Inception (The Marked Book 1) (23 page)

27. EXCAVATION

The rain came down like liquid ash, dusting the world in its wet gossamer as I made my way into All Saints the next morning. Trace and Paula were already setting up and didn’t seem in the least bit fazed by the constant rainfall. I, on the other hand, couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen the sun and was growing increasingly vexed by it.

I’m sure it didn’t help that I hardly got any sleep last night. After Gabriel dropped me off, I’d spent the better part of the night tossing and turning, musing over the potential ways my sister factored into everything Gabriel had told me. I wanted to know her secrets; all of them. 

I couldn’t help but think she was connected to the mysterious Time Keeper from the future. Whatever it was she was hiding, I wasn’t about to just let it go. This was more than a few skeletons in her closet. This was a bone yard’s worth of skeletons. A bone yard that I’d been dragged into on more than one occasion and I was determined to find out why, even if that meant I would have to unearth every last rickety bone myself.

By the time the lunch rush was over, I settled down at one of the back tables and busied myself with a list of all the possible people this mystery Keeper could be, though the names seemed to be few and far between. At the top of the list was Trace—the only Reaper I actually knew...

And then there was Linley.

For one, she was a trained Keeper, and Trace’s sister, so I knew she had the same abilities as he did, which meant she too could travel freely between space and time. Not to mention she was also the same age as my sister and could very well have been friends with her.

The more I thought about it, the more all signs pointed to Linley as
the
Keeper. But why did Gabriel say she was from the future? Had she traveled back in time to warn them about their impending death? And why? What was so special about Dominic and Gabriel’s death that she felt the need to save them, especially if our deaths are supposed to be fated—inevitable?

More importantly, I couldn’t help but wonder what this all meant for the rest of us, and for the loved ones we’d already lost. Loved ones like my father. Could they too be saved?

“Is there any particular reason why you’ve been staring at that wall for the last ten minutes?” interrupted Trace as he sat down in the banquet seat across from me.

“Is there any particular reason you’ve been watching me stare at it?” I countered, dodging his question as I tucked the list inside my book.

His lip twitched as though it wanted to sprout a smile. “What are you working on?” he asked, ticking his chin.

I lifted up the novel so he could read the cover.

I was supposed to be working on my
Lord of The Flies
essay for English, but I couldn’t seem to get my brain to shift into homework-mode. Somehow, it just didn’t seem as important as all the other things going on in my life as of late.

“It doesn’t look like you’re getting a lot done.”

“Looks can be deceiving. You of all people should know that.” In fact, everyone in this town seemed to be perfectly versed in the comings and goings of deception.

“I guess I had that coming.”

I turned my attention back to my essay. “What do you want anyway? I know you didn’t come over here to talk to me about my homework.” I looked back up at him in time to catch his dimples ignite—no smile.

“The work schedule for next week.” He placed a sheet of paper on the table and slid it over to me. “I put you on the day shift for spring break. Is that alright with you?”

“It’s fine, thanks,” I said, slipping the schedule into my messenger bag. At least I’d have my evenings off. Gabriel was kind of a stickler when it came to my designated training hours.

“I also took you off the schedule this Friday,” he added, glancing down at my open binder. “It’s Spring Formal.”

“Yeah, I know.”
As if I could forget
. “It’s pretty much all Taylor can talk about these days,” I said, less than excited. 

“I guess you don’t like dances?”

“Not by Taylor’s standards. She already has everything planned out right down to the color of eye shadow she’s wearing. I feel like there’s something wrong with me because I couldn’t care less if I went wearing a potato sack.”

Trace leaned back in the seat and laughed. A real guttural laugh that upon hearing it, made me realize how much I enjoyed the sound of it. “I bet you’d still look beautiful,” he offered, carefully appraising me now.

I felt my cheeks warm as his words registered. Unsure of how to react to them, I began busily flipping through my novel in an effort to appear unaffected.

My to-do-list floated out from within the pages.

“I shouldn’t have said that.” His voice was low, regretful. He caught the list and skated it back over to me. “I’ll see you later,” he mumbled, rising from his seat.

“Hold on a sec,” I said, grabbing his wrist as he tried to pass by me. “I need to talk to you about something.”

I figured this was as good a time as any to start my excavation. I waited for him to settle back in his seat before continuing. “I was hoping you could explain some things to me, you know, about Keepers.” I folded the piece of paper in half and stuffed it into my back pocket.

“What do you want to know?”

I wanted to know everything, like what their powers were used for and how they factored into vanquishing demons. But most of all, I needed to know under what circumstances a Keeper might travel to the past in order to save someone’s life, and if this could be done for other people—other people like my dad.

But I had to be discreet about it.

