers.”
After I whispered the words, the hum focused on a single note, telling me the chronicles were ready to show me the answers I needed. I opened my eyes and allowed the library to guide me. One, two, three books… I followed the hum until I made my way back to my desk with eight books balanced in my arms.
Not knowing where to begin reading, I reminded myself of the power of the chronicles. I held my right hand out over the books until a slight vibration filled my palm. I giggled at the ticklish sensation, excited to discover a new superpower. Picking up the book, I opened the cover and dove into the narrative.
A story, woven together by different chroniclers across the generations in eight different books, formed in my mind. One that I wouldn’t have found if I hadn’t been looking for it. An ever-evolving type of demon let loose on Earth from the depths of hell, the blood seeker seemed to shift in abilities at various intervals in time. As I dug deeper into the chronicles, however, I found they were regular intervals. Every hundred and sixty-six years, to be exact.
And, when I calculated the timeframes, the blood seekers were due for another mutation.
This year.
I leaned back in my chair, my hand half-covering my mouth, as words and phrases from the chronicles spun through my head.
Faster. Quicker.
Strength is much greater in every known specimen that night stalkers have found in the past month.
Possible mutation to include an additional muscle in each leg.
The blood seeker tossed the night stalker at a distance greater than fifty metres.
Sight is far beyond the normal limits of any known living creature.
Hearing has increased to exceed that of a bat.
Connection between blood seekers seems to be strong, even to the point of communicating without speech.
Thought projection onto non-blood seekers might be possible.
Out of everything, the last entry hit me the hardest. If blood seekers could project thoughts onto others, could they also infiltrate dreams? And, if they could, were my dreams maybe not dreams at all, but something more sinister?
The idea nauseated me, not just because a blood seeker could have been in my dreams, but that Mr. Smith was in them, too. I remembered him referring to it as his dream, but maybe it had been a joint dream, one we shared. The things he said to me… my reaction to them. All of that could have been real. But, there was something much more fearsome looming over me.
Dark Man.
We couldn’t take the chance on this mission. If Dark Man was real, if blood seekers were evolving once again, the mission couldn’t move forward until we knew more. Until we could prepare for what came next. And, I had no idea how to prepare for any of it. Dream infiltration and possible mind control. Shared dreams between myself and Mr. Smith. Something strange was happening to all of us. Other than the small mentions in the chronicles, I needed Jia to reach out to the other chroniclers again, and with haste.
I jumped out of my chair and ran to the library exit, straight into Mr. Smith. I bounced off him and apologized. “I was just coming to see you.”
“Did you find anything?” he asked.
“I did,” I said, taking a few more steps away from him. My right hand swirled in the air, as if helping my mind conjure up what I had learned in the chronicles. “It’s scattered information, but there is mention of changes to blood seekers. Mutation, evolution, whatever you want to call it, but they definitely have changed since we started keeping the chronicles.”
He glanced at the books on my desk and blew out his breath. “What kind of changes?”
“Speed, senses. Things like that.” I grimaced, not wanting to bring up the dream thing, but I couldn’t hold back possibly important information. “There’s a couple references to thought projection.” Softly, I added, “Maybe even to dreams.”
His gaze snapped to my face, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.
The need to distract him overcame me. I cleared my throat. “Strength, too,” I said, my volume increasing. “In 1853, there was a tale of a blood seeker throwing a night stalker over fifty meters, however far that is.” I shrugged, wondering if Mr. Smith was still focused on dreams. “It sounds like a long distance.”
“It’s over 160 feet,” he said, looking to the floor.
“Good thing one of us knows math.” I forced out a laugh, but the hollowness of it quickly faded once more to silence.
“What did it say about dreams?” he asked.
I scratched the back of my head and walked away, wishing I had some of Keira’s Xanax to ease my anxiety. Back at my desk, I stacked the books to keep myself busy. “It’s more a hypothesis than anything,” I said, resisting the urge to run away. Did we really have to talk about this? If we had shared a dream—
He didn’t ease up, walking until he stood beside me. “What’s the hypothesis?”
“Thought projection,” I said. “There’s an idea that maybe they could project thoughts into dreams, too.”
He shook his head. “That’s impossible, though, unless it’s with a companion.”
