Daemons in the Mist (The Marked Ones Trilogy: Book One)

by Vancil, Alicia Kat

  “No problem,” I said with the most reassuring voice I could muster. As she walked away, I whispered into the phone. “Meet me at the store in ten, ‘kay?”

  “But it’s Sunday. The store is closed on Sundays,” Connor pointed out in a confused voice.

  “Yes I know Connor, but does your mother know that?” I asked through gritted teeth.

  “Well probably not, but—”

  “It’s not even eight, Connor. Your mom won’t care if you go one block down the damn street,” I spat into the phone as quietly as I could.

  “Good point. See you in ten,” Connor said quickly before hanging up the phone.

  I took a deep breath as I descended the stairs. My mother had gone back to watching TV and probably wouldn’t notice how wound up I looked. Still, I tried to exit my house as casually as possible.

  A little over ten minutes later I walked up to find Connor leaning up against the wall in front of the closed store. He pushed off from the wall as I arrived. “So what exactly did you fuck up this time? Last time I checked your life was looking peachy.”

  “You’d think that, wouldn’t you,” I said sourly, leaning my head against the cold wall of the building behind me. “I just realized something tonight I should have realized a fucking week ago.”

  “What?” Connor asked curiously.

  “That my marriage to Nualla wasn’t legal,” I admitted with complete despair.

  Connor looked confused. “Wait, how was it not—oh, right ‘cause your birthday’s not till next month.”

  “Exactly,” I said, closing my eyes. I couldn’t believe I had been this stupid.

  “So just tell her. If she didn’t really want to marry you, she’s off the hook. And if she did want to marry you, then you can just marry her again in a month. Girls love weddings.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Patrick—”

  “No, I mean I can’t tell her,” I said, looking at Connor.

  “Why?” he asked, looking confused.

  “It’s…complicated,” I answered, avoiding his eyes.

  “What is it, her family or something?”

  “No, they know.”

  “Your family?” Connor asked, arching his eyebrows.

  “No, there’s no way in hell I would tell them about this. But no, that’s not it.”

  “Then what?” Connor asked, sounding exasperated.

  I opened my mouth to answer then realized I couldn’t tell him the truth. If I did, they would have to kill him. As it was, they would probably have to kill me. I was going to have to lie. And I really sucked at lying, especially to people who actually knew me as well as Connor did.

  I slammed my head back against the building and stared up at the cloudy sky. It would probably start raining any minute, and I had left my umbrella at home.

  Great, just great.

  I settled for a believable lie, if I strayed too far from the truth he would spot it. “She’s everything I’ve ever wanted and now that I have her I…I don’t want to lose her.” I looked back over at him. “I’m afraid that if she knew the truth she wouldn’t have a reason to be with me anymore.” It wasn’t a total lie, but I hoped it would fool Connor.

  “Dude, why do you think she wouldn’t want to be with you?” Connor asked, looking genuinely concerned for my mental state.

  I pushed off the wall and practically yelled, “Have you seen her? She’s gorgeous and smart and…and perfect. And there’s no way a guy like me gets this lucky twice.” I leaned back against the wall again, dejected. Even I was starting to believe my own lie. But it hadn’t really been a hard sell; why would she want to be with someone like me in the first place when she could have anyone?

  I slid down the wall to sit on the ground. Seconds passed in silence and sure enough, big fat drops started to fall from the sky.

  Finally Connor spoke. “Patrick—man you are way too hard on yourself.”

  He had believed the lie, hook, line, and sinker. But I guess it was easy to lie when it was mostly based on the truth. Aside from the supernatural stuff and my impending death what I had said had been the truth, really.

  “You know you have to tell her, right?” Connor said, his hands in his pockets.

  “I know. I’m just not ready yet,” I answered as I looked away from him back down the street. “I just want to stay in this dream as long as I can.” Even if it was a hopeless dream.

  After a few minutes of silence, Connor looked at his phone. “Look Patrick, I have to get back and finish that paper for Miss Desborne’s class. Are you going to be okay?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine,” I lied. It was starting to rain in earnest now.

  “You sure?” he asked mostly unconvinced.

  “Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow, ‘kay?”

  “‘Kay,” he said reluctantly, and then he turned and ran back down Mission Street.

  Eventually I got up and started my walk back home, but not before I was soaked to the bone. I felt worse than I had before, if that was possible.

  24

  Hiding Lies with a Smile

  Wednesday, February 8th

  NUALLA

  Over the next two weeks we fell into an easy routine as if it had always been that way. We spent all the time we could together at school and all eight of us had lunch together mostly without incident—mostly. Jenny still looked like she wished I’d just fall off the face of the Earth, and Beatrice still hadn’t gotten the message that Shawn was so taken already.

  Michael, true to his word, was now completely ignoring me as if there had never been anything between us in the first place—like someone had flipped a switch in his brain. Maybe Penelope really had been his One, and he had been too arrogant to see it until I was taken out of the equation. Whatever the reason, it was nice to not have to worry about him suddenly pushing me up against lockers, but it was also very weird.

