by G. P. Ching
At this, Carolyn Laudner stood up with a huff and headed toward the bathroom. John gaped at her back. The other attendees slowly returned to their casseroles.
“I believe you, Mr. Laudner,” Malini said. “I don’t think Harrington Pharmaceuticals can be trusted. When this is all over, Katrina will thank you for taking care of her.”
“I appreciate that, Ms. Gupta. You are as smart as Jacob says you are.”
Malini squeezed Jacob’s hand. He smiled. “I’m going to go check on Mom.” He led Malini through the side door where Lillian waited.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Lillian asked.
Malini nodded. “All this time we’ve been waiting for Watchers to march up the street. The first temptation has been here for weeks. We’re not just dealing with infected water; they’re using Harrington to infect people with a virus and addict them to their cure.”
“How do you think John knew?” Lillian asked. “He’s a smart guy, but this would be a leap for anyone.”
“Don’t know,” Malini said.
“When he fell off the ladder today, he said an Angel caught him, in the form of a red bird,” Jacob said.
“Hmm,” Malini pondered, “maybe God has sent His first gift after all.”
The Westcotts exited the reception area then, parting the group. When they came back together, Jacob whispered, “So how do we stop Harrington?”
“I’m not sure,” Malini said. “But I think it’s time we paid another visit to Harrington Enterprises.”
Chapter 10
The Mission
Malini suspected her idea would be controversial, but the vehemence in the room surprised even her. While she didn’t think the council would come to blows, the tension was palpable. Each of them had a personal interest in this, and none of them knew what to expect.
“It’s too dangerous,” Grace said.
Gideon stood, knocking his chair back. “Too dangerous? It’s not aggressive enough! We’ve waited too long. It’s time we engaged in the challenge.” He paced the conference room.
“Gideon’s right,” Lillian said. “We’ve suspected Harrington for long enough. It’s time to find out exactly what we are dealing with.”
“The twins are the natural choice,” Malini said. “They can pose as insiders and find out how much control the Watchers have over Harrington. It’s possible we only need to take out one or two influenced leaders to stop the production of Elysium.”
Master Lee stroked the short stubble of his chin. “Grace, it is understandable that you would fear sending your daughters, but they are more than ready. I’ve never trained stronger warriors, mentally or physically.”
“Hey!” Lillian said.
“Except you, Lillian, of course.” Lee coughed behind his hand.
Lillian shook her head. “Actually, after seeing them fight, you are probably correct. They are stronger than I am. And they’re ready for a mission.”
Grace threaded her fingers. “So, I’m in the minority.”
Malini shook her head. “No one blames you, Grace. Bonnie and Samantha are your daughters and the only family you have.”
Grace nodded her head, a tear breaking free from the corner of her eye.
“But they are also Soulkeepers with a unique and useful ability to be human chameleons. We need them.”
Pale and agitated, Grace rubbed under her eyes. A heavy weight settled over the room. The members of the Soulkeepers’ Council knew that she’d be outvoted if it came to that, but they wanted her to make the decision on her own.
“I want Jesse to go with them,” Grace said, straightening. “He can act as mission control and provide backup.”
Malini nodded. “Agreed. But I think we should keep the team small. Lucifer has the list Abigail conjured of Soulkeepers. Outside of Eden, he can detect our souls if he wants to. Jacob, Dane, and I need to continue attending Paris High School. He knows we go there, and it’s possible our absence could raise suspicion. Cheveyo isn’t ready for a mission.”
“And Ethan?” Gideon asked.
“Our second line of defense should the twins fail,” Malini said grimly. “He’ll hang back in Paris and use a staff to blink out there if Jesse calls for help. That way we’ll have a single point of contact for communication purposes.”
Gideon placed his hands on the windowsill, and leaned out over Eden’s vast jungle. The school didn’t need glass windows. By some unexplainable phenomenon, the birds and insects chose not to come inside. Same for the gentle sweeping rain that kept the jungle bright and lush.
Malini looked at Grace, Lillian, and Lee. “If we’ve come to an agreement, would you mind excusing yourselves so that Gideon and I can talk?”
Grace nodded, blinking her eyes slowly and pursing her lips. Standing, she headed for the door. “I’ll tell my girls. Why do I feel they’ll be more excited about this than I am?”
“Because they will,” Lillian said. “They’ve been begging for a mission since Arizona.”
Lee freed himself from his chair in one lithe move and followed Lillian and Grace from the room. Malini closed the door behind them, and then returned to Gideon’s side. She placed her hand on his shoulder, so that her fingers grazed the bare skin of his neck. The flesh-to-flesh contact pumped healing energy into him.
“I know what you’re doing, Malini. It’s not working.”
“No?”
“I feel the warmth and the calm. I am touched by your kindness. But this hurt in me does not need healing. It is not an injury. This is my body telling me I need to do more. This pain is my warning that something’s wrong, that I need the other half of me back. This is love, Malini. You can’t heal this because it is as whole as it has ever been.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat and rubbed his back through his shirt. “I know it’s been hard for you. I know you’ve wanted to leave Eden to try to rescue her. But no mortal comes back from Hell, Gideon, without divine intervention. There’s nothing you can do.”
