by Jeanne Allen
I look down at my very flat stomach.
“What?” Pregnant? Already? With the Phósopoi Savior baby? I was so not ready to be mother to some kind of superbaby, or mother to any baby, really.
Kin chuckles, her laughter ringing like bells, echoing over the valley before us. “No, my dear, not now. Though soon, I believe. Foresight is not one of my strongest Gifts, but I feel that it will happen within this year.”
My eyes widen. I had been pretty calm during Kin’s whole “end of the world” spiel.
Well, okay, sort of calm, mostly… well as calm as I could be.
The thought of being a mother within the next year throws me. My breathing shortens again, and my limbs do that tingling thing they do when I’m overwrought.
When Kin tries to place another calming hand on my back, I brush her off. “No. No more forcing me to accept this. Let me think.”
She nods in understanding and rises to step back. I lurch to my feet to pace, my brain working a mile a minute. As I wear a path into the grass hill, I consider my options.
Can I do this? Can I become mother to some sort of champion and protect it while some evil entity tries to destroy me and mine?
I don’t think I have a choice. Kin said she only had three seeds, and she already used them in my family line. It’s not like I can just ask her to pick a different set of Agora mothers. I mull over what this revelation might mean for me and for my guys.
Thankfully, as the logical-scholar part of my brain takes over, my breathing evens out and the tingling stops. Thinking things through gives me clarity and confidence, though not much; it’s enough to take a long shaky breath and face Kin.
Her eyes are the purest shade of sunshine. She was giving off motherly-vibes before, but now she looked at me with a face full of patient love. The back-of-my-mind voice chides that I couldn’t know what familial love looks like because I’ve never felt it before, but I’d seen similar expressions on Queen Jaqueline when she looks at her sons, or even on Alexander when we first met. I know Kin loves me.
“You can send your emotions like Lucas?” I question.
She nods. “It is one of my abilities, yes. One of the many I Gifted to my children.”
If the Phósopoi Gifts are a reflection of Kin’s actual abilities, then she must be very, very powerful.
Kin smiles at my thoughts. “Yes, but unfortunately, my brother is just as powerful, and we don’t have much time.”
“Until the baby?” The fact that I can say it out loud surprises me, but Kin continues before I can consider my growing acceptance of our situation and my history.
“No. Until he finds you.”
“How long?”
“About another ten minutes.”
“What?”
“My brother’s creations are on their way toward your hotel. One of them sensed your presence when you entered the state of Georgia. You must go back now and warn your Kladí.”
“But—” There was so much I wanted to ask her, so much more I needed to know. My throat sticks over the lump of question I’m trying to get out in time.
“I will come to you again, if I can. Now, go, my child, and be safe.” Kin comes toward me and wraps me in a hug full of warmth, sunshine, and love.
I inhale deeply her uniquely spicy scent, like cinnamon on a fall day.
When I finally open my eyes again, I’m staring at the peeling ceiling of our motel room.
Chapter 11
I lay there for a few moments before realizing I’m alone on the bed and wearing a motel bathrobe. A quick look out the window tells me it’s daytime, and another glance at the digital clock on the bedside table tells me it’s well into the afternoon.
The time reminds me of Kin’s parting words.
“Ten minutes!” I shout, jumping off the bed and scrambling to find my clothes.
The door to the hallway opens, and Lucas and Lyle rush in, Lucas with his hands full of coffee and Lyle with a bag of something probably edible.
“You’re awake. Mother Hen was going to have a hernia if you didn’t wake up soon. How are you feeling?” Lucas puts down the coffee and bounces over, picking my t-shirt off of the floor and handing it to me, his eyes drinking in the sight of me struggling to get into my jeans.
“No time to talk. We have to go now. Where are the rest of our Omás?” I look to Lyle, who usually knows where everyone is at any given time.
“Jin and Jackson went to get gas, and Sebastian and Forrest went to contact Sebastian’s family.”
I look over at the clock; five minutes have passed since I woke up.
