True Born (12 page)

I’m nearly there when I’m caught up in the gaze of two unearthly round eyes poking out from an inhuman face. Its lips curl down in a perpetual frown. It blinks once. Its nose is human but curved, thin, ending in a point like a beak. Feathers line its throat in soft, downy white waves while darker brown feathers shoot from his cheeks, where sideburns would normally grow. He—it looks like a he—has the sleek and self-contained appearance of a hunting falcon, a bird that hunts for its human handlers.

I nervously look around the room for the machine-gunned mercs hired to look after everybody, but to a man they are mysteriously absent. Behind me, the crowd restlessly stirs as they sip their drinks, talk and dance. No one is around—not Storm, not Kira. Certainly not Jared. I’m on my own.

That’s when I hear it: a murmur that grows into the thick cacophony of a crowd, shouts and yells punctuated by gunfire.

The mansion is under attack.

Chapter Fourteen

Flashes of orange light cut through the trees. The falcon man jumps onto the stone balustrade behind him. I creep closer only to catch a fleeting flock of smells: ammonia, saliva, and blood. He jumps backward, and I scream, sure he’ll be busted on the pavement fifteen feet below. But when I arrive at the balcony, he’s already spiriting away in the darkness. And instead, Kira’s sequined form steps into the light.

“Why, hey there, Lucy. You make a new friend at the party?”

“What’s going on?” is all I have time to ask.

Kira pulls off her heels and flings them into the darkness. “Find Jared and Storm and get to the car. Now!” she yells as she dashes off after the falcon man.

I backtrack into the party, which has become a scene of chaos. Women scream, and I watch as men in their expensive suits drag them off toward the exits. Waiters rush to the kitchen, trays all but forgotten, as the band starts shoving their instruments into bags. Something loud rocks the Kain mansion. The crystal chandelier above me jumps and chimes, its heavy pieces knocking heavily against each other. I watch as a shard sheers off and falls to the ground, shattering in a thousand pieces. A woman to my left screams bloody murder, and I just stare at her. Both of us are covered in glass. Tiny shards poke from her arms and face, drawing blood here and there as though she’s been bitten by a thousand bugs.

Suddenly I’m dragged toward the back door by a man cursing a blue streak. I bat at his arms, and he rounds on me, fierce eyes lit with green fire.

“Do
not
provoke me right now, Princess.”

“Let me go.” I try to tug myself from Jared’s unbreakable grip. “You don’t need to manhandle me.”

“What were you thinking?” he yells as we reach the tall doors leading to the kitchen and thread our way through the deserted rooms to the back door. “Do you really think it’s a good idea to just disappear with some strange guy? And now look at you. I swear, Princess, how did you manage to survive until now?” He surveys the glass still embedded in my dress, showering my hair.

I don
’t have time to reply, so I simply glare. A minute later we’ve exited the mansion and make our way to the left side of the mansion where the Kains’ massive garage is located. Jared drags me across the carefully cultivated greenery of the massive backyard, now wet with dew, so that I stumble every few feet. We’re nearly there when my phone buzzes against my leg. I pull it from my dress pocket.
Margot
, the phone buzzes insistently.

“Don’t even.” Jared glares at me, his eyes narrowing to slits.

I ignore him and press answer as he looks up at the sky and says something very unfriendly.

“Margot?”

“L-Lucy?”

“Margot, are you okay?”

“M-mag…tree, Lucy. Ma—” Margot’s voice dips and fades.

“Margot, you’re breaking up.”

“You’ve got to watch out.” Margot is nearly breathless with panic. “Tell them they have—bombs, Lucy—heading right for you.”

“Okay,” I say, more to soothe her than from any real fear and slip the phone back into my pocket.

“You about done?” If looks could kill, Jared would have murdered me twice over, I think as I watch him gnash his teeth.

“Margot says there are bombs going off downtown. They’re heading toward us.”

A flash of guilt crosses Jared’s face, but he just as quickly covers it up with more glowering.

The shadows are thick and strange in the garage as Jared leads me to the car. I catch the swish of a tail and the gleam of bright, shiny eyes. “Hee haw, guys,” drawls a familiar voice. “What’s shaking?”

