Darkside Sun (28 page)

I had an idea. “Mortal Machine,” I said. For a second nothing happened, but then my hair prickled, and wind blew through the room.

“What’s doing that?” Sophia stuck her hand up.

“The bible did that the night I read it.” I grabbed the book and inspected the page. “Or it caused it to come out of me, I’m still not sure. I am sure that there’s a piece of it in this book.”

Asher grabbed it out of my hands. “It’s been here, the whole time? The lost pages?”

“Hey, rude much? And I don’t think all of them are here, but one at least.”
I think?

“How do you know that?” he asked.

I shrugged, afraid to look at him in case I blushed. “Just another of those things I know for no good reason.” I held out my hand. “Give it back to me, and I’ll see if I can figure out where it’s hidden.”

He sighed, loosened his grip on the volume, and handed it back to me. “I didn’t mean to be rude,” he muttered.

Sophia stared at him and back at me, raising her hands as if to say “Who is this guy, and what happened to Asher?”

I shrugged, wondering the same thing. “You’re forgiven.” I tested the thickness of the pages before and after the one with the dagger on it. The middle one was thicker. Could it be that simple? “Do you have a pair of scissors?”

Chapter 33

I held the scissors at the base of the page for seconds, unable to do the deed. “It feels wrong to destroy my mother’s book,” I said.

“Do you want me to do it?” Sophia asked while Asher hovered too close, growing even more agitated the longer I bent over the table.

“I’ll do it,” Asher barked, but I said, “No, if anyone’s going to cut it, it’s going to be me.”

“Then do it.”

“Then do it,” I mocked in his pissy tone. I cut the page along the spine, wincing as I did it. When I had it free, I laid the page on the table and inspected the raw edge. There was definitely something there, pressed between the double layer of old paper. It didn’t come out of its unusual envelope easily. I had to shift it left and right as I slowly drew it out. Asher kept making strangled sounds behind me as he paced back and forth.

“What is it?” he asked when I finally had the page free.

I opened the folded parchment to neat script and hand-drawn images in ink that appeared the color of tea, very old. “I think it’s a page from the original bible.”

He stared over my shoulder, pressing into my back harder and harder. I braced my hands on the table, sighed at his heat running up my spine. I wanted to shuck my shirt, rip his off, and clear the table with a swipe of my arm so he could …

Sophia cleared her throat. “Um … the page, Addison. What does it say?”

Oh, right. Doing stuff. Important. Yep, yep. Shit.

Asher grunted and lurched away, moving in beside Sophia. “Sorry,” I said, “just … thinking about something else.” Like how much I’d like Asher to launch another oral attack on me. When I could move my hand without it shaking, I handed the page over to him. “Why don’t you read it while I see if there are any others?” No point in me trying to read anything while my psycho body continued having an internal Asher-fit. Obsession, he’d called it. No freaking shit.

He rushed over to the desk, gripping the page like it was a finger-hold keeping him from falling into the abyss. I picked up the book and started flipping pages again, trying to ignore Sophia’s grin and questioning glances.

“What?” I asked when she kept distracting me.

“What’s going on?” she mouthed around her grin. “What happened with you and Asher?”

I shook my head, so not wanting to draw his wrath again by blabbing about the suck-face-that-didn’t-happen.

Had my mother known the pages were in there? Did Izan have her rip out the pages and hide them in old books and artifacts when the traitor made his move last time? Smart, though it would pose a bit of a problem if said items had been scattered to who-knew-where. But why hide them? And from whom? The traitor? If so, that meant that whatever the pages held, it was vital that we got them back.

By the time Asher finished cursing over the page I’d given him, I’d found three more. He’d made it through the second one when he shot up out of his chair as if he’d been launched. “No,” he said, his chest rising and falling double-time.

Sophia and I froze at the table, turning to look at him slowly. “What?” I asked.

“The wraiths are attracted to us, but we can’t be permanent doorways as I thought.” The way he stared at me made me squirm up to my feet. “There’s only one rank in the Machine that can do that. A rank I’ve never heard of.”

“Let me guess,” Sophia said. “She has cool light purple eyes and can see the wraiths.”

Oh, no.
“The Darkside Sun,” I said. “It’s not a place or an object; it’s me. The power in me is calling to them. Even before it manifested the first time in the training room, it was calling to the wraiths. They can use me and my storm to open a permanent portal through the veil, so they can all come through at once.”

“The bible calls you the Architect,” Asher said. “The other name must be what the wraiths call you.” His lips parted to accommodate his sucking wind, the same ones that had been all over mine like a slide of silk. “Whoever the traitor is, he or she knows who you are now. If it’s Remy, then he knows way too much about you. Christ, if I’d known … I’d never have taken him to your father’s.”

