“I know where he is,” he says, moving closer. “I wish to give him time to settle into his place before I speak to him. For now, you will be my connection.”
This is just so weird. “Who are you?” I ask again, this time trying to put more force behind my words.
“I am no one of significance.”
“Well, I won’t pass on any messages to him if I don’t know who’s sending them.”
“You will tell him that he cannot stop what’s to come,” he says, ignoring my stubbornness. “He should be ready. He must hold tight to the hem of Grace and the tattered remnants of Forgiveness.”
I feel myself giving in, listening intently, but I protest like I’m not. “I’m not going to tell him anything. I don’t know you. You might want to hurt him—he has lots of things trying to hurt him, you know.” As I say this, I’m pointing at the man and moving closer, like by getting in his face, he’ll buy my objections more.
He steps forward in a rush of movement, his body coming within inches of mine, faster than I could’ve blinked. My heart stops in my chest, then skips sideways.
“You are brave,” he whispers, raising his hand to touch his fingers to my forehead, as if he’s placing something on my brow. “But you must realize, this clay vessel is set to crumble; your fragile flesh will be tested in ways you cannot imagine.” He closes his eyes and cocks his head as if listening hard to some voice I can’t hear. “You are the mother of many but your womb is empty.” He says these words with surprise in his voice. “You will lose your anointing, your heart, your soul. You will pass on this blessing and bear no life within you, though you were meant to give birth to a whole world.”
He opens his eyes again, searching my face, looking pained. “You are correct; you do not belong to him as you should. That was stolen from you, and the path has changed once more. I am so sorry, child.” Tears glisten in his eyes and my throat goes tight, feeling as if he’s broken my heart, and yet I’m not sure why. “Tell him what I’ve spoken of,” he says quietly. “And then make your journey. Though it wasn’t the one set in blood among the stars, and this shift may cause pain for so many, it will be well with you, and you will find your way to Peace.”
His hand falls back to his side and he steps away from me, his features lined with misery. It hits me like it’s my own hurt, like I have some reason to be as tormented as he looks.
Then he bows his head and disappears.
Poof!
Gone. Right. Before. My eyes.
One moment he’s there and the next he’s just . . . not. And the air seems to sizzle with heat where he stood.
I reach up to feel my brow where he touched me, and my fingers come away slick, like he had oil on his hand. I look at my fingertips, slide them together as the scent of night jasmine fills my head.
An image of my mother comes to my mind, a memory of a photograph my father kept beside his bed for many years before it was placed in a drawer and forgotten, just like her. Charlie always said she smelled like jasmine and summer. The loss of her, of any memory of her, becomes a deep sorrow. How could I not have ever known her? How could she have chosen to leave? And Charlie . . . My chest aches with it, my eyes sting.
And then the weight of it all hits me, my body shaking under the heavy reality of what my heart suddenly takes on. The truth. I’ve lost so much. I’ve lost my hope. I’ve lost Aidan. I’m alone. And it’s useless to pretend otherwise.
TWENTY-FIVE
Aidan
I leave the vault and hurry across the parking lot, my mind full of questions about what my vision of Daniel could mean. My father is back. Wandering the city of Los Angeles. Because of me and my power. The idea is just . . . it doesn’t fit in my head. I need to find Connor and Rebecca and get out of here. I need to talk to Sid.
The club is loud and full of that familiar buzz of a hundred different energies mingling together like a blend of putrid oils. It saturates my skin, trying to sink in, and I don’t bother fighting it off or blocking it out as I search the crowd.
I’m relieved to find Connor quickly, near the bar, talking to a guy and motioning with his hands. I come up and hear him describing Rebecca. “—boots, a pink shirt and jeans. And really red hair.” The guy he’s talking to points at the bathroom and Connor shakes his head. “Already checked there—” He sees me and moves away from the guy. “Aidan. Shit, man. I can’t find her.” His voice is steady as he yells to be heard over the thunder of the music, but the look on his face is harnessed panic. “She walked off because she was pissed at me. I thought I’d give her a second, but when I went after her, I couldn’t find her anywhere.”
