She stared at me, her face a mask of confusion. The faint wrinkle between her eyebrows deepened, and she shook her head. “But—but you look . . .”
Oh, right—the disguise. I’d forgotten I was wearing a stranger’s face. No wonder she didn’t recognize me. I didn’t look like me. “Magic,” I told her. It was the easiest explanation and, depending on your understanding of the universe, more or less true.
Kimi lowered the Taser, and I took that as a cue to lower my hands as well. “At least your voice sounds like you,” she said. “I might not believe it’s actually you, otherwise . . .”
I pushed the hair out of my face with one hand, the thin, blonde strands feeling foreign. “Sorry if I scared you. I just needed somewhere to crash.”
“No, it’s fine,” Kimi said with a wave of her Taser. “Just a minor heart attack.” Her eyes skimmed the length of my body. “Did you stay out here all night?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Jesus. You must be freezing.” She took a backward step, gesturing for me to follow her into the apartment. “Come on, get in here. Take a shower or bath or whatever you want to warm up. I’ll make some coffee. Are you hungry?”
“Yes to all?” I said, feeling like a stray dog as I followed her in.
I wasn’t usually a fan of baths, but the bone-deep chill made me crave one. The hot kind, not the icy kind. If I never took another ice bath, it would be too soon.
I soaked in Kimi’s claw-foot tub for at least a half an hour, an oversized mug of coffee on the tile floor nearby. The sounds of bacon crackling in a pan on the stove in the kitchen was just audible through the door, creating the most delicious anticipation. The water felt so good that I could’ve stayed in there for hours, but the lure of bacon was undeniable.
When the water started to cool, I figured it was time to get out. I stood and dried off while the tub drained. Kimi had lent me her bathrobe and offered me some clothes, but she was very much on the petite side, and nothing she owned would fit me. I didn’t even try. I’d tossed my things into the washer while the tub was filling up. In an hour I would have fresh, clean, dry clothes. Until then, the fluffy bathrobe would do just fine. I cinched the robe’s belt tight around my waist and pulled on a pair of Kimi’s socks, then bent over to wrap the towel around my hair.
Feeling like a whole new person, I left the bathroom. The smell of bacon smacked me in the face as soon as I opened the bathroom door, and I was drooling immediately. I crossed the vast living area, the high ceilings making the space feel cavernous, and made my way to the kitchen.
“Do you like pancakes?” Kimi asked. She was standing at the stove, spatula in hand. “I hope so, because I’m already making them.” She flashed me a smile over her shoulder, then turned back to her cooking.
“Dude, I will eat anything you put on a plate at this point . . .” I headed for the coffeepot, mug in hand. It was nearly empty. “But, yeah, I’m a big fan of pancakes.” I refilled my mug and wrapped the fingers of both hands around its almost-too-hot surface, then turned, resting my butt against the edge of the counter. “I buzzed to get in last night, but you must’ve been out. Late night?”
Kimi shook her head. “I sleep with earplugs.” She glanced behind her at the rest of the apartment. “The windows here suck. They do literally nothing to keep the outside noise outside.”
I raised my mug, taking a sip of steaming coffee. “I guess that’s the price you pay for a sweet spot like this,” I said.
Kimi laughed. “It’s the price you pay when you don’t actually pay that much for a place like this,” she corrected. “So . . .” She flipped the three pancakes on the griddle. “What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?”
She faced me, expression skeptical. “You look like Miss Teen USA, and you spent the night on my balcony,” she said. “So cut the BS, Kat. What’s up?”
I returned her stare, considering what exactly to tell her. Not everything, obviously. I certainly wasn’t about to admit that I’d crashed on her balcony because I was avoiding Nik. “I need a favor,” I finally said, thinking through the bullshit I was about to spew her way, surprised to find that it was actually a good idea. It worked with what I’d seen in the latest echo, and it just plain old made sense. My best work tended to be when I improvised, so I really shouldn’t have been surprised. “Your sister,” I said, “she goes to Newport, right?”
