I look up on the catwalk.
Standing with her arms raised, energy pulsing from each of her fingertips, is Elissa Genevieve.
She looks more powerful than ever. When I knew her, she was masquerading as a drained mystic—covering her face with makeup to look so sallow and weak so no one would question her, when in reality she was healthy, a double agent who was working for my father.
Now there’s no makeup to conceal who she really is.
Her blond hair is loose, her thick curls cascading down to her shoulders. This isn’t the Elissa Genevieve I remember from my father’s office. She has abandoned her corporate attire for a shimmering golden catsuit nearly as bright as the sun. She looks like a character out of a movie: the garment fits her like a second skin, so shiny there must be crushed crystals in the threads. Her knee-high black boots look painfully pointy.
“She’s certainly dressed for the occasion,” Landon mutters.
Turk starts forward, but I hold him back.
“Aria Rose!” Elissa cries out.
Our eyes meet and she spreads her arms, sending the bright green energy exploding from her fingertips across the room.
“Oh!” she says, her voice filling the vast space. “A reunion.” She smiles a dazzling white smile. Her lips are painted a deep red. “Me. You. Davida—or rather, the only part of her I care about.”
Elissa squeezes her right hand tightly, as though there’s something delicate in her palm that she wants to destroy. The five individual rays of energy braid themselves together into one thick, powerful ray.
Elissa’s energy looks almost black. Lethal. A darker green than I’ve ever seen from any mystic.
She sweeps her arm across the room and the ray shoots forward, stopping directly in front of the cooler holding Davida’s heart.
Elissa closes her eyes.
She murmurs something and her entire body shudders, nearly launching her off the catwalk.
And then the energy from her hand begins to spin in midair.
The ray narrows itself to a fierce point, making a noise as loud as an electric drill. It spins so quickly that it almost looks like it isn’t moving at all, darkening with every passing second.
Then Elissa drags the fierce green beam across the cement floor, just parallel to the cooler. The ray burns a charcoal mark into the cement with a sharp hiss as she moves the beam along the edge of the cooler.
“What is she doing?” I whisper to Turk.
As she maneuvers the narrow beam, a sheer greenish-blue wall rises from the mark she’s made in the floor. The wall is approximately three feet high, extending well past the top of the cooler.
Then she draws another line.
And another, until the cooler is surrounded by a force field of semitranslucent energy. She completes the force field with a lid over the cooler, sealing it off completely. When she’s finished, Elissa retracts her rays with a sound like the bursting of a hundred balloons.
The force field remains intact, shimmering incandescently. It’s so beautiful that I almost want to reach out and touch it.
“One can never be too careful,” Elissa says, her voice echoing off the walls. She focuses her attention on me. “You tend to have greedy little fingers, if I remember correctly.” She motions to the force field and the cooler inside it. “And I want this all for myself.”
Ryah and Landon stare at Elissa in silent awe. She looks terribly impressive standing atop the catwalk, the golden collar of her bodysuit flipped up against her neck, her blond hair glistening in the light. I once thought Elissa was my friend, my confidante.
I was wrong.
She is responsible for so many deaths: Violet Brooks’s, for one, as well as many of those killed in the Conflagration twenty-odd years ago, not to mention in this year’s war.
Elissa is the reason—one of them, at least—that the people of Manhattan are starving and fighting and killing. Anger begins to swirl inside me like boiling water.
Jarek makes a noise, but his cry is muffled by the gag in his mouth.
“Ah,” Elissa says from the catwalk. “Silenced screams.” She moves directly above where Jarek is hanging, staring down as if he’s a museum exhibit. “Reminds me of home.”
“Is this it?” Landon shouts from behind me. “You lured us here so we could watch Jarek hang from the ceiling?”
“Landon!” Ryah says. Her left hand is twitching nervously, her fingers hovering just above the gun strapped to her waist.
Elissa blinks at us. “Lured you here? You stumbled into this room of your own accord.” She points directly at me. “I was looking for you.”
