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Daniel finally opened his eyes.

“Nothing,” he replied.

“Nothing at all?” Alex asked.

“Stock markets…that man is going to hail a taxi…” A man stepped up to the curb and raised his hand to signal a taxi right on cue. “But nothing to suggest Marcus is nearby,” Daniel replied.

I knew it wasn’t just because he was having trouble seeing the future. Marcus knew what Daniel could do – it was possible he was keeping his plan unfixed just to keep Daniel off his trail.

“So...what now?” I asked.

“We keep looking,” Daniel replied.

“What if Sevier was telling a lie?” I asked. “We could be searching here while he swims to freedom…and on to Marcus, to let him know he talked.”

“Sevier wasn’t lying,” Daniel said. “He might not have been telling the whole truth, but he wasn’t lying.”

“I think you need to look up the definition of lying,” I said.

“I’ll do that,” Daniel replied.

“I have a feeling this is going to be a long day of looking through garbage,” Alex said.

“Just think of all the urine smells you’ll get to take in,” I said.

“I’m jumping for joy,” Alex said. “You just can’t tell because I’m so overcome with happiness.”

“It would be something large enough to make an impact but small enough to not get noticed,” Daniel mused. “Marcus has access to the best weapons in the world…the device could be smaller than we think.”

“Are we invited to the conversation?” I asked him.

“We’ll focus on high traffic areas first then spread out to areas with less people,” he replied. “Look for anything that doesn’t belong.”

“Great,” I said.

We checked trashcans, doorways, cars, anything that could hold a bomb. The afternoon had descended on us when Reaper and the others joined us near the visitor’s center. They looked as frustrated as we did. I could tell they had spent their day doing the same thing we had.

“Any luck?” Reaper asked hopefully.

“No,” Daniel admitted.

Reaper was skeptical we would find anything.

“We should keep looking,” Reaper said. “We can’t afford not to, but…”

“You have an empire of wayward Watchers to run and need to focus your attention there, instead of focusing on searching through garbage cans?” I asked.

“I don’t know if I would put it that way,” Reaper said.

“Clare just did,” Alex said.

“I will stay and search,” Serenity volunteered.

I knew that she had volunteered Eli as well. Eli’s look suggested as much – he would not be left out. We all looked at her suspiciously. It was difficult not to; Serenity would not volunteer to search for something so uncertain without a reason. She would not volunteer to search through garbage. She did not miss our suspicious looks.

“It’s not as if I have a lot to do within the group,” Serenity pointed out. “I’m not a ‘Saint’ after all.”

Reaper wasn’t in the mood to argue.

“Do what you want,” Reaper replied.

“I want to stay, too,” I said.

Daniel turned to me, an expression on his face that expressed confusion and doubt – doubt for my intellect? It was hard to tell.

“You can’t stay,” Daniel replied.

“You said the change happens at the exact moment of your birth,” I said.

“Right...” Daniel agreed.

“I was born at ten o’clock at night,” I said. “So we have some time.”

“Clare…” Daniel started to protest.

“I’m the only one that has seen the vision of the bomb,” I replied. “I’ll know the situation when it comes up. I’ll be able to stop it.”

“You don’t know that,” Daniel said. “The future never turns out the way you expect.”

“I have to try…” I said.

“What if ‘trying’ gets other people killed?” Daniel asked. “What if you change and hurt people?”

“You have my permission to knock me out,” I said.

“I don’t think…” Daniel started to protest.

“I’ll stay, too,” Alex volunteered. “I’ll make sure Clare doesn’t go crazy.”

“You have time to get her somewhere safe,” Reaper pointed out, also taking my side. “And if she knows something about this attack that we don’t…”

“Fine,” Daniel replied. “But I get to make the decision when it’s time to stop looking.”

“That’s fair,” I said.

“Margaret and Jackson can help as well,” Reaper said.

Jackson and Margaret had already made that choice for themselves; I could see it on their faces. They wouldn’t have left if we told them to.

“Alright,” I said. “So let’s get to turning over more garbage cans and breaking in to buildings.”

“You’ve never sounded more like a homeless person,” Alex pointed out.

Reaper nodded at us hopefully and held out his hand to Sara. The others grabbed hold of Sara as well, their eyes bothered that they were leaving. But they had to focus on Israel and getting more bodies for the looming fight we could all feel in the future. Searching for the bomb didn’t feel quite as certain as the fight. Their expressions of doubt haunting us, they disappeared. I saw a man do a double take, and heard his confused thoughts, before he decided his eyes were playing tricks on him. Serenity and Eli walked away from us. Serenity’s eyes lingered on my face. Eli was careful to keep his eyes away from Alex. The rest of us eyed the afternoon streets of New York with the overwhelming sense that we were faced with the impossible.

“Maybe we should move our search outside of Times Square,” Daniel suggested tentatively.

“We’ll go north,” Jackson volunteered.

Serenity and Eli had already gone south. That left us with east and west.

“I’ll go that way,” Alex said pointing east. “Don’t do anything dangerous without calling.”

“I won’t,” I promised.

She nodded and walked away. I would have normally been worried about her wandering the New York streets alone, but I had noticed a change in her over the past three weeks. It was confidence she could handle whatever came her way. She had found peace over her abilities. I knew anyone who bothered her would be sorry. Daniel and I shared a look of purpose as we turned west. We would find what we were looking for.

I just hoped we would be in time to prevent a disaster.

Chapter 14

Our search took us through many of New York’s best-kept secrets. We looked everywhere, feeling as if we were searching for the impossible. As the afternoon faded in to a dark evening, I saw a suspicion dawn in Daniel’s eyes. We stopped walking when we reached the bay. The water was choppy with the cold wind blowing it around. It was the end of the line. We had searched everywhere we could and had come up with nothing.

