Fearless (Dominion Trilogy #2)

by Robin Parrish

  Grant shifted, suddenly nervous. "You know about Drexel, then."

  "I know he got off easy," Ethan replied with a knowing look. "And I know his death was not at your hands. Your addition to the Most Wanted List was not my doing, and I tried to prevent it, but the higher-ups are too paranoid about you and what you can do. They haven't seen what I've seen."

  Grant stared the FBI agent down, not sure what to make of all this.

  "Normally I wouldn't have been able to approach you so openly," Ethan went on, "but the barrier around London created an opportunity too good to pass up. You don't have to believe that I want to help you, but believe that you have enemies that have orchestrated this situation and are preparing right now to take advantage of it. We need to get you out of here.

  "Check your jacket pocket," said Ethan. "I saw you put my business card in there last night."

  Grant found the business card exactly where Ethan said it would be. "If you're trying to manipulate me-"

  "I'm not. But they are manipulating you. Again."

  "They who?"

  "You know better than I do," Ethan replied with confidence. "And if you don't get away from here quick, they're going to quarterback this twisted little game all the way to the end zone."

  "Fine, I'm going inside," Grant replied, and he turned toward the Library.

  "You're going back in there?" Ethan cried. "Again? That's the last place you should be right now! Maybe I should come with-"

  "No. The Library is the last thing I remember. So it's the first place I'll start. You stay away from me. I don't know you and I don't trust you.,,

  "You're playing right into their hands ..."

  "We'll see."

  A library worker near the door tried to stop Grant from entering. "Sir, you mustn't come in here looking like that! I shall summon the police at once if you take one more step."

  Grant didn't look in the man's direction. "You do that."

  Instead, he looked around, searching for ...

  There.

  Not very far from the entrance, he approached the main desk. "I need to see the head librarian. Now."

  The young girl seated there hadn't looked up from her computer workstation as he spoke. She did so now and flinched in alarm at his appearance. "Right," she mumbled, taking that as her cue to get as far away from Grant as possible.

  "I expected you earlier in the day," said a familiar-sounding voice, even though he couldn't remember when he'd heard it last.

  He turned. Standing over his shoulder was the woman Morgan had identified a few days ago as her former self-the face and body she had worn before the Shift, before she and Morgan had traded lives. He was unsurprised to note that the symbol of the Secretum was tattooed on her wrist.

  But that didn't compute, just as it hadn't two days ago when Morgan first said it. All of the individuals whom the Ringwearers had been Shifted into had been volunteers from the Secretum's acolytes. "Husks," his grandfather called them, "and nothing more."

  Then again, Morgan was the first to undergo the Shift. Maybe the rules weren't put into place until after her time. What if the person she'd traded lives with was more than a husk?

  "Please, step into my office," the woman said with impeccable, business-like precision. Her clipped, fast gait forced him to keep up as she led the way to her office-a tiny room on the first floor with a single floor to ceiling window. Grant noted that the room was on the "far side" of the building from St. James's Square-which was where Ethan, the FBI agent, claimed they'd met.

  The librarian circled the room and sat behind her desk. Grant stepped inside but refused to sit.

  "Who are you?" he growled.

  "I imagine you're wondering where your two friends are? What's become of them?" she pondered with a tilt of her head.

  Grant didn't answer. There was no need. She was holding all of the cards here, and they both knew it.

  "As you've no doubt gathered, some ... events transpired after you and your companions first arrived here at the Library two days ago." She laced her fingers together, elbows resting on the desktop. "I wonder how far the most powerful man alive would go to retrieve memories that have been stolen from him?"

  "You're not going to have to wonder very long," Grant said, stepping fully inside. But the moment he did, he felt light-headed. He landed in the seat in front of the librarian's desk with a flat thud and felt like he might throw up.

  "Careful now," the librarian warned him in a low, throaty tone, though her posture and seating position never changed. "You probably shouldn't have gotten to your feet as quickly as you did. I imagine you're still weak from the ... ordeal."

  "What ordeal?" he asked angrily, even though he was looking at his feet, willing his body to not feel sick.

  "I am the only person alive who knows the full extent of it. Only I know what happened to you and your friends over the last two days," the librarian said. "So if you wish to know the truth, you will do exactly as I tell you."

  So. Ethan was right. The whole thing was a setup. Whoever this woman was, she knew everything and had orchestrated this entire situation to manipulate Grant into doing her a favor.

  "I'm not moving from this spot-and neither are you-until you tell me where they are," he rasped, clutching his temples, which had begun to throb.

  A hint of a smile tugged at her mouth. "You're assuming they're even alive. That blood on your hands? It belongs to one of them."

  Grant looked up at her at last. If he wasn't fighting the urge to pass out, he would've already lurched across the desk and clasped his hands around her neck.... He found the mental image extremely satisfying, but he closed his eyes and breathed deeply enough to calm down and force away the desire.

  "Let's be clear," the librarian said, sitting back and crossing her arms. "I am offering one thing and one thing only: to return the memories that have been taken from you. Those memories will provide the answers you seek, but after the memories are yours again, our business will be concluded."

