Touching Fire (Touch Saga) (38 page)

I stared back at him. “Is there such a place? I’m pretty sure every inch of this province is being heavily monitored.”

Ashton shook his head. “Not all.” He exchanged a glance with his wife. “There is still one place Terrell won’t find you.”

It was
pure curiosity to witness this mythical place with my own eyes that propelled me to shower and pull on my jeans and Archer’s shirt, even though it was spattered with blood and stained with venom juice. Everyone was still in the same place I had left them, still unnervingly quiet, and I couldn’t imagine how tense it had been there in my absence.

“Are we taking the nexus?” I asked.

“No,” Ashton replied. “We don’t need the guard on our case on top of everything else.”

I glanced at the alarm clock on the table. “It’s after
six. The curfew will be in effect.”

Ashton paused in mid stride to the door. He glanced back.
“Curfew. Of course. And I can’t risk using power.” He sighed and ran a hand over his face. “We’ll have to spend the night.”

“Here?” Celia didn’t outright say it, but the disgust was like a neon sign in the slightest twitch in her lips.

I would have laughed if it didn’t make me want to throw the lamp at her face. I never had a home. Motels were my home. In some twisted, disturbed way, it was like she was turning her pert little nose up at it because she spent her perfect life living in a castle.

“What’s wrong with here?” I demanded.

Cool cat eyes met mine. “Nothing, of course. However, we cannot stay.” She turned to Ashton and placed a small hand on his arm. “It is not safe for you. There is no one here to protect you.”

“Celia’s right,” Archer said before Archer could open his mouth. “You should go. Ike and I’ll stay. She’ll be fine.”

Ashton’s gaze went to me. “I can stay.”

I
shook my head. “It’s not safe.”

He ignored me.
“You should head home.” Ashton turned to Celia. “I need to stay with Fallon.”

Open mouthed shock took over Celia’s pretty face.
It was evident she hadn’t been expecting him to refuse.

“But, Ashton, that is too much of a risk!” she protested.

“I will be fine,” he assured her. “Go home to Lally.”

“What about you?” Her small hands balled at her sides. “Lally needs you home as well.”

“Now isn’t the time for this, Cissy. I’ll be home soon.”

Anger shot splotches of crimson into her cheeks, but she straightened her spine and replied stiffly,
“If that is what you wish.”

“Cissy…” He sighed heavily
and shook his head. “Archer, could you make sure Celia gets home safely?”

Archer was next to them almost instantly.

“I can make it—”

Ashton shook his head.
“I insist.”

It was Celia’s
turn to bow her head before she turned on her needle-point heels. Archer followed her to the door and led her out.

Ashton moved to the o
ther side of the room and the table. He sat. “She means well,” he murmured. “Being here makes her edgy.”

I raised an eyebrow.
“Because of the humans?”

He shook his head.
“Because of the creatures that walk alongside the humans. You’ll see them more now that you have the mark on you.”

“Yeah, I realized that when we left the nexus the last time,” I muttered, remembering the strange creatures at Stanley Park.
“So what exactly should I expect to see now?”

“
Hidden beings,” Ashton answered simply. “Lilims, cardinals, warlocks and demons to name a few. You won’t see many of them during the day. Their world only opens during the hours of midnight until dawn.”

That explained why I didn’t see any of them during our drive.

“So what do these things want?”

Then, in the straightest face I've ever seen, he replied,
“They eat us.”

Awesome
.

“
But don't worry about that right now. Rest. I'll take you somewhere safe in the morning.”

“
Where?”

“
You’ll see.”

Chapter
20

The next day found us sitting in a sleek, red BMW that was faster than anything I'd ever been in, except maybe Isaiah's bike. Maybe. But even the rushing scenery wasn't enough to quench the anxiety I felt the more miles we put between us and the city. This place was somewhere secluded. Safe. That's what Ashton said. I would be safe there. For how long? Even he didn't know that.

“
Until we figure out what to do next.”

“
How did you not know the world was like this?” I asked as we passed a military caravan.

A
trio of soldiers had stopped a group of pedestrians and were asking them to show something, papers or documents. We passed them too quickly for me to get a good look.

“
I knew,” He said. “It was why I sent the camping gear. In case you needed to disappear into the foliage. It was the extent of the situation that I wasn't aware of.” He said this while sending a pointed glance at an honest to God tank parked on the side of the road.

“How far is this place?”

“Not far.”

Ashton drove with me in the seat beside him. The radio was kept off and, despite our battered state, the atmosphere was reasonably comfortable. But even then, I couldn’t seem to shake the unease creeping through me. My gaze swiveled from side to side every
so often as though anticipating an attack. Maybe it was because I wasn’t used to such a long period of calm. Or maybe it was because I kept waiting to be recognized as the girl who started a massive earthquake. Neither thought was comforting.

