“Now you know what you’ll look like at two-hundred,” Annie said with a twinkle in her eye.
Actually, with my abnormal power level, this was probably more what I would look like at four hundred, but I didn’t correct her.
“Wow, Annie, I think this is by far the best disguise I’ve ever worn,” I said.
Her grin was so wide I was sure it took up half her face. “Thank you. It was actually my specialty at school. I did my senior project on disguise, and it helped me graduate with honors.”
“Well I can see why. I’ve never done a fraction as well on myself. Could you teach me how? I could owe you a favor, or if you need something done…”
She blinked at me. “Honey, I work for you. All you need to do is tell me and I’ll do it.”
“You work for Wyvern, and teaching me isn’t your job. I’d only accept it if it was an exchange,” I said. “But I’d really like it if you accepted.”
“Well, okay then.” She chuckled. “We’ll work something out. Go on down and meet your date,” she said with a wink.
As I walked, I envisioned what my back would look and feel like if I had lower back pain. Sinking my shoulders down, I rolled my body just slightly into myself.
Starting down the staircase, I saw an old man in a wheelchair gazing up at me. I startled, but then a small smile tucked up the corner of the man’s face and my mind caught up.
“Wow,” I said.
If not for that all too familiar grin, he would be unrecognizable, even more so than I was. Wrinkles gathered on the outside his eyes and crossed his forehead. Like with me, Wyvern's makeup artist must have used putty to make his jowls and the bags under his eyes slightly droop. His ivory white hair was already the right color.
And yet, he was still so good looking. He was definitely the first eighty-something-looking man I’d ever felt butterflies for.
As I reached the bottom of the staircase, he used his hands on the wheels to back up the wheelchair like he’d been doing it for years.
“Hop on, I’ll give you a ride to the door,” he said, his wicked grin was disconcerting on his aged face.
“Sleazebag,” I said, but I was grinning.
“Come on,” he said, “A platonic ride to the door.”
I rolled my eyes but was unable to hide my grin.
“All right then,” Wyvern turned the wheelchair around, rolled up to me and scooped me into his lap. Then we were racing toward the door, and I was laughing so hard I was probably blasting out his eardrums.
He screeched to a halt right in front of the door. “Here you are,” he said.
Awkwardly climbing off his lap, I said with a trace of laughter still in my voice, “You are such a degenerate.”
“I couldn’t help myself, I am powerless against that dress,” he said, still grinning.
“Yeah, sure. How do I look? Everything still in place?” I asked.
“You look beautiful,” he said.
“Really? Now I’m beautiful, when usually I’m a little skinny and not your usual type,” I said.
His eyebrows bobbed. “How interesting that that stuck in your mind,” he said.
“Don’t read anything into it. We have to go,” I said, turning away from him.
“You’re going to need this, first. If it’s not the right measurement, I have some links.”
When I turned back I saw him lifting an elegant silver watch. The watch fit perfectly. I pressed the little button on the side and felt metal slide across the back of my wrist. In an instant, Wyvern’s power diminished into a much smaller cloud. With anyone less powerful than a half-dragon, I knew I would see nothing.
“Impressive,” I said, hooking the watch’s button into the locked position.
He pressed the button on his own watch and the power around him vanished. His eyes closed for a few deep breaths.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“How did you do this every day?” he asked.
I blinked at him. I had the thought that this might have been the first personal question Wyvern had ever asked me. He knew so much about me, but I couldn’t ever remember him trying to get the information from me.
“Um, well, I actually got the charm bracelet right after my father died.” I cleared my throat, remembering that day.
Senator Hale had people deliver all of my father’s office stuff to my mother three days after he died. The box had sat on the table of the much smaller house we had lived in inland. My mother had lain crumpled on the couch, clutching a family picture that had hung in my father’s office. She’d had a wide pool of drool, tears and makeup on her pillow. I hadn’t understood what the smell coming from her was then, but now I know that that day had been one of the first times I had ever seen my mom wasted.
