“They branded him?” I asked, appalled. “Do you mean they burned him?”
“Yes. I saw the scar on his back when we were restraining him.”
I closed my eyes. Starving for answers, I asked, “What kind of symbol? What does it do?”
“I don’t know. I’m not into that voodoo-hoodoo stuff. But, for lack of a better phrase, it seems to be blocking the light. All I see when I look at him now is darkness. And not a normal darkness. Comparing the color black to what he is encased in is like comparing a picture of the Grand Canyon to actually standing on its edge and looking down. It’s so deep, it’s disorienting. That’s what looking at Jared is like. An endless darkness that is just as frightening as it is deep.”
“Can you draw it?” Grandma asked. “The symbol. Do you remember what it looks like?”
He shrugged. “I can try.”
She stood to scrounge up a pen and a piece of paper and handed them to Cameron.
“So, it’s a symbol, right? It’s sending a signal,” Glitch said. “Then why don’t we just disrupt the signal?”
Glitch, ever the techie, but he did seem to have a point.
Cameron sat with head bowed in thought. “There’s something even more strange about this.”
How could this get any stranger?
“It’ll heal,” he continued. “They’re descendants of nephilim. They had to know that. They have to know how fast he heals. And when he heals, whatever power that binding spell had over him will cease to exist. Or are they too stupid to realize that once that scar heals and the light resurfaces, he’ll kill them all?”
“You’re right,” Granddad said. “Branding Jared was like putting duct tape on a collapsing dam. It might hold for a little while, but when that dam breaks, nothing will stop it.”
“Absolutely nothing,” Cameron agreed.
“I think they are very aware of that fact,” Granddad continued. “But it was obviously a risk they were willing to take.”
“So why now? Binding Jared can’t last more than a few days.”
Grandma looked at him. “He could kill us all in the flash of a moment. Can you imagine what he could do in a few days?”
“That’s true,” Brooke said. “But maybe they know something we don’t. You guys keep talking about a war. Maybe it’s coming now and they wanted him out of the way.”
“But why?” I asked, no closer to understanding. “What would they have to gain? This a war that has nothing to do with them.”
“It has everything to do with every human being on Earth,” Cameron said, “so that’s a definite possibility. Whatever the case, we need to reverse the spell. We need him on our side.” He glanced at Granddad, a worried expression drawing his brows together. “We can’t fight what’s coming alone. If we’re going to have even the slightest chance, we need him.”
“But what if that’s not it?” the sheriff asked. “What other motive could they possibly have?”
“A pretty simple one, actually.” Cameron stopped drawing the symbol. “They needed him out of the way for another reason.” He nodded toward me. “Just long enough to take out the prophet.”
I straightened when the focus shifted my way. “You still think they’re after me?”
Granddad put a hand over mine. I saw for the first time the sadness that pressed on his shoulders. They didn’t seem quite so broad as usual. Quite so strong. “Either way, this needs to be dealt with now.”
Cameron placed a hard gaze on Granddad. “I have an idea, but you aren’t going to like it.”
“There’s nothing about this I do like. What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking Glitch-head is right.”
“Can you not call me that?”
Cameron ignored him. “We need to disrupt the signal. We need to distort the symbol somehow.”
“Of course,” Grandma said. “We need to break the lines, to make it not mean what it means.”
“And how do we do that?” the sheriff asked. “It took three tranquilizer darts and a nephilim just to get him to the ground.”
“Then we’ll use four this time,” Cameron said.
The sheriff seemed doubtful. “He’ll see that coming.”
Cameron looked at me, his eyes suddenly glistening with hope. “Maybe not.”
BARGAINING CHIP
I tiptoed into the room where the monitor was set up. The screen was still black, no signal whatsoever, but the audio was on. I heard a sound here and there. A tap. A scrape.
Filtering as much hope as I could into my voice, I whispered, “Jared?” The sounds stopped. I waited a full minute, gathering my courage, before asking, “Can you hear me?”
