“Undo it!” I heard Chant yell over the crackle of flesh and tissue. “Undo it!”
“I can’t!” I screamed, but then the strangest thing happened. No sooner had surrender left my lips, that I felt a strange tug at my gut. It was unfamiliar, nothing I had ever experienced before. But as it grew, so did a soothing balm that let loose inside of me. The pain began to die down and, as if in tandem, my concentration grew. Like someone who had just learned after a lifetime that they could wiggle their ears, I instinctively spread the sensation throughout my body. It was beyond my control, I knew that. Yet somehow, I was controlling it. My vision began to come back; colors at first, and then shapes. Sounds, once muffled by flame and torture, echoed through my ears.
The crowd was in awe. Whispers mixed with loud gasps and even audible cheers. But how could I see and hear them? For all I knew, the fire should have burned off every useful piece of me by now. But it hadn’t, and what was more, the pain was almost completely gone. Soon, I realized that the fire was actually going out. No one was touching me. Not one person had stepped up to dump water or throw a blanket over me to douse the flames. But still, they vanished. One by one, the red and orange wisps grew smaller, disappearing from me completely, leaving me naked on this chair, no longer bound, and staring at a Breaker crowd that was now twice as big as before the fire overtook me.
Their mouths hung open as they looked at me, seeming more interested in what I had just done than the parts of me that were now on display. I looked down slowly, fully expecting to find a mass of blood and scar tissue where my body had been. But none of that was there. I was me. Sure, the fire had burned off my body hair, but the rest of me was unharmed. I was intact and, what was more, I felt good. A rush of something had passed through me, something strong. And I finally realized, not only what Chant had meant by what he said, but what Mulva had meant as well. I had created that fire. I was a flux case. I wasn’t sure how or why, but my powers were changing. They were growing stronger, and I was becoming more dangerous.
Chant glared at me, still leaning against his cane. The other Councilmembers; Ilsa and Felix, stood behind him, wide smiles draped across their faces.
“Behold, in flames, Owen Lightfoot has departed from us,” Chant said, turning around and addressing the crowd. “In his place, sits the Dragon!” His cane slammed heavy against the floor, sparks flying from its hilt. “Except fate’s blessing with open arms; bear witness to your future!”
Fate’s hand, it thought, standing shakily and letting the breeze cool my bare body. It’s happening. Fate’s taking over. I’m a weapon.
Chapter 7
The Face of It
Cresta
“What is a Damnatus?” I had asked that question a dozen times since seeing it etched across the wall. I had yet to receive an answer.
Echo studied the stupid writing and, though Dahlia busied herself bandaging the bloodied tips of my fingers, her eyes moved toward the mystery word more often than not. I hated this, when crap I couldn’t explain exploded all over the place like a crazy ass landmine. And the thing was, it was happening more and more frequently lately. The blank sheet from Wendy, Casper being here, being plunged into a month long coma after my lines started changing; they were all pieces of something bigger. I could feel it. The problem was, I didn’t know what.
“They’re not gonna answer you,” Casper said, sitting next to me and exuding that ‘not overtly serious’ air that I had all but forgotten about in his absence. “They did this every day when you were unconscious. Look, you can say literally anything.” He leaned forward. “Echo, do you think you could help me shave my head later. I wanna dye it pink and become an Easter egg themed supervillain.”
“Of course, Casper, whatever you need,” Echo said absentmindedly, tracing one of the letters with his index finger. “Do you think this is an O or an A?”
“You know what it is, Echo!” Dahlia answered, finishing my bandages and using a tone that wiped away any doubt I might have had about them knowing exactly what the word meant.
“What is a Damnatus?!” I asked again, standing this time.
“Keep your voice down!” Dahlia turned to me.
“Why?” I narrowed my eyes. “We’re in an invisible cabin in the middle of nowhere. There’s nobody around to hear.”
