Search (SEEK Book 1) (18 page)

“There must be three or four dozen of them,” I gasp, completely forgetting about the other passengers.

“Do you like it?” Jonathan murmurs, stepping behind me and resting his chin on my shoulder. He winds his arms around my collarbone.

I shake my head, unable to articulate any words.

“No, you don’t like it?” Jonathan whispers.

I shake my head again. “It’s amazing. I love it.”
I love you
.

“I wanted you to see this because I know you haven’t had as much time with Irkalla as I’ve had with Mayet, but this is what the Fifth Column is all about. It’s about saving these mythical creatures that are centuries old and on the verge of becoming extinct. Me, Paul and all of the Fifth Column—we believe that the Khayal are meant for the whole world, that they have a purpose much greater than just healing us of our mortal wounds. We believe they’re here to heal humanity. Save us from ourselves.”

I mull Jonathan’s words over while watching a Khayal change from pink to orange, wondering what those colors mean. “I could see that.”

A few people are snapping pictures on their phones, trying to catch a shot of a ghost. To our right, a couple asks technical questions into a digital recorder. They must be paranormal investigators or something.

“I don’t see anything,” a woman on our left gripes.

“I agree the Khayal probably do have some larger purpose and I know they need help, but I’m not the one who can save them,” I whisper.

A few feet away a tall head in a blue ball cap snaps up as though he’s heard me. It’s the same man I’ve seen twice already tonight.

I elbow Jonathan. “Jonathan, it’s the man in the blue ball cap. He was at our restaurant. I saw him talking to our waiter and again in the stein shop. Now he’s here and I swear he heard me say Khayal,” I whisper.

“You’re sure?” Jonathan whispers back, the warmth of his breath tickling my neck.

I nod. Together we back toward the double doors leading to the dining room. We barely make it three steps when the blue hat turns and the man wearing it looks directly at me. Goosebumps spread the length of my body. His eyes aren’t normal. They’re so pale they’re almost transparent. He’s looking at me as if he knows me.  His gaze pans to Jonathan.

“What do we do?” I ask, pulse quickening.

“Follow my lead,” Jonathan says, squeezing my hand. “Where? I don’t see it!”

At first I have no clue what Jonathan’s trying to do, but then I notice a few people around us trying to see what Jonathan is seeing. He’s making a scene.

“Look right there! No, up there—you’re not looking high enough,” I say loudly, catching on.

Like puppets, the crowd gazes up, raising their cameras, phones and recorders high in the air and shield us from the man.

“Run!” Jonathan has me by the hand and we’re through the door before he even finishes the word.

“We’re on a ship. Where can we go?” We fly through the dining room and down a narrow corridor.

“Try the doors!” Jonathan shouts.

“Locked, try the next one.” I jump back out into the hallway, twisting an ankle in these stupid shoes. I kick them off and leave them in the next locked doorway. “We’re running out of ship!”

“Head to the lounge. Maybe we can hide in the crowd,” Jonathan suggests, his voice wavering.

“I can’t believe I don’t have a weapon,” I growl.

“Right, like drawing a gun would fix this,” Jonathan mutters as we burst through the double doors at the end of the hall and into a dark, smoky room. In one swift motion Jonathan grabs my chin and peers deep into my eyes. “I think they’re together.”

“They who?” I blink.

“Isn’t it too much of a coincidence that there’s a guy you know to be affiliated with SEEK on board at the exact same time some guy’s been tailing us? They have to be together,” Jonathan says, his eyes searching mine.

“Of course they do.” I gasp, kicking myself for missing the connection. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I can’t seem to get my head around what’s happening. And right now there are other passengers, busy with their beverages, and unaware that anything is about to go down. I, on the other hand, am more worried about their safety than my own. No one else needs to get hurt because of me. I scan the room for escape routes, weapons, and potential hazards.

“Look!” I say, pointing at a door beside the bar marked ‘Employees Only.’

