Black Knight (23 page)

Jimmy snorts. “Like he’d believe you.”

“He did.”

“Gimme a break.”

“Believe what you want. The guy’s intuitive. He knew I was telling him the truth.”

Jimmy gives me a hard look. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

“Marc, Chad, Ora, Li—they’re all talented, smart, brave. But against witches like Nordra and Viper they can’t do a whole lot. I wanted to meet with Marc—with witch-world Marc—to see if he’d let me try to connect him.”

“You don’t know if he’s a witch.”

“They might all be potential witches. That might be the reason they were selected. There’s certain signs—I don’t know. But it would be tricky to try to connect them in the Field. Too much is happening—we’re too exposed. But I knew Marc was from around here, and I figured if I could reach out to him, make him understand what’s at stake, he’d take the risk.”

“So just like that, on your first date, you asked him if he wouldn’t mind dying for you?”

“Please, it wasn’t a date. But to answer your question, yes, I told him that’s what he’d have to go through to get connected.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he’d have to think about it. He’s not bullshitting—he’s not that kind of guy. He’s seriously considering it. We’re going to meet again tomorrow.”

“How would you do it, if he does say yes?”

I sigh. “I don’t know. I could ask my father to fly in. Or I could ask Herme for help.”

“You might do better to bring him straight to Kendor.”

I force a smile. “Are you saying that because you’re hoping Kendor will try to connect him by throwing him off a cliff?”

Jimmy doesn’t smile back. “Everything you’ve told me has scared the total shit out of me. We’re back to where we were a month ago. You’re waking up in another world I can’t go to and you’re surrounded by danger. Tonight, when we go to sleep, how do I know if you’re going to be dead or alive in the morning?”

“If I die on the island there’s a chance I could still wake up alive here. You did.”

“Great. That makes me feel a whole lot better when it means my son will be left without a mother. And Huck’s still my son, Jessie; that piece of paper doesn’t change a thing.”

I nod, although I privately think it changes everything.

“You’re right. Huck needs me,” I say.

Jimmy keeps up the hard stare. “If Huck needs you so much, why did you take a swab of his cheek and mail it off to be tested by your father?”

I hesitate. “Before I killed Kari, she mocked you. She said, ‘If I cheated on Jimmy he never knew. Or, I should say, he never asked. He’s a nice guy but he’s too naive for this world.’” I pause. “I’m sorry, it stuck with me. I had to know.”

“Why?”

I shake my head. I don’t know what to say.

Jimmy sits up suddenly, grabs my hand, his touch far from tender. His eyes bore into me. “Listen, you’re not turning Huck over to Kari’s parents. They’re the reason she grew up so twisted. They’re worse than she was. There’s no way my son is growing up in that house. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

“Swear to me, Jessie. Swear you’re never giving him up.”

I nod quickly. “I swear.”

Jimmy’s eyes linger; he still doesn’t trust me. He lets go of my hand and lies down on his back. He speaks to the ceiling.

“You’re probably waiting for an apology. All the stuff you’re going through—I’m not dumb, I know it’s a thousand times more important than our personal problems. Like I said, I’m terrified of what might happen to you. I doubt I’ll sleep tonight, I know I won’t.”

I wait. “But?”

He glances over. “But think what I went through tonight. I get home and find this letter from this clinic in San Francisco. I open it and find out my son doesn’t share any of my genes. Then you come home drenched in blood. But you don’t talk to me. You take a shower and run back out the door. So I follow you and what do I find? You’re meeting another guy. You’re flirting with him. You take him out to eat. You talk for hours. Then, when you drop him off at his car, you guys make out in the parking lot.”

“We didn’t make out. He kissed me good-bye, a light peck on the lips. And I didn’t kiss him back.”

“Why?” he asks.

“Why?”

“Why did he kiss you? This guy you just met?”

“I don’t know, he just did.”

“How many times has he kissed you on the island?”

“Never.”

“So his witch-world persona is more of a stud?”

“Jimmy . . .”

“Don’t bother. What I’m saying is that was my night. That’s how everything looked from my point of view. So you can see why I don’t feel like apologizing.”

