Blazing the Trail (26 page)

“But what was that?” I shouted. “Does this have to happen? What can I do to prevent it? You have to tell me!”

Skuld was a hundred feet away, on the verge of being swallowed by the fog. “I don’t have to tell you anything,” she said softly, her words carrying to my ears with a ghostly echo. “But let me ask you this: What would you die for? What would you die to save, Wyvern? Is there anything that matters that much to you?”

Then she was gone, her marching figure swallowed by the fog. I yelled and raced after her, squinting my eyes shut as the fog took on a brilliant radiance. It shone on all sides
of me with fierce white light and turned hot, as if I had stepped into the middle of the sun.

And with the heat, the ground beneath my feet softened. I sank down, knee-deep in corpses and blood. I tried to shift shape but my shimmer was AWOL. I tried to manifest elsewhere but no luck.

Meanwhile, the muck was pulling me down. It was like quicksand, sucking at me, dragging me deeper. The more I struggled, the faster I sank. Everything I could reach to grab for support was part of a body, soft and putrid.

The smell of rot assailed me. I fought as I sank deeper and deeper, to my waist, to my shoulders. In no time, the sickly soup of corpses was right beneath my nose, and I knew my next breath would be disgusting.

How long could I hold my breath?

How could I escape?

Why couldn’t I shift shape?

I shouted for Skuld, fearing she wouldn’t help me.

I was right.

I
WOKE UP, PANTING AND
terrified in Meagan’s room, my fists clutching the sheets.

I was safe, but that was by no means a permanent situation or a guarantee, given what Skuld had shown me. Meagan was sleeping soundly. I looked out the window and I saw the glimmer of purple spell light spun by Meagan and Jared, wound around the house.

I thought I could see zillions of ShadowEater eyes gleaming in the darkness behind it.

I got up, shut the drapes, and perched on the side of the bed. What would I die for? I thought of my afternoon adventure with Jared and knew that I had chosen wrong. I hadn’t entered the glamour because I’d been afraid, afraid for my
own survival. I’d been more worried about myself than for my friends and the world around me.

Yet Meagan and Jared had spun spell light to protect me while I slept.

Thanks to Skuld, I now knew what I’d die for.

I could only hope I hadn’t missed my last chance to get it right.

M
EAGAN’S MOM WAS FREAKING BY
the morning. The body count was up—four more bodies had been found. Meagan was surreptitiously checking her messenger, trying to determine whether they were all Mages and apprentice Mages, or whether the ShadowEaters had gotten any shifters, too. Nick and Liam were okay, and headed off to guard Isabelle for the day.

I didn’t want to send Jared a message in the morning, even though I was determined to see him. Actually, it was because I was determined to see him that I didn’t ping him. Experience had taught me that Jared blew me off when I sent him a message. I didn’t want to warn him that I was looking for him and have him disappear.

Again.

It was entirely possible that this time would be different, that this time he would hold his ground and wait for me, but there was too much at stake for me to bet on that. Jared came to me when it suited him, or he disappeared. I needed to find him before he could take off.

So I asked Meagan where he was staying and she told me that he was crashing at a hostel popular with musicians. It wasn’t that far away, so I decided to go there first thing.

I’d chosen my acid-green wrap, the one I’d been wearing the first time I’d met Jared, and knotted it around my neck. I told myself that I’d grabbed it because it was warm, but I also knew it makes my eyes look greener.

Black jeans, black jacket, black sweater, black boots, black eyeliner, purple gloves, lots of silver jewelry, and I was ready for anything. Pretty much. At the last minute, I rummaged in the bottom of my overnight bag and got the red rune stone Granny had given me in a dream almost a year before. Who knew if I might need it again? Skuld’s shears had a place of pride in my backpack.

Meagan nodded when I met her at the door, and I knew she knew what I was up to. We drove in silence together.

At least until Sigmund showed up.

“Message for you,” he said, suddenly leaning over the seat from the back. His head was right between us, and I was so surprised that the car swerved.

“What’s wrong?” Meagan asked, reaching for the wheel.

“You need to stop doing that,” I complained.

