by Platt, Sean
“Come,” Malachi said to Raina. “We’ve more planning to do.”
Raina turned to him and nodded.
Suddenly Abigail remembered the favor that John had asked of her — to see if she could get Talani to ask Raina what she wanted to tell him.
Abigail relayed the message to Talani, but didn’t get a response, nor did she accept Abigail’s attempt at connection.
Talani was too angry at her sister, and still glaring at Malachi.
Come on, Talani. John needs to know.
But Talani was either ignoring her, or didn’t hear. Perhaps she was distracted by Raina insisting that everything would be fine, and that she had to trust her.
Come on, answer me!
And then it was too late.
Raina went to Malachi, and followed him out the door.
Fifty-Nine
John
John watched as Abigail tried to calm Talani. He needed to ask if Abigail had been able to get anything from Raina before she left with the Prophet.
He approached, cautiously, Talani glaring at him like he was the enemy.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right. You should be able to fight. But, at the same time, I’m glad you’ll be here. Someone needs to protect Abigail.”
With a clenched jaw Talani said, “Then why don’t you, if she’s so important?”
“Because Jacob is my brother. My problem, and nobody else needs to die to solve it. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if you or Abigail got hurt.”
“This isn’t about your feelings,” Talani said.
“It’s not about yours, either. And I’m not about to argue with the Prophet. He is giving us an army to fight with. We need it. And he was gracious enough to let us stay here, where it’s safe.”
“It was safe in Under Harbor, too.”
“Actually,” Gerald said from across the room, where he was talking with Jonah, “it’s safer here. At least we know who our enemies are.”
Sheesh, these werewolves have good hearing!
Talani sighed and rolled her eyes.
John struggled not to smile at her pouting. She didn’t want to be seen as a teenager, but certainly acted the part. Abigail, who was now forever eleven, seemed infinitely more mature.
He met Talani’s eyes with his sincerest expression. “I want to thank you for being there for Abigail when I wasn’t.”
“You mean when you left her all alone.”
John tried to hide his annoyance. “The Guardians forced me to help them. If I didn’t, they would’ve turned Abigail into a killer slave, doing their bidding. I left to spare her.”
Talani blinked, shedding some of her anger.
“So, again, thank you for being there for her. For being a friend. I can tell she likes you a lot.”
Talani looked down at Abigail whose eyes were tearing up.
Abigail nodded.
“I need to ask you two things,” John continued.
Talani nodded.
“First, did your sister give you any messages for me?”
Talani shook her head. “No. Why would she do that?”
“I get the feeling she was trying to tell me something. Can you reach her now?”
Talani closed her eyes, trying to reach out. “No, I can’t get a connection with her. I don’t know if it’s because we have different Masters, though that shouldn’t be a reason. I found Abigail, after all. But I can’t find my sister.”
“Okay,” John said. “I tried and couldn’t reach her, either. Let me know if you are able. Now, here’s the more important thing.”
“What?”
“If anything happens to me, I want you to do your best to get Abigail, Hope, and Larry back to Earth — or at least to safety.”
“What do you mean, if anything happens to you?” Abigail asked.
“I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, but I need to make sure you’re all safe. Can you promise me that?”
Talani nodded. “Of course.”
“Forget that bullshit about the Prophet. This is the main reason I want you to stay behind. You’re strong. A fighter. I saw in the surveillance video of you cutting through those soldiers guarding the portal.”
Talani looked down, maybe ashamed of those innocent deaths.
Abigail started crying. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
He knelt and hugged her, hearing her sobs in his ear. He patted the back of her head. “Me either, Abigail. Me either. I’ll do everything in my power to get back.”
He caught Hope watching their embrace, and knew saying goodbye to her would be equally hard.
As everyone got settled for bed, John told Hope he’d be right back, then caught up with Larry, ducking into his room.
“Yo, don’t even think of bunking with me, Bro.”
“You wish.”
“Well, you do have purty hair.”
“Fuck you, Larry,” John said with a laugh.
John closed the door for privacy.
The grin fled Larry’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“After we leave in the morning, I need you to get with the girls and let them know I might not make it back.”
“What do you mean?”
“Malachi wants the crystals, and I can’t let him have them. If I can’t convince him to part with them peacefully, I’ll have to make a run for it.”
“I don’t know, man, maybe you should wait until you all get back here, then try and get them.”
“No. I don’t want you all caught in the crossfire if shit goes south. I’ll send you a message if that happens, and you can get your asses out of here, head for the portal.”
“I don’t wanna leave without you, man. Please, let me go with you tomorrow.”
“No. I want you here to make sure nothing happens to them. Don’t worry, I’ll do everything possible to meet up with you all once I ditch the cult.”
“How will we find the portal?”
“Here,” John said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a map. He handed it to Larry. “Gerald drew this.”
