The 49th Mystic Read online

  “But you insist that he intentionally left you, which means he must have known that you would end up here, with me, as you said. So then what provision would he offer for such a time of need? An incantation of some kind. A hex.”

  “He’s not that kind of Mystic.”

  He withdrew Talya’s satchel and quickly untied it. Dumped the contents out.

  The page floated to the floor as the orange fruit plopped down by my side. Ignoring the paper, he snatched up the fruit.

  “There are rumors the Albinos under Thomas of Hunter use fruit to heal. Do you know what this fruit is?”

  Even as he said it, the fog in my mind began to clear. The fruit . . .

  “It’s not my satchel,” I said.

  “The wizard’s satchel?” He stared at the orange fruit in his hand. “What do you do with it? Eat it?” He dropped to his knees and gently lifted my head. Held the fruit to my lips. “Bite.”

  I bit deeply. A cool, bitter juice filled my mouth. I chewed on the flesh between my teeth and swallowed.

  “Anything?”

  “I . . . I don’t know. Maybe it takes time.”

  Jacob raised the fruit to his lips and took a bite. Chewed. Spit out the juice. “It’s bitter. A seed, not a fruit.”

  “Whatever it is, he left it for me. Try the wound.”

  He looked at my leg, then at the fruit in his hand. A calm began to settle over me as an ancient knowledge of ways long forgotten edged into my instinctive mind.

  “Take the wrapping off,” I breathed, eyes closed.

  I felt his hands on my thigh, unwrapping the bandage he’d applied before my waking.

  “Straighten my leg.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Straighten it.”

  He maneuvered my leg and I lay still, trying to think beyond the agonizing pain, clinging to consciousness as best I could.

  “It’s the best I can—”

  “Squeeze the juice into the wound.”

  I wasn’t watching but I felt it. Felt the first drop of the fruit’s juice make contact with my raw flesh. Felt the tingle erupt there, in the deepest part of my nerves. A soothing heat spread through my bones.

  Jacob cried out and jumped back.

  The pain was the first to go, replaced by a healing pleasure that rode up my spine and caressed my mind. I could feel my flesh moving, hear my bones popping and scraping as they shifted back into alignment and fused together.

  But mostly I felt the warmth of being held by a power far greater than my body. I felt myself being pulled into an endless light, and I trembled with relief and gratitude.

  And then I was gone. Swept away in a blissful sleep that plucked me out of that cell, held me in a warm, tender embrace for an eternity, then set me gently down in another cell.

  The cell in which I was asleep under the streets of Eden, Utah, two thousand years earlier.

  22

  HILLARY MOSES woke from the nightmare in a cold sweat. She’d kicked the covers off the bed in the night, but her skin was clammy and her shirt soaked.

  Something was wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. She knew that like she knew she’d slept late. Late, and if Simon knew, he’d have a word or two to say about it.

  Simon . . . Her memories erupted like a volcano and she jerked up in bed. The scene had been seared into her mind in vivid detail, all of it.

  She’d awakened in the middle of the night to get a drink—not last night, but the night before that. Simon was either in his chambers at the courthouse or sleeping in the master bedroom where he always slept. She’d been given the fourth bedroom because he didn’t want to sleep with her, and that was fine with her. The less she saw of him, the better.

  Her hatred of him was so ancient she’d long ago forgotten why she’d ever fallen in love with him in the first place.

  Simon, the one who lorded over her with an iron fist.

  Simon, the taskmaster who forbade her from making eye contact with any other man.

  Simon, the monster who beat her black and blue and then had the gall to tell the others that she’d fallen down the stairs. How many times could a woman fall down the stairs anyway?

  She’d always hated him—the whole town knew she hated him—but still she found the strength to be a good wife. Eden depended on her. Humanity’s survival required a few sacrifices, and she’d accepted her role as one of those willing to make them. Simon was too important to betray.

  That had all changed two nights ago, when Hillary heard the sound of soft laughter on her way to get a glass of water. A woman’s laughter.

