Inquest (24 page)

“You could
have said that from the start,” I snap, irritated that I have to
give in to him taking over again. “Fine, let’s go.”

Milo and I
hurry out to his car, and we’re driving down the interstate a few
minutes later. I try looking out the window to distract myself from
the possibility that I might actually find some answers. It’s
thrilling and terrifying all in the same breath. I try closing my
eyes but the images of the screaming spirits burst into my mind at
once. Finally I scoot to the very edge of my seat and lean toward
Milo. His arm comes around my shoulder automatically. Everything
slows. The car keeps racing along the highway at ridiculous speeds,
but I feel like I can finally take a breath. Whatever Mr. Walters
tells us, I don’t have to hear it alone.

That single
piece of knowledge carries me up to his house when we arrive.

Milo rings the
bell and we wait. The upstairs light is the first to flick on. Then
the hallway. The porch light buzzes to life a moment before the
door pulls open. Mr. Walters’ snowy white hair is doing a wonderful
impression of Einstein at the moment. His eyes blink rapidly before
fastening onto me.

“Libby? What
time is it?” he asks.

“It’s a little
after eleven o’clock,” I say. “Sorry to wake you, but we really
need to talk to you before you leave.”

Mr. Walters
nods blearily, his gaze slowly sliding over to Milo. His face
scrunches as he peers at the young man in front of him. “Who are…”
His eyes widen. “Milo? Good gracious, boy, what did you do to
yourself? I barely recognized you in proper clothes.”

I don’t even
bother to stifle my laughter. Milo takes it with his customary
shrug.

“Could we talk
to you about something?” Milo asks.

“Does it have
to do with the Destroyer?” he asks. Milo nods. “Then yes. Come in,
please.”

We troop
inside his retro style (and I don’t mean the good kind of retro)
bungalow. The “grandma used to live here” theme is carried into the
living room with patchwork throw pillows and quaint pictures of
cottages. To be honest, I expected something a little
more…intimidating from a former Seeker. Milo looks like he’s
thinking the same thing.

“Sit down, sit
down. I’ve got to catch a flight in the morning, so let’s not waste
any time. Why are you here?” Mr. Walters asks.

“How much do
you know about my dad’s death?” I ask.

Mr. Walters’
head tilts to one side. “As much as anyone, I suppose. There
weren’t very many details released to the public.”

I take a deep
breath. “I want to tell you the rest of the story.”

Curiosity
strong enough to kill a dozen cats piques in Mr. Walters’ eyes.

“I want to
tell you what really happened,” I say shakily. I knew this was
coming. It is the price for getting the key to unlock my guilt. So
with as much detail as I can remember, I tell Mr. Walters
everything. I don’t leave out anything, not the way my dad had been
clutching my hand, not the look of terror in his eyes when he first
realized I was awake. He listens to what I have to say with an
eager expression. When I finish he leans back in his chair and
presses the tips of his fingers together.

“So you want
to know what your father was doing to you that night,” he says
slowly.

The tone of
his voice, his confident posture, they all give me hope.

“I’m sorry,
but I don’t have an answer for you, Libby.”

My shoulders
fall.

“But that
doesn’t mean there is no answer. We’ll just have to find it,” he
says. “What other talents did your father possess besides
Perception?”

“Vision and
Concealment,” I say quickly, latching onto this slim chance of
finding an answer with all the strength my spent mind and body can
manage.

Mr. Walters
nods. “The three hallmarks of a very powerful Inquisitor. Now I
believe you’ve mentioned previously that your father knew you were
Cassia before he died. When did he find out?”

“About a year
before his death,” I say. “A few months before my tenth birthday he
started testing me, to be sure. I didn’t realize what he was doing
at first because the tests were little things like him purposely
throwing a ball farther than I should have been able to reach,
timing me when he called me, seeing how I reacted to his emotional
changes, things like that. I knew by then that I shouldn’t react in
any way that would give me away, but I didn’t fool him. His
Concealment probably clued him in to what I was doing. It was
impossible to lie to him.”