Jonathan draws in a hollow breath and nods. We start that way when my blood turns to ice. The guy in the blue ball cap is sauntering around the corner, surveying the room like a bounty hunter looking for his fugitive.

“Too late!” I jerk my head.

The guy’s eyes are like yellow animal-eyes as they meet mine. I don’t even have time to blink before Curt Nelson storms in right behind him. Then Curt Nelson locks eyes on me too, as though I’m wearing a homing beacon. His eyes are every bit as strange and eerie as the other guys. A predator’s eyes, more cunning than a human’s, like they could see me even if it were pitch black in here. And right now, they’re ready to put an end to me.

I have to protect not only myself, but Jonathan and the crowd as well. There’s only one thing to do.

“Time for a swim!” I shout, jumping to my right and smacking the edge of a waiter’s tray teetering on the bar. Everything on it flips into the air. I catch the empty wine bottle seconds before it crashes to the floor.

“Bloody hell! What did you do that for?” The bartender asks indignantly.

I motion for Jonathan to climb over the railing, but he just stands there, clueless and the two men are charging right at me like angry rhinos. Jonathan does nothing, a deer in the headlights.

“I guess we fight.” I shove the tray at Jonathan, smashing the empty bottle against the bar and pointing the jagged edge in our attacker’s direction.

“I hope they’re not armed. Isn’t anyone else opposed to violence anymore?” Jonathan flips the tray up like a shield, peeking over the top.

“Jokes? Now?” I groan, backing him toward the railing as shattered glass crunches underfoot.

The two hulking goons shove their way through the crowd. My head isn’t ready for an attack. Every nerve in my body fails me simultaneously.

But my heart says survive.

“What’s going on?” By some magical stroke of luck the ship’s Captain shows up, scuttles through the crowd that’s beginning to form and knocks right into Curt Nelson and his blue hat friend.

“Jump!” I scream, shoving Jonathan up and over the rungs. I scuttle up behind him, but before I can even get a leg over the rail a hand yanks the back of my sweater. 

“Aarg!” Jonathan hollers, falling two stories and smashing through to the shimmering waves below.

“Jonathan!” I cry, slashing the broken bottle blindly behind me.

The second the bottle makes contact with my attacker the tension on my sweater releases. My handbag swings around my neck, the weight of the stein pulls me forward and I fall face-first over the railing. I try to right myself, go into the water feet first, but there’s not enough time and I hit the wintry cold river in a fetal position.

My right kidney explodes with pain as a million tiny ice sickles stab me. I scream underwater, but only bubbles burst from my mouth. I twist and writhe, fighting against the undertow, until at last I reach the surface and catch a breath.

A booming deep voice calls from the ship. “Keira, we just want to talk to you!”

I don’t even have to look to know it’s one those men. The voice vibrates in my ears like nothing I’ve ever heard before. Waves crash over my face as I’m tossed aside in the ship’s wake. I slip beneath the frigid waters thinking of SEEK and the way they hunt the Khayal. Thinking of Episteme and the way they exploit Khayal. Then I think of Jonathan insisting that we can’t rule out the possibility of other creatures existing.

I wonder what Kistall has gotten their hands on now.

My sense of direction fails with the undercurrent yanking me in circles, my lungs threatening to implode. But then I forget about myself as a new panic consumes me. Jonathan! What’s happening to Jonathan?

I jerk and thrust until my sweater and purse slip free and sink. I burst through the surface, not thinking about my own safety, spinning left and right, searching for Jonathan. Minutes of nothing but cold pain stretch on. The ship motors away, taking the light with it. Dread curls in my stomach faster than the cold seizing my muscles.

Just as the tears blur my vision I catch a faint glimpse of a silhouette downriver. Jonathan is climbing ashore a woodsy riverbank. I push under the waves, aimed in his direction, the cold making me sluggish in the relentless current. He’s too far away. I’m not going to make it.

“Don’t you give up. You’re a fighter. You fight now. Fight, Keira, fight!”

