About a hundred feet after it started, the sparse corridor turned to the left and then ended abruptly at a door. However, this door wasn’t like the other doors that had been set into the corridor. There was no doorknob or handle of any kind, just a thin line in the shape of a rectangle cut into a cement wall. Frankly, I was fairly certain that most people would have missed it completely unless they were looking for it. Almost as if someone had purposefully tried to hide it so it would stay a secret.
Normally, when I met Kiskei for my weekly assessment, we sat in his temporary office in the building across the street from the south side of The Embassy. And by the constant buzzing of his cell phone, it was obvious that he was swamped with work, but he always gave me his undivided attention as he asked me questions. The attention should have been comforting, but something about it was unnervingly familiar in a way that put me on edge. But today, instead of sitting in that office, we were standing out on the roof of The Embassy in the cold November wind.
“How do you feel about the Protectorate Academy?” Kiskei asked from right next to me.
I whipped my head back, caught off guard by how close he had gotten without me noticing. “What?”
“I was wondering if you had considered joining the Protectorate,” Kiskei asked casually. I just blinked at him for a moment; this was way off from his normal line of questions.
I folded my arms across my chest and looked down at my feet, watching a stray pigeon feather as it swirled past. “It’s not for me, I’m not a warrior.”
Kiskei’s weight shifted, and he struck out swiftly and violently. On pure instinct—as if it was second nature—I dodged his strike. The snap movement of my body, flawlessly smooth and as natural as breathing.
Kiskei looked over at me, his fist a fraction of an inch from slamming into a pane of stained glass. “You sure about that?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.
I scowled at him. “Just because they made me into a monster doesn’t mean I have to continue to be one,” I stated sourly. As cool as my new found abilities should have been, I hated them. They reminded me that I wasn’t normal, even by daemon standards. That even among them, I was different. An experiment. A freak.
Kiskei looked back at me with equally hard eyes. “Your mother was not a monster.”
I sucked in a sharp breath and then let it out. “I never said she was.” I had forgotten, for maybe the hundredth time, that my mother—the mother I had barely even known, the mother who had been murdered by the same people who had taken me—had been Protectorate.
Kiskei looked at me with an exhausted, sad look in his eyes. “You were born to protect, Patrick. You can deny it all you want, but it won’t make it any less true.”
“I don’t believe in fate,” I spat as I glared at him.
Kiskei looked at me like he was holding back a bitter laugh. “You could stop believing in gravity, but it wouldn’t get you any closer to flying.”
I just glared at him harder, and he sighed. “I can see I’m never gonna convince you, you’ve got too much of her stubbornness in you,” he stated as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny package wrapped in brown kraft paper. “But if you change your mind…” he said as he placed it next to me on the edge of the wall that jutted out before it became the stained glass ceiling of the temple. And then he walked away, toward the door that lead back into the corridor.
As he lifted the plastic shield and pressed his hand to the biometric reader, he looked back in my direction. “It is not enough to protect only those who lay claim to your heart,” he stated in that simple, profoundly serious calm of his, before he walked through the door.
I watched him until the door slammed shut, and then I looked down at the small package that he had left. It was smaller than a cell phone—about three inches square and an inch thick—with a black wax seal holding it closed instead of tape or twine.
It is not enough to protect only those who lay claim to your heart, the voice echoed in my head.
I grabbed the package, nearly crushing it in my hand.
“But I couldn’t even protect the two people I loved most!” I shouted into the wind as I leaned back and prepared to chuck the tiny package as far as I could over the side of the building. But as I swung my arm forward—right before I let go of the package—I dropped to my knees. I let the package fall out of my hand, and I slammed my fist into the ground, letting out a savage, anguished cry of rage.
When I had no air left in my lungs, I flopped back onto the roof and stared up into the sky, letting all my anger and frustration out in ragged, raw breaths. All I had wanted—all I had ever wanted—was to create. But the world seemed so fucking bound and determined to force me to be a destroyer instead. A killer.
There is always a choice, the voice whispered, sounding sad instead of mocking for once.
I laid there staring up into nothing until the sky filled with gray colorless clouds and icy drops of rain pelted my face. And then I pulled out my phone, and dialed the number.
“Hey Connor, do you have class today?”
“So how’s Sara?” I asked as I flipped disinterestedly through a manga magazine I had pulled from the stack on the low, lime green wall that jutted out next to our table. Connor had eyed my bloody knuckles when I’d met him at On The Bridge at the Japantown Mall, but he hadn’t asked about them. And I wasn’t about to bring it up, either.
“Fine, I guess,” Connor said with a shrug as he pushed the tapioca balls around his bubble tea with the straw.
Movement on the TV screen above Connor’s head caught my attention and I let my eyes drift from the magazine. The TVs in the manga cafe seemed to be on a continuous Miyazaki movie loop, and this one was currently playing Howl’s Moving Castle at the moment. Ironically, it was at the part in the movie when everything started falling apart and the lead character, Sophie, was crying in the rain.
