Eve of Destruction (3 page)

He swept his eyes around the nearby area, desperately searching for inspiration. There had to be something here he could use to create a distraction…

And there, about thirty feet away, he found it. He grabbed roughly onto her arm and yanked her along with him. Up ahead was a fruit stand, and standing next to it was a wealthy-looking man inspecting a pair of fresh melons. Behind him was his horse.

“Be ready to run,” he warned her as they drew close, casually reaching into his jacket and sliding his pistol from its holster. “Just follow me.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked frantically as she glanced back over her shoulder. The trio of Dusties had moved out from their alleyway and started to follow them.

 Zach didn’t answer. Instead he walked right up behind the fruit stand, lifted the bottom flap of his jacket, and pulled the trigger.

The shot didn’t hit anything besides the wood, but then, it didn’t need to. The horse immediately reared back in terror at the sound, its front legs smashing into the fruit stand and scattering an entire rack of melons across the sidewalk.The owner yelped in shock and tried desperately to get the beast under control, and all around them people started running around and screaming in panic.

Zach dragged Eve through the chaos, trying his best to make it look like they were running away from the gunshot rather than the source of it. Glancing back over his shoulder, Zach caught a glimpse of the Dusties trying to push their way forward, and one of them, just like he’d hoped, had drawn his pistol. It instantly made him the target of the crowd’s ire, and soon everyone in Radbury was staring and yelling at the group of thugs. Eventually the people might figure out what really happened, but Zach didn’t intend on giving them the chance.

They dashed past the chaos and ducked beneath another nearby merchant stall, then turned and slipped behind a carriage moving along a cross-wise street. He let it shield them from view for a solid ten seconds before pulling Eve over to another alleyway and darting inside it.

“It should confuse them long enough for us to get back to the station,” he told her. “But we need to hurry.”

Without waiting for a reply he took off again, dragging her around the nearest corner—and then froze in shock. Standing there in front of them was a tall, balding man with an expensive suit and soft brown eyes. It was a face Zach hadn’t seen for over two years, and the last one he ever expected to see here.

It was the face of an old friend.

“Blessed Kirshal!” Eve gasped. “Mr. Maltus?”

“Evelyn; Zachary,” the man said with a wide smile. “I thought I recognized the two of you running across the street. What in Edeh’s name are you doing here?”

Zach tried to respond but nothing came out. Of all the things he’d possibly expected to see in this alleyway, the face of the DeShane family’s longtime neighbor was near the bottom of the list. Neither he nor Eve had seen Maltus since he’d taken the magister position at Selerius University and moved away a few years ago. So why was he here now? What in the void was going on?

“We were being followed,” Eve said, recovering first.

“Followed?” Maltus asked curiously. He glanced past them down the alleyway. “I didn’t see anyone chasing you back on the street, and there’s no one else here.”

Zach’s mind finally thawed and he swept his eyes around the area. He didn’t see or hear anyone. He stepped just past Maltus to peer around the corner back out to the street. The ruckus by the fruit stand was still going strong, but the Dusties themselves had vanished. For now.

“I guess they gave up,” he said softly.

“Goddess, it’s good to see you,” Eve breathed as she leapt into Maltus’s arms.

He chuckled softly and held her close. “I’m on my way to Lushden. I was hoping to see both of you while I was there, but I never thought to find you in Radbury. Where are you going? Back to school already?”

“No,” Eve murmured as she looked over at Zach. “We’re headed west.”

“West?” Maltus asked. “Why in the world would you be heading out there?”

“It…” she trailed off and sighed. “It will take a while to explain.”

Maltus glanced between them, his eyebrows raised. “All right. Why don’t we go and grab something to eat? I know a good place on the other side of the tracks, and my train won’t be here for a few minutes yet.”

Eve smiled. “I’d like that very much.”

***

They sat down in a cozy little diner on the opposite side of the station, and Eve told Maltus everything. Just seeing his face again had lifted an invisible weight from her shoulders, and for a few minutes it was almost like she was suddenly back at home having dinner with her family again.

But she wasn’t, and she never would be again. And instead of seeing the face of the man who had all but replaced her long-dead father, she saw everything that she’d lost and could never get back.

“I’m so sorry, Evelyn,” Maltus apologized for the third time since they’d sat down. “I wish I’d been there for her. I wish…”

“I know,” Eve murmured. She squeezed Zach’s hand beneath the table. She wasn’t going to lose control. Not here, not now. Not again.

“I wish I could have been there for the funeral,” Maltus said. “I was hoping I’d at least get the chance to see the two of you. Can you tell me why you’re leaving? I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of how dangerous it is out west for people like us.”

Eve licked nervously at her lips. She wondered if this would sound as silly aloud as it did in her head. “We’re following a lead.”

“A lead?” he asked curiously.

