Betrayed (5 page)

“I had it. Bad, bad, head-splitting headaches.” Not Kylie. I’d heard of flu, but since normal human ailments didn’t affect us, I didn’t pay much attention and had no idea what the symptoms were.

Please, no nosebleeds and blackouts. “Any other symptoms?”

“Fever.”

“My mom had to sponge me down,” Amelia said, pushing her glasses in place. “I caught it from Kylie, my brother got it next, then my father. Mom lucked out.”

I sighed with relief. Channeling wasn’t contagious, so what they had couldn’t be it. “So just fever and headaches. No nosebleeds?”

“Gross, we’re eating,” McKenzie griped.

“Wow, you must have real y been sick,” Kylie said, ignoring McKenzie. “I remember I used to have nosebleeds as a child and I’d freak out.”

“Me, too,” Nikki piped in. “My little brother would say my brain was leaking.”

“Yuck. I can’t eat this anymore.” McKenzie pushed aside her quesadil a. “You guys have total y grossed me out.” She got up with her tray and went to dump the remaining food.

Kylie smirked. “For a doctor’s daughter, she’s anal.”

McKenzie’s

reaction

seemed

extreme.

Maybe the conversation bugged her because she’d recently had nosebleeds. I watched her as she came back to the table texting. I wasn’t sure about my next move. One thing wasn’t going to change though.

Getting inside my friends’ heads wasn’t an option.

Maybe I should consult with my Guardian buddies first, which meant tel ing them about Valafar.

I kept an eye on Kim’s table. Although she and her entourage usual y arrived late, none of them showed up during lunch. They probably went somewhere nice to eat. Lucky guys. I hated being confined to the val ey.

McKenzie’s cel phone rang just as we finished lunch. She had a new ring tone, a catchy pop tune. While she answered it, conversation shifted to ring tones. “Did you change yours, Lil?” Kylie asked.

“Uh, yeah.”

“To what?” she asked.

I tried to think up a tune, but came up blank.

“Something Bran got online,” I fibbed.

“Let’s hear it.” She pul ed out her cel phone and punched in numbers.

The familiar ring sent a jolt through me. I stared at my coat with wide eyes. I couldn’t believe I forgot to throw away the broken cel phone after I picked it up from the ground. That Kylie caught me in a lie was the least of my worries.

My phone stil worked, which confirmed Bran’s suspicions—one of my friends was the medium.

Amelia tapped my hand. “I think someone is looking for you.”

For a moment, the change in subject threw me off. “What?”

She indicated the other side of the room with a nod.

Bran was here at last, was my first thought. I turned toward the door with a huge smile. The smile died on my lips. It wasn’t Bran, just his sister Celeste. The terrified look on her ashen face sent panic through me.

3. The Vision

Celeste’s pale skin contrasted with her long, raven hair. Her eyes, green like Bran’s, glistened with unshed tears. The floor shifted under me. Bran had better be okay. A psi scan showed he stil wasn’t in the val ey.

What’s wrong?
I asked Celeste before we met in the middle of the lunch room.

I want to show you something.

Not here.
I led her out of the cafeteria and into the first empty classroom we found. With a wave of my hand, the door closed. “Show me what?”

“You know how unpredictable and blurry my visions usual y are?”

I nodded. “Yeah?”

“I just had another one, and I’m not sure what to think. Two guys who looked like Gavyn and Bran were being attacked by a bunch of Mom’s friends. It didn’t make sense at first, but now I’m real y worried.” She swal owed and continued, speaking faster. “Bran said he’d be here with you, but he’s not.

Gavyn was supposed to be at his club, but his manager told me he went to Seattle. He didn’t say anything to me about going to Seattle.” She grabbed my hand and pressed it against her temple. “See for yourself.”

Please, let this be another false alarm.

Celeste was so scared of losing her brothers she often had visions of them being attacked by a horde of Lazari, a sub-group of the shape-shifting race of demons known as Werenephils. The first time she told us about a vision of an attack on her brothers, we found Gavyn at a business lunch and Bran hunting. This was the third vision this month, and the tenth since we rescued her from Coronis Isle. Her clairvoyance abilities weren’t strong, but the possibility that they could be true this time gave me chil s. A Lazari attack wasn’t something to take lightly.

“Do you see them?” she asked.

