I stare, amazed as her power races through his little body, from his cheek to his hair, out to his fingertips and toes. He giggles and jumps in her lap, loving the feeling, getting more and more excited as the power builds within him, until it reaches some predetermined limit he seems to be waiting for and he jumps one more time, saying, “Ba!” as Van’s power…pops…and flutters out around him. Joshua reaches out for it, like he’s trying to catch bubbles. I sit back, unsure of what I just witnessed. From both her and Joshua.
“What the hell was that?” Zander asks, equally amazed, but unnerved without having seen her power.
I can only shake my head.
“Hey, cute boy,” Van says. She’s still not herself, but she’s looking at Joshua now, smiling shallowly as she struggles internally to hold back the emptiness she just escaped. That is not how I escape the emptiness, but I can’t argue with the results. Perhaps I am not the expert on this after all.
Chapter Seventeen: The Stench of Death
(Zander)
It’s just a little game we play. That’s Van’s explanation for what she did with Joshua. Not being jealous of her ability to move her power around like that so simply is impossible. We might know where Sonya is if I had a tenth of her ability. My own training to move my power around without guidance has been painfully slow. Grinding my teeth, I stalk down the hall to check in with Chris. His text was vague, only saying he had arrived with the bodies.
Annabelle slips in beside me, instantly knowing something is wrong. “What happened?”
A frustrated growl is all I can offer at first. It takes a moment before I can focus and grow up. “Van killed three men who attacked them outside a pizza shop. With knives she’s apparently had strapped under her shirt since we got back. She came back a zombie and only snapped out of it after Joshua slobbered on her and got her to play some weird power game with him.”
“Power game?” she asks.
I shrug, my shoulders straining against the movement. “She’s not really there enough to explain yet.”
Annabelle frowns. “Maybe I should go sit with her later.”
“Oscar won’t let her go home.”
“I don’t mind staying. Chris assigned us a room for anytime we might need to stay over.”
That slows my steps a little. We had planned to move Annabelle into our house this weekend, but too much was going on to manage it, and now the plan is to get started after I’m done with finals on Wednesday. Not that being busy has stopped us from staying with each other. I just didn’t realize anyone outside those at the house were aware of our sleeping arrangements. I glance over at Annabelle, checking her response. Her expression is as casual as her tone. When she catches me looking, her brows rise. “Is that okay?”
“Staying here with you tonight, or realizing Chris knows it’s a regular thing for us?”
She chuckles. “Both, I guess.”
“Uh…yeah.”
The topic dies there and we walk the last few hallways to the room Chris texted me about. I push through the door with Annabelle close behind. It’s clear her mind has gone from sleeping arrangements to business as she walks over to the dusty tables and scrutinizes the bodies. Chris stands back as I approach, only gesturing for me to go ahead. I waste no time approaching the first body and grabbing the knife sticking out of the long sleeve, black t-shirt he wore in an attempt to avoid Van’s detection. I hope he realized how badly he underestimated her in the seconds before her knife sunk into his heart.
Congealed blood sticks to the edges of the knife. Reeking of death, it does nothing to stir my hunger. All I feel is sick at the sight. Shoving away my nausea, I grip the neckline of his shirt and slice it down the center. My fingers tighten around knife’s hilt at the sight of the tattoo. Driven to know the truth, I slice open the shirts of the other two and find nothing.
I don’t regret David’s death. At all. I’d kill him a dozen times over if I had been strong enough to do it myself. What I do regret is that Oscar’s power bomb turned him into ash. It left no chance of checking him for the tattoo. Seeing it on one of the assassins sent after Van is finally confirmation that Emily’s half-remembered description of the tattoo she’d heard secondhand from her previous boyfriend truly exists. It’s not just another phantom to chase like the story behind the mark.
Walking back over to the first man, I stare at the design. Deciphering it and committing the design to memory. It looks vaguely like a symbol I remembered seeing on the doors of Peak View Hospital, one with two snakes wound around the winged staff, except this one only has one snake wound around a black bar. I have no clue what it might mean, but I now know what I’m looking for and turn to Chris.
