Descendant (Secrets of the Makai) (2 page)

"I understand the committee wants you to fire me, because of where I live, but I wouldn't steal from you." Tristan made a show of dumping his groceries onto a chair and pulled it inside-out to prove it was empty. "I'm not a thief."

Allen nodded again. "I'm sorry the thought crossed my mind. The committee...you know."

"Yeah, I know."

"Right then," Allen said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

He wouldn't, but Tristan nodded anyway.

2

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A
SHES TO
A
SHES -

FREEZING NIGHT AIR sucked the breath from Tristan's lungs as he flung open his bedroom window. Behind him, flames rose higher from his garbage can, devouring his collection of sketches—landscapes, clipper ships, detailed portraits of people he didn't know. Smoke swirled as he waved it away with the final sketch, a man he'd only seen once or twice. A stalker? Tristan had no proof. He let the drawing slip into the flames, tired of believing someone would come for him, or that maybe his supposedly dead father was keeping tabs on him. Childish really—all the silly wishing.

When nothing but smoldering ash remained, he poured half a bottle of water into the can and kept the rest for later, then left the trailer to carry out the final part of the plan.

His mother's rusted truck sat at an awkward angle in the driveway, pinning garbage cans against the brittle siding of the trailer. Sparkles of frost collected on the windows.

His mother lay still, slumped over the steering wheel with bleached hair hanging limp over her face. Her jaw hung open, red lipstick smudged from her chin to cheek. Ordinarily he'd drag her into the house when he found her passed out drunk like this to save them both the embarrassment of gawking neighbors, but not tonight. Tonight was his and she was on her own from now on.

* * *

Clumps of snowflakes stuck to Tristan's eyelashes as a thin blanket of white covered the streets, knocking off tree blossoms and weighing down early spring flowers. He hopped the slick railroad ties along the train trestle and ducked between the steel cables, where he dropped to a ledge hidden beneath the tracks.

Shivering, he pulled out the last of his water and dug in his pocket for his mother's pain meds. It wasn't her prescription, but she'd still be pissed to find them gone. He took a gulp of water and gagged as half the pills scraped down his throat. The rest went easier.

Tristan pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and settled against the wall of steel. Snowflakes drifted lazily into the raging river below.

The ledge used to be the best place for peace and quiet, far enough from the never-ending barrage of people's thoughts. But not anymore. Now, there was no escaping the noise. No place to hide. School was a nightmare with hundreds of students and teachers crammed into one building. Neighborhoods, towns, cities…he had no idea how many miles thoughts could travel, but longed for the days when all he had to do was leave the room to get away.

His eyelids grew heavy. The chaotic noise in his head became muffled, pushed to the back of his mind by a wall of cotton. Was there something he hadn't thought of, a way to keep the silence constant? Too late now.

Something smacked his face and his eyes fluttered open.

"Get your butt in gear, we have work to do." An old woman squatted over him with a red scarf wrapped around her head. Tiny unblinking eyes peered down at him. She slapped him again, stinging his numb cheek. "You're going to freeze to death out here."

True. He'd counted on that if the pills weren't enough. The river could be his friend as well, if he fell in it and drowned. He tried to speak, but his tongue felt thick and slow.

The woman picked up the empty prescription bottle and scowled. "Do you know what this is?"

Tristan shrugged.

"How dare you do something this extreme...taking your own life. Do you have any idea—?" Without warning, the woman gripped his jaw and jammed her fingers to the back of his throat. Everything in his stomach spewed over the edge of the platform in waves of involuntary spasms.

"There's no time to waste!" she said, fussing while he got to his knees. "I've been discovered." She tugged on his arms, trying to get him to his feet. "They're coming for the emerald."

"What?" Panic swelled in his thoughts. He'd followed through with every stage of his plan, without hardly any flicker of doubt or regret, and here was some crazy person messing everything up. What if he fell off the ledge and took her with him by accident? He stared at her, unable to hear her thoughts.

"Let me go." His voice sounded weak, uncertain even to himself. The peace in his head wouldn't last and he knew it. "Please," he added.

"I can't protect the damned thing anymore. I'm not even the rightful guardian. Come on, my house is just through the woods."

No way would he ever go with her, but suddenly he was kneeling on a plush living room rug instead of the ledge on the trestle. His mind reeled to fill in the missing time as he took in the wall of books and knickknacks. She couldn't possibly have carried him.

The woman dumped silverware from a shiny wooden box onto a table, then ripped back the interior lining to reveal a hidden piece of paper. "Hold out your hand and don't move 'til I tell you." She folded the page into quarters and stuffed his fingers between layers before he could ask what for.

Three overlapping images blazed through his mind—trees, boulders, a small city carved into a mountain. The intense brightness dimmed when she yanked the page away.

"Put it in your pocket and if anyone tries to take it, you make sure they don't walk away."

Tristan shook his head at the crazy woman. "You seriously have me confused with someone else."

"I have spent the last fifteen years of my life traipsing across the country to keep an eye on you, so don't you go telling me I have you confused with someone else."

Tristan scowled with disbelief. "Fifteen years?" He'd never considered his stalker might be an old woman. If only he could find her thoughts to hear what she really meant.

"I agree you're not a proper guardian, but you do have a bit of dragon blood in you, so I really have no other option. It's your duty more than mine to protect this map." She handed him the folded paper, with no resemblance of a map on it, and nodded when he slipped it into the back pocket of his jeans. She then selected a miniature treasure chest with ornate metal braces from a display shelf and held it in the palm of her hand for him to see.

Jumbled questions rose in his mind. Why did he just put a blank piece of paper in his pocket, as if agreeing to something?

