by Hilary Duff
“Then we’re in luck. Because I don’t want that anymore.”
There was no reason his words should have hurt, but they stung. Could I do this without him? I was sure I could ask Rayna for help. She knew Sage’s whole story, and she’d love the drama of searching for him, and Sage and I reuniting.
But Rayna’s memory was short. She wouldn’t remember the kind of details I’d need to help me locate Sage. She also had no background whatsoever in the mythology of the Elixir, whereas Ben had spent countless hours talking it over with my dad. Sure, with Rayna as a sounding board I could figure things out somewhat faster than on my own, but I had the distinct feeling that time was running out on Sage’s life. I couldn’t let pride get in my way.
I put my wallet back in my bag and settled back into the booth, just as our food arrived. I spread a thick layer of cream cheese on my grilled bagel and let Ben tuck into his breakfast before I started.
“Can the Elixir of Life create ghosts?” I asked.
“Ghosts? There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
I just looked at him.
“What?” he said. “There’s not. Demons, guardian angels, displaced spirits, phantasms, poltergeists . . . those things, sure. But ‘ghosts,’ that’s just a watered-down term for anything with an otherworldly presence. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Fine. Then give me another word for people who blink in and out of existence, speak inside my head, and take me places in my dreams.”
Ben froze, his egg-white-laden fork halfway to his mouth. He set it down and looked at me, and for the first time since we started talking, I saw my old friend, the guy whose eyes had gleamed when he and Dad dug into the finer points of all things paranormal. This time when he smiled there was nothing cold about it. He was excited, and there was no way he could hide behind hurt feelings.
“Tell me more,” he said.
seven
* * *
“SO WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT, the woman—Petra—manifested in three different ways,” Ben said. He had devoured everything on his plate while I told him the story, then spent hours grilling me for every possible detail. He was even more excited now that he was dissecting the story, his eyes glimmering as he worked to ferret out its meaning.
“The first time,” he said, “she appeared with the three others, at which point she spoke, but she couldn’t move. Correct?”
He knew this already; I must have told him four times.
“I don’t know if she couldn’t, but she didn’t,” I said. “She was like a statue. The other adults were too.”
“Exactly. But when you saw her with Sage, she wasn’t a statue.”
“Yes . . . but I’m not sure she was with Sage. . . .”
“It sounds like she was . . . not physically in the room, but she was there somehow. That’s how she could bring you the vision of what was happening in real time.”
“Right.”
“And she could move normally then.”
“Totally. Like you or me.”
“So those two manifestations are different, and then you said she also spoke in your head. What exactly did she say?”
I glanced down at my watch. We’d spent most of the afternoon here, and I felt no closer to finding Sage than when we’d started.
“I think you’re missing the point, Ben.”
“You came to me for help; I’m trying to help. What did she say?”
“I can’t remember the words, exactly. It was more stuff about telling me to give up on Sage, that I shouldn’t trust him.”
It wasn’t the entire truth, but I wanted to stay vague about the precise moment Petra had spoken to me, and what she said. While I was sure Ben would love to hear a paranormal apparition was admiring him, I couldn’t tell him Petra had been trying to play matchmaker for us. I could already imagine him puffing out his newly buffed chest and telling me in great detail that he didn’t need anyone’s help in the romance department. Besides, he was already way off track from where I needed him to be.
“Got it, okay. . . .” He ran his hand through his hair and looked around, searching. “Do you have a pen? A pad of paper?”
“That’s your thing,” I said. Ben was usually Boy Scout prepared, his ever present canvas satchel stocked with pens, notepads, and the leather organizer he insisted he preferred to any computer app. But today he’d come to Dalt’s empty-handed, and he blushed when I called him on it.
“Yeah, well . . . I didn’t think I’d be here long enough to need much. It’s okay. I’ll punch it in.”
“So four people,” he muttered as he worked the keypad on his phone, “an older man, a younger man, Petra, and Amelia, the girl . . .” Ben dropped the phone on the table and thrust both hands into his hair. He was like my dad—his mind worked faster than he could type; he needed the freedom of a longhand scrawl.
