by AR Colbert
Come on buddy, the light’s green.
I looked through the windshield to get the driver’s attention, and gasped when I saw that his attention was already on me. He wore dark sunglasses that hid his eyes, but there was no mistaking the man in the car. His white topknot sat perched high on the crown of his head, and his thin arms draped casually over the leather wrapped steering wheel.
“Rossel,” I whispered.
The rest of his car was empty—no sign of my mother, but I wouldn’t give up that easily. I ran forward to bang on his windows and see what he could tell me about the day she disappeared. He was the last person I saw her with. But as soon as I took one step forward, the engine of Rossel’s car roared and he surged forward through a now yellow light.
I cursed under my breath as his red tail lights disappeared down the road, sending pedestrians scurrying out of his way as he flew past them.
The dress would have to wait. I sprinted back the way I’d come, desperate to get back to Sean. We had to follow Rossel and find my mom.
CHAPTER 5
“So are we gonna make a plan or what?” Sean leaned against the doorframe of the master bathroom in Millie’s vacation home. He was kind enough to give me the big room, and my cosmetics were strewn across her granite counter tops.
“No.” I grumbled as I applied a final coat of mascara to my lashes. “There’s nothing to plan. Just keep your thoughts quiet so you don’t get me killed. Dom is way too eager to dig around in my mind. I’m sure she’ll be happy to root around in your stupid brain, too.”
“Hey,” Sean crossed his arms. “My brain is not stupid. It takes offense to your name calling.”
I rolled my eyes and immediately felt guilty for it. Sean had spent the afternoon trying to make me laugh after he refused to engage in the high-speed car chase I’d begged him for.
“He’s long gone,” Sean had said. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin looking for him.”
I zipped up my makeup bag and threw it on the counter, still frustrated. He was right, of course. Rossel was out of sight long before I got back to Sean’s Range Rover. But I was so mad! He was right there in front of me, and I let him get away.
I sighed and turned around to face Sean. “Sorry, brain. I’m just frustrated. I almost had him.” But that was okay. We were on to Plan B: Gayla’s party.
I spun to show off the dress I’d found in the back of Millie’s closet. “Do I look like a rich immortal?” It wasn’t as trendy as the purple number I’d spotted in the boutique downtown, but it definitely had that unique Millie flare.
“Close enough,” Sean said. “Are you ready?”
“Almost.” I swallowed down a couple of vitamins just in case we got back late, then swished some mouthwash. “Alright, let’s do this.”
I tried to relax and stop taking my frustration out on Sean. I admitted he was right, and we made a plan on our car ride down to the marina. Gayla would have to know the full truth—possible mortality and all—if there was any hope of finding my mom. As a seer, there was a good chance she’d discover the truth anyway. But she’d be a lot more successful trying to elicit a vision if she had as much information beforehand as possible.
And as for Dom… “Can we trust her?” I asked as he pulled into the parking lot.
Sean shrugged. “I never really knew her. She didn’t start coming around until we were older. But if she’s a telepath, then she already saw everything you were thinking. So if the council is waiting on the dock to take you in for questioning, we’ll have our answer. Otherwise, I guess we just have to wait and see if she can keep a secret.”
“You don’t actually think she’d do that, do you?”
“I don’t know what to think when it comes to you. None of this is normal.” He turned off the engine and hopped out of the vehicle. With a final deep breath, I followed him.
We walked across the parking lot to the docks. Luxurious boats lined up in rows, bobbing gently in the water. Several looked alive with twinkling lights and the sound of laughter rang out from behind us. The whole marina was buzzing with excitement.
I spotted a particularly large yacht ahead on the right. There was a crowd of ten or twelve gathered on the deck, and lights through the windows of the cabin told me there were more inside. But I didn’t see Gayla. In fact, the passengers all looked to be in their fifties or sixties. I slowed as we reached the dock that led to the giant boat.
“What are you doing?” Sean asked.
