by Mia Strange
Why had his blood changed me? As much as I wanted to deny it, Traveler’s blood, his black magic blood, had done something to me. Something that I could only hope was for the better.
It was certainly better that I was now healed. That I stood strong, breathing in the crisp afternoon air into my lungs without even a twinge of pain in my ribs.
It was certainly better that I lived. The alternative had been almost impossible to bear.
I shouldn’t have complaints. And I didn’t. Not really. It’s just that I didn’t know what exactly had made this remarkable, overnight healing happen. I didn’t know exactly what had saved my life. Or, maybe more importantly, how this miraculous healing had changed it. Maybe forever.
And that? The not knowing? Was hell.
If Darius was still hanging around, he would spout off one of his quips. I could almost hear him. The Devil is in the details, Skye St John. I should know.
Damn. This time, Darius, the pain—in—my—ass demon, might be right.
The breeze picked up. I reached down, grabbed the sweatshirt and slipped it over my head. Warmed from the small amount of solar heat radiating from the iron on the railcar, the soft material melted against my cold skin. Blessed heat spread throughout my body.
I picked up the long brass spy glass, a telescope that I had covered with my hoodie, and snapped it out to its full length. I held it up to my eye. The crystal clear optics captured the light filtering through the gray skies, while the tenth power of optical strength made everything seem like it was right at my feet.
I scanned the horizon. About two miles south, I could still see the smoldering smoke from the body Traveler had raised, interrogated, re—killed and burned.
All in a nights work for him.
But the dark smoke twisting into the dull skies was just a reminder of another life lost, all in the useless service to The Gov. Talk about a dead—end job. Still, he hadn’t been much older than me. What a waste.
I continued to scan the horizon, looking, no hoping, willing the magic in the steam to show itself once more. There was nothing.
No brilliant colors, no amazing smells, no magic anywhere.
Swinging around, I almost dropped the scope as a pale face with kaleidoscope eyes filled the diameter of the glass. The Bone Man was right in front of me.
I lowered the telescope and tapped the instrument in an anxious rhythm against my leg. There he was sitting cross legged, three railcars down holding a painted parasol in one fingerless gloved hand, and a porcelain Chinese opium pipe in the other.
I recognized the pipe. Rimmed in silver, with a jade mouth piece, and around two feet in length, it was a favorite from his collection.
For an instant, my breath caught, afraid that I might catch a whiff of the sweet, pungent, unmistakable scent of opium floating through the air.
But instead I smelled the earthy, leathery odors of peat moss and Douglas fir and ancient leaves grown on the rare occasion when the sun was healthy and kind.
Tobacco.
I smelled tobacco.
I wasn’t pleased that The Bone Man was smoking. But I was thrilled it was not opium. Dr. Dark fought a constant battle to keep The Bone Man off the wicked drug. I had joined that fight years ago.
When Dark found and recruited him, The Bone Man had been living and hiding in a dangerous, back alley opium den. Located in Chinatown in the city of Vancouver, in what was once the beautiful country of Canada, The Bone Man had survived by cowering in dark corners and earning his keep in ways I could only try and contemplate. But I would never know for sure what horrors he endured.
None of us would. Not even Dr. Dark.
Those secrets would travel with The Bone Man to his grave.
The Bone Man had been totally and completely addicted to opium. He’d been just weeks away from certain death when Dr. Dark found him.
Dark had bartered hard for his release, not only with gold and bits of silver, but also with an elaborately built automaton that would replace The Bone Man. The price was incredibly high, but the men who ran the den, knew only too well what The Bone Man was worth, even if the clock was counting down the days until his death. And rather than have a corpse on their hands, they at last, relinquished, and made the trade.
What they didn’t know, was that The Bone Man was not just an emaciated young man with ghostly, pale platinum hair and wild violet eyes. He was also magical.
In the end, like always, Dr. Elijah Dark had gotten what he wanted. And afterwards? Dark had burned the blueprints and swore that someday, he’d go back to Canada, back to that back—alley opium den in Chinatown, and destroy the automaton he had left behind.
