Fates (10 page)

It was a sheer drop straight down to the alley.

Back down the stairs, then. He yanked the rusty door back open and froze.

Corinthe.

God, she was fast.

She wasn't even winded. Her breathing was slow and deliberate, and she took several steps toward him as he backed up, raising both hands so she would know he wasn't going to hurt her. The door slammed with a bang and he jumped. Shit.

“Look. Look. Whatever's going on—we can talk about it, okay?” Luc didn't even know what he was saying. He needed time. Time to figure out a plan, time to talk her down.

Corinthe stopped and cocked her head. She had retrieved the knife from the beach, but at least she wasn't leveling it at him. She watched him with intense focus, her gaze moving with each twitch of his body. It made him feel extremely exposed, vulnerable. Jesus Christ. Her eyes were practically purple.

“Can you talk to me? Can you tell me what the hell is going on?”

She wasn't coming at him anymore. Maybe it was working—the talking. He had a sudden memory of Dr. Asswipe telling him to
talk out his feelings,
and he felt the wild urge to laugh. What he needed now was a weapon and an escape route.

“Whatever I did to offend you, I'm sorry, okay?” He watched her carefully. He had assumed she might be on something, but her eyes were too lucid, her movements too steady. So what did that leave?

Batshit crazy?

“Look—last night and this morning have kind of sucked for me, okay? I've been looking for my sister. If I scared you, I'm sorry.”

The thought occurred to him that maybe Corinthe had been sleeping on one of the boats in the Marina. Was she a runaway? Maybe he had startled her and she had come after him in self-defense. Assumed he was going to turn her in.

It had to be a misunderstanding.

Now that the hard lines of her face had softened, she looked like the girl he had talked to at the party. Luc allowed himself to relax just a little. There was some need in her eyes—something he couldn't identify. He wanted to put his arms around her; he wanted to tell her it would be okay.

Great, now he was feeling sorry for the crazy girl who just tried to stick a knife in his gut.

“Can I walk you back to the Marina?” he asked gently. “Is there someone I can call? Someone at home?”

At the word
home,
her shoulders went rigid again. She sprang forward, the knife pointed at his chest, and he barely had time to react. She forced him to back up until he was almost at the edge of the roof.

He glanced over his shoulder, feeling a moment of swinging vertigo. Wind buffeted the clothing clipped to the lines strung between the buildings. Jumping was out of the question. There was another building ten or fifteen feet away. He'd never make it over the gap.

Anticipate your opponent. Look for an opening.
His coach's barked commands fired through his head. But there
were
no openings. He dodged left suddenly, then right, tried to get past her, but she anticipated every move he made.

She obviously knew what she was doing. The door to the stairs was twenty feet away, but he'd have to get by her first. Which meant exposing his back to her if he made a run for it.

She raised her knife again, pointing it at his chin.

Luc's pulse was roaring. He turned his head. He had no choice. He'd have to jump. He spotted a string of shirts and pants that hung motionless on one of the crisscrossed laundry lines despite the stiff breeze blowing off the ocean, as though they were a photograph. Goose bumps sprang up over his skin and the back of his neck tightened, as if someone were squeezing it.

That was his way out.

A certainty powered through his body, just like it did when he was on the field. He didn't know how he knew it, but it was as clear as his own name.

Jump.

Luc turned back toward Corinthe. She paused, and a gust of wind lifted strands of her hair, making it dance around her head chaotically. For a second, insanely, he wondered how it would feel to have her body pressed up against him one more time. When her hair settled back down, he noticed a tiny light darting about near her head, its glow buzzing softly in and out. He could swear it was a firefly.

“Who are you really?” he asked.

When she didn't respond, he took a small, involuntary step forward. The soft grayish-purple color of her eyes was unlike anything he'd ever seen, and he couldn't keep from staring. Her pupils dilated and the color changed, deepening to a wild violet hue that reminded him of dark storm clouds in a summer sky. The air between them felt charged with something electric.

“I'm sorry,” she said, and for a moment he thought she looked troubled.