“We broke up two weeks ago,” Connor stated in an emotionless voice.
“What?” I yelped, my eyes darting back down to him. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” he said with a shrug as he leaned back in his seat and sucked on his bubble tea.
I just stared at him, open-mouthed.
“What?” he said defensively. “It was bound to happen, Patrick. She’s on the other side of the fucking country.”
“Well yeah, I knew that. It’s just…wow,” I babbled, more than a little stunned. They had seemed so good together. So to have it just end like that—like it was no big deal, like it was nothing—was a little jarring.
“She wasn’t the one I guess,” Connor continued nonchalantly in a way that practically screamed that it did matter. “Most high school relationships are doomed after graduation anyways. I mean, not everyone can be as lucky as you and Nualla.”
I just sat there frozen, unable to let the air out of my lungs as what he had just said hit both of us.
“Uh… Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring her—” Connor said in a rush, his black-brown eyes wide.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said in a toneless voice as I stood, and shoved my hands into the pockets of my hoodie. And then I just walked out the doors of On the Bridge before I lost it.
I walked past the taiko dojo and through the double-doored archway back into the the mall proper. Then I stepped to the left, out of eyesight of the manga cafe, and slumped against the wooden railing that lined the wall. Taking deep breaths, I ran my hands back through my hair. I didn’t catch my thumbs on my horns anymore, either because they were about five inches now, and it was harder to forget they weren’t there, or because I was finally getting used to them.
I might have been overreacting by storming out of the cafe, but I just couldn’t take it anymore. It was like the universe was screaming at me that it was over between me and her and I was just too stubborn to let go.
“Shut up,” I growled back under my breath. “I don’t care what you think.”
And that’s when I realized that I was arguing with the voices in my own head. And that anyone watching me would think I was a fucking crazy person.
“Gods, Patrick, you need to get your shit together,” I admonished myself as I leaned my head back against the wall, blinking back tears.
I shifted my weight and my right hand bumped into something within my hoodie’s pocket. I looked down, pulling the object free. It was the small package Kiskei had given me. Only a small fragment of the black wax seal was still stuck to the brown kraft paper. I had probably cracked the seal open when I had crushed it in my hand back on the roof.
With a quick glance around me, I pulled the edge of the kraft paper free from the last fragment of the seal, and unwrapped the small package. Inside was a piece of black, pear-shaped hard plastic with a five-petaled black lotus inset into the center. Like a key fob without the key.
I ran my finger over the lotus, unintentionally pressing it down. A silver thing shot out from inside the black plastic object like a switch-blade, and I dropped it. The object bounced off the floor between my shoes, spinning in a circle as a small folded note fluttered to the ground next to it.
I crouched down to get a better look at the object and my breath caught. Kiskei had given me a—key?
I picked the key up quickly, and shoved it back into my pocket. Then I unfolded the note.
Saturday, November 10th 9am
512 Nymphaea Street
That was all it said. A date, time, and place. No explanation—no instructions—just that. I stared at it a moment before I shoved it into my pocket, and stood back up.
I walked back into On the Bridge, and Connor quickly swallowed his mouthful of unagi don. “Hey, Patrick, look I’m really sorry I—”
“You want to go check something out with me?” I asked abruptly, cutting him off as I ran my fingers over the mysterious key in my pocket.
Connor blinked at me for a moment before he answered uncertainly, “Sure…”
Connor and I stood across the street from what appeared to be a plain gray door set in a blank wall. Okay, maybe the wall wasn’t exactly blank. The wall was unadorned, corrugated cement that ran the entire length of the block—which wasn’t that long really, maybe only three to four building lengths—with thick green ivy covering the left half of it.
I squinted at the building like I used to when I looked at The Embassy or the Kalo Galleria, but it didn’t change. With a huff, I looked over at Connor.
“Hey Connor, do me a favor. When you look at that wall over there, what do you see?” I asked as I gestured to it with my head.
“A boring-ass wall,” Connor replied, more than unimpressed with the wall. “Why, what do you see?”
“I also see ‘a boring-ass wall,’” I answered with a sigh.
“Oh,” Connor answered as he continued to stare at the wall. “So why exactly are we staring at a boring-ass wall?” he asked after a minute or so, his ponytail of well-kept dreads swaying in the strong breeze like bits of rope.
I pulled the key from my hoodie pocket and held it out in my open palm. “Kiskei gave me this and a note with this address.”
Connor stared at the key for a moment, and then at the building before his eyes drifted back to the key. He swallowed hard and then asked in an uneven voice, “This is daemon stuff, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I answered with an uneasy smile. I still wasn’t a hundred percent sure where he stood with the whole me-not-being-human bit.
Connor kinda grunted, but didn’t say anything and we went back to staring at the wall. After a few moments slipped by, Connor finally said bluntly, “So are we gonna stand out here all night in this fucking wind, or are you gonna go see if that key opens something?”
“Yeah, I’m going, geez,” I said as I rolled my eyes at him.
