ARC: The Seers (29 page)

“Really?” I gave her a hug. “That’s fantastic!”

“I know, I didn’t even ask him. That’s what he wanted to talk to me about tonight; he wanted to make sure I wouldn’t mind!”

“That is great Chloe,” Alex said, “but you still shouldn’t be out here on your own. We’ll stay and hide you until he comes out.”

“Oh it’s OK, it should be any minute. I actually thought they’d be done by now, but Steven talks slow when he’s nervous.”

“That’s strange…” I said, my attention having slid from the conversation to Jocelyn’s room. “Chloe, have you been here the whole time?”

“No, I’ve been walking up and down the back hallway too.”

“What’s the matter?” Alex asked me.

“I don’t feel him in there.”

“Jocelyn?” he asked.

I nodded, walking over to the door and knocking. “Jocelyn?” No answer. “Jocelyn? Steven?” I called, pounding the door harder. And that’s when I felt it – a cold draft blew across my ankle from under the door.

My head snapped to Alex, fear tight in my voice. “We have to get this door open.”

He looked around quickly and ran for a small rough iron decorative table just down the hall while I turned back to the door and gave a hard kick to the wood next to the handle.

“What’s wrong?” Chloe asked, her hands beginning to shake. “What’s happening?”

“Watch out,” Alex said suddenly, having returned with the table in his hands. With a heave, he swung the table at the door and sent a crack splintering down from the handle to the floor. Two more hits and it burst open, sending wood shards and dust flying in every direction. I ran into the room at full speed, only to stop short when I saw the scene that lay beyond the ruined door, my heart stabbing into my throat. The window was broken, the room was destroyed…

…and Jocelyn and Steven were gone.

CHAPTER 28

I couldn’t move.

I couldn’t think.

All I could do was stare at the empty shambles of the room in front of me, as fear burned like acid in my stomach. Why? How? Who?

The sound of Chloe’s hyperventilating finally shoved me out of my shocked haze. “Oh God,” she croaked, “oh God… oh God…”

I snapped my head over to Alex. “Go find Cormac.” With a nod he was gone, doing his best to shut the destroyed door as he left. I darted over to the floor next to the desk and picked up the overturned phone and hit the button for the front desk.

“
How may we be of service this evening, Mr Clavish?
” a woman’s voice answered making an assumption due to the call’s room number.

“This is his daughter,” I told her, trying to make sure my voice sounded as collected as possible. “Please listen very carefully; I need someone to go out to the youth mixer that is happening right now on the lawn, and tell Mr Bloch that his fiancée needs him come to Mr Clavish’s room immediately. This is an emergency, and it is imperative that this message reach him as soon as possible, and confidentiality is of the upmost importance. Do you understand?”

“Yes, of course, Miss Clavish” the woman replied, her tone reflecting the urgency in my own, “right away.”

I hung up and turned back to Chloe who was still standing by the door, her face a pale bloodless gray. Swallowing my own dread, I walked over to her and took her shaking hands. “Chloe,” I said firmly but as gently as I could, “take a deep breath for me, OK?”

She looked at me but the panic remained. “Where are they?” she asked, her voice squeaking and breaking, “Who would take them? Why? What do they want? We need to tell someone, maybe someone knows, maybe they can–”

“No,” I stopped her, grabbing her arms tightly as she went for the door. “Chloe, listen to me…”

“We can’t just stand here” she yelled, tears tracing down her cheeks, “we have to do something!”

“And we will,” I said firmly, forcing her eyes up to mine, “but first you need to listen to me. I know you’re scared, but the last thing that is going to help Steven and Jocelyn right now is us panicking. Alex has gone for Cormac and Bastian is on his way. When they get here, we will come up with a plan and I swear that we will get them both back,” I promised, wondering silently how sure I really was, “but until then, we can’t just run out and start telling anyone who will listen.”

“But what if someone can help?”

“And what if the first person we tell is secretly working with the ones who took them?” She stopped, her eyes widening. “Exactly,” I nodded, “that would only make things worse. I know you want to help them, but to do that we need to keep our heads and think.”

She didn’t respond for a moment but I could see the rationale settling in. “OK,” she finally whispered, nodding her head spastically, clearly still panicking but at least somewhat in control of herself again.

“Good,” I said giving her arm a squeeze. “Now, I want you to think back. Did you hear anything while you were out there? Anything at all?”

“No,” she shook her head, “but I wasn’t out there the whole time. I didn’t want anyone to see me, so I tried to stay by the back hallway and only come up to the door every once in a while.” Guilt shredded her face as she brought her hands up to her mouth. “Oh God, I should have stayed!”

“It’s not your fault,” I tried to assure her just as Alex and Cormac arrived.

“Heavens above…” Cormac whispered as he took in the scene. “Do we have any idea when it happened?

“Sometime in the last hour or so,” I told him as Alex stepped up and put an arm around Chloe, leaving me free to step away.