I scan the crowd quickly, the urge to get out of this place growing; the music beats at my aching head. I barely hear Connor’s words as I search for Rebecca’s red hair. It’s really packed in here now—I’m not sure if we’d see her even if she were three feet away. “You check that side, I’ll check this side, if we—”
Someone taps my shoulder and I turn. The guy is large, like a football player, his neck thick and his shoulders like mountains. He leans in and says loudly, “You lookin’ for the redhead?” I nod and the guy points toward the end of the bar, to the door that leads to the break room and the employee bathrooms. “She’s with one of the bussers in the back. They were just asking if anyone knew—”
But neither Connor or I hear any more, both of us making a beeline for the swinging door. I can’t let my mind go to where it wants to go, to the last time I found her passed out in this place. Connor pushes through first, and I grumble, “You were supposed to watch her.”
He doesn’t turn around. “I didn’t think she’d actually drink anything! She kept saying no to the guys who offered.” He sounds miserable, so I don’t let any more of my frustration or worry loose. Whatever happened, it wasn’t Connor’s fault. He’s not her keeper.
I am.
We enter the break room in a rush. There’s a guy sitting on the couch beside a dazed Rebecca with a phone to his ear. He startles at our entrance and jumps up, backing away, almost climbing behind the furniture. “Whoa,” he says in a stoner voice. Then he says to whoever’s on the other line, “No, dude, these guys just totally crashed in like there’s a freakin’ fire.” Then he releases a nervous laugh. Connor snatches the phone from him and the guy’s laugh turns to a choke. “Hey, what the hell?”
Connor looks at the screen—probably to make sure it’s not 911—then hands it back to the guy. “Sorry. Just checking.”
Stoner Guy says into the phone, “Hey, man, I gotta jet. Crazy happenings,” then hangs up.
I move to Rebecca’s side; she actually looks okay. Her head is cradled in her hands, though, so I can’t see her face. “Rebecca, what’s going on? What are you doing back here?” I turn to glare at Stoner Guy. “Did you see what happened?”
“Slow down,” he says, holding up his hands. “I found the girl back here crying, is all. I was just making sure she was chill, right?”
I take a deep breath and ask Rebecca again, “What is it? What’s wrong?” But she’s still not looking at me.
“She’s all cut up about some dude,” Stoner Guy explains. “She just needs a beat is all.”
Connor frowns at her, then kneels down, facing her, touching her knee gently. “Hey, you okay?” he asks, quietly, like he’s trying to calm a troubled child. It’s odd. Definitely not Connor’s normal style.
He actually gets a head-shake from her, though. More of a response than I got.
“Hey, can you give us a sec?” I ask Stoner Guy.
He blinks slowly at me and then says, “Totally, dude. Most definitely. I’ll be behind the bar if you need anything.”
“Great, thanks.” I give him a stiff smile as he leaves the room, then I turn back to Rebecca and squat down beside Connor. “Okay, what’s going on, Rebecca? Come on.”
“Hey,” Connor snaps. “Let her take her time.”
“We don’t have time,” I grind out.
“Why? You have
an appointment to be somewhere at one in the morning?”
“No, I just need to get back home.” I need to get back to Kara, to figure out what the hell is going on with my resurrected father. I need to talk to Sid.
Rebecca’s voice is muffled through her hands. “He said that I was your soul mate, Aidan.”
Connor looks at her with wide eyes.
My awareness keys on her as the words hit me. “Who said that?”
“The guy,” she whispers.
“What guy?” Connor asks, voice tight.
“He looked just like you, Aidan,” she looks up and stares right at me, then, her eyes full of shock, “if you were, like, thirty. And he said I was your soul mate, that I was supposed to have been yours, but something about my path changed or is changing—I have no idea. He knew me. But I can’t see how. And he was just so sad.” She sniffs and takes my hand in hers, gripping it. “What did he mean? I feel like he ripped out my heart.”
The guy . . . she talked to some guy. Who knew her story, her truth. A man who looked just like me? A chill works over every inch of my skin, the hair prickling along my arms. Could Daniel—my father?—the bones I watched re-form in a vision—could he have come in here and found Rebecca? Why would he do that? Why would he speak to her and not me?
