by J. J. Melvin
When I opened my eyes, all I saw was the stick protruding out of the man that had been trying to kill us. Blood dripped down the man’s body, mixing with the rain as I watched him fall backwards, splashing into a diluted crimson stream. The man, not the Collector, was dead. I looked around to see some sort of apparition or spirit leaving his body, but I saw nothing. Liam and Jayson ran out in time to see the man take his last breath.
This was the second person to die in front of me, but this time it was at my hands. I had just killed a man. I didn’t realize I had sunk to the floor until Liam helped me to stand.
“Are you guys okay?”
I didn’t reply. The truth was, I didn’t think I was okay. I had just taken a life.
“Yes, I’m okay,” Sofia replied.
“We’ve got to get out of here! We can’t be seen next to a dead body with a stick pierced through it.” Jayson’s voice was frantic.
Jayson was right. We had to move. We all scaled the brick wall and got into Liam’s Tesla to make our way home.
When we got home, Sofia told the story to Mr. Blithe. I was silent, remembering the voice I’d heard from the Collector, the pleas for help.
“Mr. Blithe, I thought we were dead… and then…” Sofia looked at me and continued… “and then he hesitated. He called Erika Adhira. Isn’t that the name of the Hindu queen from the ancient book?”
Mr. Blithe looked at me with an expression that told me he knew something that we didn’t. What was he keeping from us? He ignored Sofia’s question. “Was anyone else around?”
“No, no one,” Sofia replied.
“I think I, I think I killed him,” I blurted out.
“Damn right you did Erika, stupid Collector.” Jayson thought he was giving me a compliment.
“No, I didn’t kill a Collector. I impaled an innocent man. Oh God, I didn’t mean to kill him. I’m sorry.”
“Are you crazy, Erika? What are you sorry about? You saved our lives, he was going to kill us.”
I knew Sofia was right. It had been self-defense, yet I couldn’t get those screams out of my head. Something was wrong. I didn’t feel like I’d killed an evil spirit, I felt I’d just killed a good guiltless man.
“Did you see where the spirit went after he could no longer use his earthly form?” Mr. Blithe asked.
“No,” I responded.
“Me either,” Sofia added.
“Are you sure there was no one else around?” Mr. Blithe questioned.
“No, just us,” Sofia replied.
“Then most likely the spirit went into an object to wait for its next victim.”
It had been a long night and I was soaking wet. I asked to be excused. I knew what I’d done was necessary, but I couldn’t reconcile the fact that it felt wrong.
That was the first night I didn’t call home to Riverton. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone. I laid down and tried to sleep, but all I could hear were the screams.
‘Help me! Help me!’ But where did the voice come from? I tried to tell myself I didn’t know, but I did. The pleas for help came from the man who shared his body with the Collector. The others were wrong. I knew for sure the souls possessed by Collectors did not die as soon as they were inhabited. They die when you kill them.
I also couldn’t shake the image of the man’s eyes. They had been a deep marble black, and he’d seemed to look into my soul as if he recognized me. A chill ran through my body at the thought. Why did he keep calling me Adhira? Why did I have dreams of being Adhira? Is there a connection between my dreams and reality? What are my dreams telling me? The last time I’d dreamed of the queen was a couple days after seeing the Collector in Riverton. Why didn’t he kill me then? What did it all mean?
I didn’t know what my dreams meant, or why my life had been spared months ago. All I knew now was that the war had started. The Collectors knew where we were. We could no longer hide. Sofia and I had showed our powers, they knew now that we were Points. They had just been hunting Diamonds— the Collector seemed surprised when Sofia used her powers. The next time he faced us, he would not be alone and so unprepared.
It was hard to sleep that night. Many times I thought about going to Liam; he had asked if we could break the rules and if he could stay with me, but I’d declined. I was pushing him away. I knew what I was doing and I didn’t want to do it, but I couldn’t stop. I fell asleep crying alone that night, crying over the life I’d taken.
