Pawn (Nightmares Trilogy #1)

Kannon walked confidently to his bag and tugged a shirt free, like he was used to having a girl ogle his half-naked body. He probably was, I realized. After all, he’d probably done something with Jamieson to precipitate her asking him to the prom. Not to mention the fact that guys who looked like Kannon weren’t usually virgins.

  I couldn’t help but be disappointed when he pulled a white tee shirt over his head and flopped down on the free bed.

  “What did you order for dinner?” he asked.

  “Burgers and fries,” I admitted. The menu had been overwhelming and I panicked, ordering the first thing I saw that was at all appealing.

  “Sounds good to me,” he said.

  Dinner arrived while we were watching NCIS reruns and taking bets on whether Betsy Klinefelter was likely to slam the door in our faces. I had the odds at three to one she would. By the time we finished eating, I was so tired my eyes wouldn’t stay open. I dragged myself to the bathroom and changed into a pair of flowered pajama bottoms and a pink top, brushed my teeth, and washed my face.

  When I was finished, Kannon did the same, except for the flowered pajamas. He wore St. Paul’s lacrosse sweatpants and nothing else. Instead of climbing back into his own bed, he laid down next to me in mine. As much as I enjoyed staring at Kannon sans shirt, having him so close to me sans shirt made me nervous. He’d made a point to say the room had two beds, leading me to believe he’d correctly assumed that I would be nervous sharing one with him. In my head, Devon’s voice was telling me to man up and stop being such a prude.

  My hands were clasped in my lap and rested on top of the sheets covering my legs. Kannon ran one fingertip across the back of my hand and up my arm to my shoulder then traced my collarbone before cupping my cheek in his palm. The rush of conflicting sensations – heat from the electricity burning between us, the chills of anticipation – made me feel feverish.

  “Thank you for coming with me,” Kannon said, resting his head on my shoulder and gazing up at me.

  My throat was so tight it was a chore to swallow, let alone talk, so I just nodded. Kannon tilted his head up farther, his hair smooth as silk on my shoulder, and kissed my cheek lightly. Then, he rolled off the bed and onto his feet. He unhooked the clasp of the necklace and bent down, swept my hair to one side, and fastened the chain around my throat. On his way up, Kannon kissed the crown of my head. In three strides he was back in his own bed and turning out the lamp between us.

  “Good night, Endora. Sleep well,” he said.

  I just sat there, dumbfounded. Was he serious? A kiss on the forehead? That was how he said goodnight to his maybe girlfriend on their first night alone together? I reached over and switched the light back on.

  Kannon was lying on his back, hands folded behind his head staring at the ceiling. “Yes?” he asked without looking at me.

  I opened my mouth, though I had no idea what to say. Had I really been about to ask him why he didn’t try and make a move? Instead, I asked an even more embarrassing question.

  “Kannon, are you my boyfriend?” I reached for the light switch before he could see the tomato my cheeks were starting to resemble. Kannon beat me to the lamp and pulled it out of my reach.

  “Don’t you think our relationship is a little beyond boyfriend/girlfriend, Endora?” he asked pragmatically.

  I had no answer for that. So, instead of saying anything meaningful, I just said, “Oh, okay. Goodnight,” and tried stretching for the lamp again.

  “Are you wondering why I didn’t try and rip your clothes off just now?” Kannon asked, sounding amused.

  The flames of Tartarus cannot be worse than the ones burning my face this very instant, I thought, and closed my eyes like that would somehow make it all go away.

  “You were shaking. You clearly aren’t ready. That is okay. I just don’t want to rush you or make you feel uncomfortable,” Kannon continued.

  I sat in silence, pondering the ramifications of this.

  “Endora Lee, do you want to have sex with me?” Kannon asked with mock seriousness.

  “No,” I said too quickly. “I mean, I do maybe one day. Not today…tonight…now. Not right now.” Stop rambling, Eel.

  “Then for tonight I will stay over here. If you would like to join me, the covers are always open. The decision is yours.” Kannon was trying hard not to sound like he was making fun of me and I appreciated the effort, but felt stupid all the same.

