“Why are you being difficult?” Nate asked. He wanted to be angry at my continued desire to see what was down the yellow brick road, but he could only manage frustration.
I’d moved a little bit away from the larger group, but I couldn’t shake five people, who were glued to me. It was strange that I kept them amused while food was around. Usually just the scent of food drove their direction towards it, especially with Kyle and Liam.
“I’m not being difficult. I think it’s odd that the creep is sharing something as benign as walking around, when he’s clearly more into death and destruction. Why isn’t he sharing one of his little minions doing his bidding? I’m sure his little heart pitter-patters whenever they use their fake powers against humans.”
I didn’t like that he was trying to humanize himself. Humanize wasn’t really the best way to describe it, but I felt he was trying to lull me into a false sense of contentment. One of us was meant to die, and there was nothing he could do to change the fact that I’d do everything to make sure I stayed alive. I was sure he knew that, which made me wonder if it was really him messing with me.
That led me back to the fact that there were very few people who could intrude into my mind. Eva was off probably getting a mani-pedi, and I didn’t think either of her sisters were invested enough in my life to mess with me.
“I don’t get it.” Rick ran his fingers through his hair as he tried to figure things out. “What exactly are we doing here? A bunch of his flunkies were here, which brought us here, but they mostly cleared out before we got here. The guy has clearly been monitoring your moves and life, which is a little weird, and has decided to waste our time by sending us to locations that mean something to you.”
He rambled, and didn’t say anything we hadn’t already discussed, but hearing himself say things helped him process them. I waited to hear if he had anything else to add, but he ended up rubbing his forehead, doing his best to massage his brain into figuring out the riddle we were in.
“I don’t like the part where he knows the significance a place like the grotto has to you. That was over a hundred years ago. Why is the fight just happening now? I don’t believe for a second he waited around until we heard about the prophecy, because letting you get your sorceress powers isn’t something that’s going to work well in his favor. Maybe we should rethink following the clues blindly.”
Nate made good points. I could give him that, but I didn’t see any options. Malphas wasn’t going to just show up and be ready for the battle. He’d had numerous chances to do that.
“Are you suggesting we pack up and head home? I can’t say I know what Malphas knows, or his motives. I can tell you that I want this to be over with now. I’m not going to allow a threat to my family just wander around.”
“Obviously.” Nate grabbed my hand as he tried to counteract the fire he’d ignited. “I’m just saying maybe we should refuse to play his game. Make him come to us.”
“I like this idea,” Joseph said as he started looking around at the terrain. “This area’s no good, but I’m sure we can find something nearby.”
At the suggestion, the dual vision I was having morphed into a scene I was all too familiar with. It was a little different, there wasn’t a fight taking place. It was just a quiet meadow with a tree that haunted my dreams.
“I wanted you to learn that I understand who you are. I don’t think you will get the chance to do the same with me, but it is wise to learn about one’s opponent before battle. I believe that’s a fact you’ve tried to take to heart once you remembered my name. Sadly, there hasn’t been a lot written about my life.”
The voice wasn’t in my head, like Nate’s was when we conversed telepathically. It felt like it was all around me. I didn’t appreciate the delivery method.
“Just because you’ve managed to look into my past doesn’t mean you know who I am. Hearing about things I’ve done doesn’t give you a look into the emotions that caused my actions.”
I heard Rick whisper uh-oh only after I’d spoken, so I didn’t bother asking whether anyone else heard the voice. I didn’t have a body to focus on, so I looked out into the corn, wondering if maybe he’d appear to make the conversation it seemed we were going to have a little less creepy.
“I can’t say I’ve looked back to your very beginning, but I think watching a few hundred years of your life has told me a great deal. You’re a worthy adversary, even if your life hasn’t been filled with battles. Mine has, which may be to your advantage, as odd as that sounds.”
“You don’t think the last year dealing with your pawns hasn’t warmed me up for the main course?”
“Probably not, but the last month has changed the battle. I told you that we aren’t really that different, and I’ve learned those words were even truer than I meant them. In the end, our battle is against the same forces. It’s a battle we can’t win, so we’ll have to destroy each other to make things right. I wish there was a way we could fight our destiny, but everything I’ve tried lately hasn’t proven fruitful.”
“Is anyone else getting this?” I asked, hoping someone could back up that Malphas was completely nuts.
I looked around the group, and found heads shaking. Nate had moved to wrap his arms around me, so I couldn’t see his reaction, but I knew what it was. I hadn’t felt his touch, so something was impeding my connection to the real world. I didn’t think it was possible for something to keep Nate from picking up everything I heard.
“You know, if you weren’t so interested in what I have to say, you’d be able to connect with him. I suppose that doesn’t matter, but it makes me feel better about things. You’re about to get a visitor, and we can’t talk when she’s around, so I’ll have to leave you for now. She knows where you need to go, and always has. I know you don’t trust her, and you’re right not to.”
The dual vision and weird feeling I had of being watched disappeared. There was a sensation of missing whatever connection there’d been. It made me shiver thinking about that fact. I didn’t want to feel a loss when the enemy stopped focusing in on me. There was something very wrong about that.
I relaxed into Nate’s arms. I needed his warmth to replace the loss, and I didn’t hide it from him. He needed to know all the sensations going on through my body, because I hoped he’d be able to explain them to me.
“And you wonder why I didn’t want you falling into his trap. The man, and I use that word loosely, is a menace. He not only plans to kill you, but now he wants to make you feel conflicted about the fight. I didn’t expect that approach, and when we finally meet face to face in battle, I intend to let him know that it wasn’t appreciated.”
