04 Last (41 page)

Daniel nodded – he understood her sense of duty and the reasons behind her cautiousness. It was the same reasons that kept him from getting too near her or releasing the tension in his body.

“So, if we’re both too paranoid to touch the other, in fear that it’s a trap, how do we solve this? How do I even know if you are the real Moira?” Daniel asked.

“Our abilities have been proven,” Moira said.

“I understand,” Daniel replied.

Moira looked down at her hand. Her red eyes were intense – prepared for the pain she was about to face. After only the briefest of seconds, her hand started to bleed. Silver blood ran out from her skin, as if it had decided on its own that it no longer wished to be in her body. Moira looked up from her hand and eyed us with her calm eyes.

“Proof enough?” she asked.

Daniel had not flinched when she had made her hand bleed. His eyes were narrowed and far away. He was contemplating the future. I wondered if I could do the same. Seeing the train station explode was the first time I had ever seen the future in my waking moments. But why not now? Why not try to see what she was going to do? I focused for the briefest of moments, feeling my mind expand in a way that transcended time, and a scene rose in front of my eyes. It was Moira using her talent on Jackson. He collapsed to the ground, his face covered in blood; his eyes searched my face for help.

Moira was about to speak when I was pulled back to the present. Her words were the beginning of the scene I had witnessed.

I didn’t give her the chance to begin. I knocked her out of her chair with a swift kick and moved to her. She rolled away from me and gained her feet with a graceful movement. Her eyes moved to my face – I was the new focus of her talent. But I was not as helpless as Jackson was to submit to her talent. She started to use her talent, but I held up a hand. The talent backfired, and her face was the one that erupted in blood. Instinctively, I moved through the darkness between places and came out behind her. I kicked out her knees. She hit the ground, sending showers of sand out around her. Before she could get up, I put a foot on her back, so she couldn’t use her talent on anyone else, and pulled out my knife, which Daniel had returned to my boot. Daniel caught my hand before I could follow through on my violence. In my mind, she was attacking my friends – that meant I had to be proactive. I had to stop her. Daniel had realized that; perhaps he had even seen what I was about to do next. His expression told me to calm down. His touch told me that he was willing to move toward violence to stop me from doing something I would regret. I took a deep breath and willed myself to calm down.

I stepped away from Moira, and she was able to get up again. She looked at me, her eyes impressed with what she saw. Whatever she had been expecting from her attempted attack had not been what she had encountered.

“Well, that settles that,” she said. “I’ll take you to Reaper now.”

“Just like that?” Jackson asked.

“No one but Clare could have reacted like that,” Moira said.

“Like what?” I asked.

Moira’s lips lifted up in to mysterious smile, but she did not reply.

“Ready?” she asked.

I looked at Daniel and the others for their opinion. They had no doubt – Moira would take us to Reaper. Daniel nodded at her, and Moira held her hand out to me, to share the location of Reaper’s ‘secret place.’ The place in mind, I took the others’ hands, and we moved out of the desert to the place in-between.

The scenery of our landing was unique. It was, in a word, jungle. Bright greens and lush foliage decorated the earth in a splendid display of nature. The world of blue skies and brown earth ceased to exist – there was only green. It covered everything. A thick canopy of trees blocked the sun, though it did not stop the heat that circled us. I could feel the heat working against my body. It was the first time since the change I had felt affected by the weather. A small trickle of sweat started at the base of my back.

A large snake taller than me was curled along the branches of one of the trees above us. It was a bright yellow and looked very poisonous. I did not have long to focus on its deadly nature. As soon as we appeared, I felt an overwhelming sense of being watched. It came from more than one place. I searched the thick foliage for signs of the watcher. The historian’s training helped me realize that there were ten watchers – I felt tied to all of them.

There was a brief pause then River stepped out from behind a row of vines as thick as my body. She had looked better. Her hair was a mess and was missing its usual bright display; her face was covered in dirt and sweat. Her clothes were ripped in places and she was down to a tank top and jeans. Her jacket was gone. She took us in with a neutral expression on her face. The friendship I had developed with her, the friendship she had with Moira was tempered by her desire to make sure we were not impersonators. She was just as cautious as Moira had been.

“Two years ago you saved my life,” River said to Moira. “How?”

Moira’s answer was confident. “With a spoon.”

I looked between Moira and River curiously, wondering if they were being serious. It was hard to tell.

“Alright,” River said with a nod.

I felt the feeling in the air shift around us as a great sigh of relief went through the Watchers. They had gone through enough in the past day, perhaps even more than I had. They were happy we weren’t Seekers. It was the first good news they had heard since the attack.

River gestured us to follow her through the vines. The vines shifted and moved to create a path as we walked. The talent was impressive. I felt myself instinctively trying to understand the process. My mind latched on to the talent and filed it away for later.

Finally, the vines stopped shifting.

The part of the jungle we had come out to was just as crowded with vegetation as the rest, but when I looked up, expecting more jungle snakes, I saw a city of rooms made out of the vines. Large trees were circled with stairways that went up and circled around the rooms. The rooms were as far as the eye could see in all directions. There was a canopy of tree houses that went beyond the clearing. People peeked out of their rooms as we stepped in to view. Some of the faces were familiar – older members of the Saints – while other faces were brand new. There was relief in many of the faces. I saw their expressions turn from solemn to hopeful in an instant. It was a strange thing to witness when it was directly related to my appearance. I ignored the people watching us – though seeing them only reinforced the impression the scene left in my mind. The Watchers were the closest things to elves I had ever seen, and the jungle, with vine-made rooms made it difficult to ignore the impression.