It finally registered: she was dead serious about hurting him.

Luc stepped up onto the ledge. His heart raced so hard he thought it might explode from his chest. Corinthe stared at him with narrowed eyes, releasing a small bit of air between her lips, a cross between a hiss and a sigh. It was as though she knew what she had to do but wanted to stop herself. And then her eyes went cold, her body tensed, and she arched her arm back. The blade glinted in the sunlight.

She threw the knife straight at him.

He launched off the edge of the roof. The world seemed to slow down, and for several seconds he felt as if he were flying, weightless, through the air.

Then his Giants cap whipped off and sound rushed back like a freight train. Luc knew he was falling. He reached desperately for the clothesline, stretched his arms and fingers toward it.

Panic, white-hot and blinding, raced through him.

His fingers brushed the edges of a pink blouse, and then they were empty. The wind was rushing, roaring, all around him. He wasn't going to make it.

Suddenly, he couldn't see. Everything had broken apart into mists and vapor. He spun through the nothingness, half aware, wondering with a sudden pang if this was what death felt like.

C
orinthe watched Luc disappear in midair. She felt as though she'd swallowed a mouthful of dust. The only thing left of him was the black-and-orange Giants baseball cap, sopping wet on a dark corner of the roof.

She knew this roof. The way the water tower's shadow grew across the south corner. The way the blacktop looked a little like it had steam rising from it where the early sun hit it. This was the place where she'd first appeared in Humana ten years ago, by the gateway she'd passed through as a child.

This was the way to the Crossroad.

The memory of it made her shiver. She'd been plucked from Pyralis and pulled through a swirling, misty darkness—tumbling through the chaos for what had seemed like hours. Every muscle in her body felt stretched to its limit, and she knew the Unseen Ones were angry, pulling her apart in every direction to see if she'd break.

Corinthe had never felt such violence or confusion, and when she landed on this roof, her body ached. Her lips were cracked, her dress torn, and a matted nest of hair replaced the precious braid she'd worn in Pyralis. This was the same roof where Miranda had found her, cowering from the sun.

She hadn't been back since—hadn't known where to find it—until now. It couldn't all be a random chance. Being a Fate had taught her one thing: there were no coincidences. Perhaps the Unseen Ones were testing her.

When she'd looked into Luc's brown eyes in the ocean this morning and realized that she would have to kill him, she'd felt as though the water had opened up momentarily, about to swallow her in darkness.

The way he had looked at her, the hunger in his eyes, made something ache deep inside of her. His square jaw. His strange half grin. That stupid Bay Sun Breakers T-shirt, revealing broad shoulders and strong arms.

She was an Executor, and feelings had no business in her life, but for one second, she wondered what it would be like to kiss him.

How could a boy she'd met only twice before make her feel like this—hot and cold and shivery, both sick to her stomach and full of adrenaline? These were human sensations. In all her time exiled to Humana, no one had affected her quite like Luc did.

It didn't matter.

It couldn't matter.

But why did it have to be
his
fate? That part still bothered her, even though she had never questioned Miranda, or any of the other fates she had had to execute before. It was why she had hesitated when she could have slashed her knife across his throat and been done.

What did it
mean
?

Was it because she hadn't stopped thinking about him, thinking that somehow, he had been chosen for her? But that was insane. Her thoughts didn't matter. That was the whole point. She must do as the marbles dictated.

She had to follow him, to find him. The Unseen Ones didn't care about reasoning or second-guessing; all they would see was that she had failed, just when she was so close to being restored to her home.

Her fingers found the locket around her neck, and she pulled it out from under her shirt in preparation. She closed her eyes. There could be no confusion, anger, or helplessness. Only one thing: determination. She would enter the gateway to the Crossroad and find him. She backed up so she could get a running start. She sucked in a lungful of air, trying to calm her pulse.

Then she ran.

Her boots thundered across the roof. Pushing up and off the small ledge, she launched herself into the air. Wind tunneled straight through her, making her gasp.

This is going to hurt.

