The Complete Harvesters Series

by Luke R. Mitchell

  Rachel, for her part, held it together as dragon fire burned its way down her throat—or at least thought she did until she caught Jarek grinning at her like she’d just done something especially cute. She narrowed her eyes at him and he turned back to his conversation with Pryce, grinning all the wider.

  Once the burning receded, Rachel didn’t so much mind the warm tingles the drink left shooting through her throat and slowly percolating up to her face and head, nor did she mind the subtle overtone of confidence that floated in as she fixed her eyes on Alton.

  It was time. And he seemed to know it.

  “You’d like to talk?” his voice asked quietly at the edge of her mind.

  Rachel nearly jumped.

  As far as she knew, he hadn’t looked at her once in the past several minutes, but apparently her attention had not been lost on him.

  “Yeah,” she sent back, glancing surreptitiously at the others. “Mind stepping upstairs for a bit?”

  Without a word or a shared thought, Alton turned and strode over to the tight-winding spiral staircase in the corner. Aside from a pair of curious frowns from Pryce and Jarek, no one seemed to think it particularly odd behavior.

  Rachel waited until Alton disappeared above, then she finished her drink and followed, doing her best to ignore the stares on her back and the roiling apprehension in her gut.

  “You’ve been avoiding me,” Rachel finally said after what had been at least a full minute of tense silence.

  She stood in Pryce’s cozy living quarters, facing Alton in the armchair he’d chosen.

  Alton tilted his head, not quite disagreeing. “We’ve been busy.”

  “You’ve ducked out of every room I’ve walked into since Golga’s attack.”

  Was that an amused smirk that crossed his face?

  “You tried to murder brick and asphalt using my body as a battering ram last time we properly conversed in person,” Alton said.

  She held his unblinking gaze.

  What did he want, an apology? The conversation he was referring to just so happened to be the same one where he’d told her that it was his own people—and not just the raknoth people at large, but his own clan—who’d been responsible for both Mom’s death and the attack that had robbed her of Dad and Grams. Emotional volatility should’ve probably been a given.

  If he hadn’t wanted a pissed off arcanist on his hands, maybe Alton should have tried to stop his bastard ilk from killing her family.

  “I need answers,” she finally said. “And not just a vague summary. Details. What was my mom really up to? What went wrong?” She forced herself to unclench. “Who killed her, and where were you during all of this?”

  Alton was watching her closely now. “Having second thoughts?”

  “What? About working with the guys who literally blew the planet back into the dark ages? How could I have doubts about that?”

  Alton’s eye roll was so subtle she wasn’t rightly sure it had even happened.

  He sank back into his chair and crossed one leg with an affected sigh, taking his sweet time about it. “I’ve already told you most of what I know.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Alton held up a hand for peace and quiet. “I’ll tell you the rest if you sit and promise to behave.”

  The sudden urge filled her to flip the armchair with him on it. “Seriously?”

  Alton waved toward the couch opposite him.

  Did the bastard really have to be so smug about everything?

  Still, she was the one who needed answers, so she reigned in the violent thoughts, dropped onto the couch, and settled for speaking a piece of her mind. “I don’t like you.”

  That was genuinely amusing to Alton, judging by the twitch of his lips, but there was bitterness in his expression as well. “Then you are among good company on this planet, human and raknoth alike.”

  Rachel was almost taken aback for a second. Now that she thought about it, she couldn’t recall having seen Alton interact with any of his own kind beyond brief passing in the past couple weeks, but… It didn’t matter. What mattered now was getting the answers she was owed.

  She was about to press again when Alton started of his own volition.

  “I was there the day it happened.”

  Aching pain informed her just how tightly she was grasping her own fingers as she waited silently for him to elaborate. If Alton had been there—Jesus, if he’d been involved…

  How could she bring herself to accept that?

