Infernal Father of Mine (28 page)

Yes.

"Do you have names?"

Not names. Associations.
Feelings.

"Can you identify my personal
minder?"

At first there was no answer.
It is
possible. The notion will be put forth into the thought
stream.

I didn't bother asking for clarification since
that sounded like a yes to me. "If you find him, can you send him
to me?"

If the idea carries, so it will
be.

Sounded like another affirmative, so I didn't
pepper the thing with questions. I wondered if Serena carried on
conversations with the minders.

She does, in a fashion.

Obviously, the minder could read my, um, mind.
Creepy.

Agreed, in the context
provided.

I tried to stop thinking about how unsettling
its response was, and forced my thoughts to the matter at hand. "I
need to remember the song my mother sang." I concentrated on the
tune.

I look up at Mom as she sings to
me. The song delights my little body. I open my mouth and coo at
her.

I'm older. Mom is singing to a
newborn baby. I peek into the room. She looks at me and smiles. The
baby stares at Mom. It's too young to be able to see yet, but it
seems to understand everything.

Several months have passed since
seeing the newborn. Mom sings to my sister, Ivy, every day, and
lets me listen. Though the song is simple, there are some parts I
can't hear, as if my ears are incapable of detecting the
notes.

"Mom, why do you sing the same
song?" I ask.

"You might need it someday," she
says, brushing a hand through my hair.

"They're coming," my father says
from the doorway.

Tears run down Mom's face. "I hate
this idea. What if he perverts the mind of our little
girl?"

David takes Mom in his arms. She
buries her face in his chest. "I'm sorry, my love. This is the only
chance we have for her to attain her full abilities." My father
looks at me. "Go to your room, son. I don't want you in here when
they arrive."

I do as asked. As I play in my
room, I hear Mom singing the song over and over again. I hear other
voices. I look down the hall and see the man in the top hat.
Jeremiah Conroy sees me. His eyes tighten, but he says nothing.
Eliza Conroy exits Ivy's room, a bundle in her arms. Mom is
sobbing. David holds her tight, his own eyes filled with
tears.

"She will be mighty," Jeremiah
says.

"Be careful with our daughter,"
David replies. "Are you sure there's no other way?"

Jeremiah shakes his head. "I am
sorry, but no. The girl shows all the signs she is the one. The boy
has no powers. He is useless to me."

After Jeremiah leaves, Mom comes to
me, eyes red from crying. "Don't worry, sweetie. I'll protect you."
She presses a hand to my head, and everything blurs
away.

I sucked in a breath and looked around. I was
back in the void. Pain swelled in my chest, and tears gathered in
my eyes. Mom had blurred many memories from my mind. I'd had some
recollections of the Conroys taking away my sister before, but
nothing like that.

Sadness. Grief. Pain. If you have
free will, why do you allow the pain?

"We don't always have a choice in what we
feel," I said. "Free will doesn't mean you can control every aspect
of your life, but you can make choices that will make you happy
sometimes, and sad others."

A great burden.

"Tell me about it," I said.

You feel responsible for that which
is beyond your control.

"What do you mean?"

Other entities. Loved ones. You
wish to prevent harm to them.

"Yeah. That's why I want to stop Daelissa," I
said.

Great responsibility.

"I know, I know." A sigh burst from my lips.
"I've got to stop her though."

The minder didn't respond.

I took the time to hum the tune Mom had sung.
The tune itself was simple except for the missing notes. I
understood immediately why I hadn't heard those notes. Until just
before my eighteenth birthday, my hearing was as normal as a
human's. There was no way I'd know those frequencies because I'd
never heard them. It meant without her, I'd never know the
tune.

"You can let me out," I said. "End the
dream."

I awoke on the floor of the arch room, and
pushed myself up to a sitting position.
We're so screwed.
How was I supposed to figure out the tune if I didn't know all the
notes? Maybe I could convince Serena to send me back to Eden so I
could talk to Mom. Then I'd return with the cavalry, rescue Dad,
and beat the snot out of Serena.

Except, there was no chance in hell Serena
would let me go. More than likely, she'd somehow use me to trick
Mom into entering this hellhole. If I discovered the song, what
then? I'd have to attune the arch and possibly unleash Armageddon.
There had to be a way out of this mess. I wondered if anyone could
do the singing ritual, or if it required someone specific.
Lornicus, the most lifelike golem Mr. Gray had made, told me my
mother was the only one who could perform the ritual since she'd
been the first to attune the Grand Nexus and the rune.

When I'd asked her about it, she told me she
was able to do it because she had perfect pitch. I wondered if Ivy
had the same control over her voice or if she was still too
young.

Unfortunately, all the speculation in the world
wasn't going to teach me the song. I paced back and forth, thinking
furiously. Mom once told me she could feel the tuning of the
Cyrinthian Rune, and it allowed her to feel what lay on the other
side of the portal. She'd discovered the mortal realm that way. If
that were true, it meant the Grand Nexus could conceivably lead to
other realms besides Seraphina. This Shadow Nexus had obviously led
to the realm with the Nazdal. Could I possibly attune it so it
would take us back to Eden instead of Seraphina?

We could escape.

I knew what my goal was. I would learn how to
change the destination of this arch. Another problem occurred to
me. The song Mom sang in my memory might unlock the way to only one
destination. Or it might be the song to remove the rune from the
nexus. Why would Mom have taught us the song to open the gate to
Seraphina? It didn't make sense, because the last thing she'd want
was to reopen the gateway to her home world. It made a lot more
sense to teach us how to remove the rune.

