My eyelids fluttered surprise. Why was he stopping me right when—
“Eve.” Josh slipped his hand over mine, his warm calluses pressing against my knuckles. Calm seeped up my arm and into my head as his deep voice continued. “Eve, we need to—”
More men ran into the room with pulsating spiritual swords, knives, and axes raised above their heads.
Kovac lay crumpled in a heap behind them, wheezing and coughing up blood. The outer edges of his group of men started to move around the sides of the room very slowly, trying to surround us.
I breathed in deeply, not to calm down, but to focus.
These men had killed my family. These men had taken everything.
I looked from side to side and felt a tingle run up my spine into the base of my neck.
“Eve!” Josh yelled.
I ducked just as an axe spun through the air, narrowly missing my left shoulder. I slid on my knees and punched through kneecaps like clay bricks. The axe thrower collapsed to the ground, screaming in pain. Two more came at me with swords drawn. Their bodies seemed to move in slow motion, and I knew where they’d strike before they did. I spun around and twisted each of their arms back, snapping their forearms into pieces. Their eyes bulged in surprise and pain.
Josh finished off two more with a slow sleeper hold, his biceps bulging. The last one stood in front of Kovac. He cowered back a step when I locked my gaze on him. Kovac kicked him from behind, and he charged with a bloodcurdling scream. I stepped to the side at the last moment and grabbed his arm so tight he released his knife and sank to the ground.
I smiled and turned him back around to face his master as I twisted his arm up and popped his shoulder out of its socket. He cried and tried to scuttle away, his whole body vibrating with super speed, but I clasped my other hand on his throat and squeezed.
He deserved this. They all deserved this.
“Eve!” Josh grabbed my shoulder.
I blinked as if coming out of another projection, something inside telling me not to stop, to keep this feeling, this power.
But the longer I looked at Josh the more it receded.
“Eve,” Josh repeated, his blue eyes soft against mine, inching closer.
Everything started to clear again. Warm blood ran down my fingernails from the man’s throat, and I let go with a gasp. He collapsed onto the floor and breathed in and out slowly, unconscious but alive. I looked around at all of them and saw my reflection in a mirror split in half on the wall. The crack tore my face in two.
High-pitched laughter echoed off the French doors as Kovac, no longer in the corner, swung them open and hobbled onto the balcony. “Not going to kill them? Broken bones and scars won’t keep them there for long.”
The ones who hadn’t passed out continued to whimper and grunt. One man’s scowl told me Kovac’s words were true. They would never stop.
“You’re more powerful than any of them. You will be the one to turn the tide of this war.” Kovac continued with more confidence now, gingerly leaning against the balcony railing. “You will—”
A red blur rocketed past me, and the balcony exploded with wood splinters. Kovac flew backward, flailing his arms. Josh stood at the edge, his essence a bright flame.
I ran forward in time to hear the thud as he hit the ground.
“We need to get the others and get out of here,” Josh said. “The more he talks, the more lies he’ll tell.”
My lips opened in disbelieving confusion. “You call me back from the brink so I don’t kill them, and then you go and do that?” I leaned forward and looked down. “He killed my mom, my grandpa…” I said slowly, my mind working like a heavy gear in need of grease. “And he just said…Why did he say that?”
Several voices called out from below. “Josh? Eve?”
I jumped down first and found Nate and the three Tercets in the courtyard, surprise overshadowing their injuries, but only just. Their skin was pale and their faces swollen; a thin line of black encircled each of their exposed arms.
“So, we owe you two for taking away our guards?” said Nate, his voice dropping off when he looked at me. “Eve, what—”
“There are ten Babylonians in that bedroom.” Josh pointed. “They’re not bound.”
Jody flexed her arms, the thin black lines like tattoos. “I think we can fix that problem,” she said, nodding to Nate.