He straightened. “You’re right. It has been hard for me, but not unproductive. I have something for you.” From the table, he retrieved a file folder and handed it to her. “An updated organizational chart for Harrington Enterprises along with a diagram of its offices. You’ll notice a new CEO has recently been named. A Mr. M. Blake.”
“What happened to Mr. Harrington?”
“No one knows. It’s not public knowledge. He simply resigned, and he and his family disappeared.”
“Hmm. Suspicious. Influenced, likely.” She followed the lines of the chart to boxes containing the last names of various vice presidents and directors. She didn’t recognize any of them, but then she didn’t spend her days watching CNBC. “I’ll share this with the twins. Thank you.”
He met her eyes. “Do you think, if we help win the challenge, God will bring Abigail back?”
“Yes, I do. Have faith.” As Malini pulled him into her embrace, she hoped and prayed she could do the same.
* * * * *
After the conversation she’d just had with her mother, Bonnie Guillian desperately needed to blow off steam. A mission, finally. But the task before her couldn’t be more dangerous. Best-case scenario, she’d be sniffing out a major nest of Watcher activity. And it didn’t help that her sister and loverboy were on the same team. Talk about a distraction.
Bonnie swept her long red hair up into a ponytail, tying it back with a black elastic. When it was as tight and smooth as possible, she squatted down to readjust her running shoes. Master Lee had shown her a special way to tie them, tighter at her instep and looser at the toes, to make for a more comfortable run.
“How do you get there again?” she asked Dane. She’d bumped into him in the foyer down the hall from the conference room where Samantha and Ghost remained. Those two were grilling her mother for information. Only, no one knew anything. That’s why they were going on this mission, to answer the questions.
“It’s hard to give you specific directions. There are no
street signs,” Dane said.
“I know, but ‘wander aimlessly through the jungle’ doesn’t help me much.” She wanted to find the ocean. She wanted to be alone. Rumor was that Dane had been there.
“I followed Archie back. All I can tell you is to head left into the jungle and follow the trail to the end, then keep going.”
She stood and nodded. “Got it.” Plugging her ears with her headphones, she set her favorite playlist, and then walked briskly toward the giant front doors.
“Bonnie wait!” Sam called from behind her.
Bonnie pretended not to hear her. For maybe the first time in a decade, she didn’t want to see her sister. Bonnie loved Samantha. Always would. Only she was sick of her incessant whining about Jesse, or Ghost as everyone else called him, that she thought she might hurl. If the two weren’t tongue wrestling around every corner, there was some sort of drama that required Sam’s full attention. Bonnie couldn’t remember the last time she and Sam had shared a conversation that wasn’t about Ghost. Oh, wait. Yes, she could—in Nebraska, before they’d moved here. She pulled open the door.
“Wait!” Samantha’s hand closed around Bonnie’s bicep.
Bonnie stopped and pulled her earbuds out. “Yeah?”
“I’m going to go running with you.”
A frown crawled across Bonnie’s face. “Wouldn’t you rather hang out with Jesse? We’re done with training for the day. You guys could be alone until dinner.” She made the word alone sound illicit.
Sam straightened her ponytail. “I thought I’d spend some time with you.”
Bonnie rolled her green eyes and jogged out the door.
“Hey, what’s with the attitude, Bon-bell? If you don’t want me running with you just say so.” Samantha synced into step beside her, matching her gate exactly with clockwork precision.
“Maybe I just wanted to be alone,” Bonnie whispered. She tried to pick up the pace, but Samantha matched it. Her sister laughed at the comment.
“Oh. Oh! You’re serious. You want to be alone? After Mom tells us we’re assigned one of the most dangerous missions ever? After we find out we could die?”
Bonnie didn’t reply. She could hear the hurt in her sister’s voice and wasn’t proud to be the one who caused it.
“Why, Bonnie? What did I do?” Samantha begged.
Deep within the jungle now, the cries of monkeys and birds overhead could not drown out the pain in her sister’s words, and Bonnie felt compelled to answer. “I’m just sick of everything always having to do with Jesse. Even this mission includes Jesse! If you must know, I wanted one Jesse-free hour.”
Samantha gave an exaggerated gasp. “You’re jealous! You’re jealous that I have a boyfriend and you don’t because the boy you thought you liked turned out to be gay.”
“I’m not jealous. Yes, I was disappointed to find out about Dane, but there are other fish in the sea. I’m not going to say I’m happy about being a perpetual third wheel, but I’m happy for you. I really am.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is, I don’t know you anymore without him. He’s invaded every crevice of your life. It’s like you’ve become one of those celebrity hybrids, Jemantha.”
Samantha jogged quietly by her side, weaving between trees until the path became so narrow that she had to follow behind. She became so quiet for so long that Bonnie slowed to check that she was still there. She was, her footsteps slowing to match Bonnie’s. Sam didn’t say anything but hit her with a sour stare. Bonnie accelerated again.
“We both knew this would happen eventually,” Samantha finally said.
“What would happen?”
“One of us would have to break away.”