“The killer—or killers—barely touched anything in the house,” she explained. “You know how much valuable stuff is lying around inside, and they didn’t bother with it. The police keep insisting it was a random shooting with no motive, but I didn’t believe that for a minute. I assumed it was another Dusty attack on the magi. You hear about them all the time in the papers now.”

“But you don’t believe that anymore.”

“No,” she said. “There was one thing missing in the house. Someone busted into her room and stole one of mom’s books.”

Maltus paused mid-sip and then gradually set the glass back down on the table. “Do you know which one?”

“Not specifically,” Eve replied, sharing another quick but meaningful glance with Zach. He’d caught the curious reaction too. “She had a special locked shelf in her room full of books she forbade me to read. She said they were spellbooks that I wasn’t allowed to touch until I graduated and took the Oath Rituals. When I was organizing things after the funeral, I noticed one of them was missing. One of the smaller ones, too, which I found odd.”

“And you’re sure it was there before? That she hadn’t moved it herself?”

“It had been awhile since I’d actually gotten a look inside the shelf, but the lock was broken. Mom certainly didn’t do that.”

“I see.”

“Do
you
know what book it was?” Zach asked him. “Or why anyone would want it?”

Maltus tapped idly at the handle of his cup, and the lines on his face noticeably tightened. “I might. If I had to guess, I would assume it was one of her journals.”

“Journals?” Eve asked. “I didn’t know mom kept a journal.”

“She didn’t—at least, not of the conventional sort.”

Zach cocked his head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Maltus sighed and closed his eyes, and when they opened again the tension in his face was gone. “You remember those dreams your mother used to have when you were younger?”

“Of course,” Eve said. “I remember she used to wake up screaming in the middle of the night sometimes. Then they just…stopped.”

“I’m not sure they ever stopped completely,” Maltus murmured. “But she kept a written record of all of them. That’s what was in her journals.”

“Why would anyone want a journal of her dreams?” Eve asked. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Because not everyone was convinced they were simple dreams,” Maltus told her. “Some of our colleagues believed they were much more than that.”

Zach made a face. “Huh?”

Maltus glanced out the window towards the train station. “It’s a long story and I don’t have a great deal of time, but the bottom line is that your mother’s dreams had a way of…well, coming true. Not all of them, mind you, but enough to raise a few eyebrows.”

“You mean premonitions or something?” Zach asked skeptically.

“In a sense, yes.”

“She told me that happened a few times, but very rarely,” Eve said distantly as she searched her memory. “She dismissed it as coincidence. My instructors at Rorendal have told me over and over again that there’s no such thing as premonitions, no matter what village folklore likes to say about magic. The Fane is about the manipulation of matter and energy, not conjuring up hallucinations.”

“I’ve told my own students the same thing many times,” Maltus said with a faint smile. “Not all of them believe it.”

“Wait a second,” Zach interrupted. “So you’re saying someone killed Mrs. DeShane and stole her journal because what, they think it can predict the future?”

“I’m saying that’s a distinct possibility.”

“That’s crazy,” Zach muttered. “Who would believe something like that?”

“There are many things about the Fane we don’t fully understand,” Maltus said. “And there are certain circles of magi, particularly within the Edehan church, who believe that the Goddess takes a more…
active
role in our lives than many of us give her credit for. Some have gone so far as to suggest that your mother might have been blessed.”

“Blessed?” Eve breathed, shaking her head in confusion.

“I’m not sure how much you remember from your Worship Day lessons when you were a child, but there’s the old legend about the Varishal.”

“The Prophetess of Edeh,” Eve said with a nod, “a mage chosen by the Goddess as her messenger when the Fane was in great danger.”

“That’s the one,” Maltus confirmed. “Some of the more devout members of the church believed your mother’s dreams might have been more than coincidence.”

Eve blinked. “They thought she was the
Prophetess
? I never heard about that.”

“It wasn’t something your mother advertised, and there was never consensus among the clergy about it. But suffice to say, there were a number of people both in and out of the church who thought your mother might have the divine gift of foresight.”

“And you think one of them killed her for it,” Zach said softly.

Maltus nodded gravely. “Yes.”

Eve shook her head, her mind racing. She’d never given much credence to the legends about the Varishal. It always seemed so
mystical
, even compared to all the other religious stuff. She’d been taught to touch the Fane when she was a child, and its presence had always been quite real to her. But everything else had always been so intangible it was hard to wrap her head around it.

“So you’re saying it wasn’t the Dusties at all, then?” she asked after a moment.

“I don’t know that for certain,” Maltus said. “It’s entirely possible they heard rumors about her gift and realized how powerful it could be to their cause. Their gangs may be filled with simpletons and fools, but their leadership is not.”

“Leadership,” Zach rasped. “You mean like Simon Chaval?”

“Like I said, I don’t know anything for certain, but Chaval is undoubtedly a clever man. He’s also in the midst of a presidential election that many consider the most important one of our lifetime. If he suspected your mother’s journal could help him…”