AMANI: Reveal (24 page)

              “At least you’ve met Seraphs! I was forced to hang out with Samera and her father all week long. I still can’t believe how much she’s changed since the bombing.”
              “Do you think it might have to do with the fact that she misses Joshua? I mean, I saw light coming out from her room when her father wasn’t there. What was she doing? Maybe she’s been distracted all week, texting her boyfriend.”
              “It would make sense. While you were at your Seraph meetings, she kept asking for her father’s cell phone, but she would never tell me what it was about. I though she was keeping tabs on something.”
              “And did you notice how her attitude changed yesterday? I don’t know if she fell and hit her head in Yellow or what, but she was definitely more easy-going than on any other day this past week.”
              “Yeah. I found it weird too. She even went against her father’s command, asking to go to Red all the time.”
              Sam hadn’t been herself these past few days. Normally she would have spoken with Madame M. solely in French during our journey here, just to practice. She would have been the first person to sneak out at night to go party, or at least she would have harassed her father until he let her go. Instead, she’d kept to herself, always on Karl’s phone or on Madame M.’s computer, and behaving like the perfect daughter…until today.
              “But how would she be able to text Joshua?”
              “I don’t know. Maybe they found a way to communicate on the Internet, or Joshua might have access to a coop-hole. Maybe he wanted to meet with her here. He’s Jeff’s friend, after all. He could have asked for a favor to come all the way to Canada, or whatever they call it in Red.”
              “But wouldn’t she at least have told you?”
              I shrugged. The Samera I remembered would, but a whole year had passed… She
had
been more distant since I’d woken up from a coma.
                I guessed the only way to know for sure was to ask.
              Twenty-eight-fifty College was a white two-story house, brimming with students. Mostly drunk students. Some were even perched on the roof-top, drinking and talking loudly.
              “Amya! Xander!”
              I was surprised to see Adam and Mary dancing outside on the balcony. Xander and I went straight to them.
              “Hey, so great to see you here!” I said before I turned to Mary. “Didn’t think you were a party person.”
              She looked dazed, a mild smile spread on her face, but she didn’t reply. Adam laughed, putting his arm around her shoulder.
              “She’s not. She’s been drinking a little too much tonight, actually.”
              “Wanted to see”—Mary finally whispered, loud enough to offset the music—“what ‘tis like to go out.”
              Adam squeezed her shoulder more tightly. “So what are you two doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be on house arrest?”
              At once, the music coming from inside turned off and everyone stopped talking, all looking more excited than the other. Then two athletic guys came out from the front door, holding a folded ping-pong table. They laid it flat on the grass, upside down, and backed away from it.
              “It’s the Ping Pong Championship tonight between Bishop’s and the University of Sherbrooke,” Adam whispered to us. “They’re playing on a reversed table to make it more interesting.”
              A short red-haired boy was next to come out of the house. Most people from the crowd started booing and yelling insults.
              “Marc-Antoine, from the other university,” Mary cooed. “I personally vote for him. Gingers gotta stick together, don’t they?”
              “I bet it’s because he reminds you of Ron Weasley,” Adam teased. “Her forever crush,” he explained, smiling.
              “He is…” Mary said dreamily.
              When the second student stepped out, however, dressed entirely in purple, cheers and applause exploded like thunder. I wondered how the neighbors around could sleep with such noise.
              The boy was Logan, the brown-haired student who’d almost run into us earlier. He looked proud and utterly drunk. He stumbled down the stairs to the lawn and moved in Marc-Antoine’s direction. They shook hands fervently before they faced each other on either side of the table.
              The tension was almost palpable among the crowd, which kept moving closer to the champions, some creating a tight circle around them, others remaining in the background, as though in fear that things would get ugly.
              A fifth person, wearing a purple hat with the word “Gaiters” written on its front, appeared in the doorway, an air of greatness emanating from his stance.
              “Welcome everyone! Welcome to the tournament finale!” he exclaimed. As if on cue, the two muscular guys who’d transported the table walked inside the house, only to come back moments later with one tray each, containing plastic cups filled with alcohol. They placed the cups on both ends of the table. “We all know the rules. The guest player, Mr. Marc-Antoine Tremble-Something, is the first to throw the ball, until he misses. Then our player takes over, and vice versa. They must call out the cup they intend to hit before they throw. If the ball hits another cup, there is no point and the cup remains on the table. The first player who hits all of his opponent’s cups wins.