“My parents and brother aren’t enough?” I say. “What do you want with me?”
Elissa stares at me with keen interest. “Your family has proved a helpful alliance, it’s true. But I’ve decided to go out on my own. Roses need dirt to grow, Aria. But me—I need nothing but air.”
“What does that even mean?” Ryah whispers to me.
Landon puffs out his chest. “What are you talking about, Elissa? You brought Jarek here. Why?”
“Jarek. Is that his name? Silly boy,” Elissa says. She reaches for the chain that Jarek is hanging from, giving it a gentle push so that his body swings back and forth. “I’d hardly say I brought him here.” Elissa catches the rope, steadying it. “It was an unexpected turn of events, really.” She touches something hanging from her neck. I squint and realize she’s wearing a locket.
My locket.
“Look familiar, Aria?” she asks.
“How’d she get your locket?” Turk asks. “I thought Jarek had it.”
“So did I …,” I say, and then I realize what must have happened—why didn’t I think of this before? Neither Hunter nor Kyle put the mystic trace on me. I stare up at Elissa. “You. You’re the one who tagged me.”
“You figured it out,” she says. “Took you long enough. At first I thought you were pretending to be simple. But no. You’re just daft.”
Turk steps forward. “Hey—”
“Take one more step, boy”—Elissa holds up a hand suffused with her particular dark green mystic energy—“and I will annihilate you.”
He glances back at me, and I shake my head. Elissa is too dangerous. I won’t let him get hurt because of me.
“And why am I simple?” I ask. Maybe if I can keep Elissa talking, one of us will come up with a plan to stop her.
Elissa sighs. “I tagged you when we were with that one”—she points to Turk—“about to enter the underground. Right before the battle where poor little Hunter lost his mommy. I thought it would be handy, a way to keep tabs on you. You never felt a thing.
“As part of my arrangement with your father, I’ve been keeping him apprised of your whereabouts. I even told Thomas Foster you were at that compound upstate—just in case things ever went south with good old Johnny Rose. It’s always good to have a backup plan.” Her voice is as exactly as I remember it—steely and calm.
“But this war is draaaagging on,” Elissa continues, “and I’ve decided to take things into my own hands. I followed the tag tonight, thinking I would find you. My plan was to ransom you off to the highest bidder, to use you to gain control over your parents and the Fosters.”
She glances over at Jarek with disgust. “How was I supposed to know you had it transferred to your locket? A smart trick, so obviously you didn’t think of it yourself.”
Elissa removes the locket from around her neck and dangles it above Jarek’s head. “Then this little thief shows up. I was about to kill him outright when I realized that he had a surprise with him: a mystic heart. And not just any mystic’s heart—your old servant, Davida’s. Jarek here was going to use the heart for himself, isn’t that right?”
Jarek says something, but it’s muffled by the gag.
Elissa cups her hand to her ear. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
He repeats himself, but his words are still incomprehensible.
“Poor thing.” Elissa
reaches forward and pulls the gag out of Jarek’s mouth, letting it rest on his chin.
“I’m sorry!” he cries, gasping for air. “I just wanted to be powerful.” He closes his eyes. “I didn’t know … I didn’t think …”
“But you do have power,” I say to Jarek. “You saved me and Turk in the Aeries. We wouldn’t be here now if it weren’t for you.”
“It’s not the same,” Jarek says rapidly. “I was going to ingest the energy myself and then sell the heart to Kyle when it was worthless. Would’ve served him right.”
“So you’re working with him?” I ask. “That’s why you came here?”
“No,” Jarek says. “I just thought he’d pay a hefty amount of money for the heart, and by the time he figured out that I’d already drained the energy, I’d be far gone. I came here to find him. I didn’t know that she—” He looks at Elissa and holds back whatever he was about to say.
“And the locket …,” Jarek says, “I didn’t even realize it was yours, Aria. I saw it on the ground back when Turk and I found you at the excavated canal. I figured somebody dropped it, that it was something I could pawn. But I was wr—”
“Enough.” Elissa stuffs the gag back in his mouth. “I liked him better when he talked less.”