Mohawk wears a bright red tank top and black running shorts with bright orange stripes up the sides overtop her printed body. The result is a colossal clash of colors and styles so gaudy it qualifies as art. “Some superfreak appeared,” I tell her, ignoring Jared entirely. “Kira went after him.”

Mohawk tilts her head like she wonders if I’m joking. “She’ll be okay.”

“Will she?”

“Storm told me to extract you. We need to locomote.
Vaminos
.”

“But what about Kira?”

“Get your butt in the car, Lucy,” Jared says in a steely voice. I jump in the back as Mohawk dashes around to the driver’s seat. Jared climbs into the back beside me but keeps his distance. Cold anger pulses at me in waves.

“It’s the rabble, isn’t it?” I barely get the words out before the first bodies reach the mansion. Lasters, most in dirty shirts and shoes held together with sticky gray electrical tape. They are mostly young men, but here and there are older men, the occasional woman, a handful of stray children. Wild looks on their faces I’d just as soon call hatred. I hear a scream as one young man, brandishing a shovel above his head, barrels toward an ultraluxury car. He smashes the driver’s side glass before moving to the front of the car and smashing out the lights, the dash, denting whatever he can. But for now, at least, he ignores us.

I strap myself in as Mohawk pedals the gas. But before we’ve even backed up five feet, we’re surrounded by a sea of rebel Lasters.

The Preacher man, the one from outside our house, lights onto the top of an Oldworld Mercedes. Mohawk leans on the horn and blasts us backward. There’s a yelp as we run over someone’s feet. But by the time we’ve cleared the garage the preacher has seen us. His mouth moves as he points a bony finger at the van windows. Heads whip around to follow his finger. They advance on us like a clockwork army. I slam my door lock down. Mohawk curses and floors it backward. A body sails over the hood as we veer around and forward into the crowd. In the second before Mohawk pulls away, I’m distracted by a Laster, spray painting two joined circles in bright, candy-apple red on the front of the senator’s mansion.

We race through gobs of people, Mohawk continually laying on the horn, until we reach the copse of trees that signals the end of Kain’s property. Mohawk pulls over, engine still running. A tug at the door almost has me jumping out of my seat. “Relax, kid,” Jared bites off, reaching around me to unlock the door. Storm piles into the back.

“Go.” Storm is grim as he stares straight ahead.

Mohawk has barely touched the gas when an eerie crackling fills the air and fountains a bright pink and candy red explosion against the night sky. The car shakes and makes a whining sound, as though it’s spinning its wheels. I cry out and grasp the door handle. Behind me, Storm yells at Mohawk to go faster. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that whatever has been detonated is trying to pull us in, like an immense vortex, a magnetic black hole.

“What’s going on?”
I scream.

“Floor it, goddamn it, Penny,” shouts Storm. The SUV comes to a standstill and begins a backward slide. I hear a ripping sound. Storm bellows. My stomach lurches. Tossing his head wildly, Storm pulls his spotless white shirt off, his tuxedo jacket already in tatters on the floor in front of him. His head tips back, and his eyes roll into endless, molten silver as he bellows. The car shudders, and a moment later he’s ripped the door open. I stare, slack-jawed. Jared bares his long teeth, his glowing eyes restlessly changing color.

“Christ,” Mohawk spits out. “Lucy, don’t move a frigging muscle, you hear me?” I nod, mute with terror as the SUV suddenly lurches forward. “And you—” She spins in her seat and narrows her eyes at Jared. “Keep it together. Stay put, for crying out loud!”

What feels like a battering ram heaves at the van, propelling us forward. Pressure builds all around me. Through the side mirror I see the outline of Storm, halfway between beast and man, alight in a wash of white as he pushes the van from behind. Shirtless, he looks like an unearthly being, a god. I can’t tell where he ends and the electric, snapping lightning begins.

Two Lasters come from behind and rush him. Caked in mud and yelling murder, they don’t seem to be affected by the tugging current of whatever has detonated. One raises a thick plank and swats at Storm, connecting with his back. Storm turns as though he’s been hit with a plastic child’s toy. A sound I’ve never heard before erupts from him as he picks up the man who hit him and with one hand pulls his head off. I gasp, shutting my eyes against the gore. Then, with a mighty push, I feel the tension from the bomb stretch and pop, and suddenly we are moving forward with speed again.

