“My name is Aaliyah,” she says brightly. “What’s yours?” She points at the bandages on her face. “They sprayed new skin on my ouchie.”
I plaster a smile onto my face. God, what do you say to that?
“I’m Jasmine,” I reply. “Sorry about your face … your facial ouchie. I’m sure it will be better soon.” It’s kind of nice to talk to someone who doesn’t recognize me right away, even if she is only four.
“And this is Mr. Khan,” Aaliyah’s makeup person says in a singsong voice. She points at him as he takes a seat on the other side of me. “He’s the man who helped you when the train crashed and you hurt yourself.”
Aaliyah looks over at Mr. Khan for a few moments, her face scrunched in thought. He smiles back at her, though it seems like more of a grimace to me. I know he’s hating this more than words can express. Aaliyah shakes her head. “No … that’s wrong. That’s not the man who helped me. The man who helped me was fatter and whiter. And he had no hair. His head was shiny.”
The makeup person frowns, speaks into her video watch, and within a few seconds, Smith’s assistant, Mitchell, appears. He smiles at Aaliyah. It’s a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Hello, Aaliyah, darling,” he says, teeth gleaming. “You bumped your head when the train crashed. Your memory of it all would’ve gotten a bit mixed up because of that … like a dream. Believe me, this is the man that helped you.”
Aaliyah shakes her head, her dark curls bouncing up and down in their respective ponytails. “No, no, no! That’s not the man,” she says emphatically.
Mr. Khan looks at me. I know he wants to say something to reassure her, to confirm that she’s right, that he’s not the one who helped her.
Mitchell leans forward and whispers in Aaliyah’s ear. I can’t catch what he says but get the general message as her face crumples like a week-old birthday balloon. Tears fill her eyes, and her bottom lip trembles.
“What did you just say to her?” Mr. Khan asks, his face reddening as he gets up out of his seat. His makeup person stands over him, brush hovering in the air, unsure of what to do next.
“Everything’s fine,” Mitchell says, his face slowly turning red like a ripening tomato. “Isn’t it, Aaliyah, darling? Everything’s just fine, isn’t it?” He clamps a pale hand on her shoulder.
She stiffens at his touch but nods, the first tear trickling down her cheeks, leaving a salty trail on her brown skin.
“Thank you,” she says to Mr. Khan, her voice barely a whisper. “Thank you for helping me with my ouchies on the train.”
Mr. Khan opens his mouth, then shuts it again as Mayor Smith strides into the room.
“Is there a problem?’ she asks, looking first at Mitchell and then at Mr. Khan. Her hair has been dyed a deep burgundy since the last time I saw her, and she’s wearing a fitted black dress that looks like it would be better suited at a cocktail party than here.
Mitchell rushes up to her, smiling brightly. “Everything is absolutely, one hundred percent under control now. We’re a few minutes behind on makeup and hair. Just wanting everything to be perfect.” Beads of perspiration dot his forehead, and he gestures wildly as he speaks. Clearly Mayor Smith makes him very nervous.
“Perfection means getting this wrapped on schedule. And I’m sure no one here’s causing trouble and causing delays, because time is money,” she says, her gaze coming to rest on Mr. Khan.
Our makeup and hair is finished within the next five minutes. I’m put in a crisp black dress and silver ballet flats, with my hair left in loose curls down the middle of my back. The flats make me feel shorter than I already am (if that’s even possible) and vulnerable. Obviously I couldn’t bring my pole with me to this (and I’m still getting used to my new one anyhow, since the pole used on Jamie Linnekar became police property the night of the attack), and I feel susceptible without a weapon, especially when my location is being broadcast live across the city and beyond this evening. Even though there hasn’t been much demon activity in the last while, I can’t shake the words the demon said to me about me being the chosen one, the one they were searching for. I also can’t forget the look on Raphael’s face when I told him the demon had said that.
