Iron Inheritance (17 page)

I wiped my hands on my jeans again. Did I really want to kiss him that badly? Was my essence telling me something I didn’t know?

Or, more importantly, what the hell was that demon? How did it know anything about Grandpa? Or me?

I took a deep breath and ran through the whole night from beginning to end. The man in white had stretched out his hands and infected those people with something. He flung his body onto the tracks. I ran toward him with Josh right behind me.

I twitched my head toward Josh. “You’re faster than I am.” I looked at him like what I’d said was profound.

He laughed, a wry smile crossing his lips. “Using that journalistic sixth sense, I see.”

I rolled my eyes even though my stomach fluttered over discovering he’d remembered something about me. “No. You could have stopped me, got there first. Instead, you let me jump down there, take on a demon, and almost get hit by a train.”

Josh furrowed his brow, his smile still in place. “Would you have wanted me to?”

I parted my lips dumbly, unsure what to say, and then shook my head.

He raised an eyebrow. “Then we’re good?”

“Right.” I nodded, staring at him. He didn’t see me as something to protect the way Grandpa and Nate did.

He just saw…me.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. The demon’s grating voice scratched past my ears again, almost like it was right next to me.

My master will return.

He will be free.

Brooks burns.

She knows.

He will find her.

He cannot be stopped.

I opened my eyes. “Who’s the master? That has to be Kovac, doesn’t it?”

Josh was silent for a moment as he swiped his hand through his hair. “I can see how you’d get there.”

“But you don’t believe me.”

“No, I do. Anything’s possible. Anything,” he repeated and looked at me carefully. “But demons lie. It’s what they do. All that stuff about your Grandpa burning—it’s bull crap. Trust me, Texans know something about that stuff.”

I smiled half-heartedly and leaned back in my rigid seat, staring out the window opposite us. Brick after brick rushed past even though I couldn’t see it. There was something more I wasn’t seeing here. “Then who’s the master? How did it seem to know me?”

“All I’m saying is, don’t take everything literally. I’ll report to Denisov. It’s the first time one of her missions has ever encountered anything like this.”

I nodded, the writhing black demon’s voice stuck in a loop in my mind.
He will find her. He cannot be stopped. My master will return. He will be free. Brooks burns. She knows.

Why had it said that? What did I know about anything?

“You ok?” Josh bumped his shoulder into mine as the train screeched to a stop.

“Fine.” I nodded automatically and followed him out onto the platform, onto the next train, and back into the tunnel that connected to the school. I looked up just before entering the opening with the familiar smear of aged blood above.

“So that was fun. We should do it again some time,” Josh said when the tunnel turned from concrete to wood-paneled walls. The gas lamps glowed enough for us to see each other’s faces again.

I chuckled and tried to take my mind off the demon’s cryptic message for a moment. “You have a twisted version of fun.”

“Guilty.” He nodded, the right corner of his mouth lifting in a smirk.

A shiver ran up and down my back. His black shirt stretched tight across his chest, and his blue eyes looked into mine.

What is this between us?

I bit my lip and stepped back. I needed to stay focused. I needed to figure out who the master was and what Babylonians were following in Kovac’s footsteps now, sending demons to make people commit suicide. I couldn’t think about boys and feelings and relationships and…I couldn’t.

“You sure you’re ok?” Josh stopped when we were just outside the doors to the cafeteria.

I swallowed, the pit of my stomach empty. “I—”

The door swung open and smacked me in the shoulder. “Oh, sorry about that, Evey.” Ria’s sweet and totally insincere voice purred as the door flopped back into the frame. “Am I interrupting?” Her green eyes were wide and fiery, her long caramel hair pinned up in a messy knot at the back of her head.

“No.” Josh smiled. “Just a little field trip tonight. Sorry for getting her back so late.”

Ria raised her eyebrows as she looked from Josh to me. “Field trip. Is that what they’re calling it these days?”

I felt my cheeks blush as I turned away, partly to avoid looking at Josh, partly to keep myself from strangling Ria.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Eve.” Josh hid his own blush by tipping an invisible cowboy hat to me and then Ria before heading into the cafeteria.

