Touch of Death (16 page)

“No. Ophi can’t have non-Ophi children. If you had a baby outside of age twenty-five and without its birth occurring under Ophiuchus’ sign, the baby would die the second it took its first breath.”

“What? Why?” This just kept getting worse.

“Babies feed off their mothers. The child would have your Gorgon blood in its veins. Without being Ophi, the baby would die.”

“But wait. My mom’s not Ophi. If only Ophi people can have Ophi children, how do you explain me?”

He looked at me, raising his brows. I shrugged. “What?”

“You can’t think of where you got your Gorgon blood from? Anyone else who might have passed it down to you?”

“My dad?” I’d never met my father. I didn’t even know his name. “You’re telling me my dad’s Ophi?”

“He has to be.”

“But how is my mom alive then? Wouldn’t he have killed her when they—” I couldn’t bring myself to finish that sentence.

“How old is your mom?”

“Why?” I couldn’t help getting a little defensive. People always made comments about how young Mom was. It wasn’t anyone’s business that she’d been a teen mother. The reason I ended up being homeschooled for most of my life was to avoid the heckling in school, mostly from other parents.

“I’m going to guess thirty-three or thirty-four. I bet your dad was the same age because he couldn’t have come into his powers when he and your mom… got together.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve kissed guys before, right?”

I crossed my arms, hugging myself. “I don’t see why you need to know that.”

“Come on. Don’t be a prude. You’re seventeen. You’re hot. You’ve kissed guys.”

I was hot?

“Oh, don’t look so shocked. You own mirrors. None of those guys died because you hadn’t fully come into your powers yet. It usually happens around sixteen, but your mom’s not Ophi. Her blood is in your veins, diluting the Gorgon blood your dad gave you. And his blood wasn’t fully Ophi yet either, so that might have something to do with it.”

“Wow, that’s a lot to take in.” I sighed. “I guess it’s good I’m coming with you. I’ll be able to meet others like me. It must be harder for half-Ophi to get used to their power, right?”

“I wouldn’t know. No other Ophi has ever had one human parent. You’re the only one. And if the prophecy about your birth is correct, that makes you the Chosen One.”

My insides tightened. How could I be the only Ophi this had ever happened to? “Chosen for what?”

“To save the Ophi race.”

Chapter 15

“Whoa!” I put my hands against the glove compartment to steady myself, but all it did was hurt my cut hands. “Save the Ophi race? You have to be kidding me. Tell me this is some new kid initiation or something.”

“Sorry, Jodi.” Alex glanced at me quickly before turning down yet another road. “Believe me, after everything you’ve been through—today alone—I wouldn’t joke about something like this. I hate to dump all of this on you at once, but I’m trying to answer your questions as honestly as I can.”

“I appreciate that, but why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”

“How would you have reacted if the first time we met I’d said, ‘By the way, you’re the only Ophi of your kind and that means you need to save the rest of our sorry behinds from Hades’?”

I turned to him. “From Hades? What do you mean from Hades? You said he made sure there aren’t too many Ophi by controlling how we’re created, when we can be born. What else does he want from us?” I was surprised how easily I was saying “us,” accepting that I was one of them. It felt surreal and strangely comforting at the same time.

“Some Ophi overuse their powers. Bring back people and things that shouldn’t be brought back. Hades doesn’t like that. He tracks them down.”

“You mean kills them.”

“Yes. And it’s not pleasant. Hades makes them relive the deaths of every person they brought back.”

I felt the bile in my stomach churn and threaten to come up. I lowered my window and stuck my head out into the freezing cold night air. I couldn’t help thinking about Hades being upset with me for all my accidental raisings. The deer, the squirrel, Matt. If Hades took my life and made me pay for all of them, I’d have to endure the torture of getting hit by a car, having a hammer smash my head in, and drowning by poison blood. Right now, Zeus and his lightning bolt were looking pretty good.

I finally pulled my head back inside the car. “Feel any better?”

“Not really. But I think your leather seats are safe for the time being. Still, I’ll leave the window open for a while, just in case.”

“Much appreciated.”

“How do we know who we are supposed to bring back and who we’re not, anyway?” I had to know how much of a problem I’d created for myself with Hades.

“Mostly, Hades doesn’t want us bringing souls back from the depths of the underworld, a place called Tartarus—the lowest level of Hell. And believe me, you don’t want to do that anyway. It’s the scariest thing you’ll ever see. Those souls are so tortured that shoving them back into their bodies is hideous and extremely dangerous. They’re completely wild and animalistic. It takes a lot of concentration and power to control them.”

“Why would someone do it then? If it’s so difficult and it puts you on Hades’ target list, why do it?”

“I can’t really answer that for you.” I was glad about that. If he had given me a good reason, I’d have thought I was trapped in a speeding car with a raging psycho. “The souls Ophi raise are usually in limbo or in some other part of the underworld where they aren’t being tortured. They’re still difficult to control, but it’s nowhere near as bad.”

I swallowed hard, not wanting to think about raising anything.

“Look, the drive is going to take a while and it’s getting late. I know my parents are going to want to show you around and start on your training the second we get there, so you should probably recline your seat and get some sleep.”

I wasn’t entirely comfortable with that idea. I mean, I didn’t know Alex, not really. Sure he’d saved my mom, which was the only reason I could hold it together right now after I’d been ripped from my life. But did I trust him enough to make myself that vulnerable? He carried a knife.

“Hey, why do you carry a knife? I thought only serial killers kept weapons on them at all times.”

“Serial killers and Boy Scouts. I was a Scout when I was younger. Well, the Ophi equivalent, at least. I wasn’t around humans much growing up.”

Alex didn’t have a normal life—ever. Not that my life had been so normal. Teen mom, homeschooling, and then the transformation to an Ophi. “What was it like growing up around other Ophi and not around humans?”

