The Prophecies (The Sentinel Series Book 2) (20 page)

‘Then what?’ The bounty, it had to be. Though why hadn’t she killed me yet?

Sophia sniffed. ‘I had a daughter you know. She was a bit older than you, twenty six actually when she died. She was a Putarian.’ She caught the look of horror my face. ‘Oh no love, I’m not a Putarian, I could hardly be a devout follower of Putus when I’m trying to develop drugs to help shape shifters. No my daughter hated what we were, that we were shape shifters, albeit dormant ones. She thought we were freaks. When she was fifteen she ran away from home and hooked up with the Putarians. I doubt she ever told them what she was. She became a fanatical follower of the religion, condemning anything or anyone that was not pure. She never spoke to me again. It saddened me, but I was also ashamed of her narrow minded prejudice, ashamed by the hatred she had for those with special abilities. But she was my daughter, and I loved her, despite her attitude.’

I didn’t know where this was leading, what any of this had to do with me.

‘They found her body in a black bag outside the Putarian temple in Cyprus. She was just a crumpled jumble of broken bones. But that wasn’t enough, after they had killed her by crushing every bone in her body, they felt the need to stab her through the throat with such force that the knife stuck out the back of her neck. Apparently, her body was left there as a warning to the Putarians, not to mess with the Sentinel.’

I felt my throat go dry. Mia, the beauty therapist who had tried to kill me.

Sophia pulled the black twisted knife from the back of her belt, the exact same black twisted knife that I had last seen sticking out of Mia’s throat after she tried to kill me in Cyprus.

‘She made this herself, to cause the maximum amount of damage and pain in one stab. See how the edges are serrated, it would quite literally tear the skin apart on its way in, and you can’t imagine the damage it would cause on its way out.’

I swallowed the sick feeling in my stomach, rising like rancid bile into my mouth.

‘Like I said, she was fanatical. The Putarians are sick and twisted, but I never stopped loving her. It’s something about the mother daughter bond, no matter what they do, you don’t stop loving them.’

So this was the reason why I was here. She was going to kill me out of revenge for the death of her daughter. She looked down at the knife, examining it in her hands. I strained against my bonds, but the rope cut tighter into my wrists.

‘Which is why I am going to be very happy to use this on young Seth when I see him.’

I stopped struggling, blood turning to ice in my veins.

‘Seth?’ my voice broke. ‘You’re going to kill Seth?’

‘Yes, of course. He killed Mia; I’m going to kill him. Well when I say kill, I mean gut him like a fish, in the slowest, most painful way possible.’

‘But, she tried to kill me. Seth was just protecting me,’ I protested, feebly, pain ripping through my chest.

‘I know that love, but still, I can’t let him get away with it. I’ve been wondering for ages how I could get to him. I thought about just walking into the fort, but he is so closely woven round you, there was no way I’d ever get close enough to him. I thought about shifting into a bug or something and crawling into your room, but you can’t carry a knife with you when you’re a tiny spider.

Then I came up with this brilliant plan, but still I had to wait for the opportunity. James managed to get a job as a helicopter pilot for the Oraculum. I’ve paid him very well for his involvement in this. When James told me he had taken you to the Oraculum, I knew this was the only chance I’d get.’

I shook my head in confusion. ‘But I’m not going to help you, you can do what you like to me, but I’m never going to help you kill him.’

‘Oh but you will, just not in the way you imagine.’ Sophia stood up and walked to the other side of the room. She brought back with her a tray of needles, filled with an array of different coloured liquids.

‘This one,’ she held up a needle with pale yellow liquid inside, ‘was a mistake. I was trying to perfect my shape shifting kick start and I discovered a rather useful side effect. When I inject this into your throat it will temporarily freeze your voice box. You will be unable to speak or make any sound for the six hours it takes for the drugs to wear off. That means you won’t be able to warn your beloved or anyone of my intentions.’

She placed it back on the tray and picked up one with thick blue liquid in it. ‘You’ve already had a dose of this. I bought this off someone who supplies the Putarians. It quite simply blocks your powers. Your Guardians will still be able to feel you, but you won’t be able to call them, or use any of your little tricks to try and stop me.’

I thought about how I disintegrated the Reapers; how the earth had shook with my powers, they were a bit more than little tricks.

