Mutiny (2 page)

Lor is moving around impatiently with my barrage of questions. I should be freaking out. I should be running and screaming. But I'm not. There has to be a reason why I'm not. I just can't think of it right now.

“I can't do this,” I say.

“Then the next time I come for you—on the sixth day, of the sixth month, at the sixth hour. I will come and take you forever.”

Before I could say anything, Lor vanishes into the ground, as if he has been sucked into one of those cracks in the asphalt that has spikes of grass sticking out. The reaper Nasiel seems to shimmer away like hot steam evaporating into the air.

Me, I'm left standing alone outside Settlemen's High. I'm not dead. But I'm not alive, either. Which means I'm totally screwed.

There's no use going back inside the school building. I can't do anything there. And really, why should I? I'm never going to live a normal life again, so finishing high school doesn't mean squat.

Arriving home, I unlock the door and enter the quiet house. Now I'm thinking that maybe my dad isn't here at all. Maybe that's why his desk was empty. But where would he go? Why wouldn't he have at least tried to look for me?

I can't do this, the questions are giving me a horrendous migraine, which if I'm not like a normal teenager I shouldn't feel anymore, right?

I go into Dad's office and start looking through his things, pulling out drawers and turning on his computer. Maybe there's something I can find that'll tell me where he is.
And then what?
If I find out where my dad is, what happens next? He won't be able to see or hear me, just like everyone else. It's like I'm dead but not really.

Plopping down in his desk chair, I sit down at the computer and wait while it boots up. First, I go to Dad's emails, scrolling down to see what I can find. I don't know what I'm looking for, but I believe I'll know it when I see it.

Bingo!

Emails from Marvin Carrington. There are tons of them.

Krystal's friend Sasha's last name is Carrington.

I click open one of the emails. They're talking about something called Project S. I open more emails and they're all about Project S. I close out of my Dad's email account and search his entire files for anything related to Project S, since—judging by the tone of the emails—this was something big. All the emails were dated just a few days ago.

There was only one file on Project S in the hard drive. I open the file but I am not altogether sure what I'm looking at. Notes, it seems like, citing weather patterns and events, charting the energy produced by each occurrence. There are lists with dates of eclipses, locations and, again, projections of energy produced during each eclipse. The very last page of the document makes me stare at the screen with a look of total confusion.

It was a list of names.

 

William Kramer (missing since January 1950)

Louis Kramer

Jake Kramer
^**

Carrington (daughter was conceived during the storm— November 1994)

Krystal Bentley (mother lived in Lincoln. Back in town. Why?)

 

The moment I see her name, my stomach clenches. Why would Dad have Krystal's name in this Project S file? What did he know about her and her mother? And what did any of this have to do with what's happening to me?

Frustration isn't an emotion that usually troubles me, but I'm beginning to feel like there's a whole other world going on around me. Another world I've been thrust into without my knowledge or consent.

Sitting back in the chair with my hands folded behind my head, I close my eyes and try to clear my mind. This usually works when I've got too many things going on at once. Today, not so much.

The first thing I think of is Krystal. Her smile. Her voice. Her eyes. I really love her eyes—I have since the first day I saw her. They're this funny brown color and when I look into them, I see…I see power.

The last time I was with Krystal in the woods, that's what I saw. And I tried to take that power. I remember that now. She was so afraid. She was afraid of me. With a sigh, I wonder what's inside of me now. What did she see that frightened her so much?

In the next moment, I just want to see her again.

I've sat in this chair, thinking, for so long, that it's about time for school to be out. So I get up and leave the house again. This time I know I can't be seen or heard, so the people I pass on the streets, who ignore me, aren't such a shock.

It's still weird, but I guess I have no choice but to get used to it.

 

“You thinking about Franklin again?” Sasha says, with her legs crossed and her fingers waving in the air as a bottle of nail polish sits on the nightstand beside her bed.

Krystal sighs, sitting back against the headboard with a pouty expression. “I just don't understand what happened to him.”

“The Darkness got him, that's what happened,” Sasha remarked.

“Yeah, but why? I mean, what could it possibly want with Franklin? He wasn't one of us.”

