Even Julie was visibly shaken, pulling away from him slightly. She tried to smile. "Your eyes ... they're a little bloodshot, honey," she said reassuringly, but her face told a different story than her voice.
"More like blood-soaked," Lisa remarked. "That is not normal."
"What is everyone talking about?" Grant mumbled to Julie. "You got a mirror?"
She retrieved one from a compact in her purse. They were right; his normally blue irises had turned a deep, bloody shade of red.
"Did ... did that librarian do something to you?" Julie asked, her face full of revulsion.
"I've seen it before," Alex whispered, an anguished look on her weakened face that kept her eyes from meeting Grant's.
Everyone turned in her direction. "His eyes turned red like that in Los Angeles when he was shot during the riot. And again in Jerusalem after we found the baby that died."
"Why didn't you say something to the rest of us?" Fletcher demanded.
Alex struggled to stay awake. "It was gradual ... I kept trying to convince myself I was just seeing things...."
"When was the first time you noticed it?" Julie asked, unnerved.
"It was the night Hannah died." Alex faced Grant with remorse. "Your eyes-they weren't blue or red, they were kind of purple. I didn't know what to make of it, but it only lasted a moment, and then it passed. But that was the same day ..."
"What?" asked Grant.
She replied reluctantly. "That was the day of the fire storm. The fire that rained down from the sky in Los Angeles, and the terrible earthquake-it began when your eyes changed."
No one answered. An unspoken thought circled the room like the wind of a tornado. No one said it because no one had to.
Except for Fletcher. "He caused the firestorm. Could he be causing the worldwide disasters happening now?"
"Could he be unintentionally causing them?" Julie reworded his question, adding an important qualifier.
Everyone looked at Grant, awaiting an answer.
But he picked up on a strange vibe between Fletcher and Julie. "You two... ? You've been talking about this, behind my back...." He was scratching the scar on his hand again.... "Even you?" he said to his sister.
He couldn't believe it. Julie was the one who constantly told him how good he was, how much she believed in him. She was the last person ...
"What happened to Morgan?" Payton said once again.
Alex spoke up. "I, I don't ... She was hurt, Grant tried to help her... I'm not sure what happened after that."
Payton moved. He'd been standing statue-still, arms crossed, and listening to everything unfold. But now he walked away to the kitchen.
He returned dragging Nora by the arm, who was wriggling and trying to break free from his vise-like grip. "You said this one can read memories, so she can selectively erase them?" Payton asked.
Grant nodded.
Payton turned her loose. "Read his memory. Recover what's been suppressed."
Nora raised one eyebrow at this notion. She marched forward and punched Grant across the face as hard as she could. "Don't you ever touch me again," she warned him.
Tension mounted in the loft as everyone waited to see what Grant's response would be. He merely massaged his cheek.
Nora knelt in front of him. "Let's do this. You better bear down on something-this ain't gonna be pleasant."
Grant screamed.
The pain that surged through his brain was intense, like two hot pokers stabbed through both of his temples. Nora never touched him, never made physical contact of any kind.
Her mind reached inside of his and removed what was keeping hidden his memories of those two missing days. There was nothing gentle or delicate about her operation. She ripped free the memories that were cloaked behind the chemical agent used by the librarian and made them more than just easily accessible. If his memories had been words on a page, they would now have been visible in gigantic, bold, all-capital letters, outlined with a glowing neon highlighter.
"It's coming back to him," Nora announced. She unceremoniously stood and walked away.
Grant clutched his head with both hands, but the pain was slow in subsiding. "Alex, Morgan, and I spotted a woman at the London Library. Morgan knew her; she said that this woman, the head librarian, was her. Or who she used to be before the Shift. You get the idea...
"Morgan had never heard of any of the `husks,' as my grandfather called them-the people we exchanged lives with-surviving long after the Shift. So we investigated this woman. We located her office on the ground floor and snuck inside. And Morgan was right: this woman in Morgan's old body still bore Morgan's birth name. We found plenty of papers on her desk to confirm this.