“Let’s go to your dad’s studio,” he said. “You can go through the details again, and I can cross-reference with some of his books, figure out what we’re dealing with.”
“Ben, stop. I don’t care what we’re dealing with. I want to figure out the message Sage left on my computer. That’s it. Then I can go find him.”
“You mean we can go find him.”
I clenched my teeth. Did he really need me to go into what happened when he joined me on adventures involving Sage? They did not turn out well.
“No,” I said. “I don’t mean that. I need to find Sage myself.”
“Why?” Ben asked. The thrill of the mystery had drained from his face, and he sat back in the booth, scrutinizing me. “You’re afraid I’m going to mess up your happy ending with your five-hundred-year-old boyfriend?”
“You know what I think. And you know why.”
“Let it go, Clea. It may have taken me lifetimes to get the hint, but I did get it. I have no desire to get in the way of you and Sage. If he’s out there and we bring him back, I’m cool with it. I’ll dance at your wedding. I’ll dance at your fiftieth anniversary, assuming Sage can handle being with someone who looks like his grandmother. It’s one of those pesky issues when you fall for someone immortal.”
For a second I saw it: a dance floor full of applauding friends and family, a giant anniversary cake . . . and Sage, young and vital as ever, pushing the wheelchair that carried my stooped and withered body.
I pushed the image out of my head.
“Then why do you want to come? Are you trying to protect me?”
“I want to come because I’m interested. I’d be interested even if it had nothing to do with you or Sage. This is what I do, remember? I study mythologies. I have an advanced degree in it. I research paranormal activities for fun. You come to me with an eyewitness account of humans popping in and out of existence, speaking telepathically, manipulating the world around them . . . hell yes, I’m going to come.”
Ben had a point. If Sage’s life weren’t hanging in the balance, I’d give in, but as it was, I couldn’t.
“So?” Ben asked. “Are we going together to the CV?”
“The CV? But the clue is to help us find Sage. He’s not with the Saviors?”
A smirk played on Ben’s face. “That’s not what Charlie Victor says.”
“You know who that is?”
“It’s not a who, it’s a what,” Ben said. “The NATO phonetic alphabet. It’s used mainly in aviation. ‘Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta . . .’”
“So ‘Charlie Victor’ . . .”
“They’re initials. ‘CV.’ Sage’s clue—the clue we think Amelia helped him place—is telling us to find Cursed Vengeance.”
“So Cursed Vengeance took Sage from the Saviors. That’s why he’s being tortured.”
“Seems that way,” Ben agreed. “They must not have gotten the dagger, or Sage wouldn’t be alive right now.”
“That makes sense. So ‘Find Charlie Victor’ is ‘Find Cursed Vengeance.’ But ‘Beneath the flying pig’?”
“I know that, too. At least I think I do.”
�
��Great—where?”
“Not telling you. I know you too well, Clea. You think I’m going to mess this up for you and Sage. I have to keep some things to myself if I want to stay involved. Plus I want to do a little more research to make sure I’m right.” Ben was already sliding out of the booth. “Meet you at your place.”
He was out the door before it even sank in that he’d stiffed me for the check. I tossed some bills on the table and followed.
“You’re welcome for lunch, by the way!”
He got in his car and didn’t answer.
I was right behind him as we pulled in the gated driveway. It ended in a large parking area—widened recently, to accommodate Mom’s added staff—but it was nearly empty. I checked my watch. It was five o’clock, but that meant nothing. Mom’s staff didn’t exactly keep nine-to-five hours.
Ben and I walked to the front door . . . and were practically knocked over by a fashion spread straight out of Vogue.
