The 49th Mystic Page 22

  Simon looked off again. “Like I said, there is no bending God’s laws. It would all fall apart.”

  “Maybe the law has to fall apart for us to see what’s beyond it.”

  Eyes back on me. “Where did you get all of this?”

  “From my dreams, which started with Vlad Smith’s book.”

  He frowned. “I don’t believe in magic.”

  “Let me tell you what I believe. I believe that Vlad Smith only wants one thing, and that’s for me to write him into the book. But I can’t. I won’t. Tell me why you think Vlad came to Eden. To take over a small town so that he could be the boss? You’ve heard him speak. A man with his charisma and intelligence could take charge of far more than a small town that offers him nothing.”

  “We have power,” he said with no conviction. “A way to survive.”

  “And if he wanted that, he would’ve already taken it. You’d be dead and this would be over. But he wants something else, so he’s using what we value most to manipulate us into giving him that.”

  “And you think that’s you.”

  “Me. And to get to me, he needs you against me. The whole town against me.”

  “Even if this book business was true, there would be easier ways to force your hand. And write in a book? Do you realize how absurd that sounds?”

  “There are no easier ways to get to me because he knows that I have to write willingly, believing what I write. It can’t be forced, trust me. Even if he tried, what would holding a gun to a sixteen-year-old girl look like to the rest of the town? Barth’s one thing. The town trusts him, you’ve seen to that. But a stranger? They’re not that fickle. He’s creating the environment to make me do what he wants. In the process, you’re going to lose everything you built here.”

  He was listening now.

  “And you propose what, exactly?”

  “Three things. First, that you do what you’re doing to keep everyone locked down. No one moves. If no one moves, no one talks, and if no one talks, no one gets bent out of shape.”

  He frowned. “Go on . . .”

  “Second, that you and I stand together. We present a united front without backing down. You publicly denounce Vlad and gather the town with us.”

  “He controls the electricity.”

  “So let him have it. We can survive long enough as long as no one panics. Take the town and the power off the table. Force him to find another way.”

  “And if that way includes violence?”

  “Then the town will despise him. Mob him. Destroy him.”

  “I don’t know . . . He seems pretty powerful to me. He healed you.”

  “No, he didn’t. Justin did that.” Hearing how that sounded, I adjusted. “Meaning something real lies beyond polarity.”

  He stared. “Beyond polarity?”

  “As in cause and effect, up and down, the natural world.”

  “I see. And the third thing?”

  “Rein in Barth. He’s a bomb and he’s already going off.”

  He was still thinking, that was good. But there was a desperation about him that made me wonder again what he was hiding from the town. Still, I didn’t want to go there. I needed him as an ally.

  “All this over a book,” he said. He nervously rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s an awful lot to swallow.”

  “Truth that conflicts with what you hold sacred is always hard to swallow at first.”

  He went still, mind lost in another world.

  The backstage door banged open, and a moment later Barth walked onto the platform, hauling Peter in by his ear. Barth wore the same white dress shirt he’d worn yesterday, now smudged and unbuttoned halfway down his hairy chest. In his right hand, a billy club. He scowled when he saw me.

  “Let me go!” Peter struggled free from the large man’s grip, face red. He shoved a finger at the councilman. “He’s gone nuts! I wasn’t doing anything!”

  “You were in the streets. We’re under martial law.” Barth was speaking to Peter, but his eyes were on me. “What’s she doing here?”

  “I was only looking for you,” Peter cried, imploring his father, who’d pushed himself out of his chair.

  “Mind your tongue,” Simon snapped. “Looking for me, why?”

  Peter glanced at me and answered his father. “I can’t find Mother, sir.”

  “She’s in the house.”

  “No, sir, I checked everywhere. The bed’s unmade and she’s gone.”

  Barth was still eyeing me like an eagle. Fear, the kind I knew I didn’t have to give in to, seeped into my bones.

  “I said, what’s she doing here?”

  “Have you seen her?” Simon demanded of Barth.

