Seeing Light (The Seraphina Parrish Trilogy) (24 page)

Cece approaches, hushes the dog, stroking the lines of his head. “Relax, Cerberus. There’s plenty of time for that. He’s such a good Protector, isn’t he?”

At this, Past Sera inches away from them, toward the edge of the pit, and several loose rocks fall away. The top half of her body hangs over the edge, the endless black pit below.

“Wait!” she yells and extends an arm in the air, allowing the bracelet to hang over the pit. “I’ll drop it,” she screams.

Cece laughs out loud at this, so completely taken by the action that she cries tears of joy. And now, from this new perspective, I understand why. To destroy the gem and the bracelet would destroy the life path of the relic, which might lead to Cece and her team’s beginnings—where she was born of me in the rain in Italy. She might be vulnerable there, laid out in the mud and probably weak from new life. She doesn’t want anyone to know where she came from, doesn’t want anyone to trace her beginnings or know her weakness.

“Drop it!” Cece yells out, egging her on.

Past Sera looks confused, and I remember feeling the same way.

“See,” she says, “you’re already doing what we want, and you don’t even realize it!” She laughs, delighted with herself. The team rumbles with laughter again and the energy it takes to do so causes me to convulse with electricity. My green velvet hood falls away, revealing more of my face.

Past Sera stiffens with shock, looking at me wistfully and with hope because she thinks I’m her mother. My heart aches to have that hope back—to feel it again, instead of feeling everything falling apart around me. I wish I could speak to tell her the truth, to save her in some way. But this is my life and even the awful, horrid things have happened for a reason, sending me on a path I was destined to follow. I have to believe that there’s a reason for all of this.

“Kill him!” Cece yells out to the guards. Her wicked words pull me back to the moment.

A guard who has been fighting with Past Bishop has moved within my blurry range of vision, and strikes him down. He falls to the floor of the bridge and the tattooed man kicks him in his rib cage. Each kick causes Bishop to scream out, unleashing his misery.

The crowd cheers, and I’m horrified as much if not more than I was the first time I witnessed the brutality.

“Join us! You’ll only know your true strength here, with us. The Academy will keep you weak, revealing only their truths. There’s so much more you can learn with us.” Cece reaches out to Past Sera.

She was right, there was so much I didn’t know, so much I could have never imagined, and Past Sera looks at me again. She’s trying to choose between saving Bishop or saving me. She thinks I’m sleeping serenely, but if she came close she would see tears in my barely open eyes.

Go, I want to tell her. It’s okay. You’re not meant to stay here with me. I’m not your mother.

Bishop is unconscious, lying on the bridge. The tattooed man steps forward onto his arm, breaking it under his weight with a sickening crack. It flops limply, dangling over the edge.

Past Sera shudders with horror.

Another guard squats down and shoves Past Bishop’s lifeless body over the edge of the bridge and into the bottomless black pit. Without hesitation, Past Sera rolls her body over the edge of the platform and falls away to save him.

I’m relieved when she lets me go because I know that she and Past Bishop are safe. In a few moments, they’ll return to the Academy through Wandering and move forward with their lives.

Cece screams like a crazed woman, stomping from one side of the room to the other. Cerberus follows, howling.

She turns and locks her gaze on me, rushing forward. “You little witch, you should have listened to me!”

With her full strength, she smacks my face so hard that the wheelchair teeters, falling to the side, and I smash my head on the ground. Still weakened by the black liquid, I can barely move; I only lie here as she sucks life from me to propel her rant.

After her anger recedes Cece stomps away, followed by her team. And now that there’s nothing more to see, the crowd disperses from the archways of the Underground. When the cavern quiets, someone approaches and bends down.

“Dearest. What has she done to you?” The woman lifts me from the floor and slings my arm over her shoulders, dragging me into a corridor. When we’re alone, she positions me on a rock that protrudes from the wall.

With little energy remaining, my head falls back and I open my eyes to see her. She’s my mom, older now, and as beautiful as I remember her on the day of her death in Gibeon. She’d joined the Underground, and I should have remembered that she’d be here, somewhere, even if it wasn’t in the wheelchair.