Sasha began blowing her nails as if they weren't drying fast enough. “Maybe that's why it wanted him. He wasn't one of us, so they could easily get to him. He was close to you, so he could get what he wanted from you without you suspecting anything.”

“He wanted my eyes,” Krystal said thoughtfully. She stared at the ceiling as she replayed the events in her mind. “Why would he want my eyes?”

“Windows to the soul, that's what Jake's grandfather said. Maybe what he really wanted was your soul.”

“To do what with?”

Sasha huffs and rolls her eyes. “I don't know. What I do know is that you sitting here worrying about it is pretty useless. He's gone and that's that. The Darkness however, is not. That's what we need to be focused on.”

Turning her attention away from the ceiling, Krystal realizes Sasha's right. She couldn't think about Franklin right now. But she did.

“Wait, were you, like, in love with him?” Sasha asks.

“I thought maybe I could be, but then…” Her voice trails off and she looks toward the window. It's cracked because it's sort of warm today, but her mother hasn't turned on the air-conditioning yet. There's a slight breeze blowing, and the leaves rustle on the branches. Other than that, there's nothing, but she can't stop staring.

“But what?” Sasha prods.

“Then there's Jake,” she says, and waits for Sasha's reaction. This is the first time she's mentioned what she feels for Jake to anyone. And truth be told, she's feeling kind of weird mentioning it now. Franklin's been gone for weeks now. The police have been questioning everybody at school who knew him. His father's gone, too, so the cops think they both might have left town together. Technically, Krystal had been broken up with Franklin for only a few weeks, but she'd been thinking about Jake long before then.

“Wait a second, you like Jake?” Sasha asks, as a grin quickly spreads across her face. “This is too funny.”

Krystal frowns. “What's so funny about it?”

“I'm just saying that you like Jake and I'm almost positive Jake likes you. The two of you are some pair. Too scared to say you like each other when you're together almost every day.”

“Well, you weren't all that quick to tell Twan you liked him.”

That stopped some of Sasha's laughter, but only some of it. “You're right.” She giggled again. “I did take my time admitting that I liked him. But I finally did, so it's probably time you do the same with Jake.”

“But you knew that Twan liked you. He never had a problem telling you that. Jake doesn't say a thing. I don't know what he's thinking from one minute to the next.”

“You could ask Lindsey to tell you what he's thinking.”

“That doesn't seem fair. Besides, she and Jake can barely stand each other.”

“Yeah, I know. I was thinking maybe at first that Lindsey liked him. But she seems to have other things on her mind lately.”

“I know. Sometimes I wish I could get into her head, and read some of her thoughts.”

“No. You need to concentrate on the ‘you and Jake' thing. Lindsey's fine, just figuring things out I guess. Just like the rest of us.”

“There is no ‘me and Jake' thing.”

“Then there should be. Look, I think you should make the first move. I've known Jake for a long time and he moves as fast as watching paint dry when it comes to things like this. If you want him, go get him.”

The edge of Krystal's mouth tilted in a smile. “You think so?”

“I know so,
chica,
” Sasha said with a grin.

 

If I were a living being I might have fallen out of that tree and busted my ass. Instead I slipped down slowly from the branch, feeling like the entire sky had caved in on my head.

Krystal wanted Jake.

She'd wanted Jake the entire time she was with me.

Fury probably should have been my first reaction, but I'm having a good time wallowing in self-pity as I sit on the curb outside her house.

After a while, that self pity turns to something else. It churns inside me like bile and I gag at first. Then I take a few steadying breaths.

The girl I thought was mine really wasn't.

She'd lied to me.

Just like my dad.

They'd both deceived me. I sat on the curb, watching cars go by and knowing that Krystal and Sasha were in her bedroom still talking about Jake. I realized that none of them gave a damn about me.

I'd never been very popular in school. Sure I had a few friends, usually the geeky types, not the beautiful and popular ones. I didn't know how much I'd longed for that acceptance until now, the very moment when I realized what an outsider I really was.

Dad's life was always his career and the research he did while locked behind closed doors. Me, I sort of existed on my own in our household, not really angry about the way things were, but not totally happy about it, either. I always thought I was stronger, that I was too smart to fall into the trap of the clichéd teenager from a broken home. If I kept up the facade well enough, the nagging doubts on the inside wouldn't matter. And I pretty much had that act down pat. Being such a good actor, makes me think I may have missed my calling.

