by Lee French
That must have been confusing for her, and distressing. It didn’t explain the bruises, but he’d let her get to that in her own time. “Oh. Ah. How’s his Phasm doing?”
Her eyes watered and she sniffled. “It was like touching something without touching it.” She paused and sniffled more. He waited. “He said the Knights need to be stopped. But I don’t understand why he needs me to do it when he has Avery.”
His blood ran cold. A curse slipped out of his mouth, and he knew without a doubt that whatever had happened to Claire over the past two days had all been his own stupid fault. He should have kept better track of Mark’s Phasm. He should have kept in touch with Avery. He should have checked up on her last night.
Too late for any of that. Now he had to deal with it all. He also had to explain what he’d seen to Claire, and it would break her heart. For that, they needed to stop and settle in someplace where Avery and none of Mark’s pets could find them. “Tariel, take us across the river so we’re out of any Oregon police jurisdiction, and go north. Don’t go near the farm.”
The horse sped up, and he covered Claire with his cloak when they joined the freeway. They went up Interstate 5 past Vancouver, taking the Kelso exit and heading east, away from the town. At the end of a road, Tariel jumped over a hedge line and landed on damp, spongy earth. They traveled through thick trees, leaves dripping in a light ran. Justin wiped his face, soaking wet from the neck up.
Half an hour later, Tariel stopped and Justin flicked the cloak aside to let Claire see where they were. The horse stood in front of a dark cleft in a rocky hillside, one with a floor sloping up and enough space to hold a bear. Runnels of water ran down around the hole without dribbling inside it. Tariel would be stuck in the rain, but they wouldn’t.
He climbed down and put a hand out to prevent Claire from following. It almost surprised him to see her obediently stay on Tariel’s back. To be on the safe side, he pulled out his sword. The metallic ting as it scraped against the scabbard bounced off the cave walls, echoing deeper in. Peering into the gloom, he braced for a possible onrush of angry animals or ur-phasms. “Anybody in there?” His voice sent a second echo chasing the first.
When he heard a chorus of screeches, he stood away from the hole and waited. Bats streaked out, disturbed by his intrusion. One in the middle separated from the flock and dove at Claire. Of course there had to be an ur-phasm in the group. Tariel snapped at it, Claire covered her head and Justin ducked under the swarm. The ur-phasm flapped around, shrieking in unintelligible anger. It took him two swings before he caught the thing in midair and sliced it in half.
Tariel had the presence of mind to move her head so it blocked Claire’s view of the bleeding corpse. “How refreshing. It’s been a while since ur-phasms blindly attacked us.”
Justin snorted and used his cloak to clean his blade.
“What the—?” Claire looked up and her still-red eyes went wide as she watched the blood rolling down his cloak with the water. She gulped. “Um, your cloak?”
He shrugged. “It’s magic.”
“Really?” She climbed down from Tariel’s back and grabbed a corner of his cloak to rub the fabric between her fingers. “It’s not just, like, water-repellent flannel?”
“Yes, it’s really magic.” He grinned. “Your dad had one a lot like it. The sword and armor too. You’ll be able to make your own when you get to the Palace, though we’ll hold off on that until you’ve had a little time to adjust to the place.”
Claire’s eyes slid to the sword. “Can I…?”
Justin’s brow raised, then he handed the hilt of the blade to her. “Some Knights make them really fancy. I’m more of a ‘walk in the front door’ kind of guy.”
“She thinks you mean that figuratively.” Tariel’s eyes danced with merriment.
He stuck his tongue out at the horse and thanked everything in existence that no one else would ever understand her. “You’ll be able to make yours look however you want. Your father, if I recall correctly, preferred something in between. It had a fancy silver guard with a thick blade, and he etched a design along the center of the blade. No gemstones or anything like that.”
She gripped the leather-wrapped T-shaped hilt and ran her fingertips along the plain steel blade. “What happened to it?”