“Relax,”
Isaiah said through our link from the backseat.

“Easy for you to say,”
I said back, with no real heat.

I felt the soft stroke
of his fingers along the nap of my neck through the gap between my seat and headrest. He tugged lightly on a curl and scattered shivers all along my spine. It took all my willpower not to turn in my seat and take his hand.

The bond between us hadn’t spiked as intensely as it had back in Luxuria after my second feeding.
I felt close to him. I felt drawn to him. But I wasn’t obsessed with him. I could touch him and then walk away without being crippled with pain. I’d come to the conclusion that the severity of the side effect depended entirely on how long I’d gone before feeding. Less the time, less the intensity.

Isaiah had loved my theory, but only because it meant I would have to feed more and not starve myself.

I watched as a sign zipped by, labeling the road we were on as
Sea to Sky Highway.
We drove for nearly two hours, going further and further away from the safety of the city to the tangled chaos of the forest and mountains, before Ashton took a turn down an unmarked path and delved deep into the heart of the forest. We came to a rolling stop at the bottom of a mountain almost an hour later and my entire body tensed.

There were no other roads or paths around us. We were entirely surrounded by towering trees and a mountainside that was a solid wall.

Ashton reached up and lightly pushed on the garage door opener clipped to the sun visor above his head. It was such an out of place gesture that I actually frowned. My gaze swung over the windshield, curiously wondering if I had missed a house somewhere.

No house. But the ground all around us gave a shudder that rocked the car. A low grinding rumble sliced through the air, growing steadily louder with every violent
quake from beneath us.

“What—?” My question was answered when the mountainside began parting like elevator doors. My jaw dropped. “Did you just
open sesame
that mountain?” I exclaimed in awe.

Ashton grinned. It was his only response before putting the car into drive and easing into the dark chasm. The headlights spilled across dirt, illuminating only a few feet ahead of us at a time.

I twisted around in my seat to peer back through the rear window. The doors slid closed behind us, sealing us into the unknown. Green lights from the dashboard splashed over our faces, casting an eerie glow throughout the cabin. I dropped back into my seat and watched as we progressed through the narrow rift towards endless darkness. The crunch of rocks beneath the tires filled the silence. I held my breath when shards of light splintered the blackness from somewhere ahead. My chair squeaked as I shifted forward, anxious to see what we were coming upon.

The light was shattered, running like illuminated water down jagged stones. I squinted as I tried to make out what I was seeing. Then we were passing through and the windshield was overrun by long, squiggly things. Vines, I realized, watching as they parted like the cloth wipers in a carwash. The hood of the car broke through first, then we were blinded by a flood of sunshine. I winced, but kept both eyes open, too afraid of missing something.

The cave opened to a dirt path and a wild tangle of wilderness barricading either side, herding us deeper into Alice’s rabbit hole.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Nearly there,” Ashton replied, pressing down a little harder on the gas so the trees blurred. Planks of light spilled through the branches and splashed over the windshield in patches. The road crunched beneath the tires as we rolled off dirt onto gravel. The trees parted, sweeping dramatically to either side in a vast halo that seemed to go on for miles around a perfect clearing.

We pulled into a U shaped driveway. He parked beneath a set of dirty steps leading up to a set of double doors that looked weather worn and battered sitting etched into the front of a massive stone building. Grimy windows glowered down at us, dark and judging as we climbed out of the car.

“What is this place?” I asked, glancing around at the enclosure with a sense of apprehension.

Without answering, Ashton reached into his pocket and removed a set of keys. He flipped through them until he found the one he was searching for and started up the steps.
Archer was instantly on his heels, but Isaiah remained with me.

I
followed, a bit slower.

The doors swung inward with a loud groan, reminding me of an old man climbing out of bed in the morning. Bits of dust clung to the beams
of light spilling through the opening, fluttering and glittering like fairy dust. Our shadows stretched across the marble foyer to drape at the base of an open doorway across the expanse. I gulped.

It was abandoned. Cobwebs hung like birthday streamers across the ceilings. Dust blanketed everything like newly fallen snow on Christmas morning in the North Pole. I glanced back over my shoulder to find a mangled path of footprints in our wake as we crossed over the threshold.

“Don’t come this way very often, huh?” I asked.

“
The main part I haven’t in over a year.” He paused for several long seconds as though he wasn’t sure how to continue. Then, in a tone heavy with regret, he finished. “The other half, in thirteen.” Hazel eyes met mine. “I did promise I would show you your first home.”

Something thick and round lodged in my throat. I could have easily chalked it up to allergies, possibly some
kind of reaction to all the dust and grim, but I knew it wasn’t. Suddenly every step deeper into the maze felt infinitely long. My feet dragged as though encased in cinderblocks, hindering me from getting there.

