Evie's Knight (21 page)

“Do you always talk this fast?” Parker asked. “I swear it’s like you’re in a race. I can barely keep up.”

Without acknowledging Parker’s statement, Fiona continued. “Of course Jocelyn’s desires evolved over the years. She was beautiful and used to getting what she wanted one way or another. It wasn’t often someone told her no.”

The haunting image Calvin had drawn–the face behind the Knight’s chronic curse –gnawed at his mind while he listened.

“Somewhere along the line, Jocelyn went wrong–way wrong. She started connecting with dark spirits from the underground. Spirits who promised that her powers would multiply if she sacrificed her earthly life and joined them in the world below.”

“What, like suicide?” Parker sneered at the eggs in the pan. “You going to use any salt on those?”

“Yes, like suicide. And no, you can salt your own eggs if you want.” Fiona moved the eggs across the pan with the spatula. “Anyway, Jocelyn was determined to give herself over to them, but she wanted the man she loved to take part in the ritual with her–a dual sacrifice.”

“And let me guess,” Parker said. “That’s where good ol’ Winston comes in.”

“Yes. She tried to convince him to join her. She even tried to mindfully force him to come along, but she couldn’t. And that was part of her problem. She wasn’t as powerful as she wanted to be. She hated discovering her limitations. Jocelyn always wanted more.” Fiona shrugged. “Long story short, he left, married someone else, and after they had their first child, that letter arrived.”

Calvin shuddered at the thought. “It says that when the deed’s been carried four fold–”

“I know,” Fiona said. “That’s why I’m here. It’s why you’ve received your gifts.”

“Gifts?” Parker sounded offended. “You mean, powers?”

She shot him a loaded glare. “Uh, no, Packer. I mean gifts. What did you think? That you were just randomly turning into the next Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker?  Give me a break.” 

Parker’s face scrunched up. “Geeze. No need to get hostile. And my name is
Parker.
It’s not Barker and it sure as hell isn’t Packer. Is this your way of flirting with me? Cuz I have to be honest, there’s a better approach.”

“Here.” She slid the hot pan of roughly scrambled eggs across the counter, grabbed a couple of forks, and stuck them into the eggs. “About the four-fold thing. Jocelyn intends to get what she wanted all along–one of the Knight men. Which leads us to you guys. Her plan is to persuade one of you to join her in the underground.”

A spark of hope rushed over Calvin. “That’s all she wants this time? Does that mean Evie’s safe? If she only wants me or Parker…”

Fiona shook her head, silencing him with the act alone. “I think you already know that’s not the case, Calvin. Jocelyn has no intention of leaving Evie out of the equation. First of all, it’s your love for Evie that alerts Jocelyn, draws her attention to the two of you. She’s been waiting for one of you to find that level of love, because she can’t get to you on her own. She’ll use Evie for that, use her as a lure to get to you guys.”

A volcano of heat erupted in Calvin’s chest. “A lure?” he growled. “I won’t let her.” He pushed away from the counter and barreled across the floor, a cold sweat breaking over his skin. “No one is going to touch Evie. I’ll kill anyone who even tries.” A vision of Evie’s face, innocent and sweet, rushed to his mind. “In fact, she’s not going to be any part of this. I’ll break up with her–right now if I have to.” Conviction rang strong behind his words. He knew what he had to do. What he should have done once the nightmares began. 

Fiona’s green eyes grew wide. “No, Calvin, wait. It’s too late for that. You’re in love. Leaving Evie isn’t going to change that. In fact, setting her free would only magnify your love for her, because you’d be doing it to keep her safe, sacrificing for her. That amount of love is just what Jocelyn covets. Trust me. She’s not going to stop.”

“I’ll make her stop.” His mind whirled like crashing waves of hot and cold. Anger and despair. How could he have dragged Evie into this?

“That’s why I’m here, Calvin–to help you stop her. But this is Jocelyn’s game, and if you want to beat her at it, you have to play by a few rules. I need you to focus. Sit down and eat–”

“I’m not going to eat. What I’m going to do is …” What he wanted to do was pick up the stupid pan of eggs and throw it across the room until it shattered the kitchen window. He wanted to hurt something. Or someone. Blame them for what he faced.