I need to find out what it means to be chosen, and what exactly I’ve been chosen for. I also need to get out from under Smith’s thumb. I’m angry with myself for not speaking out more, but torn because I want to be sure the Seers and Beaconsfield aren’t put in danger; I know Smith is deadly serious about framing me for Linnekar’s death. Any careless action could put a lot of people I care about in danger.
“Come with me,” Mitchell says, motioning us out the door and down a dimly lit hall. “Aaliyah, hold onto Jasmine and Mr. Khan’s hands as we walk out, please. And don’t answer any questions until I say something first.”
Two security guards lead us into a large, industrial-sized elevator. Mitchell leans against the railing and gazes at me, his eyes moving slowly from my legs to my face. It takes everything in me not to hit him. I feel uncomfortable enough in this outfit without his visual molestation.
We step out of the elevator and are immediately greeted by four more meaty bodyguards. Their faces are serious, devoid of any emotion, even when Aaliyah waves and smiles at them. As they fall into step with us, Mitchell links his fingers together as a reminder for Aaliyah to grab hold of our hands.
Mr. Khan wipes his palm along the leg of the black dress pants they’ve dressed him in before taking Aaliyah’s hand in his own. He’s nervous, which makes me nervous. It takes a lot to ruffle him.
Two massive, reinforced steel doors swing open, and suddenly we’re outside, the humid night air wrapping itself around us like a moist blanket. Floodlights shine down onto the platform. Mayor Smith and Mr. Jawad are already here. Directly in front and below us are train and tram tracks. It seems we’re at the back of Toronto’s largest train station. The zigzag of tracks is also brightly lit, and at least fifty members of Smith’s night crew are hard at work down there. They don’t even pause to look up as we walk out. I watch their methodical work. They seem to be synchronized in their task. It’s like they’re working to some musical rhythm we can’t hear. And then I notice something even more bizarre.
Every single one of them is wearing sunglasses.
The floodlights make it bright, but not that bright.
I look over at Mr. Khan and see him staring down at the workers as well. I catch his gaze and raise an eyebrow.
The broadcast starts a few moments later, and Mr. Jawad says nothing the entire time. Instead, he simply nods while Smith talks about how Aaliyah could easily not be with us right now if it weren’t for Mr. Khan’s heroics in staying and helping her rather than leaving the station like the majority of passengers. Most of all, she emphasizes that it was a stroke of luck Aaliyah was in the carriage directly behind the one under which Taylor Moore actually planted the bomb.
“This type of terrorism cannot — and must not — be tolerated in our city. That is why I am implementing the War Measures Act and calling for the execution of Taylor Moore. We have video evidence of Moore planting the explosive devices under the carriages. By his own admission, he says he does not recall what he did or where he was the night before the bombings. He has no alibi, nor has he put forth an alibi. He also admits recognizing himself on the security footage in question.”
At that moment she motions for a pause in the filming. “When I announce the date of the execution, I want you to turn to Mr. Khan and hug him,” she says to Aaliyah. “And all of you,” she says, bringing the mike closer to her mouth and walking to the front of the stage to peer down at the workers, “need to cheer at the same time. I will signal you like this.” She raises both hands into the air, palms facing upward.
Filming begins again, as though there’s never been a pause. I continue smiling; my face feels like cardboard fro
m the effort.
“As I’ve said, this kind of barbaric act simply will not — and, most of all, cannot — be tolerated.” Smith punctuates each word with her index finger. “In order to send a very clear message to the CCT and anyone else thinking of taking the lives of innocent Torontonians, Taylor Jeremiah Moore will be put to death by lethal injection on October thirteenth, on this site, at nineteen hundred hours. This is not something I wish to do, but the CCT must be stopped.”
On cue, Mr. Khan bends down, and Aaliyah puts her arms around his shoulders to hug him, though her eyes are wide with confusion. At the same time Mayor Smith throws her hands in the air like an overexcited orchestra conductor. The workers immediately stop what they’re doing, look up at the stage, and roar with approval.
