Coercion

by Tamara Hart Heiner

  I nodded, swallowing back the rush of nervous emotion that flooded me. “What about my sister? She needs the same kind of training, right?”

  “Yes, but she’s not ready yet,” Rory said.

  “Why not? She just got her powers. Now is the perfect time to help her understand all of this.”

  “How many visions has she had?” Rory asked.

  “One.”

  “That’s why. She’s only had one vision. She hasn’t started receiving the memories.”

  “She never even went through the preparation process,” Trey said. “It was kind of a spur of the moment thing.”

  Rory nodded. “If she were to learn to summon now, it could permanently hamper her ability to make fair judgments.”

  “But I’m not going anywhere,” Trey said with a wink at me. “I’ll be here to help train her whenever she’s ready.”

  I gave him a look of surprise. “You? You’ll train her too?”

  “It’s not the first time in history that Dekla and Karta are once again actual sisters,” Rory said. “It does facilitate things. You share a protector, you share a ragana. You also have a more intuitive bond with each other and can communicate directly. Ideally, the sister goddesses would always be real sisters.”

  “Okay. Okay.” I nodded, beginning to understand just how much I didn’t know about my role. “So I have a lot to learn. But I need to do it quickly if we’re going to free all of those souls and win this war against Samantha.”

  Rory’s expression darkened. “Quickly indeed. Because until you learn to summon and access your memories, you are weak. And Samantha grows stronger every day. If she destroys you before you have named a successor, the thread of Dekla that lies within you dies.”

  I stared at him in horror. “Has that happened before?”

  “Absolutely. Through the centuries, we have lost many.”

  “There is one other small problem,” Trey said. “I can train you, but I still don’t have my powers. And until you master yours, you can’t help me. Which puts us in a great catch twenty-two, because I can’t help you if I don’t have any powers.”

  I lifted my chin. “Sounds like I’m pretty powerful by myself. What exactly are you supposed to do for me?”

  He smirked at me. “You’ll never make it to the underworld to rescue Aaron without me.”

  The blood drained from my face. “The underworld?”

  Trey’s smirk faded into a sympathetic expression. “If we’re going to get him back, we have to wheel and deal with the devil.”

  *~*

  “Concentrate.” Trey’s voice whispered in my ear as we sat on a park bench an hour from his grandfather’s farm. I stared at the boy in front of me, willing him to look me in the eyes so I could summon a vision of his death.

  How twisted was that?

  “Compel him,” Trey said. “You can influence him. But remember.” He softened his voice. “You can’t take away his free will.”

  Right. Influence him but don’t control him. Compel him but don’t force him. It was enough to make my head swim.

  “Look at me,” I whispered, trying to send out mental pleadings. “I’m here. Lift your head.”

  The boy paused on the swing set, cocking his head so that one ear bent closer to me. My heart rate quickened. Had he heard me? I held my breath, urging him to continue the movement.

  The slightest whiff of lemon reached my nostrils just as the bench jolted beneath me, startling me. I swiveled sideways, and Trey groaned, “Meredith.”

  “Sorry,” Meredith said, her voice chipper and unworried. “What is it, exactly, I’m supposed to be doing here? It’s not like I’m going to go practice my cloud-forming over the kids in the sandbox. Or did you want me to use my voodoo to make people look at Jayne?”

  She wiggled her fingers, and I sent her an annoyed look. “I almost had it all by myself,” I said.

  Now I had missed my chance. The boy’s mother took his hand and pulled him from the swing, and together they started for the parking lot. I stared hard at his retreating figure.

  And then he stopped in mid-motion and turned around, meeting my eyes across the park.

  I inhaled deeply, seeking the lemon scent that always indicated a vision, waiting for my soul to get swept up in his death.

  Nothing happened.

  He turned back around and continued with his mother to the parking lot. I groaned and thrust my head into my hands.

  “It didn’t work!”