When neither Connor nor I respond to her questions, she adds, “I need to know who he was.” She keeps looking at me with glistening eyes, like she’s unable to turn away. “His words felt so . . . true and important. Like he was seeing right through me. And Aidan, he knew you and he said I needed to give you a message.”
It’s suddenly tough to breathe. “What message?” And why didn’t he give it to me himself? If he could find Rebecca, he could find me. His supposed son. Instead he’s telling Rebecca, he’s telling her she should’ve been mine. Just like Kara said. “What exactly did he say?”
She glances away and releases my hand, then rubs her palms over her knees. “He said I was supposed to be his connection to you, because I was your soul mate. But then when he touched me, he said something had gone wrong, that things had changed from what was written in the stars.”
“Rebecca,” I say, trying to figure out how to explain. “There’s no way to know for sure.”
“He knew. I felt it in his words when he spoke, it was the truth.” She looks at me again. “And you knew. Didn’t you? That I was supposed to be with you, not Kara.”
“He just found out today, Rebecca,” Connor says.
My throat swells as all the emotions collide inside of me. I can only shake my head in answer.
“Who was he?” she asks me. “You know him. You’re afraid and confused.”
“It was my father,” I manage, not sure how she could know what I’m feeling.
Connor’s head jerks back in surprise. “What?”
“I need you to tell me the message, Rebecca,” I say, ignoring his shock. Connor will have to wait to ask his questions. “Whatever he told you, it’s very important.”
“I know,” she says. She stands and walks over to the opposite wall.
Connor and I both rise to our feet, the expectation in the room thickening with each second that passes. Rebecca stares at the floor, pacing a few times back and forth. Then she goes still and begins to whisper in an odd voice, almost like she’s speaking as someone else. “You can’t stop what’s coming. You should be ready; hold tight to the hem of Grace and the tattered remnants of Forgiveness.”
It’s silent for what feels like several years as we all take in the words. I can’t stop what’s coming? Does he mean the angel that’s coming for Ava? Or is he repeating what the hidden under-passage in Eric’s journal said: What you will awaken shall bring the world’s end?
Daniel was a prophet, so if it was really him, then I can assume the words are true. More than that, though, I feel their truth. Deep in my core. And now that I’ve heard them, I’m accountable to them.
I’ve been warned.
Be ready.
But I have no clue what to be ready for. “We need to get back,” I finally say. It’s time to find answers, instead of always stumbling over questions. Sid will have them. And Eric.
Rebecca grabs my arm before I can turn to the door. “What did he mean, Aidan?” Her brow is pinched; she smells like sharp torment and loss. The energy in her grip is frantic. “What’s coming?”
“I wish that I knew,” I say, not pulling away from her, letting her hold on to me. I need to feel her pain. My fate being fucked up is fucking up everyone else’s, and I need to not hide from that anymore. “I’m sorry this is happening to you.”
“None of this is your fault, Aidan,” she says. “You need to stop believing that it is.” The lost look in her eyes is physically painful to see, and it makes me want to accept her words, to believe that her hurt isn’t because of me. But that’s not my reality right now.
She reaches into her back pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper, then holds it out to me. “Here, take this. I was going to give it to you the other day at our coffee, but . . . well, here.”
I take it from her and unfold it, opening what looks like a drawing in charcoal pencil. It’s smudged in several spots from being carried around, but I can still see the image clearly. Skulls. Loads and loads of skulls. Off in the distance is the cave. And there I am in the middle of the carnage, standing in the field of death. I stare up at a sky that’s roiling with lightning. My dagger is on the ground, resting against a small skull by my foot. The skull of a child?
You cannot stop what’s coming . . .
The Cycle of Darkness has begun . . .
I shiver, digesting the image for only a second before I fold it back up and shove it in my pocket. I’d burn it if I thought that would do any good. But this is just paper, just a blurry glimpse of the future that Rebecca saw; there’s no way to burn the future. It’s coming, one way or another.