I turned to Daniel. The suspicion in his eyes had grown stronger with the passing moments.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” he asked back.

“You’re suspicious of something,” I said.

He sighed and didn’t try to hide what he was thinking. He knew it would only make me angry.

“What if Marcus sent you that dream? You had it before the historian taught you to keep your mind shut off from him. It could be a trick.”

“You think Marcus wants us here?” I asked.

“He wants you,” Daniel said. “And it seems he is getting increasingly desperate to have you.”

“But how would he know when I would come? It doesn’t make sense,” I said.

“Marcus puts things in to motion that sometimes takes years to develop. He plans and he plots. It could be that he has people waiting for you to show up…maybe he’s trying to distract us from something else he has going on…there are any number of reasons.”

“Do you think we should go then?” I asked, finally giving up on ever finding anything in a city with so many secrets.

Daniel’s expression was conflicted. A part of him wanted to go – to take me to a safe place – but another part of him wanted to keep looking.

“Marcus isn’t above really planting a bomb to draw us out,” Daniel said. “That could be part of his plan as well. He could accomplish two things at once.”

“But how does that tie in to the weapon he thinks my blood can unlock?” I asked. “Why would he attack New York when he could just find the weapon and be ruler of the world or whatever?”

“Why do you ask questions you know I don’t have the answer to?” Daniel asked in an irritated voice.

“I’m just trying to get the facts straight,” I said.

Daniel sighed, and his face turned apologetic.

“Sorry…I’m just wound up.”

“I think we both have a right to be,” I said.

Daniel nodded and we turned back to the street. A group of teenagers dressed up in the Halloween spirit passed us, headed toward Times Square. I realized it was later than I had thought. Night was fully upon us. We were out of time.

“We should probably check in with the others,” Daniel said. “They might want to keep looking while we…I mean, you…”

“Yeah,” I agreed.

Daniel took my hand, wrapping his long fingers around mine in a reassuring way, and we followed the teenagers back toward Broadway. As we walked, I tried to reconcile our failure in finding the threat – or even discovering if the threat was real – with my fear at what was waiting for me.

For as long as I could remember, I had feared the change. It was something that haunted my dreams and my waking moments alike. Ellen had once told me I would turn crazy with the change – Daniel told me control was possible. But control sounded harder than he wanted to admit. I knew that something would change with my birthday; a switch would be flipped forever. Controlling my anger would not be a simple task, not that I managed all that well now. If I was really supposed to inherit power that Lorian and Darian had fought for centuries to claim, could I control myself? I feared my lack of control more than I feared any physical pain or new physical abilities. I had committed myself to helping people, not hurting them. Would that be possible after the change?

Daniel’s hand tightened on mine. The historian had taught me to keep my shield up at all times, and I was managing, but I couldn’t hide my emotions and my thoughts from Daniel. He knew without having me say anything. I tried to find the voice to tell him I was fine, to stop the worry in his eyes, but the ability escaped me. My emotions were too real.

With my worry surrounding my senses, I didn’t pay attention to the group of teenagers in front of us. But Daniel did. He tensed as the group took off running and rounded the corner, headed in the direction we were going.

“They’re just playing around,” I tried to assure him as his hand threatened to crush mine.

Daniel didn’t reply. His eyes went to search the rooftops, cars, anything that could hide a person. Figuring he wasn’t paranoid by nature, I decided to look as well. Maybe he had seen something I had missed. Our eyes scouring the streets, my mind reaching out for enemies, Daniel picked up his pace. More people started filling the streets up as the night brought out the Halloween spirit – people with their kids, adults starting a night out of partying, regular people who were just trying to get home before the Halloween rush of candy-goers. There were princesses, knights, angels, demons, superheroes, and more masked people than I felt comfortable around, especially when Daniel was in the middle of being tense and hyperaware. My ears picked up on every stray sound; my eyes noticed every sudden movement.

“This way,” Daniel urged me.

We took a different street, two blocks down from the one we were originally going to take. The foot-traffic decreased with the turn.

“What is it?” I asked. “Did you see something?”

“A feeling,” Daniel replied tersely.

“That’s helpful,” I said.

“A feeling that I’ve been here before, and it did not end well,” he replied.

“Oh…” I said.

As he said it, the group of teenagers appeared around the corner in front of us. They were wearing masks over their faces, but as we caught sight of them, I wondered how I could have possibly missed the fact that they were much more graceful than the average teenager. They were Watchers. From the wicked smiles on their faces and their menacing body language, I knew they were Seekers. They were Marcus’ people, and they had found us…again. Daniel was right – this whole thing was a trap.

Daniel stopped walking. His eyes searched the road for a way out. I realized they had herded us to this spot – it was perfect for an ambush. Daniel and I started to back away. Running was better than fighting them all. But the first group had been joined by a second. More Seekers stepped out from behind us. Daniel and I shared a look full of meaning. He lowered in to an aggressive stance, and I pulled out my dagger. If they were going to try to take us, they would have a fight.

“They’re feeling a bit naughty,” a female voice called out.

“Tsk...Tsk,” a male voice replied.

They moved closer with the words, circling back and forth across the street in a strange dance of movement. It was a deadly dance, deadly in its uniform chaos. They were trained, but not in the way I was used to the Seekers being trained. They moved and danced rhythmically in and out of the shadows falling against the buildings. It was as if they were circus performers designed with murder in mind. Daniel and I moved so that we were back to back, so I could keep an eye on one side of the street and he the other.