I held my hand to shield my eyes, and waved The Bone Man over.
He stood, closed the parasol, stuffed it in his coat, and puffed on his pipe. He waved me over.
Fine. He did have his hands full. Snapping the lengths of the brass telescope closed, I backed up and broke into a jog. Even under power, I could hurtle from car to car easily, but today? I flew. Or at least it seemed like it. I dropped in front of The Bone Man, my feet landing softly, like a cat. What the hell?
I was not graceful. I was not stealth. I was, and I hated to admit it, kind of a klutz.
“Impressive,” The Bone Man said. “Been practicing?”
“No.”
He raised his white eyebrows.
“Um, yes. Yes. Maybe.” Shit. There I went, stretching the truth as The Bone Man liked to say. But I wasn’t sure how to tell him I didn’t know what the hell I’d been doing. Getting a black magic blood transfusion from scary Traveler Hale just sounded too, well, too damn weird. Even for me. We were talking exchanging bodily fluids here.
But I would tell him.
The Bone Man was my best friend after all. But only after I’d figured it out myself. Knowledge is power. But it can also be dangerous. And until I had a little chat with Traveler Hale face to face, I wasn’t going to expose The Bone Man to anything that could put him in jeopardy. Traveler was beyond private. He was secretive, mysterious, sneaky, dangerous. I didn’t trust him.
I didn’t want to put The Bone Man in harm’s way. Not again. Not until I knew what I was dealing with.
A Cheshire Cat smile formed on The Bone Man’s face. “You’re better, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” I smiled back. “And you’re smoking.”
“I am.” He turned the pipe upside down and knocked the tobacco out by tapping the bowl on his boot—clad foot. “And now? I’m not.”
“Good. That stuff will kill you.”
“Like hanging out with you won’t?”
“Hey.”
He laughed. “Getting back at you for locking me up. With Phil no less.”
“I didn’t want you to be lonely.”
“I’m never lonely.”
“I want to know.” His expression turned serious. “How did he do it this time?”
“He?”
“Elijah. How did he heal you? He saved your life, didn’t he?”
He had help, jumped into my brain. He had Traveler Hale, black magic and blood. I tapped down a telltale shudder.
An errant gust of wind kicked up. The surrounding leaves, rose, swirled, and formed a whirlpool of fall and winter colors around us. Our view was blocked on all sides.
The wind abruptly stopped. The leaves fell away. The Bone Man grabbed my hand for balance, and together we watched as Eli Dark walked toward us kicking his way through the piles left behind.
He was not smiling, and I had to wonder. What now?
27
Interesting entrance,” The Bone Man said as Eli approached us.
Eli walked toward us with a stern determination in each step. Clearly, he was a man on a mission.
He wore black jeans, a long sleeved thermal, and a beanie. He looked like an urban hipster from the cover of a vintage magazine. He looked damn good.
And I would have been glad to see him, if only, he hadn’t brought them.
I looked down
from the railcar roof at the three enormous wolves that paced below us. It was impossible to miss Anastasia Hunt. With her platinum colored hair, she was a beautiful girl. She made an even more beautiful wolf. But I knew from experience, that beauty is often a mask to hide what lies beneath. And with Anastasia, what was hidden was…something.
Something dark.
Something wrong.
And I was the only one who sensed it.
“I’ve been looking for you, Skye.”
I had been so fixated on the wolves that I almost forgot Eli was standing right in front of me. “And you found me,” I said with a smile.
“Bone Man,” Eli acknowledged him with a nod. “I didn’t have a chance to thank you for your help with Dagger last night. That crazy dog—”
“Means the world to you, I know,” said The Bone Man. “Count on me anytime.”
“I will and I do. Care if I borrow Skye for a bit?”
“Nope, I was just leaving.”
Eli cocked a smile. “You weren’t, but I appreciate it. I’ll fill you all in soon.”