“What do you mean?” Meagan asked. “We’ll end up on the sidewalk!”

“Not you. Him.”

Sigmund chuckled.

Meagan shrank back, leaning against the car door as she stared at me. “Who?”

“Sigmund.”

Then she took such a careful survey of our surroundings that I knew she couldn’t see Sigmund. “And where exactly is Sigmund?”

“In the backseat.” I had to lean around his head to make eye contact with her. Meagan flicked a glance at the road, and I focused on driving.

“There’s nobody else in the car, Zoë,” Meagan said with care.

As if she were talking to a crazy person.

Sigmund chuckled. “Told you,” he said, gloating.

I could have slugged him, but I spoke to Meagan. “I’m not
losing it. My dead brother, Sigmund, is here, in the backseat, trying to make me think I’m going nuts.”

Meagan looked pointedly at the backseat. “Did you get enough sleep last night?”

“No. But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s here.”

Sigmund was killing himself laughing by this point—no pun intended.

“Do you often talk to dead people?” Meagan asked.

“Just Sigmund. He’s kind of irritating like that.” I thought for a minute. “And the
Wakiya
elder.”

Meagan nodded, considered it, and clearly decided to go with it. “So, is there a point to his being here?”

“He has a message, apparently.” I stopped at a red light, then turned to Sigmund, ignoring the triumphant glint in his eyes. “You’ll notice that she doesn’t think I’m crazy.”

“Yet,” he acknowledged with a grin.

“Who’s the message from? And what is it?” We were about a block from school, at the corner where I’d have to turn left to go to the hostel. Meagan would go right to the school, which we could see. Kids were arriving slowly, some being dropped off at the curb by their parents, others driving their own cars into the student lot.

I stopped at the curb, parking there for Meagan to get out, then turned to look at Sigmund. Meagan watched me, expectant.

“This is so good,” Sigmund said. He winked, then got all gooey. Really, he could have been melting. His hair and his eyes and his face softened, like wax from a burning candle. I couldn’t help but stare. Everything about him dripped and morphed and slid into something else.

Right before my eyes, he became Kohana.

“Well, if you’re not going to tell me, I’m going to class,” Meagan said, and opened the car door.

I kept staring into the backseat, fascinated and horrified. Sigmund-Kohana grinned, that provocative grin so characteristic of Kohana, his dark eyes glinting. “Hey,
Unktehila
,” he said, and waved two fingers at me.

Was this another glamour? Was I talking to Sigmund or Kohana?

If it was a glamour, who had created it?

Or was Kohana dead, too?

I must have looked shocked at the idea, as shocked as I felt.

“Zoë?” Meagan asked, concern in her tone as she leaned back into the car. “Are you okay?” I didn’t know what to say, not until Sigmund-Kohana delivered his message.

To my astonishment, he tipped his head back and sang a single note with all his might.

It vibrated in my ears, so resonant and clear that I knew I’d never forget it. The glass globe on the exterior light of the apartment building next to us exploded suddenly, and Kohana’s singing stopped.

He winked and disappeared.

Just like he’d never been there.

“Oh, my God!” Meagan cried. “How did you do that?”

“I didn’t.” In fact, I couldn’t believe it had even happened. I turned off the car and got out, going to the lamp. The glass was broken, all right, shards all over the concrete walk. I looked at the matching light on the other side of the apartment building doors. It was still vibrating slightly. When I leaned close, I could even hear it moving in the fixture.

“Is that cool or what?” Sigmund whispered in my ear. There was no sign of him or of Kohana, and Meagan was looking at me as if I were bonkers.

Maybe I was. I was a bit freaked myself by the way Sigmund had changed into Kohana.

No. Meagan had heard it, too.

“But you heard it, right?” I asked Meagan. She nodded, then looked determined. She pushed up her glasses, eyed the broken light fixture, then emitted a perfect echo of the note Kohana had sung. She held that note as I watched the globe on the second fixture vibrate with greater and greater intensity.

Then the light shattered just as the first had done.

I was no less shocked the second time.

“It’s mathematics,” Meagan said matter-of-factly. “The result of creating a sine wave that induces a vibration. The oscillation can be too much for the physical item that is echoing the frequency, like that old bridge video we saw in physics class. The wind set up a resonance that vibrated the bridge apart.”