  “I’m staring at her right now.”

  “Not her, you idiot! My wife! Hillary.”

  “No. But this one doesn’t belong here.” Barth adjusted his grip on the billy club and moved toward me like a bull.

  A voice spoke from the back of the auditorium. “You lay one hand on her and I swear . . .” I spun to see that my father stood at the back door, ragged and crazed, holding a baseball bat at his side. “I’ll rip your head off your shoulders.”

  Barth stopped at the edge of the platform. “Is that a fact?”

  “You killed my wife. You killed Miranda. I’m not going to let you kill my daughter.”

  Silence.

  And then Barth was moving—jumping off the platform, striding down the aisle, gunning for my father.

  My feet refused to move.

  19

  I HAD INSISTED that my father wait two hours, and if he’d listened, none of it would have happened. But Shadow Man had worked his way into his mind and convinced him that stories of other worlds were nonsense. More, he had an obligation to defend the honor of his wife. Justice had to be served—that was the only story he was listening to here.

  I didn’t blame him. My father was dutifully following what hundreds of years of social conditioning, bound in polarity, had taught him.

  I stood frozen, smothered by fear.

  “Father?” It was Peter talking, but Simon wasn’t listening to his son. “Father!”

  Barth reached my father then, just as Peter’s last warning echoed through the sanctuary. My father met him halfway, rushing forward with his bat cocked. Then swinging.

  But to a man who made defense his life, a baseball bat might as well be a twig. With catlike quickness, Barth sidestepped the bat, took one step, and slugged my father in the face while he was off balance.

  “No!” My feet found themselves. I moved without conscious calculation, only one thought in mind: Barth was going to kill my father.

  Three strides down the center aisle, I decided the long way around wouldn’t do. I leaped to the backs of the pews and flew across them, two at a time, eyes focused on the bull who was just now turning back.

  Five more long strides and I was there. But Barth was far faster than any man his size should be, even caught off guard by the sight of a sixteen-year-old girl sprinting toward him on the backs of pews.

  He scooped up my father’s fallen bat and swung at me as I launched off the last seat. I was already in flight, and if not for his swing, my heels would have struck his head.

  But there was that swing. A vicious strike at the end of two powerful arms that would have broken my body in two.

  I threw my head forward and shifted my weight to execute an aerial flip up and over the bat. Air buffeted the back of my head as I rolled forward. I twisted midflight and landed light on both feet, facing his unprotected back.

  But Barth was fast. Blindingly fast, bringing the bat around as he turned, putting his full weight into his second swing. A low swing aimed at the skinny young girl who’d somehow gotten behind him.

  I could have stepped into his arms and brought my palm up under his chin, but I went high, leaping up, two feet above the bat. Then shoving my heel forward, toward his thick head.

  The rubber sole of my right Converse slammed into his face. I
heard a crack and knew I’d broken his nose. Then I was on both feet again, bouncing back to create space, and for the first time thinking rather than simply reacting.

  On my left, my father was trying to get his feet under him, grabbing for the dropped billy club.

  In front of me, blood was pouring from Barth’s broken nose.

  On the platform, Peter stood beside his father, gawking at me as two of Barth’s men rushed into the auditorium.

  Inside of me, a voice whispered caution. They had guns. Killing wasn’t in me. But it was in Barth, and he didn’t even seem to notice the blood flowing down his chin. He was coming again, more calculating this time.

  “Stay down!” I snapped at my father. The authority in my voice more than the soundness of my advice gave him pause. He withdrew his hand from the billy club and stayed on one knee, one arm draped over the back of the last pew.

  No, killing wasn’t in me, but protecting myself was. Barth could swing all he wanted; I was too fast for him.

  Barth pulled up five feet from me. Eyed me curiously for a second. Then dropped the bat, palmed the gun on his hip, brought it up quick as a blink, and pulled the trigger.

  I saw the muzzle flash before I heard the detonation. Everything was moving slow, far too slow. And by everything I mean everything, including me.

