When Silver Moons Rise (Lost Immortals Saga #2) (7 page)

Micah thinks the less he knows about what I’m doing the easier it will be to keep my secret. He also promises to ease Father’s mind. I’m not only doing this for Faris and me, but this venture will also be for all of our people, the exiled celestials who live in shame. I also plan to fight for my friends, the ones who are threatened by the prospect of a second apocalyptic war. I have no idea how long it’ll take to reach Faris. And I still feel uneasy about dragging Jalen along with me. Plus, guilt messes with my head when I imagine how Father will feel once he discovers I’m gone.

“Take care of yourself out there, Che,” Micah says. “Hurry up and come back, okay? I want to meet this guy who owns so much of my sister’s heart.”

I nod because this feels too much like we’re saying goodbye. If I open my mouth, then all of the sobs I’ve held back will take over. Throwing my arms around Micah’s neck, I say, “You got it. Take care of you too.” I inhale deeply, force my body to turn around, and walk out the door without glancing back at my brother.

 

* * *

 

Jalen and I ditch his car just outside the amusement park. We walk the rest of the way to the train station. Desi agreed to meet us after she finished scouting the area. She travels by foot, something that’s second nature to the demon slayers. Curfew happens in another hour. Two kids rushing along the almost deserted streets don’t look too suspicious yet, although I worry about the outfits we’re wearing. The rogue-based clothing looks just a little too authentic. The soldiers could easily mistake us for rebels.

Jalen and I make our way through the silent downtown area. No one wants to get caught breaking curfew. I’m pretty certain that my thudding heart betrays the fear rolling inside my belly. Jalen acts as though we’re taking a stroll on a sunny day. This excites him; but I can’t help but to wonder what he told his parents. His mother, Gia, is a nice woman and I hate knowing she’ll be worried now because of something that her son is doing for me.

I put on my brave face and follow along with our crazy plan. I didn’t want Desi to know this, but I am terrified of sneaking on to the A-Train. If we get caught doing something like this then our punishment will make detention camp feel like a vacation.

We duck into an alley between the last two buildings beside the train station’s manager’s metallic office. The entrance to the maintenance tunnel we’re trying to reach is about fifty-feet away from where we stand hidden in the darkness. It runs alongside the tracks where the A-Train stops to be checked for repairs. The plan is to go through the tunnel and sneak on board the train after it stops at the station.

Jalen has some kind of fancy decoder he made in order to crack the locks on the cargo car. Sounds easy enough, right?

I wonder if Faris came this way when he left the city. I’m almost certain he did. Maybe the strange evening weather is playing tricks on me, but I swear I can almost feel the leftover part of his soul. It’s like a warm current flowing through me, forming an image of his face when I close my eyes.

“You alright?” Jalen asks while we wait for Desi. I open my eyes and glance away in the opposite direction. 

“Yeah, sure,” I lie.

Something across the way from us moves in the dark. My heart skips about four beats. Desi. She eases through the alley and finds her way over to my side.  “Bad news, kiddies. The Conductor’s on duty tonight. And he looks mean and mad.”

“Translation, we’re in trouble,” I say and let out a long sigh. The Conductor is a guard who stands about seven-feet-tall and his body is almost just as wide. He guards the entrance to the train station, making sure Outcasts and runaways like us don’t get inside the city. From what I hear, he does his job well.

“Nice way to put it,” Desi answers. She hesitates a moment before she says, “One more thing, revenant soldiers are guarding the entrance to the train station.”

“What? No way. I thought they were all gone.” My heart flips. I’m starting to regret this decision more and more. But I do know Desi wouldn’t lie about something like this.

The revenants are the things created by using angel-blood touched by a spell to preserve the person’s spirit. And Rabia, the only other seraph girl besides me, supplied the angel-blood that Camden and Ashli used to do it. She’s supposedly locked up in another land, though.

When a normal person drinks the potion, their physical body dies, but a Tainted alchemist like Camden is still able to control the person’s spirit because of the reanimation spell. Faris, Tobie, Desi, and the other demon slayers destroyed most of the undead army created by Camden, Seth. Ashli and Rabia when we all fought in Oceania a few months ago.

