These questions raced through Mimi’s mind as she watched the demon guy turn back into a human and the others talk. Eventually, the group of people down the hall broke up. They were going to “erase memories,” according to Roman D’Angelo, whom Mimi knew through Calidum. Now that Calidum was going to be the new Dragon King, he was privy to information about the group called the Thirteen Kings, and Roman was one of them. He was a vampire. And a warlock. Apparently, they went hand-in-hand sometimes.
The mages who’d cast the magic had to hold the stasis spell around everyone until memories were sufficiently erased and the mess was taken care of. Magic users dispersed, their tasks clear. The girl who’d done the shooting was gently escorted in one direction by a group of supernaturals and Evangeline, while a bunch of others went another way.
Mimi licked her lips and considered her options. The stasis spell would end soon and everyone would be conscious and moving again. She totally wasn’t supposed to be there in that school. Should she make herself known now and come clean with Eva? Or should she just leave and hope no one noticed?
“What do we have here?”
Mimi turned around and stood up.
C-rap, she thought wordlessly. The man in front of her looked exactly like the man who had turned into a big, bad demon-looking thing next to Evangeline. Nicholas, she reminded herself. Hot as hell, big and strong, pulsing with magic. Except this guy’s eyes were green. And he was dressed differently.
He smelled like major power – and major danger.
She took a step back. “Who are you?” she asked, getting ready to shift into her dragon form the way she’d been taught to do, all at once so there was no moment of weakness.
“My name is Nero,” he said politely, and with a beautiful smile that she didn’t believe at all. “And you must be Mimi,” he said, cocking his head to one side to consider her carefully.
She narrowed her gaze at him and took another step back, coming flush with the wall. And just like that, she realized who he really was. The human skin didn’t fool her at all. The feeling coming off him was like unpleasant static, and Eva had told Mimi enough about her boss that Mimi recognized the son-of-a-bitch now. “You’re the Entity.”
The man who called himself Nero blinked in surprise.
“I have a message for you,” she went on, putting on the bravest front she’d ever put on. “Eva quits. She doesn’t want to work for you any longer. Turns out you’re not the employer she thought you were.”
Nero went very still. “You’re very protective of your friends, aren’t you, Mimi?”
Mimi felt something cold uncurl in her guts. The energy pulsing around the man was making her feel strange. Her magic seemed a little further away than it had before. Just out of reach. But she wouldn’t let him see her sweat. So she lifted her chin and glared at him.
“It would seem everything I’ve heard about you is true, little dragon.”
Her thoughts hiccupped. The Entity had heard about her? Mimi felt stunned. Should she be impressed or scared?
Then Nero’s smile was back. And she realized she should be scared.
*****
Rachel Reyes was fifteen years old, and until a few minutes ago, she’d been ready to die. There was something about her that had always been different, painfully so. It wasn’t the obvious, physical difference that elicited sympathy or pity. It was invisible. And Rachel had spent the last five years of her life learning good and hard that it was this invisibility that made all the difference.
Her mother was a teacher in the district. For this reason, some felt she expected to be treated differently. It was this unspoken and unverified assumption that automatically made them treat her just the opposite. “You think you’re special ‘cuz your mom’s a teacher? You’re no better than anyone. You’re not even as good as anyone else.”
She was a quiet girl. She was a frightened girl. Crowds, especially filled with peers, always made her nervous. She faced that kind of crowd every day at school. She internalized her stress and fear, and as a result, she always had a headache. She always had a stomach ache. When she would touch her stomach, they would ask her if she was pregnant. They would sneer. They always sneered.
She had allergies that made her walk around with a tissue all the time. Rolled up toilet paper. Napkins from the cafeteria. She used whatever she could find and wondered at the people around her who never had to blow their noses. Ever.
Her mother wanted her to be social. “Try out for track. Why don’t you run for school council president? Why don’t you join a few clubs like other girls?”
But she was not a social creature. Colors became cacophonous to her. Letters and numbers had flavors and shades. Sound got inside her veins and began to boil like a pot on the stove. Once when she was very little, the auditorium crowd had begun cheering loudly at an assembly. She’d placed her hands over her ears and screamed. No reason. She didn’t even realize she was doing it. It was just that sound….
She had dreams at night so vivid, so lucid, Rachel woke up exhausted. She was always tired. Always. So tired that she’d dreamt while awake before, too. At first, she’d thought her imagination was just running away with her. But the experiences were again too vivid, and when she came out of them, she often had to remind herself of where she was.
Rachel was different.
She had been verbally abused for this difference for the better part of her adolescence. She’d been taunted, tortured, stalked. She’d been raped. Her bullies had told one of their cousins to do it. And when he was finished, he’d apparently joked with them that they should have paid him.
That was what they told her. Right before they’d asked her if it had taken the stuck-up bitch down a few pegs.
She’d covered up her bruises with long sleeves, and made sure she wore overnight pads to stop the bleeding. They bulged a little in her jeans, so she borrowed her mother’s jeans. Bagginess made all the difference. No one was the wiser, not even her mother, though that wasn’t saying much. Her mom was so busy teaching, she never noticed anything about Rachel.
