“What are you doing?” I asked. Desmond was hunched over his workbench, stirring some sort of purple liquid in a small bowl. An array of objects were set out on the bench. Among them was my letter opener.
“Analyzing a potion,” he muttered, not looking up. “Is there a reason you’re down here?”
“Maybe,” I said with a sigh. “I’m not exactly good at this.”
“Good at what?”
“Um… Apologizing,” I muttered.
He poured his mixture into a bottle and stoppered it before looking up at me.
“No, I imagine you aren’t,” he said, but there was no accusation in his voice. “And I suppose I too must apologize because although I am willing to forgive your indiscretion, I am less inclined to believe that your sentiments are not completely self-serving.”
“Um, ouch!”
“Hey, I apologized in advance,” he reminded me. “Nai, do not think that I don’t understand the hardships you and your brother are dealing with. I imagine you are both quite frustrated to be doing the same, seemingly useless job over and over, but I assure you, I am working on that.”
“About that,” I said. After the ordeal with the vampire, I’d nearly forgotten that Desmond had a meeting with Mr. Marsden. “What did you learn earlier? He’s hosting the wraith, isn’t he?”
Desmond’s face registered surprise, but recovered quickly. “No, I’m afraid the situation is a bit more complicated than that,” he said, turning back to his bench, reaching absently for the letter opener. Now it was my turn to be suspicious because it was instantly clear that Desmond was being evasive.
“But he is possessed, isn’t he?”
“He is affecting the student population, yes,” was Desmond’s non-answer. I was beginning to see a pattern here.
“Which is the reason why Discordant are showing up at the school,” I concluded.
“That is correct.”
“So, it would make sense for Jem and me to be prepared for an attack.”
“Forget it, sister. You are not getting the weapon back.”
“Why not?” I asked. Now I was just mad.
“For the last time, Nai, without the training of a Warrior, you will most assuredly create another mess. You are also quite likely to endanger the lives of the innocent.”
“So train me,” I countered. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to have two Warriors when it’s obvious that there are more Discordant than you can handle? Jem’s more than capable of doing the Guardian stuff himself. He even likes it.”
“You are a Guardian, Nai,” Desmond reminded me unnecessarily. “You would do well to remember that. If I require assistance, I have more than enough mystics who are capable, magically inclined, and most of all, of age.”
Ugh. The last part was an unnecessary low blow. Donna was only a couple of years older than me and Jem and one of the other witches wasn’t much older than her. I hate that. You would think that someone who has been around as long as Desmond would recognize that turning eighteen isn’t some sort of magical event that automatically turns immature kids into adults.
“Fine, how about a compromise,” I said at last. “I won’t try to do your job and I won’t bug you to train me if you answer my question with a simple yes or no answer and not this evasive crap you were giving me.”
“What question is that?” Desmond asked.
“Is Mr. Marsden possessed by the wraith?”
He looked at me for a moment, opened his mouth, and shut it again. “No,” he answered finally. “No, he isn’t.”
“Okay then,” I said. “Thanks. I’ll get out of your hair.”
I ran up the stairs and into my room, locking the door behind me. With that one word, I’d learned two very interesting things. One, I didn’t have to soul gaze to see into Desmond’s mind. And two, he had lied. Gary Marsden was the wraith host and he knew more than he was letting on. Now it was up to me to use this information to put an end to this once and for all.
Chapter 8
Anger Management
By the time my sister and I had been Guardians for almost a month, even I was beginning to feel the strain of frustration. No matter what we did, the number of lost never seemed to diminish. It was almost like that movie, Groundhog Day, where that guy had to relive the same day over and over again until he stopped being a jerk or whatever. I tried to be patient and understanding, but not knowing the reason why we were unsuccessful was starting to eat away at my confidence. Before that, not much really bothered me. Not even Nai and she tried hard to bother me all the time. But there was only so much even the light half of a split soul could take.
