She was right. She had to be right.
I felt invigorated again.
“I just have to figure out what their plan is.” I smiled at her. “You know, it kicks butt having a genius for a best friend. Thanks.” We reached out across the gap between the beds and brushed fingertips.
“You can do it, Zoë. You’ll figure it out.” She was smiling at me, exuding a confidence that fed mine. I felt again my happiness at her having her braces off, and took a good look at her. She frowned at me. “What’s wrong now?”
I smiled. “Nothing. Just that when you get contacts, every guy in the world is going to be at your feet.”
She dropped her gaze and pleated the sheet between her fingers. “Well, that’s just it, isn’t it?”
I sat up, finally understanding. “Wait a minute. You don’t think that if I’m not going to the dance with Derek that Garrett won’t come?”
She flicked me a look and blushed. “I’d really like to see him again.”
“He’ll come. He was totally bummed at Christmas that you were away.”
“Really?”
“Really. I think you’re the only reason he came to Chicago.”
She was pleased by that—I could see it.
She settled down to sleep, but I knew I had to fill her in on everything. “Hey, there’s one more thing you need to know about Kohana and the NightBlade.”
“What?”
“Kohana made a deal with Adrian and Trevor that he’d wield the knife for their ceremony, thinking he’d learn something from it.”
“Yes, you said that he’d agreed to do the sacrifice. But he faked them out.”
“He said he would have done it if they’d brought Derek or Jessica, just to learn more about the NightBlade, but that he couldn’t do it to me. He saved me, then told me all that; then he kissed me.”
“So he knew they would sacrifice a wildcard. That must be important.” She turned to me. “Do you think Kohana is telling the truth?”
“I have no idea.”
“But do you like Derek?” Meagan asked quietly.
“I like him,” I admitted, “but I’m not sure I like him. I think I should be sure before… well, before anything more happens. I know he wants more commitment, but I want it to be honest.” Now I was blushing like crazy.
To my astonishment, Meagan smiled. It wasn’t like her to enjoy my discomfort. “What about Kohana? Do you like him?”
I shook my head. “I don’t trust him. He’ll probably turn up again, though.”
“He’s hot.”
I shook my head. “Not really. I think he’s just trying to mess with me.”
To my astonishment, Meagan seemed delighted by this confession.
“What are you so happy about?” I asked.
“You’re the Wyvern,” Meagan said with a confidence that warmed my heart. “You’re the key to everything, and you’re my friend, and I know exactly what I need to do to help you out.”
And with that, she went to sleep.
Leaving me in total suspense.
I TOSSED AND TURNED FOR a while, maybe dozed off and on. I was both exhausted and jittery. Running through the sequence of events in the vacant lot over and over again was doing exactly nothing to help me get to sleep. I reviewed it for the umpty-gazillionth time, looking for clues—I wasn’t sleeping, so I needed something to think about—when it hit me.
Kohana had been singing the invocation chant.
Kohana had been casting spells.
This was huge. It was epic.
And it had slid right past me.
“Kohana’s a spellsinger!” I said, sitting straight up in bed. How could I have missed that? Was that his special power as the wildcard of his kind? Was that why he thought he could destroy the NightBlade?
“Yes. I don’t know. Yes and yes,” said a man with a low, slow voice.
I jumped, then spun in the bed, knotting the sheets around my knees in the process. (Very elegant look, let me tell you.)
There was a guy sitting cross-legged on the floor, smoking a cigarette. He looked pretty old to be sitting like that, and his long dark hair was threaded with silver. His face was both tanned and lined, and so were his hands. He was wearing jeans and a red cowboy shirt.
And he was watching me.
Meagan was still sleeping, and King was out cold, too. (Even though I had pretty much shouted. I took it as a clue that I was in dreamland again.) The room looked completely normal, other than the guy on the rug.
This was like my conversation with Sigmund, chatting with a guy in what looked just like Meagan’s room. It was reassuringly Wyvern-like, so probably not some ShadowEater nightmare.
So, who was this guy? I had a feeling he wasn’t among the living anymore.
He took another drag, his dark eyes glinting, the end of the cigarette glowing, and watched me as he exhaled. The smoke made a silvery plume, like a snake winding toward the ceiling.
Mrs. Jameson would have a fit that someone was smoking in her house.
That was my first thought.
I said my second one out loud.
“Are you dead?”
“She will. And yes again,” he said, and this time he smiled a little. He twisted in place, showing me the bleeding gash in his back. It was a vicious wound.
“No blood on the rug, okay?”
He smiled and smoked. I realized now that I could see a second smaller tendril of smoke winding out of the wound. So his lung had been punctured. Nice.
I sat up, shifting around so I was sitting cross-legged on the bed facing him, the sheets wound around my lower body. He said nothing more. It seemed that I was going to have to start the conversation. “So, the thing is that when I see other dead people, they come to tell me something. Or give me a clue. Something like that.”
I was ready for help—you can believe that.
He glanced at his back, then at me again, and took another drag.
Wait a minute. This guy knew about Kohana’s powers. I guessed. “Are you the Wakiya elder who was killed by the NightBlade?”