  “You can’t expect it to work the first time. You did great, actually! He must’ve sensed you, he must’ve felt your presence.”

  Meredith unwrapped a candy bar. “Which is really quite creepy, if you think about it. People can sense the specter of death looming over them? You realize you’re the person people have nightmares about?”

  “And, time to get your story straight,” Trey said. “She’s not death. She’s not the grim reaper. Jayne can see how people die, not collect their souls.”

  “My bad.” Meredith held the candy bar out to me, offering a bite, and I accepted. “Who’s got that grim job? Get it? Grim job?” Her laugh was so ridiculous I couldn’t help smiling.

  “Whatever. You’re laughing now, but you won’t be when you meet him,” Trey said.

  That cut off Meredith’s mirth. Her eyes went large behind her glasses, which made her look very comical as her cheeks puffed up around the peanut butter and caramel bar. “Meet him?” she squealed.

  “Yep.”

  “You mean there really is a guy who’s a skeleton wearing a big black robe and cutting people’s lives short?”

  “He doesn’t actually look like that, but yeah, he works with the goddesses of fate. Jods usually has the role of severing the mortal string, but he’s joined Samantha in her rebellion. Grandpa said when that happens, another god has to step up, so it’s probably fallen on his brother Jumis. He’s had to help out before. Jumis waits for the fates pronounce that a life is over, and then he seals the death and collects the soul.”

  “If he doesn’t look like an evil skeleton dude, what does he look like?” Meredith asked.

  The image popped into my mind of a tall man with brown skin and amazing abs. Straight dark hair, black eyes, and beads on his grass skirt. “Like a very tan Thor,” I said.

  Meredith raised an eyebrow. “Is that wishful thinking?”

  Trey stared hard at me. “How did you know that? Was that a memory?”

  I shook my head, my heart hammering in my throat. “I had a vision. A real-time one. He came to see me at school.”

  “What did he offer you?”

  I focused my gaze on Trey. Up until that moment, I had almost thought I’d imagined the vision. But Trey’s question was too specific. “How did you know he offered me something?”

  Trey dropped his eyes, suddenly seeming unwilling to meet my gaze. The toe of his shoe dipped into the sandy dirt around the bench. “That’s what the gods do. They always try to strike a bargain to get what they want.”

  “What could he hope to get from me?”

  Trey shrugged. “Who knows? The gods love messing with mortals. We’re like a reality show slash soap opera to them.”

  Another young mom walked into the park, pushing a stroller with two children inside it. Trey elbowed Meredith.

  “This is why you’re here.”

  “Right. I almost forgot.” Meredith hopped off the bench and approached the mom. She stepped over like she was going to ask a question, but I knew the next words out of her mouth would be the couplet she’d memorized. The one created to make the woman forget she ever saw the three of us here in the park.

  “Why can’t I have her power?” I grumbled.

  Trey turned to me. “Remember, Jayne, if it weren’t for your succession, you would be dead.”

  It was true. I didn’t often think about it, but when Adele saw my death, I was just another victim of the Lacey Township serial killer. She interceded on my behalf to change my death, but Laima said it was
my own choice to be in the path of danger.

  That left Adele no other option. If she wanted my life to be saved, she would have to pass her powers on to me.

  I squinted my eyes at Trey. “Wait a minute. Adele still had to ask Laima’s permission to change my destiny. Why couldn’t she do it without any help?”

  Trey returned my perplexed gaze. “Because she never mastered the former Deklas.”

  “Did you know her?”

  He shook his head. “My grandfather did.”

  My mouth fell open as I finally put the pieces together. “He was her protector.” At Trey’s nod, I continued, “So he was her trainer?”

  “He tried to be. She was already at an advanced age when she inherited the powers, and it wasn’t easy for her to learn how to deal with the other memories.”

  “How old was she when she became Dekla?”

  “I don’t know, exactly. Mid thirties, I think.”