He seems to know what’s coming and sighs. Reaching behind his head, he pulls his shirt over his head in one swift motion and holds his arms out. Annabelle’s eyes widen at his tattoo-less chest. It takes her a second to shift her gaze back to the corpse in front of her, but I know she’s still listening intently. Chris pays no attention to her and frowns at me.
“I take it you’ve been looking for something like this snake tattoo, and apparently didn’t feel the need to tell me about it?” Irritation glints in his eyes, but I harbor no guilt for holding something back from him. Even he can’t argue he deserves full trust and transparency.
Crossing my arms, I watch his every reaction. “You ever seen anything like this?”
Chris shakes his head. “Plenty of Godlings have tattoos. Maybe a few snakes here and there. Nothing exactly like this, though.” He gestures at his shirt and waits for me to nod before tugging it back on. “The tattoo itself isn’t an unfamiliar symbol, though.”
“It’s not?”
Chris shrugs. “It’s the Rod of Asclepius, a symbol for the Greek god Asclepius, god of healing and medicine. Sometimes you’ll see a similar symbol used by medical corporations, one with two snakes around the staff and wings at the top of the staff. It’s called the Caduceus and is often mistaken for the Rod of Asclepius, but the Caduceus is actually associated with Hermes, not healing.” He gestures at the corpse’s tattoo. “Why an assassin would bear the symbol of Asclepius, I have no earthly idea. Seems a little contradictory, if you ask me.”
He’s right about that. I can’t imagine either group associating themselves with the symbol.
“Me not having the tattoo doesn’t mean these men aren’t Godlings,” Chris says, interrupting my thoughts.
“Why not?”
“Training to become an elite Godling assassin is solitary,” he says, each word dripping with derision. “It’s not like we were all showering together after workouts. I really couldn’t tell you whether or not any of the others working for David had this tattoo. Or David himself. We weren’t particularly close. Certainly not enough that’d I’d ever see that much of him.”
As much as I would have liked a clear cut determination, I’m hardly surprised. When can anything involving Godlings and Eroi be simple? “Any clue why a group of assassins would have this symbol tattooed on their bodies?”
Chris shrugs. “Despite knowing where the symbol comes from, that may not be why they’re using it. The reason could be anything having to do with snakes. Snakes are associated with change and rejuvenation, evil, healing, duality, or fertility.”
“Given that these guys were most likely not trying to enact some kind of fertility ritual or healing ceremony with Van,” I say drily, “that leaves us with evil, rejuvenation and change, and duality. I’d love to slap a label of evil on these pieces of human waste, call them Eroi, and go to bed, but that would be taking the easy way out.”
Chris mulls the possibilities over for a few seconds before speaking. “Change and rejuvenation, maybe, if either side sees what they’re doing as fixing a major problem in the world. Duality would apply to either group with how two-faced they both are. One could argue the same about evil.” He holds up his hands and shakes his head.
“Maybe having Emily look would help,” Annabelle says, but I’m
already shaking my head.
“She never saw it, only heard about it from Paolo.”
Chris frowns. “What about Van? Did she feel hunger when they approached? What alerted her? Did Ketchup or Noah see anything useful?”
Scowling at the dead body in front of me, I shake my head. “It was over before Noah or Ketchup even suspected something was wrong. No clue on Van, though. All Oscar could get out of her were a few one word answers as she stared at the wall. Maybe she’ll be able to tell us later, but it could have been her prescience abilities just as easily as sensing some sort of hunger. The fact that she didn’t mention hunger suggests it wasn’t Godlings, but who knows. For right now, playing quietly with Joshua is about the best she can manage.”
