by Sharon Sant
‘This is no good,’ Jacob groaned as Luca returned and handed him a paper parcel. ‘This map is too touristy, it doesn’t list residential addresses.’
Luca cocked an eyebrow as he sat down next to him and unwrapped his lunch, practically salivating as he did so. ‘Can’t you just lead us there… like you did earlier?’
Jacob paused thoughtfully. ‘I suppose. It’s just that it’s harder… it takes a lot of concentration and I’d rather conserve my energy for when I get there.’
Luca’s expression darkened. ‘Should I be worried? What do you think we’ll find when we get there that’s so bad you need all your energy?’
‘For a start, there’s some guy named Troy who seems like bad news. I think he’s a boyfriend. And he’s most definitely involved in the robbery. Martina is terrified of him. I don’t think he lives at the apartment, but that doesn’t mean he won’t be there.’
‘Ok,’ Luca said, swallowing a large piece of pretzel. ‘What else? There has to be something else, there always is with you. What’s the supernatural alien creep count? You think Makash might put in an appearance?’
Jacob folded the map. ‘It’s possible. We know he’s here, and he seems to be one step ahead of us all the time. But there’s Alex herself, too. I think…’ Jacob paused. He hated the idea; it felt like a weakness that he didn’t want to show, especially not to Luca, who had followed him this far into danger with blind loyalty and belief. ‘I think Alex has greater powers than me. And I don’t know how much of them she has control over or whether she has discovered any of them yet. I don’t think so, but there’s no telling what is going to happen.’ He stared hard at his friend. ‘I understand if you don’t want to come.’
Luca caught him squarely in the eye. ‘You think we’ve gone through all this together so that you can leave me behind at the most exciting bit?’
Jacob smiled thinly. ‘I don’t know what I would have done without you.’
‘Well, you wouldn’t be eating this pretzel right now, that’s for sure.’
Jacob grimaced at his parcel as he opened it. ‘I’m not entirely sure that would be a bad thing.’
‘If you don’t want it, I’ll have it.’
‘I’d better eat it,’ Jacob replied. What he didn’t say was that he needed to keep his strength up for the task that now faced him, and that he silently wondered how long it would be before they had a chance to eat again.
They ate as they walked, Jacob tensed and silent again, Luca’s slightly shorter, stockier frame struggling to keep up with his leggy strides. Jacob had that now familiar vacant look that masked the intense concentration he was exerting on his powers. Thinking hard of the name, of the image of the apartment in his mind, of Kya, he followed where his senses led, already feeling the drag on his mental reserves. He had been subjected to a strenuous few days, and this additional demand on his psyche was draining him more quickly than he would have liked to admit.
And there was that growing portent once more, a warning, something telling him that danger lay ahead. Every step nearer to their destination caused the hairs on his neck to prick a little more sharply, fear heavy and cold in his gut. There was a small nagging voice in his head but he ignored it, for it told him something that he did not want to hear, and he focused on getting to Kya before someone else did…
Jacob halted in front of an art deco styled building, an elegant façade sweeping the street before them.
‘This is it.’
Luca glanced at Jacob. His friend was sweating and pale, his eyes dark and wild, seemingly labouring under some distress. ‘What’s the matter?’
Jacob gritted his teeth, wiping a sleeve across his damp brow. ‘There’s just… Nothing, there’s nothing the matter.’
‘What do we do now?’
Jacob steadied himself and gripped his amulet. He was going to need all the help he could get. He drew a deep breath before answering. ‘We go in.’
At the door was an intercom managed security system. Jacob stared at it and the catch clicked open. Inside, he strode down the dark hallway, his senses tingling, his mind on fire, burning with the heat of a thousand suns, voices and warnings echoing through the blackness. Despite all his training and gifts, he could now sense a consciousness, a power that was so much bigger than his that for the first time since he had become Watcher he was truly frightened. He wondered that he had spent so many weeks not being able to detect it. It’s like something… or someone has been waiting for the right moment to reveal it to me, to lead me here…
They took the lift and travelled the corridor until they arrived at the door marked 4365. Luca shot a wary glance at Jacob and could see that he was still pale and clammy.