Suddenly, she remembered the face of a terrified woman; she'd been standing on the Golden Gate Bridge, swaying like a reed in the wind. About to jump. It had been Corinthe's job to catch her, to pull her back from the edge. She remembered how the woman had suddenly turned and started to weep, how she had thrown her arms around Corinthe, squeezing until Corinthe's chest hurt.

Corinthe had pulled away. She had not understood the touch, the rush of feelings that had overwhelmed her.

I'm sorry.
The thought flashed through her mind but then was gone as a sharp burst of pain took away her breath.

Nothing else mattered.

Corinthe fell into the swirling chaos of lights and sound that was the Crossroad. Inhuman noises echoed around her: screams and howls, the laments of all the corrupted or lost souls that had been banished to the spaces between worlds. She felt as though her head would explode. She fell, tumbling out of control, into vast emptiness.

She would stay lost in the Crossroad forever unless she could calm down. Concentrate. Breathe. Still gripping the locket, she pulled at the clasp and the top flipped open. The ballerina immediately began to spin to the tinny melody.

Corinthe's heart skipped a beat when the dancer began to slow. She watched in fascination. Where would it point? To home, or to Luc?

She closed her eyes and imagined the soft moss and the twilight air buzzing with fireflies, the smell of flowers in the Great Gardens, the stone statues that jealously guarded the river that flowed into all time.

No.
Corinthe wanted to go home, but to be
accepted
there required one thing: killing Lucas. She focused on him instead—his black hair, the square jaw, the way he'd held her waist when they were both knee-deep in the water.

Her eyes fluttered open and the winds lessened. She felt more stable as she willed the ballerina to find him. It slowed to a stop, finally pointing to a coil of greenish-blue mist. It wound its way to the right and Corinthe leaned in that direction. The howls began to recede; the pounding in her head began to ease.

The ground solidified under her feet. The mist ebbed, until it swirled around her legs like a lazy cat. She cautiously moved forward as the fog dissipated, searching for the right doorway. Thousands of worlds connected at the Crossroad, and if she chose wrong, she might be lost forever.
He
might be lost forever. Lucas.

Humans entering gateways and traveling the Crossroad between worlds went against the very laws of the universe. Only Messengers and Executors were allowed to travel them. One thing was clear: it was her fault Luc had gotten away.

But the coil of mist still hung faintly in the air, and she could detect his human smell—something slightly spicy but soft, like cloves. The dim outline of trees took shape in front of her. Soon she had cleared the mist, and she found herself in a forest. The air felt thick and warm and humid on her skin. Almost instantly, she began to sweat.

Corinthe had seen the world of the Blood Nymphs on the great stone maps in the garden of Pyralis, which depicted the whole layout of the universe. The stones, like the universe itself, would constantly shift and morph, but she knew each world had a different relationship to the center of things.

She didn't know exactly where this particular world existed, only that it was far from Pyralis Terra. It was dominated by forest, and beyond that, an endless mist.

The other Fates had told stories: wisdom collected through the ages from the marbles, from the whispers that reached them through the Crossroad. The Nymphs who lived here were parasites, and they were very protective of their forest. Of
this
forest. They nested in the branches of the living
Salix babylonica
trees and fed off the blood of the sentient creatures.

The sister tree of the
Salix babylonica
grew in Humana. They called it the weeping willow, as though the suffering of their kind could be felt even across the worlds. She brushed her fingers through a curtain of wispy tendrils so thin and delicate they looked like they might break off with only a gentle pull. The branches stirred, moved closer to her touch. A stem curled around her wrist, tugging gently, as if the tree wanted to play.

Corinthe knew better. While the trees appeared to be victims of the Nymphs, they could be as cruel as their bloodsucking masters. She slowly reached for her blade and remembered too late that it had disappeared into the void with Lucas.

She disentangled the vine carefully from her wrist and took several steps away from the tree. Angry hissing filled the air and the tree shook, the ends of its branches lashed out like whips. A high-pitched whine sounded behind her. Corinthe spun around.

Nothing.

