Prophecy (Residue Series #4) (9 page)

When the room settled, my smile faded, and I launched into the news I’d been keeping to myself, knowing it would tear at them. “I’m happy to see you, all of you. I truly am, but this is not a safe time for any of us. You are exposed here, whether you believe it or not. Being inside the Ministry gave me firsthand knowledge of the dangers we’re facing, and they are not…,” my expression grew sullen, “…they won’t be easy to overcome. The Sevens have weapons, stockpiles that would fill every shack in this village from floor to ceiling. Their forces are almost ready for attack, and they’re working around the clock to get to that point. They’re organized, prepared, and they have a plan in place. My guess is that it’s a pretty solid one because they’ve been torturing Dissidents.”

I saw heads nodding, and Isabella spoke up. “We’re getting word of disappearances every night, from every province.” She paused before adding, “Isadora is gone. Braith. Cornelia. The Thibodeauxes.”

My jaw tightened as the last two names evoked painful memories. I kept their deaths to myself seeing no reason to drag our families through their last minutes. Instead, I summarized my assessment for them. “They’ve targeted those who pose the most danger first.”

And The Sevens will pay for that
, I said to myself.

While taking a second to draw in a deep breath and recalibrate my emotions, Jocelyn surprised me with news of her own.

“That’s not all,” she mentioned, and then struggled with how to phrase the words. “There’s really no appropriate way to say this so I’m going to just…say it. Sartorius isn’t like us.”

That instantly made me curious. It was the same warning Eran had given me back at the Ministry.

Then she dropped the bomb she’d been withholding. “Sartorius…he has wings.”

Everyone, myself included, reacted with astonishment, some more disbelieving than others.

“Wings…?” Alison repeated skeptically.

Knowing she was facing an uphill battle to convince her audience, Jocelyn reminded us that this wasn’t so far-fetched.

“When the Ministry was attacked there were sightings of large birds swarming overhead, and a feather was left behind.”

“So you’re saying…Sartorius attacked his own Ministry?” Charlotte asserted sarcastically, and I gave her a stern look.

“Maybe,” she said plainly, emotionless, even though they were staring at her like she’d lost her mind. “But I’m also saying that Sartorius, and very likely the other Sevens, are not human.”

Kalisha, who had been obscured by the dark corner where the lantern’s light didn’t extend, stepped forward, sending nearly everyone in the room to their feet.

“She’s right,” said Kalisha. “I’ve seen the wings myself.”

Having no idea who this woman was, they gawked at her, trying to determine her reason for being here, and, more importantly, her trustworthiness. They had a lot to lose by coming here, their lives included.

Jocelyn saw their alarm and stepped in. “Kalisha was in prison with me for the last nine weeks, although she was incarcerated a lot longer than I was.” They assessed her even closer then, a reaction that I figured stemmed from empathy. “She has information that The Sevens want to keep to themselves, so they locked her up for…,” She turned to Kalisha. “How many years?”

“Over twenty,” she mumbled, maintaining a vigilant eye on the room. “I lost count.”

“The information is about our future, all of us,” said Jocelyn before delivering the most impactful part. “Because it’s the contents of the last record.”

There was no need to mention
which
record. They guessed it immediately, and everyone in the room leaned forward.

Jocelyn ushered Kalisha farther into the room, a move the defected Vire clearly hesitated over making. Standing awkwardly before the rest of our families, she delivered the information we all wanted – but were apprehensive – about hearing.

“When my contingent agreed to separate and move in opposite directions, I had nowhere to go. Before…before defecting,” she paused to assess what impact this might have on her audience. Seeing none, she continued with some small measure of relief. “I was stationed in countries throughout Africa. I knew there was a risk I’d be found there if I returned, but it was the best place to blend in, become part of the populace. I found a village, small, on the outskirts of Jima, in southwestern Ethiopia. I married a nice man, gave birth to a beautiful child, and raised many goats. No one knew of the record, not my husband, not my child. This was to keep my family – and my village – safe. But one day I fell ill, very ill,” she enunciated as her gaze sank and she shuddered at the memory of it. “The illness was difficult, nearly taking my life, but that wasn’t…it wasn’t what took my life. It was what took my soul.” Her lips briefly pinched closed in anger. “I truly believed I would die. I have never been so close to death. They called the preacher to make sure he would be ready for my passing. But before I did, I had to give someone the Great Secret. It could not be left to The Sevens alone. Someone
had
to be told. So I asked my husband to find someone who could read Latin. This was the language the records were written in. I speak many languages, and I can extrapolate from the Latin word, but I am not fluent. And this was too important a message to leave to hearsay and assumptions. He brought me an old man, an elder in the village who had been trained in the city. I told them where the record was buried, and they brought it to me. As he put to voice the words I had so carefully hidden, I saw the terror come to his eyes. He was reading ahead, you understand. Having figured out quickly what the record was, he couldn’t stop himself. When it became too much, he refused, trying to hand it to my husband. They argued. It was their voices, the level at which they spoke to each other that kept us from hearing what was coming.” She halted, her eyes glassing over, and it was clear she began reliving that potent memory.

“Kalisha?” I prompted.