“You told Gerald about your plan?”
“I had to trust someone else.”
“You sure you can trust him?”
John telepathically said, Shh, the dude has wolf hearing!
Larry laughed, then winked. “Okay, then I definitely trust him.”
“Thank you, Brother,” John said, hugging Larry.
“Don’t you fucking die on me tomorrow. I’m really not cut out for this single parent shit, especially if we’re gonna have two moody teenagers around.”
John laughed.
John went to the room he shared with Hope and was surprised to find Abalena in a third bed pulled up beside Hope’s.
Even though he couldn’t sleep with Hope because the barracks had no Queen- or King-sized beds, nor could he touch her, John was still looking forward to being alone with her on what might be his last night alive. There was still so much he wanted to say before marching to war. But her mother was a wet blanket on it all.
“Um, what’s going on?” he whispered.
Hope reminded him that her mother needed to sleep beside her to clear the barriers to her memory.
She looked at John, smiling, eyes optimistic. “Isn’t that great?”
“Yes,” he lied, “great.”
Truth was, John wished she could wait until this whole thing with Jacob was done. He needed to focus on finding his brothers. But now he’d be worrying about Hope’s psyche after her memory returned. He needed to be there to help her if things soured. But he couldn’t stay.
Yet one more thing to advise Larry on in the morning.
He thought of telling her no, asking her to wait, but the look in her eyes, the smile on her face — it was the happiest, most hopeful he’d seen her since Saint Augustine. And he couldn’t bear to destroy it.
He forced himself to smile. “Goodnight, Hope. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
For the fir
st time since their reunion, John felt the weight of those words, her truth behind them, and the terror that he wouldn’t survive to see Hope again.
Sixty
Hope
Hope dreamed of a vast black sky filled with stars.
She was walking, on a cold ground made of black sand as far as she could see in every direction. A leash bit into her neck and throttled her pace.
She looked back to see that the leash fixed her to Abigail.
Hope slowed to let the girl catch up. Abigail drew closer, and Hope noticed her closed eyes.
“Abigail?”
The girl said nothing.
Kept walking in silence.
Hope remembered that she was supposed to be here with someone else. She looked around for any sign of her mother.
“Mom? Abalena?”
Nothing.
Not even an echo of her own voice.
As Hope looked down at the sand, a shadow passed overhead.
Startled, she looked up to see a large object floating maybe fifty feet above them. She thought of a giant whale floating through the sky.
Her heart raced, and a chill ripped through her.
What the hell is that?
More of its shape took form against the stars — Hope realized it was less a whale than something resembling a giant octopus with trailing tentacles.
She needed to run.
“Come on.” She yanked on Abigail’s leash. “We need to get out of here!”
Abigail stopped dead in her tracks.
“Come on!”
Abigail stood there, eyes closed, not moving or saying a word. Only then did Hope notice that the girl’s lips were sewn shut.
Startled, Hope went for a closer look.
But then a shadow forced her to look up.
The creature was descending.
“Oh God, Abi, we’ve gotta go!”
As the thing drew nearer, every pore in her body sizzled with fear.
Abigail finally spoke, though not with her mouth. “There’s nowhere to hide. He’s coming.”
“Who’s coming?”
Abigail’s eyes flicked open, black as the sky above and ground below.
Jolted, Hope stumbled back and lost her footing, falling backward to the ground, and then through it.
She screamed as she continued to fall through the sand, then plummeting through the void, bracing for a fall with a ground she could not see.
Then she woke in a gasp, back in the real world.
John was sliding on his boots across from her.
“You okay?”
She looked around, shook off the nightmare. “Yeah.”
“Well? Do you remember anything?”
Only the endless black desert and the horrible octopus thing. Abigail with black eyes and a cryptic warning.
“No.”
Abalena sat up. “I tried, but I don’t know if I got through.”
“What did you see?” Hope asked.
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
Grinding metal gears screeched from the main room.
Sixty-One
John
John ran into the main room to find the others, some dressed and ready to go, others still in their sleeping clothes, staring at the still-closed front doors.
“What’s going on?” John asked as Gerald approached the door.
“Fuck if I know.” Gerald grabbed both knobs and threw the doors open to a wall of metal bars.
Raina and Prophet Malachi were on the other side, standing in front of men with hands on the hilts of their swords.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Gerald snapped.
“We’re going without you.”
“What?” Jonah stumbled past John, looking hung over.
Malachi stood there with his smug grin. “I thank you all for your help in planning the raid, but I think it best if we go without you.”
John joined Gerald and Jonah at the door. “What the hell is going on?”
Malachi met his eyes. “Quite simply, I cannot trust that you won’t take the crystals.”
“Are you kidding me? I said I would give them to you.”