I did remember that vaguely. I’d thought it was faked.

She smiled, seeing that I didn’t entirely follow her explanation. “What happened?” she asked. “What didn’t I see?”

I told her and was relieved—if surprised—that she believed me.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Zoë,” she said, noting my surprise. “I heard it, too, and I know you can’t sing, let alone hold a note like that. Do you think it was really Kohana?”

“I don’t know what to think. Sigmund tends to be enigmatic, but pretty much everything he has told me has proven to be true.” I frowned and made the inevitable observation. “I’m wondering whether Kohana is dead.”

“Why? Because Sigmund is dead and Sigmund brought him along?”

I nodded.

Meagan frowned at the ground for a moment and I could almost hear her thinking. “But you’ve dreamed of Kohana before. You said before that he could move in dreams.”

“Maybe he’s in trouble. He was trying to trick the apprentice Mages and he was determined to get the NightBlade back. Maybe they caught him.”

Meagan pursed her lips. “Maybe Kohana’s giving us one note of the harmonic sequence to destroy the NightBlade.”

“Maybe. But there has to be more to it than that,” I said. “Just playing or singing those notes can’t be enough, or Kohana would have done it himself.” I squared my shoulders and looked back at the car. “I need a spellsinger. Wish me luck.”

“Luck,” Meagan said with a smile. “Let me know if you need help. I’ll keep working on this and see what I can come up with. Maybe I can figure out the other notes.”

We parted ways. She headed on to school and I took my detour to the hostel.

I wouldn’t think about Muriel or what might result from my choice to cut class. I wouldn’t think about what my dad might have to say about me choosing to seek out Jared. I wasn’t going to think about how I’d blown it with Derek, or fret about the plans that the ShadowEaters had for destroying us.

I had to save the world instead.

I
T WASN’T SNOWING FOR ONCE
, and the sky was a clear crisp blue. The air was cold enough to freeze your lungs in one breath, making me glad to have the car. (
My
car.) Once I got off the main streets, the snow squeaked under the tires. When I parked and got out of the car, I saw that the driveway to the hostel hadn’t been shoveled. I was glad to have my black boots with the serious treads, not just because they look awesome but because they give great traction.

The hostel was in an old house, what had once been the grande dame of the block but was now showing some neglect. It had three stories and stood apart from its neighbors. There was a driveway down one side and a carriage house at the back of the lot. The carriage house had a definite lean to the right.

It was so quiet that the house itself might have been slumbering.

I realized a bit late that Jared was probably a night person and might still be asleep. My imagination busily conjured images of Jared bare-chested, my dragon tattooed on his back. From there it was easy to imagine more, but I’ll spare you the details. Suffice it to say that I didn’t find it that chilly any longer.

I had climbed the ancient steps to the front door and raised my hand to the bell when I heard the sputter of a motorcycle engine. Then there was a clanking sound, a definite obscenity, and the clatter of tools. I could smell oil mingled with Jared’s scent.

You know my heart skipped at that.

The sounds were coming from behind the house.

I peered around the house, down the driveway, noting that there was a single line of bike tracks in the snow as well as a trodden-down footpath. It looked like people used the back door, which was why I’d had to break a trail up the steps. As I walked down the driveway, the smell of oil grew stronger, as did the sound of muttering.

I rounded the corner to find Jared there with his bike, glaring at it. He had a wrench in one hand, and his hair was standing up in spikes. He was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, despite the cold, and he looked mad enough to spit. There was a cloth spread across the snow and lots of what must have been engine parts spread across it.

“Mechanical problems?” I asked, savoring the way he jumped.

It’s easy to forget when you hang with shifters that humans don’t have such sharp senses as we do. We’re harder to surprise or sneak up on—although Derek manages to do it to me—and I found it pretty satisfying to have surprised Jared.

For once.

Then he surprised me with the warmth that lit his eyes.
“You changed your mind,” he said, admiration in his voice. It had to be a guess, but there was no doubt in his manner. “I knew you would, dragon girl.”