“What’s going on, Rose? You’re scaring me.” Lyle puts his bag down next to the coffee and comes over, his arms open for a hug which I give him hastily.
I look up so I can see his eyes, full of worry as usual. “I’ll explain later, but we really need to get out of here now. Where did Sebastian and Forrest go to contact his family?”
“There’s a payphone outside the convenience store a few blocks over,” Lucas supplies, already picking up the bags and clothes in the room.
“Let’s go there,” I suggest, rushing to help Lucas.
Lyle nods, and soon, we have all of our things in hand.
Lyle goes to open the door, but just as he’s about to, he’s blown back by the door exploding open.
“Lyle!” I shout, dropping the bag I held in my arms in a feeble attempt to catch him.
He flies backward onto the side of the bed with a grunt. I have just enough time to check to see that he’s breathing before my attention is drawn away by an appearance in the doorway.
Seems like our ten minutes are up.
A scream echoes through our small room, torn from me at the sight of the nightmare in front of us.
The beings at the door might have once been human. The shape and form of their limbs and the way they shuffle in toward us denotes a certain humanoid ancestry, but that’s where the comparisons stop. Large boils cover the skin visible on their arms and neck. Jeans cover their legs, the same black as the loose t-shirts they wear, but I can only imagine the rest of them must look the same.
Between the boils, veiny skin is visible in patches of several different colors, some parts as dark as the two Kladí in the room with me, some as pale as my own complexion. Stringy gray and white hair frames their heads, which have no eyes, no mouth, and no nose. Nothing to latch onto, just more bulbous skin that wrinkles when the creatures tilt their heads, as if unseeing eyes are considering our strength.
They shuffle into the room, boxing us out of our only exit.
I’m about to scream again when I hear sharp laughter come from behind the massive beings.
“Oh, dear, silly me. Should not have led with the Generation Ones. They do tend to frighten.” Slipping through two of the three faceless creatures, a man emerges.
He reminds me of the Keńos. The grace he exhibits as he saunters closer to us is animalistic in nature, and his features also remind me of a predator. I half expect him to pounce when he gets close enough.
Instead, he tilts his head and considers us, just like the creatures he called Generation Ones. His eyes are bright and tawny, the shape more of a cat than a human. His hair is voluminous and shiny, the ochre hue offsetting his golden skin. If he had walked into an average bar in an average town, I’m sure he would have created quite the stir. However, I’ve lived long enough amongst the Phósopoi to ignore beauty, especially when it’s matched with such cruel eyes.
“W-what do you want?” I stammer.
Lucas draws back to stand with me. Lyle picks himself up and moves to come up on my other side. Both of my Kladí put a hand on my shoulder in a silent show of comfort and strength.
The tawny-eyed man smiles. “You know what we want. That useless little lightening bug failed in his task, so now I get to be the one to bring you to Master. How fun.” He smiles at his last words, showcasing canines far too large for a human, and far too frightening for his jovial tone.
; “We won’t let you take her,” Lyle states, his tone also calm. He speaks as if this man came over to borrow a cup of sugar.
The man looks at Lyle and smirks. Then, he turns back to me. “We can do this the hard way, and you will have to witness the death of your Kladí. Or you can come with me, and I won’t have to get my clothes dirty.”
Both Lucas and Lyle tighten their grips on my shoulders. He can’t speak telepathically, but the emotions Lucas pushes into me are strong enough to get the gist of what they’re saying.
“I don’t think it’s my decision to make. And besides, we’re strong enough to handle you.” I speak with as much confidence as I can, drawing strength from the Kladí who stand beside me, but I know they’re just empty words. Even I can tell that the faceless creatures are stronger than they look, and the man before me has the aura of one who knows he’s the most powerful in the room.
“Fine,” is all he says before stalking toward me.
Instinctually, I call on my power, which coils around my arms much faster than when I called it in the Mists. I’m surprised to see that the golden specks I witnessed in the Mist are still there, intertwining with the blue I long ago associated with my willpower. I’m so distracted by the appearance of my power that the tawny-eyed man gets close enough to grab my arm. He yanks me forward, away from my Kladí, his hold hard enough to leave bruises.
