Martyr (11 page)

“You should not have told her,” Devon said. “We trusted you.”

“We need your help,” Jarrett said. “Things are… things are changing. The world is changing. And if we don't find a way to fight back, we're going to be destroyed. I know what I ask of you, but it's nothing I wouldn't do myself. Please understand I'm only trying to protect the ones I love.”

Devon closed his eyes and took a deep, ragged breath. Fire finally burned out, and a little more tension bled from the room.

“We will see you before midnight,” Dreya said. She pushed herself from the wall and put a hand on Devon's shoulder. Without another word, Devon stood and followed her from the room.

When they were alone, Jarrett walked over to the bed and sat down, flopping onto his back. Tenn hesitated, then walked over and sank down next to him.

“What was that all about?” Tenn asked. “How do they know the Witches?”

“I can't tell you,” Jarrett said. “I've already broken enough promises today.”

Tenn sighed. More secrets.

“Did you tell her?” he asked. “About Tomás and Matthias? About Leanna searching me out?”

Jarrett nodded.

“I told her you were being targeted,” he said, “but I didn't mention Tomás.” Jarrett looked over at him. “Has he appeared again?”

Tenn hesitated.

“I don't know what his game is,” Jarrett said, apparently taking that as an answer, “but I don't like it. He's well-known for being a demented fucker. I don't like the idea of him toying with you.”

And I don't want him hurting you
.

“What's going on?” Tenn asked. “Why are they after me?”

“I don't know,” Jarrett said. “But hopefully the Witches will be able to help. They've always known more about what's going on than the rest of us. And at least with them, you know you're not going to get stabbed in the back.”

Kind of like you just did to Dreya?

But he didn't voice it. He knew Jarrett. He knew that, in all things, Jarrett favored duty over emotion. It was a habit of Air users—one of the more annoying ones—but Tenn had a feeling Jarrett had always been clinical. He wouldn't have said anything to Cassandra unless absolutely necessary.

Still, it made Tenn look at him a little differently. If Jarrett could turn on the twins like that so easily, all in the name of duty, would it be just as easy for him to let go of Tenn?

It wasn't a thought Tenn wanted to harbor. Besides, he had secrets of his own, ones that were far deadlier than a hidden past.

Torn, he lay down and rested his head on Jarrett's chest. Jarrett pulled him closer.

He wanted to enjoy the moment, wanted to sink into the first quiet embrace they'd had since leaving Outer Chicago over a week ago. But as he lay there, staring at shadows, all he could think about were secrets, and how those secrets could get them all killed.

9

The
rest of the day was spent in agitated preparation. Tenn visited the armory for a new steel quarterstaff. Jarrett packed provisions from the kitchen. They both tried to sleep in the afternoon, curled under the blankets in each other's arms, warm and dry for what seemed like the first time in ages. And they both failed at actually getting rest. Every time Tenn closed his eyes, he swore he felt the shadows of the room move. Congeal. So long as he had his overactive imagination, Matthias and Tomás were ever close at hand.

They spent the dregs of the day apart, though Tenn couldn't keep himself occupied enough to make the hours whittle away. By the time ten-thirty arrived, Tenn thought he would go insane. Jarrett had been on patrol for the last three hours, all to keep up the illusion that they weren't amongst those ordered out into the field. Not that it mattered. He knew there was no way to hide his actions from Tomás and Matthias. Tired of staring at the same page in the same book, Tenn gathered his things and went to the training rooms. At least there he could be productive.

The main training room—what had once been the indoor track—was empty. Moonlight filtered down through the high windows, illuminating the crash mats and free weights scattered about. There were other, more anachronistic items as well—steel vats of water, boulders the size of cars, straw dummies, ropes and rings dangling from the rafters, and half a dozen weapon racks. No guns, of course—they were of no use with the onset of magic. Bullets could be stopped by the most fledgling of mages, unless the projectiles were imbued with blood or magic. Machinery was no longer a valid weapon. Just magic and steel.

