Vital (24 page)

“Stop talking about me like I’m not here,” I snapped furious that he’d brought Dane up to Landen.

Landen angled a harsh glance in my direction. “Do I wanna know what he said?”

“No,” I said, stepping further away so I wouldn’t show him by accident.

“Willow, I have to figure out why you get so angry so fast, why you’re starting to see things. I really think you need sleep,” Landen said in a forced calm tone.

“See things? Like steam on cold water?” Drake asked.

Landen looked at Drake with questioning eyes.

Drake nodded toward the pool. “She asked me why the water was hot; it’s ice cold.”

I shook my head and tried to remain composed. “I tell you what: why don’t the two of you have a nice little chat about how insane I’m becoming? I’ll leave you to that.”

I started to walk away, but Landen pulled my energy to him. In his arms, I felt an undeniable calm as he leaned his face to mine.
Please don’t fight with me...not now...sorry
,
he thought.

“Who’s telling Alamos?” I asked aloud, calling a truce.

Drake’s eyes coldly looked over our embrace. “Me...this should be interesting.”

He walked in front of us as we passed the pool. Landen let his hand run across the water, then looked at me. I didn’t try to explain why I saw steam because then I’d have to tell him why I pushed Dane in the pool in the first place. I’d rather he think I was insane; that was safer.

When we walked back into the study, we saw Preston sitting on the table, pointing to a part of the scroll as Perodine and Alamos read what he was showing them.

“What’s going on?” Drake asked, clearly alarmed that Preston was reading the scroll.

“Preston just pointed out a text between Earth and Mars,” Perodine said, filling with pride as she let her hand rub across his tiny back.

“What does it say?” I asked, looking at Preston, trusting his interpretation more than Alamos and Perodine’s.

Preston raised two fingers up, then looked over his shoulder at Alamos to confirm; Alamos nodded and smiled slightly.

“Two what?” I asked, looking down at the text; it just looked like small dots, then the letter D, a few more dots, and then the letter A.

“Not two,” Perodine said. “Twins.”

My eyes widened as relief came over me. “I told you,” I said, looking to my side at Drake and Landen.

“Preston,” Drake said as calmly as he could. “Does Willow have a twin? Is that what you’re saying?”

Preston didn’t say anything at first; he just looked down, then up again. “Not really,” he said quietly.

“What do you mean? It has a D; that’s for Drake. The A; her name starts with an A. Now we’re close. We find her, and we don’t have to fake anything; this will be over,” I said, feeling the first breath of relief I’d had in a while.

“We already have a plan,” Drake said as his body grew tense. “I told you before that I don’t care if you find someone that looks like you; it doesn’t matter.” He looked back at Alamos. “Twin what? Interpret further before Willow takes off looking for some girl with a name that starts with an A.”

Alamos looked down and read it again. “I see the word ‘twins’ in one language. The letters you see as A and D could be seen differently in several language’s. I’m almost certain the text beneath that says that they see the darkness.”

“That helps,” Landen said under his breath.

My eyes grew a little wider as Charlie came to mind, as well as the others with her, the ones that could see darkness. Before I could even mention them or argue that we should just go to Infante now, I uttered my one desire. “We should have been looking for a twin from day one...”

I replayed the images that Preston had shown me, and doubt came when I realized that in no shape or form could Charlie be considered a twin of mine. Beyond that, she was deeply devoted to that mesmerizing musician I saw with her.

If this were any other time, I would have already told Olivia everything I knew, and the two of us would be in Infante now, looking for that song, Charlie, and those with her. August was right before: the devil was clever, and he was taking people out of my life. I needed to find victory in a trial, but he was wrong about Clarissa; it was Olivia who was the key to this, and she was now in the last place she needed to be. Suddenly, getting her back became priority one in my mind. I was starting to think that there was no such thing as coincidences.

Before I could even mutter the ideas swarming in my head and debate that sending Austin away this morning was a fatal mistake, Drake’s eyes moved to me. They grew darker as he glanced at Alamos. “Let’s go home. I want to find out when I need to be on that island. Landen and I will merge, and Willow will merge with Olivia. If we’re wrong, if it starts to tear us apart, then we’ll just fight and take as many of them with us as we can.”

“Are you insane, son?” Alamos said, shaking his head. “That’s what they want. These aren’t common people; they practice dark magic – what are you going to do if they don’t kill you? If they take control of you and your power? What chance does the universe have then?”

“Save the lecture. I’m leaving - are you coming or not?” Drake said, walking to the door.

Alamos sighed and started to follow him, looking at Perodine as he reached the doorway. “I hope you’re happy; now they’re all going to die.”

She just looked down at the scroll, then to Preston as she smiled warmly at him. “That isn’t going to happen, now is it?”

He didn’t answer her; he just stretched out on the table and started to trace the letters A and D with his fingers as he hummed an almost silent tune.

“Where could I find that twin?” I asked, looking at her, wondering if she’d seen Charlie in the scroll and the stars she studied. I didn’t know Perodine as well as I wished I did, but I knew she knew more than she was letting on. I was looking for her approval, for her to assure me that I wasn’t crazy. There was a twin, and for all I knew she was trapped or damned, and Charlie would be the girl to lead me to her.

Perodine sighed. “Don’t get your hopes up, dear. I would say it was talking about you and Olivia, that you’ll see darkness that night. You need to be prepared for that; nothing is as easy as it looks.”

“But there are letters,” I argued.

“You’re seeing this in English; the letters in other languages are similar. They’re even considered numbers to some.”

Landen sat down at the table and leaned his head closer to Preston so he could hear what he was humming.