Lyle reaches for me, but one of the faceless monsters throws him across the room. Lucas, on my other side, battles with the two remaining monsters. Even though they don’t have any combat Gifts, the twins hold their own, using what little extra strength they possess as Kladí.
“We really don’t have to do this, darling. All the master wants is to talk with you.” The words are spoken in my ear, whispers that send a shiver down my spine.
Kin would not have warned me about this attack if these creatures could be trusted. I grip my whips firmly and lash out at my captor, who howls in pain, dropping me as he backs away. A gash opens on his check, dripping blood, and a flash of satisfaction is all I get before he kicks me in the stomach with enough force that I blackout for a second.
I come to staring at an ugly stain on the motel’s beige carpet. Turning my head, I notice that the color of my Agora Power has turned to straight gold. The vibrant blue is nowhere to be seen.
The second thing I notice is that it’s no longer fully wrapped around my arms. Only thin tendrils connect us as the bulk of my power wraps around the tawny-eyed man, holding him in midair. Apparently, my assumption that only my blue Agora Power was sentient had been ill-formed. Satisfied with the menacing way the gold power wraps around cat-boy, I spare a second to look over at my Kladí, wondering if I should help them. To my surprise, both Lyle and Lucas stand over the prone form of their faceless attackers.
When Lyle notices my raised eyebrows, he grins. “We Bonded, remember? Took a minute for our new Gifts to surface. Apparently, I can put someone in a coma. Must be related to my Healing Gift.”
He looks proudly at the creature before him, pushing it with his foot. The creature flips over a bit so I can see that his chest is, indeed, rising and falling, and he’s in a deep sleep like what held Sebastian for so long. Nodding at Lyle, I turn to Lucas, who also stands before two slumbering creatures.
“You, too?” I ask, incredulous.
Do twins manifest similar Gifts? I wonder.
Lucas shakes his head. “My Emotional Gift just got stronger. I can influence emotions with more accuracy now, to the point of influencing actions. I made them feel very, very sleepy.” He grins at me, but my Goblin is missing his usual mischief.
That’s when I notice a large bruise on his arm and the way he holds his ribs. “Lyle!” I shout.
In a flash, his brother is fussing over him, clucking over his wounds in an almost disapproving manner.
With the twins taken care of, I turn back to our Mr. Cat, who glares at me with such stark hatred I’m tempted to retreat. A wave of reassurance pulses though the golden strings of my power, connecting from my arms to the web that entraps this creature and silences him.
Squaring my shoulders, I prepare to get some answers from our rude guest. He mentioned that the “lightning bug” failed. I don’t know if the moniker refers to Lewis or Nathanial.
“Who are you?” I ask sternly, mentally directing the web to loosen around his mouth to allow him to speak.
The man just smirks at me and mutters something so quietly I can’t catch the words. A second later, he vanishes, leaving behind only a few wisps of ash, like the last remnants of a burning fire.
Incredulous, I turn toward my Kladí. “Can we do that?”
Lucas grunts his laughter, his face still screwed up in pain from whatever Lyle is doing to him.
“A few Kladí have the Teleportation Gift, but no, not usually.” Lyle makes a disapproving noise before glaring at me from his position hovering over Lucas’s ribs. “Shh, no talking. I can’t work if you’re moving around. Stop asking questions, Rose. We can talk about all of this later.”
Thoroughly chastised by Mother Hen Lyle, I move to inspect the monsters the henchman left behind. All three of them still sleep, sprawled out on the floor in varying degrees of extremely uncomfortable-looking positions.
Inching toward one of the nightmares, I’m about to work up the courage to poke it when I hear the distinct shout of Professor Evans.
“Rose!” His eyes blaze with worry and fury, the color something more akin to deep jade than forest-green. His blue sword is drawn, and he looks ready to chop the next person who moves a muscle.
“Calm down, Professor. I’m fine.” I purposefully use the title to snap him out of battle mode, and thankfully, it works.