“It dissipated when he died. If you want a copy of it, the Palace has a memory for that sort of thing. There are guys walking around with copies of swords from a thousand years ago.”
Her eyes unfocused, and her voice came out breathy and distant. “I always thought his sword was fake. A prop.”
“He wanted to shield you from the unpleasant things he sometimes had to do.” It seemed unwise to leave a large, sharp weapon in the untrained hands of a distracted teenager for long, so he gripped the blade with his gauntlet and tugged it away from her.
Her attention snapped back to him and she narrowed her eyes. “Like what?”
Frowning, he sheathed the sword and stalked into the cave. Five paces in, he found rocks at the right height for sitting and used one. Claire followed him in, then remained standing with her fists on her hips. This time, she wouldn’t be distracted from the subject. He sighed and told her the generic things Kurt had told him about Phasms.
She softened and sat opposite him as she spoke. “So my dad will fade away at some point and make someplace better?”
Unable to look at her while he said this, he let his thumbs attract his attention. “No. I need to go back to the Palace to be sure, but I’m pretty confident the entity that looks like your father is a corrupted Phasm.”
“But…” She gulped. “How can you know that without meeting him?”
“It’s a common thing for a corrupted Phasm to think the Knights need to be stopped. A lot of them scheme and plot to destroy the Palace, or to kill Knights. It’s very likely that he’s managed to taint Avery.”
“But he could—”
“No, Claire, he couldn’t. He’s corrupt, I promise. It’s not your dad, it’s an echo of him, one that’s gotten confused and twisted. I’m going to have to hunt it down and destroy it. If I leave it, people will get hurt.”
“He said…” She wiped her face. “You’re really sure?”
“I’m sorry.” He nodded and let his shoulders sag. “It’s my fault you had to meet it. And I shouldn’t have killed that ur-phasm cat in front of you the other day. That was dumb.”
She covered her face, and her shoulders shook. For a heartbeat, he hesitated, then he shifted to her rock and put an arm around her shoulders. Leaning into him, she sobbed. He held on and let her weep for as long as she needed to. Her pain and grief, so easily expressed, made him wonder if the weight of Kurt’s death had yet to settle on his own shoulders.
When her tears subsided and finally straightened away from him, he let her decide what she wanted from him. It turned out to be nothing for several minutes. When Marie had learned about her first pregnancy, she’d wanted quiet and distance. She’d needed time to deal with it herself before letting him back in. Then, he’d thought it a rejection. Now, he knew better.
“A few days after they all died, I went to my first group home.” She stared at her feet, her voice thick. “The foster mom there told me all the rules, then she took me to a bunk bed in a big room and said I had to take the top, because it was the only one they had. All the kids under twelve slept in the same room, and the bunk below me belonged to an eleven-year-old boy.
“I dreamed that night that my dad came on his big horse and apologized for the misunderstanding and all the pain of those few days. He had an enemy who needed to believe we were all dead, and it worked, and now he could come get me and we’d all be together again, in a new house. Then I woke up in that place and I cried.
“I guess I was kind of loud. The boy below me climbed up and held on to me and told me his parents had been dead for three years already, and it would get better, and all kinds of other stuff. He turned twelve a few days later and moved into the older boy
s’ room. Sometimes he’d sneak back into the kids’ room and stay with me until I fell asleep.”
He stayed quiet for several moments after she finished, considering it a gesture of trust that she’d tell him something so personal. It felt like a story that demanded reciprocation, but he wasn’t ready to share his own with her. Maybe later. “You were lucky to find someone to connect with in the system.”
Claire took a deep breath and nodded. She hugged herself, then dropped her arms, then stood and wound up staring out at Tariel. “How long will we stay here?”
“Until we have a plan.” He finally pulled his chain gloves off. They hit the floor of the cave with a wet splat. Their magic had, of course, kept his hands dry. He had to think now, to decide what to do about Mark and Avery.
“Did you mean it when you said that you wanted to have me as a big sister for Missy and Lisa?”