"That was about as far as we got before the librarian walked in and caught us in the act. I don't know what she did-hit some kind of failsafe or something-but we were knocked out instantly. Probably some kind of fast-acting gas released inside the room; whatever it was, it was too fast for me to contain. The next thing I remember is waking up underground in the special room beneath the Library."
Grant stopped here to rub his head again and take a break from these fresh memories to explain to them what he'd found in that room. He told them all about the librarian's confession, the files and binders detailing various people's lives from birth to death-all before they were even born, no less-and the boy he encountered named Trevor, who had the peculiar ability to nullify the mental powers of others.
"Anyway," he resumed his earlier story, "Two days before, when I first woke up in that room, I had no idea what it was or where we were. I assumed the librarian had taken us somewhere off-site. We could have been anywhere. My powers weren't working, and the three of us were tied to chairs. The librarian was elsewhere in the room, and she was clearly agitated. Remember, the barrier around London was still up at the time, so she was cut off from the Secretum.
"Or so she believed. It wasn't long before a group of soldiers-some of the same men Payton and Ethan killed tonight-appeared from a far corner of the room."
"There was nothing at that end of the room?" Payton inquired. "No exit? No passageway of any kind?"
"Not that I know of," Grant replied. "But no one appears out of nowhere, do they? I guess there had to be something there. But the room was destroyed by fire, so it's all moot now anyway. So these soldier guys appeared, and the librarian was really unnerved by their appearance. I got the impression she really thought she was all alone as far as the Secretum was concerned and was trying to figure out what to do with the three of us by herself. She was seriously thrown by the soldiers' showing up. Morgan managed to wriggle herself free of her bindings, and she freed Alex and me while the librarian was distracted.
"As soon as we got to our feet, the librarian pulled out a gun and started firing. She was kind of crazed. Maybe she got bad news from the soldiers or something, I don't know."
He swallowed and tried not to look at Payton before he continued. "Morgan was hit. It was a stomach wound. The soldier guys got the librarian to stop firing so they could pursue us properly. I used CPR on Morgan-that's where all the blood came from on my hands and clothes. But the soldiers were running toward us and we were without our powers, defenseless. We had to go-"
"And Morgan?" Payton demanded.
Grant hesitated. "I don't think she was breathing. And she wasn't there the next time I visited that room two days later, so I have to assume they moved her-or moved the body."
"And you can't sense her?" asked Payton, his composure becoming increasingly severe.
"No, I'm sorry. It's like there's a hole where she's supposed to-"
Payton turned and made for the exit.
Hector stepped in front of him and held out a hand.
"Out of my way," Payton said in a warning so soft no one else heard it.
"Where are you going?" Grant called out.
Payton turned. "You people need to get something straight about me. I may lend a hand when our interests run parallel. And I can play the hero as well a
s the next man. But there's really only one thing I'm good for. And it's time I got back to it."
"What are you going to do?" Grant called after him as he turned and strode away.
Payton never answered. He moved into superspeed and was out the kitchen door before anyone realized he was gone.
Grant was surprised by his reaction. Payton hated Morgan with a genuine passion. Of all the ways he could have responded to the possibility of Morgan's death, this was the last thing Grant expected.
"Should we go after him?" Julie asked.
Grant shook his head.
"You didn't finish the story," Alex said weakly. "You should tell them about how we met Ethan."
Grant was surprised to see her awake again. Ethan was listening from his station at the window, but he turned at hearing his own name.
"Right," Grant replied. "Well, we ran. There were stairs to climb, and we found ourselves back inside the librarian's office. We opened the window there and escaped through it. That was when we met Ethan. He had suffered recent blood loss and was pretty weak himself, but he helped us find a place to hide in an abandoned building about two blocks away from the Square.
