by S. A. Moss
“Good plan.” Alex resumed walking as I followed on numb legs. “I just wondered if you were still trying to protect your father somehow. It seems pretty clear he’s involved in this, but I guess you’re right. It’s possible he’s being blackmailed or forced into helping the Fallen.”
“He’s not!” I insisted fiercely. Then my shoulders sagged. “I mean, I don’t know. Maybe he is. But even if it’s done under duress, that doesn’t change the fact that he’s helping the Fallen attempt to take over the world. We need to stop him, and them.”
“Yeah, we do.” His green eyes were soft when they met mine. “I’m sorry though, Cam. This fight is going to be hard enough, it really sucks that it has to be against your dad.”
“It’s okay.” I pulled my lips back in what was supposed to be a breezy smile but felt more like a grimace. “We’ll do what we have to do.”
We reached the Red Line stop and headed down the stairs to catch a train north.
My mind whirled. I hadn’t been lying to Alex—I really had forgotten to tell the Council about my father’s role in restraining the captured Guardians. But why would I forget something so important like that?
They’d find out soon, I’d make sure of it. It was vital information for them to have. Sirius had once been a member of their ranks. He knew them and their ways better than any Fallen ever would, and they knew him. Maybe Arcadius or one of the other Council members would know a way to break whatever hold he had on the Guardians.
I hadn’t intentionally kept information from my allies, but on some subconscious level, was I still trying to protect my father?
9
“You’ve never ridden the Ferris wheel here?” Alex asked incredulously, as we walked down the boardwalk at Navy Pier.
“Nope. Have you?”
“Of course! I did all the big touristy stuff the first few months I was here. Rode the Ferris wheel, took pictures with the Bean, did an architecture tour on the river.”
I stopped, turning to him. “Are you”—I sucked in a breath, as if aghast—“a nerd?”
He chuckled. “I just might be. Hey, that architecture tour was really cool! I still remember a bunch of the stuff I learned about the buildings downtown.”
“Okay, smarty pants. Tell me about that one.” I pointed to a building in the distance. It was a tall, and the roof sloped down at an angle, forming a diamond shape. I didn’t know anything about it, except that it was the building Elizabeth Shue had scaled in Adventures in Babysitting.
Alex stepped closer to me, his gaze following the trajectory of my finger. Then he shrugged. “Hmm, dunno. That one wasn’t on the tour.”
I smirked, shaking my head. “Useless.”
“I am a man of a few very specific and mostly pointless skills.”
When I realized I was just standing there grinning at him like an idiot, I shook myself slightly and continued walking down the pier. Alex followed.
I’d faded over to the Shroud at the end of the pier to see if I could spot any evidence of a demon encampment, but hadn’t found anything. I’d been curious to see how closely the Shroud mimicked Earth’s geography—it seemed to be a vague reflection at best—but when I crossed over, I was surprised to find myself standing on a muddy shoreline, staring out over a large, dark lake. Behind me, taking up what would be downtown Chicago on Earth, was a series of craggy cliffs and densely overgrown hills.
A shudder moved down my spine as I recalled it. I couldn’t decide what was creepier about the scene, the too calm black water or the shadowy cliffs looming above it. Unknown threats seemed to radiate from each, and I’d been only two happy to rejoin Alex on the earthly plane.
“So, where to next?” Alex asked, breaking me from my thoughts.
“You tell, Mister Tour Guide,” I joked. “You’ve probably seen more of downtown than I have.”
“To the Bean!” he declared, gesturing grandly, and I suppressed another smile. It felt wrong somehow to have this much fun doing what was in reality very serious business. But I figured there was plenty of time for things to get really hard. If Alex and I got to wander around Chicago playing tourists in the meantime, I was going to enjoy it while I could.
“To the Bean!” I echoed.