His response caught me off-guard, and I looked at him. “What’s a companion?”
“There are companions in lots of creature cultures. It’s required for them to survive i
n our world. In the case of blood seekers, it’s a mortal who shares their own blood with the blood seeker.”
“People would let blood seekers… feed?” I shuddered, my stomach churning. “Off them?”
“It’s rare, but it happens. Did the chronicles mention the thought projection occurring after a blood exchange?” Before I could ask what he meant, he said, “Where a human allows a blood seeker feed from them.”
I rolled the stories through my mind. “No, they didn’t. It’s possible that other libraries have that information, though.” Relief flowed through me. If an exchange of blood was required to project into a dream, then Dark Man hadn’t infiltrated mine. I wasn’t a companion for any blood seeker. Mr. Smith also wasn’t one, so Dark Man couldn’t have been in his dream, either.
“Let’s have Jia contact the other complexes and find out what we can about this thought projection and the dreams thing.”
“I agree,” I said, “but we need to put off this mission. At least until we know what we’re up against. The recon team said these blood seekers seem more evolved than what I’m finding in the chronicles, and—”
“We aren’t delaying the mission. We have the nest tracked, we know the layout of the building. We can handle whatever comes our way.”
My eyes narrowed, confused at his insistence to keep going. “It’s far too dangerous not knowing what—”
“I’m not concerned about that,” he said, his tone firm, his decision final.
“Clearly. What about the others?”
“They’ll be fine,” he said. He started walking toward the library exit. “We’ve been on far harder missions than this.”
I followed him to the small hallway leading to the main library door. “You’re unbelievable. You really don’t care about the rest of the team, do you?”
“You don’t know—”
“Garrett, Keira, all the others. Doesn’t matter who dies, so long as you feel you did everything you could to avenge Brent’s death.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said. “That’s the problem with you. Always thinking you understand this world. You’ve been here a few days. You have no right to judge me or my decisions.”
“It’s my job to give you all the information and make sure the survival rate is high, and you’re ignoring that. This mission is too damn dangerous.”
“It’s already decided. We’re going.”
“You’re risking everyone’s life. For what? So you can feel better about not being there when Brent died? How the hell are you going to feel when everyone is dead? Or, is this just a suicide run for you? Brent’s dead, so you may as well be, too?”
“Maybe when you lose someone, you’ll get it.”
I threw my hands up. “I just lost my entire family! For… for this! To be blindly led by you into a mission that’s certain to fail!”
He stepped forward, towering over me. “You didn’t lose anyone. They’re still out there, breathing, talking, being alive.”
My jaw tightened, and I spoke through clenched teeth. “If someone dies on this mission, that’s on you. The only person you should be responsible for is yourself. You’re leading them all into a possible death trap.”
“That’s ridiculous. Besides, if I died, then who would be around to save you?”
“I don’t need saving.” Trembling with rage, my fingers fused into fists at my sides, and my short fingernails dug crescent moons into my palms.
“What are you going to do? Kick all the blood seekers in the groin?” His condescending laugh rolled toward me.
My right fist swung wildly at his jaw. He caught it before it could connect, grabbed my left arm, and walked me backward until I hit the wall. Trapped, I struggled against his strong grip.
“Let me go,” I said through clenched teeth, but my demand sounded weak in the face of his unbridled anger.
“How dare you,” he said. “You come into our lives and just… You can’t just…”
And, then I recognized it. Not anger. Not with me. Something else, something much more dangerous.
A soft yelp tried to escape me as his lips crashed against mine. Every second of our time together – all the bitterness, sarcasm, frustration, sadness – came out in that kiss. And, as much as I wanted it to end, I needed it to continue. As if physical separation would kill us both.
But, devolving under the weight of our emotions could also have the same effect.
His grip on me loosened, and I shoved him away as hard as I could, severing the kiss. “What the hell is wrong with you?” I shouted the question and stormed out of the library.
Chapter Twenty-five
I hopped into the first available elevator, grateful Mr. Smith didn’t follow me. After opening the panel and pressing the button for the top floor, I slammed the side of my fist into the wall. Pain reverberated through my wrist and arm, and I shook my hand out, cursing Mr. Smith. The man was infuriating… but more than that… he was… was…
The doors to the elevator slid open, and I blindly wandered down the darkened hall to the balcony. My brain had collapsed on itself, quite possibly imploded in my skull, and I needed to relieve the pressure from whatever it was Mr. Smith was doing to me. He certainly had made my life much, much harder since we first met. Why did he have that aggravating, irritating, want-to-jump-off-the-nearest-cliff effect on me?