A spill of pink floats down from the sky like a wilted feather. Even from here I can tell that the Senator’s mansion has been decimated. Large sections from the roof and front have gone missing, like someone has taken a bite out of it. Mohawk doesn’t slow down or stop to collect her boss. I sit forward and pull at her seat. “
Wait. Storm.
”

She shakes her head. “He’ll catch up. I’m guessing he’ll need some time to run it off.”

“Run what off?” I ask. But neither Mohawk nor Jared, silent and grim, answer.

We turn onto the main route heading back to Storm’s keep. I tremble as I take in the destruction: entire half-blocks have simply disintegrated, nothing left but scorching holes in the ground. Incredibly, against reason, one crater had already begun growing a tree, matured past the height of a sapling.

“What is that?” I whisper.

“What’s that, kid?” Mohawk asks, visibly more relaxed despite the incredible swath of destruction the preacher’s kin have cut into the cityscape.

“Margot mentioned something about a tree. I didn’t understand, but there it is. What kind of bomb would grow a tree?” I muse aloud. A look passes between Mohawk and Jared through the rearview mirror, instantly sobering me. “What are they?”

“Don’t know,” mutters Mohawk.

Jared throws himself back onto the seat. “Just drive.”

My words are quiet-quiet, but the accusation is loud and clear. “And Storm isn’t just a True Born, is he?”

Jared peers out the window, ignoring me. “Drive,” he tells Mohawk again.

At first I think much of the downtown core has been spared. But as we inch closer I see how wrong I am. Dominion’s streets are clogged with Lasters who’ve either been fighting or avoiding fights. Splicers’ fancy cars clog up the roads, trying to escape the chaos. I even hear the wail of sirens—a sound I haven’t heard for a while.

“Must be bad,” I mutter, taking in the tattered ribbons of a storefront awning, blown-out windows. Chunks of debris litter the streets, some in mounds as tall as houses, and what appears from a distance to be burned out husks riding on top of them. As we drive closer I realize the husks are ragged, bloody corpses missing heads. One street is particularly dark, until I realize the entire block has been erased. Streetlights, cars, houses: everything just vanished into darkness.

“Why would the rabble do this?” I choke on tears. “Why would they level their own city?”

I’m so taken with the scene on the streets that I don’t at first notice Jared, shaking with fury, lean forward. He clamps his jaw tight, like he’s trying not to bite me. His face flushes dark red against his blond hair. But it’s his tone that scares me the most. It’s deceptively calm. “Well, now that’s the problem right there, isn’t it, Princess?” he purrs. I pull my hands in tight to my body, not daring to move or breathe.

“Cut it out, Jared,” Mohawk throws back.

“No, I want to know how she defends calling them ‘
rabble.
’ They’re
people
, Lucy. Starving people, dying people. Something you wouldn’t know anything about, would you? And you wonder why they’d dare burn it all to the ground?” Distaste rolls off him in waves, like something I can taste on my tongue. Jared’s fingers, bone white, crush the upholstery behind my head. “Look at me, dammit.” He digs those fingers into my shoulder, causing little pinpricks of blood to appear. Caught completely off guard, I turn to him in confusion. That’s what all of this is about? One word? A knot of anger forms in my chest as I look back at him.

“They aren’t acting like
people
, Jared. Starving or not, where is the humanity in destruction and murder?” I hear Jared’s sharp inhale, brace myself for his response.

Mohawk jars the car to a stop and turns to push Jared back one-handed. “Sit down and shut up,” she barks. “We’re almost at headquarters.”

And amid the darkened, wrecked city, Storm’s tower glitters darkly.

Chapter Fifteen

The ride up the elevator is frosty. I head straight for Margot’s room. For once I’m not shadowed by Jared. The ache in my chest grows heavy even as the cord pulling me to my sister grows stronger. I rap once on the door before opening it.

I don
’t know what I had expected. Maybe to find Margot wilted in a heap on the floor, waiting for me to look in on her. Maybe shivering in the closet. Instead, she stands at the window facing the darkness of Dominion, lit by the curling tendrils of exploded bombs. She turns, relief etched into her face, and something harder, firmer. I was wrong: Margot may be rocked by what has happened to her, but she’s strong. Far stronger than I’ve given her credit.

