by Sharon Sant
‘I’ve lost her. Again,’ Jacob groaned, covering his face. ‘Makash orchestrated this all along. I knew it but I ignored the signs. I’m a complete idiot and now I’ve blown everything.’
‘I don’t get what you mean,’ Luca frowned.
Jacob looked up at him. ‘He was the reason we found her. He threw us the clues, I don’t know how he found her first, but he did, and then he led us here.’
‘But why?’ Luca asked, still looking puzzled.
‘Because only the Watcher could unlock her powers. He knew that. He needed me here to do it… and I walked straight into his trap. I gave him everything he wanted on a plate.’
‘It wasn’t your fault –’ Luca began.
‘It was. I should have listened to my gut instinct. My judgement was clouded by the things I wanted too badly. Dae always said it would get me into trouble…’ He sighed. ‘I’m no Astraen. And I’m a crap human too. I don’t belong anywhere.’ With his words he was suddenly struck by how similar he and Alex really were - both of them with a foot in each world but no firm hold in either.
Luca stared at him, seemingly unable to find any words of comfort. ‘What are we going to do now? he finally asked.
Jacob exhaled. But he never got to answer.
There was hammering at the apartment door. Luca jumped and shot an alarmed glance at Jacob. A rough voice shouted through the keyhole.
‘Alex! Alex, what’s going on in there?’
The man banged at the door again, and then it began to shake as it was battered from the other side - rhythmic, violent poundings. It flew open and Troy stepped in: six foot of lean muscle with a head of closely cropped black hair and eyes that glittered with menace as his gaze settled on the two of them. Luca leapt up from the sofa and stepped back towards the fire escape. Jacob remained seated, a weary resignation on his face. Behind Troy they could see Martina, hovering at the doorway, her expression contracted into a look of fear. Troy’s hand shot to his back pocket. He pulled out a flick-knife and snapped open the blade.
‘Which one of you losers is going to tell me where Alex is?’ he growled.
Ten: The Fall
Luca stared at the figure looming before them, and then back to Jacob looking for an answer. Jacob was exhausted, his thoughts like treacle, his defences clumsy so that he hadn’t seen this new attack coming. He scrabbled to make sense of events that were spiralling dangerously out of his control. Then, he finally rose unsteadily to face their antagonist.
Martina stepped in from the doorway, but stayed behind Troy as though using him as a shield. ‘That’s them. They were in the restaurant earlier.’ She spoke timidly, as though her fear of Troy himself was as great as her suspicions of Jacob and Luca.
‘So, where is she?’ Troy asked again.
‘We don’t know,’ Jacob replied, steadily regaining some of his faculties.
Troy looked slowly around the room with an expression of mocking menace. ‘I don’t see her. You two are here and she isn’t. Doesn’t take a genius to work out that you know something about it.’
‘They could be cops…’ Martina said in a small voice.
He let out a short, brutal laugh. ‘These two?’ he said, waving the knife at them.
Luca edged closer to his friend. ‘Jedi tricks?’ he murmured.
Jacob gave his head the tiniest shake. ‘Too risky,’ he breathed back.
‘Hey, I say when we talk.’ Troy cut in.
Jacob nodded slowly, processing the information presented to him. Troy seemed oafish - reasoning wasn’t going to work on him - but perhaps he could work on Martina. To do that, however, they all needed to stay calm, at least, as calm as they could be when an angry Neanderthal was waving a knife around.
Troy spoke again. ‘Where is she?’
‘I told you, we don’t know,’ Jacob said quietly, addressing Troy but looking directly at Martina as she peered at him from behind Troy’s huge frame. ‘We were looking for her, though,’ he added, still fixing Martina with a pleading gaze. He tried to connect with her mind, gently, so that she wouldn’t feel his invasion. We don’t mean any harm. Help us.
She gaped at him, confusion clouding her thin features, an unsteady hand tucking a stray hair behind her ear. When Jacob saw her now, he thought vaguely, she didn’t look much like Ellen at all. The vitality and intelligence that lived in Ellen’s gaze was vacant from Martina’s twitchy stare. He suddenly wished Ellen was with them; she’d know what to do. It was a foolish whim and he pushed it out of his mind.