“Yeah,” Kimi said. “We established that yesterday. Why?”
I tapped the nail of my index finger against the side of the mug, the ceramic making a faint clink. “Do you think she’d be able to bring me to her school as, say, a cousin visiting from out of town?” If I could slip into the school relatively unnoticed during the school day tomorrow, the shadow souls would be too distracted by the students and I could dispatch them before they had a chance to attack me. I might not even need to try the whole stuff-them-in-the-mirrors tactic.
Kimi cleared the three pancakes off the griddle, stacking them on a plate beside the stove, then ladled fresh batter onto the hot surface. “This has something to do with all that weird stuff going on there, doesn’t it?” She glanced at me sidelong. “Is it related to your people?”
“Sort of, but not really. It’s complicated . . .” I set my mug down. “Remember how I told you to tell your sister to play hooky for a couple days?”
Kimi nodded, returning the ladle to the bowl of pancake batter.
“Well, something really awful is going to happen there,” I said. “And soon. But, if your sister can get me into the school during the school day, I think I have a way to stop it.”
Kimi leaned her hip against the edge of the counter, concern shining in her eyes. “Is Nina in danger?”
“Every single kid at that school is in danger,” I told her. “But the thing that’s going to happen—the bad thing—that won’t happen until nighttime, so it’s safe enough for her to go to school tomorrow . . . just so long as she’s gone before dark.” I took a single step toward Kimi. “I swear I wouldn’t ask you to do this if it wasn’t important, Kimi. People are going to die. A lot of them.”
Kimi’s eyes opened wide, showing the whites all the way around her hazel irises. “Shit. Yeah, okay.” She nodded numbly. “It shouldn’t be too hard to get you in there,” she said. “Our parents are out of town, so they won’t be around to ask any questions, and Nina worships me. She’ll do pretty much anything I say.”
“Awesome,” I said.
Kimi inhaled, holding her breath for a few seconds. “I’m going to have to tell her who you are and why you’re there,” she finally said. “She knows me too well—she can tell when I’m lying, and she’ll only agree to do this if I’m being honest with her.”
“Fine with me,” I said. I reached for my mug and brought it up to my lips, taking a sip. “So long as she doesn’t spread the word to all her friends, feel free to tell her anything you want.”
“Alright,” Kimi said, turning back to the stove. “We’ll eat, and then we’ll head over to my parents’ house.”
I nodded. “It’s a plan.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The headache started that afternoon, a dull throbbing at the base of my skull. I thought I was imagining it, at first, making myself think I could feel the early onset of bonding withdrawals, but by the time I went to bed in the guest room at Kimi’s parents’ house, it was pretty clear that withdrawals had started. It had taken a little over a day for my separation from Nik to affect me physically. Maybe thirty hours. Good to know.
When I woke the next morning, I was disoriented and in a moderate amount of pain. It took me a solid ten seconds to remember where I was and why was there. The bedroom I’d slept in was small but cozy. The sheets were soft, and the curtain was of the blackout variety, leaving the room almost entirely devoid of light. I had no idea what time it was. I propped myself up on one elbow and glanced at the clock on the nightstand.
Just after six in the morning. It was almost time for my a
larm to go off.
I flopped back onto the bed and rested my palms on my forehead, fingers twined together. My head throbbed, and I had no doubt that Nik was feeling the effects of withdrawals too. Because of me. I felt a twinge of guilt at knowing that I’d caused him pain.
I wondered if he was worried about me—if he cared that I’d left, beyond the physical pain my absence was causing him—until I remembered that he was fully capable of tracking me down whenever he wanted, thanks to the At ink on my left palm and both forearms. Even if it was currently invisible, it was still there; I could feel it. Which then led me to wonder why he hadn’t found me yet. Much to my annoyance, it bothered me that he hadn’t.
Stupid, I know. I hadn’t run off wanting to be chased. But now, I wanted to be found.
I scooted to the edge of the bed and lowered my feet to the floor. Standing, I made my way over to the window and pulled the curtain to the side. The neighborhood street outside was dark, with pools of light pouring down from streetlamps every fifty yards or so.