His shoulders relax, and his eyes regain their usual soft olive color as he scans the room. He winces at the bruise on my arm but visibly relaxes when he finds no threats. The sword disappears, and Forrest appears soon after, looking less battle-crazed than Jackson but just as relieved to discover the twins and I are alright.
“What happened?” he whispers, rushing over to inspect my arm, gingerly rubbing where the henchman left a hand-shaped bruise.
“We were attacked,” I whisper back, folding myself into the comfort of my most sensitive Kladí.
Once I got past his tough-guy exterior, I found Forrest to be the cuddliest teddy bear and world’s best hugger. He obliges, wrapping me in his considerable arms. They’re so large that I have to stretch my neck to peak at Jackson, who is poking at the faceless monster Lyle put in a coma.
“Attacked by these things?”
“And something even nastier,” Lucas grunts. He doesn’t sound like he’s in as much pain as before, but his weariness turns his voice gruff.
“Nastier than this thing?” Jackson seems more curious than worried.
I figure it’s because we’re not in immediate danger. I push at Forrest to turn me around so I can see. Jackson looks up from his inspection, so obviously disgusted by the henchmen that I burst out laughing. “You look like the Queen does when she sees anything the least bit dirty.”
Jackson freezes, his eyes widening for a second before he offers a low chuckle of his own. “I guess I’m not as free of my upbringing as I thought.”
Behind me, Forrest chuckles as well. We should all be more worried by what transpired, but too much has happened in the last few weeks. I think our threshold for intense situations has risen to the point that not even faceless henchmen of all-powerful aliens can knock us down for long.
I eye the creatures. “What do we do with them? How come no one has called the cops? I don’t think we were very quiet. Plus, the door.”
This time, Forrest answers. “They did, which is how we knew something happened. Sebastian is down there right now utilizing his new Gift. Apparently, he can now influence intentions as well as detect them.”
“So can Lucas, with emotions,” I offer.
Jackson glances over to Lucas and smiles proudly. “If the two of you wor
k together, you’ll be able to fully convince anyone to do what we want.”
Lucas, now free of his brother’s fussing, reaches into the pack on the floor to pull out a clean shirt and answers Jackson with a grin of his own. The Goblin is back in full force, his eyes twinkling at all the trouble he can wreak with his new powers. “I better go help him,” he sings, before gliding to the door.
“Only help!” Lyle calls after him. “No pranks, no jokes. I mean it, Lucas!”
But Lyle’s warnings come too late. Lucas is already through the door, and we hear him running down the hall toward the elevator.
“I’m not so sure Lucas needed to get any more powerful,” Lyle mutters.
I feel the vibrations of Forrest’s silent laughter and struggle to hold in my own. In an effort to keep our Mother Hen from worrying even more, I reiterate my earlier question to Jackson. “What should we do with them?” My arms are still held captive by Forrest, so I nod in the direction of our slumbering ogres.
Jackson winces as he looks at them again, his expression turning from disgust to contemplation. After a moment, he answers. “We need to travel light, and I don’t trust anyone to hold them for us.”
His mouth draws into a grim line. With no warning, the sword appears in his hand, and in a simple move, he slices through the first monster’s neck.
“How…” I blink up at Forrest, confused.
He shrugs. “Seems the twins and Sebastian aren’t the only ones to discover their new Gifts.”
Still confused, I glance at Lyle, who inched over to my side once he spotted my bruise.
“Gift of Strength,” Lyle whispers, momentarily distracted from healing my arm.
I stare at him in surprise, both because I didn’t feel him begin the healing at all and because his voice holds more reverence than when talking about his or Lucas’s new Gifts.
Lyle smiles at me kindly. “Strength is a rare Gift, actually. As is Speed. You’d think it wouldn’t be, but both are some of the most useful Gifts, and only the most powerful Kladí develop them.”
I nod in understanding, but then look down to where I can see the white-blue colors of his power swirl around my healing bruise. I still feel nothing.