Touch of Death (28 page)

“I’m well aware of what occurred in the cemetery today.” Victoria’s eyes bored into me, and I knew she was talking about the kiss. “I’m also aware of the fact that you are the Chosen One. And whether you are ready or not, we must call on you to perform your duty to us.”

There was no “if I was ready. I wasn’t. But that didn’t seem to matter to anyone.

Chapter 26

“So, what, you’re going to ship me off to Washington? Just like that?”

“You wouldn’t go alone,” Victoria said.

“I’ll go.” Alex stood up, finally untangling his arm from Abby’s. She stared at him in disbelief before she turned and gave me the evil eye.

“Alex, sit,” Victoria said. “If Jodi needs an escort, either Troy or I will accompany her.”

I stood up and leaned forward with my hands resting on the table for support. “It’s not that I need an escort. I’ve never tried to bring Ophi back to life once their souls have left their bodies. I’m not even sure how to do it. I had help bringing Abby back. Medusa walked me through it. This is so much bigger than that. I just started my training a few days ago. How can you ask me to do something this huge? If it’s Hades claiming these Ophi, then they must have done something to upset him and make him come after them.” The words poured out of my mouth.

Alex nodded. “She’s right. You can’t ask her to do this. It’s too dangerous. You’d be making her a target for Hades, and if he takes her next, we’re all doomed.”

I was so grateful for his support. I needed someone on my side.

Leticia slammed her fist down on the table and stood up. “I don’t care if Hades does make her a target. My parents are dead.” She turned to me. “You are the only one who has the power to bring them back. You have to do it. Why else are you here, if not to help us?”

My heart broke for her. I knew what it felt like to lose a parent, and she’d lost two. “Leticia, I get it. I do. Before I came here, I accidentally killed my mom. I cut myself making dinner, and she touched my blood. She was trying to help me, and it got her killed. If Alex hadn’t been there to bring her back, I—”

“You got her back. She’s alive because Alex brought her back. I’m asking you to do the same for me. Bring my parents back. Please, Jodi.” Her whole body shook, and I wanted nothing more than to give in and save her parents.

“No,” Alex said. “By the time we get Jodi to Washington, their souls will have moved on. We have no idea what we’d be bringing back. We might be creating more servants, only these would be Ophi.” He shook his head, focusing on Leticia. “How would you handle seeing your parents like the servants? Nothing more than shells of who they were?”

Leticia turned to Randy, who had stood up at her side. She buried her face in his chest.

“I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say. “I wish there was something I could do.”

Victoria cleared her throat. “Let’s take a break. We need to think of a plan. A way to save us from being attacked by Hades. And we need to learn more about Jodi’s powers, how she can raise Ophi, and what the timeframe is on raising them. Leticia,” she paused, waiting for Leticia to peel herself away from Randy. “Leticia, if we find a way to bring them back—as they were—Jodi will do it.”

“Yes, I will.” I nodded. I wanted to help. I really did. I couldn’t bear to see Leticia hurting like this. And to think I was heartbroken over not being able to talk to my mom right now. At least she was alive.

Victoria clapped her hands. “Then it’s settled. We’ll form another plan. For right now, life continues as usual. Everyone is to report to your afternoon lessons.” I looked at my watch. Ugh, Alex and I had trained right through lunch. Victoria left the room and everyone else slowly followed. Everyone but Alex.

“Thanks for sticking up for me,” I said. “I kind of thought after what happened… well, I don’t know what I thought.”

“Listen, I can’t talk long right now. Victoria said I had to report to Troy for training.”

“Who’s training me then?”

“Quinn. He’s pretty good. You’ll like him.”

“But—” Alex didn’t let me ask any more questions. He ran off.

Afternoon training with Quinn was rough. He wasn’t exactly nice, despite what Alex had said. But I was getting better at raising multiple bodies. I was up to three when a few others joined us—Bristol, Molly, Erik, and Damon. They had all grown up in the Ophi world, and it was really obvious that they weren’t happy about my decision not to try to raise the dead Ophi. As soon as dinnertime rolled around, I got out of there. I ran into the house, bumping right into Alex.

“Hey,” I said, happy to see him.

He looked around like he was making sure we were the only two people in the foyer. “I want you to know that Victoria told me I was compromising things by getting too close to you. She told me to pull away. To make it seem like I was interested in Abby.” He scoffed. “As if I could ever be interested in her. But, please believe me. I was only doing what Victoria told me to.” He was telling the truth; I could tell by the tortured look in his eyes. “I have to go. If we walk into the dining room together, I’ll get another lecture from Victoria.”

I nodded and flashed him a quick smile. “Alex,” I called before he disappeared down the hall. “I believe you.”

He smiled and walked off, leaving me alone in the foyer.

This time I was the one who skipped dinner. After that meeting and the awkward afternoon of training, I was in no mood to chat and eat with everyone. Besides, I had better ways to occupy the next hour. With everyone in the dining room, I was free to find out more about my dad. I had to know what happened to him. Alex couldn’t remember if my dad had ever been here, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. If Dad had trained here like most Ophi did, he could’ve left when Alex was a baby. I needed to find some sign that he’d been here. Maybe they kept records of the people who studied here.

I grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl in the living room and went up to the library, which was completely empty. No servants re-shelving books and no lights on. Perfect, and there was an entire floor between me and everyone else. I found the light switch on the wall and flicked it on. The room was huge, and there were books everywhere. Something told me they didn’t follow the Dewey Decimal System either. I sat down at a computer in the center of the room and searched the system for books about Medusa’s descendents, the Chosen One, and prophecies. I got a stack of books and began flipping through them, but they were all old. Too old to tell me anything about my dad.