So Jarek isn’t working with my brother. He just wanted more power, and he saw Davida’s heart as an opportunity. And he wasn’t the one who ratted us out to Kyle—in fact, there was no rat. This entire time, it was Elissa working behind the scenes. It was just an unfortunate coincidence that Jarek brought along the sweatshirt that I’d hidden my locket in.
“I suppose your friend Davida never imagined that her heart would be serving me when she died,” Elissa says.
Once again, she extends her fingertips and rays of dark-green energy burst from them like deadly streamers. She brings her hands in front of her, weaving the rays of light together the way Ryah did on Turk’s motorcycle. They form a threaded platform extending from the catwalk to the floor near us.
With a flick of her fingers, Elissa blends the rays together into a single sheet of green; tiny ripples run across the surface, and the sheet begins to indent in various places, revealing itself as a set of stairs.
Elissa climbs over the railing, first one leg, then the other, slowly descending. There’s a soft clink as she steps onto the cement floor.
“Show-off,” Landon says, pointing to the metal ladder at the far side of the room. “You could have just used that.”
Elissa laughs. “And how is that any fun?”
She fans out her arms and the sheet of green energy oscillates and separates into individual rays of light.
“You’re going down, traitor.” Landon snarls, then extends his own rays. They’re a softer green than Elissa’s, and shorter.
“Careful, Landon,” I say, but he ignores me and steps forward. “She’s dangerous.”
“I would listen to Aria Rose,” Elissa says, curling her lips upward. Her eyes burn with the same emerald color as her energy. “One wrong move and your friend Jarek here could just … die.”
Elissa whips one of her hands into the air.
A jolt of energy blasts Jarek right in the stomach. His entire body swings on the hook, and he lets out muffled cries of pain.
“Aria,” Elissa says calmly. “Tell your friend to retract his claws.”
I turn to Landon. He’s seething with anger, though he must know he’s not a match for her.
Then again, there are five of us and only one of her. I wish we could communicate without Elissa’s hearing, to plan an attack against her. Shannon and Ryah have their eyes trained on Elissa, perhaps thinking the same thing I am. Turk is staring at me; he raises his eyebrows, but if he’s trying to send me a message, I have no idea what it is.
“Back off,” I say to Landon. “For now. Let’s hear her out.”
“Fine,” Landon says in a deep voice. The light from his hands disappears. “But I’m not happy about this.”
“None of us are.” I turn back to Elissa. “What do you want?”
She laughs. “Power, of course. I thought you knew me well enough by now to realize that.” She closes her fists and the rays of light disappear from her fingertips, leaving both of her hands a scorching green; she’s ready to attack at any moment.
“And now I’m going to have it. Loads of it,” Elissa continues. “Once I transfer the power from Davida’s heart into my body, I will be the most powerful mystic there has even been—as powerful as a Sister.” She stares longingly at the cooler. “Intact mystic hearts are so rare, and one as special as Davida’s …”
“I still don’t understand what you want with Jarek,” Shannon says, a slight quaver in her voice. “Let him go.”
“I don’t give two shakes about Jarek,” Elissa barks. “He could die in an instant and the world would keep on spinning.” She shifts her gaze around the room and steps around Jarek’s hanging body.
“You’ve been a pretty little fool, Aria Rose. You had it all, and you sacrificed it for true love. And where did that get you?” Elissa motions to the rest of our group. “I don’t see your dearly beloved here. Trouble in paradise?”
“At least I’m not a liar,” I say. “Or a murderer.”
Elissa shakes back her hair. “Call me whatever you want, Aria. I know what I want and I take it. You don’t know what you want, so you let others make decisions for you. You’re a nuisance, and if it were up to me, you’d be in the ground already.”
Elissa creeps closer to me. I can smell her crisp, barely-there perfume—a mixture of white lilies and pear. “But you still seem to be important to your parents, and to the revolution. So you’re going to come with me.”