‘What do you want her for?’ Troy pressed.
Luca glanced from one to the other, so tense it seemed he almost forgot to breathe.
‘I’m her brother.’ Jacob straightened himself up, looking squarely at Troy now.
‘She hasn’t got a brother,’ Troy snarled.
‘He does look like her…’ Martina began.
Troy rounded on her. ‘She doesn’t have one. She doesn’t have anyone, she told me!’
That’s why he chose her, Jacob thought. She’s completely alone in the world, an easy target. Troy might have been oafish, but he was cunning and good looking as well. Jacob could see how he could have charmed her at first, gained her complete trust and dependence on him. By then, she’d be so frightened of losing him she’d do anything, including taking the rap for his criminal activities. That was the theory, anyway. That was how he’d done it with other girls. But then, he hadn’t met the likes of Alex before. Jacob knew she had been giving him more trouble than the usual girls and a small part of him was proud of her for that, no matter where she was now.
‘She didn’t know about me,’ Jacob said. ‘I’ve spent ages trying to track her down. I don’t want any trouble; I just wanted to meet her.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ Troy growled, edging towards them.
‘Troy…’ Martina started forwards too, stretching an arm towards him but then freezing mid-air and retracting it again.
‘Now,’ Troy twirled the blade in front of his face, regarding it with a loving expression, and then stared down at Jacob and Luca, ‘I’m going to give you one more chance to tell me where she is…’
Luca drew himself up to his full height. ‘We told you, we don’t know where she is, so why don’t you just let us go?
Jacob shot him a sharp warning glance, which he ignored. Luca was terrified, but the more he thought about it, the more he reckoned they could take Troy down if they worked together. They had escaped an attack like this before. He just hoped Jacob would have enough power left this time to do his bit.
‘Why would I let you go?’ Troy said, stepping in a slow, deliberate movement towards them.
‘Oh, let’s see,’ Luca began, his voice dripping with sarcasm, ‘how about we call the police down here to see what they think about a man threatening two innocent tourists? What do you think they’d make of that?’
Luca glanced at Jacob as if to signal an attack. But Troy got there first, his face contracted into a look of peevish rage. The knife whistled through the air as Luca’s arm instinctively shot up to block it. Luca screamed and fell as the blade tore into him.
‘Luca!’
Jacob called on his last reserves, forcing a solid wall of energy at Troy and knocking him across the room. The knife flew from Troy’s hand and skittered to a halt at Martina’s feet. She looked down at it, frozen with indecision, and then stared back at Jacob as if she could not quite believe he was actually there. Jacob grabbed Luca under his shoulder and hauled him to his feet, dragging him towards the front door. He winced as Luca’s blood dripped onto his face. Troy shook his head to clear it and was up again. Lunging forward he tackled Jacob to the ground, Luca falling with them and crying out as he landed on his injured arm. Jacob twisted to get his legs free of Troy’s grip. There were voices in his head, those who had sensed his danger and were trying to contact him. Blocking out the badly timed distraction, he kicked at Troy. He twisted enough to raise himself up on one arm and threw another bolt of charged
air at his attacker, finally leaving the man panting on the floor but incapacitated. Luca rolled himself over, groaning, his arm now a craze of red streams.
Martina stared at Luca, and then made a move towards Troy, putting a timid hand on his chest. Jacob pulled a now dangerously unsteady Luca up to his feet. It was clear that Luca wouldn’t make it out of the building losing blood at that rate. The time for secrecy had passed. Jacob sat him on the sofa and laid a hand on his friend’s wound, closing the skin easily. Martina glanced up as the light emitted from Jacob’s healing power caught her eye. She threw him a questioning look but let it pass without comment. Ashen faced, Luca fell back on the sofa and closed his eyes.
‘No you don’t,’ Jacob said, pulling him to his feet. Luca swayed slightly as he stood, his eyes unable to focus. ‘There’s time for that somewhere safer.’
Luca swivelled his head to look at him, incomprehension in his face, but let Jacob position himself under a shoulder to support his walk from the apartment.