But even thinking about my dad's betrayal didn't hurt as much as Krystal's. I thought we'd connected. I thought her feelings for me were the same as mine were for her. At the time, it didn't seem as if she felt otherwise.

My fists are tightly clenched by my sides as anger wells up inside me. She could have just said she wanted Jake. Could have told me I was acting like an idiot falling all over her all the time. Her friends probably laughed when I wasn't around. Jake always glared at me like he was ready to fight me at any moment. Maybe he was, maybe I was the one poaching on his territory. But neither one of them said anything. Both of them lied. All of them lied to my face and laughed behind my back.

I hate them all!

Revenge can be a great motivator. An hour ago the hand life had dealt me sucked. Now, I can see the possibilities.

 

My dad is most likely gone. He'd been researching my girlfriend like she was some sort of lab rat without even telling me. My girlfriend lied to me. A guy I didn't really know but might have even liked, stabbed me in the back. Compared to the reaper and the demons and their sorcery, I think I prefer the latter. At least they're honest.

They wanted something from me, so they made me a proposition, told me the pros and cons—well, maybe just the cons—and are waiting to see what my choice will be. Do the choices suck? Well, I guess that depends on how you look at it.

Right now, if I were still a walking, talking, breathing teenager, my life would be crap.

But as a whatever I am right now, it's not so bad.

What I need is opportunity and, as I'm walking down the street two days later watching the Settlemen's students as school finally lets out for the summer, I see that opportunity very clearly.

 

Everything looks different in the dark of night. I don't know what made me go home after standing in front of the school, but I did. I lay on the couch and I slept.

I didn't dream.

But I slept and when I wake, I feel rejuvenated. I instantly go to the door, inhale the night air and step outside. This time walking doesn't bother me. It doesn't really even feel as if I'm walking, the town sort of just passes by me in slow motion until I'm eventually standing behind the church.

I've never been inside this building, but I remember Dad doing a broadcast out front a couple years back when a lightning bolt struck the bell in the tower. Back then, I thought it was just a cool freak of nature. But after reading more of Dad's notes on the weather and the energy he thought storms produced that could possibly create supernatural powers, I look back on it differently now.

The streets are deserted and it's way past midnight, well past the unofficial curfew for Lincoln. I keep walking, knowing exactly where I'm going and how to get there. My foot touches the stone that's only slightly covered by short blades of grass. I stand on it and wait.

In seconds, I'm floating down a dark funnel as a cool breeze brushes over my skin. I'm traveling fast, and my stomach is doing mild flip-flops as I spiral downward. When my feet hit the soggy ground, I fall to my knees to gather myself before standing again.

This time I'm walking along a cavernous path. It's cold here below the earth's surface. I remember being here before and being afraid of what would happen next. Tonight I am not afraid.

I am in Trance, moving along like I belong here when, in fact, my fate is still undecided. It feels normal, me being in this space at this time. It feels like home.

When I come to a small clearing, I hear the ripple of water and see a steady billowing of steam. There's a lake there, just a few feet ahead of me. It curves around like a road inside the cavern. Where it ends I don't know. If it leads to a larger pool of water I'm not certain. There's life in that lake—something that has its own energy, negative energy—that breathes moisture in the air. I breathe in that moisture, inhaling deeply. It's like food and I'm gorging myself, enjoying the fullness it leaves inside me.

As the moisture gives way to a darker mist, I smile. It's Lor. I know what the cloud is now. The chameleon has a name. He knows mine and I know his. It's like we are friends.

I walk toward Lor, even though the mist simply rolls along the floor of the cavern. I know it's taking me somewhere, the place I came in search of. I think it's cool that I know what it's thinking without saying a word. It probably knows the same about me or why else would it have appeared right now.

The path opens up to reveal a larger cave, like a room within this dark dank place. There's a large chair or what looks like the back of a chair, with no seat. There's a frame along the wall, in a deep crimson color outlined with crystalline rocks. On each side are birds, ravens with beady red eyes. They are the largest ravens I've ever seen, like the size of pit bulls. They eye me as if I'm the main course on the dinner menu.

