Seeker

by Arwen Elys Dayton

  The Young Dread began to do so, but before she had put two sentences together, Quin was running out of the workshop, calling back over her shoulder, “Come with me!”

  The sun was fully up in the sky as the three men came into view. They still lay in the clearing near the standing stone, their arms and legs at odd angles. But Quin could tell immediately that something had changed. Her father’s limbs appeared to have settled, as though his muscles were gradually growing softer.

  And the men were breathing. Their chests were expanding and contracting so gradually, it was almost impossible to spot the movement, yet it was there, changing their appearance from statues to living creatures. Something besides their chests was moving as well: blood was trickling from their wounds.

  The Young Dread let out a gasp when she caught sight of the old man with the beard. This man was moving the least—perhaps he had been There the longest. In a moment, the Young was kneeling at his side, holding his head very carefully in her hands. The girl put an ear to his mouth, listening for breath. She spoke softly to him in a language that sounded something like English. Then she shook his chest and spoke to him again, more firmly.

  Quin drew her whipsword, knelt over Briac, lifted her arm. It was time to make good on her promise. If Briac woke up, he would remind her of things she did not wish to remember, would force her to do things she did not wish to do, and Quin didn’t think she could stand up to him. She’d never been able to stand up to him. She must make an end of it now.

  Briac blinked.

  It was a slow motion. His eyelids traveled downward a tiny bit at a time, until his eyes were closed, and then they performed the same motion in reverse. His gaze turned very, very slowly, until he was looking up at her.

  Now! Quin told herself. Now, or you’ll never do it!

  She struck down with her blade. Briac’s half-frozen arms came to life on reflex. His right hand hit her whipsword away; his left grabbed her neck. Then he was perfectly still again, his hands frozen in their new positions. Danger had jolted him back into Quin’s time stream, but only for a moment. She pushed his arms away from her and lifted the whipsword again.

  “Quin!”

  Her head snapped up at her name. John stood at the edge of the clearing, two other men spread out nearby. She recognized one of them from the Bridge. All three had guns pointed directly at her.

  “Please, Quin,” John said. “Please put your sword down.”

  CHAPTER 45

  JOHN

  “You brought guns this time,” Quin noted as John approached. “You must be really scared of me.”

  “Well, you ignored the knives on the Bridge,” he pointed out, trying to make light of the situation. He did not like pointing guns at her.

  She had gotten to her feet and was standing perfectly still, her arms raised, whipsword on the ground by her feet. He watched her eyes move from him to each of the two men he’d brought with him. She looked much more alert than she had a few days ago on the Bridge. And more dangerous.

  John’s entire left arm was aching from the blowtorch burn, which was heavily bandaged beneath his shirt. It was a reminder that he had better succeed this time. His grandfather had lost his grip on sanity and would likely lose control of his empire as well. He wouldn’t be able to help John much longer.

  “You can’t seem to stay away from me,” Quin whispered when he’d come up beside her. Her words were meant to be cutting, but they still sounded intimate, and John could not stop himself from hoping that she would help him. Just once.

  “I don’t want to stay away,” he whispered back. “I want to be together.”

  On the ground nearby, the Young Dread was crouched over an old man who lay awkwardly on the forest floor. There were two other men on the ground as well, who looked as though they’d frozen in the middle of a strenuous activity. Both men wore hoods obscuring their faces, but they were breathing, very, very slowly. The old man, however, was as still as stone. The Young Dread was speaking to him in a language that might have been English, but if so, it was an English so old John could not follow the meaning.

  Quin was wearing ill-fitting jeans held up with a large belt, and after shoving his gun back into his pocket, John was easily able to slip his hand in along her waistband, searching for the athame. It was difficult not to think about his hand on her skin, but he pushed such thoughts away—he must focus. When his fingers came in contact with something hard, something made of stone and nestled up against her right hip, his heart sped up. Quin turned toward him, and John’s men lifted their guns in warning.

  “Don’t take it, John,” she said, her eyes pleading. “Don’t take it.” She put her hand on top of his, tried to push him away from the object beneath her jeans.

  “You could make this so easy. Change your mind. Decide to help me.”

  “I promise I am helping you,” she told him. “Things will get worse after you have the athame. Believe me.”

  “No, Quin. They’ll get better. Finally.”

  Why couldn’t she understand? Her hand was on his, and he imagined raising it to his lips. If she would only help him, he would be free to kiss her … Instead he slid the object up, out of her trousers.

  It was the gray stone of the athame, slightly warm from lying against her skin. In his excitement at holding the dagger in his hands, he shifted his balance away from her to study it. With two quick steps, she was behind him, placing John between her and the men with guns. In the moment it took him to turn to her, Quin had grabbed up her whipsword and was running for the trees.

  “Dammit, Quin! Don’t do this again!”

  He scrubbed at his face with his hands, torn. Then he gestured for his men to go after her. In an instant they were away. He wanted to go himself, but he doubted he could keep a clear head. Before arriving at the estate, he’d ordered his men to prevent Quin from escaping, even if it meant shooting her in a leg—and John would never be able to do that personally.

