Prophecy (Residue Series #4) (14 page)

“And,” Jocelyn went on, “when we were locked away together, Maggie, you told me that your crime for being there was knowledge…how to kill The Sevens.”

“That’s right.”

“We might have just figured out a part of the prophecy.” I grinned at Jocelyn, and she beamed back at me. It was a small victory, but a good one. A damn good one.

Maggie broke in on our silent victory celebration with, “What prophecy?”

Right
, I thought.
Of course they wouldn’t know yet.

I wasn’t sure how they’d accept the news, but what could it hurt by telling them? I’d just seen Maggie take a Seven’s life. Everything else seemed to pale in comparison. “There are records that prophesize about what is coming…in our war against The Sevens.”

Oddly, this didn’t seem to faze them. Something else did, however, which Eran addressed. “So, you’ve known about them, the Sevens, for how long?”

“For centuries,” I said, interposing.

“And it never occurred to any of you how unusual it was for them to live that long?”

I couldn’t stop a smirk from coming up. “Longevity isn’t something we lift an eyebrow at in our world.”

“So,” said Maggie, frowning. “They thought they could dominate your culture, your world, as you call it, while preparing for complete domination over the rest of us.”

“That’s right,” said Jocelyn astounded that Eran had come to that conclusion. “How did you know?”

“Because that’s what their kind does.”

Hearing this, Jocelyn settled back on her heels, and paid close attention. “How much do you know about The Sevens?”

“Enough,” said Eran.

But that wasn’t sufficient for Maggie, who grinned slyly. “We know how to kill them.”

“Apparently…,” I said and tipped my head at Sisera’s now badly decomposed body. It was almost as if it was making up for lost time.

“What do you think we should do with it?”

“Well, you’re not going to leave it here,” said Mrs. DeVille from behind me.

I looked over my shoulder at her. “Nice to see you back, Mrs. DeVille.”

I was referring to her physical person as well as her attitude, and she knew it.

Giving me a look of disdain, she turned to leave the room.

“Mrs. DeVille?”

Pausing, she stopped to glare back at me.

“Thank you for not turning us in.”

Her mouth turned down further in blatant displeasure over being involved at all. She grabbed her husband and they began to straighten her naturally disorganized store. Neither of them had any idea that they would need to leave soon because they were in more danger now than they’d ever been. So I made a mental note to ask Mrs. DeVille to send a message to Miss Mabelle and Miss Celia about what happened here, so that they could be the lucky ones to explain how staying in the store where Sisera was killed wouldn’t bode well for the DeVilles.

Part of me wanted to leave Sisera’s body where it lay, as a sign to the rest of The Sevens that he wasn’t worth the effort. But something greater needed to be done with it, something that would get the provinces talking about justice again.

We silently assessed our options on what to do with it, but there was only one way I could envision that would actually benefit us.

“Fear is how The Sevens drive us, our society, our world. Showing the provinces that they are vulnerable would give the people genuine proof that they
can
be defeated.”

“So what do you want to do?” Eran asked. “Prop him up in a public place?”

I couldn’t decide whether he was joking or not, but he wasn’t smiling.

“No, I’d say we drop him where we can be sure he’ll be found by The Sevens.”

Jocelyn was the first to nod, but Eran and Maggie were close behind.

“The Ministry,” we said together, breaking into grins.

As Eran and Maggie bent down to pick up the body, I realized that I’d never thought of them as anything more than classmates who get more than their fair share of gossip. They probably thought the same about us. Now, we were embarking on a war together, against a mutual enemy, and we all had equal stakes in the effort.

“What do you think we should do after we leave Sisera’s body at the Ministry?” Jocelyn asked openly to everyone, but it was Maggie who responded.

As she carefully picked up Sisera’s now spongy, decomposed shoulder, she laughed under her breath. “We go after the rest.”

9
THE PLAN

I
T WAS STILL DARK OUTSIDE WHEN
we transported Sisera’s body from the DeVille’s store. After deciding there was no logic in all four of us carrying it to the Ministry, I stopped Maggie and Eran from trying to lift it from the floor. It didn’t look like the thing would make it intact, anyways. Instead, we discussed meeting at noon in the bayou. I gave Eran and Maggie directions to the village and they headed down the hallway discussing whether to stop at Café Du Monde for a bite to eat, casually unaffected by the grim situation we faced.

Jocelyn changed into the clothes Miss Mabelle brought her, black and form-fitting that accentuated her curves. I didn’t know whether to thank Miss Mabelle next time I saw her or make it clear that I couldn’t be distracted by Jocelyn again. I kept the Vire uniform, thinking it might come of some use again. That was the only time we wasted.

We reached France before sunrise, with Jocelyn levitating the body next to us the entire way. The flight was short, ending with us hovering over the Ministry.

It looked different now. Usually, nights were spent with the grounds dark and a number of sentries on the walls. It was guarded tonight too, but there was activity. Lots of it.

Lights – generated by both flame and electricity – marked the most used paths. Along them, Vires walked with purpose, with objectives in mind, levitating supply crates into the courtyard.

“What are they doing?” Jocelyn whispered, in awe of the process.

“It’s called staging. They’re preparing for an attack.”

“On?”

“Us.” I felt myself frowning and corrected it, because we had the upper hand. “Right now, they think they have it all planned out. They see the future and it’s in their favor. Everything is executing perfectly for them, in their tightly controlled world. But we’re about to throw a wrench in their machine down there that’ll send everyone into panic mode.”

“Jameson?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re smirking.”

I laughed, and it actually felt good.

“Are we ready?” Jocelyn asked.