I'm not afraid as I continue walking. I am welcome here. I know this, I feel it deep inside.

Without a sound, he appears in the seat. His cloaked form simply materializing out of the air. Everything is still covered. Unlike Nasiel's cloaked appearance with its skeletal frame, Charon's form is shapeless, just an endless blackness that evokes an ominous feeling.

“You are beginning to believe,” he says.

Sticking my hands into my pockets, I nod. “I'm seeing things a little differently now.”

“You desire more answers.”

“I do.”

“Ask.”

“Why them? Why do you need me to help you break them up? They're just a group of teenagers. They're not important.”

“To me they are. Each one of them separately has some meaning. Together they could destroy all that I have worked for.”

“But they don't even know about you.” At least I'm almost positive they don't, since how many people have had encounters with twenty-first-century demons?

“They know that I am here, that I will destroy them.”

I shrug. “What do you get from destroying them?”

The question prompts Charon to lift his arm again. I'm prepared this time, waiting for the vision to appear, anxious to see what he has to show me.

I see Sasha first. She's standing behind a house, just having closed the door behind her. Maybe she's sneaking out to see that boy she's going out with, the one who hangs out with the troublemakers at school. I don't see the significance…but then she's not there anymore. She appears again at the corner of Bolten Street. That's a good distance from her house, where I'd just seen her.

The scene changes and it's him—Jake. I'm not really in the mood for seeing him right now, but I don't think Charon wants to hear me whining about the boy who stole my girlfriend. So I keep quiet, but my jaw is clenched and my teeth are grinding against each other so hard they feel like they could crumble.

Jake's lifting something. It looks like wood planks. Lots of wood planks and he's carrying them as if they're light as a feather. He's behind his house, I can tell from the old rundown look of all the houses down by the tracks. Then he's not lifting the wood anymore, he's just looking at a huge pile. Then that pile is moving—plank after plank after plank is drifting into the air—traveling the length of the yard and stacked in a neat pile.

I swallow.

Sasha's disappearing and reappearing. Jake's strength and ability to move things. I'm afraid of what's next but I know it's coming whether I'm prepared for it or not.

It's Krystal. She's at a cemetery, standing amidst headstones and grave sites, looking, strangely enough, as if she belongs there. Her hair's blowing in the wind, trailing behind her like long fingers. She's staring straight ahead, her eyes focused on something that I don't see. Then she opens her mouth to talk. I can't hear the words but she's definitely talking to someone or something. An eerie feeling circulates inside me as I watch her. She looks so serene, so at peace here in this place, talking to no one.

Then she turns, a half smile touches her lips as she mouths something into the air once more. She goes to her knees and makes a motion with her hand like she's telling someone to come closer. Her gaze moves to the space right next to her—the empty space and she continues to talk.

If it were another time, before I took a dip in the lake and dragged Krystal into the woods to try to gauge her eyes out, and definitely before I woke up in the Underworld and was transported to Trance where I'm surrounded by larger-than-life ravens, a chameleon demon and a demon with ambitions of ruling the world, I might have thought what I was seeing was incredible. But now it's like pieces of a puzzle clicking into place.

The scene shifts to the forest, and I take a step closer, wondering if I willed myself, if I could go back to that place, that time—what would I do if I could?

I can't, so it doesn't matter. I just move closer to the image, which opens up like a big-screen television with scenes edited especially for me. It's like I'm watching a surreal movie trailer.

The forest is just as it was that day, dark and eerie, even though a few miles away it's bright sunlight. Tall trees jut up from the ground, dominating the landscape. In a small clearing littered with broken branches and fallen leaves, all of us are standing—Sasha, Jake, Lindsey, Krystal and me. I had my arms around Krystal, holding her, but not really feeling her. I remember that day when I grabbed her. I remember I didn't feel like me and she didn't feel like her—not the Krystal I knew, not the Krystal I loved. She'd yelled at me, her tone sounded like she hated me. That hate had been tinged with something else, maybe confusion. But I can't pinpoint it right now.