The question took him off guard. “Yes,” he blurted. Except he and Marie hadn’t talked about it yet. “Maybe. I don’t know.” The filtered light showed him how she bit her lip, anxious and waiting for him to crush her dreams. Or maybe that was him projecting. “It feels weird to ask if you want Marie and I to adopt you when you’re not even ten years younger than us.” He scraped a hand through his hair. Marie wouldn’t argue much, and if she did, he’d talk her into it. “Would you like us to adopt you, or would you rather talk to Marie’s parents about it?”
“Really? I get to choose between either being adopted or being adopted?”
He chuckled. “I suppose that’s one way to put it. Jack and Tammy would have an easier time with the paperwork, since they aren’t wanted for any crimes or anything, but we’d be happy to have you, if that’s what you want. I think Lisa and Missy both like you. It is a farmhouse, so there’d be chores, of course. And a new school, and switching to a different state and all that. Anyway, think about it. We’ll have to have a big family meeting to see what everyone thinks, but you have a place with us one way or another, no matter what.”
Claire’s face lit up with a wide smile. “Wow. I just—wow. Yeah. Okay. I, um, I don’t even know what to say?”
“How about…” He tapped his chin, pretending to think about it. “‘Let’s make a plan, dumbass, so we can sort this out as soon as possible and then deal with it after’?”
She fell over laughing. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” she gasped out between giggles.
“I agree.” He watched her continue to giggle with an amused smirk. “First, I need to go to the Palace to double-check that Avery’s no longer a Knight. If he’s still a Knight, I can talk to him and figure out what’s going on. He’s probably not, though. Where did he take you to meet the Phasm?”
“The police station. He dragged me into some closet and then opened the door again and it was night someplace. That’s where my—the Phasm was. He healed me there.”
Chapter 19
Claire
Justin froze in the act of standing up. “Wait. What? He healed you?”
The way he asked, filled with horror and outrage, batted Claire’s joy aside and made her shrink away from him. “Yeah. Um, Avery tried to, uh, convince me to tell him your address or last name or something.”
His face went hard and angry. “If anyone ever hits you again, and you can’t take care of it yourself, you tell me about it.”
She gulped. “Okay.” Taking a deep breath, she told him how it all happened, from the moment she met Avery in the principal’s office to the part where Justin opened the trapdoor at the group home. He simmered with rage through the whole story.
“That sonofa—” He clenched his jaws together and punched the rock wall with enough force to make Claire wince in sympathy though it didn’t seem to have hurt him. “Avery is a dead man. Aside from that, he’s got your blood, and that’s a problem. A corrupted Phasm can bind you with it. A tainted Knight can track you with it.”
Even without knowing what he meant by “bind,” she felt shocks of panic spark to her fingers and toes. “What do we do?”
He crossed his arms and glowered at the wall. “First, we have to keep you moving. I can’t take you home until one of them is dead.” He paced deeper into the cave, then returned and kept going back and forth. “Neither can track you on their own. Avery has about twenty years more experience than me, so he’ll be harder to handle. The Phasm is in a pocket of its own making, so it’ll be harder to find and get at.”
Facing Avery again sounded awful. Having to slay her own father would be worse. But, she reminded herself, it wasn’t her father. Mark Terdan died six years ago in a house fire. This thing was only a ghostly echo of him. She rubbed her face. “What do you need me to do?”
“I should get help, but I can’t leave you alone for that long. Dammit, I wish you’d hurry up and get to the Palace.”
“Me too.”
“Okay.” He stopped beside her, vibrating with frantic energy. “Do you remember where Avery’s apartment building was?”
“No. Sorry.” She hung her head.
“Alright. Then we can either taunt Avery or you can pretend to cooperate.”
She jerked her head up, surprised, pleased, and nervous. It sounded as though he wanted her to choose. Maybe if she understood all this stuff, she’d feel competent to make a decision. To steady herself, she drew her locket up out of her shirt and rubbed it. “Which one do you think is better?”