“More than we’ve ever been.”

Jocelyn released Sisera’s body, where it began a rapid plummet. But before it had reached ten feet below us, my head was thrown back and my body arched in a way that made me feel like I was tied to a rocket. And what a hell of a launch! The wind howled in my ears and the Vire uniform I still wore sucked to my chest, flapping like crazy behind me. Jocelyn had never levitated me like that before, and in it I felt the rush of her power. It was…exhilarating, intense, and sexy…an enticing, teasing kind of sexy.

It was also smart because within seconds I looked over my shoulder to find Vires coming after us, their bodies pointed like missiles in our direction.

The excitement I felt for Jocelyn was redirected, and turned darker. I had a strong urge, a fixation to take them on. One by one or all at once, didn’t matter to me. This was my first chance outside the Ministry to avenge us, all of us, for what they had been helping The Sevens do to us for years, and I could feel the need for the settling of scores surging in me. Only one factor held me back. Jocelyn would have to be present to keep me aloft, and that endangered her.

Instead, I shoved aside my feelings and told her, “Company came.”

She nodded as an expression of determination began to etch across her features, again, an incredibly enticing look for her. “Hold on,” she said but didn’t elaborate.

Then she dropped us, descending so fast I barely had time to take in the horizon. It was lit, but dimly, and there was something protruding from the earth, a slim, sweeping structure built of open trusses.

The Eiffel Tower. We’re in Paris
, I realized.

She set us down on a side street in a shopping district somewhere within the city. Store windows were lit, showing off clothes and jewelry, but there was no sign of anyone in the darkened shops beyond their displays. The drone of traffic carried to us, but I saw no cars anywhere. A street sweeper hummed by us, sipping coffee from his driver’s seat, oblivious to what was about to happen.

In short, we were alone.

Jocelyn exhaled nervously, frantically scanning our surroundings. “There’s no one around.” She stopped suddenly and looked at me. “We shouldn’t have landed.”

As if on cue, the contingent of Vires, ten in all, fell to the ground, their landing on the pavement hard enough to vibrate our feet. And my excitement at the prospect of a fight returned.

“Thought you’d hide in the crowd?” the first one mocked, taking a step toward us. “You’ll need another fifteen minutes, but you won’t last that long.”

“You’re right,” I said. “We’ll be out of here in five.”

To add a little gravy, I grinned at him. He didn’t like that very much, and launched a fist at me. I ducked. Another one followed. I shifted and it skirted me. At that point, I felt like the odds were unfairly stacked against them. Even when they used the elements against me or tried to break into my thoughts with high-pitched chatter to distract me, they failed. When the end came, and I spun around to find Vire bodies littering the street, I actually felt sorry for them.

“Jameson, sweetheart,” Jocelyn called out, her voice shaky from the adrenaline I knew was coursing through her.

I swung around to face her and saw the tilt of her head toward a man in a business suit holding a briefcase up in a way that made me think he was trying to block something. His jaw was slack, too, so I was fairly certain he’d just seen too much of what had just happened.

There was really no way around it now. He saw what he saw. It was good for him that no Vires were left with fully functioning capacities or he’d be gone by now, abducted to the Ministry where he’d be murdered to prevent knowledge of our world from being exposed. That, I’m fairly certain, happens more often than most people think.

He was still standing there as I walked by him on my way to Jocelyn, looking like he was trying to appraise the situation and wrap his mind around how a single guy could take out ten men without injury.

I slipped my hand into Jocelyn’s, and informed him, “You’ll want to leave now. More of them will be coming.”

He nodded silently, jaw still dropped, but at least his feet started to move.

Jocelyn and I waited until his back was turned before she lifted us into the air, which made me grin. If he were to look back, he’d really have something to gawk about.

We drifted over New Orleans, where a dense fog blanketed the city, giving everything in sight a grey tint and a shiny coating. The delivery trucks were just now rolling into the French Quarter, newspaper stands were opening their metal doors, and hazy lights lit up cafes and coffee shops ready for the morning rush.

“Beignets sound good, don’t they?” she asked, wistfully.

“I’m sorry, Jocelyn, we can’t risk it,” I said, my heart breaking at having to tell her no.

She nodded, knowing it would be reckless. In fact, it would be suicidal.

But they did sound good. Damn good.

As a substitute, I thought something else might satisfy her need for normalcy.

“Head toward the Garden District,” I said, and she gave me a curious stare until I told her which street. Then she understood.

We stopped first at her house. It was still standing, so Miss Mabelle was doing a valiant job of keeping that up. Their cars packed the driveways, like the Weatherfords would walk out the front door at any point in time with their key in hand. The yards were groomed, no mail collected on the porch. In general, it looked like nothing had changed.

I glanced up to study her reaction and found her smiling. Unable to stop myself, I reached out and touched her cheek, with my thumb settling at the edge of her lips. She had a seductive way about her, even when she was so innocently baring her soul.

“Someday, I’m going to pick you up from that house,” I said, pointing down at it, “and take you out on a real date.”

Her smile widened. “You better.”

“Oh, I will.”

When we stopped at my house, it looked the same…still standing, cars jammed into the narrow driveway. Alison had pulled in behind everyone else, blocking the exit, even though Burke would harangue her for it, like he’d done so many times before. And then it was my turn to smile, because I realized that it’s the little things that make a moment poignant.

We left, carrying with us a sentimental longing for what we had been forced to leave behind. I could guarantee we were both thinking about classes, and homework, fights over whose turn it is to use the bathroom. What had seemed like hassles before were now welcome signs of everyday life.