Jaxen snickers.
I roll my eyes and make my way around them, heading toward the entrance where we were instructed to go after volunteering to help the refugees. There’s no way on earth I’m going to let those hunters think, even for a second, that I’m some damsel who needs a chunk of meat for protection.
But they don’t stay put.
“What?” Weldon says as he jogs to catch up.
I’m trying not to freak out. I don’t want to be followed around by a security team. How can I help people under the radar when I have a twisted version of The Village People trailing my steps?
“You know I’m right,” Weldon continues, not letting up. “Think about it… we could do a month for every nationality. Look at that one,” he says, pointing to the one in the center who looks like he came from the sands of Egypt. “Throw in a fake pyramid backdrop and some shirtless action and bam. Could you imagine the panties that would drop? We could make serious money, mouse. Sell it to all the old hussies holed up in this city and put the funds back into the hands of the people evacuating here who have nothing left.” He pauses in thought, a wide grin spreading on his face. “Damn, I’m brilliant. How’s that for being a thoughtful Samaritan?”
I flick a glare in his direction.
He sighs and rolls his eyes. “Fine. Whatever. Be a prude.”
We slow to a halt when we arrive at the gates. There are more citizens of Ethryeal showing up to help than I thought there would be. It’s like there’s an invisible string of unity tying us all together as we stand near the gates in our volunteered positions, helping those who we’ve been assigned to.
Garrick took charge of the entire arrival processes, organizing the way the lines would work and how the housing would be obtained once the arriving Coven members were logged in as Ethryeal citizens. Jaxen is assigned to the gates with Weldon and others, welcoming newcomers and directing them to the appropriate lines. Katie is assigned to the housing table where witches and hunters sit with computer systems set up, allowing them to see where housing is available—be it from empty residencies, to the homes offered up like Jaxen and I had chosen to do. The rest of us who volunteered are given the task of escorting the newly welcomed citizens to the homes they’ve been assigned to.
Only I have a shadow of seven following me around. A shadow I try to pretend isn’t there.
I can’t tell you how many faces I encounter as I guide them to their residences within the city, doing my best to answer their questions. They want to know what the High Priest Maddock meant when he said our witches were in a state of emergency, and if the rumors are true about Mourdyn returning. They want to know why they are watching their friends die, and why I haven’t done what the rumors and the media has said I would do. They want answers, and change, and every problem solved right away.
Fear is the language of the desperate.
Their questions and demands are like vultures circling over my head. Like walls pressing in on my confidence. How can I be truthful to their questions when their eyes are pleading for me to tell them they’re safe? When their words are digging graves for my heart?
Because the truth is, no victory has ever been won without sacrifice and lessons learned from mistakes.
I do the best I can to appease their needs without giving false hope. After a while, their faces begin to blend together in different shapes and sizes with smiles and frowns that make me think of somber, abstract art… painting the world in shades of blue.
The whole time, the seven hunters never walk more than a few inches behind me. After the first couple of hours of biting my tongue to keep from yelling at them to back off, they begin to feel more like an extra limb I carry around. I need them to feel like that. Otherwise, I just might have to walk myself into the canal and never come up for air.
IT ISN’T UNTIL THE SKY brightens with a kaleidoscope of color that our shift comes to an end and the next group of volunteers show up. I’m more tired than I’ve ever been. My brain feels tight, and my feet and thighs throb and ache.
“I didn’t realize our Coven was this big,” Jezi says as our little group heads back toward the inner city. She keeps looking over her shoulder with questioning eyes at the seven hunters following me.
“And this is only the tip of the iceberg,” Weldon says, dragging his hand down his face. “The news has only just started the standard doses of fear they like to inject into society. By the end of the week, I guarantee mass hysteria will become the new ‘is the dress blue or gold’ craze.”
“These poor people,” I say, holding Jaxen’s hand. “One lady said her hunter died the other day trying to keep a gang of Darkyns from taking her to the Underground. And there was a hunter who said they took his wife and daughter who was on break from the academy. He came to join the Elites and was denied since he’s powerless.”
“There are too many stories like that,” Katie adds, her voice tinged with sadness “And every one of them were assigned to houses they could share since they are without a partner now. And the sad thing is, the Divine Garrick has assigned multiple blocks lined with donated houses and empty apartment buildings to those without powers… sort of like halfway houses. Almost as if he expects more with those stories to come.”
None of us say it, but I know we’re all thinking the same thing—there will be more.
“I’m thinking we should all get a drink,” Jezi says. She sounds tired and something else… maybe hopeful. I notice her watching Weldon out the corner of her eye, almost as if she’s waiting to hear what he thinks.
I don’t think they’ve talked since our trip to the Underground.
“I can’t,” he says, looking in her direction, his features piloted to remain reserved. “I promised Claire I’d meet up to talk. We… uh… it will be our first time speaking since I woke up.”
Jaxen slaps him on the back. “That’s good, right?”
Weldon gives a half-hearted shrug and then stops, looking like he’s about to receive test results he’s been dreading from a doctor. “This is where I take my exit.” He points to the cluster of window-paned apartments situated like gleaming knifes behind the military ward.