“How are you a part of this?” I mumble so low that she has to move close to my face to hear my words.

“I’m only here for you. You told me I joined the Underground when I returned from Egypt to my true time, and everything played out exactly like you said. I left you with Ray as a baby, faked my death, and came here. And finally, after all these years, I understand why. I’m here to save you from Cece. The poison is wearing off and your color’s returning. I’ll help you return to your true time with this. She holds up a vial. “This is all that’s left of the aqua vitae. Take it back to the Grand Master and save your friends and family.” She tucks it into my pocket.

“It’s not enough. I need to save the others in Nocturna.”

“It’s a start,” she says. “You’ll find a way to fulfill the prophecy. You’re pure of heart, I have faith in you. I have since the day you were born and I first held you in my arms.” She strokes my hair. “I love you and am so proud of you.” She kisses my head.

“But I can’t run, I have no energy, nor a relic.”

Mom holds up my sandals and bends down, securing one to my foot. The other she ties to my hand. “These are not for running today, but for flying, like Hermes.” She smiles with her eyes.

She hoists me to her side and drags me back to the pit. “I’ll toss you over. Do you have enough energy to activate the wormhole?”

“Yes.” I frown because leaving her is never easy.

She presses her warm cheek to mine, hugging me tightly before she lets go. When I fall away from her outstretched arms, my heart breaks because now I’m certain that this is the last time we’ll meet.

I force the keyword into my mind, asking to return to my true time, and a blast of light explodes, opening the wormhole and sucking me in. I fall through the slides of time, landing back in Gibeon, right next to the fire pit within the Grand Lodge where the Oath ceremonies are still taking place.

::42::
Pure of Heart

As expected, everything is as it was when I left. Students stand around the Grand Lodge, glistening in oil as they chant like zombies. The casket box holding Bishop and Sam swings above, hovering over the enormous fire pit. With each beat of the drums, they’re lowered closer to their deaths. The wall of flames dances beneath, teasing their fate.

When I land, the Grand Master joins me and bends down. “Strange, I don’t remember putting you in these clothes. Why does it look as though you’ve taken a detour?”

I push myself to a sitting position. “I have your stupid water—somewhere else,” I lie. “But first I need my team, Ray, and Macey back. I need to know that they’re safe.”

“You don’t have it with you?” he hisses.

“I have to make sure you give me what I want. You certainly haven’t given me any reason to trust you.”

“Very well.” Grand Master Levi stands and snaps his fingers. At his bidding, many Society guards take off.

I stand, taking my time, hiding the fact that it pains me to do so. Between a back lined with stitches and having the life sucked from me, it’s hard to appear as strong as I was when I left, but I must. I shrug out of the green cape and let it fall to the floor. Beneath I’m wearing the tunic that Da Vinci dressed me in.

The Animate scorpion appears from underneath a pile of clothes that I was wearing before I left, scampers across the floor, climbs over my toes, and settles on the rise of my foot.

When I look up at the commotion across the room, I expect to see Macey and Ray on their way back from the pit of Nocturna, but instead, I see Cece—very alive in my true time, just as Drake suggested. Her team follows her into the Grand Lodge. And since she drank the aqua vitae, she could live for as long as she has access to it. But most importantly, she’s part of me, so she could Wander from Gibeon like a Chosen and survive the fall into the pit, which would have killed any other Wanderer who had not used a Wandering compass.

Cece ascends the stairs, stepping onto the pedestal and reaches both hands out to the Grand Master. He joins her, takes her hands into his own, and kisses each of her knuckles.

This meeting between the two is unexpected, and I can only imagine what they’re up to, but then the worst part happens. They lean into each other and kiss—an open-mouthed kiss with tongues tangling and gentle arms caressing, and I choke a little as I feel my gorge rising in my throat.

Still embracing, they turn to me.

“She returned with the water, my love,” Grand Master Levi says, then kisses her on the cheek.