  I was already throwing myself to my left as he pulled the trigger. But then the bullet was tearing through the skin on my right shoulder.

  “Stop!” Simon’s voice thundered.

  Barth fired again.

  I was off balance and falling, and I was powerless to avoid that second bullet, which tore into my right thigh and shattered my femur.

  I collapsed in a heap and immediately tried to push myself back up. My right shoulder burned; pain throbbed up my leg and hip.

  “Enough! For the love of God!” Simon stormed down the aisle, face white.

  But it wasn’t over yet, because my father had just seen his daughter shot down. He was back on his feet, running at Barth in a blind rage.

  Barth turned, hit him on the side of his head, and dropped him. This time he was out.

  Simon walked up to Barth, snatched away his gun, and tossed it on the floor. “Enough. You want to kill everyone in this town?”

  Barth’s jaw remained firm.

  The Judge pulled out a handkerchief and flung it at the man. “Clean yourself up, you look like a butchered rooster.”

  Barth snagged the rag and wiped it across his mouth, stared at the cloth, then tossed it away. His face was still smeared with a mask of blood.

  I watched it all from the ground, helpless. Horrified. Trembling now. The older me in another world might have known a better way to deal with the situation, but I wasn’t her right now.

  I was just me. My father had been hit in the head twice, hard, and my leg had a bullet in it. This was why Talya had wanted me to dream?

  Simon was pacing, fuming. He turned to Barth’s men, who were working their way down the aisle. “Get David out of here.”

  One of them looked at Barth for direction. “The cellar?”

  “No,” Simon shot back. “Lock him in the shed. I don’t want him anywhere near her.”

  They grabbed my father by the collar and hauled him to his feet. Hoisting his arms over their shoulders, they dragged him out the back door.

  “Don’t you dare hurt him!” I snapped.

  Simon’s eyes traced my body and stopped at the hole in my jeans, now soaked in blood.

  He squinted. “Where’d you learn that?”

  Barth was quiet. I’d gained some respect from him. He was looking at my right shoulder and I followed his stare. My arm was hot with pain. The bullet had torn through my T-shirt sleeve, now soaked in blood. The bottom arc of the circle tattoo was visible below the hem.

  Simon saw it as well. “Where’d you get that?” He stepped up to me and pulled my sleeve up. Blood glistened on my skin where the bullet had sliced through the flesh. But that was it.

  He drew a finger through the blood. There was no wound now.

  “How . . .” He rubbed his fingers together. “Blood but no wound? How’s that possible?”

  “The book,” I said. “Do you believe me now?”

  He stood up, frowning. Nudged my leg with his foot.

  Pain flashed up my thigh and I grunted. Whatever had happened to the wound on my tattoo wasn’t happening to my leg.

  Peter stood behind his father, still looking stunned by what he’d seen. “Her leg’s broken. She needs a doctor.”

  “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,” Barth said. “Question is, what do you want me to do with her now? I strongly recommend encouraging her to write in that stupid book.”

  “No. Under no condition. Do I make myself clear?”

  Barth hesitated, then shrugged.

  Simon gave me one last glance and turned back up the aisle. “Put her in the cellar.”

  “Father . . .”

  Simon turned and walked away.

  THE CELLAR, as it turned out, was nothing less than a full-security prison two stories under the sanctuary, complete with barred cells. I doubted anyone but the council and a few members of security even knew it existed. But I did. I was in it.

  The guards hauled me down. One had my armpits, the other my legs. I don’t remember the whole trip because I was only half conscious, fighting throbbing pain. But I knew it was two stories because I heard one of them say so.

  Barth led the way with a flashlight. A key opened the door at the end of a hall, and another the barred gate to my cell. If the bullet hadn’t broken all of my thigh bone, the rest of it cracked when they dropped me on the concrete slab.

  I cried out, but Barth wasn’t in a compassionate mood.

  “The next time the bullet goes through your head. Dodge that.”

