“Ruben?” I half-asked uncertainly, suddenly remembering Ronald had a twin brother.
“Ronald said you were smart.”
“I don’t get it,” Quinn piped in.
“And he said you were a little slower to catch on,” Ruben added smugly. “In spite of your evident potential.”
I ignored his comment. “Quinn, this is Ronald’s twin brother, Ruben,” I clarified.
“Ronald has a twin?”
“Yes. They’re both Augurs.”
“Thanks for showing up,” Quinn said, relief in his voice.
“Yeah, thank you. We’ve been looking for Ronald for weeks but haven’t been able to find him. Where is he? Is he okay?” I asked.
“He’s fine, although extremely preoccupied of late. It seems you two have caused quite a bit of ruckus, so he asked me to come all the way here and bestow certain information upon you.” Ruben made it sound like he was bending over backwards to do this favor for his brother.
“What ruckus? Has he figured out how to help us out of the mess we’re in?” Quinn blurted out.
“Those are two very complicated questions,” Ruben replied.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Why don’t we take a walk around the block,” Ruben suggested as he looked over my shoulder at a couple settling in at a nearby table. “It’s getting a little crowded.”
“I have a better idea. Let’s go back to my house,” Quinn offered.
“Lead the way.”
*
Quinn, Ruben, and I sat outside on the patio while Dylan and Minerva swept the perimeter. Ruben had assured us he could feel no other immortal presences in our midst, but Dylan and Minerva wanted to make sure it stayed that way.
“So, what can you tell us about the Servants?” I inquired. “Are they going to try to convert Quinn on the eighteenth? Are they going to try to kidnap him before then?”
“I cannot speak to that, but I can tell you as long as you remain committed to your present course, it is unlikely they’ll succeed.”
“So, Quinn will be fine?” I held my breath waiting for his response, but Ruben didn’t answer my question.
“Well, will I?” Quinn demanded.
“Soothsaying is not a science. We see many different possibilities. Which one will become reality depends on many factors and choices beyond our control or influence—you know, free will and all.” He rolled his eyes.
“So, what possible futures do you see for Quinn—for us?” I asked. “What choices do we need to make so he’ll be safe?”
“For my brother’s sake, I do wish I could tell you,” Ruben replied.
“Let me guess the rest—but you can’t,” Quinn said flippantly, completing Ruben’s remark. “That should be the tagline for all immortals.”
“Moxie,” Ruben mused, “I like that.”
“Can you at least tell us what we should be on the lookout for?” I continued. “Last time, Ronald told us there was a traitor among us, and he was right.”
“My brother,” Ruben said, shaking his head. “Such a bleeding heart for the human condition, always sticking his nose in where he shouldn’t.” He sighed heavily as he crossed his legs, repositioning himself to shield his face from the sun. “Do you happen to have a bottle of sparkling water?” Ruben asked Quinn. “Perhaps with a wedge of lime? I can already feel the heat of what will be a scorching day.”
“I’ll see what I can find,” Quinn said politely as he got up and headed towards the house, but not before he flashed me an annoyed look.
“Definite spunk.” Ruben smirked as he followed Quinn with his eyes.
“So, what don’t you want to say in front of him?” I inquired.
“You’re quick. Spunk and smarts—not a bad combination.”
“Well?” I demanded, feeling my frustration begin to fester.
“Ah, so you’ve also got some fire in you,” Ruben continued. “Well, we’ve run through every conceivable scenario based on the potential obstacles and the decisions Quinn and you will likely make.”
“And?” I jumped in anxiously.
“And in the end, Quinn will not walk away from this unscathed,” he said telepathically.
“What do you mean?” I replied silently. I couldn’t have possibly heard him correctly over the alarms sounding in my head.
“I mean, I’m sorry.”
“‘You’re sorry’?” I shot back. Confusion and panic filled my mind.
“Yes. Eve, Quinn will not survive the Servants’ attack.”
This time I heard Ruben’s words loud and clear; I just refused to accept them.