I went back to the computer and tried something else. I clicked out of the library catalogue and searched the hard drive. I looked for files about students, teachers, anything with names of people who had been here. I didn’t come up with anything. The computer was a dead end. I walked to the back of the library and found a filing cabinet. I didn’t think anyone actually filed things anymore. Why would you when you could store things in a computer?

I pulled on the handle, but the drawer wouldn’t budge. Locked. I had the worst luck. I looked around for something to use to pick the lock. The shelves to my right were metal, and there was a pin sticking out of the end. I pulled it out. It just might work. I had no idea how to pick a lock, so I stuck the pin in the keyhole and jiggled it around. Every so often I’d tug on the handle to see if it worked. Nothing. I wasn’t any good at the stealthy stuff.

“Need a little help?”

I whipped my head around. Alex stood with his arms crossed. I let out a sigh.

“I never pegged you for the breaking and entering type.”

“Well, since I’m neither breaking nor entering, I guess you were right.” I stood up and slammed my hand down on the filing cabinet.

“Here, let me try.” Alex reached for the metal pin in my hand, completely taking me off guard. He didn’t even know what I was looking for. Why would he help me, no questions asked? He fiddled with the lock for a few seconds. “What are you looking for anyway?”

Ah, now that was more like it. “I want to know more about my dad. He must have come here. At least for a little while, to train. So, there must be something here that will tell me more about him. Anything. I don’t even know his name, and with everything that’s going on with the Ophi and Hades, I just need my family. I can’t even call my mom. I feel so alone. Leticia and the others want me to save the Ophi, and you’re the only one who even thought about what doing that might mean for me. I need this. No matter how small. I need to find something. Something I can hold on to.” I was losing it. Again.

Alex wrapped his arms around me. “You have me. You’re not alone. I don’t care what Victoria and Troy say. I’m here for you. I won’t let you go through this alone.”

I raised my head, tilting it back to see him. He really was all I had now. “Alex, I—” How could I thank him for being here for me? For going against his family? I stretched up on my toes and pressed my lips to his. He kissed me back, and for a moment I forgot about everything that was going on. I let it all slip away. The only thing I allowed myself to think about was Alex.

A few minutes later, we both pulled away, completely breathless. “All right, well, this filing cabinet seems to be locked tight. How about we look somewhere else?”

“I checked everywhere else already. This is my last shot. At least in here, anyway.”

He took a deep breath and squatted down in front of the filing cabinet. “Then I guess we make this thing open up, one way or another.” He maneuvered the pin in the keyhole and then looked around the library. “I need something else to slip in the lock with this. Something wider.”

“What about your pocketknife? Will the blade work?”

“It might.” He whipped it out and slipped it into the lock with the pin. He wiggled both around, and I heard a click. Without hesitating, I grabbed the handle and tugged. The drawer slid open.

“I could kiss you right now!”

“I wouldn’t object.” He gave me a sly smile.

“Tell you what, let’s see what’s in here before everyone finishes dinner. Then we’ll talk about that kiss.”

I could tell he was trying not to look disappointed, but he reached into the drawer and pulled out a leather-bound book. “What is that?” I asked.

He opened it. The first few pages were lined with signatures. “These must be Ophi.”

I leaned closer, checking out the names. Only they weren’t just names. “Look. The names have dates next to them.”

“I know what this is.” He didn’t sound happy at all. “This is the death register. When an Ophi dies, his or her name is recorded along with the date.”

I wasn’t sure this was going to be any help after all. I didn’t know my dad’s name. It was part of what I was searching for, and I had no idea if he was alive or dead.

“Do you know anything about your dad? Anything that might help us figure out if his name is in this book?”

I shook my head. “I’ve never even seen my birth certificate, but Mom told me my dad’s name isn’t on it. When he walked out on her, she decided to raise me on her own. As far as she was concerned, I didn’t have a father.”

Alex continued to flip through the names anyway. He didn’t want to give up hope. “Look, this name has an asterisk next to it. Derek Colgan.”

I stared at the name. Derek Colgan. I remembered finding an old yearbook in Mom’s closet. It was from her sophomore year. Her last year in high school. After she had me, she got her GED. She said they’d mailed her a yearbook since she was home with me. “When I was little, Mom used to show me pictures of her classmates. She pointed out all the ones who had made comments about her pregnancy. She even let me draw funny faces on their photos, but one of them was an empty box. There was no picture. I can’t be sure, but I think it could’ve been Derek Colgan. It was close to the beginning of the alphabet, and I remembered making the two E’s in his first name into eyes and the R in between them a nose.” If he was really my father, then he wasn’t raised like Alex. He’d been around humans before he came into his powers.

Alex pointed to the date next to Derek’s name. “January 12—”

“That was only a little over a month after I was born. He was—”

“Seventeen,” Alex said. “No wonder I don’t remember him. I was only a month old.”

“So, my dad’s dead.” I shouldn’t have cared. I mean, I’d never met him, and he’d run out on my mom. Left her pregnant and a single parent. A teen parent. I should’ve been happy he was dead. But I wasn’t. He was my father. My blood.

“At least now you know. You don’t have to wonder anymore.”

I was sure Derek was my dad. I couldn’t explain how I knew it; I just did. It was a feeling I had deep in my blood, but I still didn’t know how he’d died. What if he left my mom because he came into his powers? He might have wanted me, but not have been able to do anything about it. Maybe he stayed away to protect my mom and me. I’d thought I just wanted to know where he was. For closure. But instead, finding out his name and that he’d died right after I was born left me with even more questions.

“Do you want to go for a walk? Clear your head?”

“No.” I took the book from his hands and put it back in the filing cabinet. “I’m tired. It’s been a long day, and I just want to go to sleep.”