After a long moment, he said, “Yes.”
My eyes slammed shut. I turned up the audio so I could hear from a distance, then walked to the vault door. “If I let you out, will you take only me and spare my family and friends?”
He waited again before asking, “Bargaining now?”
I looked over at Cameron. His mouth formed a grim line as he beckoned me to continue with a nod. I took a steadying breath, looked behind me into the dark anteroom of the bunker, knowing an army stood behind me, and said, “I’m going to open the door now.”
After another long pause, he said, “I wouldn’t.”
With a hard swallow, I ignored him. vzyl “The door is heavy. You’ll have to push from your side.”
Never taking Cameron for the Catholic type, I was surprised when he did the sign of the cross. He bowed his head, took a deep breath of his own, then turned the huge locking mechanism.
I hurried forward and helped him pull. It opened far easier than it had closed. When the breadth spanned about three feet, I stepped around and expected to see Jared there helping, but he was standing back, his arms folded over his chest. I had also expected to see wings, huge and black and all consuming, but he was in his torn T-shirt and jeans, both bloodied from the fight.
“You’re taking a huge chance,” he said.
“We made a deal, though, right?” My body shook so uncontrollably, I felt like I was having a seizure, but I couldn’t stop it. No matter how much I tried to force myself to calm, I couldn’t stop the shaking. I stepped close to him. “Just me, and you leave Riley’s Switch.”
Without moving, he graced me with another of his smiles, this one all too knowing. “So all those people in the other room are just there to make sure you opened the door correctly.”
I put a shaking hand on his chest, fear consuming me to such a degree, the edges of my vision darkened. “Jared, please.”
Then I was airborne. I flew straight out of the vault and skidded into the wall, the air knocked out of my lungs. And the fighting began anew. Jared was ready for Cameron this time. He didn’t stand still long enough to be shot with the dart gun. The sheriff kneeled and took aim, but he was helpless. They moved at inhuman speeds. Blurs of color and light. At one point Jared was on the ground. The next, Cameron was on the ceiling, their strength and agility incredible.
No one could help. Granddad pulled me to my feet and we just stood there, watching with our mouths hanging open. Sheriff Villanueva’s finger stayed wrapped around the trigger, waiting for the opportunity to tranq Jared. But it just didn’t come. The second one of them would get the upper hand, the other would employ some technique to reverse the odds.
Grandma had pulled me back and was holding on to me for dear life.
A group of men hurried to the vault door, prepared to close it again, to lock Cameron in there with the Angel of Death.
I tugged at Grandma’s arm. “I want to try something.”
Her eyes rounded. “No, pix.”
“Grandma, you said it yourself: If he gets out of there, we’re all dead anyway. Whether from Jared or from this war, it doesn’t matter.” A sickly kind of despair had taken over. A desperation. “The end results will be the same.”
She couldn’t argue that point, and she knew it. With fear and sadness stiffening her expression, she let
go.
I walked past Granddad. “Pix,” he said, reaching out for me, but I ducked under his arm and sprinted into the vault. Jared had Cameron in a choke hold, and for a second, I thought Cameron might lose consciousness, but he elbowed Jared in the gut and wrenched himself free.
“Jared,” I said, holding out my hand to him.
His gaze snapped up for a split second. Barely enough time to blink. And Cameron took advantage. While I thought he would score the skin where the brand was inlaid, just enough to disfigure the symbol, he snatched the knife from his waistband and plunged the blade into Jared’s back.
Without thought, I ran to him, but Cameron tackled me down. By the time we turned back, Jared was holding the knife.
Cameron’s eyes widened. “There it is. Do you see it? That spark of light?”
Jared looked down at the knife in his hands, at the blood dripping from his fingers, and he stumbled back. He leaned against the metal wall, his breaths raspy and spent, then slid down it, falling onto all fours.
