From behind my new fortress I felt the safest I had since the kidnapping. Either Alexander was the good guy he made himself out to be, or he was the evil bastard I feared him to be. Either way, I’d learned more in a couple of days with him than I had in a couple of months at the Institute. If he turned out to be evil, I at least had a shot at escaping. I’d defeated a Root Demon with no training. In time, I could defeat Alexander if I needed to.
“It’s good to see you smile,” Alexander said.
“It’s good to have reason to,” I said. Yet even as I did, I felt just how strongly I hoped I never had to fight Alexander. Not just because I needed his help, but because I found myself actually…liking him.
Alexander indulged my ambition, staying with me as I practiced the two forms of Partitioning over and over again. I needed them to become second nature, requiring no thought on my part.
When it was time for dinner, he had us served poolside, right where we’d eaten lunch six hours earlier. Six hours? I hadn’t even gotten up to go to the bathroom.
Alexander seemed willing to continue after dinner, but once again, breaking for food had allowed exhaustion to creep in. No amount of Partitioning could keep it out, so I surrendered, retiring to my room for the night.
The dream starts as it always does: skin prickling, hairs standing on end, hovering.
But that’s where the similarities end, because this time, I opened my eyes.
I am suspended, not above ground but above nothingness. Miles of nothingness. The electric charge in the air grows more intense; my skin feels increasingly hotter and my mind goes back to that other time, those other burns.
Wake up, I tell myself. Wake up right freaking now.
But I don’t, and when the air grows even more dense and buffets me against nothingness, my scream is silent, vocal cords too paralyzed to produce sound.
And then I’m being pulled down. Down into the nothingness. Down into what lies beyond nothingness. The feeling is vaguely familiar, and when realization dawns, not even terror can keep the scream from coming.
No, no, no… It’s not real, It’s not real!
I repeat the phrase over and over as my descent picks up speed. A familiar stench fills my nostrils, causing my blood to run cold in direct contrast to my burning skin. My thoughts become frantic as I try to figure a way out, try to understand why this is happening.
Alexander is the only answer, of course. Whether he’d put something in my food or just caused me to lower my guard with his grandiose ideas, I’d left myself open and now the Root is pulling me into the demon dimension.
I don’t waste time on rage; I’m falling too fast for such an indulgence. I have to go up.
UP!
I’m being shaken now. Over and over again as a pull stronger than gravity sucks me deeper, I am jolted to my core.
“Ember, wake up, wake up!”
My eyes flew open.
I was back in the villa bedroom. Alexander had a grip on my shoulders, though he ceased shaking me. His eyes searched mine, worried.
“Are you alright?” he asked, his voice anxious.
I just stared at him and remained mute. It hadn’t been a dream. Not this time, and maybe none of the others, either.
“It’s all right; you’re back now. You’re safe,” he said, his demeanor so sincere I was tempted to believe him, but I didn’t dare.
“Back from where?” I said, my throat raw, wondering how he would know unless he’d been the one doing the sending. Or allowing it, at the very least. “How did you know I was gone?”
“You were screaming bloody murder,” he said, abashed at my suspicions. “I could hear you from my suite. And as to knowing where you were… How do you think your Institute learned to perform Retrievals in the first place?”
“Then why didn’t you perform one?” I said, biting off each word. “Shaking me doesn’t exactly qualify.”
“I didn’t think you required one,” he said. “You were still tethered strongly to this world, otherwise barely a word would have escaped your lips. I didn’t want to interfere unless you needed me. Would you have liked me to just pop into your head without permission?”
I shook my head. He was right about that. And the screaming. Were I more in that world than this, my physical body would have been nearly comatose. Could I believe his concern or was this just another way to prove his trustworthiness to me?
“Can you tell me what happened?” he said, taking my affirmation as a sign I was ready to open up.
“There isn’t much to tell,” I said.
“Indulge me,” he said. “Please.”
There really wasn’t much, which made it seem unlikely that sharing it would come back to haunt me.
“It was a dream. At least, I thought it was, but then I was being sucked into the demon world,” I said, then decided to see how much information I could get from him. “Has it happened to you?”
“When I was a child,” he said, which could have come off as condescending, but instead just struck me as sad that a mere child could be subjected to such horror. “It was the most frightened I have ever been.”
“Who Retrieved you?” I said.
“My mother,” he replied with a nostalgia that quickly disappeared. “Enough of that. Please, tell me exactly what happened. No detail is too small.”
“It started a while ago,” I said. “As a dream. Then a nightmare. But this one was more than that.”
I went on to tell him the whole of it, which took all of two minutes. When I finished he appeared thoughtful, his expression one of respect.
“What you describe is very good news,” he said. “It’s what I’ve suspected for some time now.”
“We have very different ideas of what constitutes good news,” I said.
“We won’t,” he said, with a knowing smile. “Not when you hear what I have to tell you.
