Messenger of Fear (6 page)

“He hates love,” Liam joked.

“No, he just hates sex if it involves his daughter.”

“We’re always careful. I mean, all rubbered up, sir!” He snapped a salute.

“Oh, good, you can tell my dad that. Tell him it’s okay because you were wearing protection. Just be ready to outrun a bullet.”

Liam fed her a chip. She tried to crunch it in some sensual, provocative way, but most of the chip broke off and hit the floor. They both laughed and Liam gathered her to him.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you, too.”

“No,” Liam insisted, his voice heavy with emotion. “I don’t mean like a throwaway line. I mean that I think about you every hour of every day. I see you every time I close my eyes. I don’t shower after we’ve been together because I want to be able to smell you on my skin.” He hesitated, feeling embarrassed as his fair skin colored. “That last might have been a little creepy.”

“Not even a little creepy,” she said, her own voice husky. “And I love you that same way. Desperate love. You know? Like sometimes it just kind of wells up, and for a few seconds I can’t breathe or swallow.”

Suddenly angry, Liam spun away from Emma. “We have to get past this. We have to be together. I mean, what is the problem? Why can’t I just go to your dad and say, ‘Look, Mr. Aguilar, Emma and I love each other, and I know you still think about me breaking that trellis when I was twelve, but let it go, all right? Let it go.’”

“Mmmm. That will so not work.”

“Let me try at least.”

She held him out at arm’s length. “Liam, listen to me: It won’t work. He’ll ground me for three months. There will be no way for us to see each other. To be together. Like this.”

Liam cursed. Not at Emma—at life, it seemed. He tore into the bag of cookies with enough violence to cause half the cookies to scatter across the countertop.

They ate in silence, glum, chewing and drinking juice.

“Please tell me this doesn’t end like Samantha Early,” I said.

Messenger did not answer. He was watching them. Having tastefully not intruded on their lovemaking, he watched now with a palpable hunger. He swallowed and I saw that even as he watched them, he was seeing another image, a faraway image.

“I have to water the plants,” Emma said.

“Yep.”

And just like that, we were in the backseat of the car again, and Emma was driving as Liam distracted her with light kisses on the side of her neck.

“What do you think of them?” Messenger asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Your opinion. Your judgment. That is our subject now, the question of your instincts.”

I shifted uncomfortably. I did not like the idea of being judged, certainly not of being judged on my ability to judge others. But Messenger waited, knowing, I suppose, that I would answer, whatever my qualms.

“I like them. They’re in love,” I said.

“Are they? Did you look inside them?”

“What? You mean, poke inside their heads? No. Of course not.”

“Then how do you know whether this is love or mere lust?” He seemed honestly perplexed.

“It’s pretty obvious.”

“Is it?” He sighed. “I suppose it is for you. I must resort to less delicate means. I have filled myself with their memories and feel what they feel. Yes. It is love.”

I whispered the word, “Duh.” I don’t know if Messenger heard me or not.

Night had fallen, turning the forest around us into a place of eldritch fears, a fairy-tale forest wherein might lurk witches with interests in gingerbread and plump, flavorful children. The headlights cast irregular circles of light on the macadam but did not reach beyond the ditch to our right or the tangle of weeds to our left.

“And what do you think of that? Of love?” Messenger asked me.

“Okay, that’s getting—”

Suddenly his insinuating voice, that whisper that always seemed to be directly into my ear, became strident. “Understand something, Mara: You will answer my questions. You will reveal everything to me and hold nothing back.”

It was said with undeniable authority. His tone was not pleading nor was it cruel. He stated it as a simple fact, as though it was beyond question. And as he spoke, he seemed to grow, to become a foot taller and as much wider, and a cold, dark light shone from him.

Then he returned to his normal size, although how could I know what was normal for this creature?

