I couldn’t take another step farther. Sobs built in my throat, but I choked them out. What was I doing? Tucking tail and running simply because Asher told me to? He wasn’t the boss of me, and I wouldn’t let him sacrifice himself for me. We were partners for now, if nothing else, and I would not leave him behind. He’d do the same for me. And I needed him, too.
Courage. I wasn’t sure what my pre-Machine life had been like, but I didn’t think bravery had been in my wheelhouse. Maybe courage wasn’t something people were born with, but something they found when then needed it most. Like now. With the adrenaline surging and my anger rising, I had a crap-ton of it now. I’d have walked into a pit of vipers, jumped out of a plane without a chute, or faced down an alien army. Or a dragon-faced dead guy and his lackeys, as it were.
Just like Asher had done, I emptied myself of fear, of everything, really, and focused on what I needed to do. I didn’t like it when he did the cold-and-distant thing, but I could see its uses. I mouthed Go at Kyle.
Indecision passed over his freckled features, his gaze darting toward the ground and back to me. When he set down the artifacts on the construction platform and started along the ledge toward me, I shook my head again and motioned to the ground. Finally, he cursed and went back to Iris, helping her climb down the scaffolding. Hopefully they could get away from the museum and get back to the facility, or at least find a place to hide until the Shift opened again.
When I turned to go back inside, several voices crashed into the room, driving me back outside. They spoke English, but it sounded awkward, as if they were translating their language using the hosts’ memories. Gritting my teeth, I flattened myself against the stone exterior, aware of how far off the ground I was and how narrow the ledge that kept me from it happened to be. A breeze ruffled the bits of hair that had fallen out of my braid, pushing them into my face.
“Inspect the window,” someone ordered in a gruff voice inside. A crashing sound came from somewhere farther inside the building, and boots hit tile again. Was that Asher? Oh God, was he hurt?
I stopped sucking wind and held my breath when one set of boots crunched broken glass inside. A mop of brown hair emerged from the window to my left at calf height. Digging my finger into a crack in the stone, I swung my right leg around and hoofed the guy right in the kisser. As soon as he cleared the window, I followed him inside, dropping back to the floor in a crouch. The young dude’s chest still moved up and down, but the rest of him didn’t. I wished he had more on than a hospital robe, though, since he’d landed on the broken glass, and blood seeped out from below his butt.
Had Baku taken his wraiths to the local psych ward to build his army? The dead liked those minds better. Something about the mentally ill made it easier for the wraiths to take over the body.
My inner voices quieted to a distant whisper of warnings as I stalked along in a crouch through more animal skeleton displays that dominated that section of the fourth floor. Just before the hallway, I edged along the wall and peered around the corner. Nothing but several pieces of artwork and informational plaques on the wall.
Footsteps sounded faint, but I definitely could sense the direction in which the majority of them had gone. Every breath I exhaled coated the air with ice crystals that glittered on their way to the floor, and I shivered. Was the veil really getting thinner as Asher had said, leaking its cold into our reality, or were my senses getting stronger? Or had Baku gotten stronger?
My voice of reason—the one that chattered on about the possibility that Baku was now waiting down the hall to spring a trap on me—could eat shit and die.
Nothing mattered but getting to Asher. So I could wring his neck myself.
Chapter Twelve
I shuffled sideways down the last few feet of the hallway, glancing forward and back. Running on nerve, I didn’t let myself think, or I might freak right the hell out and all of my newly found courage would shrivel up.
“Be calm, sentinel, I only wish to talk to her,” Baku’s new younger voice rang out in the distance. How many souls had he sucked down since the lawyer? “If you injure yourself while evading my people, the blame will be entirely yours.”
What? Shit, shit, shit! I rushed along, glancing into a few rooms full of displays before pinpointing the one where the now-low murmur of voices came from. Feet scrambled before something shattered. More shouting, and then silence.
Okay, calm down. I just needed to know how deep in the poo we were, and then I’d find a shovel. Or maybe a freakin’ backhoe.