My face slips beneath the surface.

Lindy was an amazing swimmer. To see her in the water, you just knew you were witnessing a champion. I was never good in the water, even growing up in Destin, with the miles of pristine crystal sands rolling under the Peruvian blue waves. Water as warm as a Turkish bath, and salty enough to float without effort. I was always the sister who had command over the land not the sea. I could run circles around anyone in the white dunes. Sure, I ran track in school, but my heart wasn’t in the competition like Lindy’s was with her swimming. Running just came naturally to me, like archery, but even that isn’t what made me the SEEK agent I was. It was my ability to hone in on individual Khayal. Most agents felt an uneasiness about a general area, that’s why most people choose to hunt Khayal with a gun, but I felt the vibrations within the uneasiness. A Khayal frequency. Come to think of it, I never really felt that uneasiness. In fact, I was only ever creeped out by the Khayal because SEEK said I should be.

If it hadn’t been for all those parasitic Khayal stories I might’ve noticed that the vibrations—the ones that raised the hair on the back of my neck—weren’t scary or bad, they were exciting. Like when I Bonded with Irkalla.

I need to call Irkalla. I reach for the back of my neck, grab my mark and open my mouth. With the very last drop of breath I have, through the arctic water, I call her. “Irkalla, I need you!”

My world fades behind a wall of wavy effervescing bubbles and everything turns murky.

Like a reverie, I hear Irkalla answering me, but she sounds too far away. “I am here, Keira. You’re okay,” her alluring voice serenades, making me want to go to her.

I’m too cold.

“Where?”
I try to answer, but it’s as if I can’t find my mouth. Something blocks it.
“Where are you, Irkalla?”

“I am here, with Jonathan.”

Jonathan? That word. That name, it sounds familiar. Like something I heard in a dream once, a long, long time ago. But how could that be? I’ve only just met him. When was it, a month ago? It feels longer. It feels as though I’ve known him forever. In another lifetime.

“Keira, Jonathan’s calling you. Can you hear him?
He loves you,”
Irkalla says in my head.

“Come on, Keira, come on! Fight it. Fight the cold. I know it hurts, but you’re the strongest person I know. You can beat this. You can win,” Jonathan shouts through the fog.

Like Irkalla, he also sounds far away, but unlike Irkalla when his words reach me they spread like breath on glass. Warmth covers me like a blanket thrown in the air and allowed to fall in its own time. Little by little the warmth comes. And then pain. Like running frozen fingers under warm water.

I want to scream but I still have something stopping me. I realize what’s happened all at once. My lungs are filled with ice water. I open my eyes. A pair of Khayal-green eyes stare back at me. Funny, I never feared drowning, until I did. Just like I never feared falling in love, until I realize I already have.

“Jonathan,” I try, gagging as a violent wave of water flows from my mouth.

Two sets of hands roll me onto my side. Pat my back. If I wasn’t so interested in breathing, I’d be mortified at letting Jonathan see me like this, lying in the dirt. A wet soggy rag barfing up lungfuls of river water.

When I feel like I’ve evacuated every drop of fluid from my lungs and I’m raw from the inside out, I fall back and lay there, looking at the stars. Only they’re not stars. They’re millions of tiny, colored bubbles. Like fireflies.

Khayal hover far above looking down on me.

“Why?” I croak, pointing a shaky finger, stunned by the beauty of it.

Irkalla on my right and Jonathan on my left, each holding a hand, exchange a look.

“Why are they here?” Nothing more than a faint whisper comes out this time.

“They came to say goodbye,” Jonathan says softly, stroking the backs of my fingers.

“Goodbye to whom? You?” I turn to Irkalla. Her stunning lilac face looks back at me with so much love I can’t even comprehend it. But there’s something else, something she’s not saying. “What are you afraid of? Tell me, please.”