“But even just
suspecting something was up wouldn’t be enough to make him say
anything, right?” Milo says. “That’s a pretty big thing to lay on a
ten year old if you aren’t absolutely certain.”

“Indeed.” Mr.
Walters rubs a hand up and down his neck as he thinks. “Was it his
Vision that finally convinced him?”

“I think so.
We were sitting on the couch one day watching TV and I leaned my
head on his shoulder. His whole body went rigid. I was about to
call for my mom when he grabbed my arm hard enough to leave
bruises. He shook his head over and over again until it passed.”
Milo glances at my arm as if expecting to find those long ago
injuries. My dad had held me so tight. Remembering the fear in his
eyes makes me shiver. He never did tell me what he saw, but part of
me wonders if he had seen his death and knew I was the cause.

Mr. Walters is
the only one who seems unfazed by my experience. It’s just another
clue to him. “Given how powerful your father was, and how connected
the two of you were, it doesn’t surprise me in the least that he
would discover who you were. I think it’s safe to say that whatever
he was trying to accomplish that night was related to your being
the Destroyer.”

My mind tries
to veer away from that line of logic given Milo’s skepticism of my
dad’s intentions, and my old recollection of the intense pain and
fear I felt that night. But if anything would drive my dad to
drastic measures, it would be my dark future. He had to be trying
to help me, though. He wouldn’t have tried to hurt me. He wasn’t
Lance.

“But what
could he have possibly been trying to accomplish other than killing
her?” Milo asks. His half-apologetic frown to me stings. If he knew
my dad he wouldn’t be so cynical. Dead Guardians, secrets, danger
from who knows what, parents who pretend he doesn’t exist, maybe
his doubt doesn’t have to do with my dad, but with his own history
instead.

I force my
mind off Milo’s past and back to my own when I realize Mr. Walters
is speaking.

“…no way to
know for sure. The talent I think we should focus on is
Spiritualism. I believe we’ll have the best chance of uncovering
the truth by looking into this talent.”

“But,” I
interrupt, “my dad didn’t even have Spiritualism.”

“Yes, I know,
but you do,” he says. “I never met your father, Libby, but I have
heard from many people who did know him that he was a very kind and
compassionate person. It seems likely to me that he was trying to
help you in some way, but despite the power behind the talents he
had, the lack of certain other talents could have caused him to
make a very bad judgment about his course of action.”

I feel like
we’ve been here forever. So much has happened today, and it’s all
starting to catch up with me. It’s getting harder to concentrate by
the second. I’m not sure what he’s trying to say to me. Forget
tact. “What are you talking about?”

“You were
warned, were you not? By spirits who were able to contact you
because of your Spiritualism.”

“Spirits?” I
ask. “It was just a dream, wasn’t it?”

“You said
yourself it wasn’t a normal dream, that it felt too real. That is
exactly how people usually describe their first trip to the spirit
world. You weren’t having a nightmare. I’m confident you were
pulled into the spirit world in order to be warned,” Mr. Walters
explains.

“Oh,” I say,
feeling incredibly stupid for never having realized that myself.
I’ve only ever dabbled in the side of Spiritualism that dealt with
pushing people in the direction I want. I’ve never even tried going
to the spirit world on my own. I didn’t see the point.

Mr. Walters
gives me one of his long-suffering looks and continues. “For
whatever reason, they knew what you father was doing was wrong and
tried to prevent it from happening. If your father had had the same
talent, I believe they would have warned him as well,” Mr. Walters
says.

“So what are
you suggesting?” I ask.

He blinks at
me as if it should have been perfectly obvious by now. I stare at
him blankly. He sighs, giving me the impression that his opinion of
my mental capability has just dropped dramatically. If I weren’t
too tired, I would set him right. Instead I simply wait for him to
explain. He does so with exaggerated patience.

“I am
suggesting that we go back to the only beings that seem to have any
idea about what happened that night. You need to make contact with
the spirits who warned you five years ago and ask them what they
know. It couldn’t be simpler.”

“Simple?” I
say. “Spiritualism is my weakest talent. I don’t think I could
contact a single spirit, let alone find the exact ones that warned
me to wake up.”