  Then the bars were secured and the light from their flashlights faded down the hall, leaving me in pitch darkness.

  I clicked a few times as they left, but echolocation would do me no favors now.

  For thirty seconds I just lay there, trying to focus on anything but the pain. A gentle examination of my leg only confirmed what I already knew. I could feel the entry hole, no exit wound. My jeans were sopping wet with blood.

  I drew my arms up to my chest and hugged my body. Then I began to sob. Softly at first, because every movement hurt. But I couldn’t hold it back. The weight of so many things gone wrong crushed me.

  I tried not to cry, I really did.

  Then I only wanted to sleep. To sleep and to dream. But the pain in my leg wouldn’t let me.

  What is known that cannot be named?

  Known. As in experienced. Named. As in words? Identity? Label? I let my mind work through the possibilities, trying my best to ignore the pain shooting up my side, but my mind was of no use to me in that state.

  “Mother?” My thin voice echoed softly in the cell. There was no response. Memory of the gentle voice that had spoken to me on the cliff seemed so distant as I lay there in the dark. I closed my eyes, desperate for her voice. “Mother . . .” Sorrow rolled up my chest and I began to cry again. “Please . . .”

  All I could hear was my own breathing, my own voice. All I could see was darkness.

  I don’t know how long it was before sleep finally shut down that world. Maybe twelve hours. Maybe more.

  20

  JACOB, son of Qurong, commander of all Throaters in service to Ba’al, sat upon his steed in the moonlight, studying the plateau. No more than an hour’s ride across it, ominous cliffs rose to meet the Great Divide. Next to him: Maco, his right hand. Behind them: a hundred men, all mounted, waiting in silence. Darkness had fallen four hours earlier—morning light would gray the eastern sky in four more.

  The horse sign was unmistakable. The woman and her mysterious guide had stopped here in the last few hours before continuing up the pass.

  “He should be back by now,” Maco said. “It’s been two hours.”

  “Risin takes
care, my friend,” Jacob replied, voice low.

  He’d dispatched the scout with strict orders to pick his own way to the Divide and return with the lay of the land. They were in uncharted country under control of the Elyonite Albinos, rumored to wield the sword as few others could.

  A horse snorted softly behind them, impatient with so much standing. But they would not dismount in such treacherous lands without knowing more. With any luck, this priestess Ba’al was so desperate to control had bedded down at the pass. He had no desire to extend their mission beyond the Great Divide.

  “Permission to speak freely, sire.”

  “Speak as you will.”

  “I don’t like it. The air feels wrong to me.”

  “The air is wrong for you. It’s thinner up here.”

  “Beg your pardon, sire, but the thin air doesn’t reach to the base of the gut, which speaks its own story.”

  “Then tell me your story, Maco. Bend this tired ear.”

  “My story tells me a noose awaits. I have no desire to walk into a trap.”

  “Set by whom? Two Mystics?”

  “The Elyonites.”

  “Which is why I sent Risin to report on any sign of them.”

  Maco’s mount shifted under him. Under any other circumstances, the warrior would be the one urging them up the mountain, come what may. But the last six days of relentless pursuit had unnerved them all.

  No matter how hard they pushed, their prey seemed to match their pace, staying just out of reach. For the last two days, they’d eased to save the horses, only to learn from the age of the sign that the girl and her companion had eased as well.

  They’d closed the distance somewhat today. But it appeared Jacob wasn’t the only one who couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being toyed with.

  “I don’t like it any more than you do, Maco. Which is why we must take them tonight. Risin will tell us what we need to know.”

  “Of course, sire. It’s just . . .” The man hesitated.

  Jacob looked at him. “Something else?”

  “Melina,” Maco said.

  But of course. Maco’s bride, Melina, was to give birth to their first child soon. Jacob had forgotten. Most Throaters took a vow of celibacy under pressure from Ba’al, who insisted that women only compromised men headed into battle. It was an absurd restriction, Jacob thought, but one that might have served a man as passionate as Maco.