Chapter 13
I stood there silent in the empty streets that had once been packed with buzzing cars and people. The air was as cold as death, my breath puffed out in a cloud. I was shivering and shaking, but I wasn’t sure if that was from the cold or from my nerves. My stomach felt like it had been punched; the wind knocked out of me. Shock was seeping in, and I’m pretty sure I would have stood there in silence forever if Nicholas hadn’t brought me back to reality.
“Gemma.” His voice was soft—cautious—as if he could sense something was up.
I glanced down at his hand still holding mine, and then I looked up at him. “What?”
“Are you okay?” he asked. “You’ve been standing there staring at whatever it is you’re seeing for over five minutes now.”
I swallowed hard. “I…um…” I didn’t know what to say to him.
“What is it?” Nicholas glanced around, even though he couldn’t see anything. It is a rule of seeing visions: only the seer can see the vision. To Nicholas everything looked blank and empty.
Lucky him.
I wanted to erase what I was looking at from my mind. Wipe it away forever.
Even though it was day, the sky was gray, and blanketed by a frosty sheet of ice. A gust of wind swept up, chilling the back of my legs. I turned around, staring at the frozen, vacant streets. There were no cars. No people. No nothing. It was as if everyone had known what was coming and had tried to take cover somewhere.
“Gemma?” Nicholas said. I’d almost forgotten he was there. “What’s going on?”
I shook my head, trying to pull myself together.
Nicholas could not know what I was seeing, that was for sure. “It’s nothing.”
He raised his eyebrows at me. “If it’s nothing, then why do you look like you just saw someone die?” I swallowed the lump in my throat, taking my hand out of his. “No. It’s nothing like that. It’s just that…,” Think, Gemma, think, “It’s just that there’s nothing here. We’re just in the middle of the desert, so I don’t get it.”
“Well, I told you to think of something simple, didn’t I? So I guess it worked”
I gave a shrug. “I guess, but I thought—” A loud shriek shattered the air and cut me off. The sound echoed through the empty streets, vibrating the ice like an earthquake. Every limb in my body seized up as I became aware of what that shriek belonged to. And as the fog crept out from a nearby building, swirling its way toward me, I started to panic, even though I knew I couldn’t be seen by them.
“I-I think we should go,” I stuttered.
Nicholas frowned at me. “Gemma, where did you take us?”
“I-I already told you,” I stammered, my eyes locked on the fog crawling toward my feet, “we’re in the middle of the desert.”
“No, we’re not,” he said, following my gaze. “What do you see?”
“Nothing.” I said as a cluster of Death Walkers emerged from the glass doors of a nearby building.
Stay calm. Stay calm. “Can we just go back to the house? Please.”
Nicholas watched me, the weight of his sandy eyes nearly burning into my skin. “You know whatever’s out there can’t harm you, right?”
I looked at the Death Walkers, the glow of their yellow eyes reflecting across the ice like fireflies, their black cloaks trailing along behind them with a swoosh. “Yeah…I know, but I…”
“You what?”
The Death Walkers were so close now that I could make out their faces—the rotting flesh, the bits of and pieces of bone showing through their skin like a corpse. The sight almost made me gag.
I blinked my eyes a few times, trying to blink us away, but it didn’t work. “Nicholas please,” I begged.
“Take us back.”
Nicholas tapped his finger on his lip, glancing in the direction of the Death Walkers. “I don’t think so.
Whatever’s scaring you, I think you should face it. It’ll be good practice for when we go to The Underworld.” I glared at him, my heart thumping in my chest, which seemed to match the thumping of the Death Walkers march. The closer they got, the more the fog twisted around us, spinning in circles, clouding my vision in a menacing way. Closer, closer, closer they marched. I held my breath as they went by me, one by one, glaciating the air with their chill. My breath rose out in a puff, as my teeth chattered. I held as still as a statue, my muscles tensing up when one of the Death Walker’s shoulders went through mine.
“Gemma,” Nicholas said, oblivious to what was going on. “What are you doing?”
“Be quiet.” I breathed through my teeth, and then tried not to freak out when one of the Death Walker’s glowing eyes landed right on me.
