The Tree, Page 7

  Erik had never been allowed the luxury of being a child, but now her grandson was actually acting as an adult. She could see the strain of the transition in the corners of his mouth and the tightness around his eyes. It was a lot, to go from being responsible only for yourself to being on a frontline fight for everyone’s lives. He had minimal training but, from what Hettie was hearing, great instincts.

  “The darkness has already made inroads in our world,” Hettie said with no preamble.

  Matthias’s teacup clattered onto its saucer and Dayida’s hand shook as she took a sip.

  “Where?” Erik asked, his eyes closed.

  “Kiev, Madrid, Morocco, and New York, that I know of so far. The exact location doesn’t matter, because the attacks eat a few people, in one case a building, and disappear soon after. As it is, both the Organization and the Agency are trying to keep it quiet. Everyone wants the answers to be something ‘normal,’ so most are being routine building demolitions. That smokescreen will only last so long, though, and it’s only a matter of time before someone labels one of the incidents a terrorist attack. And then . . .” Hettie trailed off and Erik swallowed. “On top of all that, something more is happening in New York City. Something is picking off people, Blooded and non, at very rapid rates. More than the darkness would account for. In addition, they’ve lost contact with their mirror city—Anoan.”

  “And you didn’t let anyone know about this?” Dayida asked, voice tight.

  Hettie turned to face her daughter. “I let those I trusted in each city know, and they will spread the word to those who need to know,” she answered.

  “How do you even know all this?” Dayida asked, voice raised in challenge.

  Hettie let her power flow to the surface, knew that her irises were changing color from their natural brown to the dark blue-black of deep water, the glow of adapted life sparking and dying randomly in their depths.

  “Where the water flows, I am there. Where it rains, where people cry, even in piss and spit, I am there. I am the waters of life.” Then the power left her eyes and she let out a laugh at their stunned expressions. “I’m kidding. Mostly. I went through all of the cities on my way here. There were things I needed to check on in person, since who knows how long it will be until I am traveling again. I have allies in each, though many of them in New York have gone missing.”

  “Fuck.” Matthias was up and on his phone. They all watched him walk out of the room.

  Hettie let the boy go and turned to Erik. The smile she had for her grandson was always genuine. She had not taken to motherhood, but grandmotherhood she took to like a duck to water. Perhaps it was because she saw more of herself in Erik. The need for something bigger. The embracing of the new and different. She saw herself at eighteen.

  “So, a berserker, but a smart and self-healing one? You get the healing from me, you know. The healing touch has always been my main gift. I don’t know where the other stuff comes from, though. It could be your grandfather.”

  She saw Dayida flinch out of the corner of her eye but plowed on.

  “I always suspected his family was Blooded, but at some point they began rejecting it and replaced it with intense religious fervor. They were quick to talk about witches and unnatural powers. I could never figure out the bloodline though.”

  “They think I inherited it from Robert.”

  Hettie could not help the combination of snort and laugh that escaped her. “Well, at least that boy was good for something in the end.”

  “Oh, he was good for something else too, right Mom?” Erik asked with a pointed look at his mother.

  Dayida glanced back and forth between Hettie and Erik. To Hettie’s eyes it looked like she was trying to decide which one of them she wanted to punch first.

  “Erik, there’s no need to tell her anything,” Dayida said through clenched teeth.

  “Mom. Matthias and I are going to be gone for who knows how long. Someone should know. Someone that’s here with you, and since you’re going to work with Grandma at the Agency, it only makes sense.”

  Dayida looked angry but Erik continued.

  “I’m not telling you what to do, Mama. I’m just saying that you might need someone to know. Just in case.”

  Dayida sighed and nodded, giving in.

  “Mama’s awakened,” Erik said.

  Hettie felt her mouth drop open. Her power came to the front and she centered herself in her body, reading its water. Next, she stretched out and felt for her grandson. There was something of her water in him, though it felt odd, faint and waning. The rest of him felt like pressure and wind and force; an invisible wall of kinetic energy, as if the water in his body were not water at all but lightning. Then she stretched for her daughter, reaching out to read the water in Dayida’s body and she felt heat, a burning so hot that water became steam.

  “Oh my,” Hettie breathed.

  “Don’t be too excited, Hettie, I’m not of your line,” Dayida snapped.

  “I can sense that, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t come from me. I’ve got a couple lines in me, you know. But it could be from your father as well. How has it manifested? What is the bloodline?” Hettie asked in a rush.

  “She doesn’t—”

  “Erik.” Dayida snapped his name in that way all mothers have; a way that said he was treading too close to a line and he was not too big yet.

  Erik went quiet and stood up.

  “I’ll leave you two to discuss it,” he said.

  Hettie gestured at her cheek and Erik gave her a kiss. He leaned over and did the same for his mother before leaving.

  “What don’t you do, Dayida?”

  Dayida sighed. “I don’t know what my powers entail exactly. I’ve been draining them through Robert’s body and now through my painting. I haven’t allowed it to manifest.”