It took us a while to walk over to the park where the famous Cloud Gate sculpture was located. It was nicknamed the Bean because that’s exactly what it looked like—a giant metal bean. The fun part was that its surface was like a mirror, so it reflected the entire Chicago skyline on its wavy surface. And if you stood under it, you could look up and see a warped reflection of yourself.
Or so I’d heard. This was another one of those Chicago staples that I’d been too busy to visit while I was alive.
As we walked over, I periodically slipped over to the Shroud, scanning the dark landscape of the Wild for any sign of the Fallen. Once, I thought I saw a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye—but when I spun to look more closely, I could see nothing but a large tree choked with vines.
It was midday on a Tuesday, so the park wasn’t particularly crowded. But there were still several people wandering around the base of the Bean, posing for pictures or taking selfies with their friends.
Before I could find an out-of-the-way spot to fade back to the Shroud, Alex pulled out his cell and draped his arm around my shoulder, holding his phone at arm’s length to capture the Bean behind us. Hesitating with his finger on the button, he twisted slightly to look down at me. “You do show up in pictures, right?”
I dug my elbow into his side. “Of course I do, you goof. I’m a Guardian, not a vampire. Although, maybe that vamp would’ve shown up in pictures too. It didn’t occur to me to try taking a selfie with it.”
He chuckled and snapped the photo. It popped up on the screen of his phone; Alex was grinning at me and while I looked up at him with a matching smile on my face.
My chest tightened.
This isn’t real. You’re not really his girlfriend, and you’re not really out having a carefree day downtown.
But the girl grinning in the photo didn’t seem to realize any of that.
I slipped out from under Alex’s arm, letting my hair fall like a curtain to hide my face. “I gotta go find a quiet spot to slip over. Be right back.”
Without waiting for a response, I walked away quickly, fighting down the wave of emotions rising inside me. Focus on the job, Cam. Just focus on the job.
I circled around to the other side of the large metal sculpture. When I was out of sight of any onlookers, I faded over to the Shroud without breaking stride.
Suddenly, I found myself in a small clearing—or as clear as any part of the Wild ever got. Vines still crawled over the ground, and about ten feet in front of me, a large copse of twisting trees blocked out what little light shone in this place.
I stopped and turned in a circle, looking for any indication that the Fallen were nearby.
Nothing.
It didn’t help that I wasn’t exactly sure what I was looking for. Would they be out in the open, or hiding in a cave somewhere? Would they be using torches to see in this gloom? No light shined in the distance.
Sighing, I was about to return to Earth when a quick movement caught my eye, like the one I’d seen on the way to the Bean. My gaze darted over to the trees.
I wasn’t imagining it.
Someone was there.
I dashed to my left, hoping to take cover behind a large boulder several feet away. It seemed like a long shot that whoever was in the trees hadn’t already seen me, but if they hadn’t I wanted to keep it that way. And if they had, I’d need the cover for the fight that would surely come.
But my next step didn’t hit the ground.
Something wrapped around my body, stopping my forward movement and lifting me a few inches off the ground. I thrashed and writhed, but it was no use. I was held tight in what felt like an invisible full-body straightjacket.
Shit!
So this was what a bind felt like. This must be
exactly what was holding all the captured Guardians. Which meant…
I froze, my struggles dying as numbness crept through my limbs. I twisted my head—the only part of my body I could still move—to stare at the tree line as the figure stepped out from the shadow of the long branches.
Dad.
He looked the same as he had when I’d seen him at Paradise, his dark hair and strong jaw both achingly familiar and horribly foreign. It was like some kind of bodysnatchers movie, where someone’s outside appearance doesn’t change, but the person inside is so different their loved ones shy away in fear without knowing exactly why.
Walking toward me slowly, he held out his hands in a calming gesture. “Cam, I think it’s time we had a talk.”
“What? No! I don’t want to talk to you! I—” My voice cut off in a sharp gasp as fear filled my chest with cement. “Alex. Is he—?”
“I’m here alone. No Fallen are with me, either here or on Earth. Your friend is safe, for now.”