“Did we just step in to Middle Earth?” I asked.

The others looked at me blankly, except for Daniel. His eyes also swept the canopy of formed vines, as impressed by them as I was. His expression suggested my question wasn’t far from the truth – or so it appeared.

“Where’s Reaper?” Daniel asked.

“Over here.” River gestured at the large tree in the center of the small clearing. “He’s been trying to coordinate us all, but it’s been difficult. Sara and Shawn have been asleep since they passed out after bringing us all here. Our communications have been down…he’s doing what he can to keep us going…We all are.”

“I imagine he’s lost contact with the other members of the Saints who were out on missions,” Daniel said.

River’s eyes were worried, more worried than they should have been. I realized King had been out on a mission. He had left with Preacher right before we had left the ship to look for the bomb in New York. I also knew that River liked him more than just as a colleague.

“Yes,” River agreed.

Daniel nodded. “We’ll see what we can do about that.”

River nodded gratefully, and gestured us to follow her up the stairs. As we walked, the other Saints kept up their relentless staring. I thought it was because of Daniel and the others – gratefulness that Reaper’s left hand had come back to the group, but it went beyond that. Their eyes lingered on my face. Low whispers started to fill the jungle as much as the sounds of insects and unnamed creatures. I heard my name repeated over and over again. Some of the voices commented on the change. They could sense I was different. They had no idea.

Jackson leaned forward as we climbed up the vine-stairs, which wound around the large tree all the way to the top.

“Looks like you’re famous, stubborn,” Jackson said.

“Speaking of that,” River said. “Did you…you know?”

“Have an agonizingly painful experience that lasted a day?” I asked.

“Yeah,” River agreed.

“Yes,” I replied.

“There’s a rumor going around that the change was supposed to make you…strange,” River said.

“Strange?” I asked.

She looked as if she didn’t know the right way to put the truth. Her eyes scoured the vine-city for a way to articulate the discovery that had been made in my absence. She searched for a way not to offend me with her words.

“Word has gotten around from the people we saved from the nine’s castle,” River said. “They said you were part of some prophecy that would help us win the fight…After the fight with the Seekers on the boat, and our retreat here, our people have taken comfort in the fact that you are meant to lead us against him. They say you are the only one who can stop the coming storm.”

I looked at Daniel for help. I had never thought the truth would get out; I had assumed that Odette had not made her vision common knowledge. But the truth always had a way of getting found out, even when it was held by one of the most conniving Watchers in history. People, particularly Watchers, had a way of searching out what was hidden. Someone had found out why I had been summoned to the castle. The fact that I was different to begin with had only made them more certain of the validity of the ‘truth’ they had learned. Daniel shrugged at me as I searched his face for help – he couldn’t stop a rumor any more than I could. No amount of talking would stop the whispers...or the hope that had sprung up in their hearts.

“Oh,” I said to River, not knowing what else to say.

She looked at me strangely but did not press the issue. She could tell I was not ready to face the conversation she wanted to have about my abilities and my destiny to fight Marcus.

The vine-made stairs came out to a large platform near the top of the tree. There were rooms around the edge of the platform for Reaper and his people. As we stepped up the last stair, Spider stepped out of the room to our immediate right. His clothes were torn and his face was covered in dirt and sweat. He looked barely like the boy I remembered under the moisture and filth. The dirt made his eyes the brightest part of his face. His green eyes lit up with pleasure when he saw us, though his lips lifted in to a sarcastic smirk.

“You’re kind of late, doll,” Spider said. “Missed the fun.”

“I was busy,” I replied.

“That’s what all women say,” Spider said.

“What would you know about it?” I asked. “You’re eight.”

“Eleven,” he corrected automatically.

“He’s kind of right, though,” Jackson added.

Reaper stepped out of a vine-made hut directly in front of us. His face looked drained, and his eyes were lost in worry. Like River and Spider, he looked worse for the wear. His black hair was undone from his regular knot at the nape of his neck and his skin was covered in dirt. He carried his dirt with familiarity and indifference. It was just part of the situation he had found himself in; it was not as important as the people he was trying to lead. He searched our group with worried eyes. It was worry that contradicted his words.

“Thank goodness you’re safe,” Reaper said.

“I was about to say the same thing,” Daniel replied.

“Where are the others?” he asked.

He meant Alex. There was the source of his worry.

“The bomb was not a fake after all,” Daniel replied. “It blew up Grand Central.”

Reaper’s eyes widened as he immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion. Daniel did not seem to realize Reaper thought Alex had been in the explosion. I hurried to correct Reaper’s misunderstanding.

“Alex, Serenity and Eli stayed to help people,” I said. “We’re supposed to go get them after finding you.”

Reaper nodded and masked his lingering fear with another worry.

“He actually did it?” Reaper asked us all. “He blew something up?”

“With bells on,” Jackson said.

“But for what reason?” Reaper asked in a frustrated voice. “What possible purpose does that serve?”

“Fear?” Daniel asked back. “A distraction?”

Reaper looked past us to the canopy of vines. His eyes were lost in thought. He was trying to figure out something that was impossible to figure out with the facts we had in front of us. It was like looking at a puzzle with all the center pieces missing.

“But why?” Reaper asked. “Marcus doesn’t bother with scaring humans. To him, it is a waste of his time. There has to be another reason.”

“I’m afraid I know one,” a new voice said.

We turned and saw that Han and Beatrice had followed us up the steps. They alone looked well kept, as if they had been shielded from the worst of the violence and trauma. Beatrice eyed her son carefully, and they shared a moment of wordless communication. Her look asked if he was okay, and Daniel’s said he was fine – that we were all fine.