Inception (The Marked Book 1)

by Bianca Scardoni

  This world and beyond?

  “So what you’re saying is, as a Keeper you can like, take me to another world?” There’s no way I heard that right.

  “I can take you to many worlds.” His crystalline blue eyes burned into me, sending my heart into a chaotic tailspin.

  I took a sip of my water, hoping the icy liquid would quell my racing heart and keep me focused. “And you can take me to another time, too? Like another era—say, I don’t know, the 1920s?” Or Florida, eight months ago.

  “I can, but I won’t.” He was still staring at me with a stirring intensity. “That kind of thing has to be approved by the Council.”

  “But you no longer work for the Council,” I reminded him, doubtful that he was actually concerned with their rules.

  “True,” he said, raising his chin slightly, proud of his defiance. “But you do.”

  Crap.

  “Besides, they check us twice a month whether we’re with the Order or not. If I get caught traveling, I could end up Bound and I can’t have that.”

  “What do you mean they check you?”

  “Traveling leaves temporary traces on our skin, kind of like a cosmic time-stamp.” He clenched his fist shut. “Because of that, Reapers have to check-in with ‘the powers that be’ every other week so they can make sure we haven’t gone anywhere without their authorization.”

  Dammit.

  Everything in me felt as though it were sinking. I let myself believe (even if for only the faintest of seconds) that somehow, someway, I would be able to go back and see my father again—maybe even save him. The vessel for this unfathomable act sat right before me, tempting and daunting with the face of an angel, and all I could do was look at it, but never have it.

  “Come on,” he said, cocking his head to the side. “Don’t look at me like that. You wanna get me Bound?”

  I shook my head, trying to hold back my tears. “I just wanted to see him again. One last time.”

  “It never works out that way. You’ll always want to go back.”

  “How do you know if you’ve never gone?” I challenged.

  He didn’t respond though something in his eyes was telling me that he knew it well, and from firsthand experience.

  “You’ve done it, haven’t you? How did you get around the check-in?” I asked without waiting for the confirmation. “Is there a way to do it, like some kind of loophole?”

  He looked back at me as a quiet war waged in his eyes, the deep blue’s churning up dangerous winds that promised oblivion to anyone who dared enter, and suddenly I wanted to do nothing else but dance in the eye of the storm.

  He let out a long and depleted breath, “There’s always loopholes, Jemma. Always.”

  28. ENCOUNTERS OF THE WORST KIND

  “Feel like doing a mall crawl tomorrow?” asked Taylor first thing Monday morning as I unpacked my books in front of my locker. “We can pick out your dress for the dance.”

  “I can’t. I have detention.”

  “For what?”

  “For being tardy. Thrice. Mr. Gillman’s words, not mine.”

  She nodded knowingly. “I had him last semester...major anal retentiveness. What about after detention?”

  I shook my head. “I have to fill in for Paula tomorrow. She has a doctor’s appointment or something, and then I’m meeting up with Gabriel.”

  “Gabriel, huh? Oh la la,” she gushed, making kissing noises.

  “That’s incredibly mature. And super attractive.”

  “I know, right?” She batted her eyelashes at me. “So is he taking you to the dance Friday night?”

  Just the thought of Gabriel being forced to attend some high school dance was enough to induce a fit of laughter.

  “I think he’s a little old for that,” I reminded her, although in actuality, I wasn’t sure if he was twenty-one, twenty-five, or four? “Besides, we’re just friends. I’m sure he has much better things to do on a Friday night than take me to a high school dance.”

  “So you’re going stag?” she asked and then nodded over to someone behind me.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I said, turning to follow her gaze. “I’m not even sure I want to—”

  “Hey, Blackburn,” smiled Caleb, the apparent target. He looked dapper as usual, in a frat-boy sort of way.

  “Hi, Caleb.”

  “Well, I gotta go. I’ll catch you two after class,” smiled Taylor before jetting off down the hall in typical Taylor fashion; bubbly and forever up to no good.

  I closed my locker and started towards my first period chem class. Caleb followed.

  “So, a little birdie told me you don’t have a date for the dance this Friday.”

  I shook my head. Freaking Taylor.

  “I was thinking maybe we could go together.”

  I stopped walking and turned to face him. “Isn’t there someone you’d rather go with? I mean, we barely even know each other,” I pointed out.

  “Are you saying you don’t want to go with me?” There was an ample amount of hurt and surprise in his expression, like he honest-to-God never heard the word ‘no’ before.

  “I just thought that maybe there was someone else, you know, someone you like…more than friends.” It took everything in me not to blurt out Nikki’s name right there in the hallway, in the middle of all the morning chaos.

  “Nope. Can’t think of anyone,” he smiled.

  Either he was in serious denial or he was the world’s greatest liar. Neither one sounded like an appealing trait.

  “We can just go as friends if you want. I’d be okay with that,” he added with a modest shrug.

  I considered it.

  Maybe this would give me a chance to get to know the real Caleb Owens. Maybe even probe him for information about Nikki and find out once and for all what was really going on between the two of them. I could do that. I could totally be persuasive when I needed to. Sort of. How hard could it be?