“They came to pay their last respects to you. It didn’t look like I’d gotten here fast enough.” Irkalla lifts the ends of her long tendrils, the same purplish-pink color as the rest of her, wringing water from her hair.

How could any creature as pretty as she is, with her large slanted eyes and delicate features, be peering at me as though I’m the beautiful one? I’m just an ordinary human girl.        Irkalla is magnificently inhuman, otherworldly, and gorgeous.

“We’re not sure how you pulled through after all that time. You were under the water a good ten minutes before Irkalla got to you,” Jonathan says, squeezing my hand in his.

My head begins to clear and I remember reaching for my mark. “I can’t believe you found me. Thank you.”

“That’s what I’m here for.” Irkalla smiles, her pointy teeth inexplicably adding to her beauty.   

“How do you feel? Does it still hurt?” Jonathan leans over examining my right side.

“Whoa. Hey, that hurts,” I complain, instinctively wrapping my arms around my middle. Only nothing feels as it should. For one thing, my dress is shredded to bits and the skin underneath it feels like scales. I sit up, patting my stomach. “What is that? What’s happened?”

“Easy,” Jonathan warns, cradling my back.

My dress is covered in blood and my stomach looks like a patchwork quilt of scabs in different stages of healing. I lay a hand gingerly over one of the scarier-looking wounds.

“The shock’s wearing off, Irkalla. She needs to get warm now.” Jonathan’s rubbing my back and shoulders, but his hands are no warmer than mine.

Where’s Mayet? Why hasn’t Jonathan called her? Isn’t hypothermia something a Khayal can help with? All of these questions shuffle through my mind as time crawls slowly forward. Irkalla rises, reaching for me. I tuck my feet beneath my butt and take her hands, letting her pull me to my feet. My legs wobble unsteadily, my head swimming with dizziness, but I get up and stand there obediently.

With no warning at all, Irkalla scoops me into her wings and lifts me off the ground. As if I weigh nothing.

“Hey, what—?”

“Shhh, Keira, don’t worry.” Irkalla’s fruity floral breath fans over my face.

Like a drug, the warmth of her scent fills my nostrils and gives me a peaceful weightlessness, like I’m nothing more than cloud. I close my eyes, reveling in the absence of all pain, the cold only a distant memory. Irkalla blows her healing breath over me. Sweet honeysuckle and magnolia fills her cocoon.

“Where were you when I called you? Were you a long way away?” I ask, sounding drowsy and dazed.

“Shhh, rest now, just let yourself heal.”

“But, I should be dead. You couldn’t have gotten to me if I were too far, right? Or does it work differently when I’m hurt? Are you transported through a magical portal or something?” I press, desperate to understand how Khayal transportation works and kicking myself for not pressing Jonathan for more answers when I’d had the chance.

Irkalla giggles, the sound like an elegant old music box. “I was close by, but water makes it difficult to hear you. Now rest.”

“Oh.” I sigh, slowly opening my eyes. “Why are you lilac?”

“Actually, it’s amethyst, because you’re healing. When you fell on that bottle it damaged your organs, now focus and think of something happy.”

Jonathan. The thought comes effortlessly, as though it had always been there waiting for someone to point it out. Jonathan makes me happy. The way the little line forms between his eyes when he’s concentrating, or the way his curls always seem to fall just above his brows no matter how many times he brushes them aside. The way his face lights up when he first sees me, and the way it feels when he looks at me like that.

“I’m so stupid,” I whisper groggily.

“I said think happy thoughts,” Irkalla scolds.

But as I open my mouth to argue, the most amazing color of pink—like a nirvana rose—spreads out over every inch of Irkalla. She looks soft and surreal, like some sort of fantastical angel. “Irkalla, you’re changing…”

Irkalla’s round eyes narrow to slits. Her lips curl up into a graceful smile. “You’re in love.”