“How do you walk around in these meat sacks?” Baku continued. “They’re clumsy and fragile, and in constant need of things. It seems every few hours I have to stuff your disgusting delicacies into these fat lips. If it isn’t that, this ridiculous hunk of flesh between its legs stands on end at the sight of a female.” He chuckled. “Although it’s bizarre that your race partakes in mating even when you aren’t trying to produce young, I have found that aspect of your culture quite…enjoyable.”
Oh, ew. TMI, buddy. I stalked to the entrance of the room and peered around the corner. And swallowed the cry that wanted to explode out of my throat.
Asher lay facedown on the glass-riddled tile with blood running over his ear from a cut on his head. Oh, that dragon bug was in for it now. When Asher stirred, moaned, and pushed himself up to his hands and knees, I wanted to cheer.
My senses identified a guy in the corner as Baku, dressed in hip-hop-style shorts and a baggy T-shirt and who couldn’t have been more than seventeen. Four more hospital-johnny-wearing people with white eyes and mad-scientist smirks holding guns stood around my sensei.
Jesus.
Gruff laughter bubbled out of Asher amid a coughing fit and another moan. “She’s not here, you prick,” he said, backhanding blood from under his nose.
“Isn’t she, now?” Baku cackled and waved his hands like a maestro until the rest of his goons started yukking it up with him. Even his misty dragon form, which hovered over the teenage body he’d stolen and appeared slightly larger than before, joined in. How wacko was this guy? Of course he’d know I was here, because of my Darkside Sun status. How much time did I have left before he’d eat enough souls to be unbeatable? Not very freakin’ long if I had to guess. Why had he gotten bigger? What size were the wraiths before they’d died? I’d always thought about our size, but maybe not.
Asher raised his chin and turned to sit on his butt, doubt clouding his features. “She won’t come after me. I’m sure she’s already back home with the first of your coffin nails, so laugh it up if you want.”
I assumed he meant the pages, because they might be part of my journey to take the guy down.
Baku pulled a gun from the back of his shorts and stared at it the way a kid would admire a lollipop he was about to stick in his piehole. “How is it that I’m aware of her level of ferocity when your well-being is threatened, yet you are not? Ignorance or stupidity? Perhaps both. You’d have been further ahead to have fled and left her here to deal with me alone. Your predictability will be your downfall, sentinel, as it always is.”
Curling up his fists against the floor, Asher lurched forward. Stopped when a chick with a shaved head stuck her pistol against the nose of the young man next to her. Fantastic, so the wraiths were using their hosts as hostages, and they were going to start shooting one another. And I thought the night couldn’t get any worse.
“What are you talking about?” Asher asked. “And what do you want from the Architect?”
Yeah, that’s what I wanted to know.
Baku scratched his temple with the barrel of the gun. Did he not know bullets came out of that end? “Why, to return the universe to its natural state, of course.”
Oh, was that all. I’d just snap my fingers and get right on that. What the bloody hell did that mean? The universe was just…black space, planets and stars, ever-changing, crap exploding, meteors speeding along on their merry ways. Wasn’t it? Was Baku talking about only our universe, or all of t
hem? I considered everything I’d learned from Izan and the Machine’s bible.
Beyond the thin fabric we called the veil, there were hundreds of other true realities, each with one populated planet in its universe, only the wraiths had destroyed theirs somehow. Other than that, I didn’t know squat about any of it. What could have been out of whack, and what could I do about it, anyway?
Asher stared at the hip-hop kid with a frown. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but why would you think she has anything to do with that?”
“Have you ever wondered why there are so many diverse and unique cultures upon your world?” Baku gestured around the room like a Vanna White wannabe. “So many languages, religions, and worshiped gods. This diversity is the basis for most of your wars, is it not? Ask Izan why all the worlds in the other true realities were mostly united, with no more than two factions on the entire planet, and why this museum holds an eclectic variety of objects from all of them.”