I swallow thickly, tears rolling over my cheeks. “And if you wake up tomorrow morning and I’m dead, will you regret it?” I’m acting like a child, I know. If he won’t give me love, I at least want his pity.

Jimmy rolls over, turning his back on me again.

There’s a million things he could say.

But he says nothing.

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAD WAKES ME IN THE
morning in the Field. Because I’ve slept on a stone floor, I sit up feeling stiff as a board. A torch burns in the corner of our cave and I notice Chad’s forgotten to shave. Oh, right, I remind myself. They don’t hand out razors in the Field.

“How did you sleep?” Chad asks.

“You’d be amazed,” I reply, thinking of the whole day I lived while the rest of them were unconscious. “How’s Ora doing?”

“He’s healed. He’s out scouting with Marc.”

“What? That’s impossible,” I gasp. I healed Ora as best I could before we recrossed the river, and then again back at our cave. But the best I could do was stop the bleeding and take away some of his pain. The last I saw him, before I dozed off, the wound to his shoulder blade was still ugly.

“Li worked on him when you were asleep,” Chad says. “None of us ever saw anything like it. The wound healed right in front of us. Ora doesn’t even have a scar.”

Li’s a witch! Fantastic!

“Where’s Li right now?” I demand.

“Just outside. Keeping watch.”

“Tell her to come here. I need to talk to her alone.”

“Gotcha,” Chad says, jumping up. I’d filled him in as best I could about my true identity while I was working on Ora—Marc backed up my miraculous claims—but I know Chad still has a million questions. He’s a good guy, though, very mature. He never gets impatient and he doesn’t mind taking orders from me.

Li appears a minute later and sits beside me, not far from the torch. I ask how long Ora and Marc have been gone.

“An hour. They said they were heading for the hot spring to cook more fish,” Li replies, her eyes tired.

“How are you feeling? Are you getting enough to eat?”

Li shrugs. “The fish helps but I’m missing my meds more than I thought I would. I’m dizzy and have a pounding headache. I just want to close my eyes and sleep.”

“Maybe you should.”

“That could be dangerous.”

She’s talking about falling into a diabetic coma. Her condition is more serious than I realized. Yet she was able to heal Ora. I’m missing something here.

“I heard about what you did for Ora. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“That you’re a witch.”

Li shakes her head. “I’m not a witch.”

“Are you saying you don’t experience another world when you go to sleep at night?”

She looks at me funny. “What other world? Are you talking about Seoul?”

“No. Let’s back up a minute. How long have you been able to heal?”

She hesitates. “Since Lula died.”

I remember her sister had been tortured to death in a North Korean prison. Li had told me she had been in the room when her sister died. A bizarre idea suddenly pops in my head.

“Li, you said Lula was your twin sister. Was she an identical twin?”

“Yes.”

“What I’m going to ask next—please forgive me for forcing you to remember such a painful time. But you said you were close to Lula when she died. What did you feel right then? The exact instant she died?”

Li blinks away tears. “Sad. Pain in my heart.”

I feel like a jerk for pressing. “Anything else?”

Li lowers her head. “It’s hard to say with words. When Lula died, I felt her come inside me. Like we became one. Then I felt her leave, go to another place, but not so far that I couldn’t still feel her.”

“And after that you could heal?”

Li looks up, catches my eye. “Lula is the one who heals. She healed Ora last night. I felt her near.”

Her remarks strengthen the bizarre theory that’s forming in my mind. The key to activating the witch genes is the death experience. Technically, Li never died. But her sister did—her genetically
identical
sister. It’s my belief that the two were so close that Lula’s trauma triggered in Li a partial awakening of her genetic potential.

My father, no one on the Council for that matter, has ever discussed such a possibility with me. But clearly Li can heal. She can heal better than I can. Yet it’s equally obvious that she can’t be a complete witch. She has no awareness of witch world.

“How many people have you healed?” I ask.

“Only a few, since I came to Seoul. People I know, or the parents of close friends. I don’t want people talking about me.”

“Have you ever tried to heal yourself?”

Li is puzzled. “I don’t think I can. Lula, if she wanted to help me, she would help.”