  “Dayida, are you kidding? You know that’s not healthy. The more you deny the power its expression, the stronger the explosion will be when it does come out.” Hettie kept her voice steady but the worry in it was clear, even to herself.

  “I know.”

  “Do you?” Hettie was standing now, though she didn’t round the table or approach her daughter. “You endanger everyone in this house; maybe even in this city. You risk more lives than just your own. Why would you do this?”

  “I saw what the power did to you,” Dayida whispered.

  The answer made Hettie pause before asking.

  “And what exactly did my power do to me?” Hettie felt they were approaching the heart of their issues. She could feel what was coming, like a tidal wave, ready to swallow them both. She could think of thousands of things she would rather do than have this conversation, but this wasn’t about what she wanted; it was about what Dayida needed.

  “It made you kill father,” Dayida answered after a long pause of her own.

  And there it was. The heart of the anger that simmered between them, the reason for the chasm neither crossed. Hettie sighed and lowered her shaking hands to the tabletop. “You know that’s not true. I killed your father because he attacked me; it had nothing to do with my power.”

  “But why?”

  “He went mad.” Hettie bit her bottom lip. She wished she had more to tell her daughter but even almost twenty years later, she had yet to figure out what exactly had happened. One day her Z.J. had been his normal sweet self, and the next he was a rampaging monster, coming at Hettie with a knife.

  To this day, she had no idea what had caused him to go mad, though she suspected the Organization. The Maestro, who had been in charge of San Francisco’s branch, had been a blood purity proponent. He had not liked that the most powerful Blooded in his district was married to someone “so boringly human” as he had said. She had tracked the man down later but he’d died without revealing anything. She was still sure he had known. The arrogance in his eyes, and the tilt on his lips when he died hinted at something. He went to his watery grave proud of himself and that she could barely stand.

/>   “You’re a healer, why couldn’t you heal him?” This came out more wail than question, as if Dayida wasn’t just asking Hettie but the universe itself for the answer. Hettie caught movement outside the room and looked up in time to see Erik ducking back out of the doorway.

  She approached Dayida and sat in the chair next to her.

  “I would have if I could have, but my healing works by understanding, and I didn’t know what was wrong with him.” She moved slowly. Dayida was nervous and there was no telling what could trigger an outburst of power.

  “I’ve spent most of my life learning all I could of the body and how it works, so I could be the best healer possible. It wasn’t enough to save my husband.” Hettie looked down at her hands, lined and covered in dozens of tiny scars, but flexible and supple. “I had to kill him with these bare hands. Do you know what it can do to a healer? To kill?”

  She glanced up at Dayida who was looking at her, silent but calm and answering the question with a shake of her head.

  “It has nothing to do with power and everything to do with state of mind. When your father died I had been a healer for more than half my life. All healers have the potential to kill. The body is so fragile. It takes little to go from helping to harming. Every healer deals with the possibility differently. Some follow a strict moral code and some have a more malleable one. Some will heal anyone, and some heal only certain people. Some never use their power, and some only use it to kill.”

  Hettie tore her eyes away from her hands and looked more closely at her daughter’s face. She was seeing another face in its stead.

  “I had never killed. I would defend myself, but it is simple enough to incapacitate without killing. Your father was mad when he attacked me; screaming, and frothing at the mouth. Such pain. I was able to catch him off guard, knock him out, and bind him in water. I do not know how he woke up or got free of my bindings. I tried to freeze him in place; to flood his muscles with lactic acid. It should have given him cramps, and stopped him where he was. Instead it triggered a reaction. Whoever did it knew what I would try. They booby-trapped his blood. He burned from the inside out. I could have saved his body. Maybe. But his mind would have been gone. He would have been a shell. Empty and waiting for something to fill it.”

  She reached over to take Dayida’s hand but her daughter flinched away from her touch. Hettie stopped, disappointed but not surprised. It would take more than one moment to cure the distance and distrust between them. Hettie wasn’t sure they had time or that she had the energy to even try. Also Dayida wasn’t completely wrong about the changes that had occurred to Hettie, as she wallowed in her power more often than she did not. She was different than she had been. She had changed because she had to. But also because she wanted to.

  She was no stranger to killing anymore.

  “Are you going to be able to work with me, Dayida?” She asked.

  “Are you going to keep pushing me?”

  Hettie didn’t know how to answer that because she didn’t know what it meant. Dayida seemed to feel pushed by her very presence and she had no intention of dulling her connection to her source. She had no intention of making herself weak again. Of letting herself be caught off guard.

  “I can only be myself, Dayida.”

  “Me too.”

  “No, my dear. You haven’t ever been yourself, but you’re on your way.” Hettie rose and went to look for her grandson before Dayida could reply. She was already out of the room when she realized that this was what her daughter had most likely meant by pushing her. But it was the truth and it was long past time Dayida heard it.

  ERIK

  Erik left his mother and grandmother alone to speak. He entered the hall to see Matthias with the b’caster—the Organization’s techno-magik communication device of choice—attached to his face, hands texting on his other phone. Erik took out the phone the Agency had provided for him. There were no names in the contact list, except for two—Tassi and Yonas—his two liaisons. The rest were all titles and numbers that were entirely too long.