I didn’t like the way he added “for now” at the end of that sentence, and I wasn’t sure I could trust his promise that Alex was safe at all. But considering that my resumed struggles hadn’t so much as budged the tight binds restraining me, all I could do was hope he was telling the truth. And if I played along, maybe he’d let me go sooner. The thought of Alex stranded on Earth with no protection made my stomach turn. I had to get back there.
“Fine,” I bit out, keeping my voice as calm as I could. “Then talk.”
My dad regarded me for a second, as if trying to get a read on my mental and emotional state.
Well, that makes two of us. A riot of emotions churned in my gut, shifting so fast from one to the next that I could hardly get a handle on any of them.
Finally, my father gave a sharp nod and approached. He wasn’t exactly crowding my space, but even having him three feet away felt much too close. His eyes gleamed in the dim light, and despite my anger and panic, my gaze roamed over his face greedily, soaking up the familiar features.
He shook his head, his brows pinched. “There is so much to say. I’ve thought for weeks about everything I want to tell you, and now that I’m here I don’t know quite where to begin.”
“Why don’t you start with how you are—or were—a Guardian?” I asked bitterly.
“I am a Guardian. I was born in 1209 and fell into a soldier’s life. I died in a battle and woke up, as I’m sure you did, in the Haven. At first, I embraced the responsibility. I spent hundreds of years carrying out my assigned tasks and protecting humans. It was in my nature to serve others, and I felt that I was doing the right thing.”
“So how come you’re working with the Fallen now?” I spat out. “They’re most definitely not interested in protecting humanity.”
“I’ll get to that. But please understand that it was a considered decision, Cam. I wasn’t brainwashed or blackmailed.” His eyes looked almost black in the gloom of the Shroud as he regarded me carefully. “I have simply come to see that the Guardians are wrong.”
10
My eyes bugged. “What? What are you talking about?”
I renewed my struggles against the binds holding me. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to pace, attack my father, or just sit down and cry. But being forced to stand stock still and look him in the face while he told me all this was almost unbearable.
“Thirty years ago, I was on an assignment in Chicago—it was a simple retrieval job, a wraith that had taken over the body of a local politician and was abusing the human’s power for his own gain. I was sitting in a cafe doing recon on the target when she walked in. Your mother.”
His voice softened, and I swallowed over the lump in my throat.
“Mom?”
“Yes. Rose. Your mother was unlike any woman I’d ever seen—and I’d been around for nearly eight hundred years by then. She was stunning.” My dad’s gaze flicked to me, his features haunted. “You look so much like her, Cam.”
“I know,” I said quietly. “I don’t even have any pictures of her left, but I used to have one of the two of you that I kept with me all the time. Every year I thought I looked more like her.”
“She always thought you took after me, but I could only ever see her when I looked at you.” A smile tugged at his lips. “She was the love of my entire existence, Cam. No one I’d ever known in my life or afterlife ever came close. From the moment I saw her, I knew she was special. It was her kindness and her enthusiasm for life that made her so beautiful. She radiated joy.”
I nodded, a tear slipping down my cheek. “I remember.”
My father took a breath, seeming to gather himself. I wondered how often he breathed these days. It was unnecessary for Guardians, but I still did it all the time.
“After I finished my assignment, I went back to find her. I honestly didn’t have a plan. I just had to see her again. But this time, she saw me too—and that was the beginning of the end. I left the Guardians, left my duties behind, vanished from their rank to be with your mother. Three years later, you were born.”
“Dad…” I swallowed hard, dreading the answer to the question I had to ask. “What happened to her? Is she a Guardian too?”
His face froze. “No.”
“Is she still… alive?”
His expression didn’t change, but pain flashed in his eyes. Even without an answer, I knew. I’d begun to suspect, but having it confirmed sent a wave of grief crashing over me, threatening to drown me. I hadn’t seen her in twelve years, but knowing that I never would again felt like a loss of a different kind. It was permanent, definite now.