W
e traveled past doors, empty sitting areas and stairways. Dark emptiness followed us all the way down a wide wing. Ashton stopped before a set of enormous, wooden doors, the sort that you only saw in movies. The arched top nearly touched the cavernous ceilings and the whole thing was etched with symbols that made no sense to me.

He removed
a different ring of keys from his pocket—the ones he’d used to transport us through the nexus the first day—and pushed the gold one into the lock. A howl like a lost soul split the silence as he nudged the doors open into vast darkness.

I took the first step, then another.
The others followed.

Unlike the grimy, unkempt hallway, the sprawling sitting room was immaculate, stubbornly void of any dust or filth that may mar the otherwise glossy furniture and shag carpets. The cream and mahogany décor looked pricy, not at all like the lumpy and worn surroundings I was us
ed to. I was a little afraid of touching anything, never mind actually walking any closer.

It was like something out of an
IKEA
catalogue. Everything was tastefully organized around a gleaming, stone fireplace. Next to it was a large bay window that opened onto a terrace overlooking a dead garden. On the opposite end of the room, the wall curved, disappearing into two dark openings I assumed were other hallways deeper into the place.

“Did my mom decorate this place?”

I had a very hard time believing it. Modern chic was
not
my mother’s style, nor was so much white. But then, this was a place in the
before
era when I didn’t know my mother, or maybe, I never knew her. That thought had pain spearing through my chest.

Ashton laughed. “
She did.”

I couldn’t find the words to answer. My feet carried me deeper into the chasm of memories to the wall of neatly placed photos. I’d never seen any before, at least none of me. But there I was, round, pink and tiny, cradled in either
of my parent’s arms. Both of them were grinning broadly at the camera, showing off the bundle of pink as though it was the most beautiful thing in the world.

But I didn’t stay tiny. With each passing photo, the bundle grew, becoming more than a lump of pink flesh wrapped in a blanket. It was like time jumped forward and suddenly I was sitting up in my mom’s lap or walking holding my dad’s fingers and smiling broadly as I took each careful step.
There was more than a dozen of me in the tub, standing in my crib or getting food all over my face as I sat in a high chair. In a few, even Isaiah made an appearance. I couldn’t help staring at those, endeared and amused by how small and wary he looked.

He had the same dark hair, the same electric blue eyes and the same scowl.
But his face was rounder, his cheeks pink. He was always glowering at the camera like it had offended him. I was in a few with him, sitting on the sofa reading, or building a house of blocks on the floor. In those ones, he seemed almost content, like he couldn’t think of a reason to scowl. I liked those ones.

“Your mom has about a million of those pictures.” I hadn’t heard Ashton come up beside me until he spoke. “I
almost had to use a crowbar to pry that camera from her fingers sometimes.”

“Why did you bring me here?” I had a hard time believing I’d spoken, but Ashton answered so I must have.

“Because this is the safest place I can think of without taking you back to Agartha.”

I turned to him then, uncaring that I could feel tears clinging to my lashes and streaming down my face. “
This is where you bring the kids you rescue?”

“Yes and no.”
He moved away from me to take a seat on the plush sofa facing the empty hearth. I didn’t join him. He didn’t ask me to. He sat with his hands laced between his knees, back hunched, staring at the space between his feet as though the answers lay there. “This area of the house is off limits. After your mother left, I had our home brought here where it would be safe. I concealed it from sight inside the sanctuary I built for the children. This is only a temporary place of residence until I can get them new identities and transport them somewhere safer.”

I wanted to know how he was able to transport an entire house from one place to another and then meld it so seamlessly into another house, but the question seemed poi
ntless. Hadn’t I learned enough about the supernatural to recognize magic when I saw it? Seriously, I was at a point where nothing would surprise me anymore.

Instead, I asked another question.

“Where do you take them?” I asked as Isaiah and Archer finally budged their frames away from the open doorway and made their way deeper into the suite. Archer threw himself down in one of the armchairs while Isaiah sat on the sofa opposite Ashton and motioned me down with him. “The children,” I clarified, moving to sit.

“Edmonton,”
Ashton said. “At least for a little while. Eventually, they are moved to Quebec.”

I frowned. “What’s in Quebec?”

He spared me a glance. “Freedom. It’s as far as I can get them from Garrison. My friend Galeen is the one who does the documents for me, giving each child a new name and a new life. Then he takes them anywhere they want to go. But they are asked not to return here.”

“That sounds like a lot of trouble and money,” I
observed, secretly impressed.

He sat back, tossing one arm over the back of the sofa as he set his right ankle over his left knee
. “It’s like I said, one child away from Garrison is one less in his army, don’t you think?”

I could only nod.

Ashton turned his hazel eyes on Isaiah. “What do you think, Isaiah?”

Isaiah
, who had been studying the wall of photos, expelled a shaky laugh. “Nothing’s changed.”