  I remembered the notes I had read, her memories, the vision she’d had of her son. But that meant . . . “She was old when she died. Like in her eighties. So in all fifty years, she never mastered it?”

  Trey’s eyes were steady on mine. “She was much older. Remember, Dekla is immortal until she gives up her powers.”

  I pictured his grandfather back at the farmhouse, the white hair, trembling hands, the watery eyes. “How old was she?”

  Trey shrugged. “My grandfather was a little older than me when she came into her power and he was assigned to her. As long as you are Dekla, you’ll age, but you will not die.”

  And Aaron. He would age, and he would die. Without me. Suddenly I understood why each Dekla had chosen to pass on her powers. It was better to die and let someone else take over than live forever without your loved ones.

  I swallowed hard. “But in all that time, Adele never mastered the memories? What makes you think I will?”

  His eyes never left my face. He put his hands on my shoulders, and I felt the weight, the pressure. But I also felt the reassurance. “You have a lot more going for you. You’re young. Your sister is also your sister goddess. You have Ragana. And you’re motivated. If you don’t master this, you can’t give me my powers back. And if you don’t get me my powers back, I can’t help you save your boyfriend.”

  “Boyfriend” felt like such a shallow way to describe mine and Aaron’s relationship. It went so much farther. And technically he wasn’t even my boyfriend, since we’d broken up. “Are you saying I have to master my powers before we can even begin a rescue mission?”

  A smile crossed Trey’s face. “Now you know why I’m in such a hurry.”

  “But that could take years! Adele never did it in over fifty!”

  He used his grip on my shoulders to give me a shake. “You’re not her. You’re going to master this in just a few weeks. So long as you stop fighting it.”

  I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Opening them, I gave a determined nod. “Okay. I’m ready to try again.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  We spent hours at the park. I mentally encouraged every child who walked in to turn and look at me, but other than that first one, not a single one did.

  “You know what I don’t understand?” Meredith said.

  We had walked over to the food truck to purchase street tacos. She used a napkin to mop up the grease collecting in her hand.

  Trey turned to her with an air of annoyance. “What is it this time that you don’t understand, Meredith?”

  She scowled at him. “I don’t appreciate your tone. You’re awfully condescending toward me, as if you think you’re better than me because you’re the protector of a goddess and I’m neither a goddess nor a protector. But I am something, and I’m here for Jayne just like you are. So I think you should treat me with a little more respect.”

  I arched an eyebrow at Meredith’s impassioned speech. She’d obviously spent some time thinking about this, though I hadn’t known Trey’s jibes bothered her.

  A pink hue spread across his cheeks, emphasizing his freckles, and he had the good grace to look chagrined. “Sorry. Sometimes I’m a little sarcastic.”

  She waved off his excuse. “Sarcasm is fine. You’re more like patronizing. But I get it. You didn’t mean anything by it and you’re going to do better, right?” She didn’t wait for him to pledge his promise before continuing. “What I don’t understand is how Jayne was able to manipulate those guards at the mental clinic. You said she doesn’t have control over adults, which they clearly were.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s what I don’t get.”

  I turned my perplexed expression from Meredith to Trey, waiting to see what he would come up with.

  “See, now, there are some problems with your conclusions because you seem to think this is an exact science. It’s not. There was a lot of overlap thousands of years ago, with each helping the other out when necessary. Their roles have evolved over time to help those who inherited the power have somewhere to focus. Samantha wasn’t just manipulating adults; she got a lot of teenagers on her side, too. But that’s getting into a whole bunch of historical background that won’t help you right now. Let’s just concentrate on one thing at a time.”

  “But there must be some absolutes.” Maybe I just desperately needed a rulebook. “What can I do and what can I not do?”

  “You cannot order someone to do something against their will. That requires a different power and manipulation.”

  “I can do that,” Meredith piped up.

  Trey closed his eyes for a moment as if summoning patience, then said, “Yes, you can. You are not bound by the same rules she is.”