  “Sure, I’d love to go with you.”

  Gabriel was already waiting for me in the parking lot of All Saints after my shift ended later that day. As per our usual routine, we were supposed to be heading over to Temple, though those plans were promptly nixed when he informed me that our training session had been canceled due to an emergency Faction meeting. One that required the entire building to be sealed off and secured.

  “Is that something they usually do?” I wondered as we pulled out of the parking lot in his black SUV.

  “It’s not uncommon to secure the building, especially with so many leaders present.”

  Interesting. I wondered if my uncle was included in that roster. “So what’s this meeting about anyway?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said without deviating his eyes from the road. “I wasn’t given any details.”

  “Can we attend?”

  “Council members and Elders only.”

  “Oh, good, more rules and secrets.” Because I didn’t have enough of those in my life. It was like a sickness in this town.

  “I’m not allowed to attend either.” He offered it as solace, but it didn’t make me feel any better. “If you’re up for it, I know another place we can train tonight,” he said, bouncing a quick glance at me. “It’s not ideal but we wouldn’t be bothered.”

  I’d rather go stake out this meeting but apparently that option wasn’t on the table. On second thought, “What if we blow off the rest of the night and catch up on our sleep instead?”

  “Jemma.”

  “What? Not all of us are frozen in time.” I flipped down the sun-visor to inspect the dark circles under my eyes. “Some of us actually need to rest.”

  “Not as much as you need to train. What are you going to do the next time you encounter a Revenant? Are you confident in your abilities to defeat them—to vanquish them?”

  “Vanquish them?” I looked him over as though he were the most absurd man on the planet. “The only thing I plan on doing is running as fast as I can, unless I somehow get captured, in which
case my new plan is to kick ass until I get free, and then run as fast as I can.” There was no two ways about it. I was a girl with a plan, and I was sticking to it come hell or high water. Or vampires.

  He scoffed without looking. “That’s a horrible plan.”

  “It sure beats getting killed though.”

  He shook his head, but he didn’t argue the point. We continued the rest of the drive in silence.

  It wasn’t until a little while later that I realized we’d somehow ventured into one of the shiftier neighborhoods outside of Hollow. Between the broken streetlights and boarded up buildings, I had already decided this was exactly the sort of place I didn’t want to visit on any day of the week. Least of all, after dusk.

  “Where are we going exactly?” I asked, locking my passenger side door. “This neighborhood is giving me the creeps.”

  “We’re going to my place.”

  “Your place?” Had he lost his damn mind? “Um, you live on the other side of town...you know, on the nice side.”

  “That’s my family home,” he corrected, regarding me cautiously as though I might snap at any moment. “I don’t live there. I have a small apartment up the street.”

  “So what you’re saying is, you actually pay money to live around here?” I was completely flabbergasted by this revelation.

  The smallest impression of a smile appeared. “It’s a small price to pay for obscurity.”

  We entered his apartment building through an unhinged side door and took the stairs up all the way to the third floor. The hallway was dank with mangy carpets and flickering lights that faded in and out like some cautionary tale I didn’t want to know. Sounds infiltrated the hallway at every turn—a baby crying, a shouting couple, police sirens in the distance—all attesting to the unsavory living conditions of life on this side of the tracks.

  I latched onto the back of Gabriel’s leather jacket and scooted in closer as we made our way down the hall of horrors, stopping only when we reached the last apartment on the left.

  He unlocked the door and held it open for me. “After you,” he nodded, clearing the path.

  I swallowed hard and stepped into the darkened apartment, my anticipation reaching its peak. Gabriel followed in behind me and flipped on the lights before double-bolting the front door.

  I turned slowly, peering into the skeletal apartment as I tried to reconcile myself to the fact that Gabriel lived here. That he spent his days and nights here, all alone in this tiny apartment in the middle of hell. It was downright depressing.

  There wasn't much to his place—a small kitchenette on the left with no appliances except for a mini fridge and stove, and a bare-boned living room on the right that housed a black leather futon and small wooden coffee table. It was a far cry from the lavish family home I’d woken up in the first night we met.

  “So this is where you live,” I said, doing a listless spin.

  He moved in from behind me and placed his hand on the curve of my back, guiding me into the living room. “Yes, this is where I stay when I’m in town, which isn’t very often. Kitchen, living room, bedroom, bathroom,” he said, ending with a gesture directed at the two closed doors on the far right of the room.

  “So why didn’t you take me here that night?” I wondered.

  “You needed first aid, food and water, and blankets amongst other things.” He directed me to a seat on the futon. “All of which were things I did not have here.”

  I sat down and looked up at him with skepticism. “You’re telling me you don’t have food or blankets here?”

  “What purpose would I have with any of those things?” he challenged, pulling up another chair next to me.

  “Right. Sorry.” Nice one, Jemma.

  “It’s perfectly alright,” he said, brushing off my faux-pas.

  “So what happens when you bring a date home? Don’t they find it weird that you don’t have like, basic amenities? Or do you only date girls that are, um...the same as you?”

  “He doesn’t date at all,” answered a familiar voice.

