Martyr (9 page)

At least it might have explained all the emotions that had bubbled up around that boy he'd seen in class. Tyler. Just thinking of him made Tenn's heart twist. Yeah, it must have just been Water.

“So this is what you dream, Tenn?”

Tenn jerked around, nearly falling out of the tree.

A man stood on the shore, just a few yards off. He was unfamiliar—pinstriped black suit, slicked grey hair, an ebony walking stick. Then, like some horrible celestial clockwork, things clicked in Tenn's mind. The man didn't belong here. But then again, neither did he. He glanced down at his hands. They were worn—calloused and scarred. And he wore the ragged blacks of a Hunter.

“What are you doing here?” Tenn asked.

He half-expected the dream to fade now that he was aware he was, in fact, dreaming. It didn't. That was worse.

He tried opening to the Spheres, but they didn't work. Of course not—not here. Which meant he was facing the man who'd killed all his friends, and he could do nothing about it.

You're dreaming. You couldn't do anything anyway, right?

“Why, I'm just observing,” Matthias said. He took a step closer. His feet didn't leave an impression in the sand. “After all, someone whom Leanna so actively seeks must surely be an interesting specimen.” He chuckled to himself. “I must say, I am so far unimpressed.”

“Get out of my dream.” Tenn stood up on the thick branch, but there was nowhere to go. He dangled over the ice-cold lake. He wondered if he could change the dream, just by thinking it, like he had a few times in the past. He tried. It didn't work.

“And if I don't? Will you cry on me?” Matthias sneered. His eyes seemed to glow like a cat's.

“Get out!”

Matthias walked closer to the tree, only an arm's reach away now.

“Why do you dream of this night?” he asked. “Why is this so tender in your heart?”

Tenn said nothing. Matthias glanced out to the horizon. Above them, the stars were winking out with small flares.

“Ahh,” Matthias said as recognition dawned. “I see.” More stars blinked out. Even the lights on the horizon faded as the dream twisted into nightmare. The sky was nearly black now. “This is the night the Dark Lady began Her work.”

Tenn shivered in spite of himself. The Dark Lady, the woman who had created Leanna and Tomás and the other four Kin, the woman who vanished off the face of the earth once Her work was done—some said killed, others said in hiding. She was goddess to the necromancers and Howls. She was the new religion. Matthias's next words were low, the mockery gone. He looked at Tenn as though he knew the most intimate details of his soul.

“Yes. This is the night the world was damned. This was the night you lost your home.”

Tenn said nothing. He didn't move, just stood amongst the branches and watched the lights wink out, one by one.

“She's not gone, you know,” Matthias said. “Not really. My goddess, She still lives. And She stirs.”

The words made Tenn colder than any winter could.

“I don't believe in your goddess,” he whispered.

“But She believes in you,” Matthias said. “And in the end, that is all that matters.”

All the lights winked out now, save for two on the horizon. They glowed red, like eyes. The Dark Lady smiled in the depths of the darkness. Then She swallowed Tenn whole.

Tenn awoke with a start. The sheets were tangled at his feet, and the hurricane lamp burned low on the nightstand. He was alone. His heart raced as he looked around the room. Had Jarrett been taken? Had Matthias or Tomás snuck in during the night? Then he remembered that Jarrett would have left early to speak with Cassandra. She'd need the debrief. He flopped back on the bed.

For the longest time, he just lay there, trying to calm the furious racing of his heart, the staccato of his breath. He could still feel those red eyes on him. In every corner of the room, he expected to see Her, the Dark Lady, watching him from the shadows and waiting for his back to turn. Matthias's words echoed in his skull. Matthias, Leanna, Tomás…and now the Dark Lady herself. Why were they after him? How was he so special?
Powerful in ways that are only just awakening
, Tomás had said. But what powers? Tenn was suddenly reminded of the way Water had acted up without his trying. Was that what everyone was after?

One thing was certain—he was being watched, and if he didn't act very, very carefully, he'd have more deaths on his hands. He had no doubt Tomás would carry out his threat. The idea of finding Jarrett stone-cold some morning was enough to make him swear to anything.

Almost anything.

He pushed himself out of bed and followed the copper pipes hanging in the corridor toward the bathroom. A shower wouldn't fix everything, but it would definitely help. At least it would get him out of the room.

The showers were part of the original gym, but they'd been modified since the Resurrection. Hot water was one of the few luxuries they'd salvaged, and after any amount of time in the field, it was the one Tenn was most grateful for. He walked over to a stall and slipped out of his clothes, turned on the hot tap, and sank under the warmth. It didn't reach the cold that rimed his very bones. He highly doubted anything ever would.

He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the cool tile wall, letting the water slide down his back. Although he knew he'd been washed clean during their underwater journey, a part of him still expected to see red siphoning down the drain if he opened his eyes just a crack. Memories swam with the water. He let his defenses drop. He let the past bubble up.

“Mom, Dad? Are you home?”

He knew it was too much to hope for, knew it before he even opened the front door. But he'd held on to that flickering light anyway. It had led him here, on foot and by bus, across miles and miles of highway crawling with dead bodies and not-so-dead bodies. The thought of the monsters he'd had to avoid to get there made his stomach lurch. The news had said things were bad. He'd no clue just how bad they were. The little training in magic he'd undergone was barely enough to keep himself alive. But it had already saved his neck multiple times. He just hoped he'd made it here in time to save his parents…

The house felt empty. It felt worse than empty. He felt it in his chest; the place was hollowed, like someone had stepped in and ripped out its heart. The blood smearing the walls in streaks and fingerprints made him want to drop to his knees
. It's not their blood. It can't be their blood.
But it led straight toward their bedroom. Or straight from
.