  She’d stopped in the hallway and listened. There it was again, coming from the master bedroom. Stunned, she’d stepped to the door and put her hand on the knob, refusing to consider, much less believe, what a woman’s laughter in her husband’s room could mean. The sound had to be in her mind.

  Which made sense, because her heart had leaped in her chest the moment she’d first seen Vlad Smith in the auditorium. The way he looked at her, the way he put Simon in his place, the way he whispered in her ear . . .

  She was hearing the sounds of a woman in Simon’s room because she felt guilty for having those thoughts about Vlad. So she opened the door, expecting nothing but a dark room.

  The sight that greeted her didn’t register at first. Two candles lit. Her husband fully dressed by the window, glass of scotch in his right hand. His other hand was behind a woman’s neck, holding her close.

  It was Linda Loving, the council member. Their lips were locked in a tender kiss. It was the way they were doing it—so comfortably, like a hand familiar with a well-worn glove—that told Hillary the true story. Simon and Linda’s affair was as ancient as Hillary’s hatred.

  They both noticed her at the same time.

  “What are you doing up?” Simon demanded.

  “I’m . . .” She was in too much shock to put her words in order. “I’m . . .”

  “I’m, I’m . . .” he mocked. “Get back to bed before I beat you deaf and dump you there myself.”

  She retreated and shut the door, heart crashing into her throat. The rage came then, like a dragon breathing fire. Years of hatred and abuse, breaking through, demanding justice.

  Hillary hadn’t been able to fall back asleep after seeing what she’d seen, so she’d gotten up in the predawn, dressed, and headed out. To nowhere or anywhere. Then to the hydroelectric plant north of town, thinking she should blow the thing sky-high, just like Vlad had threatened to do.

  But no, that would be too risky. Simon would kill her.

  Truth was, if she did anything at all that compromised him, he would probably kill her, if for no other reason than to keep his secret a secret.

  She’d returned to the house late morning to find Peter in a frantic mess. He told her about the shooting in the sanctuary. Barth had shot Rachelle in the leg and they’d locked her in the cellar.

  “Why?”

  “Something to do with Vlad,” he said. “Something Dad thinks could compromise Eden, but I don’t get it.”

  Neither did Hillary. And at the time she didn’t really care—she had her own problems. She retired to her room, where she’d spent the rest of the day, pacing. Simon didn’t come home. He was too busy either sucking up to Linda or hunting Vlad.

  Now, memories swirling, Hillary threw off the soaked sheet and hurried to the window. The day was overcast. The house was dead quiet. The only course of action that made any sense to her dropped into her mind then. Vlad. He would know what to do.

  She had to find Vlad. And now she knew how: Rachelle.

  For all she knew she was already too late. She had to hurry.

  It took her only a few minutes to throw some clothes on, grab the spare keys, and set her resolve to do this quickly, before anybody knew what was happening. She thought about brushing her teeth and combing her hair, decided not to.

  The sky was dark when she stepped outside—way too dark for ten in the morning. A quick scan of the streets and she saw no
one. They were all locked down in their homes under the guise of this martial-law nonsense. Someone needed to shove that law down Simon’s throat.

  Hillary walked quickly, head down, straight for the back of the courthouse/church/palace for Simon. She’d missed a button and her shirt was crooked. Maybe best to fix that before anyone noticed, but no one was going to notice because she had no intention of being seen.

  She stopped ten feet from the back door, noting the cars along First Street for the first time. Dozens of them. The town was in assembly? At ten in the morning?

  Images of a full sanctuary skipped through her mind. What if they were putting Rachelle on trial? Why else would they be meeting? Regardless, this was a good thing. It meant everyone would be in the main auditorium. The way to the cellar was down two flights of stairs at the back, to the right of Hillary’s office.

  She hurried up the steps and opened the back door with a quiver in her hand. Eased inside. No light. The backup battery bank had enough juice to light the sanctuary, but without electricity to recharge them, they’d be dead in a day or two.