“That’s not entirely true.” Dahlia’s eyes flickered to the hallway, and I suddenly remembered what she and Echo had been fighting about when I came upon them. She didn’t trust Renner or Royce. She didn’t think they had been honest with us, or that my birth mother had been honest with us for that matter. An uneasiness swept over me then. It wasn’t that I had any particular affiliation with the woman who gave birth to me. For my mother, Julie Karr was my mom, the only one that counted. And just because Royce was the Raven, didn’t mean I was inclined to trust him. To the contrary actually; I wasn’t about to let fate, prophecy, or anybody else dictate who I was supposed to be or who I was supposed to be with. Lingering (and spectacular) kisses aside; Royce had a long way to go before he was anything to me other than annoying.
And what had happened here in the last month, while I was sleeping? I hadn’t had time to talk it over with Casper or Echo, and I still wasn’t sure about Dahlia’s true intentions. Sure, she had told Echo all the right things when she didn’t know I was there, but she had made no secret of where her loyalty lied. She could have been playing us both for all I knew.
“I want to know what it means,” I said, being as quiet as I could while trying to keep my voice firm. “I wrote it. I want to know what it means.”
“It might not mean anything,” Echo said, staring at me with eyes that held a troubling amount of pity.
“That’s bull!” I answered, my voice spiking again before I stop it. “She said it was bad!” I pointed to Dahlia.
“Well yeah,” Casper rolled his eyes. “Bloody carvings on the wall aren’t usually a good omen, Cress.”
I shot him a withering look. I knew what he was trying to do, lighten the mood so that I didn’t feel- well, the way I felt more often than not these days. But now wasn’t the time, and I wasn’t the Cresta that I used to be. That girl was gone. She died when her mother did, when she realized her dad’s death was her fault, when the love of her life was ripped away from her in front of her face. I was someone else now, and that person felt more like the Blood Moon than I would have ever dared to admit.
“Tell me what it means.” There was no question in my sentence, no room for one. My hands curled into fists at my sides and I could feel the shade- all the shade twist and move around me like an electric current in the air.
“Cresta, don’t get yourself worked-”
“Tell me!” I screamed at him.
“It means we ain’t got no time, Sweetheart.” I didn’t have to turn around to know who it was. I could tell from the twang, from the cocky lilt of his sentence structure, from the ‘Sweetheart’ that practically bookended all of our conversations.
Royce stood at the edge of the hallway, leaning against it lazily with his arms folded over his chest. So much for Dahlia wanting to keep this a secret.
“Damnatus means ‘the damned’. It’s Latin or some such; whatever pompous language the Breakers use to make them feel important.” He shook his head, causing his sandy hair to spill down into his face. “It’s an old prophecy, one of the ones they thought they stopped. Though, I’m guessing from the fingernails that they were wrong.” He motioned down to my bandage covered hands. “Something about a martyr and a journey; but most of all though, I think it’s about you.” His eyes slid from me over to Echo. “Stop me if I’m wrong.”
Echo glared at him like he wanted to smash his head in. Any other time, and I probably would have shared the sentiment, but Royce was the only person being honest with me at the moment. And I needed that right now.
“The Damnatus is a wayward Breaker, or that’s what the prophecy stated,” Echo said, without breaking eye contact with Royce. “I can’t remember how
it goes verbatim. It was declared null years ago and, as such, burned with all the other obsolete musings.” He began to recite from memory: “Though it’s golden soul with never touch the highest or lowest of the Earth’s offerings, it is the blood of the Damnatus that will seal our fate. For within that sacrifice; lies to key to destruction. With that death, the world herself will die.”
“It’s a person?” I asked, looking from Echo to Dahlia, whose eyes were fixed out the window. She didn’t respond.
“It’s a tall tale,” Echo assured me. “It-it has to be.”
“Why?” I asked. Reading his face, I was almost sure I didn’t want to know the answer.
“The end that that particular prophecy leads to is gruesome, much worse than what was settled on within the Hourglass.”
