Prophecy Girl (The Five Orders Book 1)

by Holly Roberds

  Regina came to kneel by my side, her cerulean eyes earnestly searching mine. I tried to ignore their likeness to my own. “They have brainwashed you, my son. They will order you to assist in the greatest trespass of all. You cannot trust them. They are using you.”

  The greatest trespass of all? What could she mean?

  I stared at her coldly. “And I should believe your lies?” I wished I was with Emma. Their words made me uneasy. Though I was clear and true to my Masters, I did not like having my beliefs challenged. It was an insult.

  A sad smile pulled at her lips. “We are the Order of Veritas.” Her fingers softly touched my leg. “The Order of Truth. We interpret differently than your Order, as we do not use deceit in our methods. For that, they think us weak and despise our agency.”

  I sighed. “Then I suppose I should tell you the truth.”

  Regina’s shoulders straightened but stayed kneeling before me. Behind her, Phillip uncrossed his arms.

  My freed hands came up to either side of me. “Your ropes could not hold me.”

  Before they could properly react, I head-butted Regina, sending her careening backward to the floor. Phillip lunged at me, which I anticipated. Instead of fighting his advance, my hand slipped to his belt, pulling out a small switch blade he’d thought was well hidden against his person. With a glint, the blade released and cut through the restraints at my ankles. I used my forward motion to smash into his gut with my shoulder in one fluid movement causing him to let out a hrmph as he was knocked backward. As I slammed Phillip to the ground, I kicked off the ropes and pushed the chair away from my legs. When he was down, I threw a punch that cracked Phillip’s head soundly to the side.

  I didn’t wait for them to recover. I scrambled over Phillip’s body and up the stairs, grabbing my jacket along the way. My hand quickly found the knob unlocked, but footsteps clattered behind me. I threw open the door then turned to see both Regina and Phillip racing up the stairs after me. I slammed the door closed and found a sturdy lock on my side. I turned the deadbolt over with a resounding click just as the door handle shook and pounding emanated from the other side. The door would hold.

  It all happened so fast, I barely had breath in me, and hadn’t yet observed if I’d walked into a bigger trap. But as I glanced around at a modest kitchen attached to a living room covered in family photos and various household items and toys, I knew I was alone, and this was neither Phillip nor Regina’s house. A note on the kitchen counter instructing someone named Todd on how to water the houseplants told me the resident family was away on vacation. I stepped out the front door into the cold night air on a suburban cul-de-sac. It smelled like rain but slushy snow gathered in the corners of people’s lawns and along the street gutters. I didn’t know where I was, but I knew I had to find Travis and Emma. Now that the Order of Veritas knew the Propheros had arrived and that he was traveling with me, it was more important than ever I get Travis to the Temple. I had to get to them fast, so using the stars for guidance I started walking northeast, in the direction we’d been traveling to the safe house.

  For almost an hour, I trudged north along the darkened streets, slick with sleet. My head throbbed dully with aftereffects from the drug which made my mind foggy. I had left one suburban neighborhood behind only to enter another. I wished to stop at a fueling station for directions, but they were all closed this time of night. The nearly identical houses were dark and quiet through and through, save the occasional blue light from a TV left on. Ice cold rain dripped from the sky onto my neck. I crossed my arms over my chest in attempts to warm myself. Even with my coat, it was difficult to keep my core temperature up.

  As I considered the real possibility I would need to seek some kind of warm shelter, I heard the wet slaps of fast approaching footsteps.

  I would have thought it was Regina and Phillip in pursuit, but these footsteps came from up the road. Maybe it was a late-night runner? Before I could further speculate or duck out of sight, I heard a familiar voice call out, “Calan.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Emma?” I called back as I saw her form come into view in the middle of the road. The street lights cast their glow over her like they were throwing a halo on an angel. I picked up my speed to meet her. “How did you find me?”