The Bone Man tipped his hat. “Later.” With one smooth movement he reached into his coat, pulled out his parasol and popped it open. The smooth gears of the umbrella hummed and purred to life. The arms of the giant squid painted on the light—colored canvas spun round and round. The Bone Man turned, and took a step off the railcar just like Mary Friggin’ Poppins.
I watched in amazement as he floated to the ground and landed flat on his feet. “Now that.” I said, “is a true talent.”
Eli nodded his approval. “Doesn’t hurt he has a bit of magic to go with it.”
“Nope.” I watched The Bone Man walk away until I made sure the wolves would not follow him.
“Don’t worry about them, Skye. They’ll leave the Bone Man well enough alone.”
I frowned. “They had better.”
“Look, he pulled his beanie off his head and stuffed it in his back pocket. “I brought them for protection. There is something I want to show you.”
“Something?”
“Yes. I’ve analyzed the eye.”
“Don’t tell me you have it, like in your pocket.” I took a step backwards.
Eli rolled his eyes. “Of course not. Skye. Be serious. Poe came through for us again. He chose the right one.”
I wrapped my arms around me to keep from shivering. “Somehow implying that when Poe picks out the correct eye it’s like, I don’t know, something positive. To me it’s just gruesome.”
“In this case it was something positive. Something helpful. There was a memory hiding there, a visual.”
“A visual?”
“Yes. The man saw an image.”
“An image?” I held my breath. Did I really want this information?
“Skye.” Eli stepped closer and put his hand on my arm. Magic flared between us, and I felt the familiar caress of soft static and warm energy that was all our own.
“Go on,” I whispered.
“He saw a tombstone.”
“A what?” I whispered, hardly trusting my own voice.
“A tombstone. And now I know where it is.”
Eli and I stepped off The Madison and stood at the ruins of what was once Pioneer Square. According to the old maps of the city, we were close to the entrance of The Seattle Underground.
The Weres, in wolf form had gone on ahead. Scouting, searching, protecting.
They may not like me much, and believe me, the feeling was mutual, but like all of us, they owed Dark. They would follow his lead, right up until the world ended. Which of course, we were all trying to avoid. On that the Academy was united.
“According to the land records, the mouth to the tunnels is here.” Eli pointed. “I’m calling up the Ley, Skye. Stand back incase it’s unstable.”
I did as I was told. I knew the danger in Ley lines. Sometimes, the lines shifted, sometimes they disappeared right into the ground never to be found again, and sometimes, although it was rare, they were lethal.
Eli shed his coat, pulled out his pocket watch and began the ritual. The watch swung to and fro, to and fro. The dowsing had begun.
Just past Eli’s shoulder I saw a flicker, a flash, a color. A color I couldn’t describe. Not quite pink, not quite purple, not quite blue. Just . . . beautiful.
A thick cloud of steam rose from a long crack in the sidewalk beside us. The color raced to it, joining in. A pathway formed, moving along the battered concrete toward the entrance of what was once a vibrant city market. A soft breeze blew in the scent of sea salt and drying kelp and fresh cracked crab.
I couldn’t help myself, I followed.
Tiny sea shells appeared, floating and bobbing in the stream. Dainty Sea Stars and small, perfect Sand Dollars were accompanied by the occasional iridescent shells of abalone. The path threaded through and around the large rusted, bent frame of a once beautiful, Victorian—style, iron pergola.
The scent of the sea, wild and stormy, surrounded us with a cool, damp mist.
The stream of magical color continued, pausing and hovering above a fallen, 60—foot totem pole. The magnificent cedar, carved decades ago by the Tlingit tribe hailing from what was left of the frozen waste of Alaska, lay crushed and rotting, deteriorating more and more everyday under the constant attack of acid rain.
As if feeling the pain of the spirits carved into the totem, the colored steam wrapped around and around the pole, lending its magic until I could see the symbolic Ravens, the talisman of the Clan, wake and yawn to life. One midnight bird, even took flight. The magic snaked off the pole and the stream continued.