I gestured to my side. “Is this not where we’re going?”
He laughed. “Uh, no.”
I looked around. This was the biggest personal boat on the water. We’d nearly reached the end of the marina, and all that lay in front of us were commercial ships. “Where is it?”
He pointed ahead. “It’s that one.”
My jaw dropped. “The cruise ship?”
“It’s not a cruise ship.” He laughed again. “That’s Gayla’s boat. They call it Scylla.”
I paused. “As in Scylla and Charybdis?” A week ago the mention of monsters from Greek mythology wouldn’t have bothered me at all. But I didn’t know what was real anymore.
Sean grew serious. “You know about that?”
“I read about it once.” I tapped on my temple. “Photographic memory. I don’t forget things. Is that what they named the boat after?”
He frowned. “It’s a she. And she has a lot of ears. You better hope Scylla doesn’t hear you talking about her that way.”
“Are you messing with me?”
He remained stoic.
“Sean, if there is a six-headed monster on that ship…”
He couldn’t hold in his laughter anymore. He threw his head back and let out loud guffaws before bending over in half. I crossed my arms, waiting for him to finish. Finally, he stood tall again, red faced and still grinning. “Your expression was priceless!” He wiped his eye. “Oh man, I wish I had a picture.”
I was not amused. “Okay. Now where is the boat? For real this time.”
He was still chuckling a little as he responded. “That’s really it. And it’s really called Scylla. But don’t worry, she doesn’t exist anymore. Or- the sea monster doesn’t. The boat does, obviously.”
I took another look at the ship. I never would have guessed anyone could own a boat like that. It stood three stories tall on the water, emitting a blue glow across the gentle waves lapping up at its sides. White lights surrounded the entrance to the ship’s private dock and lined the edges leading up to the massive boat. On board there must have been a couple hundred people spread across the various decks. A large pool faded from purple to blue to green and back again in waves of light. This was wealth like I’d never imagined. I felt wildly out of place.
“Come on.” He grabbed my wrist and pulled me along. “Let’s go find Gayla and see what we can get figured out.”
I stumbled along after him. People stood in pairs along the dock, chatting in their beautiful attire like they didn’t have a care in the world. We ducked around them making our way all the way to the entrance when I noticed the platinum blonde hair of the girl checking in each guest. Please don’t be…
“Dom.” I forced a smile as she looked up from the list in her hands. She tilted her head slightly before focusing on Sean.
“You can go in, Sean. Gayla is expecting you. But,” she squared her shoulders as she turned to me, “I’m afraid we can’t allow any mortals aboard tonight.” She sucked air through her teeth, as though she was sorry she had to let me down.
“Gayla invited both of us,” Sean protested. “Everly hasn’t gotten her powers yet, but she’s not mortal.”
Dom narrowed her eyes at me. “That’s not what she thinks.”
Ugh! Apparently I was the one with the stupid traitorous brain. My eyes widened and I thought of my mother before I could stop myself. I didn’t want her to get in trouble just because I had a passing thought of being mortal.
Dom tilted her head again, thoroughly examin
ing me. “Where is she?”
“Who?”
“Your mother.”
I cringed. But then the pain of reality hit me. “I don’t know,” I admitted.
She continued to study me with those dark brown eyes, and I couldn’t bear to maintain eye contact. I looked over her shoulder to the deck of the boat just in time to see a flash of white hair disappear inside.
“Rossel!”
“What?” Dom asked.
“Where?” Sean stepped forward pushing Dom to the side. Her telepathy was nothing for his strength.
“There!” I pointed. “He just stepped inside.”
“Well what are you waiting for? Go!”
CHAPTER 6
I ran past a startled Dom with Sean hot on my heels. I reached the door and pushed through with too much force, tripping over my own feet and nearly knocking over Sean, who had been trailing way too closely, in the process.
But it didn’t matter. I saw a snowy white head of hair, pulled back into an elegant low ponytail rather than his signature man bun. “Rossel! Stop!”
