“I just want to go home,” Kendra said in a barely audible voice.
“Are you hurt?” Clark asked Kendra. “Do you need us to call someone to come get you?” The redhead looked smaller with Jordan’s arm around her protectively as she shook her head.
“No, she has a ride home,” Jordan said. “I’ll make sure she gets there.”
Clark seemed to be satisfied with that. “Okay, I think that’s all I need for now. Take care, Jordan.”
Jordan turned and looked to Emma as Clark walked off. He still had his arm around Kendra.
“I’m going to drive her home,” he said and looked like he was bracing himself for Emma’s reply.
“I heard,” Emma said and nodded.
“I’m sorry, Em. I hope that’s okay.”
“It’s the right thing to do,” Emma said and actually meant it. “I’d be disappointed if you hadn’t stepped up.”
“You’re not mad?” Jordan asked, looking relieved.
“I’m not mad,” she assured him. “You get her home safely. Rai will get me home.”
“Yeah, no worries there,” Rai pipped in.
31
HOME EARLY
Emma closed the front door and saw her mom sitting up. The book she was reading slid from her lap as she checked the time.
“It’s only ten,” she announced, looking suspiciously at Emma, “It’s still early.” Emma sat her purse and shawl down on the coffee table and collapsed onto the couch beside her. “Did something happen? I thought he was a nice boy,” Cassandra said in a mothering tone that made Emma feel warm and protected.
“He is a very nice person, Mom,” She turned her back slightly, so Cassandra could unzip the tight dress before she settled against her.
Cassandra wrapped an arm around her shoulder and held her close. “It’s okay if he doesn’t like you, Sweetheart. It’s his loss.”
“It’s not like that, Mom,” Emma said with a sigh. “We like each other a lot.”
“Help me out here,” Cassandra asked. “I’m not complaining. I’m not. But I am trying to understand why you are home at ten o’clock from prom if you and Jordan are getting along so well.”
“It’s complicated,” Emma said.
“It always is with boys. How complicated?”
“There was drama,” Emma elaborated, “and he had to drive Kendra home.”
“That does sound complicated,” Cassandra muttered thoughtfully. “How does that…?” she began then stopped. “No, why would he…?” Cassandra paused again and sighed. “You’re okay with this?” she finally asked.
“I am,” Emma said, turning, and hugging her mom. “I like Jordan a lot and he likes me. I know how him taking his ‘ex’ home from prom sounds, but it’s just him being a good and kind person.”
“If you’re sure, Sweetheart,” her mom said, hugging her back.
“I am.”
32
THE MOUNTAIN
Later that evening, Emma sat in her room regarding the two unanswered texts she’d sent to Jordan when there was a tap at her window. It was Rai, and she hurriedly opened her window to let him in.
“What’s up?” she asked with concern. “Did something else happen?”
Rai frowned and took a seat in her desk. “There’s trouble in the air, no pun intended.” A slight twitch of his lips told Emma that the pun was entirely intended and probably rehearsed. “Emma, I don’t think this thing with Jade and Kendra is over,” he said seriously.
“Of course, it isn’t over,” Emma replied in a dry tone. “They’ve hated each other since third grade.”
“No, I mean what happened tonight,” Rai added, “it’s obvious to me Jade was trying to goad Kendra into a violent reaction.”
Emma nodded. “It looked that way to me too. I figured Kendra is,” she searched for a fitting word for a moment and settled on, “like you. Jade figured it out somehow and now she knows Jordan is also something special after she unloaded on him like he was a Chuck Norris’ practice dummy tonight.”
Rai looked stubborn.
Emma frowned. “Oh, give it up, Rai. Either I’m in, or I’m not!” she snapped, “You came here for my help, so cut the hero code crap!”
Rai sighed and nodded. “Yeah, she is. But you didn’t need me to tell you that, did you?” He arched a black brow at her.