I gave her a weak smile and fought the hol ow feeling intensifying in my stomach. What if I messed up? “You know I’ve never retrieved an image from anyone’s memory except Bran’s. Maybe we should have a CP do it. They’re trained to handle that stuff.”

“Not a Civilian Psi. If it turns out I’m wrong again, they’l never take my clairvoyance seriously.” Her voice rose in pitch.

“Okay, okay.” A flick of my finger and the door locked behind us. I placed both hands on either side of Celeste’s head and stared into her eyes.

Focusing wasn’t easy. Students’ voices and footsteps filtered through the closed door. Pressure increased in my head as my psi energy approached hers.

Celeste squinted.

“You’re fighting me. I know it’s uncomfortable, but try to relax,” I told her.

She blinked, nodding.

“Don’t blink either. It breaks the link.” Dang, I was tense, too. Deep breath. Exhale. “There’s a saying people use that I thought was weird, but now I realize it is very true. Eyes are windows to the soul.”

“Why are you tel ing me this?” Celeste asked bel igerently.

“To keep your mind off what I’m doing.”

“It’s not working,” she said through her teeth.

I retreated and the pressure in my head eased. When Bran and I merged, it never hurt or felt weird. That was the beauty of having matched energies. On the other hand, Grampa retrieved energies. On the other hand, Grampa retrieved images from my head easily and quickly yet we weren’t a match.

“Maybe I’m doing it wrong,” I said and sighed.

“No, you’re doing fine,” Celeste insisted. “It’s me. I’m tense and worried and can’t seem to relax.

Please, try it again.”

Cupping her head, I started al over again.

Grampa’s instructions rang in my head. Find the sequence of events before the incident. Lock on the image. Retrieve. Get out.

“What happened before the vision?” I asked.

“I was with Zoe and Kirsten at our cafeteria,” she started. “They were talking about some jock who’s supposed to be super hot but I think is ful of himself and a total loser. So I spaced out and my thoughts turned to Bran and Gavyn. They had another fight this morning.”

I frowned. “About what?”

“I have no idea. They’ve been fighting a lot, and it’s driving me crazy,” she growled through clenched teeth.

Celeste’s voice mixed with the background noise. The room and the rest of her features became blurry as our energies met and our minds blended. I winced. It was uncomfortable, like my brain was being crashed by a bul dozer. The urge to disengage increased, but I fought it. Blurry grey and black shadows shifted and ebbed as though I were looking through an unfocused video camera lens. The pressure inside my head intensified and sweat trickled on my forehead.

Snapshots of what Celeste saw whipped past my mind’s eye—the hal way just before we entered this room, me eating with my friends, students in the foyer of my school, the outside of the school, Celeste in a bathroom. Each memory locked in a frame. In each frame, people moved without sounds like old black and white silent movies.

“You teleported to Remy’s car?” My voice sounded like it came from al directions, like an echo through a mist.

“Yes.” Celeste giggled. “You sound funny. He told me to use it whenever. He’s so sweet and hot.” Her speech slowed down and became slurry. “I think I have a crush on him.” She chuckled.

Her voice was even weirder than mine, like a ghost’s. The need to laugh hit me. As Celeste yapped about her crush and giggled like a psych patient, images of her school drifted past. A blurry vision, unlike the others, came up. I stayed with it, the urge to laugh overwhelming. I had no idea what was happening to me.

The memory cleared a bit to reveal a building too tal for Park City, where Celeste lived with Bran and Gavyn, or Cache Val ey, my home. There was an outdoor terrace with tables and chairs, beautiful flowerbeds, and a water fountain. The terrace was tilted at an angle. I laughed, not sure why I found a floating terrace funny. Maybe Celeste’s amusement was transferred to me.

The next image was just as blurry, but a chil crawled up my spine. There was no mistaking the man on the floor. It was Gavyn, his signature blond locks matted and dirty. Thick smoke coiled around him like a giant snake. His mouth opened as though he was yel ing. Tendrils curled from the swirling black mass and crept toward his mouth. The whole black thing flowed into his mouth like a torrent of nightmare. In seconds, his eyes became bottomless pits of hel . Hysteria bubbled through me and burst out of my mouth in a high pitch laugh.

Bran appeared. He moved toward Gavyn and waved a serrated dagger and a spray bottle. A dark mass loomed over him, snarling and writhing like a big glob of goo. Bran looked so puny against the demon.