“I don’t understand why Time Keepers are used to hunt demons,” I began, careful with my words. “Is it just because of your
porting
ability, or is there another reason?”

“There’s lots of reasons.” His dimples flashed briefly.

“Like what? The other day, Ben said you could move between time and space, but I don’t see how traveling to the past fits in with any of this.”

“It doesn’t. Not really,” he shrugged. “They don’t like us messing with that anyway. We mostly just
port
or
realm jump
.”

“Realm jump?”

“Yeah, to get to the other worlds—as part of the
Covenant
.”

I think I was getting more confused as this conversation went on, which was
so
not the purpose of this inquisition.

“They told you about the Covenant, right? The peace treaty.”

I shook my head. “There’s a peace treaty? With who? The Revenants?” This seemed like a great thing. Why hadn’t anyone bothered mentioning it to me? If we had a peace treaty going on with the demons, what the heck did they need us for?

“No. Between the Anakim and the Angel race.”

My face blanched.

“Look, maybe you should talk to your uncle about this,” he said, leaning forward to examine me as though I might keel over at any moment.

“No, I’m fine. I can handle it. Please, just tell me what this coven thing is. I need to know.”

“The Covenant,” he corrected as he sank back into his seat and shrugged. “The story goes that back in the day when the Angels first came down to earth, there were some problems within the ranks, you know, some of the Watchers who were supposed to be looking out for mortals were...well, helping themselves to them.”

“Helping themselves?”

He cleared his throat. “Mating.”

“Mating. Right.” I could feel my cheeks blushing. “Which, um, resulted in the Nephilim—our earlier ancestors,” I quickly added, remembering what my uncle had said about the Fallen.

“Exactly.” He cracked a half smile. “In the early days, the Angels made no distinction between any of them. They hunted them all equally—the Fallen, the Nephilim, and eventually even the Anakim even though their only crime was being the Descendants of a hybrid race,” he explained, tracing the frost down the front of my glass. “Anyway, a lot of blood was spilled on both sides.”

I felt a shiver run down my spine.

“Cut to a few hundred years later, leaders from both sides had finally had enough of the bloodshed so they came together and drafted a peace treaty that promised armistice amongst the races. Basically, they’d stop hunting us as long as we agreed to stay hidden from mortals and helped the Angels vanquish demons—from this world and
beyond
. Neither side has broken the Covenant since.”

This world
and beyond
?

“So what you’re saying is, as a Keeper you can like, take me to another
world
?” There’s no way I heard that right.

“I can take you to many worlds.” His crystalline blue eyes burned into me, sending my heart into a chaotic tailspin.

I took a sip of my water, hoping the icy liquid would quell my racing heart and keep me focused. “And you can take me to another time, too? Like another era—say, I don’t know, the 1920s?”
Or Florida, eight months ago
.

“I can, but I won’t.” He was still staring at me with a stirring intensity. “That kind of thing has to be approved by the Council.”

“But you no longer work for the Council,” I reminded him, doubtful that he was actually concerned with their rules.

“True,” he said, raising his chin slightly, proud of his defiance. “But
you
do.”

Crap.

“Besides, they check us twice a month whether we’re with the Order or not. If I get caught traveling, I could end up Bound and I can’t have that.”

“What do you mean they
check
you?”

“Traveling leaves temporary traces on our skin, kind of like a cosmic time-stamp.” He clenched his fist shut. “Because of that, Reapers have to check-in with ‘the powers that be’ every other week so they can make sure we haven’t gone anywhere without their authorization.”

Dammit.

Everything in me felt as though it were sinking. I let myself believe (even if for only the faintest of seconds) that somehow, someway, I would be able to go back and see my father again—maybe even save him. The vessel for this unfathomable act sat right before me, tempting and daunting with the face of an angel, and all I could do was look at it, but never have it.

“Come on,” he said, cocking his head to the side. “Don’t look at me like that. You wanna get me Bound?”

I shook my head, trying to hold back my tears. “I just wanted to see him again. One last time.”

“It never works out that way. You’ll always want to go back.”

“How do you know if you’ve never gone?” I challenged.

He didn’t respond though something in his eyes was telling me that he knew it well, and from firsthand experience.

“You’ve done it, haven’t you? How did you get around the check-in?” I asked without waiting for the confirmation. “Is there a way to do it, like some kind of loophole?”

He looked back at me as a quiet war waged in his eyes, the deep blue’s churning up dangerous winds that promised oblivion to anyone who dared enter, and suddenly I wanted to do nothing else but dance in the eye of the storm.

He let out a long and depleted breath, “There’s always loopholes, Jemma. Always.”