  Alton was watching her, quiet and calm, assessing. “Everything I told you was true. I never saw your mother. But I also stood obediently by as Zar’Faenor compelled four violently-inclined men to go to your house and tie up loose ends. I did as I was told and played jail keeper to your mother’s co-conspirators while Faenor went to join the hunt. I did not kill your mother, but I cannot say my actions were completely removed from the deed.”

  “And who did?” Rachel asked quietly, leaning forward. “Who killed her?”

  Alton thought about that for a few moments before speaking. “She did,” he finally said.

  “What?”

  He shifted in his chair. “She gave them a good chase, from what they told me afterward. If it had just been her, she might have even made it on the run for a while. But it wasn’t, of course. She had her family to look after.” He met her eyes. “She drew them away from your house on purpose.”

  His words settled in Rachel’s stomach like hunks of cold iron. “But what did you mean by… She didn’t…?”

  “They caught up to her in the woods west of your home. The plan was never to kill her—not until she’d reversed our condition, at least. She knew that. She also knew that she had no hope of resisting when scores of us stood by, ready to break her mind and make her do it. It wasn’t until Faenor arrived that she truly made her decision, though, I think.”

  Rachel waited, too ill to speak. She felt like she had the first time they’d emerged after the bombings, that terrible empty moment when she’d realized with utter certainty that everything she’d ever thought of as home was irrevocably gone forever. An image crept into her head, unnerving in its clarity—her poor, beautiful mom, defeated and afraid, standing in the open forest off the old Wissahickon trails, held captive in the steely grip of two raknoth, with several more all around. Something about it was wrong—too real, too detailed for mere imagination.

  “Zar’Faenor was never one to mince words or play games. When Lilly found out you were in danger…” Alton cocked his head. “You are of course aware of the ways one might project their senses further than normally possible?”

  It was a rhetorical question, and Rachel didn’t bother answering it. She was too busy dreading where this was going.

  “Psychedelics were clearly not on hand,” Alton said. “Sleep and deep meditation would have been far too easily counteracted by the raknoth holding her.”

  “She died.” Rachel’s voice came out a whisper, heavy tears pressing at her eyes.

  “She stopped her own heart in the blind hope she’d somehow be able to help you from miles away. And, I take it, she succeeded. They tried to resuscitate her, of course…”

  But Rachel had stopped listening.

  She’d had so many questions to ask Alton, so many important details to clarify. But now the room spun, every thought and memory and moment of crying rage that she’d ever expended over her past shifting as if gravity itself had reoriented. It was like something had broken—a dam she hadn’t noticed holding back all the incongruent memories she hadn’t known she’d had. Fragments of that horrible day oozed forward, indifferent to her plight as she tried to hold them back.

  The blood. The helpless, dull shock that had roared in her ears and rendered movement impossible, like being pinned under an enormous waterfall against cold, hard stone. The terror she’d felt as those men, those mindless demons, had turned their sights on her.

  And the small voice that had whispered that it was going to be okay just be
fore everything had gone dark—the voice that couldn’t have been hers.

  Mom.

  She wanted to say the word out loud. Wanted to let the tears spill over and scream it until her voice left her. But she only sat there, silent and still, under Alton’s gaze.

  “She took control,” she whispered. “That’s why I never remembered. It was—” She shakily swallowed a sob and clenched her teeth. She wouldn’t cry. Not here. Not in front of this, this—

  A loud series of whooping cries from below broke through her thoughts, reminding her of the party happening just downstairs. It was bizarre to imagine them down there, having fun, completely unaware that her world was shattering right over their heads.

  “She gave her life for yours,” Alton said. “And to save the rest of the world from my kind, I imagine she was hoping. With her died our hope of curing her arcane blight.”

  “I… She…”

  She couldn’t get the words out. Wasn’t even sure what they’d be if she could. A deep, aching loss pulsed in her chest, growing stronger with every second and every detail that snapped into place in her new perspective.