I walked across the street and stopped in front of the plain gray door. Then I took one last deep breath and pushed my key into the keyhole. I tried to turn it to the side, but it wouldn’t budge. As I narrowed my eyes at it a small light above the keyhole flashed red. I pulled the key out and stuck it back in again, but the small light above the keyhole still flashed red. I huffed at the door and turned on my heel, walking back across the street.
“Well?” Connor asked as he gestured toward the door.
“It won’t open. The note said Saturday, so I guess I’ll just have to wait until then to see what’s inside.”
I probably could have asked Kiskei what was on the other side of the door. But I got the distinct impression that he wouldn’t have told me even if I had asked.
The Missing Girls
Thursday, November 8th
TRAVIS
Nikkollas Varrook. Marked One. Deceased. Three small statements that said everything and nothing all at once.
KARA had been processing batches of genetic profiles while I had been scouring the Daenaranet for all instances of those pictures of me and Nualla I had promised to destroy. Which was how I had stumbled into a comment discussion speculating as to whether the dark-haired girl in the images that appeared in Secrets magazine was actually Kira Varris instead of Arius Nualla Galathea. Karalia_Darling453 had commented after the previous poster saying that Looking4One was an idiot, because Kira Varris had still been a Kakodemoss captive when the pictures had been taken. As further proof of what she was saying, Karalia_Darling453 had linked to an article in Kalo Empire Magazine.
The exposé on Kira in KEM had talked about her abduction as a newborn baby and her harrowing escape from the Kakodemoss facility, all of which I knew to be complete and utter bullshit. I had nearly closed the article tab when a reference to a 1992 article about the Missing Girls had caught my eye. But being that the article was from 1992, it wasn’t on the Daenaranet and I had sent Akiko off to find a hard copy. It was probably going to turn out to be a waste of time, but, well, what could I say? It had piqued my curiosity, and that was a beast I had never been able to turn my back on.
But really, the comment did get me thinking about Nikki and Kira’s encrypted birth records. Which was how I ended up staring at a record screen that stated: Nikkollas Varrook — Marked One — Deceased and realizing that I didn’t have a clue who the hell Nikkollas Varrook was and why his name had been listed as their father instead of James Varris.
Nikkollas’ records were even more bare than James’, which was basically a red flag saying, Hey, someone fucked with me! Drop everything and look at me!
I flipped through The Embassy’s records on Nikkollas Varrook, but there didn’t seem to be a whole hell of a lot other than, Nikkollas Varrook — Marked One — Deceased. So I jumped on over to the Daenaranet and typed in his name. And to my utter shock, the screen filled with link after link of articles. I clicked on the first one that lead to a digitized version of an old KEM article talking about the 1993 Avensana Labs Disaster.
“Interesting,” I said aloud as I scanned the article. The Avensana Labs Disaster was a unique point in daemon history, because even with the sheer volume of the destruction, there were surprisingly few casualties. And apparently, Nikkollas Varrook had been one of them.
I finished scanning the article and then clicked on the next link on the search list that was also apparently an old digitized KEM article.
Shooting for the Stars:
Three Karalia Scientists Map the Daemon Genome
I scrolled quickly past the image of three smiling guys in white labs coats to the article.
They said it couldn’t be done, but on August 24th, these three fine Karalia scientists, Joshua Centrina, Kiskei Kirihara, and Nikkollas Varrook, along with their team, announced they had mapped the daemon genome
. After three years the Avensana Project has…
I just gaped at the screen. Joshua Centrina, Kiskei Kirihara, and Nikkollas Varrook. I scrolled quickly back up to the image and just stared at it. There was my father, looking no older than I was now and Kiskei and…Nikkollas Varrook. The third person in the picture with a wild tangle of black wavy hair and piercing blue eyes like sapphires, was Nikkollas Varrook. The same Nikkollas Varrook who was in so many of my parents photographs. The same Nikkollas Varrook who was also probably Nikki and Kira’s father.
I scrolled back down past large sections of the article hunting for more pictures of him, but as the next one slid onto the screen, my heart stopped. This one was of Kiskei and another female scientist pretending to be working in front of a set of microscopes. But it wasn’t seeing Kiskei that had made my heart shudder to a halt—it was the girl. A girl with pale blond wavy curls pulled back into a ponytail and startlingly blue eyes. A girl who could have passed for Parker’s twin if the image hadn’t been from over twenty years ago. And then the realization of who the girl in the picture was started to click into place. Her mother. The girl in the picture was Parker’s mother.
Someone shook my shoulder, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the screen. I think the person must have been saying something to me, but I couldn’t hear it with the ear-buds still in my ears. They shook my shoulder again, and I finally looked up. It was Akiko.
I pulled the ear-buds out. “What were you saying?”
“I said, ‘I found that article you wanted,’” she answered with slight exasperation as she placed a piece of ePaper on my desk.
I looked down at it, then back up at her. “Thanks.”
The Other Side of Truth (The Marked Ones Trilogy Book 3) Page 10