“Understand that I ask you questions out of respect. In the hope that you will understand that you must . . . that you
may
. . . trust me. I can as easily enter your mind as the minds of any of those we meet. But if you are open and honest with me, Mara, I will not do that.”

I was feeling that I’d been pushed around just about enough. And I was readying a devastating response when—

“Look out!”

At the same instant the car swerved sharply and there was the sound of impact. Stiff rubber and unyielding steel on flesh.

And a frantic, squealing sound that went on and on, rising, falling, a visceral cry that spoke wordlessly of pain.

Emma pulled the car to the side, almost into the ditch, and jumped out, followed immediately by Liam.

The squeal came from an ancient dog, gray in the muzzle, with shaggy, tan fur. The dog, a mix of who knew how many breeds, dragged itself sideways, trailing blood, to the side of the road and lay there, panting, unable to go farther.

“Oh, God!” I gasped. The dog’s side was ruptured. Its fur was ever more matted as blood seeped out.

“We have to get it to a vet!” Liam cried as he dropped down beside the dog. “Oh, we’re so sorry, boy, we are so sorry.” He stroked a clean patch of dry fur behind the dog’s left ear.

“We can’t!” Emma cried. “My dad!”

“This dog is messed up; we can’t leave him here like this,” Liam argued, but already I could see the way he blinked, doubting his own certainty.

The dog mewled. It was not urgent. It was not a plea for help. It was sad and accepting. The dog neither knew that it was dying nor that it might yet be saved. It only knew pain and that its legs would no longer raise it up off the pavement. His tail moved once, twice.

“We have to get out of here,” Emma fretted. She went around to the front of the car and moaned upon seeing a dent, a bloody dent, in the right front bumper. “Oh, my God, oh, my God. I have to clean off the blood and get home right now!”

She was close to panic, and Liam left the whimpering dog’s side reluctantly and went to comfort Emma.

“Someone’s going to come by and see us here,” Liam said, glancing nervously down the road. “If they do, they might pull over to help. Then we’re out of luck. But we can’t leave him suffering like this.”

“We could drop him off somewhere and drive off.”

“Carry a bloody dog in the car? What if we get pulled over? What if the car breaks down? What if there’s a security camera at the vet? We have to . . . to put him out of his misery.”

“Maybe if we left him, someone else would come along.” Then she surrendered. Her shoulders sagged and she shook her head, not in denial but in rejection of her own desperate plans.

The dog made a soft mewling sound, then a yip of pain.

They stared at each other until Emma said, “I can’t do it. I know we have to, but I can’t. I can’t.”

“Make up your mind,” Liam snapped, then apologized. “I’m sorry. I—”

“It’s—” Emma said, and waved a hand, as though that movement could push terrible choices away.

“I’ll do it,” Liam said. “I’ll drive. I can do this. I can do this.”

They got back in the car, with Liam behind the wheel. He threw the car into reverse and backed down the road a hundred feet.

“Did he stop moving? Maybe he’s dead,” Emma said, biting her fingernails. Tears were flowing freely.

“I’m sorry, boy. I’m so sorry,” Liam said. The he put the transmission into drive, sent the car rolling forward.

There was an agonizing bump as the right front wheel went over the dog. And a second bump as the rear wheel finished the job.

The car sped away.

Messenger and I watched their taillights glow in the dark. And then, we were back in the car. Emma and Liam were crying and cursing and apologizing still to the dog or to the heavenly powers or perhaps to themselves. Both were shaken and weeping.

Messenger said, “What is your judgment, Mara?”

“My judgment? What are you talking about? It’s sad, that’s my judgment.”

The car stopped moving. Emma and Liam stopped moving. Outside the wind still ruffled dark oak trees and sinister hemlock, but within the car only Messenger and I could move.