“There are different ends?” Casper asked, standing next to me.
“There are different prophecies. Seers don’t all say the same things. And, even if they did, our actions change the future. It’s what being a Breaker is all about,” Echo answered.
“Is it?” Royce scoffed. “Could have fooled me.”
“The Damnatus, all that it entails; seers stopped reporting those decades ago. It’s not the way the world ends.”
“Or at least you hope it’s not,” Dahlia said, slowly turning away from the window.
“Are you saying you believe this?” Echo seemed floored by the prospect.
“I’m not sure what I believe anymore.” She pointed to me. “Things happen to that girl, and why I can’t always explain them, I do know that nothing she does is without consequence. Whether she meant to or not, whether it’s true or not, we have to proceed as though the Damnatus is in play now. It’s too risky not to.”
“So what does that mean?” I asked.
“It means I’ve gotta take a walk,” Royce said. I narrowed my eyes as he continued. “We’ve got eyes and ears everywhere in the Hourglass. If we know this, it means that the Council might know it too. I gotta get closer into the mess of things, but I need to check in and make sure.”
“The Council doesn’t have a seer,” Dahlia answered. “The last one was our daughter, and she’s…”
“They have the crone,” Royce answered and, for the first time, I sensed a bit of reverence in his voice.
“The crone is almost thirty. She couldn’t read a stop sign at this point,” Echo said.
“Like your wifey said, we can’t risk it,” Royce responded.
“You’re going back to the Hourglass?” I asked. “I mean, the main part of the Hourglass? You’re going close to the Council?”
“Aww, you worried about me, Sweetheart?” He winked. “Don’t worry your heart. This is a cakewalk, and I’m good at a lot of things.” Ridiculously, my mind went back to that kiss. “I’ll leave tonight. The dark won’t make it harder for every Breaker out there, but it will for enough of them to make it count.” He nodded at me. “You should see me before I leave, though. You got a lot of built up shade, and I’m the guy to help you relieve the tension.”
He winked at me again and headed back through the hallway. My face reddened and it took all I could do not to pick up something from the kitchen and throw it at him.
“That dude,” Casper said, shaking his head.
“I know!” I grunted.
“He is so cool!” He finished, smiling.
“Shut up,” I muttered, swatting at him. Turning back to Echo, I demanded, “Tell me more. What do you know about the Damnatus? Do we know who it is?”
Echo shook his head. “Prophecies aren’t that precise. They don’t give names Cresta. You know that.”
“But they do give clues,” I answered. “You had a boatload of indicators that I was the Blood Moon,” I said, remembering the teardrop shaped birthmark on my thigh and the truth about my DNA. “Certainly there are clues or something we can use to track this person down.”
“You’re the Blood Moon,” Dahlia said. It wasn’t malicious, not a curse like it had been in the past. It was just a fact, something we had all come to expect. “Every prophecy that’s ever been has touched on you at one point or another. This person, the Damnatus; they’re a non-issue. Like Echo told you, the prophecy was deemed null and it was destroyed. If there were clues to the identity of this person, they were lost with the scrolls themselves.”
She began packing the bandages back up into a small brown bag. “Besides, this isn’t a person you want to look up, Cresta. If the Damnatus exists, then they’re a catalyst to you; a path that you shouldn’t flirt with. We need to keep our distance.”
“Unless we can keep the Damnatus alive,” I answered, looking from Echo to Dahlia and back again.
“Until when Cresta?” Echo asked, his fingers drumming once again against the counter. “Everyone dies. Even if we could find them, we can’t reasonably watch this person for the rest of their lives. The prophecy doesn’t mention a cause of death or even a perpetrator. We’d be going in blind.”
