Pawn (Nightmares Trilogy #1) (35 page)

“No, no, no. Nothing like that,” I
said quickly. “It’s just…”

Just what? That the thought of prom
terrified me? That something bad was going to happen if we went?
How was I supposed to explain that to him? Particularly when he was
giving me imploring puppy dog eyes.

I swallowed my nerves. This was
ridiculous. My paranoia and irrational fear were
ridiculous.

“Kannon,” I began slowly, “will you
escort me to my prom?”

A grin broke out across his tan
features. “Why Endora, I thought you would never ask.”

He leaned down, bringing
his lips to the hollow of my throat where he’d left off and
trailing small kisses up the side of my neck. Electricity crackled
everywhere that his mouth touched my skin until our lips met in an
explosion of
Fourth of July worthy
fireworks.

“Kannon? There is something else I’ve
been wanting to ask you about,” I began after another long make-out
session.

“Black. I’m traditional,” he said
smiling.

“Huh?”

“You were going to ask me what sort of
tux I was going to wear, right? My tux is black.” He rolled his
eyes. “I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I actually own one. Dad’s
company throws all of these parties and my parents make me go with
them.”

I laughed uncomfortably. “Black is
good. I’m traditional, too. But that’s not what I wanted to ask you
about.” I paused, not sure how to phrase my question.

That night at the lake had been
weighing on my mind. The more I learned about the underworld and
the Egrgoroi, the more I was convinced that the creature was real.
And if Kannon had arrived in time to save me from drowning, he
would have seen it too.

“What is it, Endora?” Kannon adjusted
himself so he was sitting up a little straighter. His voice was
guarded, like he was anticipating that he wouldn’t like whatever I
had to say.

“That night at Caswell Lake, did you
see anything weird in the water?”

Kannon sucked in a sharp breath. I met
his gaze, but his eyes remained expressionless. Only the tightening
around his mouth betrayed him. He had seen something.

“What did you see?” I asked
quietly.

“I’m not sure, it was so dark down
there,” Kannon began cautiously.

I waited for the “but,” except it
didn’t come. “Please, Kannon. I don’t care how crazy it sounds, I
want to know. Did you see something?”

Kannon averted his gaze and ran his
hand through his hair, mussing the curls. “Yeah, I saw her,” he
said at last.

Her? He saw her? So I hadn’t been
hallucinating. “You saw the mermaid?”

He sighed. “She isn’t a mermaid. Well,
not exactly anyway. She’s like a mermaid but not quite.”

Could he be any more
cryptic?

“Technically, she’s a rusalka,” he
continued, still not looking at me. “She is sort of like us.
Rusalki are Egrgoroi who died violently, usually in the water.
Unlike us they aren’t actually alive anymore. They get the chance
to come back to earth to do the work of the gods, but they aren’t
human and they don’t have a soul.”

I swallowed thickly. Kannon had been
holding out on me. How much else had he been keeping
back?

“What other types of Egrgoroi are
there?”

This time when he spoke, Kannon did
meet my gaze.

“I honestly don’t know. I know there
are people like us, the traditional Egrgoroi, and then there are
those like the woman in the lake – ones who pay a much higher price
for their second chance.”

“How do you know all of
this?”

Kannon shrugged with feigned
indifference. “I’ve done some research, asked around.”

“And you didn’t tell me any
of this.
Why
?”

“I didn’t know whether you’d seen her.
That’s why I asked you what happened in the water, remember?” I
nodded. That was the first question he’d asked after making sure I
was okay. “When I realized that you didn’t know anything about what
you are, what we are, I didn’t want to freak you out further. I
figured once you got more used to the idea of being an Egrgoroi
that I would fill you in on everything I know.”

His reasons made sense, but I still
felt lied to. I sat up and scooted to the end of the couch cushion,
rubbing my temples with my thumbs to ward off the headache
developing behind my eyes.

“I’m sorry, Endora.” Kannon’s touch
was light on my back. When I didn’t pull away, he wrapped an arm
around my waist from behind. “I’m not trying to keep things from
you. I just don’t want to overwhelm you with all of this. And there
is a lot I don’t know, or only know superficially.”

