Phoenix: The Rising (27 page)

Lucy grabbed him by the arm, as if she owned him. Julie knew what their relationship really was, or rather, what it was going to be, but obviously Lucy wasn’t aware. She couldn’t help but feel jealous over the fact that Lucy would be able to spend the rest of her life with Eli’s new incarnation, even if it was as his protector. At least she’d be with him.

“Oh, and thanks again for staying with me last night, Eli. I actually got a little sleep.”

Staying with her?
Julie felt her jaw drop and immediately snapped her mouth shut. Lucy smiled at Eli and then lifted an eyebrow in Julie’s direction.

“Oh, don’t worry, Julie. I was just a little freaked out last night, what with losing my grandmother after just finding her. Eli was a perfect gentleman. I’m so lucky to have a cousin like him!” Lucy squeezed both their arms. “I’ll see you guys later. Kas is taking me out for coffee!”

Julie stood dumbfounded as Lucy trotted back over to Kas. She turned to see Eli’s face flush.

“It-it really was nothing, Julie. Lucy asked me to stay with her until she fell asleep. She was pretty upset. I got home so late last night, I closed my eyes and, well, before I knew it, it was morning.”

Julie turned her attention to her backpack, tugging at the stubborn zipper and avoiding Eli’s eyes. “You don’t owe me an explanation, Eli. I know what Lucy’s going to be to you, but the question is, does she? She’s getting pretty attached to you.”

Eli grabbed the backpack out of Julie’s hand and zipped it shut, then pulled Julie into the empty classroom next to her locker.

“I wanted to talk to you about that. Lucy’s going to find out about everything within the next two days, one way or the other.”

Julie’s heart seemed to freeze in her chest. She raised her eyes to his, hoping that he wouldn’t see the fear in them. “It’s happening?”

Eli nodded. “Saturday is the super-moon, the Great moon described in the legend. It’ll happen at sunrise on Sunday morning.”

The air seemed to gush out of Julie’s lungs. She had less than two days left with Eli. A lone tear trickled down her cheek. “That’s why you want us to be up at
Mono
Lake
tomorrow night. You knew when she invited us.”

Eli brushed his hand across Julie’s cheek, wiping away her tear. “It’s pretty strange that she’d suggest it, although I’m thinking she may have had some type of premonition. I think Laylah’s blood is strong in her. She was so close to discovering everything last night.”

“Why can’t you just tell her everything? Get it over with?”

“Because I don’t know everything. I’m not supposed to. Only The Protector knows, and that knowledge is passed down through Laylah’s descendents. Some of it is in their blood. Everything else—the secret of exactly who I am, my past lives, and what she is—only the Protector is privy to that information. It’s all in the medicine pouch Liana gave her. All she has to do is put it around her neck, claim it as her own, and then she’ll know. I only get a glimpse of that knowledge immediately before my rebirth, but then it’s all taken away from me again as soon as I’m born again as a child.” A half-smile quirked his face. “Hmmm. Maybe I’ll come back as a girl this time. But of course, that may cause problems when I meet up with you in seventeen years.”

Julie’s heart seemed to twist in her chest. She knew that was never going to happen, but she had to play along. Eli couldn’t know that her death was imminent, that they’d have no future together. “Oh, I don’t know about that. It might make things quite interesting. It sure as heck would make me happier if I knew Lucy had to care for a little girl instead of a boy.”

A tingling sensation suddenly manifested in Julie’s fingertips, and this wasn’t coming from Eli. It was the leukemia. She held her hands out and placed them on Eli’s hard chest. A comforting warmth buzzed through them.

“But I don’t want to come back as a girl. I want to be able to spend the rest of my next life loving you. Besa Soobedda. It doesn’t matter which lifetime it occurs in. It was meant to be.”

Julie hesitated before she spoke again, but she had to know. “Can she feel it? Can she feel what I feel when I touch you, Eli?”