"He explained who he was and that he wanted to help. We didn't believe him at first, of course. Alex was particularly suspicious after we realized he had led the strike team on the warehouse just before we left L.A. But he told-"
"I told her," Ethan spoke up, "that I thought you all were a threat. But it was a mistake. And I'd come here to correct that mistake."
"Somewhere along the way," Grant continued, "Alex and I fell asleep. I'm ashamed of it now, that we didn't try harder to go back and determine what happened to Morgan. But the drugs weren't completely out of our systems, and we were both feeling physically ill from our exposure to Trevor. We found out the next morning that even though he wasn't feeling well himself, Ethan had popped some uppers so he could stay awake and keep guard while we slept safely through the night."
This news settled throughout the group. Even the four Upholders seemed a bit more at ease looking upon Ethan now.
"In the morning we decided to go back inside the Library, but I refused to let Ethan come with us. That was my mistake. I doubt any of this would have ended as it did if I'd allowed him to come with us. I didn't contact any of you because I didn't want to worry everyone until we knew Morgan's fate for certain.
"We made it back inside, but as soon as we got to the librarian's office the soldiers reappeared, and they pursued us throughout the Library. It's a maze in there, and eventually we made our way outside to the square. But they were waiting. The librarian and the swordsmen trapped us in the small park there. Neither Alex nor I could access our powers. The librarian pulled out a hypodermic needle and tranquilized Alex on the spot. Then she jabbed me in the neck really hard with another needle and all the strength went out of me.
"That's it. I passed out and then woke up the next day with my memories erased. I guess she saw an opportunity, knew I'd be desper ate to know what happened to Morgan and Alex, and tried to use that desperation against me."
"Clever plan," Fletcher remarked.
"Yeah," Julie added, "but we still don't know what happened to Morgan."
Grant stood. "They took her. Dead or alive, they've got her. To find Morgan, I have to find the Secretum."
Julie stood as well. "So where do we start looking?"
Grant's pulse raced, angry and disappointing thoughts rushing back to the surface. "I've got this. You all sit tight."
"Grant!" Julie called out as he crossed the loft toward the kitchen and the exit. "We have to consider all the possibilities; you know that. We have a responsibility-"
"Stop it," Grant spun on his heel and faced her. "I know you mean well, but I don't have any way of proving that I'm not somehow causing the world to fall apart with all these crises. And I don't have time right now to figure out how I can."
A sad look crossed Julie's face. "Your eyes are back to normal."
"What?"
"Your eyes," she said. "They're blue again."
"Good." he turned and the back door opened itself before him. "Maybe blue-eyed Grant won't rain fire down on London."
"That's not fair!" Julie shouted. She'd stopped moving and stood by the small kitchen table. "You think I want to fear the worst about you?"
He was already out the door but looked back inside one last time. "Life isn't about what we want. It's about what we're willing to do!"
Tears appeared around Julie's eyes. Grant wasn't sorry to see them. She was willing to believe this about her own brother? What did that say about her?
"By the way..." he said. "That was a direct quote from Mom."
The door shut itself and Grant was gone.
Payton flung open the main entrance to the London Library and stalked inside. A smiling young woman asked if he'd like to purchase a membership. He didn't respond.
A distraught young man, taking note of Payton's sword, which was sheathed as usual at his side, tried his best to maintain a helpful tone as he said, "Sir? May I help you find something?"
Payton didn't respond. He moved forward into the Library methodically, unstoppable.
"Er, well, be sure to let one of us know if we can be of help...." The man's voice trailed off, uncertain what he should say in this situation.
Payton followed Grant's description to the letter and walked to the door of the head librarian's office.
Only there was no door. A blank wall greeted him instead.
A trick, he thought. They've covered it up.
Payton whipped out his sword and began slashing at the wall. He came up against bricks, mortar, wood, and other standard wall materials, but nothing more.
"Sir, no! Sir!" called the young man, who had come to see what all of the commotion was. "You mustn't do that, sir!"