Torches lined the walls for those wanting more than moonlight during a late-night spar. Tenn didn't need them. He closed his eyes and opened to Earth.

In that unfolding, he felt the entire room span out around him, his senses spreading like a lotus in the sun. He could feel the foam of the mats and the nicks in every sword blade, the fibers of the ropes and the taste of oil in the torches. With Earth, he didn't need light or even sight. He knew his surroundings as intimately as he knew his own body.

Rooted, he pushed the magic through his quarterstaff, forced it into a shape and size he was comfortable wielding. He spun it in his hands, listening to the rush of air, feeling it move as an extension of him. Water roiled in his stomach. It churned and hissed, angry at being ignored, but there was no way Tenn was going to open to that power. He was too raw after battle; he didn't need to relive the fight, not when he could still feel the blood staining his soul.

Jarrett had been the one who suggested attuning to Earth a few months after Tenn arrived at the guild. Many mages attuned to a second Sphere to balance out or strengthen their first. Earth should have grounded him, should have loosened Water's hold, but the way Water had opened on its own on the field, the way it had begun to exist within him like a sentient thing… Well, that was sign enough that Earth wasn't balancing him out at all. In fact, it seemed like Water had just gotten worse.

Some days, he wished he could drop Water entirely, wished he could go back to being normal. But becoming attuned was like becoming a Howl. Once done, it couldn't be undone. Ever.

Hopefully the Witches would have some idea about that, too. He'd heard that they were the ones who had discovered the Spheres and kept them secret, long before anyone else. Maybe that meant they knew how to control them…

“What are you doing here?”

The voice cut through his concentration, and he flung his awareness over to the door. Although his eyes were open, Earth told him more than his other senses. In the doorway was a young boy wearing rags, with his head cocked to the side and an old wooden toy train on a string dangling from one hand. A boy, Tenn knew, who couldn't see, but could also see more than everyone in the guild combined. He tried to suppress a shiver. The cold room suddenly seemed even colder.

“I'm practicing,” Tenn said. He felt naked, somehow, and oddly defenseless. He kept a firm hold on Earth, letting the magic root him down into concrete. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing.

“Not you,” the boy said. He hobbled into the room, the train dragging behind him on its side. It sounded like a string of bones.

In spite of himself, Tenn cast his gaze and his power around the room, but as he thought, there was no one else. Just him and the boy. And the shadows.

“They're watching you,” said the boy. “Watching, watching. Watching everything.”

“Who?”

“The Prophets.” The boy was within a few feet of him now. He could see the old rags he was wearing, the grime smeared over his face and caking his ragged hair. Despite the fact that the boy clearly never bathed, he didn't smell bad—not even with Tenn's enhanced senses. If anything, the boy smelled like incense, something smoky and hidden, a dusting of frankincense and myrrh. “They've taken a special interest in you.”

Tenn couldn't hold back the chills this time. Years ago, right after the world was broken and humanity scattered to a few strongholds, a group of children showed up on the doorstep of every guild. Each child blind. Each in rags. And each barely seven years old. They were the Voices, they said, sent by the Priests of Maya—the guardians of the Prophets—to act as messengers. Tenn had no idea what the Priests had done to get the kids this way, and he had a sinking suspicion that no one had ever asked. Like so many things in the world, the Voices were seen as necessary casualties in the fight for survival.

The boy circled around him like a shark in the water, and he couldn't help but feel himself sinking. How much had had the Prophets seen? Did Tomás slip under their radar like he had everyone else's? And why was he—a boy from nowhere, a boy just like everyone else—being targeted by so many?

“The Prophets tried to get me killed,” he said. “They knew I was being targeted.”

The boy paused before continuing. “Yes,” he said. “It was necessary. But it was not to kill you.”

“Then why? Why did they use me as bait?” Fear gave way to anger, his grief consumed by finally having someone else to blame.

“I don't know,” the boy said. “But I hear them talking. Talking, talking, always talking, always just about you.”

“What are they saying?”