Jacob stopped and faced Martina. ‘You know you’re in danger if you continue to see him, don’t you?’ he asked, angling his head at Troy’s prone figure as he laboured under Luca’s weight. She nodded. ‘Then why do you do it?’ Jacob could understand the love that would make someone risk a friendship - like he had once done with Ellen - but to love someone like this man… For all his apparent wisdom and power, there were some things Jacob would never be able to understand. Perhaps it was the Astraen in him.
‘I don’t know,’ she whispered glancing back at Troy.
‘Come with us. I can take you somewhere safe,’ he said, sweetening his tone.
She shook her head. ‘Where would I go?’
‘You’ve seen what I can do. You trust me?’
‘No,’ she replied miserably. ‘You scare me more than he does.’
‘You were a bit scared of Alex?’ Jacob said. She nodded. ‘But you were alright eventually,’ he pressed.
‘Yes, but…’
‘I’m just like her.’
‘Where is she? You know, don’t you? She wouldn’t have left the apartment without a good reason; she was too scared of being found by the cops. Jail was one thing that terrified her more than anything else.’
Jacob shifted with his groaning burden and exhaled slowly. ‘I really don’t know,’ he said, his look becoming distant, ‘I wish I did.’
Jacob hauled Luca away from the building. They ducked down an alleyway, out of sight of the traffic, and Jacob propped him against a wall. Jacob slid down by Luca’s side to join him, closing his eyes and letting his head drop onto his chest. Dizzy with exertion, he felt the depleted drain of his energy reserves sapping the last of his strength as his exhausted brain refused to function. He wondered how they were going to make it back to the motel like this. Jacob forced his eyes open and turned a weary look to his friend.
‘Luca,’ he whispered, nudging him,’ you need to pull yourself together.’
Luca turned and opened a groggy eye. ‘You don’t look so lively yourself, mate,’ he croaked.
Jacob smiled and leaned his head back against the dusty wall. He sat, his face turned towards the sky and his eyes shut tight, trying to catch his breath and collect his thoughts. As far as their immediate situation was concerned, they would have to move soon or they were in danger of being tracked down by a rampaging Troy. There were much bigger problems, of course, but his addled brain refused to tackle them. His limbs felt weak and limp, and though he wanted nothing more than to let his heavy lids relax for sleep, he shook his head to rouse himself.
‘We have to move,’ he said, turning to Luca, who was now drifting off too.
Luca rolled his head round to look at him. ‘Five minutes?’
‘Now,’ Jacob pressed, his gaze settling on Luca’s arm. His friend’s skin and shirt sleeves were still stained with blood. Jacob groaned. He was going to have to do something; it would draw too much attention to them walking home. Ordinarily, it would have been an easy task for him to excite the molecules in the fabric, so that the friction produced would separate the shirt from the marks, but in his current state, it seemed like a task that would finish him off completely. Even so, he pulled on his reserves and completed the chore, the action leaving him so drowsy now that he seriously doubted he would be able to walk to the next street corner, let alone get back across Hollywood and onto the two trains that would return them to Anaheim. His eyes drooped again as he sat, lost in the sounds of the city bustling around them. Voices began to break through into his consciousness until one came through clearly.
Watcher… this has to stop now. You are putting yourself in too much danger. You know how important you are to our order.
Jacob was tired and thoroughly sick of hearing about order. Order was one thing he definitely wasn’t finding anywhere at the moment - everything was chaos and confusion.
Watcher?
Jacob sent no reply.
Ioh?
I know what you’re going to say, Trego, Jacob returned wearily. That my inexperience and emotions have been my downfall… or something like that. I know. I’m doing my best but I’ve never really been what you need. How can I be when I spent so long being human?
Is the other lost?
Yes, she has gone. The admission had a bitter taste.
We cannot sense her. She has fallen into darkness.
Jacob mused on the phrase, recalling the prophecy. She was half of a young moon. He had never placed much stock in things as seemingly arbitrary as prophecies, but this one was becoming uncomfortably accurate. Would he soon follow her into the void?
Will you return now, Watcher?