Eli’s arms slipped around her, and he pulled her close. “She just gets a little jolt of static, as does anyone else who touches me. What you feel is meant for you and only you. Besa Soobedda, remember? That’s how Liana knew. It’s one bit of information she shared with me. You are the only one who has ever felt that. You are the only one who ever will.”

Julie looked into Eli’s sapphire eyes and knew what he said was true. His lips fell on hers, and she was once again pulled into the deep well of bliss found only in his arms. She clung to him, desperate to hold on to the feeling. Too soon, their kiss ended. As their lips parted, her bliss turned into guilt. Would he ever have that feeling with another woman? Would her death mean that he would spend his life alone?

“But what about your wife? Didn’t you feel that with her?”

Eli shook his head. “I loved her, but it wasn’t Besa Soobedda. I’d never experienced the feeling, so I didn’t know what I was missing. Now I do. That’s why you have to find me again.” He smiled and winked. “Don’t leave me hanging, Mason!”

Julie leaned her head against his chest. “I’m sorry. I wish that we had met sooner.” Somehow, what he said gave her some solace. Some release from her guilt. He’d be able to love again. Not with the same intensity they felt towards each other, but it would be love, nonetheless. Just a quieter, gentler type. Probably what most humans feel for each other.  Eli would never know what he was missing. And in a few days or weeks, it wouldn’t matter to her anymore, either. She’d be dead and gone. At least she got to experience it for a few weeks. Julie couldn’t help but smile. She got to experience a type of love no other human would ever get the chance to. She pulled away and looked into Eli’s eyes.

“I’m going to miss you.”

He smiled. “I’m going to miss you, too.”

She shook her head. “No, you won’t. You won’t even know I’m gone.”
Crap
. She wanted to break down crying right now. She wanted to run and check into the hospital and wait to die. Just get it over with. Going on like this was torture. But she couldn’t. She had to see this through. She had to make sure Eli made it to The Rising safely. At least he could live on.

The door creaked open, halting their conversation. Jack, the custodian, stuck his white-haired head in, his eyes going wide as he stared at the two
teenagers
. “Hate to break up the party, but I gotta clean.” He stepped inside and grabbed the trashcan by the door as Julie and Eli made their exit. “Hey, weren’t you two friends with that Winters girl?”

Julie looked from Eli to the custodian. “Yes. Why?”

The old man motioned to the radio zip-tied to the handle of his cart. “According to my police scanner, the cops were just in hot pursuit of a suspect.”

Julie felt the air suck out of the room. Eli spoke up. “Did they say who it was?”

Jack dumped the trash into his bin and shook his head. “Nope. Just identified the vehicle as a black Ford pickup driven by an alleged suspect in the Winters’s case. Said there was a passenger.”

“Wait.” Julie felt dizzy, like she was going to faint. “You said ‘were’. The cops ‘were’ in pursuit.”

The old man tossed the trash can back in the corner. “Yup. They just called an 11-80,
Accident with Serious Injury
. At least one of those sons-a-bitches is still alive.”

“Why do you say that?” Julie felt Eli’s arm encircle her waist.

“Because they also called an 11-44.” Jack slapped his mop against the floor. “
Coroner Required
.”

“Dan is dead.” Kas slammed his cell phone on the dashboard of his truck and turned to Lucy, who had to hide the smile she could feel brewing. Those three words were like music to her ears. “And Remy’s in a coma.”
HOLY SHIT! Could this get any better?
“Damn it! I knew I should have given him a ride home.”

“What? How?” Lucy could barely contain herself. She didn’t really care
how
, she was just glad that two of her rivals were out of commission. Now, if Kas would just fade from existence.

“The police know, Lucy. Someone turned in evidence fingering Dan. You better hope to God you didn’t leave any fingerprints in his truck, or you’ll be the next person they come after.”

Lucy pressed herself into the passenger door, her fingers settling on the handle. She knew she had nothing to worry about. She’d never been in enough trouble to be fingerprinted. “And what about you? They’ve suspected you from the beginning. It would probably be best if you just disappeared, don’t y
ou
think?”

