Iron Inheritance (19 page)

I snapped my gaze to hers. Of course she knew. It wasn’t any secret that she and Denisov were at odds. I’d seen it the first night I got here. Morales probably just let the missions keep going since they never came to anything. But now…

“Suicidal demonic possession is an act of escalation for the Babylonians, as is the demon’s fervor for its master. I just hope we can mitigate the effects before they spiral,” she said.

“Couldn’t Kovac be the master? When he attacked, he was more powerful than he was supposed to be and—”

“Sacrifice is absolute.” Morales shook her head and rubbed her tired eyes. “Demons are tied to power—no real loyalty. Their masters change as frequently as some people’s moods,” she said sourly, her eyes distant, tracing the steps in the dust back into the study area.

“But—”

“I also heard that you made quite an impressive display today.” She smiled. “Your mother made a similar impact her first year here. No doubt due to Solomon’s teaching.”

My eyes widened without permission. “My mom came
here
?” I clasped my necklace.

Morales nodded. “Before Solomon took her away from us, she was about to graduate and head to USC medical. Quite the head for logic, that one. You’d have thought she was a Scribe, but alas—a Warrior.”

“My mom was a Warrior?” Each word was a sandbag thrown at my chest. All I’d had was a picture and the stories Grandpa told me about her. But now, to know that she’d come here, that she could have fought in the same ring I was in today…Had she ever lost control?

“Evelyn, I know you don’t trust me yet, but I do have your best interests in mind just as I do for all Patrons.”

The sound of her voice snapped me back to the present. Her demeanor had softened, and she stretched out a hand for my shoulder.

I recoiled on instinct, and her hand fell to her side, her eyes drooping disappointment for an instant before returning to their normal amount of formality. “Based on your experience in the subway, I feel it is necessary for you to stay on campus until we can investigate the threat further.”

I dropped my hand from my necklace and raised my eyebrows. “You’re going to chain me up in here?”

Morales sighed through her nose and rolled her eyes, the first true, uncalculated sign I had seen that she was human. “Your apparent lack of control leaves me gravely concerned, and the attack in the subway was no coincidence. There are obviously forces at work to harm you, Ms. Brooks.”

I clenched my fists.
Let them come and try.

Morales turned on her heel as if she’d heard me. “All power has limits. Don’t let your Grandfather’s sacrifice be in vain,” she said as she walked away from the study area, her footsteps clopping on the stone floor and echoing up the stacks of books.

I chewed my tongue and watched her fade into the darkness. How had she known I’d be here? Come to this exact study area?

My eyes narrowed and searched the stacks and the chair with the open book. The hairs on my arms tingled like there was still somebody here.

I clenched my fists, my mind still steeped with Morales’ words.

“No.” I shook my head and loosened my arms. I couldn’t lose control again. I was safe here. No demons. No Babylonians. Just crazy-smart Patron leaders trying to scare me.

I turned my gaze to the ceiling to slow my breathing. My eyes traced a series of stone arches whose ends hovered just above the tops of the bookshelves before hopping back up like a stone skipped across the water.

I followed the sequence up and down several times until the arch was interrupted by a tan shirt and red hair.

My eyes widened. Nate stared down at me from the top of the bookshelf, just above the study area. Harsh words formed but were caught in a lump in my throat that prevented them from coming out. Some part of me wanted the lump to disappear so I could tell him off for spying on me. Another part of me was so happy to see him I could burst.

Nate jumped down and landed so softly I’d have thought he could float. Not even one reverberation wriggled up through the floor. He stood to his full height just below my eye line. His green eyes were bright, and his shirt and jeans were the same as the day I’d met him.

“What’re you—”

“I never left,” he said before I could finish. “I’m your Guardian. That won’t ever change.”

The last words I’d said to him came rushing back like they’d been sitting in a knot at the back of my neck. I’d blamed him for Grandpa. I’d told him I didn’t need him right when he was trying to keep me from losing control, from doing what I’d just done to Cheryl. Her bruised arms, the way her body flopped to the ground replayed again and again in my mind. It was the same with the man I’d beaten in the mall. Nate had been there, too.