28. ENCOUNTERS OF THE WORST KIND

“Feel like doing a mall crawl tomorrow?” asked Taylor first thing Monday morning as I unpacked my books in front of my locker. “We can pick out your dress for the dance.”

“I can’t. I have detention.”

“For what?”

“For being tardy.
Thrice
. Mr. Gillman’s words, not mine.” 

She nodded knowingly. “I had him last semester...major anal retentiveness. What about after detention?”

I shook my head. “I have to fill in for Paula tomorrow. She has a doctor’s appointment or something, and then I’m meeting up with Gabriel.”

“Gabriel, huh? Oh la la,” she gushed, making kissing noises.

“That’s incredibly mature. And super attractive.”

“I know, right?” She batted her eyelashes at me. “So is he taking you to the dance Friday night?”

Just the thought of Gabriel being forced to attend some high school dance was enough to induce a fit of laughter.

“I think he’s a little old for that,” I reminded her, although in actuality, I wasn’t sure if he was twenty-one, twenty-five, or four? “Besides, we’re just friends. I’m sure he has much better things to do on a Friday night than take me to a high school dance.”

“So you’re going stag?” she asked and then nodded over to someone behind me.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said, turning to follow her gaze. “I’m not even sure I want to—”

“Hey, Blackburn,” smiled Caleb, the apparent target. He looked dapper as usual, in a frat-boy sort of way.

“Hi, Caleb.”

“Well, I gotta go. I’ll catch you two after class,” smiled Taylor before jetting off down the hall in typical Taylor fashion; bubbly and forever up to no good.

I closed my locker and started towards my first period
chem
class. Caleb followed.

“So, a little birdie told me you don’t have a date for the dance this Friday.”

I shook my head.
Freaking Taylor
.

“I was thinking maybe we could go together.”

I stopped walking and turned to face him. “Isn’t there someone you’d rather go with? I mean, we barely even know each other,” I pointed out.

“Are you saying you don’t want to go with me?” There was an ample amount of hurt and surprise in his expression, like he honest-to-God never heard the word ‘no’ before.

“I just thought that maybe there was someone else, you know, someone you
like
…more than friends.” It took everything in me not to blurt out Nikki’s name right there in the hallway, in the middle of all the morning chaos.

“Nope. Can’t think of anyone,” he smiled.

Either he was in serious denial or he was the world’s greatest liar. Neither one sounded like an appealing trait.

“We can just go as friends if you want. I’d be okay with that,” he added with a modest shrug.

I considered it.

Maybe this would give me a chance to get to know the real Caleb Owens. Maybe even probe him for information about Nikki and find out once and for all what was really going on between the two of them. I could do that. I could
totally
be persuasive when I needed to.
Sort of
. How hard could it be?

“Sure, I’d love to go with you.”

Gabriel was already waiting for me in the parking lot of All Saints after my shift ended later that day. As per our usual routine, we were supposed to be heading over to Temple, though those plans were promptly nixed when he informed me that our training session had been canceled due to an emergency Faction meeting. One that required the entire building to be sealed off and secured.

“Is that something they usually do?” I wondered as we pulled out of the parking lot in his black SUV.

“It’s not uncommon to secure the building, especially with so many leaders present.”

Interesting. I wondered if my uncle was included in that roster. “So what’s this meeting about anyway?”

“I’m not sure,” he said without deviating his eyes from the road. “I wasn’t given any details.”

“Can we attend?”

“Council members and Elders only.”

“Oh, good, more rules and secrets.” Because I didn’t have enough of those in my life. It was like a sickness in this town.

“I’m not allowed to attend either.” He offered it as solace, but it didn’t make me feel any better. “If you’re up for it, I know another place we can train tonight,” he said, bouncing a quick glance at me. “It’s not ideal but we wouldn’t be bothered.”

I’d rather go stake out this meeting but apparently that option wasn’t on the table. On second thought, “What if we blow off the rest of the night and catch up on our sleep instead?”

“Jemma.”

“What? Not all of us are frozen in time.” I flipped down the sun-visor to inspect the dark circles under my eyes. “Some of us actually need to rest.”

“Not as much as you need to train. What are you going to do the next time you encounter a Revenant? Are you confident in your abilities to defeat them—to vanquish them?”

“Vanquish them?” I looked him over as though he were the most absurd man on the planet. “The only thing I plan on doing is running as fast as I can, unless I somehow get captured, in which case my new plan is to kick ass until I get free, and then run as fast as I can.” There was no two ways about it. I was a girl with a plan, and I was sticking to it come hell or high water.
Or vampires
.

He scoffed without looking. “That’s a horrible plan.”

“It sure beats getting killed though.”

He shook his head, but he didn’t argue the point. We continued the rest of the drive in silence.