  While listening to Matthias whisper-yelling at someone in the Organization, Erik scrolled down to the listing for Regional Director: West Coast and called.

  The call rang five times, then there was a click and three beeps and it began to ring again. This time it rang three times followed by one beep and was picked up.

  “What do you want?”

  Erik narrowed his eyes.

  “Hello. Who is this?”

  “You don’t need to know any names.” The voice was a deep contralto with a slight accent. It put Erik in the mind of old Hollywood starlets who had their foreignness blended out of them as much as possible.

  “Well, do I need to know when Agents start disappearing?”

  There was silence for too long and Erik’s temper finally snapped. He pushed back the power that flared in his core but let it bleed into his voice, making it sound like he had gargled with sharp stones.

  “Listen. I don’t give a shit about your secrets until they begin to endanger those around me. And keeping attacks against us secret? That definitely qualifies.”

  There was a small sniff from the line but when the voice spoke some of the arrogance had left it.

  “We don’t know much and right now it’s limited to New York and so there was no need to tell you.”

  “How many Agents have gone missing?”

  There was a sigh, then. “Over two dozen at this point.”

  “Goat-fucking-shit.” Erik cursed and rolled his eyes, before closing them and putting his face in his free hand.

  “God, I hope this was a top-down decision and not just you being stupid and withholding information.”

  There was a huff of breath and then a dial tone. Erik was already pulling out his personal phone and dialing the Organization, Hu specifically.

  The phone rang and rang but no answer. The voicemail had no spoken message, just a beep.

  “Hu. Call me back. Now. I am entirely tired of this bullshit.” Erik pressed “End Call” on the screen too hard and another tiny spiderweb of cracks grew across its surface. It was only a matter of time before the phone became unusable.

  “No point. Hu’s disappeared, as have fully a quarter of the Maestres,” Matthias’s voice interrupted.

  Erik turned to see the other man looking at him.

  “Are you joking?” He finally asked.

  Matthias shook his head in response, and then spoke into his b’caster. “Yes, Luka. What news about New York?”

  There was silence as Matthias listened and Erik watched his cheeks lose their color and his eyes close. Erik played with the bracelets around his wrists, a gift from Matthias. The cold touch and weight of them calmed him.

  “And the answers from the other offices?” Matthias asked

  Matthias closed his eyes at whatever answer he received.

  Erik breathed calmly and waited for Matthias to finish his call.

  “You let us know right away if anything changes.”

  Erik heard the slurping sounds of the b’caster retracting and waited for Matthias to speak.

  “The Organization office in Manhattan has lost over half of their Blooded in the last two weeks, but not to the darkness. They’ve been lost to a swelling number of Angelics. They’ve moved the majority of their people off the island and scattered them across the other four boroughs.”

  “You are fucking kidding me.”

  Matthias gave a mirthless smile before he closed his eyes and brought the fingers of his left hand up to rub them.

  “New York’s mirror city went silent and then the streets were filled with Angelics. I mean, not literally, or I’m sure the news would have talked about it. They’re managing to keep the non-Blooded out of the loop for now but it’s only because the Angelics have mostly sequestered themselves somewhere they can’t locate. It’s only a matter of time before this gets out. Then—” He shrugged.

  Matthias didn’t have to say anything else. War, then. Op
en war between humans and Angelics, with bodies lining the streets by the hundreds, warheads and magic going head to head over populous areas. And all the while, in the background, whatever the darkness was would be slowly eating away at them.

  Erik cursed again. “Well, the Agency has had at least twenty-four of their people go missing and they didn’t think I needed to know, because it’s happening on the other side of the country. I wonder if they would have told me if it was happening in my own backyard?”

  Matthias shrugged. “No proof that the Agency was being truthful.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’ve never been trustworthy. Just because you’ve been conveniently granted a place in their ranks doesn’t mean that you are one of them.”

  Erik rolled his eyes at Matthias. He was smart enough to know that. He had been learning the subtle rules and punishments of being considered an insider/outsider his whole life.

  Matthias continued. “Can you really blame either side? It’s stupid as hell but you’re now a part of two factions that have been fighting in some way or form for longer than anyone alive remembers. The way they see it, you didn’t earn your place with either of them.”

  “I get it. I even get why. But the fact of the matter is, they’re both facing a greater threat than me!” Erik shouted.

  Matthias nodded in agreement. “That’s the thing about power. Maybe you start out to protect others, or help run things fairly, but eventually you start to like power for power’s sake. You become proud and convinced that you’ll always remain in power. That nothing can challenge you.

  “The Organization and the Agency view you with distrust. They’ve known you for weeks. It is easier for them to assume that you are a plant for the enemy and everything is lies, instead of imagining something they can’t control.”

  “True. Even the Organization sent Tae to spy on me from the beginning.” Erik couldn’t help the hint of bitterness that leaked into his voice.

  Matthias sighed and reached forward to still Erik’s hands, which were still playing with the metal around his wrists.