"There's an emerald sealed in this box."

Tristan ignored the woman's voice and sifted through the mumble of thoughts in his head for hers. Without them, her words seemed flat; limited to what she wanted him to hear and not the complete truth. Was this how she'd kept herself hidden from him all these years? By somehow masking her thoughts of intention?

"Pay attention!" She lifted his chin and glared at him. "They contain the memories and souls of extinct faeries, from all different races."

"What does?"

"The emerald in this box and all the others. I don't know how many, or where they are, or if they're all emeralds or not. I only know this one, which happens to be the soul of a Valkyrie." She offered him the box. "They can be killed, drained, and used. In any order. If they get into the wrong hands…well. That picture burned in your brain is the safest way to deal with them."

"Them who?"

The old woman ignored his questions, speaking even faster. "I renounce my guardianship and declare you the Balance, by the power entrusted by Seraphim—"

The front door exploded, sending shards of wood across the room like tiny toothpick daggers.

The box vanished from the woman's hand as she shoved Tristan to the floor. Before he could reach out to catch himself, he was standing in someone's backyard, with a whirlwind of snow swirling around him. He leaned against the wall of a house, out of the wind and wishing reality would stop jumping around so much. Could he blame the prescription? Maybe he was still on the ledge, imagining things.

The woman's voice echoed in his head.
I'm requesting arrangements for you. It's only fair they should listen after this.

A screeching howl of pain came from inside the house. Tristan did a quick search and found a back door. When the handle wouldn't budge, he busted it open with his shoulder. He ran through a kitchen to the living room he'd recently been in, and froze.

A man with tight, shoulder-length curls towered over the old woman. The lower half of her body was dissolving into a puddle of green, sizzling muck.

The man held up the box with the emerald and winked at Tristan. "Nothing personal," he said, then vanished into thin air.

Tristan rushed to the woman, sliding in the goo surrounding her. He tried to lift her head, then thought better of it, cautious of getting the thick liquid on his hands. The substance was already eating through his shoes. "I don't even know your name."

"Gwenna Winters." Her voice, barely a whisper, gurgled. Blood trickled from the side of her mouth. "The emerald will protect herself for a while, but you must find it. Promise me."

"I will. I promise." Tristan bit his lip. Was it right to make such a promise? Would it matter?

"Be careful, have faith. With that map, they'll be forced to deal with you."

"The man who took the emerald?" Did the guy really just...disappear?

"Oh, Lord. I didn't think of that."

Tristan stared at the woman's face, unable to put his thoughts into words as she took her final breaths. He couldn't keep his promise. Even now, the pills were wearing off and people's thoughts were becoming more prominent. Someone saw him breaking into the woman's house. They'd already called the police.

Four people stormed though the gaping hole of a doorway, two of whom he recognized from school—Landon and Victor.

"We'll deal with the police and get to you when we can," Victor said, pulling Tristan to his feet and shoving him toward the kitchen. "Go!"

"Hands up where we can see 'em!"

Tristan turned to face the officers pouring into the room, exactly where his classmates and the other men had stood a few seconds ago. Their weapons pointed at him alone. He held his palms up, stunned by the faint green steam rising from his skin. Between him and the police, green acid ate a hole in the floorboards, taking almost every trace of the woman with it. A bit of red yarn and white hair clung to the edge.

Run,
said a voice in his head.
We'll take care of it!

Tristan didn't question the order—he ran for the back door. Gunshots fired behind him. He skirted a line of snow-covered shrubs, hopped the woman's fence, and raced down an alleyway, glancing over his shoulder.

Police lights pulsed red and blue through the falling snowflakes, parked in front of the woman's house. On the glistening white ground red tracks lead to him like neon arrows. Blood pooled at his numb feet, hardly recognizable beneath what was left of his shoes. Splatters of the acid ate through his sweatshirt, burning into his flesh the moment he noticed.

He tore the tangle of threads away and tripped over the curb, unable to break his fall. If only he could make it to the forest. His arms and legs wouldn't move, muscles and nerves a mix of fire and ice. The cushion of snow melted beneath his cheek.

The voices in his head, back at the house. He hadn't just heard their thoughts—the woman and his classmate had spoken to him directly. In his mind. And how could a room full of police miss at such close range?

A man's voice spoke in his head.
The real question is, where do you fit in?

Tristan's eyes refused to open. Something nudged his back, pressing his belly to the slushy ground. He fought with every last bit of strength as the folded piece of paper, so safely tucked away in his back pocket, was ripped away.

3

-
D
EAD BY
D
AWN -

"WAKE, LITTLE ONE," called Cedric. The tree's deep voice resonated through Dorian's open window, straight into her bones. She pulled the covers over her head.

"Stop calling me 'little one'."

"Death has come to the waters of Baoo."

Dorian sat up, pulling her hair back to see the ancient tree. The entire forest seemed full of concerned whispers. Was it more than gossip? She jumped out of bed and put on her clothes, then swung her leather work bag over her shoulder as she dashed outside. "Who is dead?"

"Everyone."

"That can't be right. Someone's exaggerating." Dorian leaped from the ground and caught the lowest branch of a nearby oak. She pulled herself to her feet and skipped to the outer reaches of the limb, with just enough spring in her steps to catapult herself toward the next tree. Flinging herself from tree to tree was much faster than running through the undergrowth. "Probably the huckleberries making stuff up," she said, "just to have something to say, thinking they're funny."

The trees and shrubberies whispered amongst themselves—speculations more than facts. Dorian landed on a grassy knoll, just down from Baoo's eerily silent spring.