  Rachel had always assumed it had been instincts that had taken control all those years ago—that she’d snapped and somehow managed to lash out with her powers so violently that she’d taken down two of her attackers, scared the others away, and summarily lost consciousness. People did crazy things in crazy times, right?

  That she couldn’t remember any of it didn’t seem so odd, as certifiably fucked up as the entire scenario had been. Sometimes minds broke. Sometimes they shut things out. But this was something else.

  She had no way of knowing for sure, of course. There would be no evidence to prove anything Alton was saying, aside from the fact that her mom had died in the woods, surrounded by monsters.

  But something deep inside of her was suddenly certain that she hadn’t survived that day on her own, that her mom had reached out from the place between life and death and taken hold of Rachel’s body, wielded her like a weapon to defend her in a way she hadn’t known she was capable of.

  Her mom had died to directly protect her.

  Too much. It was too much.

  Because, after everything she’d told herself over the years, all the time she’d spent wondering what might have been if she’d only been stronger and all the time and patient care John and Michael had put into convincing her that none of it had been her fault and that there was nothing she could have done differently to save her family, she could finally see it clearly.

  It wasn’t her fault. It was theirs.

  The ache in her chest was unbearable now. In that moment, she would have done anything to see her mom one more time. To tell her that she loved her. To tell her anything.

  But she couldn’t. Would never be able to again.

  Alton and his friends had seen to that.

  “Rachel,” Alton said quietly, seeming to sense some shift in the air, “I’m not proud of—”

  “Get out.” The bite in her voice surprised her more than it seemed to affect Alton.

  He nodded and stood with slow movements, then ghosted toward the stairs. On the top step, he paused, as if intending to say something.

  “Don’t,” she snapped. She couldn’t hear him talk right now, couldn’t stand looking at him one more second without putting him through the window. “Just… just get away from me.”

  Alton nodded, and descended the stairs without another word.

  For a long while, Rachel sat unmoving, head reeling with the new information that had dropped so suddenly, so unexpectedly on her grasp of the past. In hindsight, she wasn’t sure how she’d expected anything else out of this conversation. It wasn’t like there’d been any possibility of good news.

  But this…

  This was insurmountable. Unforgivable. Her mom—her poor, loving mom…

  “Goldilocks!” came a cry from below—unmistakably Jarek. “You gotta come check this shit out!”

  Fear rose in her chest at the thought of going down there, at seeing the others laughing and carrying on while her little world continued to quietly fall apart, unbeknownst to any of them. To any of them but Alton, that was. Alton who’d sit there quietly himself, pretending to feel remorse, to be something other than the cold monster who’d stood by and—

  “Goldilocks?”

  She narrowly caught the mindless yell that leapt for the top of her throat like an escaping prisoner. Slowly, carefully, she let out a heavy sigh instead.

  There was no escaping it. Not now. She could go down there and put on a mask, or she could stay up here and risk Jarek’s impending checkup and well-meaning but ultimately unwanted questions.

  So she grabbed her glass and headed for the stairs.

  4

  It turned out that “this shit” Jarek had been so insistent on Rachel checking out hadn’t even actually gotten underway yet. As she descended the stairs from Pryce’s quarters, Rachel spied Haldin huddled over an empty beer bottle at one of the work tables, studying the glass cylinder with rigid attention. Across the table, Elise watched him with rosy cheeks and a loving grin.

  “There you are!” Jarek cried up at Rachel, then he scuttled over to join Haldin and Elise.

  Johnny and Lea were there as well, though they seemed somewhat distracted with Johnny’s attempt to teach her some manner of secret handshake.

  Everyone looked like they were at least a few drinks in.

  The adults—Jarek excluded, of course—had retired over to the benches of the other work table, not so curious as to hover around waiting for the big event (though Pryce looked like he was seriously thinking about it—his neck craned drastically and his gaze attentive).