“Are you sure it’s not just a bunch of pale dark soldiers who need a suntan?” Jalen asks, grinning. I give him a hard look and his smile fades right away. “Just saying. It is nighttime.”

“Listen. You human chromo-freaks might screw up on a regular basis, but not my people. I know dark magic when I see it,” Desi snaps.

“Why do I gotta be a freak? Your people brought all this on us. You and your weird wands,” Jalen says.

“This isn’t a wand, you idiot. Do I look like a wizard?”

“You don’t wanna know what I think you look like.”

“Okay, um, that’s enough. You two are seriously not going to keep arguing this way, I hope,” I say. “Silence. Thank goodness. Desi, I believe you. Jalen, hold on before you say anything else. How can there be more revenants? I thought Camden and Ashli were the only ones who knew how to make the potion.”

Desi purses her lips and sighs. “I’m not sure.” No smart remarks. No mean faces. Yep! Desi’s not lying. That means we’re in trouble. “We don’t really have time to figure out who’s responsible. Let’s just stay with the plan.”

“Mm-Kay. You mean the one where we go through the tunnel that’s guarded by the zombie soldiers waiting at the other end?” Jalen begins. “Man, I hate the way those guys look. They have those raggedy lips and inky black eyes. Geez.”

I believe Desi, but her words also scare me. This means someone here in Castle Hayne is still turning humans into undead slaves for the fallen. This is not a good thing. I immediately think of Micah and hope that Father, Nina, and Mabry will continue to keep a close watch over him.

“Don’t you hate the way the zombie guys look, Chela the Fair?” Jalen’s voice rips me back to our situation.

“Should we call your mommy and tell her you want to come home?” Desi asks him in a mockingly sweet voice.

“Deal. If you call your hairstyist and tell her to tone down that metal-head hairdo you got going on,” Jalen scoffs. Desi hisses and narrows her eyes, but she also unconsciously moves her hand up to the spiked parts of her blonde hairdo.

“Guys, shut-up and look.” I point toward the door leading to the maintenance tunnels. The soldiers patrolling the area have moved on down the street, probably heading out to check for crazy people like the three of us.

“Perfect timing because we need to make our move.” Jalen stands and heads toward the doorway.

“Wait!” Desi says, a bit of panic in her voice. But my best guy friend has already made his way out into the open. Right away, I see what Desi tried to warn him about. A bulk of a man is headed our way. I don’t think he has spotted Jalen yet.
Oh no. This isn’t good.

“Freakin’ dim wit. Why did you bring hm?”

“He wanted to come,” I say, feeling anxious because for once, Desi and I agree on something. I can’t shake the memory of the nightmare I keep having, the one where Jalen dies while trying to defend me.

“He’ll get us killed,” she snaps and pulls out her mirrors, the ones that use electricity to zap supernatural creatures. “Let’s go save super-idiot.”

“Don’t call him that,” I snap back.

She scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Just come on.”

I stand and try to keep up with Desi whose long legs cover twice as much ground as my shorter ones. With fear pounding inside my chest, I try to ignore my thudding heart as I glance around. We scurry across the back road and over to the tunnel’s doorway.

Jalen stands in front of the door. He’s picking at the lock with some kind of strange metal stick. Next thing I know, the hairs on the back of my neck rise. I glance behind us. The man who towers over everything in the area stalks toward us. He has to be at least eight feet tall; and he wears a spiked outfit that would send any Outcast running to hide. The Conductor.

He stops at about forty-feet from where we stand and slaps a club against his palm. I swear the thing is almost the same height as my body. Flanking his sides is a group of four revenants. I can tell the difference between them and the normal soldiers now. The creepy way they walk and that sulfuric smell tells me all I need to know.

“Chela Prizeon, Jalen Wood, and anonymous party, you are all under arrest by Servant of the Heart Officer #BP-289,” the Conductor’s thunderous voice booms at us.

A shiver rushes through my body. Desi snaps her head toward me, and we lock gazes. I see the questions in her eyes. I’ll deal with those later.

Right now, I wonder how this guy knows our names and who has ordered our arrest. Did Nina set this up? No way. She wouldn’t betray one of her own warriors, would she?
I don’t trust her.
Those were my brother’s words…and mine.