She blinked several times, raised her head again, and continued in quiet anguish. “They came through our village like flaming ghosts, lighting our homes on fire. These were Vires who I knew, trained with. I saved some of them from a sure death in past conflicts. They took my husband, my son, and they….” She stopped, this time swallowing back the tears. “They found me. They found me and then took everything from me. And I will give anything to see my vengeance done,” she seethed, “because what they left, all they left were words on a page. Words that told of the future…It said that forces would unite, a movement that would begin quietly and gain momentum as The Sevens fell. It said that a noble lass – a term converted over the years to Nobilis – would lead them. It said the Relicuum would acquire the elements by death of a Vire. This would be pivotal, the completion of her cycle of rebirth. It said she and the Nobilis would bring to an end a conquest by six winged beings. The six would die one by one in varying ways. The seventh would live to witness an act of altruism, an act in which the Relicuum takes the life of the Nobilis. This act leads to the end of the war.”

When Kalisha finished, the entire room sat quietly staring back at her, dazed, as if they hadn’t picked up a word of what she had said. It was Charlotte who reacted first.

Bolting to her feet, she demanded, “You are going to kill my brother?”

“Quiet down, Charlotte,” I warned. Always so dramatic….

“I will not,” she snapped, although the level of her voice was lower when she spoke again. “Is that correct?” she persisted, her fury directed at Kalisha. “It said that she,” she pointed a finger toward Jocelyn, “would murder my brother?”

Kalisha appeared very uncertain at the moment.

I was about to step in again when my mother reacted to the news.

“That’s…,” she shook her head, clearing her thoughts. “That’s never been written in the archives…no history books mentioned it…and it’s not an insignificant detail.” It was clear to me, even before she asked her next question that she didn’t want to believe Kalisha. “How can…how can you be certain?”

“It’s the records that tell us the future,” said Kalisha, her meaning clear. She was doing nothing other than conveying their contents.

“I knew you couldn’t be trusted.” Charlotte was still at it, seething like a rabid dog.

“Knock it off, Charlotte,” I warned.

“We’re talking about
your
life, Jameson, but you’re taking a cavalier approach about this whole thing,” she pointed out, and then she stopped and her eyes narrowed. “How long have you known?”

She could see right through me. She always could. Even as kids, she knew when I was the one who snuck the last brownie off the plate. That was one of her gifts. And one of her faults was pigheadedness. Charlotte wasn’t one to back down until she was answered, so I gave her what she wanted, sort of. “A while. That’s the best answer you’ll get from me.”

She shot me an exasperated look, and then I saw the face I knew so well, an expression that meant she was now on the war path. “Am I the only one in this family who cares?”

“No,” said Burke, standing. “You’re not.”’

This was heading in the wrong direction.

“I’m with you, too,” Alison stated, pushing herself off the wall and folding her arms across her chest.

Dillon was quiet about his support, showing it by standing with an uncomfortable, downward gaze.

My parents remained seated, although they didn’t need to make an exhibition of their support.

Then, in almost perfect synch, every sibling in the Weatherford family stood.

This was getting out of control.

Frustrated, I walked into the middle of the room. “Drawing a line in the sand won’t solve anything. We need to stay
together
, united. There are far stronger forces preparing to kill us.
They
are the ones we need to focus on, and
they
-”

“Aren’t here in this room,” Charlotte pointed out. “She’s the threat, Jameson. Don’t you see that?”

As much as I didn’t want it to, that perspective, that unproven viewpoint, incensed me, and I had to consciously subdue the words of retaliation from coming out. After a long pause to steady myself, I tried to reason with her while influencing the rest of those listening. “When Jocelyn and I started to date, none of you spoke to me for weeks. You left me alone at the breakfast table, you walked out of the room when I walked in. You avoided me at school during lunch.”

Jocelyn reacted to my admission with a surprised turn of her head.

“And when you finally sat down to talk me out of my feelings for her, you pointed out everything that her family had been blamed for.” I allowed that to sink in and then added, “We
assumed
they were guilty without ever looking at the facts. And the facts are, she hasn’t made a single move to hurt me…ever.
Everything
she has
ever
done has been for the purpose of keeping me safe. Are you going to see her as guilty before proven innocent? Are you going to make the same mistake again?”

I have them, I thought. My points are valid. They can’t dispute them. This argument is over.

I even saw the surfacing of apprehension in Burke’s face.

And then my mother, my own mother, stood up, and her words made me feel as if I were being gutted. “We all know how you feel about Jocelyn. And sometimes – I’m not saying this is one of those times – but sometimes, those feelings can cloud our judgment. Yes, we were wrong about the past, but the records were written to tell us the future, and they have been accurate thus far.”

“Which doesn’t prove a damn thing.”

“Now, that’s enough,” she retorted sternly.

I couldn’t believe she was scolding me. That tone hadn’t been used on me since I was ten and I told her that I wanted nothing at all to do with being the Nobilis.

The tension in the room was so thick I felt if someone didn’t open the door, I was going to open the window, by breaking it with my fist.

“There’s something you’ve forgotten,” I said, hearing the fury in my voice and allowing it. “You like her, too.”

Without hesitating, Alison commented snidely, “That was before we knew she was going to kill you.”

I instantly turned my head in her direction. When she noticed the look in my eyes, she took a step back. “She is the woman I love. You’re going to need to accept that.”

“Enough, Jameson,” Charlotte snapped. “Sometimes people need to be saved from themselves.”

“So you’re willing to condemn someone before they’ve done what you only believe they
will
do?” I countered.

“Yes,” she replied, firmly.

“Careful, Charlotte,” I warned, knowing full well that she wouldn’t like my next statement, because it was too damn close to the truth. “You sound a lot like The Sevens right now.”

Her eyes widened as she sucked in a sharp breath. But the expletive she was preparing to utter never made it out.

From behind me, in a quiet, firm voice, Estelle began, “Incantatio-”

“Go ahead,” Charlotte sneered. “Casts don’t work here in the village, remember?”