Tears streamed from my eyes, and I couldn’t even reach up to wipe them away. My father stepped closer, wrapping me in an embrace. The binds holding me dropped away, and without conscious thought I threw my arms around him, clinging tight to the only source of comfort I had. Like I’d done when I was little and something had hurt or scared me, I burrowed my face into my dad’s neck and sobbed in his arms.
When my choking cries finally subsided to sniffling gasps, my father pulled back. He ran his large hands over my head, smoothing my hair, then wiped my cheeks with his thumbs. “She died when you were eight. I’m so sorry, Cam.”
I nodded numbly, taking a small step back as I began to recover myself.
“But—” I scrambled to gather my thoughts. “But where did you go? When she died?”
My dad sighed. “Her death nearly drove me mad. Her loss… it ruined me. I couldn’t stand to remain and watch you die too, as I knew would inevitably happen.”
I cringed. He wasn’t wrong about that, but it sounded so harsh when he put it that way.
He continued, his voice taking on a different timbre, almost like he was a priest sermonizing to his congregation. “That was when I realized the Guardians are wrong. They fight to protect the human race, but the human race is doomed. Death comes for every one of them—what does it matter if it comes sooner or later? And why should we immortals be forced to live in secrecy, or confined to the Shroud, when we are the ones who will truly inherit the Earth?”
As he spoke, the fervor gleamed brighter in his eyes, and I took another step back. What the hell?
“So that’s why you joined the demons? Because you don’t care what happens to humans anymore?”
He shook his head. “I know it sounds cruel. But you’ll understand better once you’ve seen a few generations live and die. Nothing changes. What feels immediate and important to humans is trivial in the larger picture. The Guardians, despite their insistence on maintaining distance from humans, are still stuck in the human mindset. We should be embracing who and what we are, not hiding in the shadows.”
“So that’s why you just walked away from me when I was eight years old?” I tried to keep my voice even, but the end of the question was almost a screech. “You just left me! Because, what, I was going to die anyway? Why are you even here now?”
“Because you are a Guardian now, Cam. When I saw you a few weeks ago, I was stunned.
Seeing your face brought back so many memories. Of you, and of your mother.” My dad’s face brightened, hope blossoming across his stern features. “And you’re immortal now. We have eternity to get to know each other again. You’re my daughter. I want to have you by my side.”
“So…” I spoke slowly, anger building inside me like a volcano about to explode. “Let me get this straight. You abandoned me as a kid because you were too chickenshit to stick around and watch me die—in, oh I don’t know, seventy or eighty years? But now that you know I’m immortal like you, I’m suddenly worth having a relationship with?”
“Cam, that is—”
My dad was using his “reasonable adult” voice, but that didn’t work as well on me as it had when I was eight. I whipped my hand through the air, cutting him off.
“No, Dad! Are you freaking kidding me with this? Get the hell out of my face with your reconciliation bullshit! You want us to have a great relationship now? To wear matching novelty t-shirts and work together on a little father-daughter project—destroying humanity? No way!”
I raised my hand again, preparing to throw an aether blast at him. But the binds that had disappeared earlier wound around my body again in a flash, pinning my arms to my sides. I was raised higher in the air and tilted toward my dad until I was nearly horizontal, like Superman in flight. As my face drew nearer to his, a cold light burned in his eyes.
Ugh. I couldn’t believe just a few minutes ago I’d let him comfort me while I cried. The bodysnatcher version of my dad was back in full force, all hints of kindness or warmth gone from his face.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” he said stiffly. “You are such a young immortal, it’s not surprising you still feel a strong attachment to humans. I wish you had several hundred years to gain perspective, but unfortunately there isn’t time for that. Akaron and his Fallen cohort will be able to pass over to Earth soon, and when they do, everything will change. There is still time to join us. When supernaturals are free to live out in the open, humanity will fall into their natural place.”