We embrace, two halves fitted together again. Her hair smells like sunshine. I can feel us both begin to calm now that we’re together again.

“You’re safe,” I say, just as Margot whispers, “You’re okay. I was so worried.”

We pull apart to stare at each other. In some unfathomable way, the gulf that has opened up between us since she went missing is more pronounced than ever. Her worried eyes travel over me restlessly. It’s hard to hide from my sister. “What happened to you?” she asks, her tone accusing.

I move to her closet and pull out the luggage I’d packed for her just days before. “
Get packed,
” I say in response. “We’re going home.”

“What? No.”

“Margot.” My voice is filled with steel. “We can’t stay here any longer.”

Margot sinks onto the bed. “What happened?”

“We need to speak with Father and Mother… And we need to go home. That’s all.” I cross over to the bureau beside the bed and start emptying her underwear drawer into the bag. Margot puts a hand on my arm.

“Lucy,” she says, so gently I could break.

But I refuse to think about Jared. Refuse to cry. It’s easier to think about the damage Storm has done. Not for a single second longer will I be a punching bag or a pawn. “He’s using us, Margot,” I say with bitterness. Anger helps me to shut down the tears threatening to leak.

“Yes, but we already knew that.”

“You don’t understand. He really used me tonight.”

“I heard.”

“What?”

“Robbie Deakins called me. He was there.”

“What?” I turn and gape, forgetting Margot’s socks for the moment. “I didn’t see him.”

“Well, he and his parents saw you. Apparently a Fox sister showing up with Nolan Storm was the talk of the town.”

“He didn’t say hello.”

“His mother wouldn’t let him. Said you were going to be in ‘wicked trouble’ for bringing a True Born to the Kain party,” Margot puts the words in air quotes.

“Those hypocrites! You know they all do business with Storm, don’t you?”

“Yes. I do. So why are you so mad?”

It explodes from me. “Because he didn’t tell me what he was up to. I was just…waylaid.”

“Could you really not guess what it would be like?”

I sit on the bed beside my sister. “I suppose I didn’t really think it through. I’m an idiot.”

She nudges me with her shoulder and gives me a quick, wry grin. “You’re not the one who went off with a lunatic who cut pieces out of her to sell on the Black Market.”

“Oh, Margot,” I say as pain, fresh as knives, blooms between us. “And then the rabble came. And a superfreak was there.”

Margot’s face turns the color of chalk. “What happened?”

“Kira went after him.” But as I begin to tell Margot the story I realize I don’t know what happened to Kira. Is she alive or dead? Had she survived the bombing or—whatever that was? I can’t think past images of Storm, turning into a vision of my worst nightmares, his shirt in shreds and his eyes glowing with that unearthly light.

And with intense clarity I recall Margot’s call.

I narrow my eyes on her. “How did you know?”

Margot worries her fingers. “What do you mean?”

“The bombs. How did you even know they’re—whatever they are? How did you know they were coming for us?”

Margot peels back the curtain and peers out at the night. “I could see them. You can see a lot from here.”

“How did you know they weren’t regular bombs? How do you even know what they are?”
I accuse.
“Do you know what he is?” I don’t have to say his name. The look in her eyes tells me she knows more than she’s letting on. “Why aren’t you telling me what’s going on?”

“
I don
’t know anything for sure,” she says defensively. “Honest. The bombs were so bright, Lu. They were like paintings in the sky. And I just…it’s like I could feel them.”

“What are you talking about?”

My sister gives me a funny look, like she can’t believe I’m asking such a stupid question. “Come over here,” she says. Her finger points into the darkness. “See that?” I look. Two blocks away a streetlight illuminates a massive, leafy tree growing in the middle of the street. It’s too exotic to be native of Dominion: broad leaves shoot up into a prehistoric canopy at least two stories high.

“I saw one of the preacher’s boys lob a bomb there. When it detonated, it felt like a fist squeezing my insides. I thought I was going to die.”

“Oh.”

“But then, maybe a few minutes later, I heard all this shouting and got up to see where the fighting was. I was worried they were going to bomb this place next. And there it was.” She turns serious gray eyes on me. “Lu, it’s grown a good seven feet in the past hour.”