Someone shouts “cut,” and Aaliyah comes running over to me. “Does putting him to death mean they’re going to kill the man they arrested? The man on the videos?” she asks breathlessly.
I nod. “Yes,” I say, keeping my voice low. “But it’s not something we should talk about here.” Smith is only about four feet away, already watching the playback of the video, no doubt ensuring it meets her standards.
A look of slow understanding mingled with horror fills Aaliyah’s eyes. “But how do we know he really did it? Because they said Mr. Khan helped me, but he didn’t. The man who really helped me had eyes that changed colour. And he wasn’t as old.” She pulls her bottom lip into her mouth and bites on it nervously. “Why are they lying? I thought only the bad guys lie.”
I stare at Aaliyah in stunned silence for the next few seconds. “You said the man who helped you was bald. And larger than Mr. Khan,” I say, my voice barely a whisper.
“I kind of forgot about the other man until now. He was the one who touched me where the bomb ripped open my tummy.” She stops speaking, and tears fill her eyes again. “He had black hair that was really shiny and made the really bad ouchie go away. The one that was killing me.”
I don’t know what to say, because I agree with Aaliyah that it’s becoming very hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys. And I can’t tell her that I know exactly who saved her. It rips me apart inside wondering why, if Raphael is around, we’re not in contact.
JADE
“I looked like an idiot, like a complete hypocrite,” Jasmine says, throwing herself belly down onto our bed. Her face is still caked with the thick makeup they put on actors for high-definition broadcasts. I want to tell her to be careful not smear it all over our comforter but restrain myself. Sometimes, as a second-born, I’m too uptight for my own good.
“It was fine,” I say. I’m lying, though. The broadcast tonight was the most contrived, uncomfortable thing I’ve watched in a long time, and that’s saying something, considering the propaganda that Smith and other city and government leaders have been broadcasting lately. Maybe to a non-Seer it wouldn’t have been as obvious, but I could tell the little girl was very scared and uncomfortable when she was thanking Mr. Khan for saving her life on the subway.
Jasmine flips over on her back and rolls her eyes at me. “The whole thing was crazy … dressing me up like some kind of doll, making Aaliyah and Mr. Khan lie about him helping her during the bombing …” She pauses and links her hands behind her head, deep in thought. “Even this night crew stuff is weird … I mean, something’s really not right. All these people, working without a sound, all in sync like zombies. And get this, they’re wearing sunglasses. Every single of them. It’s pitch black outside, and every one of the workers has on shades.”
“Well, Smith and her government did make it pretty clear they want to respect the workers’ anonymity,” I say. “Maybe that’s part of it?”
She stares at the ceiling for a moment, then shakes her head. “I really think something more is up with it. I don’t believe they volunteered for this project. And, get this — I wasn’t allowed to be anywhere near them. Why don’t they want me talking to the night crew? Mr. Jawad’s orders, apparently. The guy wouldn’t even shake my hand when I met him. He’s more than a bit of a freak himself.”
“You think they’re drugged?” I ask, knowing full well this is what she’s thinking.
“It has to be something like that. Why else couldn’t I meet any of them? I said I just wanted to thank them for everything they’re doing for the city and was told absolutely not, even though I’ve been doing all this stuff promoting the program. And it would’ve been a super photo op for Smith’s government, so you know there’s something really fishy when she isn’t taking advantage of that.”
“Well, with the kidnappings and disappearances having pretty much stopped, no one’s going to want Smith to step down. And if any disappearances do happen, she’ll likely say it’s just a case of recruitment by the CCT.” I open my tablet and search for comments and polls about Moore’s execution. The vast majority are not only positive, but also strongly in favour of having his death broadcast publicly. Many of them praise Smith’s “no-nonsense” attiude toward the terrorists. Some are perversely excited about the entertainment they expect to see, as though they’re travelling back in time to see a gladiator being ripped to shreds by a lion. Executions used to happen only in countries with governments that were considered primitive and backward, or ones that had been taken over by the military. “I mean, even some of our friends, even ones who are Seers, are beginning to sound really closed-minded about it. Look at Cassandra the other day, for example. Pretty soon people won’t be able to speak out against Smith and her government without fear of reprisal.”
