“I don’t have magic. I have the ability to swim well, am precog to psychic events sometimes, and I know how I feel about you.” He started to lean forward, but pulled back.
“I see it in your eyes, you’re really not sure. That’s okay, I’ll wait.” He gave an odd smile then went to watch the cordoning off of the collapsed building.
“Still messing with your head?” Stella was far too good at sneaking up.
“Yes. But on our list of problems, the weirdness between Reece and I is low on the urgency level.” She checked everything in her pack, mostly that the spelled charging box was still secure, then put it back on and pulled the larger bag with the long strap back across her body. She wanted to be as hands free as possible.
“This scroll you mentioned?” Stella kept looking at the flattened building as she spoke.
“Yes. Long story, but Nix wants it, even though he might not know what it is he wants. He knows it’s an item of power. Maeve was working on learning ancient elvish so she can translate it.”
Stella turned to her. “Does she know what’s on it? The real ancient scrolls shouldn’t be messed with. Another bad habit of my late aunt.” She paused. “Can’t Harlie read ancient elvish?
“Not sure what it is. That’s part of the problem. It looks old though, really old. He can, but it will only allow the person it was given to the ability to translate it. She even tried giving it to Harlie, but the scroll wouldn’t let him read it.”
Bart came jogging back and yelled for Reece to join them.
“I have some reports on new issues in London. I already told Caradoc, but I’m swapping him and Larkin. I need an Area 42 agent in London.” He held up his hand before anyone could say anything. “Yes, you’re onboard as a consultant, but Larkin will carry more weight and I need him to look into things you might have trouble gaining access to.”
Reece’s face showed no emotion, but after their last conversation there were probably many going on. Bart briefed them on some of the issues to look for in London.
Caradoc and Jones came back a few minutes later.
“Might take a few stops for us three, getting to Noth isn’t easy. But we’re all booked. Aisling and Larkin are booked for London. Train leaves in an hour.”
Bart said his good-byes and returned to the black truck.
Aisling and Reece started walking to the train station.
“Are you okay with this?” He kept looking ahead but there was uncertainty in his voice.
“I think we have to put everything aside at this point. Good or bad.” She had a lot of thoughts running in her head that were not related to any of the crap going on. But she wasn’t going to share them with him. “Let’s pick up Maeve, see what’s wrong down there, then check on Harlie and hope he’s awake.” She paused, but better he found out now. “Harlie was looking into whether your siren blood was making an impact on us. We should have told you, but...”
“But you wanted to find out what you’re dealing with. I get it. Don’t like it, but I get it.” They’d been walking briskly, they could see the station, when he suddenly stopped and stared ahead.
“What?” Aisling looked but she couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
“I just...it’s...” Reece blinked a few times, grabbed his head, then dropped where he stood.
Aisling saw at least three people on the station platforms also drop. “Damn it.” She lifted his head up gently and first checked for any sign of possession from Stella’s sliver. Nothing showed on his face. His breathing was rapid, his eyelids fluttering, and he was twitching. Another precog attack. “Reece? Can you hear me?”
Last time this happened he’d come out of it on his own, but he wasn’t waking up this time. Judging by the yells for help coming from the platforms, the others who were struck down weren’t responding either. Caradoc, Jones, and Stella would be coming this way at some point, but she didn’t want to wait if there was something seriously wrong.
She took a deep breath, put her hands on either side of his head, and went into healing mode. The chaos of his mind almost pushed her back out. It didn’t seem to be of his own making, but some elements felt like him. Like the ones fighting back against whatever was attacking him. And this was an attack. The prior times had been more an intrusion of something along the psychic energies that lived in the precogs. At least that was how Harlie had explained it to her.
Something else might have pushed open the door, but someone or something was going after Reece’s mind with the intention to kill. This was vicious. She pushed aside as much of the mayhem as she could; she needed to grab hold of part of him to use her healing magic.
She used herself. Whether true or not, right now they had feelings for each other—and that was something she could hang onto. Grasping at his feelings for her, she pushed back at whatever was attacking his mind. The response was brutal and she could almost see claws raking into Reece’s mind. She pushed back as hard as she could, but his breathing was slowing down, his heartbeat barely there. Whatever was attacking him was winning, and she couldn’t stop it.
She tried coming at the fight from different angles, anything to get traction against whatever was killing Reece. Finally, she started to get the upper hand. His breathing steadied and the maelstrom in his mind eased up.
“How?”
That wasn’t Reece’s voice in her head—surprisingly not Nix’s either as that was who she’d assumed was behind this. This voice was like nothing she’d ever heard before: deep, almost otherworldly, raspy, as if that single word had cost it much.
“You can’t have him. I’m protecting him. You can’t stay within him, or in any others.” She tried to sound fierce, but something deep in that voice scared the hell out of her. Her increased healing magic flared up again and she fought to keep it under control.
“You died. You are dead.”
Those words weren’t expected, but there was a horrible truth behind them. This being knew who she was and knew that she was dead. Something to add to the pile of not-dealing-with-now and she shoved the terror in her head into a corner of her mind. Reece was stronger, but still felt like he could slip away from her at any moment.