“I’m sorry.” I reached out my hand for his as my eyelids brimmed with tears. “I shouldn’t have—”

Nate took my hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. “It’s ok. I deserved it.” He paused. “I saw you and Cheryl today.”

I looked away, not wanting to think about it again.

“It was bound to happen, especially after so many years of what I’d done.”

My hand stiffened but didn’t pull away. “What do you mean?”

His jaw clenched even as his eyes softened. “It was the only way we could protect you, Eve. In order for you not to be found, Sol had to shield your essence.”

My eyes widened as I remembered how Josh had been able to shield his own from Nate. “He—”

Nate nodded. “The shield made your essence look like any other human’s.”

“But they’d just be able to find Grandpa. He was a Graced, too.”

Nate shook his head. “He could control his essence. You were a kid. Your emotions ran so wild it would have been like seeing fireworks to a Babylonian.” He paused. “Eventually though, you got too powerful for him. That’s when he brought me in.”

I pulled my hand back from his, no tears brimming in my eyes anymore. “And you’re telling me this now?”

He squared his shoulders and looked into my eyes without blinking. “I need you to understand, Eve. I’ve never guarded anyone affected by a shield so long. When someone else is in charge of the shield, it doesn’t just cover you, it drains some of your essence. It weakens you.”

I stepped back involuntarily. “You and Grandpa drained my essence?”

“To protect you,” Nate said. “If we hadn’t, the Babylonians would have found you long before. But that’s not what I’m talking about. What you need to understand is that, somehow, your body started producing more essence in reaction to being drained. It was always trying to maintain a certain level, which meant it had to work harder to produce it.”

“Like an overactive gland or something.” I nodded, my eyes widening to a conclusion. “And then when Grandpa couldn’t control it anymore, he brought in a Guardian, someone even stronger who could control me.”

Nate exhaled through his nose. “That was never my—” He shook his head. “Over the past year, I’ve even had trouble controlling your essence. It’s like a dam’s built up inside of you—”

“And now it’s starting to crack,” I finished. “That day at the mall when I—”

Nate’s head dropped. “Shields only work when you’re around the person. They’re only foolproof when you’re touching the person as you say their name. I shouldn’t have let you out of my sight.”

Each memory of that simple action—touching my arm and saying my name—came flooding back: in school, that day in the mall. Even Duke had done it just moments ago, his authoritative voice ringing out like Nate’s. What would have happened if he hadn’t?

“Is this why my talent only comes out in flashes? Why I can’t see essence all the time?”

Nate bobbed his head. “That would be my guess.”

“And you’re not still doing it now?” I said testily.

Nate laughed, a bit of tension releasing from his rigid posture. “You’re too much for me, that’s for sure.”

I scoffed. “How could I be too much for
you
? You’re a Guardian.”

Nate’s shoulders drooped, and he led us over to the chairs in the study area. “Guardians have two talents instead of one. I’m strong and fast; I’m not all-powerful. I’m immortal, but that doesn’t mean I’m all-knowing.” He picked up the book that had been flopped over the arm rest.

I settled into the chair opposite him, the questions about my essence and the dam holding it back thickening like sludge. He’d lied to me—they both had. I understood why, much as I didn’t want to admit it. If they hadn’t shielded my essence, the Babylonians would have found us, and I’d probably be dead along with my mom.

I closed my eyes and bit my lip, a part of me wishing for that fate. It would have been easier.

I opened my eyes and clenched my fists. All this meant was that I had more power than normal, or at least in bursts. My body produced too much? Fine. I could use that. The next time a Babylonian came after me, they’d get more than they could handle.

“Are you ok?” said Nate sheepishly, his shoulders hunched up to his ears.

I nodded and gave him a thin smile as I considered, for the first time, what “Guardian” really meant. He wasn’t some little cupid flying over me, but an actual angel. But then, he couldn’t do all the things an angel could. I shifted in my seat and squinted just to make sure there weren’t any wings sprouting out of his back.

There weren’t, as far as I could see.