The Sphere of Water churned within him, as though fueled by all this pain. As though it enjoyed it
.

The bedroom door was eerily clean. He pressed his hand to the wood and pushed it open
.

It swung in on silent hinges
.

The room was empty
.

The bed was made, the quilt folded neatly at the foot. The windows were closed, blinds open. Sunlight streamed in, catching on dust motes, tiny fragments his parents had once breathed in and out. The dressers were closed. If they had left, they hadn't left in a hurry
.

He walked over to the nightstand. To the photo sitting there, under the lamp
.

It was him and his dad at Christmas. He must have been four when this was taken. He was surrounded by crinkly wrapping paper, and the fire was roaring in the fireplace behind him. He could see his mother's slippered foot at the bottom—she was always the one taking the photos
.

He sat down on the bed and picked it up, stared at his father's smile
.

There, in the corner, was a tiny smudge of dried blood
.

He brought the photo to his chest and curled up on the bed. Tears wouldn't come. So he rocked back and forth, cradling the photo like his mother had held him. His world ripped apart
.

He'd been too late
.

Too late
.

“Tenn? Are you in there?”

Tenn opened his eyes. He had no way of knowing how long he'd been standing there, though the water hadn't gone cold yet. He turned toward the curtain separating him from the voice. There was no mistaking it—Dreya.

“Yeah,” he called. His voice was rough. Had he been crying?

“You have been summoned,” she said.

He peeked around the curtain. She stood in the doorway in a new pair of faded jeans and a fluffy white-knit sweater. Where she always got fresh clothes in a world of disrepair was beyond him. Maybe she had a stash from her travels. Her hair hung over her shoulders in waves, almost disappearing against the pale shirt. She was doing that hawk-gaze thing she always did, which didn't make him feel any more comfortable about being naked. It was like she could see through the curtain and into his thoughts.

“What?” he asked.

“Cassandra. She has summoned you.” A hesitation. “All of us. We are having a meeting. The entire guild.”

“A meeting?” They hadn't had a meeting since he'd joined.

“Yes.”

He took a deep breath.

“It's about what happened. To us. Isn't it?”

She nodded.

“Shit.”

“I suggest you hurry,” she said. She tossed him a towel from a cupboard beside her. “She called the meeting ten minutes ago. We could not find you. You are already late.”

With that, she turned and left. Tenn shut off the water and grabbed the towel from the floor. He hadn't even been back a day. He'd been hoping he'd have a bit longer before they threw him out.

8

The
meeting took place in the old basketball court. By the time Tenn got there, it was already well underway. He edged past the open double-doors and stood in the shadow of the bleachers, watching the show proceed.

Cassandra paced in the center. She was in her late twenties, with dark ebony skin and long black braids that nearly reached her waist. Most Earth mages Tenn knew were stocky, grounded, but not Cassandra. She was tall and curvaceous, with a perfect hourglass figure. Today, she wore knee-high leather boots and tight black leather pants. Her skin-tight black top was barely concealed by a transparent black coat. Only an idiot would mistake her beauty for weakness. For Cassandra, it was just another finely tuned weapon.

“…we all know our forces are dwindling,” she said. Her voice was powerful, and it carried in the gym. Although the entirety of the guild was in there—those not stationed elsewhere, at least—the bleachers were barely half-full. Once, their guild had numbered thousands. “And our hold on civilization is slipping. Leanna is pushing her forces east. Already we've received reports as close as Minneapolis.” She paused under one of the brilliant balls of fire floating high above. “We can barely hold on to the little land we
do
control, let alone try and topple Leanna's compound. Not that any previous attempts have proved successful. America is dying. And if we don't do something fast, our great nation will be left to the Howls.”

A murmur rumbled through the bleachers, and Tenn didn't need to be amongst his comrades to know the gist. None of this was new information, but it wasn't something anyone wanted to hear. Everyone remembered the horror stories of attempted conquests—the Hunters who made it back from raids on Leanna's compound and could barely speak through their shock; whole armies, wasted in a heartbeat from magic or hordes of higher-Sphere Howls. There hadn't been an attempted attack on Leanna in over a year. What sort of morale boost was this?

“Which is why,” she continued, walking out of sight. Tenn stepped closer, so he could see her over the stands. “I have asked you all here. Troop Omega has returned from the field. And they bring a fortuitous gift.” She gestured to someone standing in the shadows. “Jarrett, if you please.”

Jarrett walked out next to her, his boots echoing in the otherwise silent room. He wasn't in blacks. No, today he looked like the Resurrection had never happened—ripped blue jeans, black combat boots, and a grey T-shirt with a logo that had faded beyond recognition. Even from here, Tenn could see the intricate lines of Jarrett's Hunter's mark on his right forearm.

But it wasn't his appearance that was making the quiet room even more silent. No, it was the object he gingerly placed in Cassandra's hands. Tenn's stomach turned over at the sight of it.

A small glass jar. Within it, a hovering flame. Cassandra raised it high above her head, like Lady Liberty with her torch. Jarrett must have pocketed it after killing the necromancer. The thing seemed to suck the life from the room.

“This,” she said, “is the weapon used against us. For years, we have been at the mercy of the necromancers and their spawn, unaware of how they created more nightmares or how they could be stopped. Until now.” She smiled over at Jarrett. Her grin reminded Tenn of a feral cat. “Now we have insight into their dark magic, and with that knowledge, we may finally turn the tide of this war.”