  Hillary listened for any sound. Nothing. Four walls between her back office and the auditorium.

  Barely breathing, she grabbed a flashlight off the counter, eased into the side hall, entered the stairwell, and ran down the steps into the basement, called “the cellar” to distinguish it from any ordinary basement. Other than her, no one outside the council and the security team even knew it existed.

  She found Rachelle in the first cell, curled up on the floor beyond the white steel bars. Sleeping. Relief washed over her. Still here, thank God.

  With one last glance down the hall, she fumbled with the keys, tried three before landing on the one that opened the lock, and stepped into the cell.

  She played the beam of light over Rachelle’s body. Saw all the blood around a single hole in her jeans, four inches above her knee. And more blood on her right sleeve. Peter had said something about that. No wound, he’d said. But none of that was Hillary’s concern.

  “Rachelle?” She pushed on the girl’s arm. “Wake up.”

  I WOKE with a gasp. “Jacob?”

  “It’s me, Hillary. Thank God you’re alive.”

  Hillary? Where was I? The light moved and I saw that it was from a flashlight. Eden . . .

  Hillary came into view, bent over me. She’d missed a button on her shirt, and sweat plastered her stringy hair to her forehead and cheeks. But it was her frantic eyes that alarmed me.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. She was answering, but my mind was on my predicament. I was back in the cellar. From one prison to another. I’d been shot and woken in my dreams with the wound. Then healed when Jacob squeezed the fruit into my wound . . .

  I looked down at my leg. Moved it. Then gingerly touched my thigh. No pain. I touched the hole in my jeans and felt my skin. Crusted blood, but no wound.

  “Are you listening to me?” Hillary demanded. Her eyes skipped to my leg. “What is it?”

  Whatever happened to my body in one dream also happened in the other dream. Present Earth and future Earth.

  I clambered to my feet and stared down at my leg.

  Hillary looked befuddled. “I thought you were shot.”

  “I was.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Same thing that happened to my eyes.” Close enough, I thought.

  “Vlad?”

  “No, not Vlad. Definitely not Vlad.”

  Hillary grabbed my arm. She glanced over her shoulder and whispered, “You have to tell me how to find him! They’re up there right now, and if he’s not with them, that’s a problem, so I gotta find him.”

  “Slow down.” I registered her panic no more than I might notice a hand gently tugging on my shirt. Half of me was still swooning from the events in the Elyonite city. “Take a deep breath. Who’s up there right now? What’s happening?”

  “The whole town! I can’t take it anymore.” She was grabbing her hair with her free hand. “Not a single second.”

  What had happened to her? What had transformed Hillary Moses from calm to crazed? The town was falling apart. My father . . . They’d taken him to a shed.

  That tug of fear was no longer gentle.

  “Okay, just take another breath.” I had to find my father. “They took my father to a shed. Do you know where that is?”

  She absently shook her head, pacing now.

  “You hear anything about him?”

  Another shake.

  I breathed a prayer, hoping Barth hadn’t continued to beat him. “What time is it?”

  “After ten.” She stopped pacing and faced me, eyes wild. “He beats me, Rachelle. He beats me and he’s sleeping with that slut on the council. I can’t stand by anymore. I just can’t.”

  Beating her? Was it possible? And an affair? I’d always thought of both Simon and Linda as loyal to the bone.

  “Which is why you have to tell Vlad that I need him,” Hillary begged, reaching for me. “You know how to get to him, right? He healed you. You’re special to him, right? I don’t know what else to do, please.”

  She thought Vlad could help her? “You don’t understand, Vlad’s not who you think he is. And these things you’re talking about can’t be—”

  “Don’t tell me what can and can’t be!” she cried, recoiling. She shoved a finger at the wall. “I walked in on him! I saw it with my own two eyes! You have the nerve to tell me that each time he beat me these past ten years can’t be what it was? You think it’s all . . . what, in my mind? How dare you!”