My ears rung as if a bomb had gone off. Our artifacts were from other worlds? What was he insinuating? That Izan had planted them on Earth from other places? What the freak for? Until I could talk to him about it, I put it out of my mind.
I drew up fists and stopped trying to chew my own teeth off. More chilling laughter from Baku drew my focus back to him. He swiveled only his misty dragon head, the kid’s still pointed at Asher, reminding me of that chick from The Exorcist.
“Why don’t you join us, Architect?” he asked in a mocking tone. “Come, now, sweetheart. I can almost hear the wheels turning in that sharp mind of yours. Come, ask your questions, before my friends start shooting one another.”
Oh, I’d come all right. I’d come and kick him so hard in the acorns, he’d barf out an oak tree. That wraith needed to die. Well…again, since he’d already died once.
Erecting a scowl to put Asher’s to shame, I rounded the corner and entered the room with bold strides. I couldn’t understand why my knees weren’t knocking. Okay, so fear sat in there like a blade against my spine, but between Asher bleeding, and Baku being all B-movie-villain and insulting, I’d moved on to pissed off. “Here I am, dickface. You hurt any of them, and I’ll evict your ass and worry about the consequences later.”
Asher scrubbed a hand down his face as he turned the air blue with curses that made me cringe inside. My inner voice told me people who winced at the f-bomb shouldn’t be trying to face down a mob of people with wraith-riders and guns, but it could go lick a stump.
More sinister laughter spilled out of Baku, lifting all of the hair on my body to attention. “Some things never change. Your humanity is always what fails you. I have to wonder why you try so hard to save it.”
How would he know anything about me? “Screw you. My humanity is what separates me from the animals, especially the psycho dragon mantises.”
“Shut. Up,” Asher barked.
“You shut up,” I snapped back, “I’ve got this.” I did? As the rest of the johnny-wearing clan arrived in the doorway—twelve at first count—and filed around to block the exit, I wondered how the hell I thought I could get us out of this before the cops arrived. They had to be almost at the museum, given how much time had passed since we’d set off the alarm, so why couldn’t I hear any sirens?
Maybe Kyle had been able to call them off through the computer system somehow? Either way, I needed to focus on getting Asher and hightailing it out of here.
“So, here’s the deal,” I said. “I came like you wanted. Let Sir Grumps-a-lot take his scowling butt and get lost, and we’ll talk.” No wonder most sentinels chose to forget their families and have no meaningful relationships—not that they could do the latter any longer what with all of us needing to get hot and heavy with our conduits. Seeing Asher in danger crushed my heart every time. If he hadn’t been having death dreams about his woman, would he eventually have said good-bye to her anyway to keep her safe from the dead?
“Oh, you are so amusing,” Baku said. “No, I’d quite like him to stay.”
Figured as much. The hip-hop kid sounded disinterested. Something pinged me in the brain, that I was missing something, but I didn’t have a clue what.
“Fine, whatever. What were you trying to imply before about the stuff in this museum and the universe being out of whack?”
Sighing, Baku raised his shoulders in mock innocence. “Ask your great founder, though he’ll probably confuse you with yet more lies.”
Oh, I’d ask him all right, as soon as I got the hell out of New York.
“So you were the sole ruler of your planet?” Might as well find out what I could about him while buying myself some time. “What was it called before you blasted it all to hell?”
His dragon head reared up and bared its teeth, his spines folding forward. “More of his treachery. Ask him. Ask him why our sun died and my people either froze to death or had their souls ripped out in the explosion.”
Well, that was unexpected. Izan had admitted partial responsibility as if it was no big, but what could have kicked off such a catastrophic event that it burned out their sun? Could the same thing happen here? Had Izan meddled in their world before coming to Earth? Questions clouded my mind until it turned too dark to see.
I moved closer to Asher while trying to keep an eye on the rest of them. Izan told me to go with my instincts, so I pushed the rest of the chaos aside for the moment and tried to listen to them. What had I learned from my journey so far?