I’d tiptoed around her, not realizing that if I had jumped on her it probably wouldn’t have woken her up. Reaching in the box, I’d immediately found what I’d been looking for. My hand closed around the blue stone of the necklace my father used to wear and I’d lifted it to my chest.
I’d wanted it so badly in the past few days, not knowing why. The strange form surrounding my mother had vanished.
I’d been seeing things, people’s souls, for only a couple of days. But every time I’d encountered a new soul, I’d felt obliterated. I had not been able to stop obsessing over what being so close to my father’s soul had felt like, then how it had been just absent the next time I’d seen him in the funeral home.
I blinked at Wyvern, returning to the present. I said, “It was a relief. I’m not the biggest fan of it now, but I’ve been doing it for so long… What does it feel like to you?”
“Like being hollow,” he said.
I nodded. “Well, let’s get this over with.
Chapter Sixteen
“Here you are, Mr. Alexander,” the driver said as the wheelchair elevator connected to the pavement. I read the back of the driver’s shirt, which matched the writing on the side of the bus, ‘Island Door-to-Door’.
We’d parked outside a nursing home and waited for the van out front. The van had picked us up minutes later.
Wyvern held out a twenty-dollar bill to the driver, but the driver waved him off.
“Oh no, I can’t take that,” he said, waving a hand in the air.
I saw Wyvern begin to lower the bill, but I snatched it out of his hand. “Oh, we insist,” I said in a quiet voice, stuffing the bill into the driver’s pocket. “And we’ll tip you again when we get back home, too.”
It was bad enough that we were two teenagers impersonating disabled, elderly people; I wouldn’t add not tipping the driver onto my conscience. Tips were how these guys survived, and Wyvern probably picked his teeth with twenty dollar bills.
The driver looked a little uncomfortable and guilty as he said, “Oh, okay, well, I’ll pull the van around back. Remember to call so I can pull around when you’re ready to load.”
“We will,” Wyvern said, patting his pocket.
We’d passed two of the water-wards in the van before we’d reached the driveway, but had to cross a bridge over the third ward before reaching the building.
As Wyvern and I walked up a long ramp to the Mabi Heritage Society building, I offered to push him but received only a smirk in return. At the entrance to the building, I pushed the disabled button for the first time ever, and the door swung open.
Wyvern motioned for me to go ahead of him, as I assumed he would. It was not my first time to the Mabiian Heritage Society building—my class had taken three fieldtrips to the museum inside over the years.
“That is the largest tree I have ever seen in a building,” Wyvern said.
“It’s an Ohia tree. You’re never supposed to pick its flowers. If you do, it will rain that day.” I gazed up into its branches. The glass ceiling had to be thirty feet above, but if the tree grew anymore, it’d break through. It’s small spiny red flowers stood out as they contrasted with the lush green leaves. The tree had always seemed so wrong here, impriso
ned in a glass cage. Around her trunk should be dirt and grass, not immaculate clean marble.
“The museum is this way.” I pointed to the far wall of the building. We had to walk the length of the Mabiian Heritage Society, passing offices with plaques for their various departments. As I walked by the open doors next to the plaque Board of Directors, I held my breath, keeping my eyes on the floor ahead of us.
Though I heard someone speaking in the room, no one ran out and yelled, ‘Get them!’ so I figured we’d gone unnoticed. The museum doors were wide open and we pulled up next to a human teenage girl I recognized at the kiosk.
Her head was down, long platinum hair falling forward as she read a textbook on the desk. The pin on her school uniform shirt read, ‘Honua, Volunteer.’
I had to force myself not to show any recognition, but I wanted to jump over the counter and give Honua a hug. On the desk, a sign read, ‘I Can’t Hear You, Please Wave to Get My Attention.’