Justin opened his mouth, then he squinted at her hand. “What’s that?”
“This? It’s the locket my parents gave me.” She held it up so he could see it.
Taking it in his fingertips, he frowned. “Did either the Phasm or Avery see it?”
She shifted, wishing she could forget Avery ripping her shirt and hoping she hadn’t done anything wrong. “Why?”
“Tariel, come look at this. Can I borrow it for a moment? I’ll give it right back.”
White-hot panic roared over her body, and she yanked it away from him. “No!”
Blinking, he stared at her and raised both hands in surrender. “Ooookaaaay.” The horse whickered from the cave mouth and Justin shrugged. “No idea. Claire, I don’t want to take the locket, I just want to look at it. May we look at it, please?”
The queer panic receded and she blinked, not sure what just happened. “Um, sure.” Shuffling forward, she held the pendant up for them to see with it still around her neck.
“What was that about?” Justin used one finger to hold it up for Tariel. The horse pushed her nose into the cave and whuffed at the locket.
“I…don’t know. The idea of taking it off…” Claire swallowed, queasy for no reason. “I’ve never taken it off. Ever. Not to sleep or shower or anything. Please don’t make me take it off.”
“I won’t. I promise.” He listened to the horse whinny and whicker. “Why didn’t we see that before?” The horse said something else, and he nodded. “That makes sense.”
“I’m glad it makes sense to you,” Claire grumbled.
He let go of the locket and it thumped back against her chest. “We think it was made in the Palace. If your father gave it to you, it should have dissipated when he died. Because it didn’t, there’s something more to it. Tariel thinks this might be what makes it appear you’re going to be a Knight.”
“Which means what?”
“I don’t know.” He frowned and went to pick up his gauntlets. “Best guess? Your father did something he wasn’t supposed to be able to.” Like his cloak, his gauntlets appeared to be dry as he pulled them on. “I can think of three reasons I’d be willing to try that: Marie, Lisa, and Missy. If any of them were in danger of dying, I’d do anything to save them. Including secretly crafting a locket and binding it to their soul.” She watched him walk out of the cave and brush water off Tariel’s saddle, then climb up to settle there.
“And that means…?” Not wanting to be left here, she followed and looked up at him, not sure she wanted to know the answer.
“If the locket comes off your neck,
you die. Also, it’s the reason you’re going to be a Knight. We didn’t notice it because you keep it under your shirt, and we didn’t think to check for an object. As far as I know, that’s never happened before. Whatever makes us Knights is supposed to be part of us, not something external.” He held out a hand to help her up.
“He gave me this locket because I was going to die? But I’ve had it for as long as I can remember.” She took his hand and climbed up to sit in front of him.
“If it kept that memory, the Phasm might know what happened. In that case, it’ll realize it only needs the locket to get to the Palace. It’ll do anything to get it, including kill you.” He reached around her to pick up Tariel’s reins and held Claire close.
Her father’s arms had felt like this: warm, safe, secure. She grabbed a handful of Tariel’s mane. “But if my dad did something impossible to save my life, wouldn’t he still want to save my life?”
“If he made the locket himself, yes. Tariel, take us to Portland. We’ve got to figure out how to handle this before I can come up with a more specific destination.”
The horse whinnied and trotted through the woods. Claire pulled her locket out again and wondered what had happened all those years go to make her father have to do so much to save her. Her head filled with horrific accidents and diseases, then the images grew more sinister.
“Do you think one of these Phasm things went after me to get to him?”
“I really have no idea what happened. I only met him a few months before he died, and we didn’t spend much time together. He wasn’t my mentor.” He sighed. “I’m sorry I can’t tell you stories about him, or about you.”
She wanted to hug him and frowned because she couldn’t right now. After going through so much crap in his own life, he shouldn’t have to be the rock that everyone leaned on and no one propped up. She considered patting or squeezing the arm he held around her and rejected that idea. The last thing she wanted was to make him think she might be crushing on him. That would make for awkward conversations and situations.