  Kannon turned off the light and repositioned it halfway between us on the night table. I closed my eyes and tried to fall asleep. Half an hour later, I was still awake and had a strong suspicion Kannon was too. In the car he hadn’t snored or anything, but his heavy breathing had been audible over the radio. The hotel room was completely silent.

  “Kannon?” I whispered into the darkness, just in case he was actually sleeping.

  “Yes?” he replied immediately.

  I smiled. “Say I do come over there and get in bed with you… can I keep my clothes on?”

  “You’re the boss.”

  I threw the sheets on my bed back and hurried over to Kannon’s bed before I lost my nerve. He held the covers up so I could climb in and then wrapped his arms around me. I curled up with my back against his bare chest, my head on the same pillow as his. Kannon kissed my shoulder, then my neck, and finally the corner of my mouth.

  “’Night, Eel,” he whispered.

  “’Night, Kannon,” I said and finally fell asleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Betsy Klinefelter lived in the middle of nowhere. The address Kannon had typed in the GPS the day before wasn’t so much an address as latitude and longitude coordinates. Since we had no idea how the meeting with Betsy would go, Kannon paid for a second night at the hotel and we left most of our belongings in the room. I was reluctant to let my father’s research out of my sight, so it was safely stowed in the back seat of the Jeep.

  We reached Betsy’s house a little after 9 a.m. An old but well-maintained pickup truck was parked out front, which gave me hope she was actually home. I’d been a little worried on the drive that we would be forced to camp outside her place until she got back from work or something.

  “Ready?” Kannon asked after he’d turned off the Jeep.

  I nodded and opened the passenger side door. Standing on the doorstep of Betsy Klinefelter’s modest home, I heard the sounds of a television coming from inside. Live with Kelly and Michael if I had to guess. Kannon rang the doorbell, and a sound like wind chimes reverberated throughout the inside of the house. The television went quiet, muted by the watcher. Footsteps echoed, getting closer and closer until the front door flew open and I was staring down the barrel of a shotgun.

  “Ms. Klinefelter?” Kannon asked calmly, too calmly in my opinion since the gun was pointing at me, not him.

  The woman I assumed was Betsy Klinefelter swung the barrel to face Kannon. “Leave now,” she said in the raspy voice of a three-pack-a-day smoker.

  “We just want to talk to you, ma’am,” Kannon said, holding up his hands, palms out.

  “Talk? Do you think I am stupid, son? I know another Egrgoroi when I come across one.”

  “No, ma’am, I don’t think you’re stupid,” Kannon said.

  Rhetorical question! I wanted to shout at him.

  “We need your help, please.”

  Betsy shoved the barrel of the gun into Kannon’s chest hard enough to bruise. Kannon remained calm, only the tiny beads of sweat on his upper lip betraying his unease.

  “I think you may have met my father,” I said quickly. “Mark Andrews? He had your name and now he is missing and we can’t find him and we drove all the way from Maryland to see you and I’m being hunted by underworld assassins and Kannon broke his contract with Kronos,” I said in one breath.

  Betsy Klinefelter turned her attention back to me, really looking at me for the first time. Her hazel eyes widened when they landed on my dream catcher. She lowered her gun, turning it into a cane and leaning on it for support.

>   “Endora?” she asked dryly.

  I nodded, relieved she’d seen fit to lower the gun, but not so thrilled that she knew my name. On the one hand, Dad must have made contact with her. On the other hand, she made the fifth Egrgoroi now who knew more about me then I knew about myself prior to our first in-person meeting.

  “Come in.” Betsy held the door open.

  Kannon and I exchanged nervous glances.

  “One-time offer, kids,” Betsy snapped.

  “Thank you,” I told her and breezed past, dragging Kannon behind me by the shirt.

  Betsy led us through a tidy living space with mismatched furnishings that suggested she’d purchased them secondhand. The recliner in the TV room was worn, the afghan draped over the back shabby, and the TV itself had rabbit ears. The kitchen was barely large enough for one person, and a faint odor of burnt coffee and Febreeze drifted out when I passed. Two doors at the end of a short hallway, just past the TV room, led to a bedroom and bathroom. At least, I assumed that they did. Betsy didn’t exactly give us the grand tour.

