Eternal (21 page)

Julia let out her breath slowly.
Apparently there are benefits to spending a lifetime as an honest, studious, overachieving nerd,
she thought.
On the one day you need your dad to buy your big fat lie, he does.
But her thoughts were cut short with Morton’s next words.

“But let me help you.”

Julia panicked. “Oh, well, Dad, you know, I’d have to catch you up on so much, and there’s a lot of back-and-forth I’ll need to do between our previous data and the new data, lots of tweaking …”

“And your old man would just get underfoot.”

She gave him an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. I know your lab is your baby.”

He held up both hands. “No. It’s just a lab. And I trust you. Just be careful, and make sure Detective Alvarez goes with you. I don’t want anything happening to you. My lab may not be my baby, but you are.”

“Great, Dad. Thanks.” She stood up and shifted from one foot to the other. “So, I guess I just need a key.”

“What, now?”

She shrugged. “This is kind of like the moment at that waterfall, Dad: no time to waste.”

“Right. Got it.”

While Morton went to get his spare key, she hurried to her room and moved the Super Taser from her small purse to her big shoulder bag. Taking a long, last look at her room, in which her childhood toys still sat in the corner, Julia suddenly felt desperately alone. She longed for her mother to tuck her into bed and kiss her forehead, like she used to do every night. She shook off the feeling and left, closing the door behind her.

She met him back in the kitchen, where he handed her the lab key. “I’m so proud of you. After that science fair, I worried you’d give up on research. I’m glad to see the fire still in you.”

The science fair!
Something in her brain clicked.

“Julia? What is it?”

“Huh? Oh, I just remembered something I needed.” She ran into her bedroom, yanked open her nightstand drawer, and grabbed her old asthma inhaler. She hadn’t had an asthma attack in years, but her mother had insisted she always keep one by the bed, just in case. “Thanks, Mom,” she said softly. A sudden crash startled her. It came from the closet. She tiptoed to the closet door and stared at it for a moment, wondering if someone might be hiding inside. Then she slid it open with one violent shove. A box in the corner had fallen, the one with the materials from her science fair entry. The snake diorama had tumbled out, but that wasn’t what caught her eye. She stared at two more inhalers, which rolled to a stop right at her feet.
Best not to question it. Extra inhalers might come in handy.

Her father popped his head in the door. “Julia? Is everything okay?”

She gave him a reassuring smile. “It will be, Dad. Gotta go!” She kissed him on the cheek, something she hadn’t done since before her mother died. Then she was gone.

T
WENTY-
F
OUR

J
ulia exited her father’s lab and stared up at the sky. So, it really
was
darkest before the dawn. The thought made her realize how tired she was. She pulled out her cell phone and looked at the time. Two
A.M.
She’d spent the past twelve hours hunched over flasks and beakers, centrifuges and titrators, burners and shakers. She stretched her arms overhead, trying to relieve the pressure in her back. The strap of her bag rubbed against her shoulder. It was heavier than it had been when she’d arrived yesterday. She had four hours before she was supposed to meet Bertel. If she hurried home, she might be able to squeeze in three hours of sleep. She walked toward her car. That’s when she noticed: It wasn’t the only car in the lot.

She walked toward the dull silver Impala. The door opened and Jack stepped out. As he had promised earlier that day, it appeared he’d been waiting there the whole time.

“Hey Jack, I’m sorry that it took so long. But I think I did it.”

He didn’t answer but remained silent until she was just a few feet away. When he spoke, his voice sounded lower than usual, almost guttural. “I grew so bored waiting out here, I thought about breaking in and killing you. But those aren’t my orders.” With that, he aimed what looked like a gun at Julia’s chest and fired. She felt a painful jolt vibrate through her body, turning her muscles to Jell-O as she doubled over and fell forward. He grabbed her roughly, pressed a knee into her back, and handcuffed her. Then he removed the electrodes from her chest, opened the back door of his car, and pushed her onto the floor. He removed the Super Taser from her shoulder bag and threw her bag in after her.