  “But Samantha did it,” I said.

  “And she lost her position as Karta because of it.”

  “So those men that I threw against the wall,” I said, fighting back a thread of worry. “They didn’t exactly choose to do that. Am I in danger of losing my position?”

  “First of all, you’ve got some leeway while you’re trying to control your memories. Second of all, they still had a choice. They could have resisted you. What you unknowingly did, though, was frighten them so badly that they felt like they had no choice. In their minds, falling against the wall and making a path for you was the only option.”

  I could feel the deep wrinkles in my brow. “That sounds an awful lot like manipulating them.”

  “I’ll admit the difference is negligible. A lot of it has to do with your intent. For you, at the mental hospital, it was an accident. You didn’t know what you were doing and definitely weren’t trying to control them.”

  “Yes, I was,” I said before I could stop myself. “That’s exactly what I was trying to do. I was angry at them for getting in my way and I wanted to stop them.”

  “No, you didn’t,” Trey said. “That’s where you’re wrong. It wasn’t you wanting those things. You’d given into the ambitions of a different Dekla and haven’t learned how to tell the difference yet.”

  He got that right. I threw away the trash from my street taco. “Let’s try again.” I had to make this work. Aaron was counting on me. He just didn’t know it.

  We stayed out for several more hours. I finally got another kid to turn around and meet my eyes, but no matter how much I tried, I could not get any sort of impression off him. And he quickly lost interest in me and returned to the teeter totter.

  “I’m failing,” I groaned, shoving my hands through my hair.

  “I think it’s time to take a break. Let’s head back to my grandpa’s house.”

  The three of us piled into the single bench seat of Rory’s vintage truck. Meredith squeezed into the middle between us since she was the smallest. I leaned my head against the window.

  “I’m never going to get this.”

  “Yes, you are,” Trey said. “It’s just not going to happen in a day.”

  I didn’t answer, feeling too depressed to have any kind of positive outlook. I closed my eyes and let the hypnotic sounds of the road rolling un
derneath the tires lull me into a restful state. I barely heard Meredith whisper, “She’s going to get this, right?”

  Trey’s response was just as quiet. “She has to. There’s no other option. Everything relies on her.”

  Criminy. The pressure was on. And it didn’t sound as if either of them really believed in me.

  *~*

  Beth was sitting on the porch swing watching when Trey turned the truck onto the gravel drive, kicking up dust behind us.

  “For the love of cats!” she said, hardly waiting for the truck to come to a stop before she pulled open the passenger door. “I thought you’d never get home. Do you know how bored I’ve been? There’s no TV here. No books. I didn’t even bring my homework. And I can’t use my phone.”

  I blinked at her, silhouetted by the setting sun, and empathized with her situation. “So what did you do all day?”

  “I slept for most of it! I did spend some time at the barn playing with the kittens.”

  “Well, that sounds like fun.”

  “For all of twenty minutes!” She eyed Meredith and Trey as they came to join me. “How did it go?”

  “Great,” Meredith said. “I’m getting much better at reciting my couplet. It worked on everyone! I’m excited to try something more next time. Like maybe convince people they need to stick ten dollar bills in our hats.”

  “She wasn’t even asking about you,” Trey said. “We could care less how good you are at rhyming. Besides, you should be able to recite a word or two and have the same effect.”

  “Hey! Remember that talk we had about being condescending? I’ve come a long ways. A month ago I had to write a poem to have any effect. And what did you do today? You sat there and coached Jayne, who managed to accomplish nothing under your tutelage. Sounds like one of us had a more effective day than the other.”

  With that Meredith pranced away, leaving me open-mouthed.

  “Well, the witch part comes naturally,” Trey said.

  I punched him in the arm. “She’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met! You’re the one who’s being a jerk. I’ve never seen her treat anyone that way.”

  “Isn’t she the one who got us into this mess? Giving her poem to Samantha?”