Those three little words change everything in my world. Irkalla’s color grows darker until she’s magenta. My heart races, blood thumping loudly in my ears. And all at once I know Irkalla’s right. I am in love. I’m in love with Jonathan and I have been from the very first moment I looked over that cliff in Kentucky. It was a significant moment; like that leaf had led me to him on purpose. As though everything in my life had lead me to that exact instant just so I could meet Jonathan. I gasp. “I can’t breathe.”

“What’s going on in there? Everything all right?” Jonathan calls.

“I can’t breathe, Irkalla. Let me out,” I plead, spinning free of her arms.

Irkalla slowly opens her wings, looking tie-dyed in hot fuchsia and soft pale pink. I don’t know how much Jonathan knows about the Khayal color wheel and the relation it has to our emotions, but I’m praying he doesn’t take one look at my living mood-ring and run away. I for sure look crazy right now. For sure. Crazy. Me—emerging from my techno-colored Khayal, looking crazy.

I tumble to my hands and knees, gulping in rasping lungfuls of oxygen. Jonathan’s muddy feet step into view. His hand feels like the touch of an electric eel on my back. I shiver. Every part of me is alive and heightened to the point of twitching.

“You’re still cold.” Jonathan grabs me with toasty warm hands, guiding me to my feet.

My thoughts speed up, though time strangely feels like it’s come to a stop. Everything is happening at once. Jonathan draws me into his chest. His clothes and mine—what’s left of mine—now dry. Jonathan’s arms wrap around my back with a strength I didn’t know he possessed. One hand gently covers my ear. My head on his heart. The beat something of a song meant just for me. My hands clasp behind his back. I lean in, finding warmth that can only belong to Jonathan. I accept his offering; comfort, solidarity, and condolences with a sigh. My eyes flutter open.

Irkalla’s pinkness is lighting up the trees like an unnatural campfire.

And then time begins to move faster and faster until I realize there’s a second pink glow in the trees. I whip my head up, eyes wide and look straight into Mayet’s magenta face. Hands plastered against Jonathan’s pounding chest, my gaze follows the plains of his face. I find what I’m looking for. Jonathan’s soul, right where it’s been this entire time, swimming smack in the middle of his beautiful too-green eyes.

“You love me.” I hold his gaze steady.

“Why do you think I kept making excuses when you’d ask if we could go see our Khayal? I knew you weren’t ready to face your feelings, or mine, but you’re ready now, aren’t you?” Jonathan cups my chin, lifting my mouth to his.

I pull back. Shake the sense back into my head.

“Wait—Irkalla and Mayet have been floating around—apparently somewhere close—and I couldn’t see them because they’ve been pink...this whole time?”

“Pretty much,” Jonathan admits, leaning in again.

“Hold on.” I take two steps back. “Let me understand. You told me that if we all had our Khayals at the house that the neighbors would think the place was haunted. That was a lie?”

“I wouldn’t say
lie
, maybe a little exaggeration,” Jonathan says sheepishly, taking a step toward me, attempting to pull me back into his arms.

I twist away. “So, because you selfishly didn’t want to spook me away from this—whatever this is—I missed out on getting to know my Khayal for four weeks?”

Jonathan, sensing danger, smartly abandons his attempts to catch me and stuffs his hands in his pockets. “But, that isn’t the only reason. I was only trying to protect you from yourself. I was afraid you’d run.”

“But that was my choice!” I hiss, shoving a hand on my hip.

Jonathan hangs his head. “You’re right. It absolutely was. But I was worried about you. I wasn’t sure what you’d do – you’d already had to deal with so much. SEEK had taken your family.”

“They took your family too!”

“You’re right, but I’d been ready for it. I planned to leave the Brotherhood. Remember when you asked me what I was doing in Kentucky and I said I was saying goodbye to my parents? That’s what I was really doing, warning them and telling them everything. Now they’re sort of like my spies.”

I scowl at him resentfully. And jerk my chin away. Not because I’m too much of a baby to have a grownup conversation, but because something catches my attention. A light through the trees, shining erratically in all directions, heads our way. “They’re coming!”