‘You sure you’re up to this?’ he whispered. ‘You don’t look so good.’
Jacob nodded, his jaw set in grim determination. ‘If we don’t do it now, we’ll lose her forever.’
Luca stared at the door for an instant, then turned his attention back to Jacob. ‘Do we knock or what?’ The event had started to feel like a military attack, and he wasn’t sure of the etiquette around storming a premises.
‘She won’t answer,’ Jacob replied.
Jacob stroked a finger against the lock. There was a faint click and the door swung open.
Alex leapt from a grubby sofa and spun to face them with terror drawn on her thin face. Luca noted her eyes transform, just as Jacob’s always did, the flawless skin, straw-blonde hair, long fingers. It was more than a little disconcerting to see a perfectly identical female version of his, if he was completely honest, weird best friend.
‘What do you want?’ Alex quickly composed herself and resumed the air of belligerence that Jacob recognised from her photo. He could imagine she wasn’t a particularly likeable girl. But likeable didn’t matter. What mattered now was that he could hold her attention for long enough to show her who she truly was. She began to edge towards the window.
‘Jake – the fire escape!’ Luca shouted, seeing the ladders just outside the glass.
Alex shot towards the window, but Jacob had already sent a pulse of air that slammed it down and fused the catch shut before she could get there. She tugged at the frame, but it was stuck fast. Spinning around, she grabbed a vase from a shelf and hurled it at them. Jacob raised a hand and suspended it, mid-flight, letting it hover at the centre of the room. Alex’s mouth dropped open.
‘I need to talk to you, Alex,’ Jacob said quietly, letting the vase drift back towards its shelf.
She narrowed her eyes. ‘How do you know my name?’ she asked, her features quickly adopting an expression of challenge once more. ‘Have they started raiding the kindergartens for cops now?’
‘Please, just sit down.’ Jacob gestured towards the sofa. He recalled the trauma of his own discovery of Ioh, how he had struggled to come to terms with his destiny, all that he was and would be. That struggle had taken him to the brink of death. He needed to get it right with Alex. She looked at the sofa and back at Jacob, folding her arms in a posture of defiance.
‘If you’re not the cops then get out.’
‘Please… just look at me. Take a proper look.’
She faltered, her expression softening momentarily. Their uncanny similarity was too obvious to deny, even for her. As Jacob pleaded he sensed that somewhere, from deep within her, what had long been sleeping began to stir. The memory was hazy, fogged in doubt, but she knew him - more than that, she craved the connection, like the piece of her that had always been missing.
Her features hardened again almost instantly as she pushed the emotions aside. ‘I don’t know what game you’re playing, but my boyfriend will be back any minute. I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes when he does.’
Luca threw an anxious glance at the open door. Jacob nodded for him to close it.
Alex barked a short laugh. ‘You think that’s gonna stop him?’
‘He’s setting you up to take the blame for that robbery; you know that, don’t you?’
&nbs
p; ‘How did you…’ her mouth dropped open again.
‘I can show you,’ Jacob replied softly. ‘You just have to let me in.’
She stared at him. That was when Jacob decided to take the gamble. He plunged into the abyss of his power and reached out to her, finding her in the darkness.
She leapt back from the contact, her eyes wide with shock, clapping a hand to her head. ‘Get out!’ she screamed, cutting him off. ‘Get out of my head!’
Jacob snapped back too, unable to maintain the connection, her resistance too strong for him. But what he had gleaned in those few moments in her consciousness shocked him to the core. So much bitterness, so much pain and loneliness, the injustices of her life laid out before him. The guilt at what he had sensed in her knifed him - he had been spared that life of constant rejection, of forever being the outsider, the life that had caused her to construct a fortress around her heart. And even though they had never met, he felt her loathing for him. Was it blind chance that had shared the twins out this way, or had it been deliberate? Jacob refused to believe that his parents could have meant this to happen, but then, the words of the prophecy crowded his mind and he wondered if Dae and Kela had seen the scrolls too. What was it that made their choice for them? Did they know what would happen or trust to fate each child’s destiny?