“Calvin,” Parker said. “Sit down and hear her out.” The misplaced look of maturity in his brother’s eyes threw Calvin off. He looked back at Fiona, trudged over to the counter again, and stood next to the barstool. The adrenaline within him protested, begged him to take physical action. He clenched his fists at his sides. “Tell me what I have to do.” 

Fiona nodded. “You said that you’d kill anyone who tried to harm Evie. Did you mean that?”

Suddenly Calvin’s own words held new meaning.

“Let me rephrase that: In the heat of battle to save Evie’s life, would you kill someone whose sole desire was to carry out evil deeds? Deeds that involve murdering innocents, like Evie and your mother?”

The question caused his skin to come alive with prickling ice. For the first time, he pictured the man behind the wheel–the one who hit his mother–as evil. Inwardly driven by his own desire to kill. “How would I
know
he was evil? If Jocelyn can possess minds, who’s to say she wouldn’t possess someone innocent?”

“She can’t.” Fiona grabbed a discarded envelope from the garbage next to her, and then reached for the Sharpie on the counter.  “Let me draw it out for you guys, show you what we’re dealing with.” She drew a line across the lower portion, wrote Jocelyn’s name beneath it in bright, red ink. Next, she wrote the word
us
above the dividing line.

Calvin and Parker hunched lower to the counter, watching intently.

“We’re in different realms right now. And from down here the only kind of person Jocelyn can persuade is an evildoer–one who has purposefully shed the blood of an innocent. Only then can one hear promptings from the underground without seeking them out. The more evil the mind, the more susceptible to outer voices they become. Jocelyn found just those types of people to assist her in killing your mom, your grandmother, and the others. Of course, her main goal is to persuade one of you into joining her, but she can’t do that until she enters our realm.” Fiona pressed the marker next to Jocelyn’s name, dragged it across the dividing line, and arrowed toward the
us
on the page. “She needs to accomplish just one thing to break free from her world and join ours. And that’s to get one of you to kill.”

Calvin pressed his eyes closed, disturbed by the wet, bloody appearance of the red ink. His stomach churned. “I can’t kill an innocent person.”

“It doesn’t have to be an innocent,” Fiona said. “She could never design that type of act.”

“But you just said–”

“This is different. If she can create the scenario, design the setting that results in you shedding blood, she crosses over. Killing her evil pawn will be enough. And let me assure you: she’ll design the event in such a way that if you don’t kill him, he will kill you. Or Evie. Or both.”

“
I’ll
kill him,” Parker said. “I’ll just pretend he’s the scum that took Mom. That should be easy enough.”

The anger and passion blazing in his brother’s eyes told Calvin they were on the same page. “I don’t know how easy it’ll be,” he said, “but I’m sure if it’s to defend Evie, Parker, or myself, I wouldn’t hesitate. Especially if I could be certain they were as evil as you say. But why are we helping Jocelyn enter our realm? You just said that it’d give her access to our minds–allow her to persuade us. Why would we want that?”

“Well, that’s what s
he
stands to gain upon entering. The ability to mentally persuade any being within her reach. But there’s a benefit to you as well.” Fiona put the marker to the page again, drew a box around Jocelyn’s name, and proceeded to draw lines down the length of the box, like prison bars. “You guys will be able to bind her forever–
if–
you can beat her mentally. We’ll get into those details later. For now, just know that if all goes according to plan, Jocelyn will be locked in the underground, her powers bound, never to harm again.”

Calvin focused on the image before him. Jocelyn–imprisoned. He wanted to take the sketch he’d drawn of her, place those same bars across her face and revel in the knowledge that he and Evie were free. But they weren’t. Not yet. In fact, their nightmare had only begun.

Parker slunk back into the barstool and grabbed a fork. He stabbed chunks of the scrambled eggs. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” he said, chomping at the food. “This psycho chick, Jocelyn, killed herself because my great, great grandfather broke up with her. Right?”

Fiona nodded. “In a sense.”

“And then she convinced some…random murderer to kill his wife, who was actually our great, great grandmother.”

Fiona nodded some more.

“Then, she found more murdering pawns to kill his
son’s
wife, and then
his
son’s wife, which was my mom, and now she wants to kill Evie.”

Just hearing the words made Calvin sick with panic.