I didn’t think much of the empty chair next to me in eighth period English. Nai skipped more classes than she attended, so I assumed that she was hanging out in the library, playing Monster Curse or just studying the wiki. It bothered me that she was less concerned about saving lives than learning about the Discordant, but I let it go. After all, it’s not like we made a whole bunch of progress and as long as we didn’t actually lose anyone to the Discordant, we were doing our jobs, no matter how futile.
But as I sat, half listening to the teacher and half wondering how I was going to get the attention of the lost kid three rows away, something weird happened. It wasn’t a vision, exactly, more of an impression, a connection to Nai that I didn’t even know we shared. Somehow, I knew she was in trouble. What it didn’t tell me was that she had done something so completely stupid that she put her own life in danger. When the teacher turned around to write on the board, I slipped out the door and took off running for the bathrooms.
Studying how to destroy the Discordant was one thing. Trying to actually do the job of a Warrior was just crazy. When I saw all the blood, I didn’t say anything. I just texted Desmond and didn’t stop to think about the consequences. I didn’t even know what he was capable of or whether or not my sister was going to get into trouble for what she did. It wasn’t until after Desmond got rid of the vamp and yelled at Nai that I realized how close she was to being cycled.
I didn’t want to think about it. I went to my last class and threw myself into saving as many souls as I could so that I didn’t have to think about it. When the bell rang, I left. I didn’t wait for Nai. I ran home, ran up to my room, and tried to distract myself from thinking about the scene in the bathroom by playing video games. It didn’t work. I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened and what had almost happened. Finally, I heard Nai stomp up the stairs and slam her bedroom door. I got up and went to her room. The door was locked, so I knocked.
“Nai, open this door!”
There was no answer, so I knocked again. Harder.
“I mean it! I’m going to break it down if you don’t!”
The door opened and Nai glared at me.
“For god’s sake, can I take a piss in private? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“What the hell is wrong with me?” I asked, snorting in disgust. “Nai, what the hell is wrong with you? Do you realize how incredibly stupid you are? What were you thinking? Was it worth nearly getting cycled to try and kill a vamp?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Yeah, I know. It really was such a dumb mistake on my part. But Desmond is dead wrong. A thirsting stake is actually going to be really easy to forge.”
“What?” Now I was getting even more upset. “Nai, you’re a delusional cow! You aren’t a Warrior. You’re not even a very good Guardian and… and… no one even likes you!”
I hadn’t realized I was yelling until Nai flinched. Her eyes went wide and she shook her head at me in disbelief.
“You’re mad at me,” she said. Her tone wasn’t so much accusatory as it was surprised.
“Of course I am! What did you expect?”
“This is fascinating.”
“Well if you weren’t such a… Wait, what?”
“Get in here,” she said and stepped aside.
“Huh?”
“Just do it!” Nai yanked me into her room an
d shut the door, locking it.
“Follow me,” she said and opened her closet door, pushing aside her clothes, revealing the stairway to the attic.
“Great. Where are we going, Narnia?”
“Ha-ha, you are so funny,” she replied in a monotonous voice. “Just be careful and don’t touch anything.”
“Touch wha-” I cut off as I looked around. I’d only been in the attic once when we first moved in. There had been boxes of junk left behind by previous owners, but nothing of real interest. Apparently, Nai had been busy. Most of the junk was gone. What was still there was boxed up and neatly stacked in the alcoves under the windows that ran along the front of the house. Along the back wall, Nai had built a makeshift worktable. On its surface sat a bunch of seemingly random objects, but I knew better.
“Nai…” I began but she cut me off.
“Shut up, Jem.”
“No, Nai. I won’t shut up. What are you-”
“You’re too stupid to understand even if I wanted to explain,” she said dismissively.
“Okay, that’s original,” I huffed, getting more irritated with her.
“Just talking down to your level.”
“Screw you!” I said at last, sick of her unnecessary insults. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I just had to be sure I wasn’t projecting,” she muttered, walking over to the worktable, where she picked up a notepad and scribbled something. “Definitely odd,” she muttered, as if suddenly oblivious to the fact that I was even there.