              “Now, five of the ten cups on each side were filled with two ounces of vodka, while the remaining five contain sixteen ounces of beer…”
              “Logan seems to have been drinking in advance,” Xander whispered.
              Adam’s head popped between mine and Xander’s. “I’ve heard he plays better drunk.”
              “Please don’t talk about any more alcohol, or I might be sick,” Mary cooed.
              “Do you need water?” I said. “I’ll go inside and see—”
              “I’ll go,” Xander interrupted. “You can stay with them; I won’t be long. Want anything?” he asked Adam and me.
              I shook my head before he made his way across the now-cheering crowd, as both players had started the tournament, and I wondered if he would agree to dance with me after the game ended.
              Marc-Antoine scored the first two points, which aroused loud, angry complaints from everyone wearing purple—more than three-quarters of audience. As for Logan, he kept laughing and cheering himself up. The game became less interesting when Marc-Antoine scored a third point and Logan, after drinking his cup, almost fell face first onto the grass, too drunk to stand on his two feet.
              “Hey! You came after all!” a voice said, startling me. I glanced behind Adam and saw Daniel, Logan’s friend.
              “Yeah, we couldn’t miss the third invitation in a week, now could we?” Adam and green-faced Mary looked expectantly at me. “Oh, this is Daniel…um…”
              “Just Daniel is fine,” he replied, beaming. He then added in a regretful tone, “I’ll bet Logan doesn’t win tonight. Poor guy. His girlfriend broke up with him this morning. Been drinking ever since.”
              “Oh, too bad.” I said. “This is Adam and Mary. They go to Bishop’s too. And I’m Amya, by the way. I don’t think we’ve ever introduced ourselves.”
              “Nice meeting you! Hey, by the way, I saw this girl on the corner of Reed. She said she’s your sister, and she’s waiting for you. Got to go now; I believe Logan will need a shoulder to lean on until this is over. See you later!”
              And Daniel joined his friend, leaving me bewildered.

Amya Priam

I heard Mary and Adam’s voices call behind me as I walked away from them, from everybody.
              My sister… Had Michelle found her without telling me? Had she been waiting to surprise me?
              Dazed as though I’d been drinking myself, I jugged alongside the sidewalk.
              The night was deprived of clouds, the streetlights a mere addition to the moon’s radiant brightness.
              I was going to see my sister at last.
              Would she be frightened? Would she remember what had happened, or would Meo have removed her memories?
              A tall, dark-haired silhouette wearing a thick winter coat and a big scarf was standing in the middle of Reed Street, her arms crossed over her chest.
              “Delilah?”
              “NO!” my sister shouted. “STAY WITH THE OTHERS. IT’S A TRAP!”
              Ignoring her warning, I ran toward her. Trap or not, I wasn’t going to let her out of my sight again. We fell into a hug, both muttering apologies to the other. She was shivering.
              “Deli…”
              “You shouldn’t have come… they sent me… you—”
              “What a beautiful picture!” a cold, haunting voice echoed to my right. “Two loving sisters finally reunited.”
              Keeping a grip on Delilah’s arm, I turned toward Wyatt. He was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of jeans, smirking proudly. His curly blond hair was shorter than usual and his dark blue eyes darker, if that were possible. Next to him was Ponytail, a Rascal who fed on others’ emotions, just like Xander. Though unlike my friend, Ponytail fancied feeding on positive feelings such as joy and hope. There were three more Rascals behind them, next to a dark-blue SUV.
              “What have you done to her?” I demanded, putting myself between them and my sister.
              “Nothing we won’t do to you soon if you don’t cooperate,” Wyatt taunted, advancing on us. “I’m not going to force your hand on this, Amya. I realize it doesn’t do us any good when I try to kidnap you—either you escape or I catch the wrong sister—so I’ll ask this plainly; will you accompany me and my friends on a little road trip? We simply need you and your talent for one teeny task. Then you’ll be free to leave.”
              Ponytail, who’d been following Wyatt at his heels, snorted.
              “Will Delilah walk free? It’s my only condition. Please, Wyatt, let her go.”
              I couldn’t tell if it was my saying his name or the fact that I was pleading that made Wyatt flinch, but he quickly shook his head and laughed noisily.
              “Can’t, princess,” he said, sending a raw chill down my neck. “I was ordered to bring her back, in case you wouldn’t cooperate.” He raised his hand and all three Rascals got out of their car, making their way noiselessly toward us.