No one knew what had happened but the boy who’d done it, and the girls who’d made sure it was done in the first place.
But they would. She’d written a note. She’d told the world what happened to her. Not just the rape – all of it. The putrid shit they’d left on her locker handle more than once, the theft of her books and notebooks, the verbal taunts and threats, the dirty looks, the stalking. She’d written it down, poured out her heart, and then gone to her father’s closet to get the gun. She’d had a lot of practice with that particular gun. She’d been taught to shoot from a very young age, and her aim was dead on.
She wasn’t going to miss. This one last thing, she was going to do right. No one would be able to tease her for this. Not this. Finally.
And then she’d been in the school, and she’d come out of the bathroom, knowing exactly who would be in that part of the hall at that time. But she’d been wrong. There was someone else there this time too. She came out of the symphony of colors a second too late, moving like lightning into the line of fire.
The bullet hadn’t jerked her body the way it did in movies. Bullets were too clean, too powerful. They simply went straight through skin and muscle, and sometimes bone. And the person fell.
Rachel watched the stranger fall, and everything came crashing in around her.
Everything changed in that moment. But not the way she’d thought it would.
Now – as Minnaea and Adelaide walked her down the hall toward the school exit with a group of others – Rachel’s head spun. This day had been fateful after all. And though she was confused and scared and shaken up right now, the women walking on either side of her felt safe. They had talked with her. They’d let her talk. They’d understood.
She felt protected with them there. They weren’t cops. They weren’t principals or teachers. They weren’t psychiatrists or loony-bin wardens. They weren’t going to lock her up or make her take h
orrible medicines that made her worse. They told her she had a gift. They told her she was a seer.
And they were going to help her develop that gift.
And no one was ever going to hurt her again.
Chapter Forty-Four
Adelaide checked to make certain no one was watching and she, Minnaea, Andros, Nicholas, the newcomer Evangeline, and Rachel were alone in the alley beside the school before she nodded to Minnaea. “Go ahead.”
“Would you rather try it yourself, your majesty?” Minnaea asked with a knowing smile.
Addie stared at her. “Me? Transport?” She looked up at Nicholas, but he became completely unhelpful by crossing his arms over his broad… beautiful chest… and smiling at her.
Minnaea said, “You have it in you. You’re already showing signs of being more powerful than the rest of us.” She shook her head, her eyes wide. “I can’t wait to see what you look like in your true form.”
“My… what?” Addie felt baffled. Her true form? Wasn’t this her true form? She looked down at herself. This form was the only one she had ever known. She was born with it.
“Each of us is so much more than what we see in the mirror,” Minnaea said. She looked at Rachel. “We all have a true form inside somewhere.”
At that, Adelaide found herself looking over at Evangeline. She couldn’t help it. Something about the woman was so very mysterious, and the words “true form” seemed to be at the heart of that mystery. What was she? Other than a healer? Her aura was bewildering.
Evangeline was quiet. She said so little, divulging next to nothing. It only added to the conundrum.
Andros picked up the slack where Minnaea had left off. “If we’re really lucky, we find that true form and let it out.” He was looking at Rachel.
Addie glanced at all of them, then peered up at Nicholas again. He was watching her with a spark in his gunmetal eyes, his handsome mouth curled at the corners as if just like Minnaea, he couldn’t wait to see what Addie’s other form was.
She knew they were being general about the meaning of “true form” for Rachel’s sake. But in Adelaide’s case, it was different, probably something… nightmarish. And when she stood there in the midst of all of them and realized that was the case, it sort of floored her. Not in a bad way. Just a very big way.
She didn’t have long to consider it before Rachel was swooning in place, her hand reaching out for Addie’s arm. She found purchase and squeezed as she lowered her head as if she were about to faint. Addie moved in quickly, and Andros rushed forward as well, managing to catch the girl. Rachel’s head suddenly snapped back. Her eyes rolled back in her head.
“What’s happening to her?” Addie asked, concern slicing through her. After all of this, Rachel wasn’t going to be okay? Was she hurt back there somehow? Was she having a heart attack or stroke or epileptic seizure?
“She’s having a vision,” said Nicholas. “You look similar when one strikes you, though it’s not quite as violent.”
Addie’s eyes widened. “Seriously?”
They all nodded. Andros held tight to Rachel until the vision passed, and the girl lowered her head. Her eyes were shut tight. She moaned softly, touching her forehead. “What… the hell?” she asked softly, clearly in a certain amount of pain.
“What did you see?” asked Nicholas
Rachel looked up, her brow furrowed. “See?”
“You’ve had a vision, haven’t you?” asked Addie.
Rachel regarded her for a moment. “I – I don’t know. Maybe.” She closed her eyes, pinched the bridge of her nose, then opened her eyes again. “I had a waking dream sort of thing. But this one was clearer and felt more real than the others, even the ones I had with you in them,” she told Addie.
“You could use some Aspirin for that headache,” said Minnaea. “Or Evangeline,” she said, glancing up at Evangeline.