  Who was this woman?

  She worked for the Secretum, that much was obvious.

  But holding my memories ... for what? Ransom? Who does she think she is?

  "I imagine the ambiguity, the not knowing if they still draw breath," she said, "must be eating you alive. Kill me now, and you'll never know the truth."

  "What do you want me to do?" he bit out, beginning to regain some of his strength.

  "I wish you to accomplish two tasks," her calculating voice explained, "and in exchange, you'll get your memories back. Something requires fixing. And someone requires killing."

  "I don't kill."

  "Not my problem. The moral high ground always sounds good on paper, but this is the real world. Will you use your tremendous powers to take a life if it means saving those you care most about? I must admit, I'm eager to find out."

  "You're not here by coincidence, are you?" Grant shot back, still light-headed but fighting it hard. "Your being here is about a lot more than coercing me into doing favors for you. And it may not even have anything to do with Morgan's past. It's this place. You're an operative of the Secretum, planted here for a reason. So what is it about this library that has kept you here for fourteen years?"

  She ignored him. "My terms are thus. I want the barrier cutting London off from the rest of the world removed. Gone. And I want the prime minister dead, as he authorized its construction. His death will serve as a warning that nothing like this is to ever happen again. Both tasks are to be completed by sundown today, or no deal."

  Grant examined her. "You're cut off from the Secretum inside the barrier, aren't you? That must really cramp your style."

  If Grant's statement ruffled her, she didn't show it. "Sundown, Mr. Borrows. It's already midday. You should get a move on. One more thing ... the rest of your traveling companions are to know nothing of this. If any of them find out I exist, or what I've assigned you to do, then the deal is off."

  "Mr. Guardian, sir?"

  It was t
he boy again. Stephan. He stood just outside the Library door.

  "I know you said to go home, and I started to ... But I felt guilty."

  Grant walked beside the boy as they descended the stairs together. "Guilty about what?" he asked, distracted by other thoughts. He checked his watch. It was just after twelve noon. He had only seven or eight hours until sundown.

  He kept trying to reach out to his friends. Why couldn't he sense Morgan anymore?

  Maybe she really is dead.

  "I took some pictures of you while you were asleep, and I was planning to post them on the message boards. But I just wanted you to know I deleted them, so if any pictures of you asleep turn up online, they didn't come from me, right? So me and my family are safe, right?"

  Grant sighed, closing his eyes. "I'm sorry for threatening you earlier. I was ... I didn't mean it."

  Stephan smiled. "'S okay. You have to face things that ordinary people like me never even dream about."

  Grant shook his head in confusion. "Slow down. You said something about message boards? What, are you one of those fan club people?"

  Stephan smiled brightly. "Yessir, member in standing for over a month now. You're my favorite superhero."

  "I'm not a superhero," Grant said wearily, then he stopped walking. "Wait a minute. How did you find me in the first place?"

  Stephan swallowed visibly. "Well, the club has a network of 'Guardian spotters,' see. Somebody posted that they thought they saw you climbing out of the river a few days ago. It being Saturday and all, this is the first chance I've been able to have a look around on my own, see if I could get a glimpse of you in action. Just about stumbled over you while I was walking through the square."

  Grant took this in slowly, his thoughts still consumed elsewhere. An idea formed in his mind, and he retrieved a bloodied, crumpled business card from a jacket pocket.

  "Anyway," Stephan was saying, "I wanted to give you something."

  The boy handed him a spiral-bound notebook. Grant flipped through the pages and discovered dozens of pencil sketches of himself, in majestic, comic book-like spreads. There were action shots, superhero poses, images of Grant rescuing people in danger-he was looking at more than a boy's childhood fantasies. This was evidence of pure, childlike devotion.

  He backpedaled. "I can't accept this," he said.

  "No, you have to!" Stephan protested. "I don't need it anymore; I finally got to meet you in person. You're the greatest hero ever. And I got to meet you! I don't need anything else."

  Grant was genuinely touched. He accepted the book while tussling the boy's blonde locks, smiling at him. It had never occurred to him just how much he needed a reminder of who and what he was, especially since Jerusalem and now this disorienting memory loss business.

  "Thanks, kiddo," he said. "I've got to go ... people to save, criminals to stop. You understand."

  "Oh yeah, of course!" Stephan said. "Go!"

  "See you around," Grant said, and then he was off to save the day. Or kill the Prime Minister. Whatever came first.

  Grant searched the ground for nothing as he listened to Ethan talk, his ear pressed to his phone. He heard every word Ethan said, laying out the hard facts on the difficulties he was about to face, but Grant focused on his own thoughts.

  Could he pull this off? What if he couldn't? What if killing the Prime Minister was really the only way to ever find out what happened to Morgan and Alex?

  No. He wouldn't accept that they could just vanish forever. Whatever had happened to them, wherever they were, he would find them. No matter what.

  "This is a lot to ask," Ethan said on the other end of the phone line.

  "Yes it is, Agent Cooke," Grant replied, playing with Ethan's business card between his fingers. He spun in place at the center of St. James's Square park, a plan taking shape. "But you offered to help, and this is one thing I can't do."