My storm had grown. Asher could summon people by thinking at them through the Shift. Kyle’s energy seemed to be able to talk to computer systems, and Iris could manipulate locks with hers. Weird, but how did that help me?
What could I do with my power, other than act as a doorway the dead could use to live again on Earth, reassemble the Machine, and find pages? If Asher and I could have shared power, would we have been able to push out the wraiths from the bodies they’d possessed? We could do one for sure, but a dozen? How could we even do that without killing their king? I supposed it didn’t matter, because Asher conducted my juice about as well as a pair of rubber boots conducted electricity.
I took another step toward Asher, still clueless about how to extricate us from Baku’s snare.
“That is far enough,” the shaved-headed woman said, pointing those white eyes at me while shoving the barrel of her gun against a young blond guy’s forehead. The guy’s wraith must have receded, because the white faded from his eyes, which saucered when he noticed the number of weapons around him.
I glared at Baku. “Did you do that to him, force his wraith back inside?”
He shrugged, appearing amused.
“Oh Christ, what’s happening?” the blond asked, raising his hands into the air. “How did I get here? Who are you people? Am I dead? I’m dead, aren’t I? I’m sorry, Papa. I’m so sorry.” He’d probably checked himself into the hospital to get help, gone to sleep, and had woken up in the middle of my nightmare. Poor guy.
“You’re not dead,” I said. “Just…be quiet and don’t move. Everything’s going to be all right.”
“Liar, liar,” Baku cooed. “Do you believe her pretty lies, friend?” To me, he said, “Move any closer to your sentinel, and I’ll shoot this poor quivering boy in places that won’t kill him right away.”
I stopped and held my hands out in the universal I’m-harmless pose.
Baku went to the woman, petting her shaved head. “I do regret what my people have done to yours. Our presence damages the mind a little more each time, making it easier for another to find a home there. That, too, is Izan’s fault. If not for his kind, we’d never have found you in the first place.”
Oh, hell. I’d always thought the wraiths liked minds that suffered mental illness, but they caused it? Did that mean schizophrenia, depression, and psychopathy hadn’t existed before they came? Where did Izan fit into it all?
Four feet, maybe a bit more, still separated me from Asher, whose body vibrated with rage. I needed him in my arms, or behind me, o
r a hundred miles away from anything that could hurt him. What did I hope to do if I could get to him, since we’d still be trapped with the crazies until the cops came? He wasn’t my conduit, and it wasn’t like I could force his energy out of him to join with mine.
On the tail of that thought, a zap coiled down my arms. Just like the pages drew me after I went looking for them, I became aware of Asher’s energy waiting beneath his skin from clear across the room. Whoa. I’d seen him light up before, but I’d never touched that power. Had I? Something tweaked my memory, but the harder I searched for what had caused it, the more needles stabbed into my brain.
Asher couldn’t conduct my storm or merge his energy with mine, but could I call his out of him and wield it along with my own as two separate forces? And even if I could, would it be enough to fry them all before we ended up drained dry? Either way, he was probably going to be ten shades of pissed if I even tried it, but what other option did I have?
Now or never, Addy. I just had to pry Asher’s power out of him and into my control, push a dozen wraiths out of their people without Baku using our mojo to rip open the veil again, and turn them into snow without killing the king. All without tipping them off that we were about to unleash on them. Good times.
Chapter Thirteen
I met Asher’s fear-glossed eyes and wondered how to convey what I needed without words. A lot of winking and grimacing only made him scowl and whisper, “Have you lost your mind?”
“I don’t want to fight with you right now,” I said out of the side of my mouth, “and I don’t want you to fight me.” Come on, get it through your thick skull!
“Isn’t this darling? A lover’s spat.” Baku sauntered around us in a circle.
“Screw you.” I really wanted to rip him a new one, but I shut up.
“Show me a trick, Adaline, and I’ll let these people walk away. Though I fear they’ll be worse off than I found them. I’d suggest taking out your anger about that on your founder.” Baku swept his arms up and grinned brightly, like a child anticipating a death-defying high-wire act. What did he really want from us?
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