TheFallenStarBookSeries1 (32 page)

Without even thinking, I ran into the water, forcing myself to go farther and farther as the cold water ascended higher and higher. But when it reached waist deep on me, I realized two things: 1) Like the little girl, I couldn’t swim, and 2) I couldn’t actually touch the woman, so how was I supposed to save her?

Shortly after these thoughts crossed my mind, a third reason why I shouldn’t have gone into the water dawned on me. Because, obviously, there was something wrong with the lake. Why I hadn’t thought of this before was beyond me. I’d heard the swish. I’d seen the splash. Heck, I’d seen the man dump some creepy ashy stuff into it.

I should have known better than to go running into it.

But I didn’t, and it was too late now. A bony hand had already grabbed me by the ankle and was trying to jerk me beneath the water. I kicked and screamed and fought with every ounce of strength I had, but whatever the hand belong to was strong. It pulled me under the ice-cold water and kept dragging me deeper and deeper down. I couldn’t see a thing. My oxygen supply was dwindling.
So this is what it feels like to die
was the last thought I had before I blacked out.

I gasped for air as my eyes shot open. Purple walls and glass counters surrounded me. I was back at Adessa’s.  I’d made it. I wasn’t dead. My skin was dry. My feet were planted firmly to the checkerboard tile. The Foreseer’s Crystal Ball was cupped in my hand.

“Ah!” I shrieked and dropped the ball. It hit the ground hard, causing it to crack down the center.

“Gemma.”

I looked away from the broken ball and found Alex standing right next to me, his green eyes wider than usual, his mouth set in a worried line.

Behind him stood Laylen, with the same worried expression on his face.

I breathed heavily. “What the heck happened?”

“What do you mean what the heck happened? You touched the Foreseer’s ball after I told you not to.” His voice, although full of anger, slightly shook.

“It was an accident,” I snapped. “I didn’t mean to touch that—that—” I waved my hand at the broken Foreseer ball.  “Thing.”

All three of us stared down at it. Water was seeping out through the crack, forming a puddle on the floor.

“Well, what happened?” Alex asked, his voice a little calmer now, but he still looked concerned.

What happened? Well, let me see. I got sucked into a tunnel, hit my face on the ground, and watched a woman get murdered. All I got to come out of my mouth, though, was, “I-I…”

“Did you go into a vision?” Alex asked, speaking slowly like I was incompetent.

“Yeah. I mean, at least I think I did.”

“And you were able to come back,” he stated with amazement.

A loud crash suddenly echoed through the room. Scaring me half to death, I jumped and ended up ramming my shoulder into Alex’s chest.

“Sorry.” Laylen apologized as he swept up a black ceramic candlestick he’d apparently knocked onto the floor.

I let my breathing slow down. Man, I was getting jumpy. But really, could you blame me?

“I’m going to take her outside, and see if I can get her to calm down.” Alex told Laylen.

Laylen nodded, and Alex led me to the front door. He made me wait there while he checked inside the GTO to make sure everything was safe. Once he gave me the go ahead, I went outside, and we climbed in the back seat of the car.

Both of us were quiet for awhile, the night spilling through the cab of the car. I could barely see anything, which did nothing for my nerves.

“So what did you see?”  Alex finally asked.

“Um…” I fumbled for some sort of words that could explain the horrible scene I’d just been forced to watch.  “Something….You know, I’m not sure I really want to talk about it.”

“Well, you have to,” he said. “If you saw a vision, I need to know what happened. It’s important.”

I massaged the sides of my temples and sighed. “Fine.”

I gave a recap of every detail I could remember about the vision. Of course, I couldn’t describe what the people looked like, since their faces had been blurred over. And none of them had said any names, so the chance of us being able to figure out who the people where were slim to none.

“You know you were really lucky, right?” Alex asked me when I’d finished.

“Lucky how?” Did he not get that I’d just witness a woman being murdered?

“Well, for starters, you were lucky you even made it back. I’ve heard stories about people getting stuck inside visions and never returning. And you were also lucky you didn’t get captured by the Water Faerie.”

“Water Faerie,” I repeated, mystified. “What’s a Water Faerie?”

“It’s what pulled both you and the woman down in the lake. Water Faeries are the Guardian’s of The Underworld.”

“The Underworld?” I said “As in the place where the Greeks believed people went after they died.”

“Kind of.” He seemed hesitant to embellish on the subject, but I wasn’t going to let him get away with keeping anymore secrets from me. Not this time. Not after what I’d just witness.

“Tell me,” I demanded. “Or I’ll just go ask Laylen to explain it to me.”

I thought that might make him angry, but instead, he just stared at me with what I thought looked like a trace of hurt in his bright green eyes. What he’d be hurt about, though, I had no idea. I’d probably just imagined it or something.