“I’m alive. And I’m telling you to leave all the people you are attacking. Now.” The newly tapped into magic fought harder to be released. But she couldn’t take a chance it would overwhelm her. If she couldn’t stop the connection, she would keep healing Reece until both of them died.
“Dead. We felt it. Dead.”
Aisling kept enough healing available to help Reece fight against what was in his mind, but locked down the rest of it. “Not dead. Leave.” An image of what the voice intended to do with Reece and the others slammed into her. They would be zombies to allow entry into this world. A sharp coldness ran along her neck. For a moment she feared it was killing her too. Then the chilling cold settled down to a gentle coolness.
The pendant.
“Take that off. Not yours.” A trace of something new, fear maybe, lingered in the voice now.
That just won points for the pendant. Anything that this scary disembodied voice didn’t like was good in her book.
“Not on your life.” She let as much of her magic loose as she dared but directed it at the voice, not Reece.
“Not alive...” The voice faded and she couldn’t tell if it was talking about itself or her. The pressure on Reece’s mind stopped. His heartbeat grew stronger and his breathing normalized.
Aisling pulled herself free of his mind just as his eyes opened.
“That was not fun. However,” he reached up and pulled her down to him. The kiss was quick but intense. Aisling found herself responding with the same intensity. He dropped back. “You saved my life. Thank you.”
Aisling still wanted to be sure about him, but that kiss did not suck. Aside from being too short and while they were both sitting on a sidewalk. Her lips tingled as she shared a smile with him. Her hormones definitely weren’t having a problem with any supposed magic
mojo.
She shook her head. “Did you also hear that apparently, I’m dead? Or at least died at some point and should still be dead?” She helped him to his feet, but he didn’t seem worse for almost dying himself.
“I missed that part. What was it that attacked me and said you were dead?”
“Aside from terrifying, I have no idea what it was.” She rubbed her arms at the chill that hit just thinking of that voice. “It was something from beyond the veil that wanted to use you and other precogs as a gateway here. It would have killed you all and created a chain of some sort into this world—using your bodies. Then it got freaked out about my being alive once it realized who I was. Oh, and it didn’t like the pendant either.” She held it up but it felt normal now. She couldn’t explain how she knew that thing had been from beyond the veil—she just did. Her soul felt it.
It looked like the attack on the other precogs in the area had stopped as well. People who had collapsed on the platforms were getting to their feet. Hopefully, unlike Reece, they wouldn’t know how close they had been to dying.
“If you’re okay now, we can try and sort it out on the train.” Reece dusted himself off and started toward the station.
Aisling followed. She’d managed to heal without losing herself, so that was good. But the being dead thing hit her hard. There was a tiny corner of her being that believed the voice. She had died. How, why, and when were complete mysteries—ones she wasn’t sure she wanted solved.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Reece turned to ask something, then stopped. “Are you sure you’re okay? You look like you saw a ghost. You know that thing that tried to kill me would have said anything to stop you, right? Lies work.”
She forced a smile. She wasn’t ready to admit the feelings she had about the voice telling the truth. “I’m sure that’s it. I think the healing just took a bit more out of me than I expected.”
They boarded the train and claimed seats facing each other—better to watch both ends. Paranoia was more his lifestyle than hers, but she was adapting to it.
“The voice you heard; it wasn’t Nix?”
“Nope. It didn’t even sound like something from this world. Voice was lower than the roughest giant or trolls I’d ever heard. And it didn’t seem used to words, they came out harshly.” She rubbed her arms as a chill ran through her. “I think whatever it is, it doesn’t communicate with our type on a regular basis. But it was upset about the pendant. Since a vallenian was the one who put it on me, I think we can count them out as the ones who attacked you.” She was going to keep pushing aside the fact that a murdering voice from beyond the veil thought she was dead. At least until she could find a rational way to deal with it. Maybe in a few hundred years or so.
Reece rubbed his head. “I think I’m beginning to feel how close to dying I was. When you first pulled me out, it wasn’t bad, but now there’s almost an echo of the pain.”
Aisling looked around the train, it was a fairly full car and two others, a male and female elf were also rubbing their heads. “Damn it. Come to my side so I can check you without suspicions.” It could be a precog reaction, residue from what just happened. If the others were like Reece, they had been minutes away from dying, whether they knew it or not.
Or this was the start of a second attack.
Reece looked ready to shake her off, then switched to her side once she moved to the window and glared at him.
“You were one of those kids who never admitted when he was sick, weren’t you?” She didn’t wait for an answer, just placed her right arm around his neck in a friendly manner and twisted her hand to touch the side of his head. She leaned into his shoulder so it would be a little less odd looking. His head was much better this time around and her healing magic found nothing to heal.
“You’re clear. But you need to tell me if anything weird happens.” She turned him to face her. “Anything. I’m serious, Reece. It’s not just you, whatever was after you would have killed thousands of precogs and would have gained a foothold into this world. There are reasons the fey fled the world beyond the veil, and I think one of those is what went after you.”