I awoke when I felt a hand brush away the hairs that had stuck to my face through my wet tears. I opened my eyes and I wanted to scream— a man sat staring at me. I looked back at his familiar piercing green eyes. I had seen him before, in my dream: his dark olive skin, his thin black manicured beard.
“Erebus.”
“Adhira, it is you.” He grabbed my hand, but I moved away from him. Sitting up, I scooched back until I was pressed against the headboard of my bed.
“I am not Adhira.”
“Oh my dear, but you are.”
Hearing his words, something inside me came alive. He kissed my hand. His kiss felt so familiar, warm and inviting. He moved towards me.
“Please don’t, you’re not supposed to be here.”
“But you want me here, don’t you? You don’t want me to go yet, do you?”
I hesitated. He was right, I didn’t want him to go.
He placed his hands on my ankle, and I shivered as he gently moved his hands up my calves, pulling my body towards him.
I lay on the bed staring up at him as he looked down at me. His hands caressed my face, my lips. I closed my eyes tightly. He traced the outline of my body, sliding his hands down my side, brushing the sides of my breasts through my nightgown, following the contour of my body to my waist and over my hips. His soft touch stopped, and when I opened my eyes, he was gone.
Wait, what just happened? I was confused… had I been sleeping? It all felt so real. It was morning, and the bright sun shined through an opening in my drawn curtains.
Chapter 24
IT’S BEGUN
The Watchers all gathered at the house for an emergency meeting.
“They know who two of the Points are.” Mr. Schwartz was in a panic. “They will attack.”
“Well, we knew this time would come. We all have to prepare to fight! Mr. Vijack, prepare the weapons. The castle will be on lockdown. Have the other Watchers keep all Diamonds inside their dorm rooms, we are on high alert,” Mr. Blithe ordered.
“Mr. Blithe,” I said as the room got quiet to let me speak, “I know you told me that when a Collector takes over a body, the possessed person dies, but I think you may be wrong.”
“What do you mean, Erika?” Mr. Blithe asked, urging me to continue.
“I heard someone screaming for help last night when the Collector attacked, and the only people there were me, Sofia, and the Collector. I think the owner of the inhabited body was still alive until… until I killed him. If I, if we kill these people, we are taking innocent lives.”
“Erika, do you think maybe you just feel guilty?” Liam asked.
“No Liam, I know what I heard. And another thing, when I looked at the Collector I had this déjà vu feeling like I get when I meet a Diamond, and he immediately seemed to share that connection.”
“Erika, the déjà vu feeling you are referring to is because you are all connected. Your powers come from the same cave of diamonds,” Mr. Schwartz explained.
“To every yin is a yang; you are the good part, they are the bad. You are all connected,” Mrs. Kwan added.
“As far as the people sharing the body with the Collectors… everything I have read says that is not possible.” Mr. Blithe looked at me sympathetically.
“But Mr. Blithe, that doesn’t explain the screams. They were so loud.”
“Perhaps, Erika, it was the Collector’s way of confusing you.”
Mr. Blithe could be right, but I believed he was wrong. Still, it was obvious no one was going to listen to me. But there was something mo
re. I could feel, sense the Watchers were hiding something from me. “Another thing, the Collector called me Adhira. Why would he call me that?”
The room fell silent. I looked around, trying to read the Watchers’ minds, but their thoughts were filled with fishing, cats, and flowers. They were purposely trying to keep me in the dark about something.
Frustrated and angry, I stormed out of the room.
“Hey Erika, wait up,” Liam ran after me.
“What?” I stopped. “What do you want, Liam?”
“I don’t know, I just want to be with you.”
“I’m sorry, I’m just not in the mood to be with anyone right now,” I turned towards the stairs making my way back up to my room.
About a half hour later there was a knock at my door.
“Erika,” Mr. Blithe called, “can I come in?”
“Yes, I guess so.” I got up from the bed and walked over to sit on the window bench, holding my pillow for comfort.