“Yes, but your lips and eyes do not agree.”
Suddenly Talani was right next to John, yelling at her sister, “What the hell, Raina?”
“I’m sorry, but we must take precautions. The crystals can’t be trusted to anyone but The Hand.”
John said, “If you go alone, Jacob will kill you all.”
Malachi smiled. “We are The Hand of the Seven Gods, and nothing will stop us from delivering our Gods’ judgment.”
Talani pleaded, “Raina, don’t let him do this.”
“I’m sorry.” Raina stared past Talani, trying to hide her emotions.
“John is right,” Talani yelled. “You’ll die if you do this without him.”
“And without me.” Gerald pounded a fist against his chest. “My brothers won’t help you fight if they don’t see me there.”
“Yes, they will,” Malachi said. “They’ll have no choice.”
John grabbed the bars, trying to bend them, but having no luck. “You’re making a mistake, Malachi. You don’t know my brother, or what he’s capable of.”
Malachi met John’s eyes. “And you don’t know our Gods or what they are capable of.”
Turning to leave, Malachi said, “Raina and Kero will keep you company until we return.”
John spent twenty minutes begging and pleading with Raina, and even the other guard, a young man who couldn’t be more than sixteen, to let them go.
Raina stood stone-faced and frozen, having given up on arguing about ten minutes in, at first repeating, “I have nothing more to say,” and then saying nothing at all.
John and Gerald both tried to bend the bars and break the wall, but nothing gave. The barracks seemed to double as a dungeon.
John pulled everyone aside, to the room’s rear, and said, “Does anyone know of another way out?”
None of them did.
Talani said, “Maybe I can reason with her.”
“It hasn’t worked yet.” John shook his head. “And she probably thinks she’s protecting you. Hell, maybe she is protecting you. A man like Malachi doesn’t leave someone in charge whom he doesn’t have leverage over.”
“Fuck his leverage,” Talani said, storming past John toward the large barred door.
John looked at the others, shrugged, then followed.
But upon arrival, a third guard approached Raina and Kero, out of breath.
“Sister Raina, you must come to the gate.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“You must see for yourself.”
Raina left Kero in charge.
John looked at Talani, then back at the gate.
Talani approached him, looking to charm the young man. “Hey, Kero. How would you like to do the right thing?”
But the guard refused to meet his eyes, likely instructed to avoid a Valkoer’s charms.
Sixty-Two
Raina
Raina marched to The Citadel gates and froze in her tracks when she saw the man conversing with the guards — battered, clothes wet and bloodied, but alive.
Caleb!
She ran up to him, arms wide, pulling him into a huge hug.
“You’re alive!” she cried, not caring that the others could see her emotions. If any of them had shit to say tomorrow, she’d kick their asses then.
“How?” she asked.
“I escaped,” he said, rubbing his head.
His cheeks were bruised, and a long cut ran the length of his forehead, blood crusted around it. His eyes looked hollow, like he’d not only seen a ghost but had battled it back into Hell.
“How did you escape?”
“One of the guards dropped his caution, and I made him pay. Then I found an old drainage tunnel and took it to the island’s edge before swimming to shore.”
She hugged him again.
He was cold, shaking, and n
ot exactly returning the hug. Raina imagined the torture he must have endured while held by the King.
“Did they hurt you?”
He nodded.
“Did you give up any information?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Good. Let’s get you cleaned up, and you can tell me everything.”
She tried to send him a message telepathically, but could only connect to static. It was like he wasn’t even there, despite standing before her.
She wondered how badly they hurt him. Extreme psychological duress could definitely impair a Valkoer’s ability to communicate telepathically.
She escorted Caleb into The Citadel. But before taking him to his room she said, “I have a surprise for you.”
“What is it?”
“Your brother is here.”
“Brother?”
“John.”
Caleb smiled. “Really?”
“Yes, do you want to see him?”
“Gods, yes.”
Sixty-Three
John
John had given up on also trying to charm Kero, and was back in the rear talking to Larry, Gerald, and Jonah while Hope and Abalena occupied the girls and tried to calm Talani.
John asked Jonah, “Do you trust Malachi with the crystals?”
“Gods, no.”
Gerald said, “A bastard like him getting ahold of that kind of power … It could be worse than King Cunt Jacob getting it.”
“Shit.” John shook his head. “We’ve got to find a way out of here.”
“You prepared to fight your way through the entire Hand, or whatever’s left behind?” Gerald asked.
“How many men are we talking?”
“Maybe two hundred, I’d guess.”
Jonah laughed. “I could kill two hundred of these pussies with one hand tied behind my back.”
John smiled. He liked the old man’s attitude, both old men’s attitudes, actually, but thought he might be overestimating his skills.
John said, “I don’t want to get anyone else killed. Maybe we wait until —”