“No,” I stated aloud firmly, feeling as though my chest was in a vise grip. How can this be? “You—you just said—you told us Quinn would be fine,” I whispered angrily. “That as long as we kept doing what we’re doing, the Servants wouldn’t hurt him.”
“This time,” he replied.
“What do you mean ‘this time’?” I continued in a hushed voice.
“You might be able to keep Quinn safe from harm now, but the Servants will try again. At some point, they will grab him, and when they do …”
“Are you saying I’m going to lose him?” I eked out. I felt my body go completely numb.
“As I see it, the only question remaining is whether you will be able to save his soul.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“You’re lying!” I growled furiously under my breath, fighting back tears.
“I wish I were.” Ruben actually looked sympathetic. “Trust me when I tell you my brother is tirelessly searching for a different outcome. Unfortunately, he has yet to discover any variables that would change the inevitable.”
“Well, then, he’s not trying hard enough,” I spat out through clenched teeth. I could no longer stop the tears from rolling down my cheeks. “I refuse to let this ‘prophecy’ of yours come true,” I continued telepathically, “I won’t let it, do you hear me? I’ll sacrifice myself before I sacrifice him.”
“I suspect you would. However, I doubt that would change anything.”
“One sparkling water with lime,” Quinn announced as he walked out of the house with Ruben’s beverage. I covertly wiped my tears away and took a deep breath to calm myself. It took everything I had not to start hyperventilating on the spot, and the last thing I wanted to do was alarm Quinn.
“Thank you, young man.” Ruben smiled as he accepted the drink. He took a long sip. “Ah, delicious. Bubbles in water—so unnecessary, yet so refreshing!” he mused. “I will give you humans credit for one thing—you have mastered the art of indulgence. You want for nothing.” He held up his hands at the Harrisons’ house as if to illustrate the moral of his story.
I just sat there, feeling sick to my stomach, reeling from what Ruben had just told me. I suddenly wanted him to leave.
“I thought gluttony fell under the purview of the seven deadly sins,” Quinn stated, smiling.
“My, my,” Ruben said, returning Quinn’s smile. “Now I know my brother was holding back—brawn and brains were definitely not on his Quinn list. And in response to your statement, yes, it does—but it is an entertaining ride down that ethical slippery slope, isn’t it?” He took another sip. “Mmm.” He placed the near-full drink on the nearby table. “Well, it was interesting to meet both of you, but I must be going.”
“But you just got here,” Quinn remarked in surprise. “You haven’t told us anything.”
“Miss Eve and I spoke while you were fetching my drink.” Ruben stood up and brushed off the imaginary lint from his pants. “She can fill you in.” He turned to leave, but then stopped and turned to face us once more. “A word of advice for you, Mr. Harrison—you already have all of the answers you need.” Ruben pointed to his head. “Be true to yourself, have faith, and you’ll figure out what to do when the time comes.” Before either Quinn or I could utter another word, Ruben was gone, leaving behind only a trail of smoke curling up into the sky.
“What the hell did that mean?” Quinn asked me.
I had a bad feeling I already knew—eventually, some warped notion could enter Quinn’s mind that the only solution to ending all of this was to sacrifice himself. But I certainly wasn’t going to plant that poisonous seed in his head, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to let anyone else walk him down that path. I just kept taking shallow, rhythmic breaths, counting the beats between each inhale and exhale. My mind began to buzz quietly, and I welcomed the white noise. It was all I could do to try to distract myself from the crushing news.
“Evie?” Quinn’s voice was sounding farther and farther away. I could feel him grab my shoulders and turn me around to face him, but I couldn’t see anything except for darkness.
“Evie?” Quinn said loudly, snapping me out of my trance. I looked over his shoulder to see Dylan and Minerva standing in the doorway. From their expressions, I knew they’d overheard some of my conversation with Ruben.
“Evie, you’re beginning to worry me. Tell me what he said.”
“I—I have to go,” I whispered, still unable to look at Quinn. I was so scared. Scared for Quinn. Scared for Dylan and Minerva. Scared for myself. Tears welled up in my eyes again, and I turned away so he couldn’t see me.