He almost smiled; then he nodded slowly.
I was excited. Dead men might tell no tales, but their ghosts might be able to help me out. “Can you tell me more about the NightBlade? What about the ShadowEaters? What do they want?”
He exhaled, launching three smoke rings in succession. They floated toward the ceiling, then slipped inside each other, changing order as he watched with a smile. I was amazed. “I suspected that there was a connection between the NightBlade and the ShadowEaters.”
“I’ve seen it. It’s true. They called it to them.” I had a thought. “Is that why you died? Because you were figuring things out?”
He pondered that. “Possibly. It acted seemingly of its own volition, but now I wonder if the ShadowEaters dispatched it—and me. They feed on shadows, but shadows exist in our realm, not theirs.”
“So without Mages to offer them shadows, they’re hungry?”
“Impotent,” he corrected. “Shadows give them power and energy. To be hungry is to be weak.”
“And without Mages to offer them sacrifices, they were starving,” I guessed. He nodded. “So, somehow they managed to use the NightBlade to free themselves.” He nodded again. “So I did see the truth!”
He frowned then. “Kohana plays a dangerous game on behalf of our kind. You must help him. You must save him.”
“But I don’t know where Kohana is.”
He looked at me steadily and I saw the vacant lot in my mind’s eye, the snow falling over it.
I frowned. “Why couldn’t I see him when I was there?”
“Why couldn’t you see the lot when you went to the library?”
Okay. It made sense that if ShadowEaters were Mages who had done a ritual wrong, as the Oracle declared, they would still have some Mage-like abilities. “They can cast glamours in this realm, too, then?”
He nodded. “The more they feed, the more powerful they will become.”
r /> “What do they want?”
He smiled. “What they have always wanted.”
I remembered what the Bastian Oracle had said. They wanted to become pure spirit but had failed at the ritual. They were trapped between here and there, but still wanted to go there. “They came here for more fuel. For shadows.”
He smoked calmly, and I thought he was considering this. Eventually, he nodded, then frowned. “You, too, are targeted, Unktehila.”
I shivered at that.
I realized then that it must have been hard for this elder to come to me, given the broken treaties between our respective kinds. So there must not have been many other options available.
It was up to me to do something.
“What can I do to ruin their plans?”
He smiled and smoked.
I tried again. “Is there a way that I can undermine their glamours and spells, so we can see what they’re doing?”
He pursed his lips and hesitated so long that I didn’t think he’d answer me. “I can tear the veil of illusion and shred the glamours, Unktehila, but only at your command,” he said finally. “You are the center of the web.”
Well, that had to be a step in the right direction.
In fact, I was thinking that Meagan might be right, that this might be the one thing I could do to trash the ShadowEaters. Tearing the veil would mean that we would have more information to finish them off—instead of arguing about what had really happened.
Worked for me.
“Tear it, then. Tear it, please!”
He watched me for such a long time, just smoking without breaking eye contact, that I feared I’d asked for something terrible. More than I expected. More than he could do. Something was wrong with this choice.
“Zoë?” Mrs. Jameson called. “Who are you talking to? And is that a cigarette I smell?”
Was this a dream or not?
I glanced at the door in uncertainty, then back at the elder.
“Be warned that you must act swiftly, Unktehila,” he said in an undertone. “You will see all possibilities and realities merged together, but still you must choose with speed.”
What did that mean? I was on the verge of asking him for more information when his eyes flashed golden and he leapt straight up with incredible power.
I saw the cigarette drop and glow when it fell on the rug.
I saw the shadow of his Thunderbird shape.
I heard the rumble of thunder.
And I saw his claws shred my view of the room. It was as if Meagan’s room had become a glamour. He tore away the wall with the window like it was a dark curtain, and all I could see was that vacant lot.
The vacant lot was right there, right here, two feet away from me.
With blood on the snow and the air filled with spell light and the dead kid on the ground. I crawled back on the bed in horror. It was as if the elder had torn the scales from my eyes. Was I here? Was I there? Everything was merged together.
How could I choose swiftly if I didn’t know what was real?
Then Mrs. Jameson rapped on the door and pushed it open, crying out when she saw the burning butt on the carpet. The room reverted to normal in a flash, Meagan woke up, the cigarette was crushed and flushed, and much confusion ensued as I confessed to having snuck a smoke.
It wasn’t like I could tell Mrs. Jameson the truth.
If dreams and reality were going to keep mingling like this, maybe I would end up going crazy.
HOURS LATER, EVERYONE HAD SETTLED down again, but I was wide-awake. Had anything changed? I was trying to figure out what I was supposed to do—I knew I had to do it swiftly—when I heard the faint sound of music.
The sound was distant, elusive, forcing me to strain my ears to catch the tune. I was tempted to open the window, but I was leery of that wall since the elder had ripped it. Everything looked normal, but I wasn’t taking anything at face value.
It could be real. It could be a dream. It could be both.
I was already starting to see the downside of tearing the veil.
I got out of bed without really intending to, opened the bedroom door, and eased down the stairs to the front door.