“That’s not possible.” I shake my head.

“But you know how I really knew? I mean sure, someone could have dropped the tree there when I was taking cover. And maybe it was one of those genetic accelerants they’ve been trying to use on the crops, although really, I’ve never seen something grow so fast. Maybe it was a trick of the light. But I knew what it was, Lu. No one had to tell me.”

“How?”

“Because, sister dear. It’s the same feeling I get whenever I’m around them. Especially Storm. Same feeling I’ve always had.” Margot swallows, her voice dropping quiet-quiet. “Just like that shiver I get whenever you’re near,” she whispers.

...

It’s late. I listen, dry-eyed, while Margot sheds the odd tear. The NewsFeed is oddly silent on the attack on the Kain mansion. No mention of it makes the bulletins except to say that a “band of disgruntled followers of a popular street preacher led a protest today through the streets of Dominion.” No one talks of strange bombs, or whole streets given way to darkness and trees. There’s not even a whisper of casualties; no reports of deaths, although I reckon that’s the least surprising thing of all. They stopped mentioning numbers with that sort of thing long ago. Too many were dying each day, and they had to curb the panic.

When the report is over, we look at each other. She feels it, too. If the NewsFeeds aren’t talking about it, what else haven’t they told us? We live such sheltered lives in the Upper Circle. But surely someone will notice an entire downtown block gone missing?

But then, the Lasters are dwindling so fast. What if this cover-up has been engineered to prevent an even worse riot situation?

I get to thinking about what people know and what they don’t know, the secrets we all keep. Mary Kain knows what they did to Margot in the Splicer Clinic, which means that Senator Kain knows, too. And who else: dull-eyed Perry Kain?
Everyone
? I haven’t told Margot yet, afraid of what she might do. Terrified of what she might not do.

By the time Margot and I are packed, Storm has returned, a bloody Kira in tow.

We make our way to his office. Beside me, Margot is dry-eyed but trembling. As we are invited in by a booming voice and come face to face with this Nolan Storm, her trembling gets worse.

“What happened?” is the first thing out of my mouth.

Kira stands beside the couch as Storm bends over her arm with antiseptic and gauze. Her face is a mask of bruises, mottled and swollen purple across her cheeks and around her eyes. A long purple line decorates her neck. Sequins hang off her dress in torn strips, the right strap dangling. She only glances at us as we march in. Storm doesn’t even look up as he stitches a jagged gash.

“We can come back.” I motion to Kira.

Just a flicker of his eyes, and he has taken us in. “If that were true, I doubt you would have brought your luggage with you,” he drawls, nodding to the matching bags set behind us. “Why don’t you just tell me what’s on your mind?”

I take Margot’s shaking hand. “We’re leaving.”

“I gathered that.” Storm cuts the thread and begins winding white gauze around Kira’s forearm as she sucks in her pain. “Do you think that’s wise, given the events of this evening?”

This is not the same Nolan Storm I have become accustomed to dealing with. I don’t understand what I’m seeing. It’s as if two people share the same space, one superimposed upon the other. The human Nolan Storm hides underneath a mantle of power that shimmers from him, extends so far out from his body now that he is almost blinding to look at, fierce, terrible. Deadly.

“
I don
’t know. Is it?” I answer curtly.

Storm nods. “Kira,” he dismisses the limping True Born with a nod. “Sit down, ladies,” he commands as Kira skirts past us, her eyes flickering to mine for only an instant. I can’t be sure but there is the ghost of a smirk on her lips. I sink down on the couch beside Margot, but it’s me Storm stares at with those unearthly eyes. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

I don
’t waste any time. “What are you?” Not
who
are you. “You sure as Moses aren’t human. And you aren’t True Born, either, so don’t try to pretend.”

He crouches before me. “How would you know what True Borns are?”

My voice cracks as I whisper back, “We’ve seen them. Fins on backs. Furry hands. What Jared is. Shifters, I guess. Mohawk—I mean, Penny. Not you.”

“Yes, me too.”

“No.”

“Yes, Lucy,” he says my name gently, but his eyes are still violent, rivers filled with death. He runs a hand over the back of his neck, as though the antlers, more impressive than ever, have become a heavy burden. “A different kind, yes, but True Born. But you need to know what True Borns are to know what that means.”