They sped into the root cellar and threw out what looked like tar-soaked ropes. Brody jumped up to the top room and threw one Babylonian after another down into his brother’s arms. They cinched them all together in one big circle. The ones on the outside woke from unconsciousness with a painful groan the moment the black rope touched their skin.
“It may not drain you like it did me, but something tells me you’re not a fan of this stuff either,” Jody said, inches away from one of the men’s faces.
“It’s a less potent batch of the substance they hit me with,” said Nate in answer to my expression. I hadn’t understood how he and the Tercets were still standing. Part of me still expected the worst, for everyone in my life to be dead, for it to be my fault.
Two cars skidded into the dusty courtyard. Freddy and Miranda hopped out and immediately went to Jody and Cody, their injuries surpassing anyone else’s. Ria ran to Nate, but stopped midway as he put up his hands and indicated the black tar on his tan shirt.
“Looks like I’ll need to brew some more tea.” She tried to smile.
I turned back to Kovac. None of them understood. We couldn’t just take him in like the rest, tie him up. This man—
Kovac crawled backward toward a fragrant garden of decaying weeds as I advanced, a mixture of terror and laughter in his bloody coughs. I stomped on his foot so he’d stop trying to get away.
“You killed them,” I hissed.
His white smile cemented itself between his lips even as he spoke.“You’ll need to do it soon, or they won’t let you.”
“Evey, is he the one who—” Ria began, inching closer.
A screech cut through the air behind me, and the second story of the house shifted and collapsed in a plume of dust. The following rumble of thunder drowned out Ria’s voice and any self-control I had left.
I bent down and grabbed the collar of Kovac’s silk shirt in one fist and punched him over and over with the other. I thought of Grandpa. I thought of the mom I’d never met. I thought of Ria. I thought of Nate. I thought of Josh. Tears rolled down my cheeks, and I cursed every single drop. I screamed through my teeth for it to be over, for justice.
I punched him until his smile had holes and someone tried to stop my arm from lunging forward again.
“Eve!”
My fist shook, pulled back to my ear for the final blow as Kovac raised his hands over his face.
Had Mom done the same thing when he’d killed her? Would my friends cower the same way if he ever came after them again?
I flattened the heel of my palm like when I prepared to break cement blocks.
My other hand let go of his shirt and dug into the cool earth beneath him for support. Almost instantly, my mind was drained of the blinding anger, and a damp wave of calm called my open palm down to the earth.
What would Grandpa think of me if I—
Kovac pushed up his hands to meet my palm, panic in his eyes as he tried to stop what he thought was coming.
Our hands touched, and an electric shock zapped through my arm and into the back of my head. My mouth opened wide in a silent scream.
Kovac knelt before a pair of yellow eyes in a shadowed cloud of black flame like a child of Israel before God.
“After you kill Solomon, how will I find her?” he said without looking up.
“She will find you,” the voice said from above, not deep but full of venom. “Lure her under the guise that her mother lives. Convince the child that you were the one who killed her. Use this.” A slender silver chain with a half wing pendant fell to Kovac’s feet as a flash of lighting shot from another part of the clo
ud onto the dry ground below.
Kovac smiled and picked up the necklace “That shouldn’t be too hard.” He held his jagged saber in the other hand.
“Be faithful, and you will be rewarded with a resurrection and more power than you can imagine.”
Kovac nodded lustfully.
“The girl will kill you, and only then will her true power be revealed. She will choose, and once she joins us, everything will change.”
I wrenched my soul back from the brink and found my body kneeling over him, panting. His hand was still stretched out to mine.
“What did you—” He stammered, trying to raise himself up again.
Josh and the others were in a circle around me now, and he didn’t get far.
My head pounded against my skull.
“What did you see?” said Josh softly, the rest of the group behind him as he set his hand on my shoulder.
I kept my eyes closed to keep the spinning image from fading, opening my mouth to speak but finding words failed me. I couldn’t believe it. I just couldn’t. All this time…?