“They’ve done wrong,” Messenger said. “They’ve listened to the worst in themselves and acted in ways that upset the balance of Isthil, the balance of justice and wickedness. The crime demands a price be paid. So, I ask again, Mara. What is your judgment?”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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“I DON’T KNOW WHAT—” I FELL SILENT BECAUSE I saw someone approaching the car, walking down the road toward us. It was a young man, maybe twenty years old, not much older. He wore a white hoodie and blue jeans.

Messenger spotted him, drew what seemed to my ears to be a nervous breath, and sat back in the seat. He rolled down the window.

The man in the hoodie ambled up, loose-limbed, thin and not very tall, but with that easy sense of command that spoke of great confidence and an absence of fear.

“Daniel,” Messenger said.

“Messenger. Mara.” Daniel leaned over, resting his forearms on the roof of the car but lowering his head enough to make eye contact with Messenger. From where I sat, I could see only the lower part of Daniel’s face.

I was consumed by curiosity, wanting to ask Messenger just what he meant by Isthil. Had I even heard that correctly? But this new arrival—not to mention Messenger’s eternal taciturnity—made follow-up questions impossible.

Daniel’s voice was like Messenger’s in that it seemed as if he, too, was whispering in my ear. But Messenger was serious and soft-spoken, while Daniel’s voice carried a hint that he might just possess a sense of humor.

“Have you dealt with the Early matter yet?” Daniel asked.

“We have begun,” Messenger said.

“Ah, so you’re being nonlinear,” Daniel said. “I remember a time when you were a prisoner of Flatworld, Messenger.” That was perhaps some sort of joke, I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t understand it.

Daniel’s voice grew more professional. The pleasantries were over. “Where is she in her progress?” The “she” was clearly me. Daniel indicated me with an outthrust chin.

“She’s calmed,” Messenger said.

“Memory?”

“I don’t want to overload her.”

“Ah,” Daniel said. He dropped to a squat, which let him look me in the eye. “So you have no real idea what’s going on. No idea why you’re here.”

I shook my head.

“And you are frightened, nervous, but also excited, I see.” He frowned and tilted his head sideways. “You are Messenger’s student, not mine, but I will tell you by way of reassurance that it will all become clear to you. In time.”

Messenger stiffened a bit at this reassurance. I think he wanted me uncertain.

“We had a visit,” Messenger said significantly.

“Oh?”

“Oriax,” Messenger said.

The two of them exchanged hard looks at that. I would have expected a leer, a wink, a raised eyebrow, but there was none of that. No sense that they were referring to what had to be the most beautiful young woman either of them had ever or would ever encounter.

“That’s very quick,” Daniel said. “Very quick. Who do you think she’s after?”

“She came to us while we were on the Samantha Early matter.”

“Oriax is not known for her directness,” Daniel said. “So it’s most likely something else. Someone else. Though, of course, she could be counting on us believing that.”

“Can I ask a question?” I said. My voice sounded squeaky in my own ears.

Messenger turned to look at me, and Daniel’s face went blank. He pulled back, making it clear that I was to speak only to Messenger.

“You will have a great many questions,” Messenger said coldly. “But you will learn by observing. Later you will learn by doing. At this moment you will learn by remaining silent.”

If I expected to find some sympathy from Daniel, I was mistaken. Messenger had shot me down, and Daniel had merely waited for it to be over.

But I was tired of being frightened and kept in the dark. I was going to ask my question. And later, when I had other questions, I would ask those, too.

“What is Oriax?” I asked.

The question surprised Messenger. One eyebrow rose fractionally. “Not who? You ask ‘what’?”

“She’s not human,” I said, surprising myself with my certainty. It had only just then come to me. The way they spoke of Oriax revealed if not fear from the two males, at least wariness. They saw something in her that I had not, which meant they knew more than I, and what they knew was that Oriax was not merely a beautiful woman with unusually small feet.

“She’s quick,” Daniel said to Messenger.

“Yes,” Messenger admitted. Coming from him, it did not sound like a compliment. “The time will come when you understand Oriax and her kind. That day will be terrible for you, and worse for someone else.”