I open my mouth to argue. Margot twists my hand. A not-so subtle command for me to shut the hell up. “I want to hear this,” she cuts in.

Storm sits on the couch opposite us and leans over his knees. “What do you think happened when the Plague came in?”

“A massive increase in pollution,” I tell him, rattling off the lessons we’ve learned in school since we were small children. There had been breaches in nuclear energy plants. Ocean’s worth of radiation leached into the environment along with everyday manufacturing debris, plastics, mercury. All that pollution eventually led to increased metabolic rates and genetic anomalies, resulting in the evolution of an ancient earth-class disease now busy chewing its way through the human population.

“You’re about half right.”

Margot crosses her legs and tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. “What then?”

“We
evolved
. That’s what species have always done to survive massive changes in our environment. That is also the reason why humans are so susceptible to the Plague.”

He says it so casually.
Humans
.

“But here’s where evolutionary theories diverge. The Plague isn’t just a reaction to our environment, although I’ll grant you, it sure sped it up. It’s a symptom of something else, something much bigger—an evolution that began eons ago. And though this current era is marked by a sudden shift… Wait, I’ll show you.” Storm jumps over to his orderly bookshelf and pulls a giant tome from a shelf taller than the rest. He thumbs over to a full two-page photograph of a stone slab and lays the picture before us.

The slab has been sculpted into a frozen scene: behind a winged man stands a tall, ruler-straight throne made for giants. His are the wings of dragonflies, intricately patterned. In one hand he holds a lightning bolt like he’s about to throw it. In the other, a snake. Before him is an audience—men in headdresses and huge, sleek jungle cats with human eyes and collars around their necks crouch at his feet—and all around the scene someone has sculpted very detailed, realistic tropical trees. The back of my head prickles with premonition. I feel as though I’m about to drown.

“You know what this is?”

Margot answers, as breathless as I feel, “What?” My heart pumps furiously as my eyes race over the carved images again and again, trying to make sense.

“Our history ties us to the past. Our future is in our blood. You know what the True Borns are, Margot?” Eyes huge, she shakes her head. But it’s Storm’s eyes I can’t look away from suddenly. Fathomless pools of molten gray, steeped in something I don’t even understand, something I’d as soon call alien. “This. The resurrection of gods.”

I tamp down a nervous giggle. “These are just pictures, myths,” I argue, reading the caption beneath the image.
Bas-relief of Neo-Babylonian tablet, circa 1122 BCE, found at the temple of Esagila, depicting the supreme Babylonian god, Marduk
.

As I stare down at the image, something about the cat pulls at me—worse, reminds me of Jared. Suddenly I’m not so sure anymore.

Storm continues in a voice as soft as silk. “Marduk was First. He was First Born of what they called the True Born gods. And from his body the humans were made. But his first children weren’t human, Lucy. They were
us
.”

Slowly, as though not to startle us, Storm heads back to his bookshelf. This time he takes down something I’ve never seen before, a dark cylinder covered in symbols and weird writing that looks like chicken scratch. “Marduk had in his possession a covenant. Call it a pact.” He cradles the cylinder before setting it down before us. “Marduk’s people declared him steward of the land, of man and beast, and when he decided it was time, he passed it to his children, who passed it to their children. Right down the line. To me.”

I squint up at an eerily bright Storm. “You’re saying your ancestor is an ancient Babylonian god.”

His answering smile dazzles. “Marduk didn’t just belong to Babylon. He was the chief deity for Mesopotamia and beyond. But he went by other names, too, over the ages. Cernunnos the Horned One. And yes, I’m telling you this being was my great-great-great grandfather. Am I saying he was a god?” Storm shakes his head. “No. I wouldn’t go so far. But I am telling you that since Antiquity, no one had any idea what to do with people who could transform into animals in the blink of an eye. People born with the strength, agility, and power of nature coded into their very DNA—even in that era, when what seemed like strange and mystical events occurred every day. They worshipped Marduk like a god. And one day they all just disappeared from the face of the earth. Look.” He flips to another page in the book to a painting of ruins covered in moss, hanging down like bunches of grapes.