“Ria, what’re you—”

“Heard that you and Nate had a little bit of a tiff this afternoon,” she said, finally stating the real reason she’d been searching for me. “No one’s seen you since.”

“What, did you think he killed me or something?”

“Or the other way around.” She raised an eyebrow sourly. “What did he do now?”

I pushed open the door into the cafeteria. Bright florescent lights shone on a room full of empty tables. Josh must have gone out another door.

The smell of mashed potatoes and gravy wafted through the air. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until now. I grabbed a plate and loaded it up, thankful there was food twenty-four hours and that all the tables were deserted by now. I didn’t want to talk to anybody.

“So?” Ria crinkled her face into disgust as she watched me eat.

I shoveled potatoes into my mouth and swallowed. “I saw it, Ria—the essence. I saw it, and then Nate stopped it all. He doesn’t know when to just leave me alone.”

“No one’s seen him since,” Ria said, her voice even, emotionless.

“Are you mad?”

She crossed her arms. “He’s had it coming for a while.” She clenched her jaw exactly like Nate did when he was stressed.

I put down my fork and sighed. I should’ve thought more about her. Nate had stayed here because of me, because he was my Guardian, but Ria was the one who really wanted him here. She’d always wanted him around. Even this past year when she’d dated a new guy every month and flaunted it in Nate’s face, she’d always wanted Nate close.

Now that he was gone, what did she have? She’d come with me to this new school, left all her cheerleading, popular friends, graduation, parties, her mom. And she didn’t even really belong here.

I tilted my head and saw a glimpse of the girl I’d grown up with, the one who’d do anything for me if I asked. “I’m sorry, Ria.” I stretched my hand across the table. “I shouldn’t have been so rough on him. I should have left that to you.”

She pretended to crack her knuckles. “That’s right.”

“I do have some good news about tonight, though.”

Ria narrowed her eyes again, suspicious.

“I’m now officially a Warrior.” I smiled.

She reached out and pinched me.

“Ow! What’re you—?” I rubbed the back of my arm.

“You deserve it,” she growled. “Keeping that from me this long? It’s been five minutes!”

When we were younger, Grandpa allowed us to lightly pinch each other every time one of us had hurt feelings in order to show us that words hurt too. We always pinched too hard, and it inevitably turned into a wrestling match that Ria won.

I bet I could take her now.

“And yet you can’t even take a pinch,” she said.

I scanned the room for something heavy to lift and decided on the chrome buffet carts. “Watch this.” I grinned and curled my fingers underneath one end.

My legs and arms strained, but the behemoth didn’t budge.

Ria clapped slowly. “Very impressive.”

I kicked the cart and walked back. “It worked when a demon came at us and I had to save Josh from being hit by a train.”

Ria’s jaw dropped, and I spent the next five minutes explaining everything that had happened.

“So then they just let you walk out of there? No one tried to stop you?”

I pushed my empty plate away, comfortably full, and leaned forward. “Then Josh kissed me.” I couldn’t help but smile.

“
What?
”

“In an essence-powered mirage,” I explained. “It was after he laser-beamed the demon with his hammer.”

“Coolest thing ever, by the way.”

“And I wondered why no one on the platform was trying to cart us off to an insane asylum. Everyone had their backs to us. I looked around and saw our reflection in a display case, my hands wrapped around his back, his hands grabbing my hips.”

“That’s hot.” Ria grinned.

“It was all the essence, though. Josh said it runs off of really high emotions, like it happened all the time and I shouldn’t be embarrassed.”

“Wait, you created that mirage thingy?” Ria’s excitement level was set to blow.

I nodded.

“But how do you know it wasn’t his?”

“I—” I hadn’t thought about that. Josh said I had, but what if he was the one?

“So what happened next?”

“Nothing. We walked back and got interrupted by a door knocking my shoulder out of its socket.”

Ria rolled her eyes. “Quit being a baby, Ms. Warrior. So, do you like him?”

“What? Who?” I shook my head.

Ria pursed her lips. “Don’t test me, Evey. You know I love me some romance.”

“I don’t know,” I sighed. “Do you?”

“Oh, I’d eat his muscly, comic book-reading self in a heartbeat.” She snapped her fingers.

I tightened my lips. Yeah, if Nate wasn’t around, she’d do that.