  And Patrick was…Patrick; warm and kind and funny and self-deprecating at times. But I could also tell that something was really bothering him. I could see it there in his eyes; he was hiding something, or more likely not telling me something. I could see it eating at him, but I didn’t know how to pry the truth out of him. And I didn’t know his friends well enough to get it out of them either—if he had even told them in the first place.

  Originally, I had decided I needed to be patient and wait for him to just tell me. However, “patience” was not something I did well, so instead I devised a plan. I was going to take Patrick somewhere he would think was beyond awesome; somewhere humans really didn’t get to go. But to pull it off I needed Travis’ help, which meant a trip to The Embassy.

  Sixth period had let out, and we had all converged in the main floor entry hall.

  “Hey Patrick, I need to go somewhere after school so…” I said in a voice I hoped sounded nonchalant.

  “No problem, it’s a Wednesday anyways,” he said with a huge grin, or at least as big as they got lately.

  “Wednesday?” I asked a little confused, and then I remembered. “Oh right, you and Connor’s thing.” Some boys hung out and played video games or watched football. These two hung out at a Japanese mall and watched anime on Saturday nights. “Okay, well, see you tomorrow,” I said before I gave him a kiss.

  I started to walk away, but he called out, taking a few steps toward me. “Hey wait, what about the pictures? They came in today.”

  “Can you just pick them up and give me mine tomorrow?” I asked over my shoulder.

  “Sure,” he answered with a small dazed smile, the kind he usually had after I kissed him.

  And then I left him there and went off to work on my devious plan. Okay, it really wasn’t that devious. No, wait, it totally was.

  PATRICK

  After Nualla left, Connor and I h
eaded over to the student office to pick up our Winter Ball photos. The crowd was huge since they had just arrived, but it didn’t take us too long to get to the front.

  “Name?” the student behind the counter asked without looking up at me.

  “Patrick Connolly.”

  The guy flipped though the photo packs until he pulled out one. He looked at it briefly before his eyebrows shot up. He looked at me. “Oh you’re that dude.”

  “What dude?” I asked, getting a little concerned.

  “The one who’s with Nualla Galathea.”

  “Yeah, I’m her boyfriend,” I said a little defensively.

  “Lucky you,” he said as he handed me the photos.

  You have no idea how lucky I feel dude, trust me.

  I moved away from the line and looked down at the photos. I stopped dead in the middle of the hall and just stared at the us in the pictures. For some reason, that fact that I was with Nualla hadn’t felt as real as it did now. Like it was a dream I was going to someday wake up from, but the pictures made it fact. I looked okay in the pictures, but Nualla looked like a silver screen goddess. These were so going up on Facebook when I got home.

  “I still can’t believe you actually ended up with her,” Connor said, looking over my shoulder. “I know you’ve been infatuated with her since Freshman year, but I never thought in a million years that you would actually end up with her.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “Thanks Connor, your confidence in me is overwhelming,” I said sarcastically.

  “Hey man, you can’t tell me you honestly thought it would ever happen.”

  I looked back at the packet of photos. “No, you’re right, I didn’t.”

  “So you want to see mine and Sara’s?”

  I turned to look at him. “You went with Sara?”

  “Yeah, what planet were you on? We even saw you guys there.” He looked upset for a second before his expression turned to a mischievous grin. “Oh, I know what planet you were on; Planet Nualla,” he said in a teasing voice.

  “I am not on Planet Nualla,” I said flatly.

  “No dude, you totally are,” he said, laughing.

  “Am not.”

  “So how is it on Planet Nualla?”

  “Don’t make me hurt you Connor,” I threatened, glaring at him.

  “Dude please, you would have to catch me first.”

  “You don’t think I can?” I said, folding my arms.

  “Are you going to even try?” Connor asked, raising an eyebrow and preparing to run.

  I looked at him for a while before I gave up. “Naw, let’s just go to the mall.”

  “Will we be going there in your spaceship, Explorer Connolly?”

  “Seriously Connor, if you don’t shut up, I’m going to punch you.”

  25

  If You’re Reading This

  Thursday, February 9th

  PATRICK

  My second trip to The Embassy went much better than the first; I actually listened to Nualla this time and kept my eyes firmly shut until we were all the way in. I still had absolutely no idea why we were here, but I knew it couldn’t be bad. For starters, Nualla had a huge grin on her face instead of well, kicking the crap out of me for keeping things from her.

  We rode the elevator up to a different floor than before and walked down another long hallway. I was seriously beginning to wonder just how many hallways they could possibly fit into this building, when we stopped in front of a door with an impressive biometric hand reader panel that looked straight out of some futuristic tech movie. Though it seemed a bit moot since the door was wide open. By the ease with which Nualla walked in, it made me think she had been here a lot; unlike the agitation she had shown on the way to the Grand Council chambers.