“Oh!” Cormac gasped suddenly. “The Iris! Tell me he didn’t have the Iris on him!”

I spun around, my eyes darting around the room, desperately searching for the square pouch of stiff leather.

“He must have,” Alex said. “He said it was always on him.”

“Not always,” I said, running to the small table it had been on the afternoon I’d ported to it. “He kept it on him whenever he left the room, but while he was in here…” I left my sentence hanging as I searched the table, its one drawer, and the surrounding area. Just as I was about to span out my search, I looked toward the bed and saw something poking out from under the portion of skewed bed sheet that lay on the floor. I reached under and felt a cool blast of relief as my fingers immediately recognized the feel of the worn leather and firm rounded disk beneath.

Cormac sighed loudly, wiping his brow as I pulled the pouch out from hiding and glanced inside to make certain that the Iris was in fact there. “Well, I suppose that’s something,” he said.

As I got to my feet the door opened again, this time for Bastian who eyed the splintered wood of the door in disbelief. “What the hell happened to the do–” but he choked on the word as the room itself came into view. “What happened in here?” But before anyone answered, his eyes darkened as he looked around at the faces in the room and realized that one which should have been present was missing. “Where is Jocelyn?”

“We don’t know,” Cormac told him.

“Someone broke in,” I motioned to the window, “and took him, and then we broke in,” I motioned to the door, “when we realized he was gone.”

“And?” he asked, seeing the trepidation on my face and correctly assuming there was more.

“Bastian…” I said, not wanting to tell him, but knowing I had to, “When Jocelyn was taken, Steven was in here with him.” I winced as his already concerned face froze over. “They took him too.”

I could see the terror singeing his eyes, but his years of practice burying emotion and playing whatever roll needed playing came to his aid, allowing him to keep it together – even if just barely. “What do we do?” he asked after a couple of hard breaths.

“We get them back,” I said, my voice as deadly as I’d ever heard it. “And to do that,” I paused, opening the pouch in my hand, “we need to see what happened.”

Without so much as a blink of hesitation, I slid the Iris out into my hand, welcoming the rush of power I’d feared only days before. Letting my worry for Jocelyn and Steven drive me, it took less than a second to link up with Chloe’s ability, and a second more to find the spot in time less than an hour before, when Steven arrived in Jocelyn’s room. Entering into that place in time, I let the scene play out in front of me, watching as Steven and Jocelyn began their conversation about St Brigid’s and the future. Eager to get to the break-in, I instinctively guided my ability, pushing it forward and watched as the passage of time within the scene sped up before my eyes, like fast-forwarding a movie. I hurried past the several minutes that Steven and Jocelyn talked uninterrupted, allowing everything to return to real-time when I saw a dark shadow loom in from the window.

“Someone is outside,” I dictated to the others in the room who had fallen silent when they realized what I was doing. “At the window.”

“How did they get all the way up to the second story?” Cormac asked.

“Can’t tell,” I said. “Looks like he might be on a ladder.”

I continued to watch, holding my breath as suddenly the window burst open, shattering the bottom panes of glass and wrenching one of the hinges clean out of the frame. Jocelyn and Steven both spun toward the noise just as the intruder jumped down into the room.

“It’s Ryan,” I said, finally seeing his face.

He came forward and was about to make a move on Jocelyn but stopped, cursing when he spotted Steven bolting for the door. Quickly using his ability to pull Jocelyn’s feet out from under him and stop any immediately threat of him escaping or calling for help, Ryan then turned to Steven who was mere inches from the door, taking hold of him kinetically at the last possible moment, and locking him in place. Jocelyn scrambled to his feet, but with Steven frozen and apparently unable to speak, Ryan was now free to focus his attention on making sure Jocelyn stayed just shy of the upper hand.

“What do you want, Ryan?” Jocelyn asked, standing poised like a snake ready to strike.

“You,” Ryan answered. “Your presence is requested.”

“Then take me and let him go,” Jocelyn gestured toward Steven, never taking his eyes from his attacker.

“He wasn’t supposed to be here. Now he comes too.”

“I’ll stop you,” Jocelyn threatened, his slow nod making it clear that the interference he planned to use would be of the mental variety.

“Awful risky with me holding the boy, don’t you think? Why, say you were to make me lose focus and I was to smother his lungs or crush his skull?”

Either one of them may have been bluffing, but I knew Jocelyn would never gamble like that, not with someone else’s safety. But even had he wanted to try something there wouldn’t have been time, as a moment later a second head appeared in the window.

It was Barra. “What in bloody hell?”

“Just get the boy,” Ryan barked, releasing Steven who fell to the floor with a gasp, “I can’t hold them both.”

Taking advantage of what may have been his only opportunity, Jocelyn lunged toward the phone, knocking almost everything off the desk in the process, but had only barely touched the receiver when he too went perfectly still just as Steven had done.

“A good attempt,” Ryan snickered, “but you’re not as young as you used to be.”