“My pleasure,” said Eva, though she looked a little drained. Adelaide almost said something, knowing that bringing Addie back from the brink of death had to have taken its toll on the mysterious woman. But Eva had that look about her that said she would heal people until her own dying moment, and not a second sooner. She was just that kind of person.
Addie liked her. For the second time in as many days, she was surprised by this immediate amity. Especially with a woman. But there it was.
Eva placed her fingertips to Rachel’s forehead, and a gentle white light began to glow from beneath them. That glow spread, then faded. When it was gone, Rachel opened her eyes and smiled, touching her head gingerly and in wonder. “How are you doing this?” she asked. “And with Addie – how did you do that?”
Addie supposed the girl just had to know. But Eva was not as forthcoming with answers as Rachel was with questions. She simply smiled a small smile and shrugged. “We all have our talents.”
“What did you see?” Addie asked Rachel, repeating Nick’s question. She could tell Eva no longer wanted the attention, and Addie had a feeling this vision was important.
Rachel frowned again. “Do you know anyone by the name of Nero? Tall, dark hair… looks exactly like him but with green eyes?” She nodded to Nicholas.
Addie looked up at Nick, and their eyes met. “We know of him,” she said cautiously. She looked back down at Rachel. “Why? What happened to him?”
She shook her head. “To him, nothing. At least, not outwardly. But he has a girl with him. Maybe ten or eleven years old, it’s hard to tell. She was putting on a brave face.”
Evangeline moved beside them. She stepped forward and placed her hands on Rachel’s upper arms, turning her so that their eyes met. “Did she have red hair?” Eva asked. Her face was drawn with sudden and severe worry.
Rachel brushed her forehead and closed her eyes again, probably trying to look inwardly for details. Addie did that a lot when she’d just had visions. “I think so, yes. Yeah, she did.” She opened her eyes. “They were in this desert-like place. It looked a lot like Egypt.”
Addie’s guts clenched. Eva straightened, releasing Rachel. Her lavender eyes were growing lighter, as if they were beginning to take on a glow much like Nick’s often did.
“Was she okay?” Addie asked. “Did he hurt her?”
Eva looked up at Rachel, waiting for her response. Rachel shook her head, but then she stopped mid-shake and her eyes grew wide with memories. She said, “No… not yet. But he had a dagger of some kind. He called it the Sleeper Number Two.”
Nicholas went stiff beside Addie, and she looked up at him. His eyes were turning silver with power, swirling and molten, the way they turned just before going red altogether.
“What did he do with it?” Nick asked, his voice tight.
“He hadn’t done anything with it yet in the vision,” Rachel assured him. “But I think he was planning to use it on her, because he….” Her face paled considerably. “He grabbed the girl by the throat and held her down on some kind of altar shaped like a sarcophagus. It was stone. What was really scary was what was around that, though. The altar was on an outcropping of land, and all around it was a circle of nothingness. Like a moat.”
Minnaea lifted her chin in an “Oh yeah” kind of expression. “Yes. Dannai mentioned something like this might happen if we were all to enter the Duat together. Remember? She said bits of it might fall apart.” She addressed Adelaide. “It would appear more than a few bits fell off. It sounds like the entire room the goddess was kept in is gone now.”
Then she turned to Rachel. “That nothingness you’re seeing is just that. It’s the edge of the Land of the Dead, otherwise known in Egypt as the Duat. Anyone who falls into that nothingness is destroyed permanently. It apparently eats souls. Devours them or something. There’s no bottom to that drop, and there’s no coming out of it once you fall in.”
“Shit,” Rachel said shakily. “It’s as bad as it felt, then.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry – that’s when the vision ended. I didn’t see anything else but the man and girl, the dagger, and the sar
cophagus-altar on that platform surrounded by a drop-off of darkness.” She was trying to be as precise as possible, and Adelaide had to hand it to her. The girl wanted to be helpful. She was afraid of being judged again, of coming up as worthless or undeserving. She had some major issues to work through. Fortunately, she had Addie to help her work through them. And a whole bunch of other people too.
Nicholas looked at his Preceptors. “He has someone in the Duat, and he has his dagger, which he has so cleverly labeled. He’s going to use it on her unless we stop him.”
“You think he’s going to use it on this girl to awaken Amunet?” Andros asked. He shook his head. “That makes no sense. Who is she? Is she powerful enough for her blood to awaken the goddess?”
“Her name is Mimi Tanniym,” said Eva. “She’s a young red dragon and a friend of mine. I’m probably the reason he went after her. As revenge, maybe. You see… I was working for him before. For the Entity, anyway. It’s a long story, but please believe me when I tell you I am not now and I’m sorry I ever did.”
Everyone was quiet for several long seconds. And then Nicholas asked, “Is she powerful?”
Eva shrugged, but shook her head. “She’s a dragon and a precocious one. But she’s young still. I’ve met dragons stronger.”
Minnaea shook her head. “No, you’re right Andros. It doesn’t make any sense that he would use Mimi to awaken Amunet. He wouldn’t need to use the Sleeper or its twin on anyone else but you, Nicholas. If the Entity is inside Nero and he’s wanting to complete what he started in the Land of the Dead, all he needs is a blade. Any blade will do.”
“What is the Sleeper?” Addie asked.