Nate reacted about how I expected him to. With Malphas’ presence gone, I could share the weird caressing feel I endured while he’d been there. The admiration behind it was enough to make me sick to my stomach.
“For those not connected on the molecular level with you, can you please explain exactly what just happened? Clearly you got a visit of some sort from the demon lord, but I don’t understand the sudden chill. That’s not just me, right? The air temperature just dropped almost five degrees.”
Hearing Rick say it had gotten colder made me feel better. If Malphas had made the temperature warmer while he was there, then some of my reactions had another explanation.
“He didn’t like the talk about not playing the game, so he tried to explain why there was a game to begin with.”
I wasn’t really sure that was the reason for the conversation, but I didn’t want to say he was even creepier than we’d thought. Anyone who spent time watching another person’s life, especially hundreds of years of it, deserved to be in the dictionary next to every synonym of the word creep.
“He actually had a reason for driving us crazy? I appreciated the hearty meals in that last place, but searching around like idiots for hours left me a little pissed.” Liam stated what I picked up on pretty much everyone’s mind.
“I wouldn’t call it a reason. He claimed he want
ed me to know he knew me. Or at least he thinks he does. He didn’t share everything he’s figured out, in fact he didn’t share anything at all. I don’t really know what the deal was, but he says Eva is coming and she knows where we’re going next, so I guess we wait for her and move on.”
It didn’t take a fancy degree to know that my frenemy was the “she” he’d been talking about. I’d known from the beginning that she knew where things would happen, even if she claimed to be oblivious.
“She told me she wouldn’t be coming back. She actually said we had to do this without her help.”
Poor Liam still hadn’t realized the words coming out of his girlfriend’s mouth couldn’t be trusted. I’d tried to warn him, but she had some kind of evil spell wrapped around him, one that I hoped I’d eventually be able to counteract.
“Plans change, honey bunches.”
The she-devil appeared directly in front of her unsuspecting beau. At last Liam was used to her enough that he didn’t jump in shock. Although, if he would have seen it as an attack and tried to slice her in half, I would’ve laughed hysterically.
“Only when they suit you. Is your urgent business all tended to, or can we expect to have you suddenly disappear on us any second?”
If more people spoke to Eva the way I did, I imagined she’d figure out how annoying she was. I doubted she’d do anything about it, but if she spent more time in her black hole of time to get away from all the people who hated her, I wouldn’t shed any tears.
“Matters are taken care of at least for now. I was a little worried when you bleeped out of my range for a few minutes there. I wanted to make sure things hadn’t gone away from the plan. I see you all made it back here without any damage.”
“Funny you should bring that up, because it brings us back to the fact that you have a plan and haven’t been sharing it with us. Would it have been that hard to just share where we were supposed to go?”
“Don’t start with me, Avery. You know as well as I do that people can do things to change paths. Just because I know where the location you keep seeing is, doesn’t mean what you’ve done in the past didn’t change it. You and I both know the fact that you got your little followers back already wasn’t in the original plan.”
“Be that as it may, it would’ve been nice to jump over there and see if there’s an army mounting. We’ve known for a while that the bulk of them are being masked from our detection, so they’ve got to be somewhere.”
No one else in the small group, or the larger one, which had gone dead silent, was about to get in the middle of a fight between me and Eva. When our claws came out, even Nate backed away a little.
“Or you can’t find them because they aren’t here yet. With all the research you’ve done, you really don’t know your opponent, but that’s okay. You’ve got me around to guide you, which is probably the only reason you’ve made it as far as you have.”
I shook my head as Nate reached out and held my arms tightly to my side. He may have moved a few steps back, but he was smart enough to know I was ready to attack.
“You know what? I think you need to crawl back into the hole you came out of thousands of years ago and stay there. I think we can get by just fine without you showing up whenever you feel like it and causing everyone grief.”
“Really? Where exactly do you plan on going next?”
I wanted to walk up to Eva and punch the smirk off her face. Slapping just wouldn’t do enough to gratify me, she needed a full on punch.
“Keosauqua,” I replied, saying the first town that came to mind.
I couldn’t think of a reason for my choice, as I tried to remember what connected me to the city. The ties to the other cities we’d been were so weak that it could’ve been anything. I could’ve stopped overnight there to rest before the city even saw human inhabitants.
I felt Nate racing though memories trying to come up with an answer. Staring at Eva, I knew it didn’t matter. The dumbfounded look on her face was enough to let me know I was right.
“He told you. I thought I’d made it back before you could get too deep into conversation.”
“Not that I want to converse with the enemy, but for some reason I get the feeling you really don’t want us talking. Does that mean you’ve dealt with him before and are afraid we’d talk about how much we both hate you?”
“I don’t know why you insist on claiming you hate me. It’s impossible to hate me, so I wish you’d just get over it. I know what a smooth talker he can be, so I’m just trying to save you from dilemmas you may run into later down the road.”
“Are you sure you aren’t his mom, or maybe sister? You two have about the same ability to make sense.” I was still tense from listening to Eva speak for longer than five seconds, but I tried to let my emotions calm down. “I can tell my guess was correct, so why don’t we head to Keosauqua and see what we can find. If someone would hand me a map, I’ll figure out where we should’ve landed yesterday.”
People didn’t move immediately, but I was okay with that. I was trying to read Eva. I always knew she kept secrets, but I had a feeling there was something big she was hiding, and it was something she didn’t think anyone would find out.