Sleight: Book One of the AVRA-K

by Jennifer Sommersby

  We backed out of our parking spot, leaving behind happy, adventure-seeking families and road-weary truckers. An old man, salow and skeletal, floated near the bathroom building. As soon as I saw him, I averted my eyes. I couldn’t absorb anyone else’s pain today, dead or alive.

  While Henry drove, I fumbled with the amulet in my undamaged hand, examining its construction, the foreign curves and lines of the ancient script. It looked dirty but smooth. If what I’d been told about the amulet was true, and at this juncture, I had no reason to doubt, this piece of craftsmanship was nearly three thousand years old, if it had been gilded at the same time of the AVRA-K’s writing.

  It seemed odd that this relic, a priceless piece of an old, old world, was hanging around my neck when it should’ve been in an atmosphere-stabilized display case in a natural history museum.

  I had only a vague idea as to where we were going, but little clue as to how far we’d get before Lucian or some other unseen force stopped us. It seemed that as long as we were moving away from the threat, it might be enough, at least for the time being. The only thing I was sure about—I never wanted to fal asleep again. Just as Lucian promised, not even my dreams were safe.

  :41:

  Day One

  The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.

  —Thucydides

  Henry was quiet as he squinted against the rain hammering the windshield. It was coming down hard, and the gray of the sky blended with the gray of the road, the tire spray of other cars blurring the separation point between the two. Even the lane dividers were muted and nearly invisible under the sheen of the wet freeway pavement. I watched his face as we drove, the muscles in his jaw tensing, releasing, tensing again. His eyes looked as heavy and tired as mine felt, and I knew he too was exhausted. He’d been in the dream with me, trying to keep Lucian away and pul me back into the present.

  The silence in the car, interrupted only by the occasional bump-bump sound as the tires drove over the reflective turtles, was deafening. I felt drowsy, the hum of rubber on concrete luling me inward. I had to wake up.

  “Thank you for puling me out in one piece,” I said.

  Henry hmmphed through the set of his jaw. “Don’t thank me.

  I’ve done a pretty lousy job of keeping you safe so far,” he nodded toward my hand. “How does it feel?”

  “It burns, but I’l live.” He winced as he caught site of my curled fingers. The dark circles ringing his eyes worried me. We were going to have to sleep at some point, and I could only guess that Henry had to be as afraid as I was about that fact. There wasn’t enough coffee in the world to keep our bodies awake indefinitely.

  “Henry…could Lucian kil me during one of those nightmares?” He didn’t answer right away, but he didn’t need to. The crinkle in his forehead spoke volumes.

  “Wow…,” I said. “How am I ever going to sleep again?”

  “Thibeault wil help you. He can teach you to keep Lucian at bay.”

  In theory, it sounded promising, but Thibeault was in France.

  We were, as yet, stil in Washington State. I was going to be very tired for a while.

  “Is your physical presence in my dreams real?”

  “Yes. I’m realy there,” he said.

  “Realy? But…how is that possible? Is it safe for you to be there, you know, in my nightmare with me?”

  Henry paused again. “No. My body is defenseless. Unless I could get out in time…wel, needless to say, it’s very dangerous.”

  “Don’t do it ever again. Promise me.”

  “Gemma—”

  “Promise me!” I yeled, swiveling in my seat to face him. “Never again!” I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him. “If we’re going to do this—this…whatever it is—we have to be a team. It’s enough for you to just wake me up. Please, Henry, promise me you wil stay out of my nightmares.”

  He nodded, his expression solemn.

  Then a new thought occurred to me. A potential strategy. “If you being present in my nightmares renders your body vulnerable in the conscious world, is the same true for Lucian?”

  “No,” he said. “Lucian remains in control of himself in both realms.” My burst of excitement fizzled.

  “Damn…that would’ve been an easy way to take care of him.”