“Oh my gosh! Will you please just speak English?”
She looked up from what she was writing and smiled at me, which was weird under normal circumstances.
“Jem, you’re pissed! You’re throwing so much anger at me that I wouldn’t even believe it was you if I couldn’t see your soul for myself. Seriously, I had to make sure you weren’t possessed or something,” she added, holding up her leaf of golden shade.
It was my turn to roll my eyes. “Don’t be an idiot Nai! We can’t be possessed and besides, why wouldn’t I be mad at you? You’re acting like a total… Oh!” My eyes went wide as I realized why Nai was so happy and why it felt as if my life had been turned upside down.
I was angry. Not mildly upset or worried, but full-on pissed off at my sister’s antics. Nothing had ever upset me like this. Not even the time she locked me in a closet and told our parents that I’d run away from home.
“Am I balancing?”
“Well, you were,” she said, shaking her head with a sad sigh. “But now you have that stupid puppy look on your face again.”
“But that’s impossible!” I sputtered.
“Look, I don’t want to shatter your little world or anything, but I think there’s a lot going on that no one is telling us.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Like the fact that I can forge weapons.”
“That doesn’t matter if you can’t use them properly,” I argued.
“But I can,” she insisted. “Look, what happened today was a stupid mistake, but Jem, I shouldn’t have even been able to do that. And your wards. I can’t make individual wards like that and according to everything I’ve read, that’s not a typical Guardian trait either.”
“Wards?” Now I was confused. “Wait, are you talking about the protection spell?”
Nai nodded. “Whatever you call it, it’s the same thing. You save someone and they don’t automatically revert back to lost. I can’t do that. Even the ward I put up on the bathroom today disintegrated when you came through it.”
I found that odd. “It’s just a simple spell that I learned from Donna and in case you hadn’t noticed, it doesn’t last forever.”
“Yeah, but it lasts. Every idiot that I save just goes lost an hour later. Wait…” She wrote something down and narrowed her eyes at me. “Donna taught you that? We can’t do witch magic, Jem. Weirder still, we can’t do Discordant witch magic.”
“How do you know it’s Discordant?”
Nai huffed. “Ugh! You heard the other one, what’s her name. She said that Donna was the best at wards that kept Discordant out because she’s a Nyx.”
Okay, she was right and that was odd. When Donna showed me what she did, she was impressed that I could copy her, but she didn’t act like it was a big deal. She, like me, assumed that this was something that Guardians could do.
“Okay, so we’re weird. We knew that. I mean, that Harry guy pretty much said as much when we went to meet him. But I think everyone’s overreacting. I mean, we’re a split soul. We’re already weird.”
“No, there’s a lot the others aren’t telling us,” Nai insisted.
“Maybe. Or maybe you’re just paranoid because they keep stuff from us so that you won’t go off half-cocked looking to hunt Discordant.”
“No, it’s more than that,” she insisted, reading off the notebook in her hand. “Harry definitely said we were different and not in a split soul way, right? I can do things that only Desmond is supposed to do which might have something to do with me drawing power from holy water. You can do witch magic, which is not only mystic, but also Discordant, and holy water is repelled by you. Not only are these things weird, but there is a double layer of weirdness when you realize that I’m the dark soul and you are the light.”
Okay, fine. When she put it that way, it did seem a little weird. “Sure, but no one is trying to hide that from us.”
“Directly, no,” she admitted. “But boy have they tried to downplay all of it. Anyway, forget that. Yes, they are keeping things from us. Desmond knows that Gary Marsden is the wraith host, but he just straight up lied to me when I asked him.”
“Lied?” I asked, incredulous now. “He’s been telling us since I first thought Mr. Marsden was the host that we were wrong. Did he say what was actually possessing the guy?”
“No, Jem, trust me. He flat out lied,” she said. “Okay, first he was evasive, but when I told him that I wanted a straight yes or no answer, he said no, Mr. Marsden isn’t the wraith host, but he was lying. He knew it and I knew it and I’m willing to bet your life’s savings that he knew that I knew that he was lying.”