“Evie.” I felt Quinn’s grip tighten, and he pulled me into him. His scent filled the air around me, making my body ache even more at the possibility of losing him.
“Quinn.” I took a deep breath, swallowed back my tears, and mustered up what little strength I had left. “I’ll be fine. I—I just have to leave.” I had to find a way to change fate. I had to find a way to save Quinn. The Journal—the answers we needed had to be in there. I only hoped Tartuf would understand why I had to take it.
“Don’t do this, Evie,” Quinn pleaded. “Don’t leave and shut me out.”
“Dude, let her go,” Dylan said as he put his hand on Quinn’s shoulder. He nodded once at me; he knew what I was going to do.
Taking another deep breath, I looked up at Quinn and forced a smile. “Quinn, I’ll be back soon.” I felt Quinn’s grip loosen, but he was still tense. “I promise.”
I kissed him and felt like the shield protecting my soul cracked the second our lips touched. Knowing I couldn’t hide the tortured look on my face any longer, I stepped out of his embrace and immediately phased out of view.
Rather than teleport myself straight to Tartuf’s office, however, I took a detour and headed to the Falls. I phased in and immediately broke down, wrapping my arms around myself as I sunk down onto my heels and rocked myself as tears streamed down my cheeks.
“Hey,” I heard Dylan call out from behind me. “I thought you’d stop by here first.”
“Where’s Quinn?” I mumbled, wiping my face with my sleeves in an attempt to hide my crying.
“He’s fine. M’s got him.” A second later, Dylan was crouched down in front of me, his arms embracing me tightly. This gesture, this simple act of compassion, tore down the last of my defenses. I buried my head in Dylan’s chest and began to sob uncontrollably.
“We knew it wasn’t going to be easy, K.C., but that doesn’t mean we’re ready to throw in the towel and call it quits.”
“You heard Ruben. They’ve run through the variables and every scenario ends with Quinn—” I couldn’t finish my sentence.
“That’s because they’re playing out every one of their scenarios—not every one of ours. Those yahoos are working with nothing but a bowlful of eggshells and fish bones. All we need to do is change it up for them—find better ingredients, better ‘variables,’ to introduce new scenarios and change Quinn’s outcome.”
I looked up at Dylan with tear-filled eyes. “Dylan, those ‘yahoos’ are Augurs. Their purpose is to see the future.”
“But that doesn’t mean there’s only one or even two futures to be seen. Ruben said it himself—what they do isn’t a science. The future depends on different factors and choices—factors we can bring in and choices we can make—‘You know, free will, and all,’” Dylan mimicked Ruben perfectly and grinned, but I wasn’t in the mood for his humor.
“And how do you suggest we change the future?”
“I don’t know—open ourselves up to new ideas, to the unexpected. But one thing I do know is that we can’t quit trying to figure it out.”
“And if we don’t succeed?”
“Hey, if we’re going to do this, you need to have a little more faith.” He stood up and offered me his hand. “Now,” he said as he helped me up, “weren’t you heading off somewhere to go get a Journal?”
“Yeah.” I wiped under each eye with my fingers.
“Seems like the perfect place to begin searching for something unexpected to me.”
I nodded and smiled weakly.
*
Wanting to leave nothing to chance, I searched through Tartuf’s office to try to find another hidden gem that might provide some additional information than what was just written in the Journal—I hoped to find a cheat sheet telling me exactly how to stop the conversion ritual from happening. Tartuf had quite the collection, and even narrowing my search to only his journals made finding the answers I wanted no easy task. I tore through the volumes with unparalleled speed and determination, but there was nothing else on the Servants.
There were books about shape shifters, soul eaters (complete with recipes—yuck!), soul hoarders, demons embodying the seven deadly sins, demons that specialized in manipulating the four major elements found on Earth, and others that could manipulate the weather, wreaking havoc by creating natural disasters. There was information on reapers, Death Dealers, fallen angels, succubus and incubus demons, vampires, leviathans, imps, hellhounds, harpies, sirens, warlocks, and a variety of half-demons, such as Moon Mercenaries. I even saw a handful of notes about black magic, voodoo, ancient tribal rituals, possession, and exorcisms, as well as your run-of-the-mill spirits—poltergeists and other angry or mischievous phantasms. The list went on and on.