Are you gonna tell her about those other people – the ones that can see darkness?
I
thought

It took him a second to answer me; he was too focused on Preston.
Not yet. I need her to focus on Olivia; I don’t want to make them a target for any of this - and if we're ahead of this, I want it to stay that way. We don’t know who’s listening.

I guess he was right; still, it seemed important. I focused on Preston; why would he just not say to go here and do that? What was this humming?

I decided to just press Perodine for as much information as I could. “When you were fighting with Alamos before, you said you watched our lives, that you saw us love another, the same people...you have to be able to see her?”

She looked away from me as if she couldn’t bear to look into my pleading eyes. I felt her solid intent to find this girl that I was looking for, that she would do everything in her power to discover where she was – or if she even existed. “The other...the one outside of the three of you...honestly, it took me almost a million years to pinpoint her. She never led herself to the spotlight; she fought behind the scenes. I can tell you this: that girl - the one that I’ve watched for longer than I can remember - is a very old soul. She sees love as a weakness, almost a blindness. She’s a fierce warrior, and a deep thinker. I will admit to you that over the course of lives that Drake had without you, there were a few girls that lingered near him, and the one that I’m speaking of was the only one that even came close to captivating him - not for his lack of trying, but because of the wall she places around her heart.”

“I thought there was only one other...is this the same girl that loved Landen?” I said as jealousy coursed through me and I realized for the first time why Landen wasn’t as eager as I was to find this soul; he knew I’d explode with rage if that were the case and that I wouldn’t be as calm as he’d been with Drake.

Perodine cleared her throat. “After that fight, when all of our secrets came out, Alamos and I debated the idea that there was always one. We scoured over charts and notes that were millions of years old, and what we found was that there was always one other - but she wasn’t the source of love. At first glance, I saw her as passion, but the degree of passion was reckless - at least for Drake and Landen. This girl almost seemed to control them, but the one I just spoke of...the girl that’s pure...she never loved Landen, but she did love Drake - more than once, though she only admitted it in a few lifetimes.”

I noticed that an innocent smile spread across Preston’s face as he glanced up at me, then returned his attention to the scroll. Landen was extremely focused on him, waiting for Preston to open a door with his emotions or intent to guide him.

A thousand thoughts rushed through my mind. I was terrified that if or when I found this twin I was looking for, it may be the wrong one, the one that could in some way control Landen and Drake.

“Is that why you’re fighting against me? You’re afraid that we’ll attract the wrong girl, make this worse?”

Perodine nodded slightly. “I know patience is hard for you to grasp, but let me find the right one. Let me understand if she’s in this life or not. The girl that’s dangerous, almost hypnotic, has often hidden herself around the birth of the pure one; it’s as if she can change form, a natural born predator for men who hold powerful souls. I have no doubt that if I find one, the other will be close; the good one has fought to end this soul more times than you’ve fought to redeem this dimension. With any luck, if they are in this life, the good one will end the bad one long before you find them.”

“What if she needs our help to do that?”

“That’s what I’m afraid of. Trust me when I tell you that you do
not
want Landen and Drake near that battle.”

Landen looked up abruptly, offended by what he heard. “I won’t
ever
be subdued by another woman...that’s an impossibility.”

Perodine bowed respectfully. “I’ve seen Witnesses coming to your aid.”

“Witnesses?” I asked, completely confused as to why I’d never heard this before.

She smiled slightly. “They’re fierce, loyal - some even call them archangels. I believe you’ve assembled an army, given them orders, and now that they’re close, it could only mean that whatever the two of you foresaw coming is near...perhaps in Mars, maybe beyond that point.”

“Are they like ghosts?” I asked.

Landen sat back in his chair as his eyes questioned Perodine. “No,” he said quietly as he glanced at Preston, then locked eyes with me. “Out of all the mythology August has taught me, their story was the one I found the most intriguing. I even studied further on the matter. They...I guess you could call them ghosts if you wanted to, but they manifest in the flesh...at one time they did live, but upon death they were charged with the purpose of fighting for the vessels of light. Life for them is eternal, as long as they feel love. More often than not, they’re couples; one man, one woman. I found lore on them in every dimension. They’re called Witnesses simply because they witness all of time; they have extreme patience and only intervene when they’re told to.”

“Who tells them?” I asked, mystified.

“They take their direction from the ones they’re bound to, but those that they’re bound to rarely remember giving that instruction because they die and are born again blind. Basically, they’re spirit guides; they’ll only act when they must.”

“You think we have witnesses?” I asked in a shaky voice, not knowing if that was good or bad.

Landen glanced at the scroll, then to me. “The thought has crossed my mind more than once, but if that were true, I would have thought they would have shown up before now,” he said as his eyes glanced to my chest, to where the blade had pierced my heart.

“Not if something worse is coming,” I said as my stomach began to twist and the thought of Olivia surfaced in my thoughts.

“Where do you see them?” Landen asked as he leaned forward and gazed at the scroll.

“Mars. That’s the first mention of them. They were extremely hard to perceive; August was the one that translated that part.”

“Why do you seem afraid of them?” I mumbled, noticing Perodine’s dread.

She didn’t answer me; instead, she gazed at Landen.

“The bigger the weapon, the bigger the enemy,” Landen muttered. “If they show themselves, reveal who they are, you can guarantee that soon a vessel of light will become like them, undead. When they’re obscure, they act more like spirit guides; that nudge you feel in your gut, a calming feeling you get when you should be out of control. Sometimes they communicate with numbers, causing your attention to turn to the same figures over and over. Most of the time, they’re a silent guide, and when they manifest, it’s too late to undo anything; the war hasn’t begun, you’re in the middle of it, and they have no choice but to reveal themselves to ensure that you don’t die. If you do...you become like them.”