23
“Have you ever wondered what lies between the two worlds?” Alexander asked.
“You mean the Gateways?” I said, suddenly feeling less like I was going to be learning anything profound.
“A fair answer,” he acknowledged. “But not the only answer.”
My flesh pebbled and I said, “I’m listening.”
“What have you learned about how the Gateways were formed?” he asked.
“Well, I don’t exactly know how,” I said, “but I know it took the power of all the Daemons on the side of the humans.”
“And has your Institute told you what happened to that power once the Gateways were complete?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. “No,” I said finally. “I assume it went back to those who were wielding it.”
“That would be the way of it,” he said, “had all of the Daemons survived.”
I tilted my head. “So, then…what did happen to it?”
“Energy doesn’t die,” he said, “and cannot be destroyed. So it lies in wait.”
“For what?” I asked.
“Apparently,” he said softly, leveling me with his penetrating gaze, “for you.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. “For me to do what?” I said.
“To use it,” he said. “To claim your birthright.”
He rose then, and held out his hand for me to take. I laid my now trembling hand in his, and he led me to the full length mirror.
I wore my usual sleepwear, pajama bottoms and a tank top.
Alexander turned me around so that I had to look over my shoulder to see my reflection. His touch sent an involuntary shiver through me as he slid the thin strap of my tank aside to reveal my tattoo.
When I’d begun drawing parts of the symbol—long before I’d ever heard of the Gateway—I’d had no idea what they represented. Even when I’d combined the pieces, I considered it an elaborate doodle. Later, I learned that the swirling lines had a deeper meaning.
“You see here,” he said, tracing his finger along the symbol, “the Tree of Life, with a cen
ter trunk and branches on each side, representing the Gateways. But what’s this?”
He traced his finger over the line that split the circular symbol in half.
My voice quivered in much the same way my insides did when I said, “It symbolizes the separation of the worlds, each a mirror of the other.”
“Very good,” he said. “Do you know what it’s called?”
“The Dividing Line,” I said, thinking back to my lessons.
“That’s not what we call it,” he said. Before I could question who he meant by, “we,” he leaned even closer, as close as he had been when he showed me his eyes. The air between us was as charged as the air in my dream when he said, “We call it the Chasm.”
Like a struck tuning fork, I resonated with the word.
Chasm.
“And that’s where the leftover power is?” I said, though I didn’t need his nod of confirmation.
For a moment we stood there, holding each other’s gaze, his fingertips resting lightly on my bared shoulder.
But then Taren flashed in my mind and I cleared my throat, taking a giant step away.
“Why me?” I said, pacing. “You said it was waiting for me. Why? Why not you?”
“When you fought with the Root Demon, how did you do it?” he said.
Annoyed at the switch in gears, I said, “I jumped into Its mouth, though I’m sure you already knew that.”
“Before that,” he said, unfazed. “You fought with It.”
“I…I hit It,” I said.
“With what?” he asked.
“With…I don’t know,” I said, hating to admit the huge gap in the Institute’s—and my—knowledge. “Air, I guess.”
He made a “tsk” sound and shook his head slowly. “Not air.”
“Master Dogan thinks—”
“I don’t have the smallest care for what he thinks,” Alexander said, covering the distance between us and gripping me lightly by the shoulders. “Tell me what you know.”
I swallowed, the intensity of his gaze holding me fast.
“It was too…electric to be just air, it felt like…”
“Like?” he said, still not letting me go.
“Like what I felt in my dream.”
“But you said it wasn’t a dream. You know it wasn’t.” When I didn’t respond he continued. “You said you haven’t been able to do much with your power since then, true?”
I nodded. “Master—” I stopped myself from saying his name since it seemed to annoy Alexander. “He said it might be because my life wasn’t in danger, but then it was in danger and I still couldn’t... I never told him about the PTSD thing.”
“It wouldn’t have made much difference,” he said, understanding, forgiving my deception. “Without him knowing where your true power lies and how to access it, he wouldn’t have been much help.”
I was going to defend Master Dogan again—he really was a good teacher, when it dawned on me just what Alexander had said. “What do you mean, where?”
“The Chasm,” he said, his eyes flashing. “You are the rarest kind of Daemon, Ember. Even though you are only part Daemon you have the ability to be stronger than most full-blooded Daemons. Stronger even than me.”
If the admission pained him, he didn’t let it show. He looked downright thrilled.
“Why?” I asked when I’d regained my breath.
“Because while you have some measure of power all your own,” he said, “your true strength lies in being able to claim the power that has been lost to the rest of us for millennia. You are not yet strong enough to hold it, which is why it left you the second the Root was dead, and why touching the Chasm leads to you being pulled down where you’d prefer not to go. But with training, you will be more powerful than you or your Master Dogan could have ever dreamed.”