The man acted as though he couldn’t hear me. He continued moving deeper into the crowd, his suit blending in with others just like it, and I pushed through the mass of strangers to reach him. Finally, I was close enough to reach out and wrap my hand around his arm. “Hey!” I shouted sternly.
He turned around, mouth agape.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, sir.” I dropped my hand, and warmth climbed up into my cheeks. It wasn’t Rossel.
The man turned away with a scowl, and I wished I was anywhere else. Thankfully, no one else seemed to notice or care much about what just happened. I glanced at Sean with a shrug. “I really thought it was him. What are the odds of running into two different men with long white hair like that on the same day?”
“They’re Olympians, Everly.”
“So?”
“Look around.” Sean pulled me to his side and gestured throughout the room. “Blonds, everywhere.”
About three quarters of the guests had some shade of blond hair. Many were platinum, and I noticed more than a handful were bordering on pure white hair, like Rossel and the man I’d just accosted. “Is that an Olympian thing, then? They all have blond or white hair?”
“Most of them, yeah. There are no hard and fast rules, but generally they’ll have fair hair and skin with dark eyes.”
That described Rossel, alright.
“So are there standard traits among Atlanteans, too? And Agarthians?”
Sean sighed. “I still can’t get over how little you know about your heritage. Atlanteans have blue or green eyes, like the sea, but no specific hair color. We vary from gingers like me to yellow blond, all the way to deep brunettes.”
“But your eyes are never brown?”
“Our eyes are never brown.”
“Got it.” The more I discovered about Atlanteans, the less convinced I became that I might be of pure Atlantean blood. At first glance I did have the signature blue eyes of my ancestors, but apparently some brown-eyed mortal tainted me with a slice of darkness in my left eye. It was just one more check in the reasons Tate wants to kill me column.
“And the Agarthians are a little trickier. They are typically darker in their natural form, with skin that ranges from a golden sunkissed bronze all the way to a deep dark umber. Their eyes are golden, like you saw with Tate. But here’s the kicker—all Agarthians possess the power to change their appearance.”
“All of them?”
Sean nodded.
“Is that the only power they possess?”
“No, it’s just kind of a standard thing for their race. Like we can breathe underwater. And the Olympians don’t require oxygen at all.”
“What?”
He sucked air through his teeth. “You can’t breathe underwater?”
“No.”
“Don’t worry.” He tried to lighten his expression, but it was obvious that even Sean was beginning to lose faith that I was like him. “It’ll come with your powers.”
“Right. My powers…” I frowned. It was looking more and more like these mythical powers would never come. And at this point, I almost hoped they wouldn’t. Tate wouldn’t kill me if I had a pure mortal soul—only if I was fractured. Being mortal would mean bad news for my mom, though.
“Let’s find Gayla,” I straightened my shoulders, finding new determination. If I wasn’t going to get my powers after all, then the least I could do was locate my mom and help her hide from the council. I couldn’t hold my mortal blood against her, but the council would be much less forgiving.
“Alright,” Sean agreed. “I bet she’s upstairs.”
I followed him through extravagantly decorated rooms, full of beautiful people. Leaning against the bar in a sleek game room beyond the area where we’d entered the interior of the boat, I spotted three familiar faces. They were the same faces plastered across every gossip magazine in every grocery store checkout line across the country. The Miles brothers—celebrity playboys known for the trail of A-List actresses they left crying in their wake. They were gorgeous—impossibly handsome. I wasn’t the kind of girl to get star struck, but even I couldn’t help but slow my pace as we passed the perfect male specimens.
“Keep it moving,” Sean grumbled.
“Are they—”
“Agarthian. Half of the people you see on television and in the movies are. With their ever changing looks and their glamour, it’s easy for Agarthians to become famous. You’ll also find them in pro sports and politics. They’re supposed to use their influence to help keep the humans’ behavior in check, but I don’t see the difference in what they’re doing now versus what our people did in ancient Greece, personally. They think they’re gods.”