  Anxiety had tightened her face. Worry filled her large eyes and she was biting her lip as she ran at me. When she got to me, Emma threw her arms around me and held on for dear life. “Oh thank god, I was so scared.”

  I held her tightly, burying my face in her neck. I breathed in the ambrosial scent I’d come to associate with her. “What are you doing here?”

  Emma pulled back to look me in the eye, morning frost clinging to the ends of her eyelashes. She wasn’t wearing a warm enough jacket to be out here either. Her muscles quaked underneath my hold in attempts to generate warmth.

  She gave me a wry, lopsided smile. “I was coming to save you?” she offered, uncertainly.

  The laugh originated from deep in my belly and vibrated throughout my body.

  Emma’s expression warred with displeasure and confusion. “Is it really so funny that I could be the one to save you?”

  I tried to control myself but the deep sonorous laughter hadn’t subsided. “No, no, you don’t understand.”

  Openly irritated, Emma tried to pull away, but I wouldn’t let her.

  “You so wholly surprise me and it’s the most wonderful thing I have ever known.”

  She relaxed her struggle to escape my grip, but her expression remained skeptical. “I surprise you?”

  My laughter had finally settled, and I felt both exhausted and supremely delighted. Perhaps it was a side effect of the drug Phillip and Regina had given me. “Emma, if someone had told me a week ago that you would come to my rescue, I would have dismissed such an idea without a second thought.” My voice became more serious and raspier from exposure to the cold damp air. “Chevalier are to protect the innocents,” my voice thickened further, with emotion, “but no one protects…”

  “You,” she said, simply. Her amber eyes, luminous under the street lamps, shone with compassion.

  For the first time in my existence, I felt sorry for myself. So intensely did I want Emma that I did the only thing I could to block out such a horrible indulgence as self-pity. I kissed her.

  When I covered her mouth with my own, my cold body warmed as I molded her against me. She eagerly kissed me back, trying to slide her tongue past my lips though I didn’t grant her access. Clutching my shoulders, her short nails dug into my skin exciting my appetite for more, still I didn’t deepen the kiss. When I pulled back, I looked down at her trying to find the words I knew I had to say.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Emma said, her bottom lip jutting out. “I know. You’re Chevalier, and this can never happen again.” There was a lack of sincerity in her voice.

  I struggled to cover a smile. She knew exactly what I had been going to say, but obviously didn’t believe this would be the last time I touched her. Part of me didn’t believe me anymore either.

  Bringing myself back to more important matters, I asked, “Where is Travis? Do you still have the girl?”

  She nodded. “Travis is fine. I knew if I brought him in on the rescue mission to get you, you’d pitch a fit.” She turned and began to walk us back the way she came. “Sophie was asleep when I left. We would have tried to return her to her family, but I had to come find you. I know you’re Travis’s only hope, so big picture, right?” She turned and led me back the way she came.

  My chest swelled with pride. “You could be a Chevalier.”

  Emma’s face wrinkled in distaste as we walked. “Nah, there are too many rules. Plus, don’t you have to be a guy to be Chevalier?”

  Though I hadn’t told her as much, she once again used her intuition to find the truth. “This is true, but you still have the heart of a protector and know how to serve the mission.”

  She blushed as she looked away.

  “How did yo
u find me?” I asked for the second time.

  With a sidelong glance, she said, “I don’t know, I just kind of felt you. Like that game, hot or cold? I knew traveling in a certain direction that I was getting warmer, so I went with my instinct.”

  This bothered me more than I could say, but it was undeniable there was some kind of bond, perhaps psychic in nature, between us. I wondered if I hadn’t been drugged recently, if my senses would have been sharp enough to feel the same thing.

  “It’s similar to when we were… touching….” she trailed off. Heat curled in my belly then sunk lower as I remembered the motel. The memory of diving into her hot supple skin, kissing and sucking every inch I could find caused me to harden despite the cold.

  After we’d walked two blocks, Emma took a left turn.

  “What did they do to you?” she asked.