Over her head, perched among the vast canopy of branches, which barely allowed any sunlight to penetrate, dozens of Blood Nymphs were watching her, their skin different shades of blue and green, so that they blended perfectly into the shadowed branches.

The whine sounded behind her again. This time when she swung around, a Nymph stood only a few feet away.

This one was pale yellow and virtually transparent, with spidery red veins crisscrossing the surface of her skin. Her flowing hair matched the color of her skin. Her eyes were slanted and lacked eyelids; they were like amethyst marbles. The Nymph hummed again, a sound that reminded Corinthe of the whine of an enormous mosquito. It made her skin crawl.

Above them, the others joined in, and soon the air filled with a crescendo of high-pitched echoes. The noise made pain blaze in Corinthe's head. The trees swayed as if dancing along to their song.

“I'm not here to harm you. I'll be quick.” Corinthe hoped that the Nymphs could not smell her fear. They fell silent again, watching her. Did they know what she was? Could Executors even perform fates here? Could she defend herself, if she needed to?

In Humana, Corinthe was an Executor. Here, though, the lines were blurred. She had never harmed another living creature of her own will, didn't even know if she
could.
The ramifications could be catastrophic. She had lost a single marble and had been banished to Humana for it. What kind of punishment might the death of a Nymph, an unfated killing, bring?

Several more pairs of glowing amethyst eyes peered down at her through the canopy of leaves. How many were up there, watching her, waiting?

Corinthe backed slowly away from the Nymph, glad that it did not follow. Then she quickly ducked down a pathway. The Nymphs would still watch her, but Corinthe was more worried that they would find Luc before she did.

Females who wandered into this world might end up as the Blood Nymphs were—parasites, killers, transformed into the pale, evil creatures with their sharp teeth and lidless eyes. But males? Males were teased, tormented, and bled slowly, skin pierced by sharp teeth in a thousand different places. Then they were fed to the trees.

She pushed on, faster now. She had to find Luc before something happened to him. He had to die by her hand. That was what the marble had shown. Her knife.

There was no other way to interpret it.

Her fate
depended
on his.

If she did not find Luc, if she did not kill him the way the marble had indicated—the hand, the knife—she would never be allowed to return to Pyralis Terra. Just thinking about her home sent such a strong wave of yearning through her that she almost stumbled.

Dozens of paths spiraled in different directions, dead-ended or changed orientation suddenly, only to curl around and return to where they had started. If Corinthe got lost in the mazes, she would be unlikely to find her way out and would be left to the fickle impulses of the Nymphs.

Corinthe stopped and closed her eyes. A light breeze blew tendrils of hair across her neck, and a burst of a sweet, exotic scent filled her lungs. The acrid harshness of Humana began to fade from her thoughts, and her old senses returned, sharpened. A subtle pattern emerged in her mind and she followed it, eyes still closed. Sounds filtered through the canopy: soft calls of birds, the rustle of leaves and the creak of old branches, the gurgle of the Nymphs feeding somewhere over her head. She didn't dare glance up. She didn't want to see what could not be unseen.

A lingering aroma of cloves, out of place among all the sweet smells of flowers, guided her down a narrow pathway to the right. The trail led deeper into the trees, the sunlight all but swallowed by shadow and fog. Several times Corinthe had to stop and backtrack when the scent faded, but she always found it again. Her tracking skills were rusty, but the more she used them, the easier it became.

A low hissing stopped her. The sound was lower, quieter than the calls of the Nymphs. She peered through a tangle of vines. A dozen enormous, translucent flowers grew in a circle in the middle of a sun-filled clearing. The flowers looked almost like guards, standing with their backs to one another. There was nothing like them, even in the garden of Pyralis, where every flower in the known universe grew.

Corinthe pushed her way off the path, mesmerized by the way the light hit the petals and shifted into different hues, as though each petal were made of a prism. Their buds were the size of overgrown pumpkins; their petals curled inward. It wasn't until Corinthe stepped closer to examine a peculiar-looking vine that she saw it wasn't a vine at all, but a slim wrist with green-tipped fingers.