  “And that’s exactly why he can do it. He’s had way more practice at this than I have. I can only do it because Alicia taught me, but I have yet to learn how to protect my sleeping body when I go into someone else’s dreams,” he said. Of course Alicia had taught Henry to visit dreams. To her, it would’ve been as important as teaching Henry to ride a bike.

  “Promise me,” I said again, more emphatic.

  “I just can’t stand to watch you suffer,” he said. He moved one hand from the steering wheel and rested it on the console, inviting me to join him. I placed my left hand in his and inhaled a deep, comforted breath as his warmth cascaded through my palm and fingers and into the rest of my body. “I promise,” he whispered.

  “Where are we going? I mean, after we ditch the car?”

  “Seattle, I think. Ted’s guy wil come for us and then we’l figure out the next step.”

  “Are we going to try and make it to the Delacroixs?”

  “That’s the plan,” he said. “We have to work out the details from Seattle. It wasn’t safe for us to do anything in Eaglefern.” He squeezed my hand. “Hey, are you getting hungry?” I shook my head. The very last thing on my mind was food.

  Beyond the nagging ache of my hand, the understanding that our itinerary was as solid as mist, I was reminded of those we left behind. Ted was no doubt in his own living hel. He had sent us away to protect us from Lucian, but I could only speculate about what he was dealing with at this very second. And Irwin…poor Irwin. What could the two brothers be left with now that Marlene was gone? Now that I was gone? Why the hel didn’t they come with us?

  I felt panicky al over again. They should’ve come with us. The circus was never going to be the same. And now Ted and Irwin were pinned under Lucian’s dagger, waiting for the end. Waiting for the book that would never come back to them.

  The image of their despair sparked a new flame inside me. I was going to have to folow Lucian’s lead, as misguided and heinous as it was, and accept the clichés that he embodied. According to La Una, if the desire for something is great enough, the seeker must be wiling to stop at nothing in its pursuit. If I wanted to succeed in achieving my innate goals, I had to obsess about my objectives without regard to colateral damage. Forget thy neighbor. Embrace thyself.

  Marku said Henry and I had been chosen to become the next keepers of humanity, as a matter of birthright. If I had to become ruthless—if I had to become like my father—I would. I wanted nothing more at that very moment than I wanted to defeat Lucian.

  To kil him if need be. But first, I’d have to survive. In order to have a future, a future that included Henry and what was left of my tortured family, one simple choice had to be made.

  I chose to fight.

  :42:

  Trust not too much to appearances.

  —Virgil

  At SeaTac Airport, we wound our way into short-term parking, the behemoth concrete structures like coiled mattress springs, one layer stacked atop another. With each successive floor, I grew dizzier; round and round we climbed until Henry exited to find a spot on the uppermost level of the complex.

  Henry insisted on carrying my travel bag so I wouldn’t wrench my hand. If anyone had been paying close attention to our movements, they would’ve thought we were just a young couple about to get away for a weekend adventure, maybe to Vegas, maybe to Disneyland. With only two bags between us, the trip couldn’t be too involved—no roling suitcases stuffed with bikinis or too many pairs of shoes, no garment bags for suits or dresses.

  When we walked past the airport’s main entrance, the departures floor, and
continued along the sides of the main structure and beyond, it would’ve been obvious to that same anonymous onlooker that we in fact were flying nowhere today.

  How long would it take airport security to find Henry’s car? In the post-9/11 world, I could only guess that bomb-sniffing dogs would make their rounds of the BMW before the towing company was caled. We had no choice but to dump it. Lucian would surely have reported it stolen.

  Now we just needed to vaporize into the universe.

  Whoever packed my bag remembered to include my passport, and we had more than enough cash to pay for tickets to France.

  “Henry, why aren’t we leaving for the Delacroixs’ today, instead of waiting for Lucian to find us?”

  “Ted’s being cautious. He doesn’t want us on the same plane.

  And it would be best if we flew out of different airports, or at least on different flights out of the same,” he said. “The Delacroixs live in a secluded area outside of Rouen, and I don’t know how to get there. Thibeault needs to be notified that we’re coming so he can arrange a pick-up, probably with security. Lucian has far-reaching alegiances everywhere, especialy in Europe.” Henry looked over his shoulder and around the street as we walked. His paranoia was unsettling; I doubted we were being folowed but he was on heightened alert.