I had a powerful urge to go outside, to follow the sound of the music.
No, I yearned to follow the music.
Like one of those rats following the piper to his death.
I opened the door, even knowing it was stupid. It was like I couldn’t stop myself. The melody was haunting and beguiling, although I couldn’t have named the tune.
It was in a minor key.
Wait a minute. Mages used minor keys.
It was a lure! I could see spell light dancing down the street toward the town house, swirling in the middle of the road, churning up the porch steps. To my surprise, Mozart and King were right next to me. I hadn’t even noticed them leave the bedroom with me. But now they twined around my ankles.
I was glad to see Mozart on his feet, at least until he looked up at me and I saw that his eyes were filled with orange spell light. King was really agitated, circling around the smaller cat protectively like he’d hem him in.
No luck on that front. To my horror, Mozart slipped between my ankles and raced into the night. On the street, he rubbed his back against the golden ribbon of the spell at the bottom of the stairs. I snatched at King, guessing what he’d do, but was two seconds too late. My fingers slid through his fur as he yowled and peeled off after Mozart.
No! I leapt down the steps, just as the pair of them ran down the street. They disappeared like shadows into the night.
No, they disappeared into a new barrage of spell light. It was headed right for me, like an orange tsunami.
I fled into the house, slammed the door, and locked it, my heart pounding. The music got louder and I watched in horror as tendrils of spell light rushed under the door.
They reached for my ankles.
No! I ran back up the stairs, the snake of light in hot pursuit. I slammed the door to Meagan’s room and leapt back into bed, hoping against hope that this was all a bad dream.
Just a dream.
Just a nightmare.
Nothing really to fear.
No music in my ears.
I was nearly convinced when I felt something slither around my ankle.
Like a snake.
Or the tendril of a plant, one that was growing really fast.
It was cold and wet and moving up my leg.
Not real, not real, not real.
Heart pounding, I looked. I could see a golden spiral of spell light twining around my leg, making its way from my foot to my knee. It was like watching a plant growing, some kind of jungle plant that takes over the world in leaps and bounds.
And it was taking me over.
Or claiming me.
I sat up in terror and jerked my leg back. The spell tendril tightened around me convulsively, nearly eliminating circulation to my toes. Definitely real. I yelped and ripped at it, to no effect. I couldn’t get a good grip on its slimy surface. It kept growing, too, capturing more and more of my leg.
I called to the shimmer and tried to change shape but failed completely. Just like the spell light in the lot, this spell had the ability to short-circuit my shifter powers. The tendril of spell held on fast and kept getting longer. It was past my knee and up to my thigh.
And then it tugged, as if it would haul me outside.
I freaked.
I struggled.
It made no difference. It was just like being in that vacant lot, just like being bound by the spell light and powerless to do anything about it. I thrashed but it made no difference. I screamed but no sound came out.
I was already silenced.
Was this what it was like to become extinct?
I thought I could hear the sound of smacking lips and was terrified that the ShadowEaters would devour my shadow. I panicked at the prospect.
That outer wall disappeared again, just as it had when the Wakiya elder shredded it.
A heartbeat later, I was in that vacant lot again, still bound and helpless. I had to believe that the ShadowEaters had sent the spell to get me.
Because I was surrounded by them. There were hungry ShadowEaters on every side, slithering and salivating, their golden eyes gleaming with anticipation.
I felt the first lick, the first nibble, the first nip. It was nauseating. The spell kept tightening around me, trapping me and holding me captive. Struggling only made it worse, but I couldn’t help it. I fought with all my might but it made no difference. I heard their dark laughter and smelled their anticipation. If they wanted to mess with my mind, they were doing a great job.
I screamed.
I still made no sound.
And there was a blinding flash, like lightning had struck me.
I WAS BACK IN MEAGAN’S bedroom, sitting up in bed with sweat running down my back. I was panting, but I couldn’t see any spell light anywhere.
Believe me, I looked.
While I hyperventilated and my heart pounded so fast that I thought it might explode from the exertion. I had been sure that flash had been the result of my shadow being cut away, but I checked and it was intact.
Whoa.
Okay, so maybe that had been a dream. Or a Wyvern vision. Could it have been foresight?
More importantly, where was I?
I still had to be in some dream realm—Meagan’s bedroom was piled with snow, and the exterior wall melted into endless tundra. As in my typical Wyvern dreams—at least the ones I’d had in the past year—I could see a bough of that enormous tree bending over the room, its leaves young and green and rustling in a wind I couldn’t feel.
I knew this place.
And it was—comparatively—safe.
Even if the old ladies were missing.
Wolves howled in the distance, and it says something for my state of mind that the sound of a hungry wolf pack was reassuring.
Then I saw that Skuld was crouched on the windowsill, watching me avidly. She was almost swallowed by the shadows, motionless, her eyes shining in the darkness. She looked like an action hero, ready to spring to duty and slaughter the unworthy. Her eyes brightened, not unlike the eyes of a raven, and there was something sinister about her smile. I realized that her ponytail was bound with something that looked like sinew. I seriously didn’t want to know what kind of sinew it was.