At first she was too stunned to be scared. She was still trying to find her voice to ask what the hell was going on, when Jack leaned across her sore chest, pressed his face close to hers, and said, “Too bad Old Canon gave special orders not to touch you. You and I could have some fun. I hope you’re not saving yourself for Pierre. I’m afraid he won’t be a man much longer.” His right eye twitched as he spoke. With that, she recognized him, and her outrage overcame her fear. The Predator—the monster who had tortured the man she loved and destroyed her life a thousand years ago. The man with the half-moon scar.

Her eyes narrowed and she found the strength to speak. “Tibaut.”Jack seemed startled at being recognized. But before she could say anything else, his fist flew into her eye, shattering her thoughts in a flash of pain and white light. He taped her mouth shut. “Better not say anything else. We’re going to a party, and we don’t want two black eyes. Might make Old Canon wonder why he invited you. He says you’re smart, but I’m guessing it’s not your brains he’s after.” He winked, and when he did, Julia caught a gleam of red in his eyes. Her heart raced. How many souls had Bertel recruited already? Was she too late? He slammed the door.

As the car began to move, Julia’s head throbbed in rhythm with the engine’s vibration. As they drove, she was soon surprised to hear what sounded like several cars surrounding them. The sedan slowed to a crawl. One car honked, then another. She heard a faraway voice shouting curses through an open car window. It sounded like rush hour. She rolled onto her back and tried to look out the windows, but it was hard to see anything except the profiles of nearby cars also moving at a crawl. San Clemente streets were never that busy after two
A.M.,
even on a weekend summer night. Maybe there was an accident ahead.

She started kicking her shackled feet against the door in hopes someone in one of the cars around her might hear her through an open window. Instead, Jack hit the brakes, leaned over the back seat, and aimed his Taser at her again. “Stop it if you don’t want another dose of hellfire from this weapon,
salopeF

She stopped kicking, but when he turned back to face traffic, he continued to swear under his breath,
“Putain c’est pas vrai ca, quelle merde!
I thought these metal carriages would make modern life convenient—with the strength of so many horses inside such a small space. But now I think it would be faster to climb on a single horse and ride between them. Or maybe one of those.” With that, a motorcycle puttered past. She thought about what the priest had told her, of his vision of her riding on horseback, wielding lightning, saving the world.

Their slow progress only made the tension between terror and hope more unbearable. She knew each turn of the wheels beneath them was carrying her closer to death—or to some unimaginable fate worse than her demise. The longer it took, the more time it also gave her to imagine Austin coming to her rescue. But what could he do? Humans with guns would be no match for Satan’s army. No, if he came, most likely they’d only make her watch them torture him too. She couldn’t bear that again.

She thought her fear couldn’t be greater when Jack uttered a thin, whistling shriek. It took her a moment to realize he was laughing, and she shivered at the evil sound. “Ah, that explains it,” he said.

She stopped breathing, wondering what he was talking about. She heard several people shouting. She strained her head upward to look out the windshield but only saw a red traffic light. She tried to rise, but her handcuffs prevented it, and she fell back in frustration.

Jack turned and looked at her again. “You can’t see much from there, can you? Let’s see if I can explain what’s happening.” He turned to stare out the windshield and gave her a blow-by-blow of the scene unfolding in the intersection. “Some don’t always take too well to the technique you gave us for soul replacement. Some are too resistant to change. Like this old man in the street warring with himself. Arms flailing, eyes bulging, mouth babbling, feet doing a funny little dance. Now it looks like he’s pouring a container of liquid over his head.”

A woman screamed, and Julia saw a brilliant glow pulsing through the windshield of the car. She heard a loud thump and felt the car shake. Then she saw him: a man engulfed in flames smashed into the hood of their car and then careened off, running past her window, howling in agony. Julia screamed, though the sound was muffled by the tape covering her mouth. Someone carrying a blanket chased after the blazing man. She heard a muffled thud as he either fell or was tackled. But she knew it was too late. She began to cry.