When Mr. Blithe entered, he sat next to me. “You know Erika, I can’t say for sure whether you are right or wrong. I cannot read minds and don’t disregard what you are saying or what you heard. I just don’t know of any other way. What if you are right, and an innocent person is alive sharing the same body as the Collector? You can’t let them kill you just because they are not in control. If you do not kill them, they will kill you or one of the others and then no one’s been helped, not them, not you, not the world.”
“I know you’re right Mr. Blithe, I just don’t want to kill any innocent people.”
“Me either, Erika. I wish it were different. I wish there were some other way, but we were chosen to guard this world— you as a protector and me sworn to protect you. We are kind of in a bind here.”
“Mr. Blithe, it’s not fair. There has to be another way.” I paused, examining Mr. Blithe’s tired face. “Mr. Blithe, what are you hiding from me?”
“Erika, I, I… well, it’s hard to explain…”
“When the Collector saw me, he called me a diamond in the rough. You have used that same term to describe me. Mr. Blithe, please, what are you not telling me? What does that phrase mean?”
“You are smart, Erika, I have to give you that. Even when we block all things having to do with that from our thoughts, you still know.”
“So what does it mean?” I asked again.
“Erika, you four all possess traits that came from the Points and Diamonds before you. Pieces of them— especially the magic from the original Points— live in you as well. A diamond in the rough is the rarest of the Diamonds, you possess the traits of the Queen.”
“You mean the Queen who betrayed her people.”
“Yes. You see Erika, when the Queen was killed in the cave, a piece of her soul went into one of the diamonds. Just as the souls from Erebus and Akeldama were trapped, a part of Adhira, the Queen, was also trapped. This is the same diamond you must get your powers from. It is said that a piece of Queen Adhira is resurrected every century in a new Diamond. I just have never known or read about the queen’s reincarnation in a Point. You see, if the Queen is reincarnated in a regular Diamond, it doesn’t really mean anything. The affected Diamond may possess some of her traits, but it is not a true reincarnation. Legend tells us that if Adhira’s soul is ever passed down to a Point, a full reincarnation is possible.”
“Wait, so you are saying I could be a traitor? I have evil in me, and this Queen can take over my body, my soul?”
“Not necessarily, Erika. The Queen was naïve; she did betray her people, but she also did not know the Collectors would kill everyone. She was a young girl in an arranged marriage. She fell in love with a handsome young man, and she didn’t know he would betray her. As far as I know she wasn’t evil, but that still doesn’t help us in figuring out how to prevent her from taking over your soul.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You, Erika, have a connection to the Collectors. A part of the Queen lives in you, and the Queen loved Erebus. It is believed that the Collector, Erebus, loved the Queen with all his heart, but when he was overtaken by darkness and greed, he mistakenly killed her. He did not mean to kill her. Now he wants her back, but her going back to him would mean that she would accept evil— accept being his Queen of Darkness.”
“Mr. Blithe, I keep sensing that you’re holding something back from me. You keep trying to clear your mind. What is it?”
“Erika, you probably sense that because I don’t know much about a true ‘diamond in the rough’. A Point being a ‘diamond in the rough’, I’ve never heard of one being born. It’s always been a myth, a legend in our world, that someday the Queen would be reborn. I only wondered if you were a diamond in the rough, I never knew for sure. I wondered when I saw that your powers came so easily, without training. The books of the Watchers reference a diamond in the rough, a Point with heightened natural abilities, a possible resurrection of the Queen. But it doesn’t tell us what that means, or what I’m supposed to do after finding one. I do believe Erebus will come for you. He does not want to kill you, he wants you to join them. In our society, it is believed you, a diamond in the rough alone can shift the balance if you choose darkness over light. But I know that will never happen, Erika, you are good.”
“Is that why you don’t like me being with Liam, Mr. Blithe? You’re afraid that if he breaks my heart I will turn evil?”
“Your ability to read minds is getting stronger, isn’t it? Erika, the thought has crossed my mind a time or two.” Mr. Blithe smiled at me, placing his hand on my shoulder.