  We passed one uninteresting business after another, buildings for commerce and rental cars, the occasional al-night diner, sushi joint, or donut shop. There was so much noise, so many conversations in countless languages, laughing and yeling, the hiss of tires on wet pavement, backbeats streaming out of nightclubs, bad jazz coming from restaurants. If there were shades, I didn’t notice them. I kept my eyes down and tried to concentrate on pushing the auditory assaults into a solitary line of humming in my head. Though this ability to hear everything was stil new to me, I was getting better at managing it.

  “We needed more time to get things in place,” Henry said as we crossed yet another street. “Now we improvise.”

  “And without cel phones, we’re off the grid.”

  “Pretty much. Now we just need to find a pay phone, which could be an impossible mission al its own.”

  A pay phone. I’d already forgotten that part of the plan. There had to be phones at the airport, but we were moving away from it at a good clip. It wasn’t wise to hang around the terminal for any longer than necessary, just in case. I missed the lump of my cel phone in my pocket. Strange how I’d grown so accustomed to it in only a few weeks of school.

  And about school… I should’ve been elated that I didn’t have to be there, but thinking too much about it would lead to even more questions, about Junie and Ash, about the rumors that would rise like beasts from the depths once people realized that the circus freak and the handsome, weird rich kid had disappeared into the ether. And about Summer Day. I needed to tel Henry about Summer.

  Irwin’s words suddenly echoed in my head: There’s someone near us who isn’t what he or she says they are. Was he dreaming about her?

  “Henry?”

  “Yeah, Gemma…”

  “That day at school, when I got burned, it was a shade. He forced my hand over the flame. His little sister kept asking me for help—she said that the ‘mean one’ won’t let them through. Do you know what that means? Do you know who the ‘mean one’ is?”

  “Yes.” He clenched his jaw.

  “Wel, are you going to tel me?”

  “You know who it is.” We stopped at a crosswalk and waited to cross with a diverse colection of people. Neither of us spoke until we’d reached the other side and were clear of listening ears.

  “It’s Summer…isn’t it. She’s working for Lucian.” Henry stopped and faced me, his hands on my shoulders.

  “Summer is a watcher. Lucian has kept her alive in exchange for her loyalty.”

  “He’s kept her alive?” I said. Henry looked nervously around us.

  “For how long?”

  “Since the Crusades. She was a pagan witch, but she was into black magic. The realy dark stuff. He saved her from the stake and she pledged herself to him. They should’ve burned her when they had the chance.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “Literaly,” Henry said.

  “But wait—she said that you guys have gone to school together since kindergarten. How is that possible? How could she have been a little kid if she’s hundreds of years old?”

  “With the AVRA-K, anything’s possible.. Lucian knows that book inside and out, about its magic, and then some,” he said. “I told you. This is serious.”

  “Yeah…I know.” I stared at his face, replaying the various scenes of Summer’s involvement in my Eaglefern life—at school, with Ash, that day with the elephants, when she growled at me in the halway. “Why didn’t you tel me about her?”

  “I couldn’t. For the same reason I couldn’t tel you about Lucian. But, you have to know, I watched. Everything. Her every move. She knew if she hurt you, if she touched you, she’d be dead before her head hit the ground.”

  “She hates you. She said some realy horrible things about you and Lucian.”

  “Summer is out for Summer. She has to keep up the act, but she knows if she crosses Lucian, her long life wil come to a sudden and painful end,” he said, stopping and pressing the button at yet another crosswalk. “It’s sad. She’s nothing but his plaything. Has been for centuries.”

  “But…what about Ash? She’s been chasing him down, like, with a vengeance. You should see how goofy and girly she acts around him. I think he even has feelings for her,” I said. Ash had no idea what he was dealing with. I wish there was some way I could get a message to him, to warn him about Summer. She would destroy him, in a way far worse than a ridiculously unimportant broken heart, and he wouldn’t even have seen it coming.