"Ugh, I'm never going to figure this out." I
paced some more, trying to figure a way out. No one except Mom knew
the songs. Nobody but me and Ivy had heard her—I suddenly realized
that wasn't true at all. Someone else had heard her sing. That
someone else might know more about the tuning.

Dad.

I walked to the minder and said, "I need my
father. He has information I need."

The phantom creature didn't so much as
twitch.

"I'll also need some way to tune my voice." I
had no idea what device could actually hit all the notes I needed,
but at least it would make Serena think I was doing
something.

The minder still made no move to indicate it
heard or cared about my requests.

"Look, I really need my father. Ask Serena for
permission if you need to." With that, I spun on my heel and walked
to the arch.

The rune gave off a benign glow, but I didn't
dare touch the thing. I also saw no way to activate the arch.
Alabaster Arches had a symbol in the arch control runes. Pressing
it would activate the arch, which would then open a portal. There
were no buttons in this room. The Obsidian Arches had a modulus for
choosing destinations on the map. Admittedly, I'd never used the
Grand Nexus. The only Alabaster Arches I'd activated had
malfunctioned since the nexus didn't have the rune.

I examined the rune again. Hoping I didn't blow
off my hand, I held it toward the rune. The glowing patterns
brightened. Gritting my teeth, and offering up prayers, I reached
my palm toward the small sphere.

It sprang from the socket and hovered an inch
from the surface. I yelped and jumped backward. The tiny orb reset
itself back into the slot. I took deep breaths and waited for my
heart to stop pounding.

Maybe it's supposed to do
that.

I sure hoped so. I paced back and forth for
several minutes, working up the courage to try again. Steeling
myself with a deep breath, I reached my palm toward it, as if
activating a modulus. The orb sprang free. I willed it to
activate.

The silver ring around the arch flared bright.
I felt a sudden rush of magical energy building around me, washing
past like static electricity. The arch hummed. Black and white
sheets of light flickered between the columns. The thrumming grew
louder and louder. The alternating light pulses quickened. With a
bright flash, the portal opened and a window to another world
appeared.

A great open plain of red sand and craggy rocks
ran into the distance. A blood red sun hovered low on the horizon.
Scrub brush with shimmering thorns grew in scattered clumps, and
something that looked a lot like a huge, horned coyote streaked
past.

I saw movement. Heard the susurrus of gravelly
voices and the gurgling of gullets with too much phlegm. The sand
moved. No, it wasn't the sand moving, but creatures—Nazdal—their
skin camouflaged perfectly to match the environment. Jaws open and
drooling, they lunged, intercepted the coyote, and brought it down.
The creature yipped.

More and more of the sub-human crawlers phased
into view until the plain was dotted with what had to be thousands
upon thousands. I felt my eyes go wide at the sight, and my heart
went tight as skinny jeans. The Nazdal swarmed toward the portal,
their voices gurgling in excitement.

"Close!" I shouted, and willed the portal to
shut.

The gateway flicked off, and the only other
sound besides my beating heart was the throbbing hum of the arch
winding down. I backed away a few steps. My knees felt weak. I
turned, and saw my father standing outside the ring. A sentinel
held him. He looked as pale as the guardian.

"This is not good," he said.

I couldn't agree more.

I looked at the minder. "Can you make the
sentinel release my father? It's not like we can
escape."

The pale guardian's hand opened, and David
stepped away from it.

"Thank you," I said, wondering if good manners
made a difference to the ghostly brain creature. "Let me show you
something." I motioned my father toward the arch. As we walked, I
noticed the sentinel didn't follow. I wasn't sure if the minder
could hear me. The thing didn't have ears, but it obviously knew
what I wanted when I spoke to it. Unfortunately, I had no choice
but to relay my theories to David.

I told him what I needed.

"You want to pick my brain using the minder to
find out if I remember any songs your mother sang?" he
said.

I nodded. "Look, here's the deal. From what Mom
told me, I think the arch can be attuned to open into different
realms. The Cyrinthian Rune adjusts the destination, but it
requires a ritual." I explained how the siren-like beings had grown
an arch from solid rock. Shelton, some others and I had
accidentally caused a glitch by opening two portals right next to
each other and briefly ended up witnessing the sirens building an
arch.

"And your mother's songs are like the ones the
sirens used to grow the arches?" he said.

"Exactly. So, it makes sense the Cyrinthian
Rune responds to those musical frequencies."

"Why don't all the arches work that way then?"
he asked.

I shrugged. "I think the Seraphim were able to
build their own versions of the Obsidian Arches, or at least modify
them. Or, maybe the builders specifically made them simple to
use."

He nodded. "All except for the Grand Nexus, in
case a hostile race decided to use it to take over a few
worlds."

"Hmm." I pursed my lips. "I hadn't thought
about it that way, but you could be right." While the builders
might be fine with beings using the Obsidian Arches for travel
across their own realm, they might have issues with a race like the
Seraphim using the Grand Nexus as a means of invasion.

David tapped his temple. "It might just
work."

"I hope so. We activate the arch, dash through,
stick out our tongues at Serena, and run for the hills."

"If we do escape, we can't just leave her here
to build an army of Nazdal."

I felt my eyebrows rise. "Aww, you do
care."

"Of course I care about an invasion," he said
with a sigh. "I didn't go through centuries of grief and longing to
give up the ghost now."

"Then why did you act so nonchalantly when we
met in the graveyard?" I folded my arms across my chest. "And you
were such an asshole to me after the Exorcists banished us
here."