“Don’t go feeling sorry for me, Jodi. I never knew any differently. To me, my life is normal.”

“You can’t miss what you never had and all that?” I wasn’t buying it. “Were you ever around humans? I mean, you knew about the Scouts, so you must have been exposed to humans at least a little bit. Like the Ophi at Serpentarius.”

“Yeah, some. Mom and Dad used to make me watch TV. They said it was research. I could learn about humans without actually being around them. And every once in a while, one of my instructors would take me on a field trip. Somewhere not too crowded, where I could observe humans. As I got older, I had to keep a safe distance.” His voice trailed off, and his eyes glassed over. “I talked to a girl once. She was maybe a year younger than me. She was sitting on a bench in the park. It was early morning, and not too many people were there. My instructor got a phone call and told me to sit on a bench and wait for him. I did, but I stared at the girl, and she noticed me. She told me it wasn’t nice to stare at people. That I should say ‘hi.’” I guessed he never learned to take her advice because he’d done the exact same thing to me. “But I’d never talked to a human before, let alone a pretty one. She came over and sat with me. My instructor didn’t notice because he was still talking on the phone. I tried to get his attention a few times, but I finally gave up and talked to the girl.” He stopped, gripping the steering wheel in both hands.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. It’s none of my business really. I was just curious.” I fidgeted in my seat, putting my feet on top of my bag like a footrest.

Alex swallowed so hard I heard it. “She told me her birthday was coming up, and the one thing she really wanted more than anything else was a first kiss.”

My heart pounded as I put the situation together in my head. I knew what was coming, yet it didn’t make it any easier to hear.

“I’d kissed a few Ophi girls by then, so I thought I’d give this girl her wish. I didn’t know I was coming into my powers already. All my training so far had been preliminary, preparing me so I knew how to control my powers once they came to me. So, I kissed her. When we pulled away, I wished her a happy birthday. But before she could respond, she slumped forward in my lap. I was terrified. I looked for my instructor, but he was gone. He’d walked off to make his call more private.”

I reached over and touched his hand on the wheel. He jerked his hand, making the car swerve to the right in the process. I braced myself, sure we were going to crash into a telephone pole, but Alex quickly got the car back in our lane.

“I knew my powers were working,” he continued as if nothing had happened. “I held her in my arms and tried as hard as I could to bring her back. Only, it didn’t work. I screwed it up, and she came back wrong.”

“Like Matt,” I said.

Alex looked at me for the first time since beginning his story. “Yes, like Matt. Only I’d had training. I was supposed to know how to control my powers.”

“Alex, you—”

He floored the gas, and I took the hint. I shut up. He didn’t say anything for a few minutes, but then he picked right up where he’d left off. “When my instructor found us, he sent me away. Told me to get in the car and wait for him. He killed her. And after that, I wasn’t allowed to go on any more field trips. My parents made me study and train twice as hard.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, at the risk of making him angry again; I couldn’t help it. I
was
sorry. I understood how he’d felt. And now I knew that, no matter how much time passed, I’d never get over what I had done to Matt. Bringing someone back wrong was devastating. I didn’t need the details of what that girl had done when Alex had brought her back to life. Without asking, I knew what she’d been like.

“It made me stronger, Jodi. Just like all you’ve had to deal with will make you stronger.”

There wasn’t much left to say after that, so I reclined my seat and closed my eyes. It was strange that a story like that would make me feel I could trust Alex. But it did. It made him almost human. Even though I was technically Ophi, I was still more comfortable with humans.

When I woke up, the clock on the dashboard said 2:15. I looked around. We were stopped at a gas station. Alex was at the pump. I rubbed my eyes, making sure there wasn’t any sleep in the corners of them. I really needed to stretch my legs, so I stepped out of the car.

“Morning,” Alex said. “The bathrooms aren’t the cleanest, but they work if you want to go inside.” He pointed to the convenience store behind me.

“How much farther do we have to go?” We’d been driving for hours already.

“Not much. If you’re worried about,” he lowered his voice, “being around humans in there, you might want to wait.”

Worried about being around humans. It seemed absurd. I’d been around them all my life, but that was back when I thought I was one of them. Now? I nodded my head and got back in the car. We were on the road again before long. Alex kept glancing at me like he was trying to make sure I wasn’t going to fall apart.

“You sleep well?”

“I guess. I’m still tired, though.”

“I’ll ask my parents if the training can wait a little longer, so you can get some rest once we get to the school. I’m sure they’ve had your room made up for you for months.”

I turned to him, studying his face. “When exactly were you supposed to bring me back?”

“When you came into your powers.”

“So, we’re right on time then?”

“Not according to my father’s standards.” He sounded annoyed and a little scared at the same time.

“What do you mean?”

“Dad thinks I should’ve convinced you to come with me the second you came into your powers. When you brought the deer back to life.”

I nodded. Of course he’d been there for that. He’d been following me for months. “Then why didn’t you?”

“I was going to introduce myself to you right when it happened. But your neighbor pulled over to help you, and then your mom showed up.” My heart clenched at the mention of Mom. “I had to wait. So, I watched you in school. I figured it was good for you to hear Mr. Quimby’s lecture on Ophiuchus and the Gorgon blood anyway. Of course by that time, you’d already—”

“Killed Nurse Steingall.” God, this past week had been a nightmare.

“When I told my parents what happened, they were furious. They told me to get you and bring you back that night, no matter what it took.”

“Is that why you showed up at Alberto’s looking so angry?”

He nodded. “I wasn’t angry with you. I was angry with myself. Nurse Steingall’s death is on my head, not yours. You had no idea what your powers could do or that you even had them. It was my job to tell you. And I failed.”