Wyvern stopped before her, his expression of anger immediately apparent. He had tried to assign a security team to Honua months ago directly after her kidnapping. I did not know the details why, but Honua hadn’t had a security team for months. Obviously, Wyvern wasn’t a big fan of his little sister volunteering in ground zero.
Personally, I thought it was genius. Why hadn’t I thought of it when they’d still thought I was human? From her kiosk, Honua could read the lips on conversations from clear across the courtyard. She could probably even spy on some conversations in the offices if they left the doors open.
I waved at her after a minute and she looked up, smiling.
“Hello,” she said, her voice just a little louder than the volume people usually used. She looked straight into my face, but no recognition showed.
“Two for the museum please,” I said.
“That’s nine-fifty, after the senior discount,” she said.
Wyvern handed over the money, and she handed him the tickets with the change.
“No picture taking is allowed. We don’t permit phones or cameras in the museum. Could you please leave yours at the desk?”
Wyvern and I handed over our phones and Honua handed me a claim ticket.
“Do you need any help with the door?” she asked, gesturing to the swinging half-door barrier.
“No, I have it. Thank you for your help,” I said, facing her but holding the door open for Wyvern.
Inside the main part of the museum, Wyvern held up the tickets. “Sweetheart, put these in your purse,” he said, his eyelids widening slightly as he talked.
Grabbing the tickets, I glanced at them while opening my purse. Scrawled across the back was the words: left, right, straight, right. Five minutes.
Stuffing the tickets into my bag, I returned my gaze to Wyvern. “I’d like to start this way, if that’s okay with you.” I gestured to the left.
“Whatever you’d like, sweetheart,” Wyvern said, tapping my hand. We wandered through the exhibitions. I’d been there before, and though I paid little attention to the artifacts this time, I knew what I’d find in each room.
We were starting in the earliest recorded history of the islands. This section of the museum mainly focused on Mabi island. Before the unification, the islands had had pretty different cultures from each other. There were pieces from ancient temples, pottery, baskets, clothing, and complicated tools mostly made from wood or bone.
In the next room there was a complete boat, and the different tools for fishing. Beyond that was the history of the cultural dances, including some elaborate costumes and video displays of modern performers performing the traditional dances. At every door stood a museum guard who had ‘Mabiian Heritage Society’ embroidered onto the breast of their shirt. Though the museum had few patrons, no guard looked too closely at Wyvern and me, as far as I could tell.
When we turned into the destination that Honua’s notes had led us too, we found the room roped off. A guard by the rope smiled at us when we stopped.
“It’s closed?” Wyvern asked.
“Yes, sorry sir,” the man said, still smiling down at Wyvern.
“How come? What’s in there?” I asked, craning my neck to see in. As far as I could tell, Ailani wasn’t in there.
“It’s a donated exhibit; unfortunately, the Mabiian Heritage Society believed that the exhibit should remain private for the time being.”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” I said.
He leaned in and whispered, “Come back in a couple weeks. The Mabiian Heritage Society thought that it was a little too graphic for younger viewers, but the museum director is really pushing for it to open. I’m pretty sure he’ll succeed.”
As we walked toward the next exhibit, I glanced around the hallway along where the roped off exhibit was. I immediately spotted three cameras, the most that I’d seen in any section so far.
The next exhibition was devoid of people and seemed to be completely dedicated to weaponry. It showcased elaborate helmets and armor. In the center, a spear in a glass case spanned the length of the room. It was as thick as my calf and had to be twenty feet long. Ancient Mabiian Pike the plaque beside the spear read. The long spear was topped with a foot-long spearhead made of carved bone that still looked rather sharp.
I turned, hearing someone behind me and saw the guard of the closed exhibition rushing past. Scanning the room, I tried to find the surveillance camera. As much as I wanted to go back to the exhibition, we’d be found within a minute and whoever caught us would likely take a little more interest in us than the guards had so far. The camera was in the corner, pointing directly down at us. But as I looked, the little red light underneath the lens went out.
