Shadowhunter (Nephilim Quest Book 1) (18 page)

Mut-Bity quickly positioned herself between me and the pale stranger, pushing me backwards.

"You witch!" he groaned and bent forward, grabbing his throat with both hands, sliding his fingers across the bee sting, over and over again, as if he was trying to stroke the pain away. His mouth opened and I found myself admiring his perfect long white teeth. Saliva started to drip from the wide open mouth and fell at Mut-Bity's feet. She quickly moved away from it, pushing me even further back, so that none of it came anywhere near her toes.

And then he was gone. I did not see him take any steps. There was only something shadow-like moving very fast, like a fading swirl of dust, or as though he was sinking underwater, and then he disappeared. Mut-Bity reached for my hand, to stop me, but I had already reached forward and scooped the small bee from the ground by my side, where it had fallen.

It had broken into two, I could still see its feelers moving slightly, but it was as good as dead. Its sting was missing together with a piece of its body.

"No..." I felt sudden sadness.

The voices in my mind hummed in unison, grieving, and I could feel a small spot in the midst of them that was fading. I had never paid attention to it before, but now that it was going, I realized I had felt it all along and would miss it when it was gone. I suddenly realized I had felt this happening before. Tiny bits of my mind closing, fading, disappearing. And new ones appearing in their place. Had I felt the death of Mut-Bity's bees?

Another hand reached out and placed itself over my palm. The dark brown hand of Mut-Bity.

"Go in peace, beautiful soul," Mut-Bity mumbled in a half-singing tone that broke with sadness. "You did well, you saved her soul, and you shall now live as a spirit for ever more."

I felt that small part of the hum in my mind disappear, and it was as if a speck of light disappeared with it. The light only lasted for a short moment, and with it a sensation of ... joy, and then it was gone. When Mut-Bity raised her hand, the bee was dead.

I bent to look closer. I had never seen the like of this bee before. It was white. And it had oddly purplish wings. The bees I had seen had two pairs of wings, but this one had three. They glistened in the sunlight.

I had seen two creatures that were like me, creatures without color. Creatures that I never knew existed - I had believed I was the only one.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

22. A Gift for Mr. Donnelly

With the help of the book and his Finnish friend, Mr. Donnelly was progressing slowly with the Finnish language. It was not the easiest to learn, with all its inflected forms, but Mr. Donnelly was a scholar and he was in no hurry.
 

"Yes, but we have all the time in the world, don't we?" the Finn chuckled when Mr. Donnelly pointed out how long it took him to learn the language.

"Indeed we do," Mr. Donnelly smiled somewhat sadly.

"Oh come on, lighten up, will you? We are privileged to be able to live here, untouched by time," the Finn said, "Here, look what I got from the world this time! I brought these for you!"

A bagful of wonderful Moleskine notebooks. Mr. Donnelly took one into his hands. He enjoyed the feel of the sleek black covers, and the rubber band that held the covers shut.
 
His eyes filled up at the kindness of the other man. This was the closest to a friend he had ever had, really.

"And here's more! Have you ever even used one of these?"
 

Mr. Donnelly turned the mechanical pencil around in his fingers.

"No, I haven't. How does it work?"

"Here, let me show you..."

"Surely this is one of the most wonderful inventions!" Mr. Donnelly exclaimed after a brief explanation. "No need to sharpen the pencil!" he continued, marveling.
 

"You really have been buried here in the library for decades, haven't you?" the Finn shook his head. "And there's one more thing... Look in the bottom of the bag."

A Finnish - English dictionary. Mr. Donnelly was speechless. No one had given him presents since he was a child. The Finn coughed, slightly embarrassed at the emotion showing clearly on Mr. Donnelly's face.

"Well, have fun with them! I need to get going now."

He turned and walked away. A shadowy figure that had been waiting for him at the end of the corridor turned and followed him like a dog.
 