I convulsed with merriment, stepped back, and the link between Celeste and me broke. My heart raced, but the urge to laugh disappeared. We looked at each other with wide eyes, both of us breathing hard.

“What happened to us?” Celeste asked in a squeaky voice.

“I don’t know, but we need to go to HQ. Now.” We teleported.

***

One second we were in the classroom, and next we were in the charcoal-grey foyer of the underground offices of the High Council and the headquarters of the Guardians. The hal ways to our right and left were wide enough for people to walk side-by-side and appeared endless. Panels of fluorescent crystal, a power source from Xenith, ran along the steel ceiling and on inserts along the floor, providing enough il umination, yet my fear of dark providing enough il umination, yet my fear of dark spaces kicked in and my chest tightened.

I reached up and clasped the protective amulet I wore around my neck. The core of the six-pointed star within a circle had jadeite, a green element found in Xenith. Usual y, it emitted a green light toxic to demons. Now it was cool against my palm, harmless. Touching it gave me an extra sense of security, like the old blanket I used to sleep with before Grampa gave me the amulet.

We hurried to the main office and pushed opened a glass paneled door, the first of many offices. Mrs. Merkerel, a Civilian and the local coordinator, lounged on a leather recliner in front of a large cherry table, her slender legs encased in tan slacks. A holographic image of another Civilian shot from a black clairvoyant crystal in a box and hovered above it. Opposite her desk was the visitor’s lounge with leather sofas and a coffee table. Visible through her glass wal s were the other Civilians and High Council

employees

conversing

with

their

counterparts around the world or working on their computers, one of the few human gadgets they used.

“Lil…Celeste…what brings you two here in the middle of the day?” Mrs. Merkerel asked without turning.

“Bran is in trouble,” I said. “We need to talk to a CP.”

The woman sat up and turned to face us.

“How do you know he’s in trouble?”

“Celeste saw it. Please, get Mrs. D.” Mrs. Merkerel had a brief telepathic conversation with the image above her desk before she linked with my English teacher.
Lil and Celeste
need to talk to you or one of the CPs about
Cardinal Llyr, Mrs. Deveraux.

Mrs. D appeared beside us in a burst of light, red rhinestone glasses on the tip of her narrow nose, charm bracelets weighing down her skinny wrists, colorful scarf holding back her brown hair.

“What’s going on, Lil?” she asked.

I quickly explained what I saw in Celeste’s memories.

“Tartarus nightmares!” Mrs. D gasped at the mention of the Lazari. Mrs. Merkerel clasped her chest. Behind her, the other Civilians stopped whatever they were doing and moved closer to eavesdrop.

“Contact the Cardinals and tel them Bran needs them,” I said.

Mrs. D shook her head. “I can’t, honey.

They’re closing in on a den of powerful demons and can’t be interrupted. Where are Remy and the others?”

I couldn’t believe she wasn’t wil ing to make an exception. This was Bran we were talking about.

The most powerful Cardinal Water Guardian in the world. Grampa could teleport in, nuke those fiends and be back hunting without missing a step.

“They weren’t in the cafeteria during lunch.

Why can’t you just contact my grandfather?” I insisted.

“The Junior Cardinals went to Raphael’s place on Anna Maria Island,” Mrs. Merkerel explained, ignoring my question.

“Contact Raphael and tel him to send them home,” Mrs. D ordered then gave me a stern look.

“No, we can’t cal Cardinal Falcon. We should be able to handle this on our own, and you know that.

Your friends might stil be trainees, but they have enough experience to undertake this mission.” My face burned at the talk down, which I didn’t deserve. My grandfather would want to rescue Bran.

While Mrs. Merkerel faced her hologram table and communicated with a middle-aged man, Mrs. D

beckoned Celeste forward. “Come here, young lady.

We need to take another look at what you saw. I’m amazed Lil managed to blend with you. That was a very brave,” she shot me another censoring look from above her glasses, “and an extremely reckless thing she did. It takes decades to perfect image retrieval. The mind blend can affect your mental state if you stay even one second too long. You’l start feeling things, seeing things. In a snap, you can do irreparable damage to your mind that even the Kris Dagger can’t restore. So don’t you ever,” she wagged her finger, her glower unrelenting, “
ever
attempt it again.”