I held my breath until they all had passed and disappeared around the corner of the street. I didn’t relax, though. I wouldn’t relax until we got the heck out of here.
I let out my breath, about to ask if we could go, but I stopped when I caught sight of someone else emerging from the building. Stephan. And beside him was Demetrius. Without even thinking, I jumped toward Nicholas, bumping my shoulder into his.
He grabbed his shoulder. “What are you—”
“Shhh,” I hissed.
Standing out in the middle of the icy street, I felt vulnerable with Stephan and Demetrius walking toward me. Demetrius’s Death-Walker-like cloak swished behind him, and Stephan, dressed all in black, held something shiny and silver in his hand…
The Sword of Immortality.
“I wish you wouldn’t carry that around,” Demetrius said to Stephan. “It makes me nervous.”
“It makes me nervous when I’m not carrying it around,” Stephan replied. “It’s the one thing that could end all of this.” He gestured around at the frozen, desolate street.
“Yes, but who is left to get a hold of it?” Demetrius asked with a laugh. “The ice killed everyone off who was still left around.”
“There are a few Keepers around who might try.” Stephan held up the sword, twisting it in his hand as he examined it, the jagged blade hitting the light sharply. “Do you remember when Octavian made this after the vision was first seen?”
Demetrius laughed. “He was so convinced that if he created it, I would never be able to pull of what he’d saw. Too bad for him, he didn’t see you.”
“Well, that was the doing of my parents.” Stephan touched the jagged scar on his left cheek. “Thinking if they cut off the mark, it would change things—change who I was. But they couldn’t change the blood that runs through my veins, could they?”
The scar on Stephan cheek was a mark that had been cut off by his parents? I cringed at the idea, and then cringed again at the idea of what kind of mark would make a parent cut their child’s face just to get rid of it.
Stephan and Demetrius were close to Nicholas and me now, their footsteps hitting the ice with a dull thud.
“The Mark of Malefiscus is a gift,” Demetrius told Stephan. “My parents seemed to understand this.”
“Yes, but your parents weren’t Keepers,” Stephan replied bitterly. “Mine were. And to have a child who bore the Mark of Malefiscus was a disgrace in their eyes.”
“Malefiscus’s mark is not a disgrace.” Demetrius said to Stephan as they walked by us, and I had to turn so that I could keep my eyes on them. “It’s a gift.
We have been chosen since birth—since before birth to free him and everyone else who was bound by his sentencing.”
“And now we have,” Stephan said thoughtfully as he lightly traced his finger down his scar.
“Yes, and now we have,” Demetrius agreed.
“Gemma,” Nicholas said so abruptly that he scared the crap out of me and I screamed.
I flung my hand over my mouth, breathing heavily.
And that’s when it happened. Stephan stopped, his head tilting to the side as he glance over his shoulder.
“Nicholas,” I whispered. “You need to get us out of here. Right now.”
Nicholas gave me a look, and I could tell immediately that it was going to be a pain in the butt to get him to cooperate. “I don’t know about that,” he said “I think before I do, you should explain to me what’s got you freaked out.”
I looked at Stephan who seemed to be looking right at me. Fear pulsated through my body. “I will, okay, just as soon as we get back.”
Nicholas dithered, and I wanted to smack him right across his pretty-boy faerie face. “I don’t know. I kind of like being out here alone with you.”
“Nicholas,” I shouted. “Get us out of here. Now!” Glancing over at Stephan, I saw he was walking toward us, swiftly moving across the ice.
“What are you doing?” Demetrius called out.
Stephan didn’t reply, still heading at us, as if he knew we were there. But how could he? It wasn’t how visions worked.
I grabbed Nicholas by the arm, my eyes pleading.
“There is someone in this vision that I’m pretty sure can either see or sense that we’re here. And if he can, then it’s very, very bad.”
I thought he’d argue with me and say that no one in visions could see the vision seer, but instead, to my surprise, he grabbed my hand, looking rather anxious.
“Okay, let’s go.”
I casted one last glance at Stephan, who was now charging at us full speed with the Sword of Immortality clutched in his hand. He was so close that I could see the darkness in his eyes and the roughness of his scar.
“Nicholas…” I said as Stephan reached out for me.
I opened my mouth to scream and then everything went black.