Josh put his arm around my waist and started to pull me up.
“No, you have to kill me.” Kovac launched himself at my feet.
My foot reacted without me and pinned him back down as something monstrous clawed its way up inside of me again, begging me to do it, to end him like I’d been about to do when he’d pressed his palm into mine and shown me the truth—a truth he didn’t want me to know.
I looked down at the blood caked on my knuckles from where his teeth had broken my skin. I wiped them on my pants, scraping the skin across the fabric to try to get them clean, but it wouldn’t come off.
“It’s ok.” Josh slipped his hand into mine and guided me away.
My pulse calmed, and the essence of the world smoldered to nothing. Kovac rolled onto his back and guffawed into the warm night air. “There’s no stopping you, Evelyn. She cannot be stopped!”
I turned my back to him, not wanting to hear or see anymore.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I leaned on the door of Josh’s car and looked at my hands—one bloody, the other covered in dirt. Both hurt.
Had I really just seen that? A black cloud talking to Kovac? If so, that meant Mom had never been kidnapped. She’d been dead since the day I was born. All this time I’d been chasing down one person, and there was someone else pulling the strings, someone else who wanted me to kill Kovac in order to reveal my true power.
I massaged the back of my neck, frustrated. How could I see all that just by touching his hand? Was it another vision?
Everyone’s stares pressed in on me.
“Babs are such loonies,” Ria said, stepping over to me and wrapping me into a hug as Kovac started screaming obscenities.
My head dropped onto her shoulder, dark hair dangling over her back. I didn’t want her or anyone near me, but knew that when she was gone I’d have to support my body weight again, and I wasn’t ready for that.
“Nathaniel, gag this blubbering idiot and put him in your Jeep before I shut him up. We’re taking him back to headquarters for questioning,” said Jody, her short hair and sharp features reminiscent of a younger Denisov. I finally understood what they meant by her mastering speech as well as simply running with her talent. I felt compelled to listen. Ria even reached out to try and complete the task.
Nate unfurled his luminescent green whip and wrapped it around Kovac twice. The old game show host had been yammering on and on without end, bartering deals, ordering his lackies to get up. He’d even managed to get to his knees, but the moment that bright green cord wrapped around him, he clenched his jaw in pain.
“The rest of you spread out the injured and take that rope off them. Burn it along with the house.” Jody pointed to her brothers and Miranda. “Big guy.” She pointed at Freddy. “You heal them best you can, but make sure they’re unconscious for another thirty minutes while we pack up and leave.”
A flare of anger burned my chest, and I let go of Ria’s support. “You’re going to heal them? After what they did?”
Jody limped over to us. “It’s what Patrons do. Healing our enemies pours salt in their wounds. They’re indebted to us, whether they like it or not,” she said, her words filled with a hollow passion.
My eyes focused on the odd-angled limbs that would soon be straightened, on the blood that oozed from gashes. I’d done that. I’d broken them. I’d cut them.
Jody looked down at her arm with a grimace. The black lines from the modified black essence weren’t spreading into her skin but seemed to remain on the surface. “At least it’s not as powerful as what your Guardian was hit with,” she leered at the painful red blisters that were trying to push the poison out.
“I watched someone make an antidote when Nate got shot. I still have the video of all the herbs she used,” Ria said, fishing my phone out of her pocket like she’d been asked to.
Jody’s surprised expression matched my own perfectly. “I wouldn’t mind a sip once we get back,” she said kindly. “Why don’t you go help Nathaniel?”
Ria looked like she wanted to resist for a moment, but it became too difficult. She squeezed my hand and headed over to him.
I raised my eyebrows. “That’s some skill.” Ria seemed to react the same way Kovac had when the cloud told him what to do.
“Josh just filled me in on what happened,” she began. “I’m sorry we didn’t find your mother here. Lies are the Babylonians most prominent weapon.”