‘I’m sorry,’ Jacob said, ‘but I had no other way of making you listen. You see now who I am?’
‘You’re some weird English kid who’ll soon be a dead English kid,’ she spat. ‘You and your friend…’ She turned her acid gaze on Luca who blanched slightly as he continued to guard the front door.
Jacob ran a hand through his hair. He held her in a steady gaze. ‘Your name isn’t really Alex. It’s Susan, at least, that’s the name you grew up with, but you didn’t like Susan because you thought people named Susan got walked over. So when you left care you changed it to Alex. Alex, you thought, sounded like a strong name, a conqueror’s name. How could I know these things? I know them because I’m like you. And you have another name, a name from a distant world, and a destiny that was written before you were born, just like I have.’
‘Holy Mary,’ Luca breathed, watching the exchange tensely, ‘how many names does one girl need?’
Alex stared at Jacob in silence. He wondered if he could see her softening and took the opportunity to push his advantage. ‘Every foster home you went to, every new school, they all made you feel like an outsider, even though at first you tried really hard to fit in. I know how that feels because I grew up feeling it too.’
Her face contorted into a look of spite. ‘You have no idea how it feels. I saw inside your head too. I saw your cosy house in some dumb English town, and your doting parents. I saw your childhood and it was perfect. I got the crap deal because I was left in the wrong box, nothing more.’
He flinched at the stark bitterness in her words. ‘I can’t do anything to change that now. But I’ve been searching for you all this time to help you. I can put it right.’
‘A bit too late for that, loverboy,’ she sneered. ‘She’s that good, is she? That you would leave all the hero-worship crap behind and come back to Earth? That’s why you were searching for me, isn’t it?’
‘No… yes…’ he faltered. ‘But all that can be yours. You can make a fresh start - go somewhere you’ll be respected and revered. What do you have here that you need to stay for?’
She gave a hollow laugh. ‘Unlike you, who has love all around him?’
‘Kya…’ she flinched as he said her true name, as if it stung, like a festering splinter being dug out. He repeated it more forcefully. ‘Kya… it’s who you are. I won’t abandon you, I promise. No matter what other things are in my life, I want to help. I’m your brother. I’m more than that…’ a phrase came from nowhere and rolled from his tongue. ‘We’re two halves of a young moon…’
She glanced around the room, her expression unreadable but the storm in her eyes clearing. Jacob tried to quell the harboured spark of hope that he was getting somewhere and concentrate on his argument. He had to judge this right, one false move and he would lose the tiny grain of trust he saw growing in her.
‘What’s it like?’ she asked in a flat tone.
‘Amazing.’ Jacob smiled. ‘Beautiful. Like the cleanest, more pure place you’ve ever seen. As soon as you get there it’s like you’ve always known it, even though it’s brand new to your eyes.’
‘If it’s that good, why are you so keen to leave?’
His smile faded. ‘Why are you asking me that? You know the answer.’
‘I want you to say it. I want to hear you tell me how much you have to lose if you go back.’
‘I accepted my destiny and I took my place as Watcher. I’ve been away for two years. But I don’t think I’m the right one for the people of Astrae. I think that’s you.’
‘That’s not what I asked,’ she pressed. ‘I want you to tell me straight, no mind-crap, why you want me to go instead of you.’
He stared into the mesmerising chaos of her eyes where he didn’t need words to bare his soul to her.
She laughed. It was a brittle sound. ‘What about me? Why don’t I get a chance of love?’
Right then, Jacob felt that she was incapable of such an emotion – she was too wounded, twisted by bitterness and spite.