“You heard what happened last night. This place is very dangerous. We’re going to have to keep moving, keep fighting, just to stay alive. We need you at full strength. You assume you need your medicine to get better. But I think if you and I—and Lula—work together, we can get rid of your diabetes, or at least make it better. Do you want to try?”

Li looks around as if searching for her sister.

“What do I do?” she asks.

“Lie down on your back in front of me. Lie as close as you can, let your side press against my knees. I’m going to put my left hand on your forehead and my right hand over your pancreas. You put both your hands over my right hand and just close your eyes.”

From studying
Gray’s Anatomy
, for the premed program I plan to take at UCLA, I know the pancreas is located not far above the belly button. As Li wraps her fingers around my right hand and closes her eyes, I immediately feel a heat radiating from her palms. It’s extremely hot and we have scarcely begun.

“You might feel Lula nearby or you might not,” I say. “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you feel the energy flowing through your hands and mine, flowing into your body. Right now it feels like heat but that can change. You might feel magnetism as well. Just relax into it and let go. Don’t try to make the energy come. It flows by itself.”

“Lula,” Li whispers, sweat forming on her brow. “She’s here.”

“Then let Lula take over. Your sister loves you. Let her help repair your body so you are no longer sick.”

The weird thing is I see another version of Li, dressed in stylish clothes and with longer hair. Closing my eyes, my vision of her sharpens and I suspect I’m seeing Lula as she appears in witch world.

Whoever she is, she holds up her palms in my direction and they give off a warm pink light, which washes over me like a soothing shower. I feel Lula is not just helping her sister, she’s soothing me, and I realize how great their potential is. The sisters’ healing genes might be two of the most powerful on earth.

I don’t know how long we sit under the shower of pink light. It’s so comforting—I feel no desire to stop. But at some point I appear to wander into a dream, with Jimmy and Marc in it. The two are arguing, I’m not sure why, I only wish they would stop. Jumping between them, I stick out my arms.

It’s then I awaken with a jolt.

Li is sitting up beside me.

“Are you all right, Jessie?” she asks.

“Never mind about me. How do you feel?”

Smiling, she puts her hand over her abdomen as if she were feeling a kicking infant inside. “It feels good. I feel good.”

I lean over and hug her and whisper in her ear. “I think I saw your sister,” I say.

“She saw you. She told me so.”

We help each other to our feet, both of us feeling dazed from the healing. We go outside to check on Chad and find him talking to Marc. Both stand inside the shadows of the cliff so neither is visible from the valley. The sun’s a lot higher in the sky than I expected and I realize I must have slept late.

Marc looks me over in his usual lustful manner. “How’s sleeping beauty?” he asks.

“Rested. How come you came back alone? Where’s Ora?”

“He’s still at the hot spring and he’s not alone. We made contact with the leaders of two other groups. Kyle, a freaking rock star from London, and Sam, a fashion designer from New York City.”

“You’re positive they’re witches?” I ask.

“They sure know a lot of weird shit if they’re not. Yeah, I’d bet they’re for real. They want to meet with you, form an alliance, have their groups join ours. At least that’s what they say. But me and Ora—we didn’t want to give away our hiding place. That’s why I came to get you, so we could meet on neutral ground.”

“You left Ora out there alone?” I ask.

Marc shrugs. “What choice did I have? There was no way I was giving away the location of this cave.”

“You should have stayed with him,” Chad says.

“In your bookworm opinion,” Marc says.

I speak. “You three stay here. I’ll see what this Kyle and Sam really want.”

“Hold on, sister,” Marc says. “Ora ain’t exactly where you think and I’m not saying where he is unless I get to come along.”

I fret. “I don’t like leaving Chad and Li alone. It’s not safe.”

“No place is safe on this crazy island,” Marc says in a tone that makes it clear he’s not going to back down.

The two of us set off at a brisk clip, heading toward a spot that Marc says is “near” the hot spring. We’ve barely left the cave when he wants to know if I spoke to his double.

“I did,” I say.

“How did it go?”

“He says he’ll think about it.”

“Think about dying? Boy, Jessie, you must have been mighty persuasive.”

“Is he telling me the truth?”