by Dean Murray
Chapter 13
The rest of the day went by in a blur of stops and starts that was like nothing else I'd ever experienced before. Once Jace got me calmed down, we headed toward my first class, which also happened to be Jace's first class. I guess that shouldn't have surprised me.
In the course of finding out what we were currently studying, Jace found out that I'd had homework that I was supposed to have done the night before. Predictably he demanded that I let him bend time and speed us up enough that I would be able to get my homework done before class.
I tried to argue with him, but the best I managed to do was get him to agree to only speed us up to half the speed he'd originally wanted to use. It wasn't a clear victory for me, but as nearly as I could tell bending time wasn't a linear kind of thing. Going from double speed to quadruple speed didn't just use twice as much power, it used a lot more than that.
Keeping the time field down to just eight times normal meant that it would cost Jace a lot less than it would have at sixteen times normal. It was still going to use up a chunk of base memories, but at least it would mean that I wasn't making him tap into peak memories.
I wasn't sure I was going to get even that much of a concession out of Jace, but when I made the point that I could still get my homework done as long as we did a number of shorter studying sessions spread out over the day, that convinced him.
Once we agreed, Jace led me to one of the abandoned classrooms and used telekinesis to unlock the door. He then flipped on the lights and covered the windows with an illusion to make it look like it was still dark and abandoned.
It took me twenty minutes to get ready for my first class, at which point we headed to homeroom and I turned in my homework while Jace went through all of the new student stuff like introducing himself to the class and getting a book.
Jace took the next several study sessions and then handed me off to Kat during lunch to do the next one. I felt less bad about Kat bending time for me because she actually did have homework that she needed to get done. I was pretty sure though that she pushed things up higher than we'd agreed though, because once we were done with our assignments she didn't seem like she was in any hurry to get to our next class.
"So what's the verdict about tonight? What did your dad say?"
"Oh, right, I should have told you already. He wasn't very keen on it, so I asked him to wait to make a decision until after he'd had a chance to meet with you."
Kat sighed. "Okay, what were his objections? Presumably I'm supposed to meet him after school gets out but before it's time to go get Ari?"
"Yeah, sorry. As for the objections, he mainly didn't like that there weren't going to be any adults there and was worried that you had more money than sense."
"Okay. Well, I guess I'm going to be missing PE today."
"Wait, what do you mean?"
She shrugged and gestured at her clothes, which consisted of jeans and a t-shirt from some eighties band I'd never heard of before. "If I go talk to your dad wearing this he's going to see everything he's worried about. I've got to go home so I can change and redo my makeup."
Something was off, Kat wasn't usually this curt. The coward inside of me wanted to just pretend that nothing was wrong, but that didn't seem like a very good way to start off the third day of a relationship that might last for the next several hundred years.
"What's wrong, Kat? If it's about the fact that you have to meet with my dad, I'm sorry. You said it was vital that we go on the trip and I could tell he wasn't going to go for it, so I did the only thing I could think of. Can't you throw a whammy on him or something and make him agree to let us go? You did it with Mr. Reynolds…"
"I hate using the worship-me aura, Selene."
"Wait, that's what I've been calling it inside of my head."
That earned me a smile. "That's what you called it when you taught it to me. You didn't like it very much either, but it seems like we just can't get away from using it."
"So use something else. You and Jace are the next best thing to all-powerful. If you don't want to use the worship-me aura then use something else."
"There isn't anything else, Selene. Mortals have their free will; it's just how things work. Mindreading, compulsion, all of that stuff is just pure fantasy. If one of us wants something from one of them then we either have to trade for it, play upon their emotions, trick them, or threaten them. Our powers can make it easier to do one of those things, but no effect is capable of doing it for us.
"I could amp up my body to the point where I could break your dad's bones as easy as breaking a toothpick, and hurting him might be enough to make him allow you to leave, but once we were gone there wouldn't be anything other than that fear to stop him from calling the police."
I started to stand, fists clenched, but Kat waved me back to my seat. "I'm not going to hurt your dad, Selene, it was just an example."
I hadn't even realized what I was feeling until that moment. The anger had just pushed its way to the front, ready to fight and even die if necessary to protect my dad. I wouldn't have said it would be possible for anything to short-circuit my rage so neatly, but Kat did it without even needing to touch me. It was like she'd known exactly what I was thinking and feeling and that had given her the perfect tool with which to defuse me.
"Seriously, sit back down. If you go into oxygen debt I'm not going to amp you up, I'll just drop the time effect and leave you here to either recover or suffocate. I've used way too much power over the last few days."
I dropped back down into my chair, confused by the way that she was treating me. "I'm sorry, Kat. I don't want you to have to burn your memories like this. Let's be done—we'll go back to class and I'll just not turn in my homework. It won't be the end of the world."
"That's just it, Selene, you don't get it. I don't have any other choice. You'd never go for us taking a fear approach with your dad—not that we'd want to anyway—so that means we either have to trade for what we want, play to his emotions, or trick him.
"No father worth the title is going to trade his daughters for cash, and that includes accepting something in return for putting you in a situation where he doesn't think you'll be safe, so I have just two options to work with. Both those options work best if he isn't suspicious. You need to continue to get good grades and carry on as though everything is okay or my job is going to get even harder."
"This isn't about my dad."
The words came out without me even realizing I'd opened my mouth, and they came out with the kind of bold, unapologetic tone that I'd always admired in Kat, but only rarely managed myself. It was like throwing gasoline on a fire. Kat's energy surged up and this time it wasn't warm and friendly, it was cold and prickly. Her face had gone so hard she almost looked like another person.