“Oh!” Suzanne cried, surprised to find people in her way as she zipped out the door. The red in her cheeks matched the shade of her scoop-neck sleeveless gown. She wore it with a delicate crystal necklace, and her long blond hair curled in loose waves over her shoulders. The outfit was simple but somehow made her look both professionally conservative and jaw-droppingly hot at the same time. I know this for a fact because Ben’s jaw had dropped between his feet. He was knocked back for a second before he pulled it together and gave Suzanne a knowing smile that made her blush even deeper.
“Running out for a carton of milk?” Ben asked.
“No,” she smiled. “Dinner at the Governor’s Mansion. With the president. I’m sure you heard he’s in town. It’s a very small event. Very high level. Most staff members weren’t invited.”
“You’re not most staff members,” I said.
Her snark detector must have been off. She beamed. “No, I’m not. In fact, the senator says she trusts me more than anyone else up here.”
She purred as she said it. I knew for a fact that my mother wasn’t including me in that group of people, but something in Suzanne’s gaze implied she was.
I guess her snark detector was working just fine after all.
“You look stunning,” Ben said.
“Thank you.” Suzanne dropped her gaze as if the compliment was too much for her to take. When she looked back at him, I could see the space between them struggle to keep them apart. “I was going to call you from the car. I know we wanted to try to get together tonight. . . .”
“Just call me when you get back,” Ben said, gently pushing a stray wisp of curl out of her face. “Have a great time.”
“Thanks.”
That was her exit line, but she didn’t move. She just gazed at Ben expectantly, waiting for him to lean in and—
“Say hi to my mom!” I chirped.
Suzanne jumped, just enough to prove she’d blocked out that I was even there. “I will do that,” she said, “but now I have to go.”
Ben said nothing, but his eyes stayed on her as she clicked her way to her car and folded herself inside. He exhaled deeply and pulled on his front tuft of hair.
If he thought he was being subtle, he wasn’t.
Of course, neither was Suzanne. She pretended she didn’t notice Ben staring, but then the car lurched forward.
“Oops!” she called out the window. “Guess I should have put it in reverse!”
I rolled my eyes as she made a goofy “silly me” face, then finally pulled away.
“Can we go now?” I asked. Ben’s eyes were rooted to the spot where Suzanne’s car had disappeared.
“Sure,” he said with a shrug. I followed him into the house and toward the stairs.
“Clea! Ben!” Rayna’s voice rang out from the family room. “Come join us!”
I didn’t want to lose any more time, but I couldn’t just blow off Rayna. I peeked inside and saw her sprawled out on one of the room’s three overstuffed gray couches. Her back was propped up with one of the large, muted-red throw pillows, and her denim-clad legs and bare feet stretched across the couch seats and onto Nico’s lap. The better for him to gently knead her right calf, of course. He bent over the task with furrowed concentration, barely looking up when Ben and I came in.
Rayna, however, went wide-eyed. She raised her eyebrows, and I shook my head subtly. Rayna let it go and smiled, brilliantly changing the subject we hadn’t even spoken aloud.
“Can you believe it?” Rayna said. “I’d just climbed on Kennedy when I got this horrible cramp!”
“Amazing,” I said. Referring, of course, to the fact that Rayna had found yet another way to get Nico’s hands on her.
“So it’s a true charley horse!” Ben said. I had to smile. Ben’s dorky sense of humor hadn’t changed.
Nico shook his head. “Rayna was on Kennedy. There is no horse named Charlie.”
“Right,” Ben said.
Rayna scruffed Nico’s hair like he was a well-trained golden retriever. “Isn’t he sweet?”
Nico turned to me. “I hope you don’t mind that I’m in here. Rayna said it would be okay, but I don’t want to overstep or anything.”
Rayna caught my eye and mouthed over Nico’s head, “Too cute!”
“Of course it’s okay,” I said. “Ben and I just have to run and check something on the computer.”
“Mind if I come along and check my e-mail?” Nico asked. “I’ve been expecting something from my mom, but my machine’s down.”
“That’s a great idea!” Rayna said. “You go with Ben; Clea can stay here with me.”
“Rayna, I really need to—”
“No, it’s cool,” Ben said with a smirk. “I’ll take Nico, and you hang here with Rayna.”