‘I’ll top you up with that before we go, and this.’ Her eyes lit up as she picked up one of the two purple needles. ‘Is my masterpiece. When injected with this, it allows the shape shifter to change to whatever they want. Once you’ve shifted, you are stuck like that for about eight hours. This is what is going to get me close to Seth. Watch.’

I watched as she injected herself in the neck with the liquid and all I kept thinking was please let it kill her, let her have made some mistake and it poisons her. Her face suddenly started to melt, like a bowl of jelly, it quivered then changed and seconds later I was staring at my own face, my doppelganger. I felt sick.

‘You see, it’s brilliant,’ said my doppelganger, in my exact voice. ‘Predominantly I’ve used this drug to change into any animal of choice, because animals are much easier to shift into. People are quite tricky to do, but I’ve figured out how. With a little bit of your blood, I’ve adapted the drug to change me into you. As soon as I step off the helicopter, Seth will take me in his murderous arms, and as soon as we are alone in your bedroom, I will kill him. The best part will be, he won’t even try to defend himself because it will be you killing him. The last thing he will see before he dies will be his beloved girlfriend murdering him and he’ll never find out why. Genius!’

My stomach shifted horribly, threatening to throw up what I had just eaten. The prophecy I’d had the week before of me killing Seth. It hadn’t been me at all, it had been Sophia. My mouth was dry as I tried to find my voice. ‘Please, kill me instead, I’m the reason Mia is dead. And if you kill me you’ll get the bounty, you’ll be rich. Please this isn’t Seth’s fault it’s mine,’ I begged.

Sophia shook her head. ‘I have no reason to kill you, an eye for an eye, my love.’ She suddenly reached forward and stabbed me with the pale yellow needle, before I’d even had a chance to move.

‘No please…’ I started but I felt an immediate tightening in my throat and the protests, the pleas, dried up before they could be heard. I tried to speak, to shout to scream, but no sound came out.

She picked up the blue one next and jabbed that into my arm, releasing the blue liquid into my flesh. A wave of grogginess consumed me, but I fought against it.

She picked up the purple one, and held it up to the light. ‘This will hurt Eve, there’s no two ways about it. When you shift for the first few times, it’s a killer. All your cells break down, your skin melts, you grow or shrink, your hair and your nails grow too. It’s agonizing and I wish there was some other way round this, I really do, but you need to be there so that the Guardians can sense you on that helicopter. When we get off they will sense you, see me and presume that I’m you. Most Deus are a bit thick and they won’t look that closely. And we can’t really have two Eves walking into the fort; that will kind of give the game away. This has the blood of one of my nieces, so you will change into her.’

She advanced on me and I wriggled round in my chair. I just needed one hand free and I could punch her. She went to grab my head but I jerked away, crashing hard against the floor. As I hit the ground, I managed to break one hand free of its bonds and I slammed my fist down on her foot. Sophia leapt back, yelping in shock. I rolled to my feet, the chair sticking up behind me like the spikes of a hedgehog. I forced myself up and with the arm still bound to the chair, I swung it round towards her face, where it smashed into her head. She fell to the floor with a cry. As I tried to disentangle my bound arm from the wreck of the chair I felt something hard and painful connect with my eye, causing me to sprawl onto the floor. I looked up into the rather large figure of James, looming over me. But I wasn’t going to give in yet. My sparring with Zach had taught me that I should never give up.

I sprang up onto my feet, but the drugs to suppress my powers were now making me dizzy and I staggered a bit. The remnants of the broken chair were still attached to my arm and I swung it round trying to catch James, but he grabbed the end of the chair and yanked me to him, connecting his fist hard with my face again. I couldn’t move back as he had the chair still firmly in his grasp, so I grabbed his hand and bit it hard and kneed him in the stomach. He doubled over in pain just as Sophia staggered to her feet. Still trapped by the half of chair that James was clinging too, I kicked out backwards to hit Sophia in the ribs. I twisted round to punch her in the face but being held by my leash meant she was just out of my reach. I felt a jerk on my leash and my legs were kicked out from under me by James, and I hit the floor again. His arms were around me, holding me tight to the floor. I kicked and wriggled against him, smacking him round the head with the remnants of the chair that were still attached to me, but he held me fast. Sophia was suddenly at my side, stabbing me hard with the purple needle, right into my throat.