              “Wyatt! Please!” I cried, pushing my sister away before I made several steps forward. “I swear, I’ll do anything you want! Please don’t take her again!” The Rascals kept their pace, Wyatt ginning. “I’m coming willingly! I’ll do
anything
, please!”
              They seized me, and then my sister, as I kept pleading. But it was no use. We were brought to the SUV and pushed inside, where the back seats had been removed. I could hear Delilah sobbing quietly as the doors closed, three Rascals by our sides. Wyatt and Ponytail—Julian—sat in the front seats.
              “Easier than I expected,” Wyatt said. “You’ve softened up, princess. Didn’t think you’d come without a fight.” Refusing to answer, I held Deli’s hand in mine and mouthed that things would be fine. “Wasn’t too hard to lure you away from your pet, Xander, now, was it? Bet he’ll be looking for you everywhere, until he realizes you’ve left him behind.”
              Wyatt had probably asked Daniel to come to me only when he was certain Xander was out of sight. But in a way, I neither regretted coming to the party tonight nor falling into Wyatt’s trap, because I was finally reunited with my sister. I wouldn’t let anyone touch her.
              Wyatt kept talking, but I could barely hear him as I concentrated on keeping my calm. At some point, several turns later, the SUV came to a stop and we got out of the car. We stood at the far end of a parking lot that gave way to a path in the woods.
              “Where are we?” I asked, following the Rascals up the trail.
              The moonlight seemed distant from inside the forest; darkness engulfed our steps, and soon enough, Delilah and I were clutching at each other, nearly blinded by the gloomy obscurity. Even Wyatt’s sandy hair was almost unperceivable before us.
              My sister had stopped sobbing, shuddering every now and then.
              “They’re going to let you go, okay?” I repeated. “It’s me they want. You’ll be safe…”
              After ten minutes of mountain climbing, I tried to Sojourn into Wyatt’s head. I focused on his steps, which resonated on the dead leaves littering the ground. I couldn’t close my eyes, as I had to keep moving, so instead I concentrated on how he must’ve been feeling. His thoughts. His imminent needs…
              Nothing happened. The purple spot did not appear and my soul remained in my body.
              I tried again, though it was a difficult task while keeping my balance over the tree roots, the dead branches, and Delilah, who kept stumbling over her own foot. Yet again, nothing happened. Sojourning became impossible when we abandoned the initial path, forcing us to zigzag between trees to avoid walking right into their trunks.
              Frustrated, I kept walking, determined to find out what was in store for my sister and me before anything happened to any of us.
              One question was finally answered when all five Rascals came to an abrupt stop in front of a large rock. A man and a woman were standing guard beside it. Ponytail whispered in the woman’s ear. She then pushed the rock aside, revealing a tunnel made of soil and hundreds of little roots entangled with each other, keeping the earth from obstructing the hole.
              Wyatt ushered us inside and I was grateful for the faint glow on the other side of the tunnel, making the way into the mountain easier than it had been outside. I tried not to look around too much, for fear of finding spiders and other insects hung around the roots above our heads.
              Merely thirty feet later, Delilah and I emerged into a—well, I wasn’t certain how to describe it. It was as though someone had been built a living room inside the mountain. The furniture looked old and soiled; the couch sagged even lower than the one in Hibiscus’s office; and the long center table must have had half an inch of dirt on its top. On the far left of the room was a door next to a staircase that gave to a lower level.
              “Welcome, Amya, to your new home!” Wyatt proclaimed in a dramatic voice. “For a few days only, though, until—”
              He was interrupted by a loud stomping noise coming from downstairs, which made Delilah jump.
              “Should I quiet him?” Julian asked.
              “No. We’ll give it a try now before the night. Bring him up.” Julian vanished in the stairway. “Want something to eat?” Wyatt asked to me and my sister. I shook my head. “You’ll need all your strength if you want to help us, princess.”
              He ordered an older Rascal with brown hair and blue eyes to get food. Lawrence—his name was—left for the adjacent room before we heard a struggle downstairs, which made Deli tighten her grip on me.
              What was going on? I thought about asking Wyatt for a split second, but, seeing as he kept staring at me wickedly, I decided against it.
              Soon enough, Julian came back, pulling on a rope. Behind him, with the rope attached to his ankles, was a bald black man. Every inch of his skin was covered in golden tattoos. I was so mesmerized by his glittering body that I did not notice right away that his hands were missing. Two stumps where his elbows should have been were also tied to his body. The man’s eyes grew wide when he saw Delilah and me. He shook his head feverishly, making a strange noise with his throat.