His brow
crinkles. The displeasure is clear on his face. “Who is your
Spiritualism teacher? Mrs. Sanchez, right? Go to her Monday
and…”

“No. She won’t
help me. She won’t even answer my questions in class. Like all my
teachers, she just pretends I don’t exist. You’re the only one
crazy enough to want to help the Destroyer gain power,” I say.

“It’s not
crazy to try and help someone reach their potential,” he
argues.

“It is when
they’re going to destroy the world!”

“But you’re
not going to destroy the world, are you? Unless your plans have
changed.”

I wonder if I
could blame strangling him on exhaustion and get away with it. “I’m
not going to destroy anything, and you know it.”

“Libby, I told
you the first day we met that if you expected to survive the next
two years, and hopefully longer, that you were going to have to
embrace who you are. Since you did not take me up on my original
offer, I expect you to follow through with your decision. Dedicate
yourself to
all
of your talents, not just the ones you think
are the most useful. If you hadn’t been shirking your duty to
develop your Spiritualism, contacting those spirits and getting the
answers you need would be a very simple task.”

I feel like
sticking my tongue out at him. Maybe I’ll just settle for spitting
in his coffee when he isn’t looking. He’s such a smug, irritating,
bizarre, know-it-all, bossy…

“What offer?”
Milo asks, interrupting my internal tirade.

Oh no. I groan
and close my eyes.

“What was
that, Milo?” Mr. Walters asks over his shoulder from where he’s
standing at a rather large bookcase.

“What offer
from you did Libby turn down?”

“Oh, that,” he
says with a shrug. “I offered to kill her.”

The air
bristles around Milo. “You what?”

“I gave her a
choice. Die or become the Destroyer. She needed to realize that
those were the only two options available to her,” he says. The
casual, unconcerned quality of his voice is so frustrating. But
he’s not done yet. “I believe Libby made the right choice. There is
more to being the Destroyer than mayhem and destruction.”

“Like what?” I
ask. Anything to get us off the topic of one of my teachers
offering to murder me.

Mr. Walters
gives me a dry look. “That lecture is for another day. We have more
important things to discuss right now.” He sets a stack of books
related to Spiritualism on the coffee table and returns to his
chair. He’s about to speak when Milo interrupts him.

“There’s
something you’re holding back. What aren’t you telling us?”

For the first
time in possibly ever, Mr. Walters looks completely caught off
guard. “Excuse me?”

“Maybe you
don’t know exactly what Libby’s dad was doing, but you have an
idea, don’t you?” Milo accuses. “Something Libby said tipped you
off. You moved on too quickly. You never leave an unanswered
question that fast. What are you keeping from us?”

Milo sounds so
sure. And Mr. Walters is squirming. I can’t believe it, but Milo’s
right. I don’t know how he saw it, but he’s right. “Mr. Walters?” I
ask.

“I’m not
certain,” he says slowly, crossing his arms across his chest, “but
I think…I think your father was trying to steal your talents.”

Chapter 20

Betrayal

The truth of
Mr. Walters’ words slap against me like an endless tide of
betrayal. I want desperately to deny what he said. There is nothing
left for me to defend. The proof is in my own memories. After
waking up, I felt as if I was being drained. Of everything. I was
so weak I could barely move. I felt disconnected from the world in
a way I had never experienced before. The world around me felt
plain and ordinary.

I grew up with
my talents from birth. Plain and ordinary were completely foreign
to me. It was beyond terrifying. I can’t imagine living my life
feeling so singular, as if I were one tiny rock in a vast forest
instead of part of something immense and unending. Given the choice
of casting off my future to be free of my destiny and living such a
barren existence, I don’t know that I could choose something so
bleak.

“I’ve never
heard of someone stealing another person’s talents,” Milo says. His
voice sounds far away and thin. I’m too wrapped up in my own
emotional turmoil to be present in their discussion. I can only
listen through a haze.

“It is called
a Serqet, and it’s not openly discussed. I have only heard of it
myself through some less than legal inquiries. I have never heard
of it being performed successfully. In every case both people
involved died,” Mr. Walters says.