I glanced around but we were still alone. “Come on. The cameras are off,” I told Wyvern.
“It’s five o’clock exactly now,” he said, climbing out of his chair. He lifted it in one hand and we rushed back to the closed exhibit.
Opening the rope, I turned, looking around furiously. “Ailani is not here?” I said.
“No, and we only have four minutes,” Wyvern said.
“Shit, what does she want us to see?” The room was huge.
Each painting depicted scenes of Mabiians battling dragons. Some scenes were gruesome—dragons ripping ancient Mabiians apart, or the opposite.
I rushed to read the plaques. The paintings weren’t actually from Mabi, but from unknown Europan artists and origins. The titles were Pacific Island Warrior Battles the Dragons, and Mabiian Battlefield, but the scenes didn’t really look Mabiian. They looked like idealized ancient warriors from some primitive civilization, not at all like what real Mabiian warriors looked like when they’d killed six dragons, millennia ago. The warriors also had sharp angular features, not at all like the more rounded features that we Mabiians have.
I stopped, horrified at the scene on the last painting. It was by far the most gruesome yet. A field of six, giant dead dragons, lay in contorted patterns on a hillside. A man stood in front of the scene, one hand held to the sky and the other wrapped around a long pike. At the end of the pike was a bone spear-head similar to the one I had just seen in the display. On this spearhead, though, the painter had made the sharp point at the end hit the light so that it was almost glowing.
The warrior’s skin tone was pale as sand and he wore an elaborate warrior’s armor, and like the other painted warriors, he didn’t look Mabiian.
The plaque beside it read:
Painter unknown.
Unknown Europan Origin.
Title: The Extinction.
“Oh my gods,” I whispered, slowly stepping backward. The further I was from the piece, the clearer it became. The contorted, swirling-shaped bodies lying dead, the line of the man’s body standing before the scene of carnage. If I squinted my eyes, I could almost exactly overlay the symbol from Mr. Kama’s tattoo onto the scene.
“Look at this statue, sweetheart,” Wyvern said, loudly.
When I spun, I saw that he was back sitting in his wheelchair and was lo
oking up at an elaborate carving of a Mabiian warrior thrusting a spear into a dragon.
A moment later, a woman and two guards stepped into view directly outside the exhibit.
I looked between where Wyvern was sitting in front of the statue, and the group who were all about to reach the opened rope. There was no possible way for us to hide in time and the rope would have given us away anyway.
“It’s very gruesome, sweetheart,” I said.
“I like it. It wasn’t made here though, says it was made in Europa,” Wyvern said.
“So were the paintings, very interesting,” I said as I walked toward him.
“Hey!” I heard a woman’s shrill voice shout. “You are not supposed to be in this exhibition!”
Both Wyvern and I turned to the front of the exhibition where a woman was striding toward us.
The moment I saw her face, I felt as if someone kicked me in the stomach. I had not seen Mele’s mother, Lani Alana, since the moment she told Keanu to kill her own daughter because now that Mele was infected she was ‘already dead’ to her.
Lani wore a business suit; her high bun looked glued into place. It was obvious where Mele got her beauty from, as her mother was a middle-aged knock out. I’d practically lived at Mele’s house for years and though Lani was rarely there, when she was, I had made an effort to form some sort of connection with her. As the personal assistant of Senator Hale, my primary target, I’d wanted her to know and trust me.
Boy did I regret that now.
I smiled a close-lipped smile at her. “I’m sorry?” I asked her when she stopped in front of us.
“You are not supposed to be in here. This exhibit is not supposed to be open. Did you undo the rope?” she asked, staring between Wyvern and me.
“It was open. I am very sorry. My husband likes the paintings, you see.” I pointed to the nearest painting and almost cringed when I saw it was a very gory scene of a dragon with a spear impaling its side eating a warrior, titled The Seventh Dragon.
Rex (Dakota Kekoa Book 2) Page 15