“Crap,” Cameron said. He was shielding his face with both hands, squeezing his eyes shut as though a bright light were saturating the room. “I can’t see,” he said, struggling to his feet.
Everyone glanced around, clearly unable to see what he was seeing. He fell onto his knees and cradled his head. His father ran to him and covered his head with his body. Cameron groaned through gritted teeth. And Jared was doing the same. Cradling his own head, fighting something deep inside.
Then they both collapsed onto the floor in choreographed unison. I ran to Jared as Brooke did the same for Cameron.
Jared was completely unconscious, his solid body impossible for me to move. I looked at his face, ran my fingers over his strong jaw.
“Pix,” Granddad said, rushing toward me. “We don’t know if it worked.”
“It worked,” Cameron said, taking in huge gulps of air. “It worked.”
They picked Jared up and placed him with great care onto a table they brought in. His T-shirt, torn and bloody, hung off him like an overused rag. Granddad turned him over as Mrs. Strom stepped cautiously inside. She worked at the hospital and was the closest thing we had to a doctor in the Order. Jared’s limbs hung limp, as though all the energy they’d once contained had evaporated. And yet, even unconscious, he looked powerful, like a sleeping panther. No one could deny the omnipotence of such a lethal animal.
I stripped off my jacket and placed it under his head as Granddad examined the knife wound. “The scar was healing fast. It probably would have been gone in a matter of days.”
“And that would have been too long.” Cameron joined us, his face swollen, his eyes bloodshot. “Whatever they had planned is going to happen soon.”
“What did you see?” I asked him, relieved that Jared would be okay and wouldn’t kill everyone I’d ever loved. Instead of waiting for an answer, however, I touched his arm.
And the nuclear flash that hit me almost knocked me off my feet. The moment the knife plunged into Jared’s back, it started. A tiny spark became a beam, then a flood, then—in one massive burst—Jared’s essence infused the room in a blinding light.
It was similar to how Cameron had explained the darkness, only with light. It was so deep, so forever, an infusion of warmth, genuine and radiant, I doubted I would ever be the same again. Knowing that such a love existed. Knowing that such affection was out there. And then slowly a balance began to settle around him. The darkness and the light merged to become the essence of Jared, of Azrael the archangel, the supreme being who may have been created for one specific reason, but could choose his path.
I blinked back to the present and gazed at Cameron.
“Isn’t that cheating?” he asked me.
“You saw?” Brooke asked, astonished. “You have to tell me everything.”
“Okay,” I promised.
“That’s definitely cheating.”
Brooke and I both gave Cameron a grateful hug, each of us on either side of him. He hugged us back.
“Should we break more of the lines?” Granddad asked him. “The knife wound is already healing. What if—?”
“It won’t,” Cameron and I said in unison. I smiled up at him, having caught a glimpse of his world, now knowing a miniscule amount of what he knew. The things he must have seen. The miracles he must have witnessed his whole life. I almost envied his heritage at that moment before I realized what lay on his shoulders. It was bad enough being the prophet that was supposedly going to stop the coming war. I hated war. I hated even worse that so much was riding on my paltry abilities. But to have to be responsible for so many, to have been created for such a specific purpose.
“It’s okay,” Cameron said to Granddad. “Whatever kept the light at bay is gone. But it took a lot out of him. The repercussions of such a trip into darkness could very well be long and lasting. It may take him a while to come back to us. I just hope he hurries. We clearly don’t have much time.”
* * *
With Cameron’s assurance that Jared would be back to normal when he woke up, we moved him to the spare bedroom on the first floor of our house. Mrs. Strom came over to clean and bandage Jared’s wound, while Grandma and I bathed him with cool washcloths.
“You were amazing,” Grandma said.
I let a breathy laugh escape me. “Cameron was more amazing.”
“But he couldn’t have done it without you. I just—” Her eyes watered as she glanced down, embarrassed.
“Grandma,” I said in surprise, “I—I wish you would trust me more.”