“How does he know who we are?” I mouth. Desi shakes her head, giving me a genuinely confused look. She’s just as stunned by this news as I am.

Jalen turns to me and says, “Get the lock open.”

I shake my head and say, “I don’t know if I can do it.”

Crap!
He still thinks I can use my memory power to make something move. I wish I could, too.

“I got faith in you, Chela the Fair. Don’t let me down.” He kisses my forehead, turns around, and glances back the Conductor approaching us.

“What are you planning to do? Don’t be stupid in thinking you can take this guy,” Desi says, her face concerned.

“Step away from the door,” the Conductor orders.

“Get the lock open. I got this,” Jalen says to me and pats the saber attached to his side. Before I can protest, he walks out in the open.

“Alright, Mr. Conductor. Time to play,” Jalen teases.

“What’s this? A boy prepared to challenge a man?” the Conductor says, glancing at the soldiers standing beside him.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got the dim wit’s—Jalen’s back. Do something useful for a change. Get that lock open,” Desi orders. What would my life be like without her around to tick me off?

Fact: my crazy friends will die if I don’t get my head together. I force myself to swallow against my tongue that’s thick with fear. I need a memory to help me snap the lock. And I’d better think of one real quick. This situation has turned into what I feared the most.

Jalen charges toward the Conductor, while Desi takes on a pair of soldiers coming in from the right. My job is to pop the lock on the doorway. I don’t really understand how heading into the tunnel will help get the soldiers off our backs; but I roll with the plan the way Desi suggested.

I stare at the lock. Nothing. I rub Mother’s necklace, hoping for something, waiting for anything. Zilch! I glance back. My friends struggle to fight off the Conductor and his undead soldiers. I strain so hard I feel like I might wet myself.

 

Why do you always panic when you should be doing something useful?

“What the hell are you doing?” Desi shouts at Jalen. “We need to break up out of here. Abandon this crazy plan.” She shoots me a wild look. And then Jalen swings into action. He drops his saber, pulls out two metallic nun chucks, and starts flipping them around his body as though he’s been practicing for his whole life.

The Conductor grins wide, showing a set of white teeth. Everybody in Castle Hayne has perfect teeth. Even the maniacs.

Why the heck are you thinking about teeth, right now?

Break the damn lock!

But I’m too caught up in discovering yet another side of my best friend I’ve never seen before to focus on my task.

Jalen lowers his head, locks his gaze on the Conductor, and stalks toward him. And for the first time I realize that Jalen, my sweet best friend with the goofy grin, has become Jalen, the assassin with a murderous gleam in his eyes.

The man swings and Jalen ducks. Using his nun chucks, Jalen hits the man in so many places at once that it almost seems like I’m watching a windmill of steel controlled by my best friend. When he’s done, the Conductor drops to his knees, a startled expression etched across his face as he falls to the ground. Jalen makes a swirling drop kick to the back of his head which sends the man sailing to the ground. Even Desi hesitates a moment to take in the situation.

The one soldier that Desi hasn’t taken out growls at Jalen as he backs away. He has sense enough to realize he probably should keep his distance; at least until the reinforcements arrive.

“Get your ass over here and stop playing hero!” Desi yells at Jalen as she runs toward me. He rips his gaze away from the Conductor lying unconscious and heads back over to where we stand.

“I’m sorry. I can’t get it,” I explain to him.

“No worries. Your dark knight has got this,” Jalen says, giving me a nervous smile.

Desi sighs loudly and throws her arms up. “Gag time. Puh-leeze just open the freakin’ lock, would you?”

Jalen shoves the little metal rod in the lock. It flops open. A bit of relief flows through my body. I am not abandoning our plan after all we’ve done to get here.

“Finally! Come on,” Desi says to me and turns toward Jalen. He now stares at the Conductor lying on the ground, blood pooling around his body. A faraway look is in my best friend’s face.

“What are you doing? Move it!” Desi grabs the back of Jalen’s jacket, pulling him through the tunnel’s gated doorway.

We step through, our nervous breaths echoing inside the walls made of concrete. Desi attaches the lock on the handle inside the gate. This buys us some time to find a way to board the train. We run through the maintenance tunnel and emerge on the other side. Thankfully, there are no soldiers around the way Desi thought there would be.

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