I couldn’t help but wonder if Nik was out there, somewhere. If he was watching me. Part of me very distinctly hoped he was.
With a sigh, I let the curtain fall back in place and walked to the bedroom door, flipping on the light switch on the wall. I rubbed my eyes, wiping away crusty sleep, and yawned. Moving more slowly than usual, I changed out of the T-shirt I’d borrowed from Kimi’s little sister, Nina, to sleep in and back into my jeans, tank top, and zip-up hoodie. I opted for leaving my leather coat here, figuring the sweatshirt would draw less attention at the high school. Ready for school—something that earned an internal chuckle for its sheer ridiculousness—I made my way downstairs.
Breakfast was boxed cereal, fruit, and yogurt, and Nina and I both filled up to-go mugs with coffee. She added milk and a pack of hot cocoa to hers. Thinking that looked like a pretty damn fantastic idea, I did the same. Instant mocha. Yum.
I’d never met Nina before coming to stay at her house, but I’d have pegged her as Kimi’s sister in an instant had I run into her pretty much anywhere. She looked just like Kimi, only bigger—not older-looking, just larger. Apparently, she was super athletic, with broad shoulders and narrow hips and muscles toned enough to make even me envious—and I spend a crap-ton of time training my body. She would’ve made one hell of a fighter.
“So, what should I call you?” Nina said as she drove us through the streets of her neighborhood on the way to school. The people who lived here really didn’t want anyone speeding; there were speed bumps every one hundred yards, it seemed. “I mean, like, around other people.” She snickered. “I assume ‘Goddess’ is out?”
I shifted my attention from the window to Nina’s face. She was biting her lip, holding in more laughter. I was impressed with her ability to not freak out around me. I chalked it up to the fact that she hadn’t actually contracted the Cascade Virus, so she and I didn’t share that extra-special connection.
“Hilarious,” I said dryly. “But seriously, just call me Kat. No one will make the connection between me and, well, me.”
Nina eyed me, none too certain. She knew who I really was, so clearly the rest of the school would figure it out, too. That was the way teenage brains worked, after all. Trust me, I’d been dealing with mine for nearly three decades now.
As it turned out, Nina’s doubts were unfounded. Meek, angelic Kat Danley flew under the goddess radar perfectly. And Nina was a popular girl. She had a lot of friends, and they all wanted to meet her mysterious cousin who she’d brought to school seemingly on a whim. Not a single person uttered the name “Kat Dubois” or whispered the G word in my earshot. I just had to keep my skin from glowing, and this would be easy.
It was surreal, walking the halls of a high school I’d already spent so much time at in my dreams. Making it doubly strange was the fact that I’d never had the chance to finish my senior year, at least, not actually at school. I’d been in Egypt, helping fend off another mystical catastrophe, and Heru had pulled some strings to make sure I received my diploma, and, well . . . it was a long story. Point is, it had been a while.
High school now was both different and the same as I remembered it. My high school in Seattle had been a single brick building, with multiple floors and classrooms laid out in a very traditional 1950s layout. Newport, on the other hand, had more of a 70s vibe with its single, sprawling level, the classrooms spread throughout the wings branching off from the main hall. But the locker-lined walls, the buzzing crowd, the eclectic array of teachers watching the organized chaos—that was all the same.
I spotted Alison—Ms. Cramer—monitoring the halls as Nina and I headed to her first-period class. After the dream of her dying, it was an insane relief to see her alive and well. Or well enough.
I was tempted to go talk to her—I really wanted to find out what happened with her and Joe the other night—but she wouldn’t have recognized me, and it would’ve taken too long to explain who I was and why I looked so different. The shadows under her eyes were visible even through her makeup, and her features were tensed, stare searching. This place was wearing her down. I didn’t think she would be able to stick it out much longer.
If I did my job right, she wouldn’t have to.
Nina had Spanish first period, and the teacher made her introduce me to the class in Spanish. Now, I’d taken Spanish back in high school, but that was over twenty years ago, and I barely remembered even the most basic words. All I could manage was a quick wave and a weak “Hola.”