“I’m so sorry, pix.” She hugged me to her and I let her, even though I still wanted answers.
“My turn,” Granddad said from beside us.
I smiled and let him hug me, too.
“We’re so proud of you, pix. What you did—”
“Was probably stupid. I’m sure I’ll look back on it and cringe.”
He chuckled and set me back from him. The sheriff came in then, regarded Jared a moment, then placed a hand on my shoulder. “That was kind of magnificent.”
“Hey, why is she getting all the attention?” Glitch said, frowning as he brought in more water. “She always gets all the attention.”
“She does,” Brooke agreed, following him in with an armful of towels. “I think we should strike.”
“I think you should get to bed,” Brooke’s mom said. Her parents had stuck around the church to help clean up the mess compliments of one Jared Kovach. Man, he could tear stuff up. The archive room would never be the same. Then they came over to check on things here.
Mrs. Prather had gathered bedding and was slipping a pillow under Jared’s head. She handed me back the jacket I’d left at the church. “He’s something, isn’t he?” she said, eyeing Jared with both reverence and appreciation. “What happened was not his fault, Lorelei. I hope you know that.”
I thought back to the picture, the one of Brooke’s seventh birthday party. She had hardly changed at all. I wished I could tell her where her brother was. I wished something good would come of my visions instead of just darkness and fear and impending doom. I hated impending doom.
“I do. Whoever did this is very powerful.”
“Yes, but so are you,” Grandma said, and my reservations came crashing to the surface again. They had such hope. Dang it.
Still, there was something in her eyes. In Granddad’s, too. A fear. An apprehension. They were still planning on sending me away. The first chance they got. I could see it. Feel it. And I didn’t trust them as far as I could throw them.
“Can we have a note excusing us from homework tomorrow?” Brooklyn asked.
I laughed softly. She had a good point.
“I think you kids should stay home from school until we know exactly what is going on,” Mrs. Prather said.
At first, the thought gave me a snuggly, happy feeling. We could sleep late and drink hot chocolate and I could pet Jared. Then Brooke and I glanced at each other, a knowing expression on each of o
ur faces.
“We can’t,” Brooke said.
“Not now.” I sat on the bed beside Jared. “With Jared out of the picture for goodness knows how long, we have to try to figure out what is going on. Why some of the kids at school are acting so strange. What is going to happen that required Jared be taken out of the picture. We need to know.”
Cameron nodded from his seat in the corner. Brooke kneeled beside him to administer first aid to him. He had some nasty cuts and bruises as a result of the most recent smack-down. “She’s right. We need to get back in the thick of it all.”
“I don’t know,” Grandma said, a worried expression lining her face. “Don’t you think today was enough? We need to lie low awhile.”
Lie low? First texting and now lie low? Who was this woman?
“I agree with Cameron,” Sheriff Villanueva said. “These kids are our best shot at figuring this out.”
“I like the lie-low idea,” Glitch said, casting his vote.
“Bill,” Grandma said, fixing a beseeching expression on him. “We can’t just send them back out there.”
“No, we can’t, but pix doesn’t seem to care what we can and can’t do.” He turned to look at Brooke’s parents. “Maybe you’ll have better luck with Brooklyn.”
“I’m going,” Brooke said, a hand on her hip. “I’m in this, Mom. You guys keep saying that if this war is what we think it is, we’re all dead anyway. So what does it matter?”
The Prathers supported the Order of Sanctity and its mission 100 percent, so I wasn’t terribly surprised when Brooke’s mom gave in with a nod. “Okay, but you kids need to get some rest.”
“I think we need to get some pizza,” Glitch said.
Cameron brightened with the thought.
Mrs. Prather turned to the sheriff. “I need some kind of guarantee Cameron can stay with them all day.”
“I’ll see to it.”
I wondered just how he was going to manage that, but the last thing I wanted to do was leave Jared. “Can I stay down here with him?” I asked Granddad, taking a long, meandering gaze at Jared.