Second Nature (21 page)

“No, Amelia, don’t…” Russell's cry came too
late. Something in the neighborhood of my navel was yanked. The
world turned into a black and white blur and seemed to speed around
me. I couldn’t seem to move, no matter how hard I tried.

A few breaths passed before the world
lurched into motion and hands slowly lowered me to the floor. It
was night outside, and Russell and Nate were kneeling next to me.
“What happened?” I asked, still feeling dazed and a little out of
sorts.

“A stasis field. A damn powerful one too. I
wasn’t sure I could remove it myself.”

“So how long…” I tried not to drift off,
feeling tired and vague.

“About an hour. I tried to stop you, but you
touched the book and froze.”

“It seemed like the world was a black and
white blur around me. But I couldn’t have been frozen for more than
a few minutes, tops.”

“We could have left you there a decade, and
you would have felt it was less than an hour. Ever heard of Rip Van
Winkle?”

I shook my head, wondering how much truth
was in the ‘legends’ I’d grown up with. “Did we find anything
useful?”

“Sariah thinks she left in a hurry because
she didn’t take her Jimmy Choo’s, though I’m not sure what that
means. Apparently, no girl would abandon them.”

I remembered the name from somewhere, and it
took me forever to place Sariah squealing over some black heels
with a red sole. Such things had never registered with me,
especially when they included two thousand dollar price tags.

“Did we find any of the artifacts?”

“Some. She might have left the Choo’s, but
she either took most of the artifacts with her or she didn’t have
many to start with. What I’ve identified so far is innocuous, some
ancient torture tools, the ring of Pope Benedict the XVI, also
called ‘the Peace bringer’. It seems to be things she didn’t see a
use for.”

“Can I look at them?” The men helped me to
my feet despite the fact I was perfectly capable of doing it
myself. They showed me to a wooden trunk with the lid thrown open,
and I reached out a hand, but paused and glanced at Russell.

“It’s perfectly safe. I’ve removed the
stasis from them.” Something in the trunk seemed to call to me, and
I stretched my hand toward it. I could practically hear it singing.
Blindly reaching towards whatever it was, my hand seemed to stretch
into eternity before smooth wood touched my palm. Closing my hands
on it, I pulled it out to get a better look at it.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Russell voice was
barely above a whisper.

“What is it?” The tall wooden staff was
knotted and gnarled but still taller than me. At the top, several
branch-like strands wove in a basket, as if to anchor something in
place. I could feel the power in my hand and knew it was meant to
be wielded by a Gaia. In anyone else’s hands, I was fairly certain
it would merely be a stick.

“I think that might be the staff of
the
Gaia.”

“Wait, you mean—”

“Yup, the same Mother Nature goddess your
entire race is named for.”

The staff hummed in my hand. Reflexively, I
dropped it and stepped back, staring at it like it were a
snake.

“And I believe it’s chosen you, Amelia.
Anyone other than a Librarian to touch it for the last several
millenniums has crumbled to dust.”

I raised my hand to cover my mouth in shock,
and the staff flew into it. I tried to set it down a few more
times, but anytime I moved my hands, it flew back to me. Despite
the weird factor—and on a scale of one to ten this was in the
neighborhood of twenty—it didn’t scare me. Something about this
staff comforted me, as if it
belonged
to me.

Nate peeked into the chest, his head cocked
and there was a strange expression on his face. With wide eyes, he
pulled out what looked like a silver pitchfork. I studied the three
tines with triangular heads, the center one longer than the outer.
“Don’t tell me. Poseidon’s trident?”

Russell merely nodded, but his dark eyes
were wide, and his brows nearly disappeared into his hair. “Nate,
very gently set it back.”

I raised my eyebrows at him, but Russell
ignored me and made calming motions with his hands. His body
language was the tense calm of a cop talking a suspect into putting
down a gun. “Maybe you should do what he says.”

Xander poked his head into the room, his
eyes widening. “Dude, you need to put that down.” He placed his
hand on Nate’s wrist, guiding it gently towards the floor. With a
shrug, Nate set the trident down, but he continued staring at
it.

“This,” Russell nudged it with his toe for
emphasis. “This is the world’s first weapon of mass
destruction.”

I stared at it as if it would come to life
at any moment and bite us. Xander let Nate go and took a step back,
prepared to jump into action at a moment’s notice. In a single
motion, Nate swooped down and grabbed it, charging out the door. I
stood staring after him, at a complete loss for words.

AS I STILL stood gaping, Xander dove at
Nate, but wound up sprawling across the floor, tripping Russell. I
hurdled them, trying to grab the tale of his shirt, but he evaded
my grasp. He didn’t make it far before getting clotheslined by
Dylan, who was coming to see what all the commotion was about. The
trident flew out of his hand and skittered across the floor into
the kitchen. Russell scampered to it, not even bothering to stand
in his rush to get his hands on the trident.

“What the hell, Nate?” I asked. “Did you not
hear the whole Doomsday weapon part?”

Nate sat up, his eyes glazed and distant. As
he started to stand, I put my hand on his shoulder to push him back
down. That odd feeling, like an invisible blanket covering his
skin, was worse than it ever, making my fingers tingle where they
touched him. “What if this is not really Nate?” I looked at the
others, my mind whirling with possibilities. “When I touch him it
feels like there’s something between my hand and him. What if they
did something to him?”

“I’ve never heard of any spell to make
someone want to end the world,” Russell said, shaking his head.

“I wasn’t trying to end the world.” Nate
crossed his arms over his chest. Xander raised an eyebrow at him,
doubt in every line of his face. “I swear I wasn’t. Something told
me to get it out of the apartment because we were in danger if it
stayed here.”