I recognized the pathway for what it was.
A Ley line.
And not just any line. This one? Belonged to a mermaid.
Our Mermaid.
The third clue. A MERMAID’S TEARS.
But it was what was marking the head of the Ley line, that brought me to my knees.
I called out for Eli. Tears blurred my vision, and my heartbeat accelerated. I looked frantically for Eli, and suddenly, he was there, folding me into a fierce hug.
“I’m here, Skye. Right here,” he whispered. “This is what Poe showed me, exactly.”
“How did you find it? It’s on the Ley line—”
“I can see it. Feel it. Even smell it,” I whispered. Tears tracked down my cheeks as I looked at the tombstone.
“But, but how?”
“The magic is in the steam. I’ve tried to tell you, Eli. The magic is in the steam.”
“And it leads you? Is that how it works?”
I nodded, unable to talk.
“And it led you here. To the tombstone.”
“Help me, Eli,” I swiped at my tears. “I don’t know if I can do this alone.”
“We’ll get through this, Skye. We’ll do this together. Okay?”
My throat was tight with emotion, and I could only nod.
Together we clawed at the rotted vines and moss and the packed, rotting overgrowth until the image became clear. I pulled and yanked until my fingers bled, until at last, there was a clearer view of an image.
I braced, prepared to see sweet Emma’s face staring back at me. I took a deep breath, and prepared to see her twin dimples, missing bottom tooth, her mop of dark hair. I longed to see her amazing smattering of freckles. More freckles then there were stars in the sky.
I needed to see her face, the face I had held in my dreams for so many years.
I pulled my hoodie over my head, and began to rub the fabric over the stone. Eli did the same with his.
Together we rubbed and scraped and scrubbed. We even used our spit on the stone.
I needed to see her. I needed to.
But at the same time, I was terrified.
Terrified I would see her.
Finally, after thirty minutes of constant clawing and digging, of swearing and tears, the last of the dirt and mud and mildew tumbled to the ground.
My breath caught.
I swear my hear
t stopped. My chest felt tight, painful. Nausea struck. Beads of sweat dripped down my forehead.
Eli reacted first. “Fuck. Just fuck,” he yelled.
He jumped up and the wolves came running. Within moments we were flanked on all sides. The Weres made a wall of protection around us, circling, circling, keeping us safe.
I crumpled on the wet ground. I curled into a ball and tried to stop shaking.
I stared at the image.
The girl on the tombstone was not my Emma.
The girl on the tombstone, was me.
Eli yanked me to my feet and pushed me ahead of him. “Run, Skye, I’m right behind you.”
For a moment I paused in confusion, only to have the platinum wolf that was Anastasia Hunt, shove me into action. She slammed me from behind, nearly sending me tumbling. But I was fast and I managed to keep my feet under me. The wolf nipped and bit at my heels, once almost biting me when I slowed to look behind me for Eli.
He was still at the stone, stomping it with his feet, breaking it apart. That was the only view I got. The wolf would not let up. I was sure she was enjoying being a fucking bully. I filed that thought away for when we met up human to human.
I jumped on the running board of The Madison, kicked open the massive door, stumbled, went down hard on one knee, jumped up and hung in the doorway looking frantically for Eli.
The platinum wolf bared her teeth, growled, and tried to take a bite out of my shin.
“Just stop, Anastasia,” I yelled. “I will not leave Eli. I will not.”
The huge wolf paused, just long enough for me to see Eli coming. The man was fast, and he reached the railcar in record time.
He jumped in, looked at me and nodded an approval. “You listened. You ran.”
“I always listen, Eli,” I said. “It’s just that sometimes, you and I? Don’t hear the same thing.”
“I’ve noticed. Now. Lets get the hell out of here. Someone has set up a nice little ambush for us. And these,” he kicked at the crumbling remnants of the tombstone, “will tell me who.”
We went into full survival mode. We loaded the wolves, slammed the door, cranked up the boiler, and headed back to King Street Station. Not exactly what one would call Safe Haven.