And can I just say that standing up in front of a classroom of high school kids sucked when I was an actual teenager, and it was just as bad now that I was a confident, kick-ass thirty-eight-year-old. Just proof that high school is the worst.
The rest of first period flew by in a flurry of incomprehensible words and not a single sign of an ominous, soul-sucking shadow. I figured that maybe the kids were too tired to drum up the heightened emotions that tended to get the shadows all riled up. I worried it would take hours for the sluggish teens to wake up enough to make things start to happen, and I wanted to get to testing my distraction theory sooner rather than later. There was no way to predict which night the massacre was slated to happen—could be a week from now, could be tonight.
While the Spanish teacher conjugated verbs on the whiteboard, I stared dreamily at the fire alarm. Just one little tug of that red switch was sure to cause a spike of adrenaline that would wake everyone up. My fingers itched to pull the alarm, but somehow, I managed to resist.
Nina had chemistry second period, and the class split up among their lab stations to work on an experiment that involved Bunsen burners and stinky chemicals. I’d enjoyed science back during my own school days, and I was having a genuine good time helping Nina measure out the right amount of this or that liquid using pipettes and test tubes.
The shadow appeared suddenly, moving through a wall into the chemistry room. I caught the movement out of the corner of my eye and froze, pipette in hand.
“What?” Nina asked, staring at me. She leaned in closer and whispered, “Is it one of them?”
I nodded, never taking my eyes off the thing. “Here,” I said, handing her the pipette. “You do the rest.” I shifted on my stool to get a better view of the shadow.
It moved to the opposite side of the classroom, stopping to lurk in the space between two girls at neighboring lab stations passing a note back and forth. For minutes, I watched the thing just hover there, wondering what had drawn it to that specific spot.
One of the girls unfolded the note, face reddening as she skimmed the words on the notebook paper. Her features tensed, and her chin quivered. Whatever the other girl had written had clearly upset her. She tore the note up and wadded the pieces of paper into a ball, all the while glaring at the other girl, who seemed to be ignoring her, though her smug expression suggested otherwise. I nicknamed her bitchface in my head, and man oh man was I rooting for the other girl—the sad one—to march straight over there and smack t
he smug smile right off her face.
On sad girl’s next exhale, her breath was faintly visible. The temperature was dropping.
The shadow moved closer to her, and she hugged herself, shivering. I could see faint tendrils of her emerald-green soul being leeched off of her by the shadow.
I gripped the edge of the counter, fighting the urge to tackle the thing, if only to get it away from the poor girl.
She held out for a solid thirty seconds, but finally her hand shot up. “Mr. Hale,” she said, waving her hand for attention.
The chemistry teacher, Mr. Hale, looked up from the lab station two over from the girl’s, where he was helping a couple of students relight their Bunsen burner. He raised a finger. “Just a minute, Marcy.”
The girl—Marcy—lowered her arm and slumped forward on her stool, her elbows resting on the counter in front of her. The angry red in her cheeks from minutes before was gone, leaving her face washed out, her lips the palest pink.
The shadow hovered directly behind her, almost seeming to curl around her. Nina kept looking from me to Marcy and back, eyes squinted and mouth pinched, like she was trying to see what I could see. It was crazy to me that I was the only one who could see it—could see the thing draining the soul-energy out of this poor girl. It seemed even crazier to me that I was just sitting there, watching it happen.
How much longer until Marcy passed out? I wasn’t eager about taking on one of the shadows in the middle of a classroom full of students, but I couldn’t just sit there and watch it consuming this girl’s soul.
“Shit,” I breathed. I had to do something.
I stood and, as nonchalantly as possible, wandered over to Marcy’s lab station. I crouched nearby, like I was stopping to re-tie my bootlaces. Face angled downward, I watched the shadow out of the corner of my eye. I took a deep breath and reached out until my fingertips were barely a centimeter away from the shadow’s smoky ankle.
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