“Um…” Now my head was swimming with all of Nai’s he said, she said business. “I don’t even have a life’s savings.”
“I’ll prove it,” she said, setting down the notebook. “Tell me something and I’ll tell you if you’re lying or not.”
“Um, okay…” I tried to come up with something and realized it was harder than it seemed. “My art teacher is Mr. Bradley.”
“True,” she said.
“The girl who sits next to me in art is blonde.”
“False.”
“She was wearing a green shirt today.”
“Tricky,” Nai said with a smirk. “You think this is true, but you’re colorblind and her shirt is blue. You also have a massive crush on her.”
“What? I do not…”
“Whatever. Looks like you can’t lie to me either.”
Admittedly, that was creepy, but I was still skeptical.
“So what does this mean?” I asked. I still wasn’t convinced that the reason Seth and Desmond may be hiding things from us was sinister.
“I don’t know,” Nai admitted. “But I’m going to find out.”
“Why do I not like the sound of that?”
“Because you’re a goody-two-shoes wussified wimp who is too dumb to know just how dumb he is.”
“Are you trying to make me mad again?” I asked flatly.
“No Jem, that’s just the truth. I can’t lie to you either.”
“B-bitch,” I muttered, surprising myself.
Nai’s eyes opened wide. “Impressive!”
“I’m sorry,” I said hastily.
“Ugh, you were so close.” She shook her head and laughed at me.
“So what about you?” I asked. “Having any nice or happy thoughts?”
“Nope, I’m still a first class bitch,” she said, but she smiled like
she was actually proud of the fact. Sadly, if I knew Nai, she probably was.
“I’m going to go do my homework now,” I said and climbed back down the stairs, through Nai’s clothes.
“Aren’t you going to do it at Louie’s later?”
“Nah, I want to get it out of the way. You have me thinking now. I want to look into something else tonight.”
“But you’ll bring it with you, right? So that I can copy it?”
I smiled, feeling sorta wicked. “No, I think you should do your own homework.”
“What?” Her eyes opened so wide that I thought her eyeballs would pop out. In fact, she looked a little like Bogie when he wasn’t glamoured to look human, but even now, I wasn’t quite bold enough to tell her that, so I just stuck out my tongue.
“Hey! One more thing,” Nai called out right before I closed the door to the attic.
“What’s that?”
She hesitated and looked strangely uncomfortable for a moment.
“Were you telling the truth when you said that mom read you normal bedtime stories?”
“Yeah, of course,” I said. “Didn’t she read them to you?”
“No,” Nai said with a tired sigh. “She didn’t really ever spend much time with me.”
I couldn’t miss the hurt in Nai’s words because being a Guardian made it a tangible feeling. So much so that I physically winced. But I was confused as well.
“Weird. Well… I guess I’ll see you at Louie’s,” I said as I closed the door and left.
I went to my own room intending to do my homework. I had only been teasing Nai about not letting her copy it, but I really did want to get it done and out of the way. But all I ended up doing was staring blankly at the pages of my textbook, unable to concentrate. Nai’s declaration was shocking, but in a way, it didn’t come as a shock. We’d been twins, but even as small children it had been clear that we were totally different.
While I played and laughed, Nai followed our father around, silent and somber. She would read only the giant volumes of historic mythology that he kept in his study. In her own way, she hero-worshipped dad, striving to be as he was, a respected historian, but at the same time, she was critical of his human side. His jokes, that always got a laugh out of me, just seemed to annoy Nai. The cleverness of our names made her angry. It seemed the only way to make Nai smile was to tell her about the battles between titans or the crazy things that Zeus and the other gods of Olympus got up to. In hindsight, it was rather creepy to think that Nai was laughing and delighting in the story of Zeus transforming into a swan for the sole purpose of getting it on with some ancient Greek chick.
Splitsville (Rise of the Discordant Book 2) Page 12