My hand and head both throbbed, but determination kept me going until I reached the balcony. Surely, he wouldn’t chase me down. The last face I needed to see was his. I wished I could go the next year without running into him or even hearing his name.
Except, he oversaw the complex, and he was assigned to keep me safe during missions. Avoiding him, even for a day, would never work. Damn the luck.
Resting my hands on the balcony railing, I stared at the sun setting over the mountains, much as it had when Mr. Smith showed me the place. The scene calmed my jumping nerves and eased the tension in my muscles, and I focused solely on the hues cresting the nearest mountain.
Lights flickered on below me at ground level, just bright enough to show the way to the entrance of the complex. I imagined no one beyond the mountain could see them, and I briefly wondered how far I could get without a vehicle. Was it possible to escape my claustrophobic confines and make it back home? Hear my dad’s voice call me “Magpie?” Listen to my mom bragging on Miller and Holly? Laugh with Liz over something stupid we did? What I wouldn’t have given for just five minutes of my old life.
Movement in the shadows of the lights caught my attention. I squinted and could make out a shape, then several more. The scouting team had returned the night before and hadn’t left the complex. Who could be—
Despite the great distance between the balcony and the dirt road, I could see one of the figures look up at me. I knew who it was before he stepped into the light.
Dark Man.
It wasn’t possible. He wasn’t real… he couldn’t be real. I had to be dreaming again. I must have left the library, angry at Mr. Smith, and went to my room to fall asleep. Yes, that had to be it, because Dark Man didn’t exist. He was only in my dreams, and I only dreamt of him because of the chronicles I’d buried myself in the past few days.
But, there he was, and there were others with him. I couldn’t see him clearly, not in the traditional sense, but I felt him – and he felt me. The connection we had… there was no explanation for it. Yet, he was in my head. Again.
My consciousness floated away to someplace where it couldn’t make rational decisions, and Dark Man filled the void. My eyes drifted closed, my mouth smiled… all beyond my will. Something inside of me needed to be next to him, to experience everything he had to teach me. My life at the complex was nothing compared to what it would be like with him. To reach that next level of evolution, power, desire.
His voice flooded my mind. “Come with me, pet.”
My palms gripped the railing, and I leaned over it.
“It’s not too far for us start our lif
e together.”
My resolve strengthened. I had to go to him. My foot planted itself in front of the railing while my opposite leg swung over the top of it. Once I had climbed over the rail, I turned around, the heels of my feet holding me up on the narrow ledge. I stared down at my destiny while gripping the iron behind me.
“It’s time.”
I let go of the railing.
Strong arms wrapped around me from behind, keeping me from falling. My mind jolted, as if I woke up, and I recognized the immediate danger. How did I get on the edge of the balcony?
“I’ve got you, Madison.” Mr. Smith’s voice provided little comfort as I faced down the distance between myself and the ground. The fire escape he helped me down from at my hotel looked like a baby step in comparison.
“Spencer?” My voice sounded so small, and my body trembled. “Don’t… don’t let me go.”
“I won’t,” he said, “but we have to get you turned around.”
My gaze still fixated on where Dark Man had stood a few moments earlier, I stuttered. “I… I can’t. I can’t do it.”
“You can,” he said. “I have faith in you. It’s just a small turn, and then we’ll get you back over to this side.”
My breathing quickened to the point that I thought I would pass out. “I’m going to die, aren’t I? I’m going to fall, and—”
“No, no, Madison. You won’t. I promise. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
I wanted to believe him.
“We’re going to do this slowly and together, okay? Just listen to my voice, and we’ll get you through this.”
I nodded, too afraid to speak in case it pushed me over the edge.
“One at a time, lift your feet and scoot them back so you’re on your tiptoes.”
Starting with my right foot, I did as he instructed.
“Now, I need you to take one hand off the railing—”
“No! I can’t let go!”
“Just one hand. You’re going to pivot until you’re facing me. I won’t let you go.”
