“Good. Here we are.”
“Wait.” Zach laid a hand on his arm, stopping him. “I thought you said she wouldn’t remember anything.”
“That’s why it’s curious.” He smiled. “I don’t think it’s anything you need to worry about.”
Famous last words, Zach thought and stepped into the conference room. Only two at the table: Parker and Professor Truebell.
“Zachary.” Truebell stood and held out his hand, smiling.
Zach took it. “Professor.”
“No worse for wear, I see.”
“Tell that to every muscle, joint, and bone in my body.” He gestured around the room. “The four of us, we’re it?”
“For today, yes.”
“No Angel?”
“She’s not ready.”
The comment rankled. More secrets. More need-to-know bullshit. “I see nothing’s changed since the last time I sat across this table from you.”
The elfin Truebell shook his head. “Everything’s changed, Zachary. Sit. Please.”
He did. Parker spoke up. “No hello for me, Zach?”
He looked at him, not masking his anger. “I may have to work with you, Special Agent Parker, but I don’t have to like you. And I sure as hell don’t have to respect you.”
Parker leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “You don’t think that’s a little harsh? And formal, considering we’re family?”
“You lied to me. Manipulated me. You kept your real identity a secret from me.” He arched his eyebrows. “No. Not too harsh. And as for the last part, I don’t have anyone’s word on that but yours.”
“You’ll come around.”
“Don’t count on it.” He shifted his attention back to Truebell. “Why am I here today?”
“You know why.”
“Do I?”
“Are you in,” Truebell asked, “or out?”
He wished he could say he was out, shake this whole experience off, and go back to the life he had known before. But that life was gone forever. “Saturday made a believer out of me.”
Truebell nodded. “You know its destructive power now. You understand our urgency.”
Zach’s head filled with the memory of that power turned on him, his helplessness against it. “Yes.”
“And now you know ours as well.”
He envisioned the explosion of light when the Lightkeepers gathered in force. The howl of rage as the Dark Bearer had been banished.
Darkness cannot exist in the light, Zach.
But it could put up a hell of a fight.
“How many of us were there that night,” Zach asked. “A dozen?”
“More. Fourteen.”
“Fourteen to overcome one? I suppose you’ve noticed those odds suck for us.”
“They do, indeed. So, Zachary, now that you’re a believer and you know the odds, are you with us?”
He held the professor’s gaze. “I’m in. For now.”
Professor Truebell smiled slightly. “Not quite the gung ho response I’d hoped for, but it’ll do. One last thing—” he folded his hands on the table and leaned toward Zach “—I have to have your word. You’ll do what you need to do, concerning Michaela?”
He hated this. She was his partner. Secrets put her in harm’s way.
No, Zach. They make her safer.
He looked at Eli. Get out of my head.
You have to trust us.
I trust her.
“Zachary? Your answer.”
“Yes. I’ll tell her nothing of the Lightkeepers and nothing of the true nature of the events of that night.”
“You won’t regret it.”
He regretted it already. “What’s next?”
“We wait.”
“For what?”
“The Dark Bearer’s return.”