Nico cradled Rayna’s legs, lifting them until he could put the other giant throw pillow beneath them. “Keep that elevated, okay? I’ll be right back.”
“You’re so bossy,” she chided, blowing him a kiss. “Get out of here.”
Nico nodded and trotted at Ben’s heels, heading upstairs.
“Since when do you elevate a leg cramp?” I asked, plopping on the couch next to her.
“What leg cramp?” Rayna asked.
I frowned.
“What? Little white lies don’t count.” She flung the throw pillow to the floor and curled her legs under her so she could lean in close. “So tell me . . . is the Ice Age ending?”
“For some people it is.”
Rayna scrunched her brows and blew a curl of red hair out of her face. She had no idea what I meant.
“Ben and Suzanne,” I said.
“Oh, that.”
“You knew?”
Rayna nodded. “They hang out on the porch every time ‘the senator’ gives her a break. It started a couple weeks ago. He smelled some hazelnut-chicory monstrosity in her coffee cup, and the next day he brought her a giant tin of the stuff. He’s been reeling her in ever since.”
So Suzanne was a coffee drinker. I hated coffee. I was a tea person, and Ben had been trying to convert me for most of our friendship.
“How do you know this?” I asked Rayna. “You’re at school all day.” Unlike homeschooled me, Rayna was finishing up her senior year at Vallera Academy.
“I have my sources.” She twirled a curl around her finger and pulled it in front of her to study it. “And he might have told me some things . . . maybe asked for some advice. . . .”
“Advice? You were helping him with this?”
“He needed help! This is Ben! But I did not tell him to start playing cribbage with her. I thought that was kind of sacrilege.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“About the cribbage?”
“About any of it!”
“Does it bother you? You should be happy! If Ben’s in love with Suzanne, doesn’t it kill the whole love-triangle-through-the-ages issue with the two of you and Sage?”
I was all set to keep at it, but she was right. I should be thrilled Ben was crazy about someo
ne else. Why wasn’t I?
“Psych 101?” Rayna asked. “‘I Don’t Want Him But I Don’t Want Anyone Else to Have Him’?”
“Ugh, I hope not. That’s awful.”
“But normal.”
I thought about it. Was I jealous that Ben liked Suzanne more than me?
“Okay, if there is some of that—and I’m not saying there is—it’s just the littlest, littlest bit,” I admitted.
“Then what else?”
“I think it’s just . . . he’s playing it up. A lot. If he’s really into her, that’s great. It just feels like he’s doing it for show, which is creepy. And wrong.”
“If he was doing it for show, he wouldn’t have started with her when you weren’t talking,” Rayna said. “He’s a guy. You rejected him. She didn’t. Of course he’d play it up around you.”
“You’re right.” I gave it a moment, then said, “So he’s actually into Suzanne.”
Rayna rolled her eyes. “I don’t get it either. But, hey, whatever makes him happy. So what brought on the sort-of thaw with you guys?”
I smiled, feeling a warm glow spread through me.
“Sage. I saw Sage.”
“WHAT?” Rayna cried. “When? And by the way, completely unacceptable that you didn’t start the conversation with that. What the hell?”
I took a deep breath and filled her in on the highlights. Her expression went from excited to concerned, until her brow was furrowed.
“So you’re just going to run off and chase the CV? Aren’t they the big scary guys who attacked you and Ben in Brazil?”
“Japan, too,” I agreed.
“With guns, right?”
I nodded.
“So even if you find them, what makes you think you and Ben can just walk in together and find Sage? If Sage is even there.”
“Sage has to be there,” I said. “He left me the message.”
“What if he didn’t? What if it’s a trap?”
“By the CV? Why? If they don’t have Sage, taking me won’t help them get him. And if they do have him, why bother trapping me?”
“So this is it. And you think Ben will help?”
“He’s making me bring him. Maybe you’re right. If he’s all about Suzanne, it might not be a problem.”