"Naturally," he replied with a wink. He walked down the hallway with ease, breezing past other people with a small nod here and a polite smile there while I struggled to keep up with all the twists and turns. "Impressed?"
"Hardly," I lied as we made another turn and came to a stop in what looked like a grand foyer of some sort. Black marble lined the floor, six white marbled pillars bigger than the others holding up an ornately balcony crafted from cast iron and jewels of various sizes and shapes. It instantly reminded me of the box from my Mother's closet.
"Leo, what is this place?" I craned my neck as far as I could to see the delicate pictures that laid out on the ceiling. It showed broad-winged angels floating over gusts of air to a city made of tall towers and sparkling gold. Only the bottom half of the ceiling was shrouded in black, a demon etched into the far corner with horns protruding from his malevolent smile. It looked like a place crafted in the limbo of the world, caught between the darkness of Earth and the precious promise of Heaven.
"Charon," he said. "Home to mythical, the unreal. Your real home."
The second he said it, it instantly felt true. While the house I grew up in felt natural, it never felt real, not like this. This felt natural. A warm that had nothing to do with my powers spread through my body. I was home.
I walked in front of Leo and grabbed him by the shoulders. "I want to see it. I want to see it all." Then as an afterthought. "Please."
He laughed and nodded in the same movement. "Where would you like to start?"
"Anywhere. Bookshops, bakeries, anything."
He seemed to think about it for a moment. "I think I know where we should start." His gaze almost looked sad, as if what he was going to say would disappoint me. "There's a tavern just down the main road-"
"Okay," I said. A congratulatory sloshing? "I'm down for drinking until the room tap dances."
"-which is right next to an apothecary. The Alchemist who owns it is married to a lovely woman who knows every history of every kind of person to walk through here," he ignored my interruption and finished. He scratched his head absentmindedly. "They'll probably know where to start looking for anything, considering you're probably the only Nephilim in the past three-hundred years."
I gave a curt nod. "Lead the way, captain."
He turned and started to walk forward only to stop and spin around rapidly. Any space between us rapidly evaporated, right along with my breath. "Are you glad you trusted me?"
"Absolutely," I blurted out without shame. A smile spread across my cheeks faster than I could have imagined possible. It felt like every fiber of my being was singing in joy at the promise of understanding just what I was and where I belonged.
Leo extended his arm to me with a little mock-polite bow. I took his hand and, realizing I was probably breaking some cardinal rule about holding hands with other people's boyfriends, dropped it.
"No, it's okay," he said with a smile but the shock of his words read in his eyes. Every mental alarm in my head sounded off that it was a bad idea. These new surroundings were really starting to scramble my brain with what was right and wrong. This time he reached out and took my hand, holding it firmly in his grasp as I did my best not to blush or read into it.
We took our time walking down the street, Leo stopping to let me stare in a shell-shocked awe of everything around me. The city looked exactly as it had on the glass ceiling; towers of white spiraled into the clouds farther than the eye could see. Smaller brick-and-mortar houses were crafted of the same blemished white marble I had seen inside of the library, coils of golden-twisted metal lacing along the outer frame like imitation vines. Paved tawny colored cobblestones led down a wide expanse of road that ended in a cul-de-sac lined with several small shops.
It felt weird staring at everything but it was something I wanted to record to memory in case I never saw it again. Witches and wizards, goblins and centaurs, faeries and more walked past us at any given moment, each one different from the first and the last. I half expected to pinch myself and wake up from a daydream in school.
"What are you doing?" Leo asked as he watched me pinch myself for the third and fourth time.
"Trying to see if I'm going to wake up," I answered truthfully. "This just feels so..."
"Impossible? Imaginary?"
"Yes."
"Well, is the fire you create impossible? Is that imaginary?"
"Impossible, yes," I said with a laugh. "Scientifically speaking, anyway. Imaginary?" I thought back to the first night I felt the heat in my fingers, how I had thought I'd burnt them on the bonfire. How fast everything had changed from there. "No."