It wasn’t until a little while later that I realized we’d somehow ventured into one of the shiftier neighborhoods outside of Hollow. Between the broken streetlights and boarded up buildings, I had already decided this was exactly the sort of place I didn’t want to visit on any day of the week. Least of all, after dusk.

“Where are we going exactly?” I asked, locking my passenger side door. “This neighborhood is giving me the creeps.”

“We’re going to my place.”

“Your place?”
Had he lost his damn mind
? “Um, you live on the other side of town...you know, on the nice side.”

“That’s my family home,” he corrected, regarding me cautiously as though I might snap at any moment. “I don’t live there. I have a small apartment up the street.”

“So what you’re saying is, you actually pay money to live around here?” I was completely flabbergasted by this revelation.

The smallest impression of a smile appeared. “It’s a small price to pay for obscurity.”

We entered his apartment building through an unhinged side door and took the stairs up all the way to the third floor. The hallway was dank with mangy carpets and flickering lights that faded in and out like some cautionary tale I didn’t want to know. Sounds infiltrated the hallway at every turn—a baby crying, a shouting couple, police sirens in the distance—all attesting to the unsavory living conditions of life on this side of the tracks.

I latched onto the back of Gabriel’s leather jacket and scooted in closer as we made our way down the hall of horrors, stopping only when we reached the last apartment on the left.

He unlocked the door and held it open for me. “After you,” he nodded, clearing the path.

I swallowed hard and stepped into the darkened apartment, my anticipation reaching its peak. Gabriel followed in behind me and flipped on the lights before double-bolting the front door.

I turned slowly, peering into the skeletal apartment as I tried to reconcile myself to the fact that Gabriel lived here. That he spent his days and nights here, all alone in this tiny apartment in the middle of hell. It was downright depressing.

There wasn't much to his place—a small kitchenette on the left with no appliances except for a mini fridge and stove, and a bare-boned living room on the right that housed a black leather futon and small wooden coffee table. It was a far cry from the lavish family home I’d woken up in the first night we met.

“So this is where you live,” I said, doing a listless spin.

He moved in from behind me and placed his hand on the curve of my back, guiding me into the living room. “Yes, this is where I stay when I’m in town, which isn’t very often. Kitchen, living room, bedroom, bathroom,” he said, ending with a gesture directed at the two closed doors on the far right of the room.

“So why didn’t you take me here
that
night?” I wondered.

“You needed first aid, food and water, and blankets amongst other things.” He directed me to a seat on the futon. “All of which were things I did not have here.”

I sat down and looked up at him with skepticism. “You’re telling me you don’t have food or blankets here?”

“What purpose would I have with any of those things?” he challenged, pulling up another chair next to me.

“Right. Sorry.” Nice one, Jemma.

“It’s perfectly alright,” he said, brushing off my faux-pas.

“So what happens when you bring a date home? Don’t they find it weird that you don’t have like, basic amenities? Or do you only date girls that are, um...the same as you?”

“He doesn’t date at all,” answered a familiar voice.

I turned abruptly, startled by the unexpected voice, and found my sister standing in the threshold of Gabriel’s bedroom door like a passing specter from some alternate reality. It had been so long since I’d seen her in the flesh, I almost didn’t recognize her. I almost didn’t trust my eyes.

“Tessa?”

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“When did you...I mean, where did you...?” I shook my head unable to string a cohesive set of words together.

We had spent so many months apart. What could I possibly say to her that would solidify all the thoughts and emotions running through my mind in this moment?

“You cut your hair,” I said stupidly, not moving from the couch. An elementary observation about her hair ought to do it.

She nodded unceremoniously, tucking a strand of her chin length jet-black hair behind her ear.

I took in the rest of her features—her heart shaped face, her round cheek bones and ash gray eyes, and of course, that alabaster skin that could make a porcelain doll jealous. It was all there. Everything was exactly the same, but somehow different. More defined—ripened, weary. She carried the expression of a girl who had lived one too many nights in the desecrated shadows.

“What are you doing here?” Gabriel’s voice startled me. He was standing now, staring at her with a foreign intensity I couldn’t quite decode. “I thought you were on assignment.”

“I was—I
am
. I don’t have much time. I came to see Jemma,” she said, turning to me. “I came to give you something.”

“Okay,” I nodded wearily, still in a state of disbelief. “Like a present or something?” She
had
, after all, missed my birthday being that I was in the hospital, but was this really the time or place?

She held out her fist in response and opened her palm. A long ruby red crystal fell from the center, dangling weightlessly from the silver chain wrapped around her finger.

Gabriel’s eyes swelled in horror as he watched the necklace rock back and forth in the air like a pendulum.

“The Blood of Isis.”