“It’s not Remy,” Sophia all but screamed.

I sank back into the chair, my legs unable to hold my weight. My heart clubbed on my ribs. “What are you saying? That the Misgiver might try to use Dad to get me? No. Oh, God, what do I do?” My voice had risen into a high-pitched plea. I knew what he’d say. I knew what we had to do, but I didn’t want to do it. I’d been preparing myself to make sacrifices for Dad, but saying good-bye to him was too high of a price. My body began a slow tremble, growing worse as the seconds ticked by.

Asher came to me, picked me out of the chair and hugged me, his breath warming my ear. Sophia made a little sound behind him. Clearly she was as stunned as I was. “Shhh, it’s all right. I won’t steal him from you forever, but I need to take him and the memories of your mother from you until this is over. You know that, don’t you? If you don’t know your father, and he doesn’t know you, then hurting him will gain the traitor nothing.”

“You … you can do that? Make us forget each other just for a while?” I fisted my hands into his shirt, trying not to cry.

“Yes, and I think we need to go to him now, right this minute. We need to take your dad away as a potential hostage before the traitor figures out how to get to you. I won’t let anyone get you, I promise.”

“What if we’re too late?” I started hyperventilating again, pushing away so I could read his eyes. “What if he’s already got Dad? Oh, God, we have to go!”

“I’ll keep going through the pages feeling for thick ones,” Sophia said softly, staring as if she needed a hug, too, but was afraid to ask. “Please be safe.”

I nodded, thinking of others the traitor could use against me. “Don’t go anywhere. If someone comes, even if it’s someone you trust, run, hide, okay?”

“She’ll be all right here,” Asher said as he called the Shift and jettisoned us through the layers. “Nobody knows about this place but me.”

Just to be sure, I thought,
Izan, don’t let anything happen to her or to Dad. Please.
I held on to Asher, burying my face against his throat. To keep my mind away from what we had to do, I considered everything that had happened over the last few weeks as we emerged between realities, one Shift above the real one. His warm glances, however brief. My clothes, the poster, my blanket and plaid comforter. The texts. The kiss. What did it all mean? Maybe nothing but a fabrication of my desperate need for a connection with him, and his reactions were those of a man starved for touch.

He released me, his hands sliding down my arms, and finally lingering on my fingers before letting me go. The instant our contact broke, I felt all wrong again.

We seemed to hover above a room, not part of it. The furniture fuzzed around the edges. The cabin. Now that I was here, I remembered every detail of my life as if I’d never forgotten it. Dad sat in his easy chair, reading the
Toronto Star
. It was thick enough it had to be Sunday, his favorite day of the week. A few of his least favorite sections scattered the hardwood around him, along with a few photo albums open to my baby pictures. Sunlight streamed over his thin form and graying hair. Tears burned my eyes, but I blinked them away.

“I used to watch you and him making boats out of those papers and spending hours in the creek behind this place, racing them down the current,” Asher said. “It was such a simple pleasure I didn’t understand it, how you could laugh so much over something so … I thought meaningless at first, but it was everything. The simple moments are what made you amazing. I didn’t know that kind of easy pleasure happened in families before I found yours. You grew up uncorrupted by hatred and prejudice. I think that’s why Izan chose you, so you could teach the rest of us what it means to be a family.”

My eyes misted even more, but I didn’t get a word out before he went on. “Every time it rained, you’d spend endless hours using a twig to create channels in the dirt, connecting all of the puddles so the water would flow down the driveway.” He turned to me then, raw emotion and questions in his eyes. “Why did you do that? Your face was always so peaceful yet intense, like you were solving some monumental dilemma that would change the world.”

I shrugged, fighting to hold those eyes. “It just seemed so wrong to leave the water trapped that way. There was something soothing, Zen-like, and therapeutic about opening those paths and letting the water free to go where it wanted to. Along with the pattering sounds of the rain and the cool drops on my skin … I don’t know, it was one of my favorite things to do.”

He focused back on Dad, as if looking for the secrets of the universe in the fine wrinkles of his face. “That’s what I was supposed to do for you. Open the way for your induction into the Machine, set you free to change us the way you were supposed to.” Expelling a breath, he turned away. “And I failed miserably trying to control my selfish desires.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that and was afraid to ask. I focused back on Dad and noticed his cell phone sitting on the arm of the chair as if he was waiting for another of my—Asher’s—texts. Dad must have been so lonely, so worried about me. Except … no, Asher had taken care of his worry, hadn’t he? He stared down at Dad with thoughtful eyes. Sad eyes. He liked my Dad; it was there in the slight curve of his lips, in the soft expression.