Mr. Donnelly squeezed the tote bag happily against his chest and hurried towards his office. He would start translating the sketch book into these notebooks right away.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

23. Breakfast With Daniel

I have no how idea how Grandma did it, but her call to my parents resulted in a week's stay with her. She told them that she had met an old friend who was just leaving on vacation to her holiday home on the west coast of Scotland, and that we were invited.
 

"It'll be a wonderful opportunity for Dana and who knows when she may get the chance again?" Grandma had reasoned. "Soon she'll be immersed in her studies."

This was a good enough story, but how she managed to make my mother accept my leaving without visiting home first to pick up clothes was nothing short of a miracle.
 

Mom always wanted to know where everyone was going and created a strict timetable for it in advance. She had folders for every trip, and lists of things to take, and she carefully ticked these off while she packed - and unpacked - bags. Her folders included timetables for trains and buses, maps of the travel destination and every conceivable emergency phone number. She felt insecure if people just went off impulsively and wanted to know the exact minute someone was expected back home,
 
or was intending to visit.

"So you'd better be ready with some convincing tales about how wonderful it was up there," Grandma said. "I have enough photos of the area. I can send them to you, to make your story more believable. Let's just hope they don't begin to wonder why you aren't in any of the images."

So there I was, a few hours later, wearing my borrowed clothes at the private cafeteria for the center's personnel, where Diana had taken me for dinner. The clothes were more or less the right size - it seemed there were other tall people there too.

Now I was getting more openly curious glances from the people than I had when we arrived. I tried not to stare at them, but it was hard. I had never known any time travelers and just had to look at them to see if they appeared strange in any way. Well, they didn't.

There were people of all ages. Many were young, like us, but about half were older, and a few quite old. They were sitting with their trays, dressed in ordinary, casual clothes, the kind that were familiar to me. Jeans, T-shirts, hoodies, trainers. Comfortable seemed to be the main theme.

"Diana!" Someone was greeting her.

Diana waved her hand in the general direction of the caller. I stole a casual, sideward glance, because I recognized the voice.

Daniel was sitting there with four other people. He was by far the tallest of them. I quickly looked away and concentrated on choosing my dinner so I would not embarrass myself by blushing. Why did he have such an effect on me? And from whom had I inherited the tendency to blush anyway...

"I was told Daniel is one of the most experienced of the... what do you call yourselves, really?" I asked Diana.

"Travellers. Or Walkers. It wouldn't be great if we accidentally called each other Time Walkers and an outsider heard. Traveller is neutral enough not to make anyone too curious," Diana answered, selecting chicken for dinner. I noticed something that looked like vegetarian Thai food and piled my plate full.

"No meat?" Diana observed.

"No, I prefer vegetarian food," I replied.

I half expected her to ask next why did I not eat meat. For some reason people often asked that and then continued by either telling me I could not get all the necessary nutrients, or started defending their own consumption of meat, but instead Diana just shrugged.

"Here you can be vegetarian, but in the past - well, it can create difficulties if you don't eat meat."

"You mean I might get the chance to travel into the past, too?"

"Possibly, if you can manage it. It is not easy."

We carried our trays towards an empty table, past Daniel. I had another quick look at him and nodded, when I saw him looking straight at me..

"Hello there!" he flashed a beautiful smile at me. "Glad you made it!"

I couldn't come up with anything intelligent to say in response, so I just nodded again and headed towards our chosen table, focussing on where I was going and praying I wouldn't stumble against something this time. Thankfully my legs cooperated and my tray didn't end up anywhere it shouldn't have done.

Diana was already sitting down. She hid a smile as I approached.

"He's quite something, isn't he?" She winked at me.
 

"Hmm? Who?" I pretended I didn't have a clue what she was talking about. "Oh, I don't know..."

"Oh, I do. He has that effect on everyone. If he wanted, he could twist anyone around his little finger. But that's because of what he is..."

"What do you mean? He is what?"

"Sorry, I shouldn't have said anything. Lilith and the others will explain when the time is right," Diana's lips snapped shut.

Yeah, great... Like dangling a carrot on a stick in front of a donkey. I tried to look nonchalant and shrugged my shoulders.