Sean was clearly harboring some hard feelings, but it explained a lot. I surveyed the room again with my new understanding, pausing on the classical pianist tickling the ivories in the corner. His music was absolutely enchanting. Glamorous, you might say. “So are there many Agarthians here?”
“Yes, several.”
I inched my way closer and leaned in towards his ear. “Any hunters?”
“Unlikely. Only Keepers are invited to Mr. Swain’s parties. Hunters wouldn’t serve any purpose here. Also, once they are assigned a case, they stick with it until completion. Thaddeus has been assigned to you, which means no one else will come after you. So you can relax tonight.”
Easy for him to say. I couldn’t help but keep my eyes scanning every new room we entered. I even thought I felt a familiar buzzing sensation once, but it was a false alarm.
“So what about Atlanteans?” I asked. Sean had just pushed the three on the inside of an elevator in the middle of the yacht. Yes, really. An elevator. On a boat.
“What about them?”
“Based on your descriptions, I don’t think I’m seeing many here.”
“Yeah,” he shoved his hands into the pockets of his khaki linen slacks. I never thought I could appreciate a guy in linen pants, but Sean made them look good somehow—like he was headed to a beach wedding. “Parties aren’t really an Atlantean thing. Not anymore. We got burned pretty hard in the past for enjoying the finer things of this world. Now you’ll find most of us avoid extreme opulence.”
“Millie doesn’t. She definitely enjoys her wealth.”
“Yeah, that’s why she and my mom get along so well. They’re not afraid of the world. Most of our race doesn’t even live on land, anymore.”
“Where do they live?”
“Atlantis.”
The elevator door opened with a ding.
“I thought Atlantis was destroyed—Millie said the city sank to the bottom of the ocean. Are you telling me it still exists? The myths are true?”
“Remember the whole breathing underwater thing?”
I wanted to quiz him further, but the music grew too loud. Apparently the third floor was where all the college-aged Keepers hung out. The bass was bumpin’ so loud the doorknob across the h
all vibrated to the beat. I pulled it open and saw a sea of bodies moving with the music inside. The lights were dim with neon flashes of color strobing out above us. Gayla danced clumsily on a platform in the center of the room. Even in her obviously intoxicated state, she was the center of attention. The life of the party.
“I think your friend is drunk,” I murmured.
Sean inhaled deeply. “Ambrosia.”
CHAPTER 7
“Ambrosia? For real?”
Sean nodded grimly.
“Where is it? I want to try some!”
“No.” He furrowed his brows as he shook his head. “First of all, mortal souls can’t handle it. There’s no way you could survive unless you knew for sure that you had an Atlantean soul. Secondly, that stuff is addictive. It’s hard to stop once you get started.”
“But don’t you need it to stay immortal?”
“Nope. It just tastes good and feels good. It’ll help our bodies recover from major injuries, but that’s about it. And a little bit goes a long way.” He shook his head again. “I didn’t know Gayla had gotten into the stuff.”
I looked back at the beautiful girl as her white skirt fluttered around her swirling frame. She looked so happy and free. I hated to interrupt her.
Sean wasn’t bothered, though. He marched right through the crowd up to where Gayla grinned under the flashing lights. Blue and purple reflections glittered off of her platinum hair. Her face brightened when she noticed Sean, and she threw her arms around his neck, almost falling over in the process.
I grimaced as she slurred something into his ear. He raised his brows at her words, but quickly shook it off and whispered back into her ear. She nodded, and he pulled her through the crowds back to where I waited near the entrance of the room.
“Everlyyyyyy! I’m so glad you came!”
I smiled. “Hey, Gayla. Your boat is gorgeous.”
She smiled, but she looked almost embarrassed. “I know, it’s kind of ridiculous. But it makes Daddy happy, so…” she shrugged.