  What little amusement Pryce’s expression and the room’s energy tickled into her chest died the instant she realized Alton had stepped out. Or maybe it was more accurate to say the moment she thought of Alton at all, seeing as his presence probably would have only made her angrier.

  Just give them a few minutes, she told herself. A few minutes pretending all was well, then she could duck out, go get some sleep—or some peace and quiet, at least.

  “No way,” Jarek was muttering as Rachel drew close to the table and Haldin slid a hand over the brown glass bottle. “There’s no way.”

  “For the record,” Rachel said, “drinking and channeling don’t mix well, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Haldin looked up with a guilty grin. Jarek made a shushing sound toward her and encouraged Haldin on.

  Haldin shrugged and closed his eyes. The glass bottle in his hand began contorting and shrinking down like a plant decaying in fast forward.

  “Holy shit,” Jarek muttered.

  The bottle started stretching into a long, narrow stem, its motion smooth, liquid. The glass pooled at one end, forming a large lump that segregated itself into discrete chunks. A flower, she realized. He was making a glass flower.

  In what little time they’d had to discuss the matter, Rachel and Haldin had come to the conclusion that their abilities operated around the same principles, yet she’d never seen anything quite like this, reshaping matter by will. Was that why they’d called it Shaping on Enochia? Watching the process unfold, ideas about how such a thing could be possible began to float through her mind.

  The glass ceased its wriggling and resumed its existence as normal, albeit flower-shaped, glass. It wasn’t exactly a masterpiece sculpture, but considering the focus she suspected it would take to pull something like that off, it was pretty damn good.

  “Damn, dude.” Jarek jerked his head in Elise’s direction. “If she doesn’t sleep with you tonight, I might.”

  Hal was busy frowning at his creation. “It, uh, got away from me a little there.” He held the flower out to Elise, his eyes a touch cloudy, and gave Rachel a guilty grin. “You were right. Shaping and whiskey…”

  “It’s perfect,” Elise said, taking the slightly rough flower, and she looked like she really meant it. “Thank you
, love.” She leaned over the table to kiss him.

  For some reason Rachel didn’t care to fathom right now, the loving display only itched at the growing irritation in her chest.

  “How come you never make me flowers?” Jarek asked Rachel with an exaggerated frowny face.

  She couldn’t help but laugh, troubles momentarily forgotten. Maybe it was the way he said it, or maybe it was just the way he was leaning on the table with both elbows, chin propped between his palms.

  “Follow me across the galaxy first, and we’ll see,” she said.

  Jarek’s eyes didn’t leave hers for a second. “Maybe I will.”

  “Make sure you bring movies,” Johnny said, leaning in around Haldin. “Lots of movies. What?” he added when he turned back to the look Lea was shooting him. “It’s a long-ass trip.”

  Rachel hesitantly accepted another small pour of whiskey and retreated step-by-inconspicuous-step to Pryce’s workbench as the youths resumed their game of drink and the older crowd continued discussing whatever they were discussing—probably something along the lines of A Thousand Questions, Enochian Edition, if the riveted look on Pryce’s face was any indication.

  She pulled herself up to sit on a section of workbench, taking care not to disturb any of Pryce’s precious tools. She leaned against the wall and watched as Jarek adopted a paternal air and led Johnny and Hal through the act of shooting their next round of amber fire in one go. It was a crime according to Pryce, but Johnny and Hal traded a glance, shrugged, and followed Jarek’s lead.

  Rachel almost smiled as the three celebrated their victory over the dastardly liquor. Jarek had been uncharacteristically somber when he’d returned from Japan, despite having landed what sounded to her like a big win. Her own shit aside, it was nice to see him acting like himself again.

  But then he had to go and call after Alton, wondering where the raknoth had wandered off to, and the sick anger crept back up to play.

  What did Jarek care where Alton was, where any raknoth was? She’d already been weary enough of the way he liked to act all buddy-buddy with Drogan and Alton, but now…