“What are you reading?”

“It’s a history of Gomorrah.” Nate took the book in his hand and folded it closed very carefully. Even so, the spine cracked.

“That city in the old testament that burned to the ground? Of all the books in here, you pick that? Didn’t you see it first hand?” I snickered.

He set down the book. “You know, in all the thousands of years, I’ve never been much of a reader.”

“Some people would sell their souls for that long to do nothing but read,” I said, remembering a time when I salivated for such a chance.

“Pity when every important thing they could hope to learn is out there.” He gestured to the ceiling. “I once spent a whole decade standing in one spot on the top of a mountain watching the seasons change. When you’ve experience that, books don’t quite compare.”

I laughed to myself as I imagined Nate in his typical jeans and khaki shirt standing at the top of a mountain like a statue. “Who were you supposed to be guarding at that point?”

“An invalid prophet who lived at the base of the mountain. He didn’t move much, so it was easy to keep an eye on him.”

I chuckled, still unable to completely reconcile the boy who sat before me with the thousand-year-old being we were talking about. “So, why Gomorrah? Why read history when you’ve already lived it?”

Nate’s expression soured. “I knew someone there.”

My mouth went dry.

He gave me a half smile, his freckled cheeks turning up toward his red hair. “It’s ok. It was great at first—doing God’s will. I protected great people who really needed my help. But then I’d wake up the morning after one of my charges died—whether it was old age or something else—and I could see the face of the next person I was meant to protect.” He paused. “So many people. Prophets, kings, farmers, merchants, philosophers, teachers. Each one was different. No matter how many billions of humans are born, each one is different. That always gets to me.” He chuckled. “But in the end, even if I do my job perfectly, follow every order from the Patrons or keep my charge from being burned alive, years later, it always finishes the same way. They die.”

I reached out a hand. “Nate, you can’t blame yourself for every—”

He stood and shook his head. “I don’t, but sometimes I am to blame. You know that better than most.” He looked me straight in the eye without blinking. “It’s those ones I have to live with forever.” He frowned. “Forever. Humans throw that word around like they know what it means.”

I stood and bit my lip, searching for the words to say.

Instead, silence persisted, sucked up by thirsty pages in the millions of volumes that lined the shelves around us as we walked back toward the entrance.

“I have an idea.” Nate grabbed my hand and put it up to his, raising our paired palms between us. We were just one row away from Ria’s napping shelf.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to give you a jump start,” he said, closing his eyes in concentration. “Even though I’m not shielding your essence any more, your body has grown so used to it that it’s doing it itself now. That’s what keeps you from seeing like the other Patrons and from using your talent whenever you want.” He paused. “Normally, I’d say you just need to train yourself to control your emotions—and therefore, your essence—but obviously that doesn’t seem to be working. If I can jump start it, though—”

“What am I, a Volkswagen?”

He blinked several times, his shoulders dropping a fraction of an inch. “If you don’t want me to try, I under—”

“I was kidding.” I smiled. “Jumpstart away. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Right.” He nodded. “Better for all your power to explode here than somewhere else.” He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly.

My eyes bulged. The problem with the whole ‘better to explode here than there’ logic was that you exploded. Not exactly a win-win.

He slowed his pulse until I could feel it thump under my fingertips. His skin heated, and I started to see a faint green mist floating around him.

He whispered something, but I couldn’t hear. I stared at his lips.

His hand heated even more, and a green flame wrapped itself over mine in an unfelt compression. A tingling electric charge seeped from his fingertips into the back of my hand.

“Can you feel it?” he said just above a whisper.

Something between ice and gelatin rolled over my hand and up my arm. I tried to make my mind go blank, but something else stirred in the pit of my stomach as I pushed my hand against Nate’s.

“There you are, Evey. I got all of us an invite to a house party tonight and—” Ria’s voice dropped off a cliff before I could unlatch my hand from Nate’s. My cheeks heated, but they weren’t as fiery as the flash that shot from her eyes.

“You’re back.” Ria’s back went rigid as her eyes locked on Nate.