  I stiffened, remembering the full extent of the danger we were now in. “Nothing, but the agents of Veritas know the Propheros is here.”

  Then I remembered Emma wasn’t in danger at all anymore. I blamed my sluggish thoughts on being drugged, though her intoxicating kiss could have been cause for the lapse in thought.

  “Emma, you no longer need to stay with us. With the soul eater destroyed, you can return home. You are safe to live out your life.” I hated myself for saying this out loud. I didn’t want to let her go. I wanted her by my side, though I knew it would put her in greater danger.

  She didn’t speak for seventeen long steps.

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Wrong?”

  “I can’t go home. The coming darkness you keep talking about? That’s gonna affect everyone. I can’t just go back to my life and not do anything.” Her words tripped over each other as they streamed out. “I can’t stand behind the counter at Smoky Badger Liquor’s, or some other dead-end job, and worry. Worry about the end of the world. About you trying to fix everything. Besides, I won’t really be safe until this plays out. Nothing is the same. I’m not the same.” She reached over and threaded her fingers through mine. I let her. Then she said more cheerfully, “I’m like your partner now, Lethal Weapon style, though I’m not sure if you’re Riggs or Murtoch.”

  I could have asked her to explain what she was talking about, but something else pulled at my thoughts. Greasy tendrils of guilt and sadness entwined in my gut. “I’m sorry about Travis.”

  “Sorry about what? That he is a ginormous pain in the ass? Because I’ve known that a hell of a lot longer than you.”

  “Emma, you must understand, the Propheros, he must be sacrificed to save the world from darkness. That is the destiny of the Propheros.”

  Emma stopped walking to look at me. Her expression was unreadable, but it seemed like she was trying to decide something. I instantly regretted telling her, terrified she would march off and I would never see her again. I was going to aide in the death of her friend. Civilians did not always understand the measures it took to protect our plane of existence, but I had bet on the odds that she would. Or maybe I was being selfish in not wanting to be burdened alone with this knowledge. Another failing on my part. Now, there were more than I could count.

  Finally, she said before marching on with purpose, “He’s not dead yet. Maybe if we work together it won’t come to that.”

  I didn’t reply. What could I say? Prophecy was the powerful river dragging all of us to the inevitable. The Propheros was destined to sacrifice his life to protect this world. There was absolutely no other way. I wished to spare Emma the pain of this knowledge, which was why I didn’t say anything to disagree with her after explaining Travis’s fate. If I examined my avoidance, I might have found I was really trying to spare myself the pain because I so very much wanted to believe her.

  Another block and Emma brought us to the parked jeep. She knocked on the window and Travis jerked up from the reclined driver’s seat like a flailing puppet who’d been woken by a blasting cannon. I got into the back of the car. Now that the soul eater was no more, I did not need to keep vigilant in the front seat. Sophie was dozing in the back of the car under a pile of coats. The stuffed bunny had fallen from her grasp and onto the floor. I picked it up and tucked it into her arms once more.

  Her dreams would never be the same now that’d she known a real monster. I couldn’t protect her from the knowledge there was true darkness lurking at the edges of her world. And I was finding I couldn’t protect Emma from myself, though I claimed I would. If she knew I was the real monster, she wouldn’t look at me with such adoration or reach to touch me so easily.

  Between the drugs still lingering in my system, and my walk in the cold, I was too tired to think about what this meant.

  From the passenger seat, Emma said, “Gang’s back together, now let’s get Sophie to her family and meet Calan’s Masters.”

  Grateful for Emma’s strength, my eyes slammed shut of their own accord and I fell into a deep sleep next to Sophie.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  We were parked a distance from the firehouse but could plainly see Sophie walk up the steps to the front door. We watched her open the front door, cast a last look at us over her shoulder, then she disappeared inside. Through a lit window, we watched two firemen cross the room to greet her.

  “She’ll be alright,” I said, more for myself.