Emma pursed her lips as she answered, “No, but it’s nice to be read in finally. Jordan confessed what’s been going on with him to me earlier tonight, but he’s close to clueless on the whole paranormal ability subject. I need your expert take on what you know.”
“What did he say?” Rai asked curiously. “I’m still not comfortable talking about somebody else’s abilities.”
“Tough cookies, Rai. I need all the pieces if I’m going to get a clearer picture of this mess.”
“Jordan is… something,” Rai muttered as his voice trailed off.
Emma raised an annoyed eyebrow back at her friend.
“Seriously, he’s something different. He’s not like Kendra or me or Amber…”
“Amber too!?” Emma exclaimed and stood up.
Rai’s eyes went wide, and he covered his mouth with his fist. “You didn’t hear that from me.”
“It’s okay, Rai. You know you can trust me, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“I know, and I do,” he said resolutely and smiled. “It’s just that trusting you with my secrets is different from telling you somebody else’s secrets. Ah, you know what I mean,” he added.
Emma returned the smile. “Yeah, I can understand that, but in this case, I need to know as much as possible if I’m going to be any help at all.” Her face colored slightly, and she added, “I’m also sort of involved, you know?”
Rai grinned. “You mean with Jordan.”
“I think it’s going to be serious,” she murmured. “I think I need to know, Rai.”
“All I can tell you is that Jordan is a big deal. All of us can sense it.”
“What the heck does that mean?” Emma questioned pensively. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“It’s not good or bad,” Rai said, looking thoughtful, “We can see when someone is different like I said before.”
“Yes, you get a feeling around them,” Emma supplied the answer and bobbed her head.
“But, there is more to it,” Rai continued. “Spending time with Amber, and even being close to Kendra, we can feel who is bigger.” Rai sighed, frowning hard, and seemed to be searching for the right words, “It’s hard to explain. Let’s say that I’m a little taller than Amber.”
“She’s got about three inches on you, Rai.” Emma turned and gestured in the air to show the difference in their height.
“I don’t mean it literally!” He complained. “Besides, she’s one maybe two inches at most!” Rai declared before continuing, “Stay with me, I’m trying to ‘metaphor’ my way around this.”
“Okay, okay!” She complied and sat back down.
“On a metaphoric scale,” Rai emphasized the word again for her benefit, “I’m a little taller than Amber and Kendra is a bit taller than me.”
“You’re talking about how powerful you all are, right?” Emma asked absently, picturing the simple rating system he was describing in her head.
“Something like that, yeah. There are some differences between us, but they're small. The three of us seem to be around the same level.”
“So, give me a baseline to work with.”
Rai’s brow wrinkled as he mulled it over. “Okay, say I’m the baseline at about six feet. Amber stands around five-nine. Kendra comes in at a good six-six.”
“And?” Emma asked, trying to lead him, “What is Jordan?”
“Jordan is Mount Everest.”
They stared at each other in silence for a long while as Emma digested Rai’s description. It wasn’t going down easily. “What?” Emma finally breathed out in a whisper.
Rai shrugged. “That’s about the best descripti
on I have for it, Em.”
Emma felt her stomach knot. “I’m not sure what to do with that, Rai,” she pleaded. “I’ve seen what you can do. And I’m sure Kendra used some crazy power on my lunch table when it got totally destroyed. Are you telling me that my boyfriend is dangerous? Like nuclear bomb dangerous?”
“Nothing like that,” Rai said firmly. “What I can say for sure is that Jordan is important. I don’t know how, yet. But I’m pretty sure he’s not like the Hulk or a walking bomb. It’s Jordan. Don’t be afraid of him.”
Emma nodded numbly. She felt like throwing up, but it was fading a bit as the logical side of her mind engaged. “No wonder he is so scared to talk about it,” she said in a small voice.
Rai gave her a minute more to recover before speaking again, “So, that brings us back to Jade. You and I should compare notes.”
“She knows I have powers,” Rai blurted.
“When were you planning to clue me in on that little detail?” Emma responded, feeling annoyed.