I send a mental hug his way. “See you,” I say, waving at him as he leaves us.
“Bar, anyone?” Jezi says again, forcing a smile on her face that’s as see-through as mesh. She glances over my shoulder toward the hunters, eyeing the one in the middle. “Do they…?”
“I don’t think so,” I hurriedly say.
“I’m game for drinks if you are,” Katie says, eyes twinkling at me. It will be the first time in our friendship that we’ve ever drank without having to sneak around.
I smile, and then she loops her arm through mine as we head toward the bar.
“Where are you going to stay? I noticed your home was assigned to the partnerless,” she says as we pass by faces of every shape and color. Some staring at us, others too caught up in the large statues of the Divine that have a mound of ever-growing flowers set around the bases.
I glance over at her. “With Evangeline. You?”
“Jezi,” she says, only half-looking at me.
“That’s good. You guys are a great team,” I admit, not wanting her to feel like she can’t tell me things.
She smiles, and then Jaxen pulls the door to the bar open for us. The Darkyn masks along the walls have almost tripled since the last time I was in here with Weldon. It’s also packed with citizens, making it nearly impossible to find a seat.
“There’s rooftop seating,” Jezi calls over the voices meshing together like screaming lyrics in a death metal song.
We nod and follow her up the winding stairs, until the door is pushed open and we’re greeted with a fresh burst of air. My breath catches as I look to the sky. It clashes in a series of pinks and oranges, the sun dipping toward the horizon.
“I never thought I had an issue with claustrophobia until now,” Jaxen says as he pulls me near the edge of the rooftop where a round, high-top table s
its overlooking the canal that glitters like a sea of jewels amongst the dimly lit streets below. His breath is warm against my neck as a biting chill works its way around, drifting in with the rolling clouds.
The hunters form a circle around the table, closing us in. I hit my breaking point. After hopping off my stool, I stop in front of the first hunter whose gaze is always on mine, like an animal stalking its prey. Always alert. Aware. “You need to back off, okay? We’re trying to have a drink. You’re more than welcome to join us. If not, and if you must insist on watching over me like I’m a baby, could you at least do it from over there?” I point to the other side of the rooftop where the ledge is empty.
They don’t move, and my body feels as if it is dunked in lava.
With clenched teeth, I try again. “I order you to move over there,” I say forcefully.
The hunter, eyes sharp and hard like steel, glares at me, but then he turns, the others following him to where I pointed.
I blow out a breath, trying not to feel guilty for exploding on them, and take my seat, telling everyone that everything is fine.
There are only a few people up here, all staring past the edge of the rooftop toward the gates where people are still piling in by the truckload. It’s odd seeing them from this angle, like ants filling a new hill as they march in dotted lines toward an unknown beginning. A fresh start in a new city brimming with promise in the shape of two men and two women who used to reside inside crumbled statues. I try to think of myself as one of those people down there for a minute. The fear of the Darkyns nipping at my heels, and the wonderment of seeing the Divine alive and awake, living somewhere inside the same city they’re now walking in. How odd it must feel. How confusing and fulfilling, all at the same time.
“I don’t think the city has ever been so full.” I jump from my seat at the sound of Sterling’s voice.
“Except for that one year when the High Priesthood allotted two days for the entire Coven to come together for the Octoberfest. That was a crazy time,” my dad says as he makes his way around Sterling to pull me in for a hug. “How are you, kiddo?”
“Better now,” I say, squeezing him tight and smiling when I inhale the scent of the oils he uses to sharpen his fluxes. There’s a brief flash of our couch in my mind, sagging in the center from where he always sat while he ran his blade over the edge of a ceramic mug whenever he couldn’t find his sharpener. The image warms my soul.
“What are you two old fogies doing out past your bedtime?” Jezi jests with a bright smile as she pushes her silken hair over her shoulder. It doesn’t stay put. The breeze moving through the buildings keeps pushing it back over, almost as if playing with her. “Don’t you have crossword puzzles to attend to?”
Sterling flags the waiter over and asks for a round of beer, and then turns to Jezi. “You know, from the moment you stepped foot in this city, I knew the lot of you would be trouble. The fun kind of trouble. You remind me of our group back when we were your age.” He points his elbow in my dad’s direction. “We used to sneak out of the academy and find local bars, claiming we were hunting for paranormals, when really, we were hunting for a beer.”
My mouth falls open as I look over at my dad.
He holds his hands up as laughter bubbles out of him. “Hey, what can I say? Young and stupid.”
“I beg to differ about the stupid part,” Sterling says, chuckling.
“But you’re always so…” Jezi says, looking at them as if their bodies have become inhabited by aliens.
“Rigid?” my dad finishes for her with a hearty chuckle. “Sterling has always had a case of the old stick-up-the-ass syndrome.”
“And Middleton has always had a case of the can’t-handle-his-liquor syndrome,” Sterling shoots back at him with a wide, toothy grin.
My mouth falls slightly open with a smile as I shake my head, watching the two of them talk as if they have always been this way. As if their worlds hadn’t crumbled around them in the wake of Mourdyn’s destruction. Questions buzz through my brain like bees. Exactly how long have they known each other? Why are they suddenly here instead of locked in the military ward like they have been for months? Do they ever feel as lost and confused as we all do in this moment?