The boy stopped walking, and Tenn turned around. He was facing away, staring up into the corner of the room, his faced bathed in moonlight. His blind eyes glowed like pearls. Did the kid practice looking creepy?

“That you can save us.”

The boy turned around.

“Or you'll kill us. You have secrets. So many secrets. And they could tear the world apart.”

“I don't…”

“You do,” the boy said. He began to walk away.

Tenn wanted to grab him, to shake some answers out of him. But he knew the Voice was just a messenger. He didn't have the answers Tenn needed.

“Be careful,” the boy said as he left. “They are watching. And they tremble at what they see.”

When the boy left, Tenn put a hand to his heart and felt his pulse race. It didn't matter that Earth was still drawing him down, calming his nerves; it felt like he had run a marathon through the dark. And he had a feeling that whatever he was running from was about to catch up with him.

He just wished he knew what it was.

10

There
was no way he could practice after his encounter with the Voice. No way he wanted to be alone. He spent the hours until midnight in the warmth of the library—what had once been a yoga studio and now contained a few haphazard bookshelves crammed with novels and old magazines—reading once more by lamplight. That was the intent. By the time the clock struck eleven-thirty, he realized he'd been staring at the same page for nearly half an hour. At least he hadn't had any more visitors.

The night was calm and clear when he stepped outside, the sky scattered with stars and a gibbous moon. Tenn left the guild on his own, wrapped in a new, clean wool trench coat, with a sack of dried food on his back and his new staff tapping on the concrete with every step. He half-expected one of the guards to call out, demanding to know where he was going at this time of the night. But no one stopped him. No one seemed to be out.

Moonlight glinted off the puddles covering the cracked streets, litter fluttering against chain-link fences like tiny ghosts. Although debris was everywhere, the place smelled a little better. The rain must have washed away the decay that seemed to linger here, the stench of a thousand humans slowly decomposing as they fought to stay alive. His foot hit something, and his heart stopped as a can skittered across the street.
So much for being inconspicuous
.

“Who's there?” grunted a man's voice. The very man Tenn had hoped to avoid.

“Caius,” he muttered under his breath. He gripped the staff tighter and kept walking. Did the guy never keep to himself? Or sleep, for that matter?

Something hit the ground in front of him. The bastard was
throwing
things at him.

“I asked you a question,” Caius called. He kept his voice down, but there was a sense that, if Tenn didn't stop, this would get ugly real fast. He paused. He had at least ten minutes before the meeting time.

“Oh,” Caius said. The preacher shuffled closer, his shadow lumbering across a nearby yard. He smelled distinctly of whiskey. Had Tenn been unlucky enough to wake him, or had he been sitting out here drinking all night? “It's you.”

“Yes,” Tenn said. His jaw was clenched out of habit. “It's me. What do you want?”

Caius shrugged. He was still in his suit, his hair mussed from sleep or lack thereof.

“Just to talk, Hunter. Just to talk.” There was a slight slur to Caius's words.

“I don't have time,” Tenn said. “You're drunk. Talk to one of your sheep. Good night.”

He took a step forward before Caius's arm reached out and stopped him in his tracks.

“Make time,” Caius hissed. He let go of Tenn's arm and stood back, brushing himself off. It was futile—the dust was as much a part of his suit as the fabric.

Tenn glared at him. “You have two minutes.”

Caius sighed.

“Impatient, impatient.” He took a hand-rolled cigarette from his pocket and brought it to his lips. From another pocket came a matchbook; he it flipped open, struck a match, and lit his cigarette in one well-practiced movement. “That's what got us into this mess.” He took a long drag and exhaled slowly. The smoke wafted up into the moonlight like a shade.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Tenn said. Caius might have smelled like the bottom of a whiskey barrel, but his hands didn't shake and his eyes never left Tenn's face. If he was truly drunk, he was hiding it well.

“The Dark Lady,” Caius said. He spit, then took another drag. “She was human once. She was impatient, too.”

“Listen, I don't have time to stand out here and listen to your myths.”