This brought Bonnie up short. She turned in the shelter of the trees, feeling the humidity press against her, suffocating her. Hands on her hips, she willed Samantha to elaborate, and of course she did. They’d been reading each other their entire lives.
“Bonnie, we’ve spent every minute of seventeen years together. We share flesh for heaven’s sake. When we do what we do, we literally become one person sometimes. But we aren’t one person. We are two women who, I think, have dreams of marriage and babies and futures. You must have thought about what would happen if one of us married before the other?”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying we can’t always live together. Things are going to change. They have to. We each have to come to terms with the reality that someday we will have separate lives.”
Bonnie pushed a clump of ferns with her toes and watched the leaves curl in on their stems. “No, Sam, I haven’t thought about that, and I certainly don’t consider it reality. Here’s my reality. We are Soulkeepers and anyone who loves us, especially another Soulkeeper like Jesse, is going to know that we can’t be separated. Doing so would render us powerless. And if that person loves, truly loves, either one of us, they will work to find a way to keep us together. I don’t know, maybe we each own a side of the same duplex. But honestly it sounds like you’re ready to make a clean break. Maybe it’s you that hopes we won’t always be together.”
“That’s not true.” Samantha glanced toward her toes.
“We’re twins. You can’t lie to me.” Bonnie continued down the trail.
“So I want my own life! Is that a crime? I want a husband and babies and to pick out my own carpeting without having to ask my sister’s opinion.”
“You know we’d always pick the same thing.”
“That’s not the point. The point is … The point …” Samantha stopped, and Bonnie, who’d been intermittently looking over her shoulder at her sister, did too. Bonnie followed Samantha’s stare to the opening between two fat pine trees that looked a lot like pineapples.
“It’s beautiful,” Bonnie said.
The ocean rolled in, washing up a white sand beach with fat liquid fingers that left trails as they receded. Instinctively, she took off her shoes and socks and stepped onto the soft shoreline, moving toward the line of sea foam.
She sensed Samantha do the same at her side. The sea called to her, and she stepped closer until the water just barely washed across the tops of her feet and the sand squished between her toes.
“Look who’s here?” Samantha said.
Bonnie looked where her sister pointed. Down the beach a ways, Malini sat on a piece of driftwood, enchanted staff in hand. “Looks like she wants to talk.”
“Nothing more anxiety producing than a talk with the Healer.”
“Maybe it’s girl talk. She wants to tell us how Jacob isn’t paying her enough attention.”
Samantha laughed at the absurdity.
At a stroll, Bonnie approached the driftwood, shoes in hand.
“Hi, you guys,” Malini said. “I suppose you suspect I’m not here for the view.”
“What’s going on?” Bonnie asked.
“Did your mom tell you about the mission?”
“Yeah, we leave for Chicago after Thanksgiving. Lillian is hoping the crowds of shoppers will give us some cover.” Bonnie popped her knee up and leaned against the driftwood, half-sitting.
“Lillian knows what she’s doing. Before you go, I wanted to give you this.” Malini pulled a necklace from her pocket. Bonnie had seen the red stone before, most recently on Dane. The disc-shaped gem was set in a black leather cord. Very masculine. “I can reset it for you if you would like. I have a gold chain with a mount that fits the stone.”
“No, it’s beautiful,” Sam said.
“Only …” Bonnie began. “There’s only one stone but two of us.”
Malini dangled it from her fingertips and smiled ruefully. “But you’re always together.”
Bonnie frowned and crossed her arms over her chest.
“It will work for either of you, Bonnie, or both of you if you are touching,” Malini explained.
“What do we need it for anyway?” Sam asked.
“Use it when you are in need of guidance, when you are conf
used or in danger. Relax, look deep into the stone, and you will have access to the oldest, wisest part of myself, the part of the Healer that is eternal.”
“I want Bonnie to wear it,” Samantha blurted.
“What? Why?” Bonnie argued. She hated that her voice sounded defensive.
“Because I’ll have—” Sam stopped short.
Bonnie’s shoulders slumped. “You’ll have Jesse to protect you. The stone is my consolation prize.”
Bonnie snatched the necklace from Malini’s hand and yanked it over her head. The cord got stuck on her ponytail. She wrestled it free, face heating with embarrassment, then succeeded in putting it on, adjusting the cord so the stone rested at the base of her neck.
“I didn’t mean it like that, Bonnie,” Samantha snapped.
“Thank you, Malini. I hope I won’t need to use this, but it comforts me to have it.” Bonnie gave a small wave in Malini’s direction then took off running, shoes in hand. She broke into a jog, heading for the path that would take her to the school.
For once, Samantha didn’t follow her.
Chapter 11
Forever Darkness
Abigail pressed her hands against the glass and looked out over the city of Chicago from her penthouse prison. It must be close to Christmas. The buildings were decorated in gaudy baubles of red and gold with swags of evergreen in the windows and balconies. Tiny people walked the sidewalks below, arms laden with packages, joyfully choosing the perfect gifts for loved ones. A constant flow of traffic carried folks on their way to making happy holiday memories. At least that’s what she imagined. She couldn’t say for sure due to the distance.