And Sophia was right. A few seconds after, the agonizing pain ripped through me, as my body fizzed, quivered and melted. If I could have screamed, it would have been torturous.

James released me as I shuddered and writhed on the cold floor. Sophia stood up, tenderly touching her head, where I was pleased to see, I’d actually drawn blood.

‘Eve, I really have no ill will against you, you didn’t have to make it as hard as all this.’ Sophia shook her head. ‘But I understand why you did it. Love is a ridiculous thing, you will do anything for those that you love, which is why I have to kill Seth for Mia.’ She disappeared from view for a second as the agony slowly subsided. She came back dabbing her head with a cloth, and holding a mirror up to my face. Except it wasn’t my face that stared back at me, it was the face of a pretty blonde, about two or three years older than me. Little freckles peppered my nose, and bright blue eyes stared out of a frightened angry face.

This filled me with the tiniest, fraction of hope. This face was far prettier than my old face, if I got out the helicopter at the same time as Sophia, Seth might look at me for one second, might pass me one admiring glance and then he might, somehow see me hiding inside.

‘It’s quite remarkable isn’t it, the power of my drugs. I’m very proud of it.’ Sophia grinned, then she turned back to James. ‘Get the helicopter ready.’

I watched as she walked back over to where we had been sitting before, picked up the black twisted knife and tucked it into her jeans. She picked up my sweater, that she had obviously removed when I was still unconscious, and pulled it on, then grabbing my red converse trainers off my feet and shoving her own feet into them, the look was complete.

James came back in as I struggled to get off the floor.

‘I’ll get her some shoes, put her in the helicopter and tie her up,’ Sophia instructed.

James grabbed me painfully by the arm and pulled me up onto my feet, I staggered against him, the pain in my body still present, mixing with the drugs she had used to suppress my powers. He dragged me to the door, and I took one last look at Quinn, before I was forced out into the bright sunshine, the helicopter’s rotor blades creating a downdraft as they span. James half lifted, half dragged me through the door of the helicopter, and threw me unceremoniously into the seat. I tried to push him away as he tied me to the chair, but it was as feeble as a kitten fighting against a bear, I had no strength in me now. I looked up at him with pleading eyes, silently begging him to help me.

‘It’s no good looking at me like that, my darling,’ James said, in a rough, raspy voice, a grin suddenly filling his face. ‘Seven million pounds is not something I’m going to turn down in a hurry.’ He turned and climbed into the pilot’s seat. So she was going to kill me anyway, she had persuaded James to help, with the promise of the full bounty as reward. She would get her revenge on Seth and then she’d kill me to pay James. Still, in a world with no Seth, with Seth tortured and brutally murdered, death would be welcome.

Sophia got onto the helicopter, and knelt at my feet to put a pair of old trainers on me. I feebly tried to kick her away, but she just laughed at me. As soon as the trainers were on my feet, she sat down in the seat opposite me, buckling herself into it.

The helicopter took off. I closed my eyes. If I could get angry again, if I could recreate the moment in my head when Clementine died, I could disintegrate her. The image was an easy one to recall, it had replayed in my mind many times since my return from the Reapers. Every detail captured forever on the insides of my eyelids. I watched the Reapers drill into Clementine’s skull with the laser, watched as Izri begged me to help Clementine, watched as Clementine died. But I couldn’t recreate the anger I had felt, because I knew how this memory turned out. It ended with her dying and the only emotion I could find as I watched her die was an all-consuming grief, and now that grief was joined with the sickening fear of losing Seth. But that had been the very thing that had ignited my powers before, the fear of losing the other half of my heart.

I suddenly opened my eyes as a sharp pain shot through my hand. I looked down and realised I had been clenching my fist so hard, that I had actually drawn blood in the palm of my hand. The grogginess was wearing off now, but the inability to reach my powers remained.

I looked across at Sophia, but she was looking out the window at the snowy peaks below. I pushed with my fingers around the wound causing more blood to seep out. I pushed and prodded the cut until my whole hand was covered in blood. I saw the fort up ahead, and the helicopter started slowly descending towards it. I quickly shifted down in my seat, wriggled my hand up as far as I could reach and bent double to wipe my hand all over my face and in my hair. I might not be able to attract Seth with my beauty, but a girl covered in blood would certainly raise someone’s attention.