“That’s not surprising,” Chris says, drawing both mine and Annabelle’s interest. Seeing our reactions, he continues. “The emptiness Van experiences, it’s not completely unique to her and Oscar. Everyone deals with it differently, but simplicity, purity, love, acceptance…being around things like help hold it back and give the Godling a chance to process their experience and file it away where it will do less damage. Van should spend as much time around Joshua and the other young ones as possible the next few days. It’ll help.”
Chris removes his phone from his back pocket as he walks over to the corpse. He snaps a picture of the tattoo and says, “I’ll disseminate this to a few people I know I can trust and ask around. Knowing who attacked them tonight will tell us who we need to defend against first. I’ve put the school on lockdown. I know you and the others have to leave for school and finals to maintain the appearance of normality, but none of you move alone and I’ll have security watching you twenty-four-seven when you’re not here. Caleb’s already volunteered.”
Nodding, I can’t say I disagree with his decision or offer, even if he isn’t technically in charge of those kind of choices. Oscar couldn’t care less about the other Godlings. The only thing he cares about right now is Van. The school could burn down around him and he wouldn’t blink an eye so long as his family was safe. I’m not really all that interested in being the man behind Oscar’s curtain either, but I’m not about to lose what control I do have and put my family at risk of being left out.
My tone says all of that as I say, “I expect to be updated on any security breaches at the school and any information you come across about the tattoo. Shift everyone who’s working on clearing the dormitories to getting the surveillance system in place and the borders secured. The back entrance to the property hasn’t been addressed yet.”
There’s the hint of a smile at the corner of Chris’s mouth, and I can’t tell if he’s amused by me asserting my position, or glad to see me take charge. I don’t particularly like either option. Glancing over to Annabelle, her expression is easier to read. Pride is hovering at the edges of her worry over the situation that led to us being in a room with three corpses.
Exhausted by this point, I want to grab Annabelle and find out where this room is we’ve been assigned to, but there’s more I need to discuss with Chris. I debate asking him about the power game. My trust in him is still tenuous, but I do believe he has Van’s best interests at heart, and not just because he believes her to be the Gift. He’s always treated her the same way Dad used to, a little more protective than he was with us, but respectful of her strength and potential.
“Something else happened with Van,” I say. His interests shift from security measures to me. When I explain what Oscar saw of Van’s game, he doesn’t say anything for a long time.
Before he does speak, he surprises me by turning to Annabelle. “Any thoughts on this?”
She twists her hands together under his gaze. Knowing he’s aware of her full power and ability has made her feel awkward around him lately. “It sounds a lot like…what I do,” she admits, “except for that final burst of power, making it pop around Joshua. I’ve never done anything like that.”
Chris nods. “Moving her power around so easily, not a surprising thing for Van to be able to do. Maybe the burst shouldn’t be a surprise either, given what Oscar says about her power being uncontained and tasting people, but in the game she has conscious control over sending it out. I thought she wasn’t able to do that.”
Shrugging, I wish I could have gotten more information from her about the game. I was lucky to get her mumbled response as she stayed intently focused on playing with Joshua’s toes.
“It’s just a game,” Annabelle says.
For a moment, I’m frustrated with her for not taking this seriously, but that seems like a strange response for her. Confusion pulls my gaze to her, and instead of a blasé expression, she’s looking at me expectantly. “What do you mean?” I ask.
Annabelle tilts her head to the side and gives me a look that says I should have figured it out already. “Van always controls her power better when she’s relaxed. When she and Ketchup throw knives together, she’s phenomenal. When David was breathing down her neck, she still hit the mark every time, but it took more focus, more struggle. When she dances…it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. She forgets everything but how much she loves what she’s doing, and her power works effortlessly to blend with her movements. Making Joshua happy is fun for her. It makes her feel good. She probably doesn’t even realize how incredible of a thing it is she’s doing. She’s just happy it makes him laugh.”
Considering her words, Chris nods slowly. “That’s what I saw at the compound and during the time I spent in your home as well. It doesn’t answer how or why she’s doing it, but it means we can probably get her to reproduce it and expand on the ability.”
“Expand how,” I ask, not sure what he intends to use such a thing for.