“Honestly, I just remembered it,” Rai admitted. “And—” he hedged.
“—And what?” Emma asked.
“—She sort of threatened me,” he finally said.
“That’s huge, Rai!” Emma said. “Are you sure? Why didn’t you say something?”
“I’m pretty sure now,” he replied. “I didn’t think it was that big a deal at the time, what with you looking dead on the floor in the lunchroom.”
“Fair enough,” Emma conceded, not wanting to even think about that incident at the moment. “I think what spurred on the whole fight tonight, and everything else lately, is Jade being totally wrapped up with the LoSM.”
“Olivia and I checked them out. We didn’t find anything weird about the group,” he said.
“I know, and according to my Uncle Arthur, they are a charity now. And most of the members are exactly what they claim to be,” Emma explained. “But I got the impression they do a lot more than that still. He talked around it, but they split into factions a long time ago. The members don’t all agree on things. Historically, they were an order of actual knights.”
“Like Crusaders?”
“You’re thinking about the Templars,” Emma shook her head and stood up to pace around. “The League’s history reads more like a fairy tale or myth. It’s all very fanciful and filled with stories about slaying monsters and dragons.”
“Yeah, that sounds very ‘King Arthur fable’ to me too,” Rai agreed.
“I thought so too,” Emma said seriously, “Then you showed up one night with actual supernatural abilities.”
“What do my powers have to do with old stories about knights?” Rai asked.
“All my digging into the legend-side of their history does read a lot like Tolkien or maybe even Lovecraft,” Emma explained, “but beyond all the hyperbole, and with what we know about you and the others, the tales could easily be describing an order of knights devoutly following the example of Saint Michael and Saint George—they hunt down people with powers. I think that’s where Jade comes in.”
“Are you telling me that Jade is one of these knights?” It was Rai’s turn to swallow hard on information given to him.
Emma nodded to him. “Her dad is deeply involved, and I think all the training she’s been doing for years wasn’t for martial arts competitions. There’s also the stolen sword.”
“We don’t know she took that from our warehouse,” Rai argued. “It’s not even the kind of sword a knight would use anyway. It’s a Japanese sword.”
“A Japanese sword that’s supposed to be a magic dragon-slaying sword,” Emma finished.
Rai stood up. “We should get going,” he announced.
“Get going? Get going where?” Emma said tersely. “It’s after midnight.”
“I think you might be right,” he said seriously. “If Jade has it in her mind that Kendra is a demon and also believes she now has a magic monster-killing sword,” he shook his head. “You do the math, Em. What’s her next move?”
“Jade is going to go after Kendra again,” Emma answered with a nod. “And since trying to expose her publicly didn’t work…”
He lifted his head and stared straight out the window. “I think something is going to go down tonight, Em.” He turned to face her. “I’m not sure Jade will listen to reason, especially not from me, at this point. She might listen to you, though.”
“You think Jade is going to… what, try to murder Kendra with that sword? Maybe we should call the sheriff.”
“It has to be us,” Rai said with conviction. “Nobody would believe us even if we told them the truth.”
Emma nodded slowly and grabbed her jeans.
Rai opened the window and started climbing out. “We need to find Jade. Then, we need to try and talk her down. I’ll meet you outside when you’re ready.
33
SLAYER
On Emma’s insistence, Rai drove to their first stop, Jade’s house. It would be ideal if Jade were sitting at home, and their whole nightmare theory about knights and swords turned out to be a fanciful overreaction. At least, Emma wished that would be the case.
“The lights are all out,” Rai observed as they sat across the street watching the house.
“Well, it’s almost one in the morning,” Emma said. “They’re probably all asleep by now.”
“How are we supposed to know if she’s in there?” Rai asked.
“Go look in her window?” Emma suggested.
“It’s on the second floor.”
“So’s mine,” she argued.
“You have a tree,” he replied in an overly reasonable tone.
“Sorry, I thought you could superhero your way up the wall or something,” she admitted.