  I turned abruptly, startled by the unexpected voice, and found my sister standing in the threshold of Gabriel’s bedroom door like a passing specter from some alternate reality. It had been so long since I’d seen her in the flesh, I almost didn’t recognize her. I almost didn’t trust my eyes.

  “Tessa?”

  “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

  “When did you...I mean, where did you...?” I shook my head unable to string a cohesive set of words together.

  We had spent so many months apart. What could I possibly say to her that would solidify all the thoughts and emotions running through my mind in this moment?

  “You cut your hair,” I said stupidly, not moving from the couch. An elementary observation about her hair ought to do it.

  She nodded unceremoniously, tucking a strand of her chin length jet-black hair behind her ear.

  I took in the rest of her features—her heart shaped face, her round cheek bones and ash gray eyes, and of course, that alabaster skin that could make a porcelain doll jealous. It was all there. Everything was exactly the same, but somehow different. More defined—ripened, weary. She carried the expression of a girl who had lived one too many nights in the desecrated shadows.

  “What are you doing here?” Gabriel’s voice startled me. He was standing now, staring at her with a foreign intensity I couldn’t quite decode. “I thought you were on assignment.”

  “I was—I am. I don’t have much time. I came to see Jemma,” she said, turning to me. “I came to give you something.”

  “Okay,” I nodded wearily, still in a state of disbelief. “Like a present or something?” She had, after all, missed my birthday being that I was in the hospital, but was this really the time or place?

  She held out her fist in response and opened her palm. A long ruby red crystal fell from the center, dangling weightlessly from the silver chain wrapped around her finger.

  Gabriel’s eyes swelled in horror as he watched the necklace rock back and forth in the air like a pendulum.

  “The Blood of Isis.”

  29. THE IMMORTAL AMULET

  “The blood of who?” I asked, feeling the thickness in the air press down on me like a cold, wet blanket.

  I could almost swear I saw Gabriel take a step back from the corner of my eye. Like he was physically afraid to be near the necklace. Whatever it was, it had him shaking and suddenly I wasn’t so sure I wanted to be around to find out.

  And for sure I wasn’t putting the thing on.

  “That’s not possible,” said Gabriel, still stunned by the sight of it. “It has to be a fake.”

  “I promise you, it’s very real.” Tessa circled the room in haste, closing the blinds and making sure all locks were secured. When she was done, she sat down on the coffee table opposite me. Our knees just inches apart for the first time in a very long time.

  “Has the Council confirmed its authenticity?”

  “No.” She answered without looking at him.

  “Then how do you know it’s not a fake?”

  “I just do, now will you please sit down,” she ordered cutting him a hard look. “I don’t have a lot of time.”

  Gabriel lowered himself into the arm chair.

  Her gaze softened as she took him in. “You said she was in danger and this is the only way I know how to protect her. Nobody can know about this—especially not the Council. Not yet anyway. I need to know that I count on you.”

  “You know you can.” He said it sure as fact.

  She refocused her sullen grays back on me. “I need you to put this on, Jemma, and I need you to promise me you won’t take it off until I tell you it’s safe to do so. Do you understand?” She held the necklace out to me like some morbid offering.

  “I’m not putting anything on until you tell me what’s going on. What the heck is that?” I eyed the necklace accusingly.

  She rolled the ruby red pendant between her ashen f
ingers. “This is the Blood of Isis. Better known as the Immortal Amulet.”

  “Okay...and why is Gabriel so afraid of it?”

  “I’m not afraid. I was caught off guard.”

  “Because it’s a very powerful amulet, Jemma, believed to have been used in the First Rising Spell. The one that created the original Revenants.”

  My head ticked back a notch. “And why would I want to put that thing around my neck?”

  “Because, apart from its necromancy capabilities, the Immortal Amulet is one of the most powerful Protective Hedges known in our world.”

  I turned back to Gabriel. “Necromancy?”

  “The act of conjuring the dead—one of the forbidden arts.”

  The room suddenly felt as though it were tilting. My sister was actually trying to strap me into some dead-raising necklace and worse, she was acting like it was just another day at the office. And I was the one they institutionalized.

  “Look at me,” ordered Tessa, taking my chin in her hand. “You couldn’t conjure the dead if you tried doing it on purpose. You have nothing to be afraid of.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should be offended by that.

  “The only thing you need to know is that its Power of Protection ensures the wearer of the necklace is granted immunity from all perils; mortal or supernatural.”

  “What does that mean? Speak English, Tess!”

  “It means you’ll be indestructible as long as you wear it.”

  Indestructible? “Wait, really?” I felt a wild, uncontrollable smile tugging at the corner of my lips. The truth was, that didn’t sound half-freaking-bad.

  “Yes, really,” she said, raising the necklace and then carefully lassoing it around my neck. “As long as you have this on, no one can bring harm to you, but you’re not to remove it under any circumstances—not even in the shower. Is that understood?”

  I nodded, picking up the amulet as I examined it with a curious eye. There was something incredibly hypnotic about it. Something about the way it caught the light and reflected back to me, letting me know I was in the presence of a great Power.