“You always know how to please me.” She traces his ear with her fingernail.

The group moves toward me, and as they do the Animate crawls off my foot and activates, shooting a beam of light from his face, revealing Hologram Turner. He solidifies and crouches, taking a defensive position.

The slight wobble in Cece’s demeanor suggests she’s taken aback by this. “What do we have here?” she asks.

“Just a hologram of a boy,” Grand Master Levi says in dismissal.

Cerberus, the overgrown beast, barks at him.

“Sera.” She waves her hand, fluttering it about. “Be a doll and bring me what’s left of the water.”

I cross my arms over my chest. “Why don’t
you
be a doll and bring me my friends.”

“You may have fooled my young prodigy here, but you don’t fool me. I can see that you’ve just come from Rome. I recognize your clothes, and I know that you’re in no state to fight. I sucked the life out of you when you were there, leaving practically nothing.” She leaves the Grand Master’s side and circles the fire pit to approach me. Her Protector and Seer follow because they’re always connected, even without me.

“And when your body dies,” she continues, “I’ll drain the blood from you and drink every last drop, and then I’ll boil your pieces to consume them. I’ll squeeze every last ounce of life from you, and if you hadn’t stolen the crystal dreamdrives from me, I’d be living off your dreams too.” She pauses and looks around. “Or I’d control you with it, just like I did with the Underground, just like I do with the Society now, and just like I have for hundreds of years.”

“You won’t touch her!” Hologram Turner yells.

“And you think this thing,” she gestures at him, “is a replacement for the real thing?” She laughs. “He’s not nearly as handsome or as strong.”

Hologram Turner steps closer. “Don’t listen to her, Sera.” He then turns and roars at the crowd, “No one should listen to her or the Grand Master! You must wake up, my friends!” He pumps his arms fiercely above his head like a war cry. “Awaken!”

Something in his last word seems to trigger the brainwashed students to life. They lose their stiffness and begin to shift in their places, looking around with a new awareness. With a stunning leap of understanding, they suddenly rush forward, each challenging the closest Society guard and overpowering them. With numbers on our side, we may be able to win this fight.

“Did you do this?” I rush my words with excitement.

“Your speech inspired me!” he screams over the commotion.

“Did you do this with the contrapulators?”

He nods and continues screaming the special word until it affects everyone in the room.

Quickly, I piece together how this might be possible. Somehow he altered their programming on their contrapulators to release them from the Society’s mind control at the sound of the trigger word. He’s given them enough understanding to riot against the Society. This must have been what he did after he freed Bishop and Sam from the Grand Master, when he explained he was inspired by my speech. Working as the professor’s assistant gave him inside knowledge, allowing him to manipulate the contrapulators.

“You’re a genius!” I glance around in absolute awe. I never should have doubted him.

Turner’s trigger word continues as a battle cry as the students begin to chant “awaken” over and over, becoming louder until the golden walls nearly tremble with the roar of their anger. And with that, the battle begins. Oil-covered students and Society guards collide in chaos just as Hologram Turner dives at Cece, pulling her to the ground.

As a guard escorts Macey and Ray into the Grand Lodge, the chanting of the word “awaken” has the same effect on Macey and her blind eyes become alert. She shakes her head, taking in her surroundings, and I can nearly see the gears turn in her head as she quickly puts the pieces together. With one kick she takes out the guard that brought them here and then she turns to Ray, removes his blindfold, and ushers him to safety.

Other students who have no guards to fight have made their way through the oil moat and up onto the pedestal to take on Cerberus and Exeter.

Hologram Turner and Cece still fight, and the entire scene is an eerie reminder of how the real Turner died a few weeks ago. I can’t allow him to fight for me anymore, so when he pulls away from her for a moment, I take the opening and attack her myself.

At my back, Hologram Turner engages the Grand Master and the two clash in a life-or-death struggle.

Anger wells within me, pulling up a power I didn’t know I possessed. For the short time that I’ve been a Chosen, this is the first time I can feel more strength, and it leads me to believe that I’m doing the right thing, finally following the correct path. I’m certain that my new powers will guide me to some way to set us all free once and for all.