Wait, Nate
wasn’t
around anymore…
I’d
sent him away.

Ria continued. “But I don’t think he’d even notice.”

“What?” I arched my eyebrows. “Why?”

“He’s only got eyes for you. Stares at you then looks away. It’s a classic TV sitcom romance brewing here.”

“Yeah right.” I rolled my eyes and stood. That was her and Nate, if she’d stop playing hard-to-get, that was.

“Oh, Evey.” Ria wrapped her arms around me awkwardly as we started for the stairs to the dorm. “You’re a Warrior. We have to get you a blue and red bathing suit now. Oooh, and a gold tiara thing with a star in the middle.”

“Your Wonder Woman obsession never ceases to amaze me.”

Especially since she’d only read one panel of one page of one issue.

She made swiping motions with her wrists as if she were deflecting bullets around my head. “Imagine what you’re going to be able to do the next time one of those demons comes at us,” she said wistfully.

My body tensed with the thought. I was fine with them coming after me again—it seemed like an inevitability—but the “us” of that sentence was a whole other matter.

“Iron Drills,” Denisov shouted at the Warriors—about fifty of us in all. We stopped stretching and paired off into sparring circles.

Another week had passed without me either seeing essence or using it to any supernatural degree. The demon’s words still scratched at the back of my head like an animal clawing to get out. Nate was nowhere, and the guilt of my last words to him sat like a rock at the bottom of my stomach.

“What are we doing exactly?” I asked when Duke came around behind me.

“Bone and tissue strengthening.” He nodded politely as his girlfriend, Cheryl, cracked her knuckles. She was suddenly standing across from me. “Denisov thinks it will break your talent loose.”

I puffed a stray strand of hair out of my eyes. “Don’t I feel special.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t go easy on you.” Cheryl grinned, her blond hair pulled tight into a ponytail, her white tank top cut like Denisov’s so that it accentuated her toned arms and shoulders.

All of the other areas of the arena were being used in similar ways, each section designated for a different talent. My eyes wandered to the area next to ours where the Messengers ran on modified treadmills. Josh’s legs were a blur, his eyes fixed on the wall, still training more than anyone else.

“Ready?” Cheryl said, her smile fixed firmly with dimples.

I nodded and squared my shoulders. She waited with patiently tensed muscles. She was curvier and slightly heavier than me. But that meant I was quicker, right?

Duke walked between rows of sparring circles, adjusting people’s stances. Most of the other Warriors were either very big or very small. A guy taller and more muscular than Freddy stood next to us, his neck rolling around and around in a stretch. Opposite him, Ashley, one of Cheryl’s friends, coiled her fingers into her palms as her curly black hair danced across her back. She was tinier than me and grinned from ear to ear as she raised her fists and winked at Cheryl. Cheryl winked back.

“Damian’s weaker than he looks,” Cheryl said when she noticed me looking at Ashley’s opponent, her voice sugary sweet with a hint of sass. “Cuts his hair way too often.”

“What?” I tore my eyes off his gigantic arms, realizing Cheryl was talking to me.

“Samson?” Cheryl raised an eyebrow and exaggerated the silence like it was a carrot over my head.

My eyes narrowed in thought until it hit me. “Samson and Delilah.”

“Samson and the big coliseum he demolished with his bare hands,” she grinned.

“Fighting positions,” Denisov barked, standing alone in the center of all the circles, her hands behind her back, her gaze trained on me.

Duke stood a few paces away from our circle to observe.

I took a deep breath and dug my nails into my palm, realizing and not caring that I didn’t know what Iron Drills meant, that I didn’t realize what was coming for me. I had to get my talent working somehow, even if that meant not knowing what the hell I was doing.

“Begin!”

Cheryl jumped into the air with both her fists raised over her head like hammers.

I jerked my head up and dodged to the left just before she hit the floor so hard that the impact vibrated up through my shoes.

I looked back and saw two divots in the ground; Cheryl’s fists were covered in a fine powder.

Was she insane? I whipped my eyes around to Duke, to Denisov, but neither gave me a hint of what was going on. Did they want us to try and kill each other?

Cheryl straightened and smiled. “Iron sharpens iron.” She motioned for me to try and hit her now.