Payton continued his work, hacking away at various areas of the empty wall.
"Sir, I will summon the authorities!" the man said, seeming to grow a backbone before Payton's very eyes. He stationed himself between Payton and the wall.
Payton shoved him flat against the wall. But the young man's impact against the wall was much louder than expected; it sounded shallow.
"Sir, this is the historic London Library, and it must not be damaged in any way!" the young man said, as if explaining to Payton where he was would deter his actions. "We've already had a difficult few days, and I can summon the authorities quite easily-"
Payton extended a fist, and the man thought he was about to be hit in the face, but instead Payton knocked on the wall just above the librarian's shoulder.
"Stand still," Payton growled.
The young man's eyes widened as Payton made three swift slicestwo vertical and one horizontal. He'd cut a shape into the wall the size of a door, outlining the space where the young man stood frozen with fear.
"What are you-?" the man cried before Payton had finished his task, but he was interrupted as he suddenly fell backward through the drywall Payton had just dissected.
Payton stepped over him and into the head librarian's office.
"Thanks for your help," he snarled. "This is exactly what I was looking for."
Grant glanced inside the spiral notebook one last time to confirm the address and rang the doorbell.
The book of sketches given to him by that young boy he'd met in St. James's Square had the boy's address written inside the front cover.
Grant heard footsteps inside that sounded like someone running down stairs.
"Mum, I've got it!" called a voice inside.
The door opened, and the boy stood there in his pajamas. Grant had forgotten how early it was; the first signs of dawn were just spilling over the horizon.
But the boy wasn't upset by the early morning visitor. His jaw hung loose from his mouth at the sight of Grant, and he said nothing.
Grant offered a modest smile in return. "Hi, again. It's Stephan, isn't it?"
Stephan stared at him bug-eyed and nodded witho
ut blinking.
"Do you remember that Guardian message board you told me about? I was wondering if you wouldn't mind showing it to me?"
Alex's strength returned slowly, and she sat up now on the couch next to Julie with her arm around her. Lisa was on Julie's other side.
Daniel sat nearby, staring at the floor as usual. Nora stood in a corner all alone.
The Upholders were in the kitchen by themselves. Ethan remained at the window, ever watching.
Julie, seated between the two women, tried to blink back her tears, but was unsuccessful. She was shaking now, her illness asserting itself more than usual. She couldn't get her arms to stop moving, even when they were resting in her lap.
Alex knew Julie probably needed a hug or some words of comfort, but at the moment she didn't feel much like soothing anyone. Let alone the woman who seemed to be blaming Grant for everything. Alex tried to convince the others that this theory that he was the one responsible was nonsense ... but they wouldn't listen to her.
Her thoughts went to Grant, out there alone. It wasn't his fault. Couldn't be his fault.
I should be with him.
And what about Morgan ... Was she really dead?
How could the team go on without her?
Distractedly, Alex watched as Hector made himself busy using his powers on the people here he hadn't yet met. He walked up to Ethan and smiled. Then he suddenly placed his hand on Ethan's forehead. Ethan started to protest, but then he stopped and closed his eyes. He was giving in to a pleasant sensation; Alex could still remember the first time Hector had touched her.
When Hector pulled away, Ethan opened his eyes and looked down at his wrists. The scars from his ordeal on the subway train were gone. "Incredible!" he said, smiling. "You didn't even leave a scar."
"He never does," Fletcher remarked from nearby, where he was fiddling on his computer as usual.
Ethan almost laughed. "Can he do anything for an old football injury to the neck?"
"I would imagine he already did," Fletcher explained without emotion.
Ethan pivoted his head down, turned it back and forth, and looked up at the large man in astonishment.
"A single touch is all it takes," Fletcher continued, though he never looked up from his computer screen. "Hector can heal any injury that's not too far gone. Illnesses are much more challenging for him, but he continues to try."
Fearless (Dominion Trilogy #2) Page 25