“Well, what you failed to brief there, Parker–and perhaps the most important fact–is that Jocelyn’s not just out to kill Evie. What she
really
wants is one of you. I’m not sure how that works exactly, but I
do
know it involves suicide.”

Parker grimaced. “Like either one of us would do that,” he said in an arrogant tone.

“No, in your right mind you certainly wouldn’t.” Fiona leaned forward. “Jocelyn Blanch is bound right now. Limited to only a small degree of her ability, and even so, she can get into evil minds of the living, convince them to do her will.”

The sincerity of her words burrowed deep into Calvin’s conscious mind. He’d store the details of his enemy there; use them against her when the time came. He leaned in as Fiona continued, thirsty for more.

“But once you unleash Jocelyn Blanch, you release the fullness of her power. And that’s when she’ll get into your mind. And when I say that, I mean you won’t know which thoughts are hers and which thoughts are your own. You’ll feel so completely in love with her that you’ll do anything she desires, be compelled beyond resistance to do whatever she wants you to do. Kill yourself, kill each other, kill Evie–”

“That’s not going to happen,” Calvin hissed.

Parker put down his fork and reached for a glass. “Great. Sounds real hopeful.”

“How do we fight it then? The mind power?” Calvin asked.

“I’ll teach you. First off, you’ve been having dreams that reveal things, right?”

Calvin nodded.

“What’s the setting? Where do they take place?”

“The canyon.”

“Okay, then that’s where we’ll start today. It’s no coincidence you went there to experiment last night. Your subconscious led you there. You were already practicing in the right elements.”

Parker looked over his shoulder. “You were there last night too?”

Fiona nodded.

“Geeze!” Parker said, but then his voice softened. “Did you like the show? Did you enjoy watching the heroic skills of the handsome Knight Brothers?” He cracked his fisted knuckles, one hand after the next. “I bet you did.”

“Oh please, I’m just doing my job.”

That got Calvin thinking. “So, when you say this is your job, explain that. Who do you work for exactly?”

“Not for the man downstairs,” is all she offered.

Calvin waited for her to elaborate.

She didn’t.

“Then for who?” Parker asked. “Where are you from?”

She turned to him and sighed. “A place called The Harbor. Look, you guys are being forced into a world most people will never even know exists. The more you know, the harder life will be for you afterward. Trust me, it complicates everything.” Her voice was firm. “Just let it suffice to say that I am a sentinel, nothing more.”

Silence filled the air, but Calvin could see by the look on Parker’s face that he wasn’t going to let the topic drop. “So…do you get paid for this?” he asked.

Fiona ignored him.

Parker spoke up again. “Is it a lot?”

“Shut up, Parker,” Calvin said.

“Okay, before we go, there’s one last ability you haven’t discovered yet.” Fiona looked at Calvin. “I want you to use it now. Give me that necklace.” She held out her hand.

“Why?”

“Just give it to me. You’ll get it back.”

Calvin released the clasp, pulled it off, and handed it to her.

“I wanted to use something important to you, make it easier for you since it’s your first time.”

“How do you know that’s important to me?”

Rather than answering, Fiona stepped back by the sink. “Stay there,” she told him. “Get this from me.” The necklace dangled from her fingers.

Parker puffed out a loud breath. “What are you talking about?”

Calvin reached over the counter, but Fiona put a hand up to stop him. “Uh. Not that way. Think, Calvin. Focus, and you’ll feel it. There’s an easier way to get this back. Use it.”

Calvin looked at the pendant dangling from the leather strap. Gold light shone from the light above, reflecting off the face of the letters, almost assuring him he could do it. A warm current of energy gathered inside him. The same sort of feeling that told him he could burst into the sky at the canyon. He honed in on that energy, infused it with images of the necklace, his desire to have it. With his gaze fixed on the pendant, he pictured it slipping off Fiona’s fingers, shooting across the room and into his hand in one brief motion.

In a blink the thin strap of soft, worn leather brushed past the insides of his fingers. He clamped his hand shut instinctively, securing the piece in his fist. With the slow rotation of his wrist, eyes focused on the showing loop of leather, Calvin uncurled his fingers to see the pendant resting against his palm. He looked up at Fiona in disbelief.

“Now the cup.” She nodded toward the clear glass next to the sink.