“Barra was there too,” I said, having almost forgotten about updating the others anxiously waiting in the room. “Ryan told him to restrain Steven so he could hold off Jocelyn. Steven’s free of Ryan now, but Barra has him…”

I clenched my teeth as Ryan approached Jocelyn, worried that he might throw a punch at him or take some other cheap shot now that Jocelyn was completely vulnerable, but he didn’t. All he did was reach out quickly to the hand hovering over the phone, I guessed to move it and everything else out of reach – though that seemed odd now that Jocelyn could move. It wasn’t until I heard the sharp intake of air from Jocelyn’s rigid form that I realized Ryan had taken a cheap shot – the cheapest shot of all.

“His ring,” I gasped out loud, “Ryan took Jocelyn’s ring.”

“Oh no!” I heard Cormac breathe. “He’d be completely incapacitated!”

Sure enough, Ryan released his hold on Jocelyn a moment later, only to laugh as Jocelyn fell to the floor with a thud. His eyes were squeezed shut, while his rock-hard fists ground into his forehead, all to the sound of an unending stream of painfully labored breaths hissing in and out from between his clenched teeth.

“Not so tough now, aye?” Ryan laughed again, giving him a swift kick in the ribs.

It wasn’t until I felt Alex’s hand gently rub my back that I realized I was shaking. “Easy,” his soothing whisper came from behind me.

I nodded, drawing strength from the warmth of his hand, and regaining control with a deep breath. “Ryan and Barra are discussing what to do,” I said, dictating the scene to the others matter-of-factly, trying to detach myself from the image of Jocelyn crumpled on the floor seemingly only a few feet away. “They don’t want to risk leaving Steven behind now that he has seen them. Barra is wrestling him over to the bed while Ryan is taking something out of his coat… a small bottle. He is dumping whatever is in it onto a corner of the bed sheet… now he’s holding it to Steven’s mouth.” I paused, watching poor Steven give one last lunge to try and free himself before losing consciousness. “Whatever it was, it knocked him out.”

I heard Chloe choke back a whimper from behind me and I instantly felt guilty. In my attempt to be blunt and unattached, I’d forgotten about how the others might react. Deciding it was best to hold my tongue all together, I stopped my narration and watched quietly as Barra put an unconscious Steven down on the bed and went to the window.

“I’ll climb down, you lower the boy to me, then follow with him.”

“Right,” Ryan said nervously, “go on then, we’ve already been here too long.”

Barra hopped up on the window ledge but turned back before taking the jump down. “Where’s the ring?”

“Here,” Ryan said, pulling it from his pocket.

“Better leave it, they might have a call on it.”

“Hadn’t thought of that.” Ryan quickly surveyed the room, then walked to one of the armchairs and stuffed the ring down behind the seat cushion.

Satisfied, Barra jumped from the window, while Ryan kinetically lifted Steven, sending him out the window a few moments later. Once Barra had Steven, Ryan turned to Jocelyn who was still hunched over on the floor, grinding his hands into his head. He pulled the debilitated man to his feet, and with a good deal of kinetic assistance, led him across the room and out the window, disappearing into the frosty air.

“They’re gone,” I said, sliding the Iris back into its pouch, wincing inwardly at the uncomfortably helpless feeling that crept over me at the separation.

“How?” Bastian asked as I walked over to the armchair and started digging under the cushion. “How could they have gotten both of them out of here without being seen?”

“Once Steven and Jocelyn were both incapacitated, Ryan used his ability to take them out the window,” I explained, pulling the ring out from the folds of the chair leather.

“They left it?” Alex asked seeing the ring. “Why?”

“They said that we might have a ‘call’ on it. What’s a call?”

“A call charm,” Cormac said. “It is a charm designed to be put on an object so that it can never be lost. All you need is a small piece of whatever the charmed item is and you can locate it instantly.”

“And they thought we could use it to find him?”

“Yes,” Cormac nodded, “and they would have been right. All of our Sciaths are charmed with calls, Min has seen to it. She has a small bit of the metal from each of our settings in her office in case of emergencies.”

“But how do they expect to get anything from him without it?” Alex asked.

“And why was he like that?” I added, not completely sure I wanted to know.

“Without his Sciath, Jocelyn has no control of his power,” Cormac told me gently. “He hears every thought within the radius of his ability which, as you know, is all but limitless. His mind is now flooded with noise and confusion, but worst of all, there is no barrier between his mind and everyone else’s around him. Every ounce of his strength will have to be focused on containing his power and keeping it away from the thoughts and memories of others, or risk damaging or even destroying the minds of anyone within his reach in the blink of an eye. As for how Darragh will make any use of him, I am not sure, but it wouldn’t be difficult for Darragh, or anyone else with the ability of alchemy to create a temporary Sciath for him. It would not be even remotely as strong as his true one, nor would it be tailored to his needs, but it would suffice for the purposes of allowing him to speak and giving him a moment of relative peace.”