Authors: David James
“Okay. Okay.” Emaline’s hands were shaking. “What do you mean one of two?”
“That’s why it’s so important for us to follow Brigid’s plan. There is a boy who will join Kate as part of her destiny. We must save him. He is the Dreamer. We can’t let the corrupt find him, for that’s when they will kill your sister and use Kate’s powers against the world. We have to protect them both, and our plan is the only way to do it. We have to give them both those few years to live before everything changes. Magda will perform a binding spell on the boy so he won’t be able use any of his powers until she undoes the spell. He should be safe until then.”
“And what of Kate? What does she have to do with all of this?”
“There are two, Ema, always two: The Dreamer and the Destroyer. That’s what the prophecy foretold. That’s what Magda warned Brigid against.”
“But... that means...”
“Emaline. Don’t think about it, please.”
“If... if the boy is the Dreamer then...”
Their hands together.
Eyes locked.
Hearts broken.
Emaline whispered, “Our daughter, Chris.”
Christopher said, “If the boy is the Dreamer, then Kate is the Destroyer. She is the one who will end us all.”
~
My eyes blinked open, and all I saw were Magda’s looking back. And in that dark, violet fever I saw myself. My past and my future.
My beginning.
“Now you know they loved you,” Magda said.
-Calum-
My words dropped like rocky cliffs breaking, falling into a still and quiet ocean, rippling waves out until they were nothing but tiny lifts against the horizon. Lost, hopeless words. I said, “That’s not true. Kate, don’t listen to her. It’s not true.”
The screaming still rang in my ears. Magda’s voice painting pictures against Kate’s wordless yells. Blood sliding down their faces, puddling just above their lips before falling further. Eyes white and wild, spinning madly.
“It can’t be true,” I said.
Magda licked her bloodstained lips, and her tongue raced over the black and red. She fell to her back, fingers dancing across her body where blood was splattered, writhing on the floor moaning for more.
Shaking, she said, “It is, boy. It’s all true. Blood never lies.”
-Kate-
Adam.
“You know they love you,” I told him, my hand stretching against his.
He said, “Maybe. But there are a thousand different kinds of love, Kate, and my parents don’t love me like yours love you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Your parents would do anything for you,” he said. He ran a hand down my spine, tickling me. “They love you more than you know. Mine, on the other hand, just want me to follow in their footsteps. Be a fighter. Be someone I don’t want to be.”
“But they’d understand if you told them, right? I mean, they wouldn’t want you to be someone you’re not. They’re your parents.”
He laughed, sad and high like a dove shot from the sky. “I love how you are sometimes, Kate. Filled with hope, just waiting for good to happen. The world needs more people like you.”
“I’m serious!” I said. “I bet your parents would understand.”
“They wouldn’t,” he said. “You’ve never met them, Kate. They wouldn’t understand at all.”
“How can you be so sure?” I asked.
He was quiet, and there was no sound between us except for the soft brush of his nails against my dress.
And then, his voice like a secret, he whispered, “I know, Kate, because they said if I don’t become who they want, they’ll kill me. I don’t have a choice when it comes to destiny. I don’t know if anyone really does. My life has been decided for me and there’s nothing I can do to change it. Just wait and see.”
I moved closer to him, hugging my body against his warmth. “They wouldn’t kill you, Adam.”
“They would, Kate. You don’t know.” His chest fell with his words, rising only in between. “The people they work for are ruthless. Savages. They would kill me in a heartbeat if I didn’t become one of them.”
“Become one of what? A savage? I might not know your parents but I’ve known you for almost a year, Adam. You could never be a savage.”
“We’re all savages, Kate. All of us. Just like love, people come in all different shades, but deep down we’re all the same: Savage and brutal and heartless. And I love that you think I’m different but I’m not. Soon, I won’t even have a choice. We can’t stay the same forever; I’m just waiting for the moment when my life changes.”
“You won’t change. I can’t believe that,” I said. “What exactly do your parents do, anyway? Who are they?”
“I can’t tell you,” he said. “I can’t tell you what I’ll become.”
“Why?”
“I just can’t. I’m sorry, Kate. Be happy your parents are different. They love you. Just be happy you can be anything you want.”
~
When I opened my mouth, a drop of my blood slid down my throat and stole my voice, my words. It sank to the bottom of my chest where my heart beat and waited.
I waited. The blood waited.
Chapter Sixteen
Truth Like Poison
-Calum-
“The blood,” Magda said, her voice shaking with one word that fell in whispers:
Blood.
Blood.
Blood.
Her body twisted.
Blood.
Violent shudders moved down her spine and back again. Her smile danced from pain to glory, need to loss, as though she missed the taste of blood on her lips. As though it was the one thing that kept her alive, her tongue frantically searched for more.
Blood.
As her eyes found mine, her lips became a half-smile and she said, “You next, boy?”
“Kate?” I turned to her, trying to meet her eyes, but even when I did they were blank and lost. And, as the blood cut her face down the middle with a red line, it looked like she was wearing a mask, hiding behind someone I didn’t know.
Magda stuck a finger in her mouth and sucked until her lips disappeared. She said, “It does things to a person, the blood. Can show us truths we can’t take back. The girl knows that and she’s paid her price. Let her be while you take your turn.”
“No,” I said. “Not if it’s like this. Look at her! It’s not worth it.”