  Sliding glass doors off the back of the house led to a sunroom. Betsy slid the doors open and a whoosh of stale smoke smacked me in the face. Instantly, my eyes began to itch; I blinked rapidly instead of rubbing them, lest I offend the angry lady with a shotgun.

  Betsy stepped into the sunroom, clearly expecting Kannon and me to follow, which we did a second later. I tried not to inhale but knew I couldn’t prevent the smoke from crawling up my nose and into my lungs forever.

  There was a comfortable-looking loveseat, an armchair, and a coffee table. On top of the table sat a cheap plastic ashtray, overflowing with cigarette butts. Betsy motioned for us to sit on the loveseat. Then, she rested the shotgun turned walking stick against the glass wall and disappeared back inside the house.

  “Do you think we made a mistake in coming here?” I asked as soon as she was out of earshot.

  “Not yet,” Kannon said. “She put the gun down, didn’t she?”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “Did you think she was going to greet us with open arms?” Kannon asked.

  “No. I just didn’t think it would be with a shotgun either.”

  A clinking of glasses stopped our hushed conversation in its tracks. Betsy appeared back in the sunroom with a pitcher of lemonade, three glasses, a tray of cookies, and a pack of Marlboros. She set the lemonade and cookies on the table and sat in the recliner. Next, Betsy selected a cigarette from her pack and clamped it between her lips while she rummaged through the pockets of her jeans until she found a lighter. It took her three tries before the lighter produced a flame. Once the cigarette was lit, Betsy took a long, shaky drag.

  “Help yourselves,” she wheezed on an exhale of smoke and gestured to the snacks she’d provided.

  Not wanting to be rude, I did. I poured lemonade for all three of us while Betsy sucked on her cancer stick and weighed Kannon. He stared right back at Betsy, mirroring her distrust. When I was finished doling out the lemonade, I picked up a cookie and started nibbling on it. It was lemon flavored as well and delicious.

  “So,” Betsy finally said. “What exactly is it that you kids think I can help you with?”

  I looked to Kannon, who cleared his throat and took a sip of his lemonade before answering. “I am an Egrgoroi, as you know, and I violated my contract with Kronos.”

  “And now you are being hunted so your soul can be reclaimed,” Betsy finished for him and blew out another plume of smoke.

  Kannon nodded.

  “And you want to know how I’ve stayed off their radar for so long?”

  Kannon nodded again.

  “You didn’t need to drive halfway across the country, kid. The answer has been right in front of you the entire time.” She stabbed the burning tip of her cigarette at my necklace. “You need to get yourself one of those.”

  “A dream catcher?” I asked, surprised. “I thought they just stopped the messages from coming through in your dreams and stuff.”

  “The dream catcher does that. It’s the diamond that keeps them blind to your whereabouts.”

  “Diamond?” I asked.

  “It’s the hardest mineral in this world. The word ‘diamond’ comes from the Greek for adamas, meaning invincible. That, combined with a blessing from a Shaman, will make it impossible for the gods to find you. Finding a real Shaman strong enough to bless the stone, well, that’s another story.”

  “Dad got this in Hilo,” I told her, fingering my necklace with a newfound reverence.

  Betsy nodded knowingly. “Yeah, great Shaman down there by the name of Alaneo. I told your father about him when he came to see me.”

  “Where is yours?” Kannon asked suspiciously.

  Valid question, I thought, seeing as Betsy Klinefelter wasn’t wearing a necklace or any other noticeable jewelry. Betsy eyed Kannon with open disdain, then stubbed out her cigarette in the overflowing ashtray. She turned sideways in her chair and began rolling up the bottom of her sweater.

  The entire area from Betsy’s shoulder blades to her waist was covered in a web of black tattooed lines. Feathers, like the gold ones on my necklace, started above the waistband of her jeans. And in the center of it all, embedded in Betsy’s pale flesh, was a quarter-sized diamond. The gem was enormous, much larger than the one in my dream catcher.

  I recoiled against the back of the loveseat. The tattoo was gruesome and beautiful at the same time. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from Betsy and her macabre artwork.