“Erika, you have a choice, and not one piece of me believes you have any darkness in you.”
I wanted to tell Mr. Blithe of my dream. He had so much faith in me, but I knew his trust was misplaced. I had already let Erebus get to me, and a part of me couldn’t wait to see him again.
“Mr. Blithe, I think I need a few minutes alone, okay?”
“Sure, I understand. I’ll see you downstairs for training?”
I stayed in my room for hours that day. I kept seeing the eyes of the Collector. I grabbed the morning paper and read the headline: Lapidarian, Mr. Hall, found murdered near Oxford University.
I put the paper down. There must have been evil in me if I’d killed that man as he screamed for my help. I’d known he was alive, I’d known he was in there. The books can all say that people die immediately when a Collector takes over their body, but I knew they were all wrong. I made up my mind that I would find a way to force the Collectors out of the body they possessed. I would not kill another innocent person for as long as I lived.
I met Mr. Schwartz in the library, and he was excited to hear I’d used telekinesis. He was so pleased to see that my powers had been unleashed. He laughed as I made books fly around the room with ease. I even lifted Mr. Schwartz off the ground, which he didn’t find funny. I told Mr. Schwartz my theory about the people that the Collectors took over still being alive, and he vowed to help me find a way to save those people. When we were done with our class we joined the others on the lawn and practiced reciting the spell to trap the Collectors:
Never Ever Shall We Wander
Never Ever Shall We Hail
Never Ever Shall We Be Tempted
Never Ever Shall We Fail
We send you back to where your greed has taken you, back to where you belong, back to your eternal darkness, back to where your powers are gone.
Jayson was in charge of holding the black diamonds, the mini cells of the Collectors, just in case we needed them.
After dinner, the four of us gathered in the living room. I wondered if the others had any idea who I was. Do they have any idea they might have a traitor amongst them? I was distant to Liam, every time he tried to touch me or put his arm around me I would move away. I was worried he would break my heart. After all, it was inevitable.
Later that night Jayson, Sofia, Liam and I spoke alone in the living room.
“Don’t you think we should go find them? I mean
really, why should we wait for them to attack, why don’t we attack?” Jayson said vehemently.
“You know, Jayson’s right. I’m getting sick of waiting too,” Sofia added. “I mean really, all this waiting is torture.”
“The Watchers want us to wait,” Liam said.
“So? The Watchers aren’t the ones they are coming for. They are coming for us.”
“That’s not fair, Sofia, the Collectors are coming for them, too. The Watchers are all willing to lay down their lives for us— pretty courageous, I must say, for people with no powers. We owe it to them to discuss our plans with them. We will be putting their lives in danger if we don’t.” I for one was not ready to risk the lives of the people who would give theirs for mine.
Everyone agreed not to proceed until we formulated a plan with the Watchers. We wanted a strategy, and no longer wanted to wait. We all joined hands to agree, but instead something else happened. A blue diamond appeared, the same type that had appeared the last time we’d held hands in the spa, but this time standing by the fireplace we could see a map in the diamond. It was a virtual map of the world with shining white diamonds, two black diamonds, and one single grey diamond.
“You guys know what this is, don’t you?” Sofia said.
We all looked at her, confused.
“This is a map that tells us the whereabouts of all the Diamonds in the world. Look, here are the Diamonds,” she said, pointing.
The map disappeared.
“The map will only show if we are joined, let’s hold hands again.” Sofia grabbed my hand and Jayson’s. “Why, why didn’t it show in the spa or during our classes? What’s different?” Sofia’s eyes searched the room. The flame in the fireplace flickered, rising up and then settling back in place. “The fire! That’s it, the map must need to be illuminated by a flame in order to appear.”
“See, most of the Diamonds are together, here in England. But look, those must be the remaining ones that we have not found.” Sofia pointed with her chin, making sure to not break our bond. We all made a mental note of the unknown Diamonds’ exact coordinates on the map.