I looked up at her, expecting more, but it didn’t come. She just stared at me like Nate did, seeing more than I could. “I won’t ask you what made you stop.” She paused. “But I need to make sure you don’t lose control like that again. You almost killed him.” Her gray eyes lingered.
Guilt clenched my chest mid-breath. “I—”
She held up her hand. “Patrons don’t kill, Eve. Nor maim when simply knocking them unconscious will do.”
Was she serious? How could this be the most important thing after all that had happened? So I’d lost it again—it was bound to happen with all the essence built up inside of me from Nate’s constant shielding my whole life.
“I’ve had that same look in my eyes that you do now. I know where it leads, and I’m telling you as someone who’s seen death—no good can come of it.”
I bit my bloody lip from saying anything else. She wouldn’t understand, and I couldn’t promise I’d stop once I found the real monster, the shadow behind the curtain.
Jody’s eyes lingered for another moment, a breath away from saying something else before she decided against it. “About done, Frederico?” She turned to the orange flames licking the rotten timbers of the house. Sleeping Babylonians peppered the dirt. Brody patted his wiery brother, Cody, on the head and walked him to the orange truck parked about two hundred yards east—not exactly the most inconspicuous vehicle even when it was covered in tree branches.
I walked around to the driver’s side of Josh’s car.
“Eve, where’re you going?” Nate stepped away from the burning house, ever watchful.
I didn’t answer, my fingers finding the driver door handle. “I just need—”
“I’ll go with you,” said Nate, stepping forward.
I held up my hand, no words left.
“You either let one of us go with you, or I incapacitate you in the next three seconds,” said Jody, her voice booming across the yard.
I wrenched the driver’s door open, not listening anymore.
“I’ll go,” Josh said quickly. “We’ll meet back at headquarters. She just needs some air, right?” He looked at me.
I found the key still in the ignition and started the engine. Nate’s face turned sour at my lack of protest when Josh got in.
The moment he closed the passenger door, I stepped on the gas and fishtailed down the driveway.
When we got on the main road, I left one hand on the steering wheel, the other in my lap clasping the lost half of my neckl
ace. Hard as I tried, the two wings didn’t fit together anymore. My half of the blue stone was smooth. Mom’s was still jagged from the day it split. Was that the day Kovac’s master had killed her?
Josh didn’t say anything. He just stared out the passenger window, half his face reflected in the glass, half hidden in shadow.
The Beetle’s engine sputtered from the back as we made our way off of the highway and onto the freeway. Green exits signs blurred past the windshield, my eyes stinging as a narrow strip of wind hit them from the cracked driver’s window.
“Turn here.” Josh pointed to right.
“What?” I blinked and leaned toward the windshield to see where we were.
“Just trust me,” he said.
I exited the freeway and soon came to an intersection with a chrome diner shaped like a train on the far corner.
“What’s this?”
“French toast.”
“What?” I looked at him like he’d grown horns.
“I asked Ria what your favorite food was. She said French toast. That’s true, right?”
“You asked Ria what my—” I shook my head.
“Come on. I’m buying.”
I shifted into first and pulled into the parking lot, a small smile creeping onto my lips. “Well, as long as you’re buying.”
White and teal vinyl booths, a low bar top with stools bolted to the linoleum floor, and a pass-through window to the kitchen greeted me as we sat down across from each other. Three different kinds of syrup and small packets of jelly were displayed at the head of the table.
By far the best thing, though, was that for the next half hour I forgot myself. I let it all go, even if it was just for a little while. Every time Josh spoke, the pain in my chest and the questions in my head receded to the background, and my whole body relaxed.
“Seriously?” I said with a half chuckle, my French toast at capacity for syrup absorption.
“Yes, indeed.” Josh plucked out his shirt’s make-believe suspenders. “You’re dining with the Texas state omelet champion. No spatula, just throw in the toppings and—” He made a wild arm motion with his plate in hand and flipped his French toast three feet into the air.
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