  Emma nodded. “They’ll get her home. I’m sure her family is frantically looking for her.”

  Travis snorted behind the wheel. “If they aren’t locked up in a mental ward by now.” His words were bitter and dark.

  I swallowed hard.

  Emma’s body was twisted to better watch the firehouse. She caught the look on my face. “Hey, they are alive. If it weren’t for you, everyone would have died.”

  “We never should have gone there. We could have avoided unnecessary loss of life if we hadn’t stopped driving.”

  Travis’s shoulders sagged in the driver’s seat and Emma turned her head away but not before I saw her face. I realized too late that I’d made it sound as though it were their fault. They were the reason we had to stop, and why we stayed in a motel.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  Emma interrupted brusquely. “Where are we going?”

  Travis turned the key over and the engine thrummed to life cutting off any insufficient apologies I had. I closed my eyes, silently cursing myself. Around Emma and Travis, I was clumsy and foolish.

  It struck me hard that I shouldn’t be indulging in self-conscious feelings. My guiding light was the mission, and I realized in that moment how much I had let my judgment be swayed by these two people. It unsettled me. I had been gone from the Temple for too long, but now my powers were restored and everything was going to return to its natural order.

  I quietly said to myself, “Home.”

  #

  A half hour later, bundled in heavy clothes, we tromped through the woods far away from the spying eyes of the modern world. We were still many hours from the safe house, but it wasn’t necessary anymore. We just needed a safe, remote place. Neither Travis nor Emma said anything since I misspoke in the car, which created a leaden weight on my heart, but had also given me time to think. The scent of pine was heavy in the cold air. The dark sky began to lighten, and birds chirped excitedly. Travis had pulled off the road, parking Emma’s car out of sight from the road behind a large boulder where tree limbs hung low, adding to the coverage.

  The longer the silence stretched out, the more I recognized how much I’d let them compromise my mission. What would my Masters say when they heard of the troubles I’d encountered? I could claim it was the fault of Emma and Travis for influencing me, but I was the one who decided to listen, and I shouldn’t have. I shifted my shoulders back, owning up to my grave mistakes. I should not have been so malleable to these civilians. It was time I stop considering Travis and Emma’s wants and desires and focus solely on the mission.

  Suddenly, I was excited to go home. I could return to life free from complications. It wasn’t my plac
e to think, or compromise. It was to simply follow the guidance of my Masters, in service of the mission. Protect the Light.

  Leading the way, I made sure to keep my eyes off Emma. I was going to have to tell her she couldn’t come. Where I had first wanted her to stay with me, I knew now it was impossible. My Masters would never condone it and they would see how weak she had made me in my belief. It was better for her too. She wouldn’t be in direct danger anymore. It was a Chevalier’s job to protect this world. I gave her a sidelong look. If I’d learned anything about Emma, it was that she didn’t give up without a fight once she’d made up her mind. I would tell her at the last possible moment to give her little time to react.

  Or to give yourself a precious few more moments with her and avoid letting her talk you out of it.

  I batted away the thought, but the truth of it lingered.

  We came to a small clearing and I nodded to myself, satisfied with the location. It was time to return things to normal.

  Kneeling, I formed a box with my hands. “Illiminae homonae recurso meito.” The dark visage of trees in front of us ripped open, causing Travis and Emma to stumble back and gasp. The doorway-sized view in front of us now looked down on a large stone parlor. The backs of two leather tufted chairs were visible, set in front of a blazing fireplace. Books lined the walls on either side of the fireplace. I could already hear the crackle and smell the comforting smoky scent of burning wood.

  Home. I’m going home. My Masters will know what to do.

  Grateful to wield my powers once again, I turned to Travis and held out my hand. “It’s time.”

  His cheeks looked drawn and ruddy from the cold as he eyed the portal. “And I’ll be safe there?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Come on, Trav.” Emma nudged his shoulder. “I bet they treat you like royalty. Besides, how many from our graduating class have been to a secret Temple?”