Jasmine nods. “The thing I don’t get is if vampiric demons need to kill to survive, how are they surviving here? If the disappearances have stopped, who are they feeding on?”
I shrug. “Maybe there aren’t as many of them as we think? I don’t know. Could they have gone back to the Place-in-Between?”
“I don’t think so. Raphael said something really strange to me in the hospital …”
“Come on, Jazz,” I say. “How can you really be sure you saw him that night? I mean, you were pretty out of it on painkillers and stuff.”
Jasmine narrows her eyes at me and sits up. She hugs a pillow to her chest. “I wasn’t out of it. Raphael was there. It wasn’t a hallucination or my imagination, or whatever you think. And he told me that something or someone is controlling the dark forces from this side, which makes sense when you think about it. Things have been much too quiet … I don’t think demons have a huge amount of self-control. It’s not like they’d all get together and decide to fast or take a break from drinking blood.”
I have to agree with her. But there haven’t been any new disappearances, which makes me think Mayor Smith was right and most of the missing persons reports have been down to people being recruited to the CCT, and that her campaign against them is now working. The bodies that were found, she claims, were those recruits who didn’t make the cut, but knew too much about the CCT to be let go.
“We need to find out exactly what is going on. I want to get together a bunch of Seers and get closer to the night crews, check out where the demons could’ve disappeared to. And I want to shake Mr. Jawad’s hand … or at least touch him. He’s so careful not to have any physical contact, and though it might mean nothing, I need to find out. I’ll make it look accidental. Like tripping into him or something. And I don’t think it will be hard to find demons….” Jasmine pauses and picks at an invisible flaw on the pillow with one darkly varnished nail. “I didn’t tell you this yet, because I didn’t want you to worry, but the night Jamie Linnekar — I mean the demon — attacked me, he said something to me. Something I think I’m not supposed to know, but I don’t think it believed that I was going to survive. It was while the demon was strangling me.”
“What? What did he — I mean, it — say?”
Jasmine’s face grows dark. “He said they’d been looking for me. Hunting me. The
demons. He said I was elegido.”
Words escape me. I stare at my sister. Before I have a chance to stop myself, I think, why would she be chosen by the demons? Does she seriously expect me to believe that the entire demonic race somehow has anointed her as special, just like Mayor Smith did? Either her newfound fame has completely gone to her head, or she knocked it harder than previously thought against that sidewalk the night of the attack.
“It’s not like that,” she says, her voice full of hurt. “And whatever it means to be chosen, it isn’t the least bit positive. I’d gladly give away the honour. In fact, I think it scared Mr. Khan and Ms. Samson when I told them.”
I realize she’s just read my mind. And I feel like a traitor.
JASMINE
Risks. I know they’re something I’m supposed to be avoiding like the plague, which is a bit funny when I think about how I actually survived a plague-filled London in the Place-in-Between last year, but I feel it’s important to discover what’s happened to the demons, as well as to find out who or what might be controlling the dark forces. No demonic activity has been sighted during the day, so it seems only natural to start investigating what’s happening in the city at night. I also want to go undercover to find the reason why Smith’s night crew is kept sunglassed and secret.
“Mr. Khan would kill us if he knew what we were planning. All the Protectors would,” Jade says, her face twisting into a frown as she laces up her black Doc boots. She’s dressed in a black T-shirt and black jeans. We’re all wearing black. This way we’ll blend in with the night and hopefully be safer.
“Well, he’ll thank us afterward if we can figure out what’s happening with the demons,” says Cassandra as she tucks her ponytail into a black ball cap. “It’s been way too quiet. And besides, I’ve been dying for a little action. I mean, what’s the use in doing all this training if we’re just going to be like caged birds and get locked away every night?”
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