He scoffed. “With Van, who knows? Any growth in her abilities is something I want to encourage. It’s the only way she’s going to discover the Gift and what in the hell it’s supposed to be used for. Until then, keep her near Joshua, and let Ketchup stick as close as she’ll allow him. No limits on their time together. They’ve been assigned a room as well. Next to yours and Annabelle’s.”
Annabelle’s eyes widen, her gaze snapping to mine. I barely see her from the corner of my eye as I glare at Chris. “What?”
Waving off my hostility, Chris says, “Be her overprotective brother later, Zander. You know as well as I do that Van needs him. I’ve yet to figure out what their weird bond means, but he’s the only thing keeping her from turning into Oscar most of the time. If that means them sharing a bed, so be it. No, I don’t love the idea of two sixteen-year-olds having sex, if that’s where it leads to, but I’d prefer that over her never coming back from the emptiness. Wouldn’t you?”
The anger and fear backing his words blunt my irritation. I’ve been letting Ketchup stay with her when she has nightmares. Me sitting up with her wasn’t enough, like after my parents died. I knew, even the first time I allowed it, it might develop into something more physical than him holding her all night. I hate admitting it, but I’ve already weighed the risks as well as Chris has and made the same damn decision. That’s me, though, her brother, not some surrogate father nobody asked him to be.
The longer we stare each other down, the more I know it’s idiotic to fight him on this and the more his expression loses its angry edge and shifts toward pleading. Finally, I allow my hostile stance to relax and say, “At least it’s next to our room.”
Chris exhales his relief, his mouth twisting into a rueful smirk. “Do I need to give you two the same talk I’m sure you’ll be giving Van and Ketchup?”
Annabelle laughs. “Had that talk with them a while ago. Well, Zander tried and I took over to make sure they got it, so I think we’re pretty well versed on the discussion points. So thanks, but no thanks.”
Chuckling, Chris claps me on the shoulder as he walks past without saying anything else. The urge to kidney punch him is one I force myself to stifle. Annabelle slipping her arms around my waist to distract me helps immensely. Despite the fact that we’
re still surrounded by corpses, she kisses me lightly. I pull back reluctantly when my phone buzzes to announce a text.
Van’s asleep. Emily made her a bed on the floor of our room. Ketchup’s staying too. Get some sleep.
“Well, I was going to say let’s go check on Van, but Oscar’s says she’s out for the night,” I say. “I know it’s early, but I’m beat. Wanna show me our room?”
Annabelle slips her hand into mine and begins leading me away from the stench of death. “It’s nothing special, but it’s clean and has a bed. A twin bed, sorry. It’s all that’s available right now.”
Pulling her to a stop, I cinch her up against me and kiss her. “I guess that just means I’ll have to keep you close.” Her smile makes me think of just how close I’d like to have her, but exhaustion and the night’s events curb thoughts like that pretty quickly. We start walking again, but this time I pull her under my arm and let her innate gift calm me. “If I crash as soon as my head hits the pillow, I apologize.”
She chuckles and pulls in closer. “That’s okay, corpses and a shirtless Chris kinda killed the mood anyway.”
“Corpses sure,” I tease, “but I saw how long it took you to look away from him when he took his shirt off.”
Annabelle’s nose wrinkles. “Gross. He used to train me in martial arts between field ops when I was a little kid. That’s like seeing my dad half naked. The only guy I want to see that much of is you.”
“Only half naked?” I question, a grin spreading across my lips as a deep blush paints her face nearly the same color as her hair.
She’s still fighting her blush, but there’s heat in her eyes to match it. “You are pretty appetizing with just your shirt off, but I suppose…” Her words break off as she giggles. She seems to be as aware as I am that this is the completely wrong time to be thinking about sex, but that doesn’t exactly make it less poignant. Which is even more evident when Annabelle says, “I’m glad I went shopping before Chris locked the school down. If we’re going to be locked up in here for a while…”
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