Magda’s smile slithered at the edges. “No? Not worth it to know the truth about the prophecy? To know the secrets you hold deep in your blood? This is the only way you’s both will ever know what is real and what is not. You don’t think that’s worth it?”
I shook my head, but said, “Okay. I’ll do it.”
Magda crawled slowly to her feet. “Truth or secrets? Which one would you like to know?”
“Both,” I answered. “I need to know what the prophecy says. And I need you to unbind me from the spell you cast.”
“Truth, then,” she said. “You want to know the true you, find out who he is. Truth takes the most blood, they say. Cuts through the veins like poison. Hurts the most, too. You ready for that?”
“Yes.”
“Give me your hand then,” she said, grabbing it and pulling me toward the round table. She snapped her fingers and the candles flamed again. When she let go of me, she moved in front of the leather book, flipping the pages like wind. “Take that candle, boy.”
“Which one?”
“The black one there,” she said raising a finger toward a tiny, unlit candle, blacker and smaller than the rest, and wrapped with a blue twine ribbon. “That’s the one I used on you so long ago. It’s made of your blood, boy. It’s the only thing in this world that can free you from what I did.”
She smiled, as though I should be proud. “Now, let me see your right hand.”
I stuck my hand out, palm up. Before I could pull it back, I felt the cool blade of a knife cut across it, coaxing warm blood up and out.
“Now hold the candle in that hand just over your heart,” Magda told me. “Hurry, boy. Do as I say.”
I moved my hand to my heart, clutching the black candle tightly, and I felt a sudden pull from within me, as though I had been here before.
Magda leaned forward and lit the candle.
Suddenly, helplessly, I felt myself falling back, lost to a world I couldn’t see.
Leaves falling.
No,
they seemed to scream as if they were dying. All were red, as deep and crimson as fresh blood, falling from the sky like tears, or tiny angels.
When the first one touched the ground, I felt the earth move. My entire body vibrated with the pain of its death. I shook, terrified. Each brought an earthquake. Each brought a tear and soon my face was flooded. Another, and then another came crashing down, until I realized that these weren’t falling leaves dying at all.
They were people.
They were like me.
Falling stars.
“Save us,” they said. “Save us.”
-Kate-
Blood.
Blood.
Blood.
Blood.
Blood.
Blood-
pulling at me-
dragging me under-
calling me.
All I wanted was the blood.
More of that sweet blood.
Blood.
Blood.
Blood.
-Calum-
I remembered.
The mist crawling through the forest, shivering. The wolves howling, and the wind whispering. The red leaves as they fell.
I remembered my wish. Just that one.
A hand brushed my shoulder. A smell like rancid bodies burning filled the air around me. “Do you feel it, boy? What you must do? Do you understand your true gift now that you’re free?”
“My gift? What do you mean?” I asked.
Magda waved her fingers at me, coughed, frowned. She rolled her eyes, and instead of white all around her pupils I could see lines of red, blood. “Since the beginning, the Women have passed down a story that tells of a boy, the Dreamer, the Caeles. His soul,
yours
, is different. Your
ti bon anges
, your soul, has the power to step through the lines of time. Unlike humans, the Caeles’s
ti bon anges
belongs to the stars; it’s how you are born time and time again. Your spirit lives in your
ti bon ange
and knows nothing of rules, of death. It can be killed in ways, but it is not trapped like the others, not bonded to the earth, and cannot be taken by the likes of the Orieno. This is how Morphis has possessed the damned; he has taken control of their
ti bon anges
. Without their souls, they are empty vessels.”
“Is that why Morphis couldn’t touch me in my dreams?”
She nodded. “And it’s why you need to fight back. Your
ti bon ange
can touch the future. You’ve seen it, boy. You can change it.”
“All those people...”
“Dead,” she said. “If you’s don’t get their
ti bon anges
back to them, all they’d be is dead.
I asked, “What will happen if we can’t return their souls? To the world, I mean.”
Her voice was no more than a whisper. “Been said that when there is no more room in the deepest depths of Hell, then the damned will forever walk the earth. Without a
ti bon ange
, people have nowhere to go but bad. This is only the beginning, Caeles. Only you can stop the Siblings. Only you and the girl. Remember, you are not the Caeles yet. Almost, but not yet. You still need a key to unlock your full power. You’s need each other to finish this.”
“But how?” I asked. “I don’t understand! Don’t you get that? This whole time people have been telling me little details about myself, but never the whole story. Always what to do without showing me how to do it. And it doesn’t help. It never does.”
Magda walked over to table that had fallen, picking up the tan bowl on the way. She stepped in the red liquid that covered the floor, leaving bloody footprints as she walked around the room. Setting the bowl on the larger table, she went to search a cabinet that was against the far wall. Smiling, she pulled out a black velvet pouch and went back to the table.
“Then it’s time for you to know the true prophecy. The Order has always known of the prophecy you seek, though they have never known how it ends,” Magda said. She waved her hands over the bowl, muttering something in a language I didn’t understand. Then, without warning, she pulled a dagger out of the folds of the velvet pouch and drew it across her wrist. Blood flowed freely from the cut to the bowl, filling the bottom of it crimson.
Magda said, “Blood does not have the power to hide anything. It tells the truth, even when it shouldn’t.”
After what seemed like too long, she put the knife away and tied a piece of cloth to her wrist. Her hands moved like the tongues of serpents, licking the air as if it were tangible. Magda touched her forehead, then her left and right shoulders, and finally her heart, making a cross on her body.