“Not necessarily,” Casper chimed in. “You said this dude was a martyr. That means they died for something they believed in, for something they loved.” He caught me glancing at him. “Don’t stare at me like that. I’m smart when I wanna be.” He shrugged. “Anyway, seems to me that all we have to do is find out who this dude is, figure out what he loves most in the world, and make sure he never goes near it again.” He looked over at me grinning, like he had actually accomplished something. “Done and done.”
“Or we can bypass the whole ‘death’ thing altogether,” I said, stuffing my hands into my pockets.
“I’m not following,” Echo admitted.
“You said their golden soul never touched the highest or the lowest that the world had to offer,” I began.
“Yes, because they die, you see. They never get to experience the highs and lows of life,” Dahlia commented.
“But what if that’s not it?” I asked, moving toward them enthusiastically. “What if it’s literal? What if that means that the Damnatus never goes to the highest and lowest points on the planet?”
“You mean geographically?” Casper asked, looking at me.
“It’s worth a shot,” I said. “We find this person, drag whoever it is to either the highest or lowest altitude on the planet and nullify the whole thing. Isn’t that the way it works?”
“Theoretically,” Dahlia admitted, though I could tell she didn’t want to. “Though you’re taking more than a few liberties with this.”
“So?” I shook my head. “You said yourself that nobody knows anything about this stupid prophecy. Who’s to say what it does or doesn’t mean?”
“It doesn’t matter!” Echo yelled, his fingers stopping abruptly. “Weren’t you listening? We don’t know who this person is! We have no way of finding out who this person is, if they even exist. And you can’t know.” He gritted his teeth. “As dangerous as you being around Owen is, you being around the Damnatus is a thousand times worse.”
“Why?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.
“Because of that damned prophecy!” He yelled. “I have done so much since the night you came to me, Cresta; so many things that I never thought I would. And I don’t regret that. I would do it all again if it meant saving your life, if it meant doing what I thought was right. But I don’t think this is right. I won’t play a part in lining up the pieces for this particular apocalypse.”
“What is it Echo?” I asked softly. “What is it about this that’s got you spooked, that’s so different from everything else that we’ve dealt with?”
He looked over at Dahlia. “Tell her,” she said, but then looked out the window again.
He pursed his lips and sighed loudly, again reciting from memory. “When the Damnatus has played its part, the end will come swiftly. The Blood Moon will wipe the world of its innocents, exposing the uninitiated to the fires that will soon enough come to all.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, batting down the growing sickness that always seemed to appear in my stomach anytime th
ose stupid prophecies were read.
“Cresta, don’t make me-“
“Tell her, Echo!” Dahlia shouted. “She needs to know!”
“The children!” He said, blinking back tears. “The innocents, the uninitiated; it means children. It means that, if this is the end that we’re facing, if the Damnatus is really back in play, then the world won’t end until you wipe every child from the face of it.”
Chapter 8
Want Me To
I had been sitting in that room, the one I woke up in, for far too long when he came in. Casper was holding a tray with a single cupcake on it and wearing a smile that was woefully out of place given all that we had just learned.
I drummed my fingers against the table top in a way too ‘Echo-like’ show of frustration.
“What cha doing?” He asked weightlessly as he plopped the tray down in front of me. The cupcake was lumpy and ill-shaped. Its frosting, yellow and pale, nearly slid off the side and was spotty in places. It was obviously homemade, not surprising given that any trip to a Breaker bakery would have more than likely ended in a mass execution. But this was ‘Casper homemade’, which meant that it was both completely inedible and wonderfully sweet.
“I’m a bad person,” I answered, letting my fingers hit across the table like mini jackhammers. I figured that, if I did it long enough, I’d understand what Echo found so therapeutic about it.
“I know. I’ve decided to love you anyway,” Casper said smiling. “I think it makes me seem very altruistic. Some people might even call me a hero. I just like to think of myself as a role model.”
“No Cass,” I said, making sure my tone held absolutely no lightness. “I’m an honest to God bad person.”
The Breakers Ultimatum (YA Urban Fantasy) (Fixed Points Book 3) Page 6