Jacob severed the connection. It was a conversation he wasn’t ready to have yet. Trego knew the truth - all Astraens knew the truth - he didn’t want to be their Watcher. He had accepted his destiny out of duty but now… there was so much happening on Earth, people who needed him. And being here felt right; in the short time he had been back he had fallen in love with it all over again. But Alex needed him too. To abandon her to Makash, no matter whether she had chosen it or not, seemed cruel. The thought of beginning the search for her all over again, with the whole of Time and Space to comb through, made angry tears burn his eyes. How could he have been so careless? He took a moment to clear them before inhaling slowly and nudging a now dozing Luca.
‘Come on, we have to make it at least a couple of blocks away from here. And before it gets dark.’
Luca opened his eyes and groaned. ‘I suppose you’re right.’ He grabbed at a nearby garbage unit and clumsily levered himself up to stand.
‘How’s your arm?’ Jacob asked.
‘That’s good as new,’ Luca replied, flexing it. ‘It’s just the rest of me that’s the problem.’
‘You lost a lot of blood, you’ll probably be a bit weak for a while but it shouldn’t take you too long to get back to normal.’
‘Are you ok? You’re not looking so good.’ Luca leaned against the bin for support and threw Jacob a concerned glance. ‘You’ve got blood on your face…’
Jacob put a hand up to his cheek. ‘It’s yours, I think,’ he said, rubbing it away. He sighed, hating to admit weakness to Luca. ‘If I’m honest, I’m not sure how I’m going to make it back to the motel tonight. I’m like a drained battery, if that makes sense.’
Luca nodded. ‘I suppose it must have taken a lot out of you, this last couple of weeks.’
‘Yeah, but today really didn’t help.’ Jacob gave him a small smile. He closed his eyes and felt for his amulet. Come on, mother. I need you…
With enormous effort he struggled to stand, then he made himself place one foot in front of the other, mechanical strides that Luca matched as they made their weary way back towards the centre of the city.
They had only gone a couple of blocks when they came across a shabby diner that seemed to be off the beaten track.
‘Maybe a quick sit down and a drink would help?’ Luca asked hopefully.
Now, in
the quiet aftermath of their frantic afternoon, Jacob felt safe enough to agree. There was no way they were going to get back to the station at the rate they were going. At least Luca might recover his strength with a drink and a good meal, and maybe his strength alone would be enough to get both of them back.
They made their way inside. The air-conditioning was on and the change in temperature was like a mountain stream to their addled senses. A waitress arrived almost immediately to show them to a table where they flopped down, the plastic interiors cool and soothing to their exhausted limbs. If she thought they looked odd, she didn’t show it. They ordered drinks and Luca, without the aid of a menu, ordered a burger with everything he could think of on it.
‘Anything for you, honey?’ the waitress asked, turning to Jacob.
He shook his head. ‘Just the juice, please.’
Luca frowned at him as she walked away. ‘You should eat something.’
‘What are you, my mum?’ Jacob snapped, immediately regretting his tone.
‘I was just saying –’
‘I don’t think you understand just how bad this situation is,’ Jacob interrupted. ‘You have no idea what it does to you when that power is unlocked, and there is no way I can explain it to you that can make you see. It’s like… like you’re being burned away from the inside out, everything you once were is slowly destroyed and this new, weird being arrives in its place. You can go mad with it; I nearly did.’
‘Yeah, but you didn’t.’
‘That’s because I had people around me to help. She’s got Makash. That’s all she has. Even you must see how bad that is?’ Jacob’s voice rose with his agitation.
Luca held his palms out. ‘Hey, hey… no need to take it out on me because everything turned to crap.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Jacob slumped forwards with an arm on the table, resting his chin on it as he stared into space. ‘I’m supposed to be this great being, this source of power and wisdom… for God’s sake, there’s a whole species looking to me to guide them. And I screw everything up, time and time again. I can make all the excuses in the world – I didn’t have enough time to train with Dae, I haven’t had enough time doing the Watcher thing on my own, the Council won’t listen to me half the time, I can’t get used to being away from home – but when it comes down to it, I’m just no good at it.’