  “There’s nothing we can do about that now. Remember who Ash is, too. It’s not like he’s been too concerned about your wel-being as of late.” Henry looked annoyed.

  “I grew up with Ash. He’s like…a brother or something. I don’t want him to get hurt, Henry.” On top of everything else that had happened to my family, now I had to worry about Ash and Junie and their parents. What would Lucian do to them? What would Lucian do to everyone we’d left behind at the circus?

  “And if you told him to stay away from Summer, what do you think his response would be?”

  I thought for a moment. “He’d say I was being jealous and stupid, and then he’d carry on as before. Like I’d never said anything at al.”

  “Exactly.”

  Another crosswalk, another yelow button.

  “What about Harbourne? Is he one of Lucian’s minions, too?”

  “No, he’s just an idiot. But there are others like Summer. Tons of them, al over the world. Lucian has been building an army for centuries, or at least that’s what the Delacroixs believe,” Henry said. “Don’t think about this too much right now. I need you to stay sharp.” He patted my cheek. “Come on. We need to keep moving.”

  After about thirty minutes of walking the streets, we accomplished the impossible: we found a pay phone—with the receiver stil intact—at a 7-Eleven. Henry had to get a transient to move over so we could get to the phone itself, and when the guy grumbled at us, Henry gave him a ten-dolar bil for his troubles. The man stood up and disappeared into the convenience store, but not before pushing his shopping cart ful of worldly possessions next to a garbage can.

  “Don’t let nobody steal my dog.” His breath nearly knocked me over. From under the cart, a mangy mixed breed poked out his head and watched his master walk into the store.

  Henry puled out the number Ted had given him and deposited enough coins to get a dial tone. He depressed the numbers slowly to make sure he got each one right. We waited, both of us holding our breath, for someone to answer.

  “Helo,” Henry said. “I was given this number by Ted Cinzio.” Just the basics, just in case. I watched the homeless guy through the store’s windows. He had made it to the checkout with his pu
rchases, a large bottle of cheap beer and two tins of dog food. At least the poor dog would eat tonight. My eyes wandered over the newsstand along the face of the main counter and I scanned the fronts of the magazines and newspapers that screamed headlines about cheating husbands, reality show scandals, and lovers’

  quarrels turned homicidal.

  I froze on one of the papers. The local daily out of Seattle.

  “Circus teen wanted for questioning in suspicious death of athletic classmate.” I pressed my face closer to the window and squinted to see it better. I had to hold my breath so as not to fog up the glass.

  Two tiny photos were nested just under the heavy black headline.

  “Yes, okay, we can get there. Fine. See you then.” Henry hung up.

  I reached for him, my eyes on the newspaper, my hand searching for his arm so I could draw his attention to what I was looking at.

  “Henry…look…the newspaper.” He moved closer to the window and found what I was seeing.

  “Oh, my God,” he said. “Oh, this is bad.”

  I searched his face, desperate for him to say the right thing.

  “Bradley’s dead. He’s dead? And they think I did it?” Henry put his arm over my shoulder and turned me away from the window.

  “I didn’t do it! It was Lucian!”

  “Sssshhh,” he said, inspecting the area around us. He turned and placed both hands on my face so I would focus on his eyes.

  “Gemma, listen to me. We need to get out of here before someone recognizes you.”

  “But where are we going? What did the man say?”

  “We have to wait for him at the Denny’s on International Blvd.

  We must’ve walked right past it.” We didn’t have a map and although the city wasn’t that big, this was unfamiliar turf for us and we’d traveled a twisted route to get to where we were. We risked missing our ride if we got lost.

  “We need a map,” I said, starting toward the store’s door.

  “No! No, we can’t go in there. Your picture is on the front page.” Henry was quiet for a moment, his thoughts interrupted as the homeless guy walked out of the store with his beer and dog food.