There were also volumes of journals on the hierarchical structure common to most demonic clans. For example, Warriors fought on behalf of the clan while Henchmen protected certain higher-up clan members. Guards watched over imprisoned souls, whereas Persecutors tortured them. Retrievers, Messengers and Slaves sat on the lowest rungs of the demon totem pole—but still, there was nothing about Servants.
After I’d searched most of his office, I looked at my watch. It was pushing nine-thirty at night in Chicago. I had to get back to Quinn. I unlocked the secret panel under Tartuf’s desk and grabbed the Journal. I had to trust that everything I needed to tip the scales in favor of Quinn’s survival was written inside.
I quickly wrote a note to Tartuf, apologizing for borrowing the Journal and telling him I’d return it shortly. I stuck the note into the secret panel underneath the desktop, locked it, and returned the key to its original location. Then, I hastily straightened up the rest of his office, returning it to more or less the same disastrous state it’d been in when I arrived, and teleported myself back to Quinn’s bedroom.
“Quinn?” I called out as I hid the book in one of Quinn’s dresser drawers. “Dylan? Minerva?” I descended the stairs when I didn’t hear anyone respond. None of them were there and there was no note letting me know where they’d gone.
I pulled out my phone and checked my messages—zero. I looked at my texts—none. I teleported to the Falls, but they weren’t there either. When I returned, I texted Quinn to find out where they were, but when I didn’t hear back after a few minutes, I got even more worried. I looked out front and noticed Quinn’s Defender was still there. My mind began to think in terms of worst-case scenarios, and it took everything I had not to panic. I was about to form my own one-man search party when I heard their voices at the front door. I ran to the door in relief, opening it to discover Quinn, Dylan, Minerva, and Quinn’s brother, Doug, standing on the other side. I swallowed my surprise and immediately forced a big smile as I stealthily removed the engagement ring from my right
hand stuck it in my back pocket. I wasn’t about to make the same mistake with yet another of Quinn’s brothers.
“There you are,” Quinn said a little too enthusiastically, especially considering the state I’d left him earlier.
“Hey, I was worried about you guys.” I slyly flashed Dylan a little “what the hell” look, and he just shrugged his shoulders.
“Evie, this is my brother, Doug. He decided to escape the city and come up here to hang out.”
“Hey, it’s good to meet you,” Doug said, offering his hand.
“Good to meet you too,” I replied, shaking his hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you.” We all stood there for a second until I realized I was blocking the entryway. “Oh, sorry.” I quickly stepped aside. Quinn walked in first and kissed me.
“He just showed up,” he whispered in my ear.
Minerva followed Quinn, winked at me, and headed upstairs. Dylan followed Doug inside and closed the door.
“We wanted to wait for you,” Quinn continued in a tone all could hear. “But it was getting late, and I knew you’d be a while longer so we grabbed a bite.”
“Good call. I just got back a few minutes ago.”
“Did you find what you needed?” Dylan asked.
“Yes, I did,” I confirmed with a grin.
“Quinny said you were doing research for a class project or something like that,” Doug said.
“Something like that,” I stated, smiling.
“I empathize with the suck-factor of having to study during the summer. I’m in bar exam hell right now myself.”
“Doesn’t sound like much fun,” I remarked.
“Only a couple more weeks and it’ll all be over. Still, I needed a break. So I came home to spend time with my little bro. I just didn’t realize he had visitors. Hope I’m not crashing the party.”
“No, not at all,” I insisted.
“Yeah, M and I have to head out tonight anyway,” Dylan threw in, stifling a chuckle. “You know—places to go, things to do.”
Minerva came downstairs with a Louis Vuitton leather overnight bag and a large hiking pack. I had to grin at her choice of “luggage.”
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