His excitement was contagious and I found my heart beating faster. “And you… you can train me to wield that kind of power?” The memory of that electric air, and what it now meant, flooded my being. “What about you? Can you acces—”
He silenced me with a shake of his head. “My talents lie elsewhere,” he said, without a trace of bitterness. “But yes, I can and will train you. Together there is nothing we can’t accomplish.”
“An end to the Gateways,” I said, once again breathless. “An end to the demon influence on the world?”
“For starters,” he said with a smile.
24
I had a million more questions, but when he asked which was more important, staying awake and asking them or getting some sleep so that I was able to continue training the following morning, the latter won out.
Of course once he’d taken his leave, I was too excited to actually sleep. Instead my mind spun with the possibilities of a new world—a world which suddenly seemed within reach. When morning finally arrived I bounded out of bed and was waiting for Alexander when he arrived at the table outside for breakfast.
“So,” he said, shortly after sitting. “I promised you that when the time came you could choose. If you decide to leave, I will let you, but if you do, I cannot ever allow you to contact me again lest your Institute make life difficult for me. If you stay, I will train you so that you are able to wield unimaginable power, and in exchange, you will help me gather Daemons and form a new kind of society. One dedicated to helping, not being separate from the world.”
My mind swirled with thoughts and emotions too fast for me to catch them. It wasn’t logical, it was completely from my gut when I answered.
“Yes,” I said breathlessly. “I will help you.”
Once the words had popped out of my mouth I cursed myself for not having added some conditions. But when I back-pedaled, Alexander was gracious as ever, agreeing to my terms.
I would be able to contact Taren and let him know I was alright, though I had to agree not to reveal anything about my location or what I was doing. Taren would be able to join us later when I’d had a chance to convince him that this was the best way—the only way—to ensure the safety of our world, but for now his request for discretion seemed valid.
Also, I would be able to make regular calls to my mother, again not revealing anything. Alexander also assured me that by the time my original trip was to be over, I could tell her the truth and she too, would join us.
Just thinking of Mom caused my heart to swell. The idea—the possible reality—that through my efforts she might be able to live untouched by mental illness was almost too much comprehend. It was what I’d longed for since I was a kid, and now, with Alexander’s help, I could make it happen.
Alexander might have disdained Utopia, but this sounded as close as I was likely to get: my loved ones safe (and sane) and myself working to my full potential toward the highest goal I could think of—severing the ties between our world and the demon dimension.
To my delight, we began right away, with Alexander explaining further about the Chasm.
“Close your eyes and breathe normally,” he said. “Not forcing the breath to be deep or long, just let it be as it is.”
Following his direction felt easy, natural.
“Now, pay attention to the space between the breaths,” he said, and for a moment I was confused.
What space?
But there it was—a gap, the briefest of pauses between my exhalation and inhalation.
“Good, now don’t try to alter it in any way, just observe it. What does it feel like?”
His voice had a hypnotizing affect, even more so than Master Dogan’s.
“It feels…empty,” I said. “But not in a bad way. Like in that small space, anything is possible.”
My eyes closed, I felt more than saw, Alexander’s smile.
“So it is,” he said. “Much like your ‘not a dream,’ the space is pregnant with possibility. Stay with it.”
I took a few more breaths, riding each like a wave.
“Tell me,” Alexander said, his voice as smooth as my inhalation, “are you afraid of exhaling?”
<
br /> “Of course not,” I said. “It’s a necessary part of—”
My words were cut off by my wide smile. Of course. It was the cycle again: life, death, creation to destruction. I opened my eyes.
“So you’re saying I don’t have to be afraid of the downward pull I feel when I’m in the Chasm,” I said.
“Precisely,” he said, and I felt myself warm with his approval. “There will always be a downward pull, but ride it out, and there will be an upward one as well. The key is to lengthen your time where the real power is—in the middle. Now, close your eyes again, and this time we will work on touching the Chasm.”
On and on we worked, my excitement growing with each new kernel of information, each new experience. Yet by the time we broke for lunch, I realized that when he’d said “touching” he meant precisely that. After hours of work, that was all I was capable of. Alexander reassured me that it was a process and told me to be patient. I found myself wanting to please him as much as myself; to prove myself worthy of his teaching and the power he was helping me access.
While we dined poolside on some of my favorite foods—I was beginning to think Alexander’s spies might not be an entirely bad thing if it meant I was getting authentic Mexican in the South of France—Alexander taught me a new game.
“And then?” he asked.
The original question had been, “What is your ideal world?” For every answer I gave—world peace, an end to poverty, an end to racism—he would say, “And then?”
I was down to the trivial by the time I said, “Free coffee for everyone!”
I giggled and he smiled. It was fun to not only imagine, but plan the ideal world. To know I could have a hand in making it. The sun was warm on my skin and the warmth that comes from peace of mind emanated from within.
“How many of us will we need to make it happen?” I asked.
The Gateway Trilogy: Complete Series: (Books 1-3) Page 33