  His eyes dropped to the object in his hand then, and he realized his mistake. He wasn’t holding the athame. This was something else. It had the shape of a short sword, with a handgrip and a flat, curving blade that was duller than a butter knife. It was like the athame, certainly, but not the same. A decoy? But if so, why not make something more exactly like the real thing? And this object was of the same stone as the athame, he was sure of that. So what was this item he was holding in his hands?

  “Master, Master,” the Young Dread was murmuring nearby, still speaking to the old man in a low and steady voice, like a chant.

  John stepped closer to the two other frozen men to get a better look. One, he now saw, was a Dread, the man they had called the Big Dread in his training days. The third man’s face was still hidden behind a hood, but when John stood directly over him, he found himself staring down at Briac Kincaid.

  The surge of hatred was immediate and overpowering. At once, John felt himself back in the old barn, staring at the withered figure of his mother in the hospital bed, being taunted by Briac because he was not good enough, would never be good enough, to take his oath. Briac had treated John and Catherine like they were small and weak and easy to kill. But no more. John’s house was rising again, and it was time to put an end to Briac Kincaid.

  He laid down Quin’s strange stone sword, and his fingers brushed over the gun in his pocket. But instead, his hand went to his whipsword. It had seemed only appropriate to bring it today for his return to the estate. With a graceful motion, he flicked it out.

  Briac’s arms were frozen above his face, as though warding off a blow. John knelt and pushed them aside, but very slowly the arms moved back into place, and Briac’s eyes came into focus on John. He was waking up.

  There were shouts from the woods and then a single gunshot. John looked up, panic rushing over him. His men were excellent marksmen, but still, they might make a mistake. Please don’t hurt her … He strained his eyes in the direction of the gunshot, but he could see nothing except trees from where he kne
lt. He would have to trust his men to follow orders.

  With effort, he forced his attention back to the clearing, and he noticed that the Big Dread was moving his arms and legs now. The actions were both jerky and sluggish, with jumps and starts followed by tiny, slow movements. He too was waking up.

  John felt his attention drawn to something in the Dread’s cloak, an object sticking out of an interior pocket. Its color and shape … John forgot both Briac and the gunshot as he crawled over to the Big Dread, reached into the man’s cloak, and wrapped his fingers around a cool stone handle.

  It was another athame. He could feel the dials beneath his grasp as he pulled it from the Big Dread’s cloak. Briefly he took in its full shape in the daylight of the clearing … And then suddenly there was motion everywhere.

  The Young Dread’s head whipped upward so she was staring at him and the athame in his hands. She’d been entirely willing to ignore him until the moment he touched the stone dagger.

  Behind John, Briac was moving, rolling himself slowly out of reach. At the same instant, the Big Dread swung up to a kneeling position in one smooth movement, bringing himself face to face with John. The Big Dread froze again, just as quickly, but his whipsword was now in his frozen hand, its point nearly touching John’s chest and vibrating—a residual motion after being cracked out into a solid weapon.

  The Dread himself looked completely inanimate again, as did Briac, and John thought it might take a few moments for them to move a second time. The Young Dread was still clutching the old man’s robes, cradling his upper body on her lap, but John sensed she was preparing to lunge at him. His only chance was to run now, without giving any warning.

  Immediately John was on his feet, clutching the newfound athame in his left hand, his whipsword in his right, sprinting out of the clearing.

  For a long while, he simply ran, not daring to look back. Then, in a section of the woods where the trees were more sparse, he caught up with his own men.

  “Quin?” he said urgently. “Did you—”

  Gauge shook his head. “It was just a shot to pin her down.” He nodded toward a wide tree trunk thirty yards ahead. John understood—Quin was cornered there. His panic eased.

  He allowed his eyes to sweep over the forest behind him. There was no sign of anyone pursuing him. He looked back to the tree where Quin was hiding. No matter which athame he had, he would need a partner to teach him to use it. And he wanted Quin. Even if she’d never heard of an athame or Seekers, he would want Quin. Don’t turn your back on me, please, he implored her.

  John’s other man, Paddon, was circling around through the woods to close in on her from the opposite side. Paddon gestured to Quin’s location and opened his mouth to speak.

  Like magic, a knife handle appeared at the back of his neck. Paddon spit out a spray of blood and pitched forward.

  John turned to see the Young Dread moving with long, steady strides through the trees, another knife already in her hand, ready to throw.

  There was a rustle of leaves from beyond the wide tree trunk. Quin was not waiting to see who would be the Young Dread’s next target. She was flying deeper into the woods, heading away from them, in the direction of the barn on the cliff.

  John took off after her. He could hear the Young Dread continuing behind him, but she hadn’t killed him yet. He chose to take that as a hopeful sign.

  CHAPTER 46

  QUIN

  Quin’s legs were going to give out. She’d done more running in the past two days than she had in all of the previous year, and her muscles were not going to put up with too much more. Also, she was running out of woods. The trees were thinning ahead, with blue sky now visible through their branches.

  The Young Dread had killed one of John’s men, but the last time Quin had dared to look over her shoulder, the other man was still chasing her. And John, of course—he wasn’t far behind.