  Kannon stared in awed silence, mouth slightly agape. When he noticed me trying to blend in with the furniture, he took my hand and squeezed.

  Betsy fixed her shirt and turned back around to face us. “Like with all enchantments, the blessing will wear off, but I find that it lasts longer this way.” She patted her own back. “I have several like yours, too. I wear them when I leave the house, just in case.”

  “Why did my dad come to see you?” I asked when I was finally able to get the image of the stone embedded in Betsy’s back out of my mind.

  “Same reason you and your boyfriend are here,” Betsy said. “That and the Gates. He wanted to know if I knew where they are.”

  “He found them,” I told her. “Do you know why he was looking for them in the first place?” While I was convinced that I’d figured it out, I wanted confirmation.

  Betsy took a long sip of her lemonade, eyeing me over the glass. “I do,” she finally said, setting her glass down on the coffee table.

  “Are you going to tell us or should we guess?” Kannon asked impatiently.

  I elbowed him in the ribs. The woman had a gun; pissing her off was not a good idea. “Why, ma’am?” I pleaded.

  “He wants to go to Minos and appeal your case.”

  I swallowed thickly. That was exactly what I’d been afraid of; Dad believed that my soul was bound for Tartarus. My fate was sealed: I was condemned to an eternity of hell from the moment I was born, without ever committing a true crime. I might as well go back to the hotel and have sex with Kannon while doing lines of cocaine off of a mirror; living a chaste life wasn’t going to change my soul’s eternal resting place.

  “How often does that actually work?” Kannon wanted to know.

  “Never,” Betsy said matter-of-factly. “But, in your case it might be worth a shot. Not a risk I would take, but whatever.”

  “So there was some sort of mix-up? I wasn’t supposed to come back? Samantha was? It was Samantha the Panel gave the choice to?”

  Betsy nodded. “Yes, except it was no mix-up. Samantha Cable was given the option to return as an Egrgoroi, yes. Only, the contract she signed was for your second life, not hers. The Panel agreed to let you return to this world as an Egrgoroi on the condition that whatever Samantha’s Judgment was, it would be yours as well.”

  The new piece of information left me momentarily speechless. Aunt Samantha, my birth mother, a woman everyone in my family described as selfish, had traded her chance at a second life in e
xchange for mine. If only my mother, her sister, knew the truth. A horrible thought occurred to me - Mom did know the truth. That was what she’d meant when she said, “I don’t think you were given a second chance.”

  “Did Samantha know her Judgment before she made the deal?” I asked in a barely audible voice. Please say no, please say no, I chanted to myself. Giving her second chance to me was great and all if she hadn’t known her soul’s fate, because somehow I doubted my free-love, wild, drug-experimenting birth mother was bound for Elysian Fields.

  Kannon took my hand in his and squeezed. Betsy looked back and forth between the two of us.

  “Did Samantha know her soul was condemned when she asked to switch places with me?” I rephrased the question.

  “Endora,” Kannon began, “we don’t know what her Judgment was.”

  I turned to face him, tears pooling in my eyes. “Yes, Kannon, we do.” The hot liquid spilled over. “Dad wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble of finding a way into the underworld otherwise.”

  Kannon’s expression softened. Pain, empathy, and finally anger flashed in his eyes. The pressure on my hand increased. “I’m sure she didn’t know,” he said quietly.

  “It’s possible she didn’t,” Betsy chimed in. “The Panel doesn’t actually tell you the final Judgment until after they’ve given you the choice of becoming an Egrgoroi.”

  This knowledge didn’t change the fact that the next time I died I wouldn’t pass go, I wouldn’t collect two hundred dollars, and no matter how I lived my life up until that point I was going to burn in Tartarus… or whatever it was they did to inflict misery upon the souls there.

  Epilogue

  “Where to now?” Kannon asked. We were back in the Jeep and pulling out of Betsy Klinefelter’s driveway, with a loaner dream catcher for Kannon in exchange for our promise to never show up on her doorstep again.

  “Hotel first,” I said.

  “And then?”

  “And then we find a way through one of the physical gates to the underworld, find Minos, and appeal our cases.”