Leo smiled at me and gave my shoulder a nudge with his own. "Let's head inside. His wife is going to love seeing you."
Inside the shop it was darker, a thin cloud of smoke hovering against the ceiling. The upper half of all four walls held shelves sporting different bottles of color, shape, and size while the lower half had tables spread every few feet draped in ornate fabric and scrolls of parchment. At the back nestled between two tables stood a desk just as elegant as everything else, an old man twirling the ends of his white mustache while he gazed into a mirror standing behind it.
"Excuse me," I started off.
"Shh shh shh shh shhhhhhhhh." The old man held up a finger in protest, eyes never leaving the mirror. His fingers drifted from the mustache to his bald scalp to the tips of his sharply pointed ears. "The sign outside said I was out to lunch. You'll have to come back later."
"We're not here for a remedy," Leo spoke beside me. "We're here to see your wife, Lorena."
The man pulled his face away from the mirror and I let out a little gasp. Bronze colored scales covered the center of his face from the top of his eyebrows just under the chin. Cat-like eyes with violet irises blinked back at us as he regarded us with curiosity.
"My Lorena? Heavens, what did the woman do now?" He rolled his eyes and gave a haughty little sigh. "LORENA! SOME KIDS ARE HERE TO SEE YOU!"
Curtains behind the desk parted as a small, brittle looking woman gently inched out, a curious expression drawn on her face. Lines of both laughter and worry creased into her skin and time hovering over potions had hunched her shoulders into a permanent hump. But her eyes still shined like two commanding orbs of opal that could rip the truth right out of your lips.
"Kids? I don't recall anyone making an appointment." She smacked the back of the man's head as a bell rang behind us. "Next time lock the door."
I shifted uncomfortably in my shoes, exchanging a pleading look with Leo. I wasn't ready to show them my power, not with Kayden's warning still swirling around my head.
"Lorena, we came to see you on the word of my father, Artemis? We own the library just down the street," Leo spoke in a silky-smooth tone, making sure to inch closer to her. I watched him bat his eyelashes, one tiny step away from pleading on his hands and knees. "Remember?"
"Cut the flirtatious crap," Lorena cut him off. She shooed at him as if he were no more than a stray that had snuck in off the streets. "Wealthy business boy, that's all you are. Leave us be and play your pranks on someone else."
"But this isn't a-"
A hand shoved right into his face and cut him off. "Leave. Before I find that useless father of yours and give him a good crack on the skull." Her tiny frame inched back behind the curtain as she went off on a rant under her breath.
"You heard the lady," the old man chimed in as he shrugged with a bored expression glazing over his eyes. "Now could you leave? I really don't want to sleep on the couch tonight and the longer you stay the more likely that's going to happen."
Leo and I turned to look at each other. I could feel the defeat in his saddened resolve of a stare, his lips clenched tight in a bitterly depressive smile. To come so close only to be shuffled aside by the very woman holding the secrets I needed...fire blazed over my knuckles.
Jingle bells sounded from the doorway the same time someone cleared their throat. I looked over to see a willowy shape
d figure hiding under a maroon cloak beckoning us closer. Crimson fingernails longer than her actual fingers reached out from the cloak, the skin on the hand a sickly lime green.
"Follow me, Nephilim, and bring your little friend too." A girlish chipper voice sounded from under the hood before turning around and abruptly leaving the shop.
The fire vanished from my knuckles and I grabbed Leo's hand, yanking him back out onto the street before the door could shut behind the cloaked woman. Crowds of people pushed up and down the street to the point where I could barely make out anyone. The tip of a maroon hood caught my eye as it entered a pub halfway up the street. I instantly sprinted down the way, praying Leo wouldn't trip and take us both down in one fell swoop.
While the outside of the pub looked regal and designed for a couture world the inside resembled any regular run-of-the-mill drinking hot spot. A couple unsavory looking creatures sat at the counter, a lizard tale sticking out of the back of one of the guy's pants 'accidentally' getting a little too friendly with a waitress that walked too much.