TWENTY-SIX
Aidan
We all walk through the club, Connor holding Rebecca’s hand so she doesn’t get caught up by the crowd. I trail behind them, watching how he moves beside her, like he’s parting the waters. I wonder if she’s noticed that he’s being chivalrous for her, or if she thinks that’s just how he is. I got a whiff of his attraction to her as we were leaving the house earlier tonight, and now I see it might be more than that. Looks like it won’t just be her heart getting broken because of this mess.
I come up beside Connor and lean in so he can hear. “I’ll meet you guys at the car. Gonna go tell Hanna that I got what I needed.”
He nods and disappears down the hall with Rebecca as I head up the office stairs. A bouncer stands on the landing in front of the door. Frank, I think.
He holds up a hand. “She’s with an employee.”
“I need to give her something and get home. Can I slip in for just a sec, Frank?” He looks me over, then seems to recognize me. He moves aside, giving me a nod.
“Thanks.”
I open the door and step inside, staring into the dark room as I shut the door behind me. I try to blink back the shadows a little as something odd slinks over me, uneasiness stirring in my gut. The room looks empty.
But several out-of-place smells begin to hit me—brine and the sea, the crisp spring breeze of new green life. And then I realize it’s all masking a deeper scent. Something sinister and putrid just under the surface.
Death.
“Hanna?” I say, my voice hoarse from surfacing fear.
A low growl emerges from my right, behind the couch. A growl that turns into a sinister chuckle as a form emerges from the shadows. “A young, fleshy boy,” the thing—whatever it is—says. But the words come out made of crunching glass and clacking stones. “So yummy and young and spry. I know you, fleshy boy. I smell your oils and sweats.”
I stand frozen as I watch the six-foot hunched thing slink forward to perch on the back of the purple couch. It’s looking in the wrong spot because it can’t see me while I’m wearing the amulet, but appare
ntly it’s still extremely aware of my presence. Bony knees point at the ceiling and two sets of claws, on feet and hands, dig into the soft fabric with a pop that releases puffs of white cotton stuffing from the couch. Its oily skin is the color of pitch, with shimmery black feathers covering its shoulders and upper thighs to the waist. Its odd-shaped mouth is like a purple beak, but when it speaks, the beak is clearly soft and pliable. Two holes sit just under its bulging, sideways blinking eyes.
And then I realize: its purple beak is splotched with a shiny liquid.
The creature reaches back to pick something up from behind the couch and then holds out whatever it retrieved with a three-pronged claw as if inspecting a find. It looks like . . . oh, God, is that a human organ?
“Tasty, fleshy female. Then crunchy, fleshy boy.” A forked lizard tongue springs from its mouth, licking the chunk of flesh where fresh blood is dripping onto the couch.
Hanna.
I want to shout her name, but I can’t seem to move or get my voice to work. I’m in a frozen panic, my heart crushing to dust in my chest. Sorrow and horror threaten to drag me under, even as rage and bright need fills me. The need to kill. My mark doesn’t spark right off, but I almost want it to this time. I want to grab this thing and cut it into ribbons. I want to tear its throat out with my bare hands. It killed Hanna.
Hanna.
No demons are supposed to be able to enter this place. Eric put up protections—he made sure it was safe.
But the wards apparently don’t work anymore.
The demon tilts its head, looking perturbed. “No, no. I smell frown-frown, fleshy. You’ll sour the meat.”
It killed her. It killed Hanna. It’s the only thing I can think. I picture her gentle smile, her kind eyes. “I’m going to eviscerate you, dever.” I manage to say.
“I do what I must, what I’m twisted to do, fleshy boy. No threat-threats if you can’t follow with action now.”
This thing’s corporeal. It’s as much flesh as I am. Another demon that’s managed to make it across the Veil, but one that didn’t bother to disguise itself much at all, other than a small amount of glamour on its face. A horror movie come to life. Not hesitant to kill. And even though it can’t see me, there are more than two hundred people downstairs in the club that it can see, all of them potential meals.
Darkness Fair (The Dark Cycle Book 2) Page 15