"You should keep your opinions to yourself—they aren't wanted."
"Well, tough. If you're going to drag me along behind you without even telling me the full story then you're going to have to deal with me opening my mouth and interjecting my opinions."
"I could kill you right here and nobody else would ever even know."
I actually laughed in her face. It was the last thing I should have been doing, but it was like the other version of me, the one who had spent decades as friends with Kat, was reaching forward in time and controlling me.
"Good luck with that, Kat. Jace would never buy it and we both know it, but that's not even the real reason why you aren't going to kill me."
"Oh, yeah?"
My mind was spinning frantically. Up until now, everything had just exploded out of my mouth of its own accord, but whatever had been motivating me was gone. Now I had to cash the checks my mouth had been writing. I opened my mouth intending to stall, and then it hit me.
"You're not going to kill me because I'm your last hope. You said it yourself last night. The other pantheons are hunting you and Jace as we speak, and the two of you aren't strong enough to stand up to them. Hell, based on how scared you a
re, there's a good chance that the three of us won't be strong enough to survive against what's coming for us, but at least with me you might have a chance."
"You figure that all out by yourself or has Jace been going off script again?"
"Some of both, but mostly things are just starting to click for me. It's rare that one of us dies in a big blaze of glory, isn't it? I mean it probably happens, maybe that's even what happened to me, but usually conflicts between different pantheons are just long drawn-out affairs where the side with more people wears the weaker side down, makes them burn up all of their memories until they are helpless and they can be dispatched by any idiot with a knife and a vendetta.
"With me in the pantheon we'll be adding memories fifty percent faster. That's a lot of extra power in a pinch. It just might make the difference if we get cornered at some point in the future—and that's not even accounting for the fact that I'm apparently some kind of savant researcher who could tip the scales irrevocably in our direction if I manage to unlock the right secrets of the universe."
We stared at each other, neither willing to blink for several seconds before I raised an eyebrow and tilted my head to one side.
"Well, Kat, what do you say? Am I getting warm?"
"Yeah, you did surprisingly well. For a second there you almost had me convinced I was talking to the old you, the one who wouldn't have let me get away with this kind of crap."
"So what am I missing?"
"You're missing the fact that once your powers fully manifest you're only going to need two hours of sleep per night as compared to my five, and you're missing the fact that Jace would do anything for you. He'd cut me loose in a heartbeat if that's what he thought he was going to need to do to keep you."
It was the last piece, Kat wasn't just scared of the other pantheons, she was afraid that we were going to abandon her when times got tough.
"Kat, I would never—"
"Don't say it, Selene. That's just going to make it worse when you end up deciding to cut your losses. You still don't get it. I have to sleep for five hours a night. Five. That's three extra hours a day spent in a useless slumber that doesn't do anything to generate base or peak memories either one. Even compared to Jace, I need an extra two hours a day of useless sleep."
"That's—"
"No, don't say it. I know it doesn't sound like much, but over the course of months and years it starts adding up. I'm a four-banger in a world of V-8's. I stay in the running by using peak memories to fill in when my store of base memories starts to get low, but the older you get the more jaded you become and the harder it is to form quality peak memories. My time is already running short. Jace remembers almost a hundred and fifty years together with you and me. I barely remember eighty at this point. I fill back in with my journals, but I'm already down in the danger zone. If another pantheon finds us and we have to make a run for it, I could lose twenty years' worth of memories in just a few days."
"Oh, Kat. You poor thing."
"Yeah, poor Kat. I'm nothing more than a pawn. Most pantheons would chew me up and spit me out. They'd drain me dry in just a century or two, and then once all of my peak memories were gone it would only be a matter of time before I'd end up dead."
"Only these aren't the old days, are they, Kat? Back then dying just meant you had to start over with no knowledge of what you'd lost. Now in a world with digital cameras and social media, once you're used up it's game over. You'll never get another chance to have your power awaken. You'll be killed over and over again. Never knowing why powers you can't even hope to understand are out to get you."
She was crying. I got the feeling that didn't happen very often. As quickly as the tears had arrived she started bringing herself back under control.
"It's okay, Kat. If you need to cry then cry. I won't tell Jace any of this if you don't want him to know."
That brought a smile to her lips. "Don't kid yourself; the two of you are incapable of keeping secrets from each other."
"I'd do it for you. I think you're right that it would be hard, but I'd do it anyway."
"No, there's no need. Jace is fully aware of just how much of a basket case I am. I don't know how you do this. It was the same way back before you died. I can count the number of times I remember crying on one hand, and each and every one of them was because you said exactly the right thing at the right time to bring my tough-girl act tumbling down."
"I'm sorry…"
"Don't be—you just helped me form another peak memory. Maybe someday this will be what keeps me alive when my number otherwise would have been up. You always were better at triggering strong emotion in me than I was at triggering it for you. You've always been a better friend to me than I deserved."
I shook my head in protest. "Don't say those kinds of things, Kat. I'm sure that isn't true. Just over the course of three days you've proved that you're a great friend. I can't think of anyone else who would burn a peak memory just to show Sandra up like that."
"Yeah, I've always had a weakness for making that whore look like the idiot she is."
"Wait, you mean Sandra is one of us? She's an Awakened too?"
"Either that or she's a copy—a mimicry. She's a dead ringer for the bane of your existence, of course she went by a different name back then."
It was so obvious I couldn't believe that I hadn't seen it before then. Sandra and I had the same birthday. That meant that we'd died within seconds of each other.
"Kat, I'm going to ask you a question and I want you to tell me the truth."
"Selene, sometimes we're better off not knowing—"
"She's the one who killed me, isn't she? It was Sandra who did it."