Leo inched a little closer to me, his shoulders set in a rigid stance. "I don't like the looks of this place."
I thought back to the bars I'd seen in New York City, memories of vomiting and outside brawls coming back to mind. Judging by how this bar still had its floors polished and no shattered glass to be seen it looked marvelous to me.
I offered him a sweet smile. "It's not bad. Almost has a type of rustic charm to it." A green hand waved at a booth across the room, the hood still hiding her face. "Come on." This person already knew what I was, so it was time to see just how deep the waters were. I let Leo slide into the far end of the booth, his uncomfortable behavior still beyond obvious. Last thing we needed was a brawl against Lizard Tale and his groupies from the counter.
The hooded figure seated across from us giggled. "Good to know you can track a faerie."
"I'd thank your cape for that, not for any skills you think I may have," I said. Arms crossed against my chest I made sure to give my best look of revulsion. "What did you call me before?"
"Do you really want me to say it aloud in here?" The hood leaned closer and pressed both hands onto the table. "Around all these ears?"
Kayden's warning played in my head again. I leaned back in my seat and glared into the hood as Leo shifted closer beside me. "Okay, let's just say what you said earlier was right. What do you know about it?"
"Give me your arm," the hood instructed. I instantly drew it closer to my chest.
"How about we see who the hell you are for starters," I growled. The heat of my fire swirled in my chest, ready to spread at any given moment I let my guard down. "Or you can keep pushing me and watch this whole place go up in flames."
Leo's horrified expression came into view from the edge of the table. But I caught the faintest touch of a smile grace his lips as his eyes flashed with a hidden delight. "Essallie, you're not serious. You wouldn't."
I cracked my knuckles, watching the sparks jut off in different directions. Small scorch marks littered the table between us and I did my best attempt at a wicked smile. "Want to bet your life on it?"
"Okay okay," the hooded figure held out both hands like a white flag. Her long fingernails pulled back the hood in a single graceful move, revealing a beautiful face. Her skin was of the same lime green as her hands save for a large navy blue blemish that covered one of her caramel colored eyes and part of her cheek. Ears nearly twice as long as her head extended back into thin points, most of them hidden in the thick caramel colored curly mass of hair that rested on a shoulder in a half-pony tail. "My name is Serena. Satisfied?"
"Much," I said with little enthusiasm. Part of me wished she had kept the hood on. I suddenly felt very plain compared to her wild appearance. "Tell us what you know."
She stretched out a hand for a second time, fingers moving impatiently. "Give me your arm."
I rolled up my sleeve and held out my arm for her, doing my best to ignore the stares from the bruising that covered nearly every inch of my skin. She seemed unfazed by it and turned over my arm to expose the lighter skin underneath. She began to trace the patterns of my veins, lightly putting pressure on certain spots were the blue showed up stronger.
Her stare was guarded, cautious. "And how long has the bruising been going on?"
"Not too long. Kayden said it had something to do with using my power in bursts instead of all day," I frowned at her. "Why?"
She exchanged a dark glance between Leo and myself. "Everything I am about to tell you is going to make you wish you had never made it past birth."
I felt a shiver run down my spine. I wasn't sure how much more bad news I could take. Against my inner voice telling me to run back home and hide, I nodded. "Please."
Serena released my arm and sat back in her chair, a solemn expression on her face. "Your power has already come into full bloom, that is why you are bruising. Why you feel the heat of anger in here." She pointed at her chest with a long fingernail. "Nephilim are not meant to tap into their full power until they ascend with the proper binding rituals performed between themselves and their Watcher." She inclined her head toward Leo. "You have found your Watcher here, have you not?"
Leo shook his head and laughed nervously. "No, we hardly know each other."
"And you think that matters to the fate that was decided for you centuries ago?" Serena blinked her caramel eyes with mock amusement. "I can see it between the two of you, the bond is strong just under the surface. You will understand your calling soon enough, mortal."