  "I'm not sure I can either," Ethan muttered.

  "I don't even know you," Grant reminded him. "You want in? You want my trust? Make this happen."

  Ethan hesitated. "Even if I had the full resources of the FBI at my disposal, I don't know if I could make this happen."

  "Then you're no use to me," Grant said with a coldness that surprised even himself. "This is the size of the playing field that I'm on. The stakes are always this big. If you can't do this, you won't ever be able to help us in any way that matters."

  "Okay, all right," Ethan surrendered. "I'll pull every string I can. I'll be in touch."

  Grant snapped his phone shut and scratched absently at the scar he'd suffered when the severed hand fell out of the ceiling a few days ago. It was strange how much the scar itched. He glanced down at it and saw that the scar had scabbed over, but the surrounding skin was deeply discolored. An angry red covered the entire back of his hand, as if he'd come in contact with an irritant, like poison ivy.

  The scar itself wasn't really that big. It was a curved line, maybe two inches in length. And it itched like crazy.

  He was scratching at it again when a terrible thought entered his mind.

  "The end shall be marked by a scar revealing man's deepest hollow."

  Could it be? The third Unholy Marker ... was an actual mark on his skin? Was he branded now, as the Bringer?

  From a hidden instinct, buried deep inside himself... he feared that this was no ordinary scar.

  Grant closed his eyes and stood perfectly still, stretching out his senses. He needed to find the Upholders, and he needed to do it now.

  He saw them in his mind. They were in some sort of attic. But where was this attic? What building was it in? The barrier surrounded a highly populated area that had to be at least a hundred square kilometers. There could be thousands of buildings with attics in that space.

  Where... ? Grant concentrated so hard he began to sweat. Where are you? How do I find you?

  This was probably a waste of time, the voice of doubt told him. He bore down harder, trying with all his might to get a sense of distance. He'd never used his connection to the Ringwearers in this way before, and he had no reason to believe it would work.

  But it was all he had to go on.

  Frustrated and tired, he plopped to a cross-legged sitting position on the grass and sat back against the cement base of the statue in the middle of the square. A quick glance at his watch-twelve forty-two in the afternoon-and he closed his eyes again. He began a breathing exercise that Daniel had taught him to calm his speeding pulse, and he was reminded of the last experiment he and Daniel had attempted in L.A. He never had a chance to go all the way with it....

  Okay, he thought. If I'm going to do this, let's not rush it.

  One by one, he isolated all of the sounds surrounding him and cut them off in his mind. Birds chirping. Breeze blowing. Car engines. Shoes clomping on nearby pavement. He shut them out, until all was silent.

  He captured an image of the Upholders in his mind, but instead of merely peering at them as if through a hazy window pane, he tried to move within that space and go inside the image.

  On his first attempt, he lost their image entirely and had to start over again, calming his heart, cutting off his immediate senses, and capturing a sharp picture of them in his mind.

  The four of them were sitting around a card table in a makeshift kitchen, having what looked like a discussion of some sort. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but there was much gesturing and lips moving. He held the image of them there for a very long time, and it became sharper as time passed.

  There really are only four of them.

  So who is the fifth I sense?

  How long did he sit there and watch them? His sense of time was distorted by this isolated place in his mind he'd retreated into. It felt like hours passed, though they were still sitting around their little table. Still talking.

  Slowly, very slowly, he tried zooming in on the image of them. It was shaky and blurry at first, but soon he had it. He continued the movement until he found his viewpoint situa
ted in the middle of the table. Rotating his view, he was centered among the four of them. They looked through him to speak to one another.

  It was remarkable.

  Okay, if I can go in, let's see if I can pull out ...

  Concentrating hard, he reversed the maneuver. His point of view began to pull out, away from them, but he pulled up instead of sideways. There was no formal ceiling here, only a slanted A-frame roof without insulation. He saw the angled ceiling approaching from his peripheral vision and pushed through it.

  The four individuals seated in their kitchen vanished as shingles materialized before his eyes, then backed away from him. He pulled out farther and farther until he had a view of their whole building, and then the street they were on. The farther away he got from the four Ringwearers, the blurrier his vision grew. It remained in focus over the immediate area where they sat but became fuzzy in the periphery. He scanned the entire area, looking for something familiar, a landmark he could use as a reference ...

  There. A few blocks away and over from the small building with the attic was an enormous complex with numerous wings and even a helipad. Hospital, he decided.

  And directly across the street from the hospital was a subway station labeled with the familiar circular red and blue "Underground" signs. Now he had two distinct reference points; it would be enough.

  He released the image, the world around him and all its sounds returned, and he opened his eyes to the familiar St. James's Square park.

  Gotcha.

  Julie drummed her fingers on her armchair in the living room of their safe-house flat. If she'd possessed more energy, she would have used it to pace back and forth.

  As she had off and on for the last forty-eight hours, she sat in her comfy chair watching the news, tapping her fingers. Grant, Morgan, and Alex had left for the London Library two days ago. Julie had been to the Library three times since then and found nothing. Her last attempt was early this morning; she was feeling the urge to try again.