He paused, appraising her thoughtfully, and then came to a decision. Maybe the best path was to show her what she was capable of. He would release Kya from her prison and she would see her potential, how magical and glorious she could be…
Watcher…
Jacob found himself distracted by the voice of Trego.
This is a foolish path. You must make your escape.
I can’t. I have to help her.
The people of Astrae beg you to come back. There can be only one Watcher, and it must be you.
You’re wrong. Kya is more powerful than me, I feel it.
As do we. And she is stained by her human past, as you were. But hers is a black stain that will never wash out.
She is the way she is because she has suffered. Should she continue to be shunned by both sets of people because of a decision at her birth that she had no control over? She’s right - who are we to deny her the chance of love, even if that love takes the form of the Astraen people?
Her heart is closed to love.
She’ll make a perfect Watcher then.
Jacob was dragged back to the room by something else pressing in on his awareness now, something unforgiving and full of cold rage. He stepped back and fell against the wall as Alex and Luca watched him closely, each noting the absent expression. Shivering, his hand crept beneath his shirt to clutch at his amulet.
Ioh?
You’re not going to change my mind.
Trego’s voice became harsh. It was the first time Jacob had ever heard him speak that way. You are playing a dangerous game… his tone softened again, trying to reason. Return to Astrae with Kya, then. We can contain her here.
Contain her? She’s not an animal!
In her current mind, she is as unpredictable as one.
The cold feeling of dread encroached on his awareness again, more tangibly this time. Something was coming…
Ioh, Makash is near.
I know. That’s why I must do it now.
No!
Jacob severed the connection. He stared hard at Alex. He could warn her, but Makash was almost upon them and there was no time. He uttered the ancient words of power, the same ones Dae had recited to release Ioh. The blackness swelled within him and then subsided as Kya’s consciousness began to breathe. Jacob slid down the wall and closed his eyes, his final reserves of energy exhausted.
Alex screamed as the universe crowded in on her, holding her head and slumping onto the grubby sofa as she did so. Luca watched them both, frozen in place with his back against the door.
Alex began to sob. The sound brought Jacob back to his senses. He wobbled to his feet and went to her, kneeling next to the
sofa and laying his hands on her head until she was still. She looked up at him.
‘Why did you do that? I didn’t ask you to do that.’
‘I’m sorry. It hurts at first but it gets better.’
‘What the hell did you do?’
‘It’s your birthright –’
‘To hell with my birthright!’ she snarled. ‘What gave you the right to give me something I didn’t want?’
‘I can help you now, we can train; you’ll learn to control it like I did, whatever you want…’
‘I want you to take it away again,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Can you do that?’
Jacob shook his head. His heart ached for her, the feeling of his own first time now fresh and raw in his memory. He hated himself for having put her through such pain. ‘You know I can’t.’
She recoiled from the hand he placed on her arm and glared at him, her eyes full of impotent rage and confusion.
Then a shape began to pull together at the centre of the room and Makash appeared before them. He bowed to Jacob.
‘Greetings, Watcher.’
Before Jacob had time to react, Makash fixed his gaze on Alex and offered her a long-fingered hand. ‘Come…’ he said in a silky tone.
Alex stared up at him, her eyes wide. Jacob knew the look, the fear and uncertainty eating her up right now, things that Makash worked so well to his advantage. Jacob had once been in her position, he knew how hard it was to resist. But Jacob had resisted it, because he had been in possession of something she didn’t have… a reason to.
Kya, no!
She didn’t look back once, but took Makash’s hand and he raised her from the sofa, wrapping her in his arms, both of their forms dissolving into the gloomy air.
‘NO, NO, NO, NO!’ Jacob slammed his fist on the arm of the sofa.
Luca shook his head to clear it. ‘Please tell me that didn’t just happen,’ he said in a shaky voice.
Jacob pulled himself up onto the sofa and held his head in his hands. ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘You don’t believe it?’ Luca replied, leaving the door to join him. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever be right again.’