She reaches out to grab my wrist, but Landon pushes me out of the way. “Aria!” he shouts. “The heart!”
There’s a burst of green light as Elissa punches her arms in front of her. The sickening sound of mystic energy against bare skin fills the room as Landon is thrown backward against the wall and crumples to the floor.
Elissa shouts something, but I can’t hear what it is. The windows are beginning to shake. I whip my head back to see Ryah crouched on the floor, her blue hair in sharp contrast to the energy swirling around her, which is throwing dust from the floor into the air.
Ryah’s energy flickers like the start of a fire: she knots her electric green rays into a tangle that grows brighter by the second. The knot begins to lengthen and spin in tiny circles, widening as it extends into the air.
Hints of red and orange shimmer in the green of Ryah’s energy as the rays burst upward into a full-blown miniature cyclone that hisses and sputters.
Jarek continues to thrash in the middle of the room as Shannon blasts Elissa in the stomach. Elissa uses her energy like a shield, reflecting the burst of energy back at Shannon, who ducks in time to see her own ray double back and shatter a hole in the wall behind her. Meanwhile, Landon is pushing himself to his feet.
Sweat pours down Ryah’s forehead as her cyclone of energy bursts into flames that roar as they expand, licking the high ceiling. The cyclone continues to spin, gaining speed. Ryah stands and pushes her arms away from her. The tip of the cyclone, closest to her fingers, tilts forward, changing the direction of the fire so that it’s spinning out toward Elissa. Yellow and orange flames mix together, and smoke begins to fill the room.
Ryah makes a circle with her right arm. She pushes the tip of the cyclone toward the center of the swirling mass of flames. The cyclone collapses inward, becoming more focused. The flames grow angrier.
From my spot on the floor, I watch as Ryah makes a pinching motion with two fingers, and the cyclone, which now looks like a long funnel, begins spewing forth tiny balls of fire.
The first burst of flames is no bigger than my fist. Ablaze with mystic energy, the fireball soars directly toward Elissa.
Elissa’s eyes widen. She’s impressed. A flicker of fear crosses her face.
But then she springs into action.
R
yah’s projectile sails straight for Elissa, followed by another, then another in quick succession. Just as the flames are about to kiss her forehead, Elissa bends backward, pressing her hands to her chest.
Green energy shoots up her skin, flooding her face with light. Her entire head glows green, her cheeks and lips and nose turning a dark olive.
She exhales, and energy flares from her mouth.
The fireballs suddenly stop their trajectory toward Elissa, coming together in a mass of green, yellow, and red flames that burns so brightly I’m scared the entire room will explode like a supernova.
The flames bounce back toward Ryah, who freezes, terrified.
“Move!” Turk calls.
Landon, now on his feet, hollers, “Watch out!”
But it’s too late.
Elissa’s energy meets the cyclone, which turns against Ryah and circles the flames back at her. They catch her clothes and hair and skin, consuming her in a magic show of light and energy. She screams in horror and pain, and I smell burning flesh.
“Ryah!” Shannon and Landon shout, rushing over to her.
Gray smoke fills the air, seeping into my lungs and making me cough. I duck low and crawl toward the cooler. Just behind the wavering walls of green energy lies Davida’s heart.
I can’t let Elissa have it.
Staring at the cooler, I realize there is no way around the force field—not even from above.
Quivering in fear, I thrust my arm right through it.
A shock of energy runs through me, frying my skin as if I’d poked my finger into an electric socket. I’m thrown backward, and my head slams on the cement. My hand throbs with pain. I glance down: my fingers are blackened.
“Turk!” I call, but he can’t hear me—because Elissa is attacking him, shooting rays of energy that curl around Turk’s legs like hungry snakes.
He fires off rays of his own, but it’s no good. Elissa’s beams crawl up Turk’s limbs, covering his torso in what looks like emerald-green wiring. They travel down his arms, encase his hands, and wrap around his chest like some sort of mystic straightjacket, so quickly that Turk barely has time to react before he is immobilized.
Toxic Heart Page 24