“Why did you send text messages to him from my phone?” I asked.

Head snapping around, Asher’s face shut down. “What are you talking about?” As if he didn’t know bloody well what I meant.

“Listen, don’t get all bent about it, I just wanted to say thanks. I found my phone in your nightstand, so don’t play dumb with me.” Thinking about everything else he’d done and lied about it, I added, “And why did you keep all of my stuff? Why do you live in a country house when you talk crap about where and how I grew up?” It wasn’t the time to air my questions, but I couldn’t face what we were about to do, so they made great distractions. “I think maybe you care about me more than you let on. Was that moment in the chamber and in the alley real?”

Silence stretched on for minutes. When he finally spoke, he sounded nervous, all tied up in knots. “I sent the texts to your Dad because he’s a good man, one of the few I’ve ever known. I wish I was like him. Maybe then I could have been what you need. What you deserve.”

He’d avoided most of my questions, but I didn’t push him since he was squirming so hard. “You are a good man, but you try awfully hard to make everyone think you’re a jerk.”

He laughed, but it held little in the way of humor. “You only say that because you don’t really know me.”

“Then stop fighting, and let me know you.”

Shaking his head, he scrubbed a hand over his shadow beard before digging for his pockets. “I don’t … I’m not sure if I can do that. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t. The whole no-touch law thing was a lie.”

He nodded, staring at me with fear as if I might spontaneously combust. “I believe you, but that’s not what I meant. If I give in to this … I shouldn’t …” A growl tore up his throat.

“I don’t want to fight with you right now. I’m about to give up everything I know, and there’s no time to do it gently. I’m scared, and even if you have to pretend, would you just …? I need you to help me through this.” When he just stared at me, I added, “Please, Asher. I need you.”

“I’d return you to your life if I could,” he said quietly as he came to stand in front of me.

My heart swelled, and tears fell as I threw my arms around his neck and clung to him. His arms looped around me, held me to his body as his breath warmed the top of my head. “I don’t want to be alone,” I said. “Without Dad, I have no one.”

He slid his hands up in to my hair and tilted my face in line with his. Those jade-star eyes were bright and intense as he said, “I promise I’ll never leave you again,” and then kissed me with those soft, coconut-flavored lips. This one didn’t start soft, but deep and wet and delicious. He clutched at me while I did the same to him. Our power spilled over and through one another until I couldn’t tell where he ended and I began. Heat poured into my body as our energies mingled, not an explosion this time, but a tidal shift of push and pull between us, warm and nice, like he was the moon and I was the ocean.

I leaned into him, unable to hold up my own weight. His mouth claimed mine, tongue sliding against my lips, my tongue. I explored every inch of him I could reach with my fingers, delighting in the hungry, helpless sounds he made for me.

Something began to change within me as his resistance came down. I could feel his heartbeat in my throat, and mine sped up in time with his. My storm, instead of a chaotic riot of swirling energy like a hurricane, became a focused funnel of controlled power as it mixed with Asher’s.

He jerked away, panting, his eyes shining with shock. “What was that?”

I forced my knees to lock so I wouldn’t fold down to the floor. “You felt that, too? Something started to happen when you finally let me in, something amazing.”

“I’m sure it was just your emotions taking over. We’ll figure it out later,” he said, rubbing his own arms as if he was cold. “It’s time. Are you ready?”

Drawing in a shuddering breath, I shook my head, swallowing the argument I wanted to have. It wasn’t the time. “No, I’m not freakin’ ready. How could I ever be ready to say good-bye to him? What if it’s never safe for me to see him again? I won’t hurt him like Mom did. This could be forever, and I don’t even get to talk to him, do I?”

He sighed, slipped his hand around my nape, and pulled my head in to rest against his shoulder. It was just what I needed at exactly the right time, and I leaned into him. “We’ve already stalled too long,” he said. “The sooner we do this, the safer he is, and the safer you are.”

“What about my pictures and stuff, and the other people who know me?”

“I’ll take care of all of it, and I’ll explain later. You’ll be disoriented when I’m finished, but I’ll be with you.”

My chest seized up.
Good-bye, Dad.
“Okay, I’m ready now.”

Asher’s presence entered me in a burst of color and light, his sorrow and regret mingling with my own. I opened myself, watching with my mind’s eye as my memories of Mom and Dad slipped away into a white fog while tears slid down my cheeks. It probably took seconds, but inside my head it seemed to take an eternity.