“I must have left my grappling hook in my other utility belt,” he said drolly.
“Okay, you don’t have to be mean about it,” she started to complain just as the door to Jade’s house opened and Mr. Jones came out. Rai and Emma ducked down low and watched as he got into a car and drove away very fast. “Where do you think he’s going?” Emma asked.
“If I had to guess,” Rai said smugly, “out to find his missing daughter.”
“Yeah, I hate to admit it, but you’re right,” Emma said. “Where to now?”
He started the car. “There is only one place I think she would go right now,” Rai said in a tone with no humor in it at all.
“The Radcliffs' house,” Emma muttered, and then she felt her stomach lurch. “Rai, Jordan might still be there.”
Rai floored it as they started down FM 2325 toward the Radcliff estate. The trip took less than fifteen minutes, but it felt like an hour to Emma. He turned the Charger sharply onto the private driveway, nearly missing the turn and putting them into the trees.
Emma gripped the dashboard and screamed as dust and leaves swirled over the windshield. “We can’t help if we’re dead, Rai!”
“All right, all right!” Rai replied, slowing a bit to manage the estate’s driveway that corkscrewed around the large hill. He turned off the headlights and parked near the garage. Emma wasn’t clear how they were going to find Jade by creeping around the Radcliff’s yard.
“So, do we try walking up to the door and see if Kendra’s home?” Emma suggested hopefully.
“Let’s get a closer look first,” he said. “This isn’t the first time I’ve had to sneak in here.”
He silently led her around the back of the large garage. Emma tried to look into one of the windows to see if Kendra’s car was parked inside, but it was too dark to tell for sure. They made their way through the large entry garden and around the back of the house. Rai gestured to a small path in the bushes that led upwards to the back wall near the pool.
“Wait here for a second,” he whispered.
Rai disappeared briefly into the bushes only to appear just above her on the branch of a tree. He leaped down onto the wall and beckoned for Emma to do the same. He glanced toward the ballroom doors across the
back patio and pool area. Then, told Emma to hurry.
Climbing wasn’t one of her talents, but she managed to make the edge of the wall where Rai grabbed her arm before she fell. They hopped down onto the lawn near the pool. Using as many plants, trees, and bushes as they could for cover, they made their way across and settled in behind a large planter.
None of the window curtains in the entire building were closed. The grand garnet curtains around the massive French doors were still open, too. From their position, they could see the whole back side of the mansion, every room, every floor.
“Hopefully, we’re wrong, and Jade is just sulking somewhere,” Rai whispered.
Emma nodded. “In which case, we just slink right back out again.”
“That’s the plan,” he agreed.
Rai and Emma looked through the windows and around the dimly lit property patiently. Emma saw Mrs. Radcliff walk up to the third floor and disappear behind a door. A few minutes later, Eric appeared on the second-floor walking across the hallway. All was quiet for a long while and then Rai tapped Emma on the shoulder and pointed toward the edge of the yard directly across from their hiding place. There she was.
Jade dropped quietly over the wall. Her curly hair was in disarray and she wasn’t wearing any shoes. Emma could make out the long, slender silhouette of the sword strapped to her back. She moved quickly along the back of the house as if she were familiar with the layout. Jade stopped at one of the French doors, forced it open with her shoulder, and, just like that, she was inside.
“Crap, we’d better get in there fast.” Rai stood up, but before he had taken a step, another light flickered on in the house. He and Emma saw Kendra making her way from the second floor down the staircase into the ballroom. It was the same staircase where Emma had run into Jordan at the party. Emma couldn’t move. It was like watching an impending train wreck.
Kendra was moving casually down the steps when she stopped, apparently seeing Jade standing at the bottom of the landing. One moment, Kendra was standing on the stairs, the next, she had vaulted the distance at Jade. The martial artist leaped quickly to the side and rolled over and got back to her feet in one smooth motion. She lowered herself to a ready stance and reared back.
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