I felt the color drain from my face. "What if he isn't, though? How are you supposed to know or find someone like that?"
"You will find them, as they will find you. A natural pull will bring you together when you do not expect it. A Watcher is connected to their Nephilim by a cosmic birthright- you both will have to have been born on the same day, year, and time." Her fingernails tapped in a lazy rhythm across her cheek as she recited the facts with a dull, dry tone. "If not, then you die."
I shot forward in my seat, leaning across the table to the point where my nose was touching hers. "What do you mean I die?"
"Sit down, child." She gave me a shove back into my seat. "I said die. Those bruises on your flesh? That's the beginning. Without the proper ritual to bind your magic in check your blood will burn while you live and destroy you from the inside out until nothing is left."
My mind started to swirl like a non-stop carousel ride in my head. It wasn't enough to have uncontrollable powers or to be told that I was to be a weapon of war. Now I had to find someone, my personal protector, to complete a ritual that would save me from burning alive from the inside out by my own blood? I felt sick.
Raising shakily from my seat I took in a small breath. I made sure to keep my hands in my pockets to keep them from shaking in front of Serena and Leo. "I think it's time we leave. Leo, can you take me home?"
He nodded and rose from the booth to stand by my side, a hand on my shoulder. "Thank you, Serena, for the information."
"Don't thank me," she pursed her lime green lips in thought. "I'm only doing what was told of me a long time ago." She turned and looked at me. "Don't look at it as a death sentence, deary. Look at it as a new outlook on life. I know I sure would."
T H I R T E E N
The next day at school dragged like no other. After returning home from Charon, my little magical wonderland, I wasn't able to sleep. My room had felt foreign, like someone had re-arraigned the furniture or had gone through my things. Jayson had sworn twice he didn't do a thing but I knew boys could do something as little as plant a dirty sock in a corner and wait for someone to find it for weeks. That's how I felt. I was the sock in the corner left behind to be found weeks later, reeking to high heavens and possibly on fire.
At lunch I made sure to apologize to Abigail for being the biggest bitch since Marie Antoinette and offered to make it up with a movie. It was a good idea because it would keep my mind off of the rest of the
chaos swirling around me. It was good twice over because it kept me from packing the first bag I could and skipping back to Charon to leave everything behind.
I left the cafeteria feeling good, giving Abigail a hug and parting ways as I left for History and her for her Art class. Halfway to my classroom the crowd in the hall thinned, then vanished altogether.
Something swung at me from around the corner and I turned in time to have a textbook connect with the side of my face. I slammed back into the lockers behind me. Ursula stood above me, a textbook clutched in her hands.
"What the hell is your problem?" I yelled at her, unsteadily stumbling back to my feet.
She swung at me again, blonde hair covering half of her face. "You're my problem!" I stepped to the side to avoid her third swing and knocked the book out of her hands. "What did you do to Leo?"
"What do you mean what did I do? You're the idiot who won't give him any breathing room!" I screamed back at her. My fists clenched in case I needed to give her a little reality check.
She let out a wild scream and lunged for me, manicured nails sharpened to little claws. "Liar! Someone saw you holding hands in Charon. You can't hide from me, Essallie Hanley." She spat on my shoes.
"Oh hey, look at that. You're a real lady after all," I taunted with little care. I was sick and tired of her teenage-drama problems and constant level of immaturity picking on other people for no reason. And I knew just where to wound her, hard. Backing a little further away from her grasp I began. "I bet Leo liked it when I kissed him. He probably thought it was nice to kiss something that hasn't been around sucking face with every male she's met since birth!"
"You're a terrible liar. They would have told me if you had kissed him. I wouldn't have let you live through the night if you had." She took a step closer as I took a step back. "Did he show you the apothecary in Charon? How about the library? His favorite bakery? He probably only showed you the door to your little grimy motel bed."
Illumine Page 9