  The room was one of those stark white spotlessly clean tech rooms except for the massive amounts of electronic parts covering nearly all the available surfaces. There was also a large array of flat screen monitors displaying wire frame models of God only knew what. It felt as if we had just walked onto the set of some Sci-fi movie.

  A tall blond guy in a white lab coat stood in front of a strange but impressive set of equipment. He was built similarly to Shawn, but not quite so broad-chested and looked to be in his early twenties. The guy’s hair was a tangle of wavy pale blond that swept into his eyes and curled out away from his face at his jawline making him look more like a movie star than a tech geek. I almost would have believed that he was an actor in one of those medical dramas if it wasn’t for the fact that he was wearing a navy blue shirt with the statement Don’t Blink, a pair of faded jeans, and bright red All Star high tops.

  His head snapped up as we approached and a wide smile spread across his broad square-jawed face. “Hey, Nualla.”

  “Hey, Travis,” Nualla greeted him in a friendly voice.

  Since everyone else here seemed to only call Nualla “Arius” or “Arius Nualla,” I guessed the two of them had to have some history together.

  Nualla slid onto the edge of the table next to him. “So…do you have it ready for me?”

  The guy, Travis, smiled wider as he leaned forward, his dark black-blue eyes shining. “Did you ever have doubts it would be?”

  “Really?” Nualla asked, clapping her hands together in excitement.

  He nodded.

  “You’re the best, Travis,” Nualla squealed as she threw her arms around him.

  He let her hug him a second longer before taking a step back and saying with a bow, “Why thank you, my dear.”

  From their body language I was beginning to seriously wonder just what exactly that history was.

  Travis turned around to lean against the table next to Nualla. “So…is this your human?” he asked, gesturing to me with his head as he nudged her with his shoulder.

  Nualla leapt up from the table and ran over to grab my arm. Pulling me forward she said with pride, “Yep! This is Patrick.”

  “Hi I’m Patrick, Patrick Connolly—or I guess it’s Galathea now, isn’t it,” I said with a slight smug smile to Travis.

  An emotion I couldn’t quite place crossed his face before disappearing. “I’m Travis Centrina and this is my lab,” Travis stated proudly, standing a little taller as he gestured to the array of equipment.

  “Travis designed a lot of the cool things you see in The Embassy. He’s a genius, really,” Nualla stated as she slid back onto the edge of the table, kicking her feet back and forth through the air.

  “Oh really, like what?” I asked, looking around the room; it was a little hard to tell what anything here actually did.

  “Well like the door, the lobby illusion field, even that Blue Card you’re wearing around your neck,” Travis answered, ticking things off on his fingers.

  “You mean that thing that nearly made me puke?” I asked without really thinking.

  “You didn’t shut your eyes, did you?” Travis said with a self-satisfied smirk as he slid back onto the edge of the table next to Nualla.

  “No he didn’t,” Nualla said with a small playful smile.

  “I did this time,” I mumbled to myself. I didn’t like them being so close; didn’t like the feeling it caused to raise up inside me. It was bitter like acid rolling through my veins.

  After a few moments of slightly awkward silence Nualla asked Travis, “So where is it?”

  “Oh, it’s right over here,” Travis said, leaping to his feet and trotting over to a work table on the other side of the room. He picked something up and turned around with a huge grin. “Tada,” he said, holding out something that looked straight out of a steampunk movie. The glasses were sturdy brass with odd blue lenses that seemed to be glowing faintly.

  “Are we going to a steampunk convention or something?” I asked. I seriously doubted
it, but it was the only thing that came to mind.

  “No, but it will help you see where we’re going,” Nualla answered as she slipped back off the table and moved closer to Travis to get a better look at the glasses.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, looking back at her.

  “It’s a surprise,” Nualla answered with an even bigger grin.

  “Okay Patrick, put these on—” Travis said, handing me the glasses. “—and read that chart over there.”

  I looked at where he was pointing; the letters were something weird like the writing on Nualla’s necklace, Daemotic, I think it was. “Sure,” I said, taking the glasses and sliding them on. “No problem,” I said in a slightly sarcastic voice.

  When I put the glasses on, I didn’t expect to see much of a difference; but I was utterly wrong. The words that had been no better than a child’s made up writing before, were now in plain English. I slipped the glasses back off and the letters went back to gobbledygook. Slowly I slid them back on again, not taking my eyes off the chart. The minute the lenses crossed my eyes the letters began to dance into different forms. This time I actually kept them on long enough to read the message.

  If you can read this, you will

  probably be dead in a few minutes.

  “I can read it!” I said excitedly and turned quickly to face Nualla. But when I caught sight of her and Travis I fell back into the table behind me. Whatever field they naturally created to conceal their true form was gone. “I can see you!” I said in shock.

  “Well yeah,” Travis said, looking smug.

  “No I mean I can really see you.”

  Nualla looked at him, folding her arms. “Travis.”

  “It was all or nothing honey. You asked me to make something that would allow him to see it. I can’t separate out our illusions, you know. It’s kind of a package deal.”