And why are they so… so happy?
I don’t realize I actually asked that last question out loud until all eyes are turned on me, the smiles on Sterling and my father’s faces wavering. I could hear a pin drop. That’s how quiet the table gets.
I guess I’m not the only one who wants to know.
Sterling and my father both reach for a beer the moment the waiter places them on the table. They take two big, hearty swigs before setting them back down. None of us move as we watch… wait for one of them to answer.
My father is the first to break. He takes another sip from his beer, sets it down, and then reaches for my hand. “The answer is simple, kiddo,” he says as if he’s about to let me in on a secret I’ve always wanted to know. “Life is short.”
I know my face is a puzzle of confusion. It’s not that I don’t want them to be happy. I’ve been waiting to see my dad smile for a while now. But this… it’s like meeting a new person. It takes a second to adjust.
“Tell us a story,” Jezi says, her features smoothed out by the heat of her drink. “Something juicy.”
Sterling and my father turn their attention to her, and then share a grin. “You or me?” Sterling says.
“You always tell it better than I do,” my dad says, reaching for his beer again.
Sterling claps his hands together and rubs them with another toothy grin.
I think he’s breaking records with how many times he’s smiled in the past five minutes versus the entire span of time I’ve known him.
“All right. How about the time Mary Middleton lost a bet during a game of quarters and had to streak through the courtyard at the academy during class change?”
My mouth hits the table.
He rolls up his sleeves. “Or the time Russell here got up the nerve to finally ask Mary to the Hollow’s Eve ball and managed to trip over his own feet before he could even utter the question?” Sterling wipes tears from his eyes he’s laughing so hard. He nudges my dad with his elbow and adds, “You know, I think that’s what won Mary’s heart. She probably wouldn’t have paid you any mind had it not been for the pity she felt over the boy with two left feet and the height of a giraffe he had not yet grown into.”
“Hey now,” my dad says, infectiously laughing alongside of him. He swings his gaze over to me, the light in his eyes bright and dazzling, like a clear night of stars. “Your mother fell for my charm. No ifs ands or buts about it.”
Sterling slaps him on his back, causing some of the beer my dad had lifted to his lips to spill over onto his lap. This brought on another bout of laughter I wanted to get lost in. I imagine myself running through a grassy field on a sunny day, being chased by my parents. That freeing feeling I always felt when they were off duty and spent weekends with me.
“Sterling was no saint either,” my dad says, the words rolling off his lips as intoxicating as any drug. “He broke into Mack’s office to change a grade he got on his Demonology midterm. If it wasn’t for Mary and me following him that night, he would have surely been expelled.”
“What happened?” Jezi asks, totally lost in their words and memories.
“Mack was heading straight for his office,” my dad says, holding his hands out, setting the scene while looking to Sterling with arched eyebrows. “Mary was always quick on her toes. She pulled me into the middle of the hallway and, well, let’s just say our first kiss was all thanks to this guy.” He slaps Sterling on the back, his grin as wide as the moon.
Sterling pretends to flex a collar he doesn’t have and says, “You’re welcome, pal. You got your first kiss and I didn’t flunk. I’d say we made a great team back in the day.”
“That we did,” my dad says as his grin dissolves. His eyes hover over the rim of his beer as thoughts o
f Mom dance around the air, teasing, warming, and then chilling us, like a swift breeze snuffing out a flame.
Sterling must sense this because he automatically launches into another story, unrelated to my mother, that has the whole of us laughing harder than we’ve laughed in, well, years. The easiness in which happiness comes to us, lifting our spirits and our minds like wings have been sewn onto our backs, has me pausing. As I look around the table at all the faces I love, I want to carve this memory out and store it deep in my heart for safekeeping.
There’s a buzzing sound sticking out from the laughter that none of us can place at first. It doesn’t belong. It pokes and prods at our bubble of happiness, trying to place a blemish on what we’re sharing. Sterling is the first to realize it’s him that’s buzzing. The smile instantly vanishes when he reaches for his phone.
A second later, all laughter has vanished. “It’s Maddock. He needs us to meet him in the war room,” he says to my father.
“What about?” I ask just as my phone begins to buzz. The sound is echoed by everyone else’s, like crickets chirping to each other in the night.
“I guess we’re all about to find out,” Sterling says. He grabs his cup, chugs the remaining contents, and then heads for the door.
“IT IS OUR SWORN DUTY to protect them, Maddock,” Seamus says as he rubs at his forehead.
They have been at a standstill for the past thirty-two minutes while trying to come to a decision revolving around the human race. I’ve zoned out, the buzz from the three beers I had earlier only just beginning to fade as I think about the gray walls and how many secrets they hold within the layers of paint. How many life-altering decisions were made within such a muted color? It’s a color that should calm you, ease your thoughts, but looking at Seamus and Mack and the frustration so clearly choking them, all I can think about is how the color of the walls remind me of a wolf in sheep’s skin.
This room plots out lies. Plans deaths.
Evermore (The Night Watchmen Series Book 5) Page 6