She couldn’t have written this scenario much better. She just wished she hadn’t told Kas that The Rising was going to take place this weekend. Of course, it probably wouldn’t have mattered. It sounded like he already figured it out on his own. Maybe he wasn’t as dumb as she thought. Unfortunately, that also meant that he probably figured out that he would be fighting
her
for a chance at immortality. But, they’d both have to wait to make their moves. Everything depended on incapacitating the Fire-Child, and they’d probably need to work together to get that done.

Kas squeezed the steering wheel as he contemplated her words. “Get out. I’ll meet you at
Mono
Lake
before sunrise on Sunday.”

Lucy nodded. “I’ll be there.”

As she opened the door and slid out, Kas grabbed her arm, sinking his fingers into her bicep. “One thing. I know only one of us will be able to claim our birthright. But the other can reap the benefits as well. We can both be winners in this, Lucy.”

Lucy stared down at her arm, imagining herself breaking each one his fingers. “Sure, I know.” She raised an eyebrow. “Do you mind? I can’t leave if you have your claws in my arm.”

Kas peeled his fingers off her arm, leaving deep, red welts in their place. By tomorrow morning, they’d turn into bruises. She sighed and smiled as she slammed the door shut and watched as the truck rolled down the road.
Ah, well. Just another reason to kill the bastard.
 

****

The plan was simple. With Dan dead and Remy comatose, she had two less Nephilim to worry about, and she’d make sure the third would never leave Mono Lake alive, if he even made it there. Lucy tucked the small pistol and rounds of ammunition in the bottom of her backpack. The Fire-Child might not be able to succumb to a gunshot wound, but Kas was mostly human, and no one would blame her for shooting him.

Incapacitating the Fire-Child in her weakest moment shouldn’t be too tough, either. Lucy looked at the two prescription bottles full of heart medication she found in her grandmother’s medicine cabinet, and her own stash of valium Liana’s doctor had so sweetly prescribed for her anxiety brought on by her grandmother’s death. A hefty combination of the two should make a deadly little cocktail for Julie ... at least it would be deadly if Julie were a normal human. In her weakened state, it should still have a pretty drastic effect, and if Lucy lucked out, it would actually “kill” her for a bit. Decapitation was her second choice, but that would be a little tougher to hide from Eli. Of course, if she had to do it, she would.

Lucy smiled to herself. Why she hadn’t thought of drugging Julie earlier was a mystery to her. If she timed it right, before Julie would have time to recuperate from the effects of the drugs, Lucy would be reborn as the new Fire-Child and in the protective custody of Eli,
if
she could convince him to be her Protector.

Protector.
Why did she think of that word? Lucy shrugged. Of course, all he’d have to do would be to witness The Rising. That would be proof enough that the story of the Fire-Child was much more than a legend. He’d claim her as his
daughter
and when she was old enough, she’d claim
him
as her lover. That is, as long as she was reborn again as a female. Lucy shook her head at the thought of coming back as a male. That was a chance she’d have to take for a shot at immortality.

Lucy placed the bottles in the front pocket of her book bag, right beside the stinky medicine pouch she inherited from Liana.
Shit
. She’d totally forgotten that she promised Eli she’d wear it. Grabbing a bottle of body spray, she spritzed it twice, then stuffed it in a different part of her bag. She’d deal with that later. First, she needed to set the other part of her plan in motion.

****

Lucy plopped down on Eli’s bed as Eli stared at the ten o’clock news.
Damn it
! He should have trusted his instincts. Dan Penemue’s face filled half the screen, with the word “Suspect” written under it. Remy’s picture sat on the other half, with the word “Passenger” scripted beneath it. What it should have said for both of them in bold red letters was
NEPHILIM
.

“I can’t believe it. Remy and his cousin could possibly be responsible for your friend’s death! That is totally freaky! And it looks like Kas might be involved, too. The police want him for questioning, and I haven’t been able to contact him since he dropped me off. Where do you suppose he is?”