  The sight of that man flying forward, a knife buried in his neck, had not affected her as much as it should have. So I am used to death? she asked herself, immediately knowing the answer: Yes, I am much too used to death. There were still gray areas in her mind, but more and more was becoming clear.

  A few moments later, she came out into the open. A hundred yards ahead of her was the edge of a cliff, and below that was a river. She could hear the water from where she stood. Near the cliff’s edge was an old stone barn. And to the left of that barn was another path, leading back into the woods. The memory came to her—that way would take her to the castle ruins.

  She hesitated. If she took that path, they would follow, and she needed a rest before running again. And what was her plan? John had the lightning rod. Without it, her athame was useless. She must get it from him. The only other choice was to give him the athame, teach him to use it, and be done with running.

  She found herself walking toward the barn.

  “Quin, stop.”

  It was John’s voice. Without stopping, she turned her head and saw him at the edge of the woods, alone. He glanced back into the trees, searching for his remaining man.

  “Maybe the Young Dread got both of them,” she told him as she reached the barn doorway. She was close to the cliff now—the far side of the barn was nestled against the verge—and she could hear the river more loudly.

  “Quin, just stop. Come on.” He had pulled the gun from his pocket and was going through the motions of cocking it. The lightning rod wasn’t in his hands. He must have it hidden in his clothes.

  “Are you really going to shoot me?” she asked. “I don’t believe it.”

  Without waiting for his answer, she crossed into the shadows of the barn. It smelled just as she had known it would, of damp soil and old straw. She moved through its cool interior to the ladder on the far side and climbed quickly up to the sleeping loft. From there she could see out the huge circular windows beneath the roof, giving a view down the cliff and along the river, to the distant hills beyond.

  “I wanted you to help me back then,” John said, calling up to her from the doorway below. “That day in this barn.”

  Quin was silent.

  “What’s the symbol of your family?” he asked.

  “A ram,” she answered.

  “There’s a fox carved into the pommel of that athame—the symbol of my family.” When she didn’t respond, he said, “You don’t even want it, Quin. Why would you stop me from having it?”

  It was true, she hadn’t wanted it. She’d wanted to forget the athame and everything else. And she’d been a pawn. But now?

  She peered over the edge of the loft to see him standing beneath her. He was holding the gun, but it was hanging at his side, like he was embarrassed about its presence.

  “I’m coming up there,” he said, taking hold of the ladder.

  Quin braced herself, forming a simple plan. She took a deep breath, in and out.

  All at once, he was up the ladder and stepping onto the loft. Instead of moving away, as he would be expecting, Quin moved forward and grabbed hold of him. Stepping back, she twisted around and threw them both off balance, sending John stumbling over the edge of the platform. He saved himself by clutching a rafter, but his gun fell, clattering to the barn floor.

  For a moment, his legs dangled over the brink and he fought to get back onto the loft. Quin reached over and felt along his back as he struggled, around his waist, her hand searching for the lightning rod. It wasn’t there. She brushed something hard inside his jacket, a solid object, but much too small. Had he given the rod to his men? Had he left it in the woods?

  She ducked away from him. There was a long, narrow board connecting the sleeping loft at one end to a group of rafters at the other, beneath the second window. She was halfway across it when John spoke.

  “I don’t want to force you, Quin,” he said. As she glanced back, she saw that he’d regained his solid footing on the loft and was stepping onto the plank behind her. “Wouldn’t it be better to be together? I want you to choose to be with me.”r />
  “What about what I want?” she asked him as she crawled through the rafters toward the second window. “I want you to be the John I knew before. The one who wanted to do honorable things, to help people.”

  “I am him, Quin.” He was moving across the board toward her.

  She climbed onto the sill of the window. It was just an opening, without glass. From the sill, she reached out, grabbed the ridge beam beneath the eaves of the roof, and swung herself out of the barn.

  She looked to her right, expecting to see the branches of a large elm tree. She and Shinobu had climbed that tree dozens of times as children. She had hoped to be down its trunk and into the woods before John recovered his gun and followed her.

  But the elm wasn’t there. There must have been a storm sometime in the last year and a half, for the tree had fallen over, tearing out a large chunk of soil with it. Now, with a jolt to her stomach, she saw that it was a straight drop out the barn window, past the remnants of the tree trunk, and down the face of the precipice to the water. A cold breeze was whistling up the cliff, and her feet were flailing in the open air.

  She swung her legs frantically to the beam overhead, and as she did, she was given a view of the barn from a new angle. There was a carving next to the window, which until now had been hidden by the elm tree: three interlocking ovals were chiseled deeply into the stone of the barn, making a simple diagram of … It looked like an atom.

  She didn’t have time to study it. John was climbing among the rafters, only yards away from the window, and she was hanging over a cliff. She wrestled her way up onto the roof.

  Picking a path across cracked slate tiles to the other side, Quin peered over the roof’s edge and found that it was too far to jump to the ground. She might be able to lower herself down and drop—but there was no time. John was already climbing up onto the slate behind her. On one side, it was too far to jump, and on the other was the sheer cliff drop to the river below.