“Fine.” He threw his hands in the air, giving in, which shocked that crap out of me. “The Underworld is the land of the dead. It’s also a prison. After we—the Keepers capture someone like, say for instance, a vampire that had been on a killing spree, we sentence them to a life down in The Underworld as a form of punishment.”

I questioned whether he’d used a vampire as his example intentionally, as a way to get back at me for threatening to go ask Laylen if he didn’t start explaining things. “But why wouldn’t you just kill them instead. I mean, you killed that Death Walker. Why can’t you kill a vampire too?”

“Trust me, death is a milder punishment then getting sent down there. Most go insane from the torture after only a few weeks time.”

Something suddenly occurred to me. “Hold on just a second. Does that mean the woman I saw get dragged down into the lake is going to end up in the Underworld?”

“Maybe,” he answered reluctantly. “The Water Faeries usually don’t kill the people or the things they capture. They are under strict orders to take whatever they catch straight to the prison.”

“But why do they want prisoners?”

“Because they feed off their fear. It’s what keeps them thriving even in their dead form.”

I swallowed hard. “So if the vision I saw really ends up happening, then the woman’s going to end up being tortured down there.”

“Maybe. But she also might already be down there.” He sighed. “Sometimes when someone inexperienced tries to see into the future they just end up seeing something that has already happened.”

“So she could be down there right now!” The loudness of my voice made us both glance around nervously. I’m not sure what we were looking for, though. There was nothing around but vacant buildings.

Alex gave me a look that stressed for me to keep my voice down. “She could be down there right now, but if she’s been down there for awhile, then she may have already died. Depending on how strong she is, she could be able to survive the torture for up to a few years without it driving her mad. But if she’s already lost her mind, the Queen would have had her killed.”

“Why would the Queen have her killed? And who’s this Queen anyway?”

“The Queen of the Dead. She’s in charge of everything that goes on in The Underworld. After a prisoner goes insane, they no longer produce the right kind of fear for her people to feed off of so she gets rid of them.”

I gaped. “By killing them.”

Alex sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “You have to understand that most of the things—or people we send down there have committed horrible crimes. The kind of crimes that haunt peoples’ nightmares.”

“Yeah, well, considering the Death Walker’s haunt my nightmares…” I trailed off. I really shouldn’t have mentioned that.

He cocked an eyebrow. “You’ve dreamt about them?”

I nodded. “A lot actually.”

“Why the heck didn’t you tell me this before?”

I shrugged. “You keep secrets,”
and probably still are,
“so why can’t I.”

He shook his head, clearly irritated. “Did you dream about them before you ever saw them in real-life?”

“Yeah, I started having the dreams a couple of months ago, and the first time I saw something that I thought might be a Death Walker was only a couple of weeks ago in the school parking lot. But I wasn’t one hundred percent sure if I’d actually seen one. I thought I might have imagined seeing it or something.”

“It was back when I had to chase you down in the parking lot so I could give you your book, wasn’t it? When you were freaking out and wouldn’t tell me why.”

I nodded.  It seemed like such a long time ago.

He stretched his arm across the top of the seat. “So you started dreaming about them around the same time you started to experience emotions?”

A touchy subject for me, especially since I knew he wanted my emotions gone. I needed to make sure and be vague with my answer, because I didn’t want to let anything slip out that might help him solve why I’d spontaneously started to feel. As ridiculously selfish as I knew it was, I wanted to keep feeling.

For the most part, anyway.

“I don’t know.” I turned to the window. “Maybe.”

Electricity tickled up and down my spine. Being alone with Alex in the poorly ventilated car was driving me absolutely insane. Not necessarily in a bad way, though. In fact, I think my body was building up a tolerance to electric sensation, because it was no longer making me feel like I had a fever. Warm and sparkly, it felt kind of good.

“So,” I began, turning my head back to him. “If it was a future vision I saw, would we be able to change what happened?”

He shook his head. “Prophecies are very hard to change, and I don’t have a clue as to how we’d even be able to find out if it was a past or future vision. That is, unless we want to go to the City of Crystal and chat it up with the Foreseers.”

“City of Crystal?”

“It’s where most of the Foreseer’s live, but you can’t get there without this special kind of crystal ball, which happens to be very hard to come by.”

I felt like I just might cry. If I’d seen a future vision, how was I supposed to just sit around and let the woman get taken away to The Underworld for real? The place sounded awful and…well, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I knew the woman somehow.
“I don’t get it. You say that prophecies are hard to change, but isn’t that exactly what you guys are trying to do with me?”

“That’s different, though. We knew yours was a future prophecy right from the start, and a lot of energy and time has gone into trying to change it.” He sighed. “Besides, you
are
emotional so we haven’t done a very good job of changing it.”