He sighed, then gave a slow nod. He might be loose about his own living and dying, but he’d devoted his life to saving others. “Do you think the prior attacks on precogs were from them as well?”
“I don’t know. I do know that Harlie said the veil opening was causing the disruptions. Whatever was after you might have been testing things during those times, or those instances were unrelated to this one.”
“I still have trouble believing the vallenians aren’t behind this. I never got all the scary stories you full fey did growing up, but my mother would tell my brother and I some of them. Scared the crap out of me.”
“I didn’t even know you had a brother. I thought you were an only child.” He’d never spoken much about his family, but then, aside from Caradoc and Harlie, she didn’t talk about her siblings either.
“Had. He vanished when we were in our early twenties. Two years older than me. Named Tomas.” He paused. “We had been close growing up, then drifted apart as I went into law enforcement. He preferred the other side.”
“He’s still alive?” She watched as he carefully schooled his emotions.
“No idea. After all these years and no contact from him to me or our family, I’ve found it’s easier to think of him as gone.”
Reece had been Area 42 for a long time and they had an insane number of resources. “Did you ever search for him?” She had a hard time believing that if his brother were alive, he couldn’t find him.
“I found him once. Three years after he took off. He was living in Chile on a farm, running drugs. He made it clear he didn’t want to see me. I left and never looked again.” There was pain in his voice, but he was trying to ignore it.
“I am sorry that you lost him.” Aisling took his hand and squeezed it. “I don’t like trying to one-up someone, but my mother might be trying to rule the world. And aside from Caradoc and Harlie, my siblings are helping her. I think we both got screwed on the family front.”
He squeezed back and didn’t let go. “Agreed. My parents don’t even acknowledge him anymore. It’s as if I was always an only child. Which is weird. He was a good guy once.” He nodded. “Anything else about you being dead?” He’d opened up a lot for him, but clearly didn’t feel comfortable about going further.
“Aside from the fact that voice was certain I was? Not you had been dead, but you are dead. That I obviously wasn’t dead stunned whoever they were and I think helped the pendant chase them off. I’m not going to lie, they almost destroyed you and the others they attacked. If they hadn’t backed off on their own, I might not have been able to save any of you.”
“For which I am very grateful and I’m sure the others would be if they knew. But there was never a near death experience as a kid? Anything?”
“No, not that I know of. I’ll call Caradoc when we get to London and I can have some privacy, but he didn’t even realize I’d been taken to Nepal to see Harlie when I was five. I have a feeling if our mother didn’t want anyone to know things that happened, they didn’t.”
“Once we’re in London, call Stella too. She might not be as strong as Harlie, but she has a few more abilities than she ever let on.”
Aisling nodded. “And possibly family connections.” She quickly told him about Stella’s late aunt and what she’d believed. And that Stella now felt differently about her death.
“That’s interesting and not in a good way. The stories of when the fey came here never implied anything of leaving other fey behind. But if true, if there were people left behind on purpose—ones who should have been brought over, that’s scary.”
“Especially if the veil is getting thinner, and with the stuff that keeps coming out from beyond the veil, I’d say that’s a given.” Aisling watched the countryside race by as they got out of town.
“Excuse me. Excuse me.” The voice was slurred but stil
l familiar as it came from behind them. A man was staggering down the aisle and apologizing as he weaved from side to side. He had his head down, but the short red hair and pointed ears sent a chill down Aisling’s back. She nudged Reece and tilted her head back. The man had stopped, still sounding and acting drunk, but now he was talking to himself.
“Nix?” Reece kept his voice low. At Aisling’s nod, he got up into the aisle and stepped toward the man.
“Slippery, slip, slip. Penalties must be paid.” The voice could have been Nix’s but sounded oddly distorted. He looked up and smiled at Reece. “Dead, dead, dead. Most be dead. Can’t work if not dead.” Nix started shaking and an image hit Aisling. Caradoc facing a shaking Nix clone. That was a clone and he was about to explode.
“Get him off the train! Everyone else go to the next car!” She yelled but most everyone looked at her and didn’t move. “Undercover agent! Move now!” Technically she wasn’t any sort of British agent, but right now they needed to get the hell out.
Reece tackled the Nix clone then pulled back. “He’s squishy.” Rivulets of familiar green goo started leaking out of Nix and Reece scrambled backwards.
Aisling pushed the other people in the car toward the connection to the forward one. She couldn’t help them more than that, she needed to help Reece get this clone off the train before it exploded. It had already lasted longer than the one that had faced Caradoc.
“Damn it, what is up with that goo? How can we get him off this car?” Aisling pulled Reece further away as the goo oozed toward them. The image of the agents’ skeletons from L.A. came to mind.
“We’re the second to the last car, but I don’t want him to get back there either.”
“Do you have any exploding gadgets? If we can separate this car from the main train and that final car, we can at least give us more time to get rid of that thing.” Aisling looked at the connector to the rest of the train. They’d need to push people even further back, but that goo could destroy everyone if they didn’t cut it off.
An Uncommon Truth of Dying (Broken Veil Book 2) Page 27