"Whatever."

The food was delicious and as I was ravenous, it wasn't difficult to concentrate fully on eating. And when I finished, Daniel and the others had gone.

"So can you tell me about what was behind the gate? I saw Daniel walking there. What was that place?"

"Well... I'm sure you will learn all about it soon enough," Diana was clearly being careful with her words.

It looked as though I wasn't going to get any decent answers out of her. Best to wait for the official explanation about the gate, then.

I didn't have to wait long. I slept restlessly through the night and never deeply enough to have dreams. It was always like that when I slept in strange places. It was as though the child within me raised her head again and all the childhood nighttime fears and nightmares came rushing back. Diana slept like a log in the other bed, but her peaceful slumbers did not make me feel any more relaxed. I opened my eyes to check the time at the digital alarm clock at least once every hour.

And then the morning came and someone knocked on the door.

Diana was nowhere to be seen. I thought I had not slept at all, but obviously I had dozed off for a while and she had left quietly, not wanting to wake me up.

I got out of bed in my checkered pajamas and, quickly combing my unruly hair with my fingers, opened the door. I expected Grandma, or Lilith, or perhaps Diana would be standing in the hallway.

It was Daniel. He was leaning to the opposite wall in his jeans and T-shirt looking like a film star, arms folded across his chest. He appeared to be quite amused by my undisciplined appearance.

"Hey, sleepy head!" he smiled down from his heights. "Nice hair-do you've got there!"

I blushed like a ripe tomato, my fingers still smoothing my hair.

"I'm here to tell you more about the gates and what we do here," he told me. "I'll wait for you in the lobby. We'll go and have some breakfast first."

I wanted to slam the door shut, but managed to close it in a dignified manner. Only then did I swear like a sailor. Then I ran through the bathroom door to the mirror, which confirmed that I looked like something out of a horror story. My hair was sticking out like the antennae of a satellite, and I had no makeup on, obviously. I looked horrible.

I went into the small bathroom and cleaned my teeth (the Centre had given me a bag of basic bathroom items). Then I realized I had no makeup with me, except for the pink lipstick I'd been carrying in my handbag. As a rule I didn't wear much makeup, but right now I would have given just about anything for a little mascara. Or a concealer - I had deep dark circles around my eyes.

I did all I could - splashed cold water onto my face and combed my hair (there was no brush in the necessities bag and of course no hairspray so I had to tame the sputnik-look with plain water.
 
I decided against the lipstick - it would have looked strange on its own without any other makeup.
 
Then I put on my borrowed jeans and shirt and trainers. I was as ready as I could be, so I opened the door and faced the world for the last time as I currently knew it. I had the feeling that the way I saw it was about to change forever.

Daniel was standing in the lobby, as promised, talking seriously to an older lady. When he saw me, he left the woman and walked over to me.

Yes, I admit it: he was so gorgeously handsome; I felt my heart melt in my chest. It felt awkward, and rather than feeling elated, I hated myself for it. I was sure I looked just like one of the Blonde Crew at school, drooling over some handsome hunk - with the exception of the lack of makeup. However hard I tried not to, I was sure I was ogling him like a spaniel by the dinner table.

"Good morning," I greeted him stiffly, trying to be as matter-of-fact as I could.

He looked a bit surprised at my formal words, but did not respond in kind. He just gestured towards the cafeteria. I turned and started walking. He was not walking quite as closely to me as when we had left the bookstore, but I could still feel his body heat.

"Are you all right? Or do you have a fever?" I hadn't intended to ask him, but to my horror I just heard the words come motoring out of my mouth. It was as if I lost all my self-control when he was around.

"I am fine, thanks for asking," he smiled, which brought out the dimple.

Hell, did he have to smile all the time?

We quietly took our trays and started choosing breakfast.

After a sizeable omelet, a big mug of coffee, some toast with bitter orange marmalade (my father had taught me to like it too), and lots of orange juice I felt sure enough of myself to lean back and look at him directly.