              “Shut up,” Julian muttered as he pulled harder on his rope, making the golden man fall face first onto the dirty floor.
              I noticed red blotches around Julian’s neck and forearm, where the man must have touched him. Why would someone go to such lengths and such expense to get tattoos made of gold ink all over his body? It would have to be someone who knew about Rascals. Someone with the knowledge that only gold can injure them. Still, he would have to be incredibly wealthy…
              “We spent more than two years looking for this man,” Wyatt said, oblivious to my churning thoughts. “
Two years
,” he repeated, suddenly looking exhausted and a little mad. “Do you know how long that is? We looked everywhere in Asia, Africa, and Europe… He was in Oxford! Should have thought of that beforehand, of course. It was only logical to find him there, at the oldest university in the world, where he locked himself up.” Wyatt ran his fingers through his curly blond hair. “You probably wonder who he is, now don’t you?” he said wildly. “I was supposed to wait… All the same! You need to know who he is before you question him, anyway.”
              “Question him?” I asked, confused.
              Wyatt didn’t seem to hear me, though. He threw himself onto the couch and gestured us toward chairs nearby. If I wanted them to release Delilah, I needed to do exactly what he asked of me, so I complied and sat on the chair nearest to him, my sister to my left.
              “Up to three thousand years ago, the Protectors of Amani could Travel to all three Dimensions as well as to Heaven and Hell,” Wyatt began, pulling his hands behind his head. “They very seldom visited the last two, though several fancied glancing at the other side. A Canaanite Shaman priestess named Anath was among those few who dared Travel to Hell, though she was also the last. Without her consent, a Rascal crossed over to this Dimension”—he looked around himself—“and killed Anath on his way. From that point on, no Protector was ever able to Travel to either Hell or Heaven.”
              “Why are you telling me this?” I asked.
              “You need the whole story if you plan on Sojourning into our friend’s head to find the information we lack. Now, let me continue…
              “Anath’s brother hadn’t wanted to follow her to Hell. He’d been guarding the forest where she’d Travelled when he saw the creature emerge, in lieu of his sister. Frightened, he hid from it, and later he went to his fellow Shamans to recount what had happened. He called the creature Reeshon.
              “Centuries passed and no Protector ever heard of Reeshon again. The idea of a monster now living in this Dimension became a myth, and the name transformed, helped by bedtime stories about a Satan-like creature who tempted humans into sin… until people called Reeshon a Rascal.
              “Meanwhile, the Rascal adapted to his new environment. He discovered that by biting humans, he could create more of his kind. And so he started recruiting new Rascals. He made contacts all around the world and surrounded himself only with the best ones. Yet having company was far from enough. Reeshon rapidly grew bored of this Dimension and wished he could go back to Hell, where he belonged. He tried to occupy his days differently each decade, sometimes courting young princesses, other times fighting in wars. In the late eighteen-eighties, Reeshon became a drunk and started hanging around in brothels. He soon got bored of that too and found a liking in murdering prostitutes. You might have heard of him as Jack the Ripper.
              “When the name became too familiar, he stopped and moved on to a new occupation. He did not wish to draw too much attention to himself, after all. He had been present during the witch-hunts in the medieval ages, and he did not wish the same fate on Rascals.
              “During the Second World War, before the general knowledge of the Dimensions perished, Reeshon came across information about a door that would lead anyone who opened it to Hell or Heaven. A door that could only be opened if you knew where to find it. He set off to the United States, settled down in California, and started looking for this door. He was aware that the door might not actually exist, but he couldn’t help getting his hopes up. He started asking around for more information, but again, he wasn’t very successful.
              “After years of research, he became frustrated and ended up murdering everyone who could not move his investigation forward—which granted him the name Zodiac.
              “Before his last victim died, however, she spoke of a story her mother used to narrate when she was younger. It was about a very wealthy man who called himself the Guardian of Chupa. According to her, the Guardian of Chupa was the only man alive who knew of a door that could allow any human to reach Heaven or Hell without having to die first.
              “The story went on about evil beings trying to find this guy and open the door for themselves, forcing him to cut his own tongue out, as well as his hands, to be certain that no one would ever force him into revealing the location of the door. Because the man revealed himself to be worthy of such a burden, God granted him immortality and tattooed him with the guy’s own gold, which, according to God, would keep evil at bay.
              “That’s what the woman said, anyway, but Reeshon did not believe in God. And no human could be immortal. It was impossible.”
              My eyes fell on the man with the golden tattoos, who was still kneeling on the ground, his head between his knees.