“That’s the third suicide I’ve seen today,” Jack said, “though I hear there have been more. Of course everyone has his own approach. The first one wasn’t nearly this entertaining. He just shot himself. The other one slit his own throat—now that was more impressive. But a living torch, that is something. Which reminds me, they’re going to have a bonfire at this party. I like a good bonfire, don’t you?”

A bonfire. To attract teens and college kids, young people not yet set in their ways. People more susceptible, more willing to try her concoction of PCP. Julia groaned inwardly. She pictured herself tied to a stake in the midst of that fire, everyone from her graduating class standing in a circle, laughing at her as she roasted alive. Barbeque-style.

The car stopped. Julia’s door opened, and Jack yanked her out onto the asphalt of a parking lot. She landed on a jagged piece of glass, which tore through her stonewashed jeans and opened a deep gash in her knee as he dragged her to a kneeling position. He leaned into her face and said, “No point in yelling here, Heloise. You’re deep in enemy territory.” With that, he ripped the tape off her mouth. She sucked in great gulps of damp, salty air. As her breathing calmed, she heard the ebb and flow of ocean surf. He’d brought her to the beach.

She heard a clack-clack-clacking, which grew louder until two dainty feet in black Jimmy Choo stiletto sandals posed in front of her face, showing off a pampered row of turquoise toenails. She wondered where a middle-class student got the money for $700 shoes and why she was wearing them at the beach. Then again, Nadia did like to stand out in a crowd.

Julia rolled over to look up at her friend, who’d always been taller than her and who now looked like a giantess, her face nothing but a distant shadow in the moonlight. “Nadia! Get me out of here! What are you doing?”

“Julia,” Nadia said with real concern in her voice. “I know you’re scared right now, but this is for your own good.” A man’s hand rested on Nadia’s shoulder. Julia’s eyes moved from that hand, up the arm, to the shoulder, to the face of Dr. Bertel.

“What are you talking about?” Julia’s voice shook.

“How could you betray your mentor for a guy that you barely know? I know you stole the research. I found it in your bag.”

Julia’s eyes widened. “You’re the one who broke into my place and took my laptop?”

“I didn’t have to break in. Remember? You gave me a key so I could crash after parties. Julia, how could you be so naive?”

Julia was thinking the same thing. Her voice shook. “You’re in way over your head, Nadia.”

“You have it backwards, girlfriend. How did you think you could make it in the world of corporate espionage without getting arrested, when you couldn’t even get through a science fair without nearly getting people killed?”

“Way to kick a friend when she’s down.”

“You’re lecturing
me
on friendship when you kept this secret from me all summer?”

“Is that what bugs you? Not that I might have broken the law but that I kept a secret from you?”

“You shut me out when Austin came along. I just didn’t know why. But I’m still here for you. Can’t you see? I’m trying to help you.”

“Nadia, you’re smarter than this. Does this seem like an ordinary arrest to you? Does police brutality figure into your idea of arresting a teenage girl for a white-collar crime?”

“What brutality?”

Julia realized that it was too dark for Nadia to see her black eye and torn knee. “And why do you think Jack brought me here instead of taking me straight to jail?”

“Brought
you here? You mean
caught
you here, don’t you? I told Bertel you’d probably come to my party, and he told the cops. Julia, I’m worried about you.”

“Nadia, you know me. You know I wouldn’t sell privileged information. I wouldn’t even let you cheat off my tests in trig.”

“Bertel told me how upset you were when he turned you down. He told me about the pass you made at him in his office that day—and when he pushed you away, you started screaming that you were going to make him sorry. So you planned to sell his info to get back at him and make some easy money at the same time.”

“That’s not me, and you know it!”

“I don’t know anything. Everyone knows you haven’t been yourself ever since your mom died.”

Julia locked eyes with Bertel, or rather, with Fulbert. Maybe Fulbert had the power of hypnosis, and he was using it on Nadia. When Nadia turned to look at Bertel again, he shook his head with such disappointment that for a moment Julia wondered if maybe she was losing her mind.

“Julia, I’m so sorry it came to this,” Bertel said. “I don’t think you’re a bad person, but clearly you need help.” He turned to Jack. “Thank you, Officer Alvarez.”