Cece and I circle each other and I kick, swiping at her head, the movement causing the stitches in my back to pull and rip open. Each time I kick, another stitch loosens and the skin on my back feels like it’s peeling away, opening further.

Cece lunges forward, landing a jab to my stomach followed quickly by an uppercut to my jaw. When her knuckles make painful contact, I use my elbow to shove her away, then bring my other elbow down in a pile-driver move to knock her to the floor.

I step onto an ornate ceremonial carpet and too quickly for me to react, Cece reaches forward and tugs on it, making me lose my footing, and I collapse to my butt with a thump. I scream out in new pain because something’s lodged into my back, poking into the raw, exposed wound.

She takes advantage and lunges at me, but I kick her in the face, sending her flying backward. Her head slams into the edge of the flaming pit, allowing me a few moments to gain my bearings.

The pain in my back is so severe that nausea rises in my stomach, threatening to make an appearance. When I roll over to heave, I see what it is I’ve landed on. It’s the Animate scorpion, crushed into a thousand tiny pieces, and all that remains intact is the crystal dreamdrive. I grab it from the floor, clutching it within my palm, and turn to see Hologram Turner sizzling with electricity and fading away to nothing. He’s leaving me again for a second time, and the sheer devastation of it causes me to drop to my knees gasping for air.

“Make your last wish, love,” he says with a smile as he shimmers into nothing more than a hazy outline.

“For you to be alive!” I scream, my heart breaking in two as tears stream down my face.

Through my watery eyes I see someone walk up behind the hologram, stepping within the disappearing shape and filling it perfectly. Filling it the way it should be.

Turner.

The real Turner.

Alive.

My heart pounds in my chest, and if I don’t spring to my feet to attack him, my heart surely will.

“Turner!” I race to him. He catches my eye and leaps toward me with open arms. We come together desperately, devouring each other with our mouths, our eyes, our touch. Tingles dance over my skin in a parade of delight, and I want to worship every inch of him with my love. “My wish came true,” I mumble repeatedly through my tears, and throw my arms around his body, holding him tightly. “I can’t believe it. How is this possible?” I press my lips to his again and again.

“I thought I lost you,” he whispers in my ear, his voice ragged with emotion. In this moment I know I love him, even without the binds of Wandering. It was always meant to be; I understand that and feel it now. Real love. Normal love. Being here with him makes me so happy that I want to explode with joy from the inside out.

Wrapped in his embrace, I look over his shoulder, remembering that this might not be the best time for a reunion. “Duck!” I pull him to the ground and he falls on top of me, just as a small flaming chandelier flies past. Though we’re consumed with each other, we’re still in the fight of our lives.

Cece and the Grand Master are back in action and descend on us. Behind them, the casket is so close to the pit that flames lick and burn its bottom.

“I’ll take care of these two. I need you to free Sam and Bishop.”

“Where are they?” He looks around.

I point to the box hanging above the flames.

“Be safe, love.” Turner squeezes my hand and takes off running, dodging several Society guards along the way.

The students around us are holding their own, so I call out for several closest to me to run and bar the main doors shut so that we can keep all the people of Gibeon out. To win this war, we’ll need to start here at the top.

I pick up the chain attached to the flaming chandelier and swing the fixture at the end around my head. It makes several wide rotations before I release it and it flies across the room, its heavy chain wrapping around the Grand Master’s neck several times. With wide eyes and an open mouth, he gasps and falls to the ground, clutching at the links that are strangling him to death.

Unaffected, Cece looks down at him.

“Don’t you want to help your lover boy?” I ask as I move forward for the kill.

She lifts a shoulder and gives an unconcerned sniff. “He was merely a means to an end, someone to keep me supplied with Chosens who could obtain aqua vitae. But most importantly, I needed him to make sure you became who you are, an insider, allowing a Chosen to be born, so I could eventually be born of you through your fragmentation.”