“What exactly is it, Russell?” Sariah eyed
the silver trident in her fiancé’s hand.

“It’s the Trident of Poseidon, most notably.
It’s surfaced several times through the centuries, making its way
into multiple legends. Shiva, the Hindu god, had it, as did
Britannia, the warrior goddess of Albion. Basically it causes
earthquakes, tidal waves, all the stuff Nate can already do. Only
it would be like hundreds of Gaia doing it together. We’re talking
Armageddon. With this, he could make the Earth tear herself apart
at the seams.”

I swallowed and eyed the trident warily. It
seemed like I could almost hear something coming from it, like if I
concentrated hard enough I could make out words. Shaking my head, I
turned away, but my eyes kept sliding towards it. “I feel like it’s
calling to me.” I unconsciously took a step towards it.

“Maybe you should put it back into stasis,
Russell.” Dylan shivered, staring in disgust at Nate.

“Good idea”

He set it on the counter, walking away
casually. It didn’t look like anything changed, but the sound just
beyond the range of what I could hear stopped and my brain lurched
back into motion. Nate seemed to perk up too, though he was still
not quite himself. I touched his shoulder, and the blanket feeling
had gotten more intense. Whatever was wrong, it was getting
stronger.

“I don’t want to alarm anyone, but I think
there’s something wrong with Nate.” Everyone stopped and eyed me
strangely. I was ashamed for not having brought this to my family’s
attention sooner. “There’s a strange crackly feeling when I touch
him. It’s been there since I found him in that warehouse.”

Russell walked over and placed his hand on
Nate’s shoulder, then shook his head. “I don’t feel anything.” One
by one, everyone touched Nate, all shaking their heads with their
lips pressed in a firm line.

To be certain, I touched him again and
withdrew as a jolt of electricity shot up my arm. “Why can I feel
it and none of you can?”

“Maybe it’s a bond thing?” Sariah shrugged
and looked away. I couldn’t decide if she wasn’t worried, or if she
was trying to keep her worry from me.

Silence fell on the room, and I wondered if
we were all thinking about this new development, or if they were
blowing it off. Maybe it
did
have something to do with our
broken bond. I tried to occupy my mind when something else occurred
to me. “Wait, I thought you said it was all useless stuff in the
trunk.”

“Well, it was when I looked. The staff and
the trident destroy anyone who touches them, so they are protected
by a special kind of stasis, which should have made them invisible.
I have no idea how the two of you were able to get them.”

“Do you think Leslie planned this? Like she
planted them knowing we could touch them safely?”

“No, I think this is beyond Leslie. Cunning
though she is, I don’t know if even
she
knew those were in
there. A truck of artifacts disappeared from her father’s house
after his death.”

“But I thought she left with nothing but the
clothes on her back?” My forehead crinkled in confusion.

“She had to have come back.” Dylan shrugged.
“It took three days for them to find the body. There would have
been plenty of time to slip in and help herself to whatever she
wanted.”

“And the staff and trident have been sitting
hidden in the trunk until now. Lost to time because only the person
they are meant for and the person who put them there could find
them.”

“So wait, I’m
meant
to have the staff
that turned an ordinary Otherworlder into a goddess, and Nate was
meant to wield the power to destroy the earth?”

“Do you have a better explanation? Did you
see the trident when you grabbed the staff?” I frowned but shook my
head. “Did you actually see the staff before your fingers closed on
it?”

“Alright, fine, but have any other Gaia
touched it? Maybe it just has to be one of us.”

“The only one I witnessed was around the
time of the Civil War, and she melted into a pile of dust or ash or
whatever. Amelia, this was meant to be yours.”

“Why would the pair of us be destined to
wield these? That makes no sense.”

Sariah smiled. “Makes the whole ‘destiny’
idea of the life bond a little more believable, doesn’t it?”

“No, it makes it more nonsense!” I crossed
my arms across my chest, ignoring the voice in my head telling me
to stop pouting. “I don’t believe in destiny. I’m not special.”

“If you’re not special, why are so many
people trying so hard to kill you?” Dylan met my eyes levelly,
challenging me.

“And why are so many people fighting so hard
to keep you alive?” Xander crossed his arms, his eyes set with
determination.

I stared at Russell at a loss for words,
then gazed at the staff still in my hands. It pulsed again and the
necklace at my throat suddenly warmed. I dropped the staff in shock
and raised my hand to press it against the fluorite point. When I
found my voice, it was shaky and uncertain. “What exactly does the
staff do?”

“It lets you draw deeply on the powers of
the Earth without destroying it. And it amplifies what you already
do. Once you learn to control it, you can make every sunflower in
the Western hemisphere dance.”

“No one person can hold that much power and
stay sane!” The only objection I could think of was lame, but all I
wanted to do as put the staff back in the trunk and walk away.

Xander put his arm around my shoulder. “If
anyone can, it’s you, girly.”

“So if the staff and trident that makes me
and Nate all powerful happened to be in the trunk, were there
magical ones for demons and angels?”

Russell’s eyes lit up, as if something had
just occurred to him. “Not here, but there might be other things
out there. I might need to make a run to Ithaca.”

“Why?” Sariah narrowed her eyes at him in
confusion.

“I have a sneaking suspicion we’re going to
need some important things from the archives.”

The room fell into silence. I chewed my lip
in thought briefly before something else occurred to me. “Do you
think we should take these weapons with us when we face Peter?”

Xander’s eyes slid toward Nate before
dancing away. “I don’t think we should let him anywhere near that
trident. There’s no telling where he might have taken it. As for
the staff, I don’t think it will work properly until it is
whole.”