  “I’m not saying that. I just think—”

  “I don’t care what you think!” she snapped, stomping one foot. “You tell me how to find Vlad, you hear me? Or I’m gonna burn this whole town to the ground!”

  I took a step back. There would be no reasoning with her in this state of mind. Part of me thought I should run out and lock her in the cell until she cooled down and I could figure out what was going on.

  The seal on my shoulder reminded me that there was more to the world than what we saw as problems. In this world you will have trouble, but have no fear, I have overcome . . . Yeshua. That could only be good news if we too could overcome, with him. In the world but not of it. That state of being beyond polarity was far more powerful than any of us could possibly know in these earthen vessels.

  I had to find the Second Seal.

  What is known that cannot be named?

  I took a calming breath and spoke as evenly as I could. “You say they’re meeting upstairs right now?”

  “I think so. Yes.”

  “Then that’s the first place to look for him.”

  “But he’ll be there!”

  “Who? The Judge?”

  “Don’t call him that!” she snapped.

  “Simon,” I corrected. She clearly felt judged and wanted no more of it. “If Simon brought the town together, it’s because of him.”

  “Vlad.”

  “Yes, Vlad.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We go up there.”

  “Now?”

  “Right now.”

  “I don’t know if I can take seeing that pig.”

  The shift in Hillary’s demeanor was so radical that I wondered who’d stolen her mind. Planks of judgment and grievance blinded the world, yes, but this? She was hardly the same person.

  What was Simon hiding in that room of his?

  “I’ll be with you,” I said. “You can’t hide forever. One way or the other, we’ll get to the bottom of this, I promise.”

  “I’m already at the bottom of it. As low as any woman can go.”

  “Which is why I’m going with you.” I stepped up and took her free hand. “I’ll be right there with you. Okay?”

  Hillary considered my suggestion for a second, then nodded.

  “Okay. Okay, good. Just stay close to me. Promise?”

  Another nod.

  I led her from the cell, down the hall, and into the
stairwell. I used echolocation to guide my way up the metal steps because she had the flashlight trained on her feet, two steps behind me. By the time we reached the side door leading into the sanctuary, I’d all but let go of my concern for Hillary.

  My thoughts had returned to the seals. And to my father. And to Vlad. And to finding out what was wrong in Eden.

  I could hear Hillary’s heavy breathing right behind me as I paused at the door and listened.

  “Can you hear him?”

  Simon’s voice spoke over a cacophony of voices, urging calm. Whatever had happened, he was losing control.

  I pushed the door open and stepped into the sanctuary.

  We were on the east side of the room, to the right of the platform, which was obstructed by the long velvet curtains that hung ceiling to floor on either side of the stage. I couldn’t see who was on stage.

  What I could see were the other residents. Cindy and Bill. Jarvis, the gardener. William Braxton and his wife closest to me, eyes glued on the stage. All of them.

  Half were on their feet and in the aisles, a far cry from the order typically required of Eden’s gatherings. A full third of them were talking at once.

  “I don’t care what the law is!” Cindy was saying. “As far as I’m concerned, until you find Eden’s children, there are no laws! And if you think you can just shoot me like you shot Miranda, be my guest.”

  A chill washed down my back. The children? Marcella, Frankie . . . I could see seven or eight younger children from my vantage point. How many were missing?

  The room erupted and Simon slammed his gavel down on the block. “Order! For the sake of all that is lawful and godly, order!”

  “What good is the law if it can’t protect our children?” someone shouted.

  “We called you here to organize a search.” Linda Loving was begging for reason, but her voice was filled with fear. “We can sort out how this happened as soon as we find them. Don’t you think I know how you feel? Jordan and Holly are . . .” She burst into tears.

  The calm lasted only a few seconds. “So what are we waiting for?” Bill Baxter said from across the auditorium. “I agree with Cindy. We all have a right to search.”

  “When are you going to get this through your thick skulls?” Barth boomed from the stage. “There’s a predator out there. We can’t have all of you running through the woods going berserk. Only handpicked members I know I can trust.”