All I know is that I needed her. I needed something from her with a desperation that was eating me alive. In some ways, I felt like what I was doing was wrong. But the need was overwhelming. I was reaching and reaching. She was squirming and yelling. Sasha was holding Jake back. Lindsey was staring at me like she could see right through me, like she knew exactly what I was feeling. But that's not possible. Nobody knew what I was feeling, that unspeakably dark need. They couldn't know—none of them could.

Then Krystal was out of my grip and Jake was behind me, pulling me down. I don't remember anything after that. Nothing. But I see it now. I see exactly what happened from that moment on, and I struggle to understand it.

I am not me—not the
me
I'm used to seeing.

My eyes are different, my voice is different. It's my body, but it is not my soul. I was gone even then. They'd already taken the old Franklin away, replacing him with what?

“Power,” I hear Charon whispering in my ear, like the narrator of a film noir. “You had it even then.”

I'm shaking my head but I don't look at him. I hear him and a part of me agrees with what he's saying. Another part needs more convincing. In the next few seconds, that persuasion comes when the scene changes and I'm levitating off the ground, my body floating in the air as an eerie laughter follows my movements. The four of them are on the ground, looking up in disbelief. Then I see them standing in different parts of the clearing, with lights glowing, and connecting them.

From my perch in the sky, I look down and notice that an aura is coming from each of them—purple from Lindsey, pink from Sasha, green from Jake and Krystal is bathed in a heavenly blue. The rainbow colors combine in a way that generates a sensation like nothing I've ever known.

In the next second, it's over.

The darkness once again envelops the cavern, except for an eerie red glow that makes everything around it look just a little more sinister.

“They are powerful, as well. If they use that power together against me, I lose,” Charon states, solemnly.

The ravens are still watching me, perfectly still except for the red of their beady eyes.

“How did they get their powers?” I ask, accepting what I've just seen for exactly what it is—the beginning of a revelation.

“She created them. She manipulated the weather to create her army. Now I will manipulate her precious mortals to gain the ultimate power.”

“And you need my help.”

“I want you there, on the inside with them. You know their weaknesses, things I can never know. You know how to tear them apart. I sense you want that as much as I do.”

Oh, if he only knew. Vengeance is mine. I can feel it, a growing sense of power and control.

“Is that what I need to do before you trust me?”

“No. Destroying them will take time, and a carefully plotted plan. Right now I simply need to see what is in you. What you are capable of. I sense an evil streak in your blood. But that's true of most people. I need to know if it runs deeper in your blood—if you can live up to my expectations.”

He wants to believe in me. I can hear it in his voice. He wants to believe that I can help him reach his destiny. He has faith in me. No one has ever had that kind of confidence in me before, or at least they never said it.

I want to believe what he said was true. I could destroy them. I could take their little group apart because I was powerful. And I would be even more powerful when this was all over.

“I'll show you what I'm made of,” I say, and turn to leave the cavern without another word.

I know the ravens are watching me, and I know that Charon is watching me. Just as I know Lor is right behind me. I can sense his dark presence like another part of me.

The time is now.

 

I'm back at Krystal's house now. I can't seem to stay away from her. I just want to see her, one more time.

My life doesn't seem to be my own anymore and I don't really know when or why that changed. I've accepted that my circumstances are drastically different now. But I don't know how much of a difference that makes on the inside in what I feel for her.

There were so many secrets she kept from me. But they are no longer secrets. Well, now that Charon has revealed the mystery surrounding Krystal and her friends. I watched in amazement at the revelation of who Krystal was or wasn't, compared to who and what I thought she was. I guess it all works out, since now I am not what I used to be.

It's late, but I don't have any real sense of time anymore. I'm inside her house, standing in her room, right beside her bed. How did I get in? I don't really know. One minute, I was outside her window, thinking of climbing the tree beside her window to see her. In the next instant, I was there. I thought I felt a breeze as I stood looking down at her, like Nasiel probably had something to do with it.

The reaper keeps insisting that I make the right decision for myself. He believes in Charon, both him and Lor, and that's why they're helping him. But Nasiel seems to know that I'm torn between both sides. There're plenty of reasons why I should simply cross over and do Charon's bidding. Realistically, there's nothing on earth holding me back from what promises to be an even greater destiny.