He pulled me backwards until my back
was pressed against his chest, then rested his chin on my shoulder.
“Are you mad at me?”

I took a deep breath and let it out
slowly.

“No, I’m not mad,” I said at last.
“But can we not keep secrets like this from each other? I’m a big
girl, Kannon. I can handle the truth. I want to know whatever you
know. Okay?”

Kannon pressed his lips into the
hollow behind my ear.

“Okay,” he agreed.

Chapter
Twenty-Three

The ringing of my cell phone woke me
at 7 a.m. the following morning. The Wentworths’ home number
appeared blurry through my tired eyes.

“Hello?” I croaked into the
phone.

“Endora, it’s James
Wentworth.”

“Morning,” I said, sitting up in my
bed and rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

“My tech man was able to crack the
password on Mark’s computer. You’re welcome to pick it up whenever
it’s convenient for you.”

He’d gained my full attention, I was
suddenly wide awake.

“Awesome. Can I come now?” I was
already dialing Devon’s cell on my home phone.

“That would be fine. See you
soon.”

The moment I hung up with Mr.
Wentworth, I spun the dial on the antique phone one last time.
Devon’s voice was scratchy and low. I heard what was meant to be
“hello,” I think.

“Get dressed,” I said without
preamble. “I’m coming to get you. Mr. Wentworth has the password to
Dad’s laptop.”

“Already?”

“I know. Super fast, right? See you
soon.”

I pulled on jeans and a tee-shirt that
were crumbled on the floor next to my bed. Brushing my teeth seemed
like a waste of time, so I just swished mouthwash while
finger-combing the tangles from my hair.

Mom was downstairs in her home office.
I poked my head through the open door and told her I was having
breakfast with Devon. By the time she got out the words, “Have a
nice time,” I was already halfway down the hallway.

I picked up Devon in record time. She
was waiting in her driveway, and I already had the Bug in reverse
when she dove into the car. Between the lack of traffic and the
urgent need to get a look at the laptop, I made the forty-five
minute drive to the Wentworths’ in just over half an hour. My
father felt the need to password-protect this information, so I was
hoping it held some of the answers to my burning questions. Where
was my dad? Why would he go to the underworld? What was to become
of me? Did I really have to spend my life answering to the gods?
And which side was I even working for?

With all of this running through my
head, I wasn’t exactly a glowing conversationalist on the ride.
Devon filled the time by prattling off theories as to what we might
find. I only halfway paid attention to her, lost in my own
thoughts.

When we were finally there, the laptop
exchange went smoothly. Mr. Wentworth gave us the computer and a
piece of paper with passwords for all of the files. Jamieson wasn’t
home, thank the gods. The last thing I needed right now was to
engage in a verbal spar with her.

Mom was gone when we returned to my
house with the laptop, bagels with cream cheese, and orange juice.
She’d left a note explaining she needed some files that were at the
office and would be home by dinnertime.

Devon was practically bouncing with
excitement when she sat on the sofa. She booted up the laptop,
selected the “Endora” file and entered the passcode. Within the
larger file there were a number of sub-folders. The first was
labeled, “Gates.” When Devon clicked on it, a list of seven cities
appeared: Hilo, Alexandria, Athens, Bhaktapur, Buenos Aires, Perth,
McMurdo Station.

So Mr. Haverty was right, Dad had
found possible locations for the gates to the
underworld.

“Do you have your phone?” Devon
asked.

“My phone?” Confused, I pulled my cell
from the back pocket of my jeans and handed it to her.

“Just as I thought,” Devon said,
scrolling through the phone’s contents. She handed the phone back
to me. Displayed on the screen were the pictures I’d taken of the
maps in Dad’s house. “The pushpins on most of the maps are located
in these cities, roughly.” Devon pointed to the list of seven
cities on the laptop screen. “He has a couple extra pins on each of
them, but they’re all blue. On every map the red pins correspond
with the seven locations, give or take a couple degrees of latitude
and longitude.”

I flipped through all of the pictures.
Devon was right.

“I bet your father determined the
seven gates to the underworld are located in these cities,” Devon
was saying.

“I was thinking that, too,” I
agreed.

“Now we just need to find out why he
wanted to know where the gates were,” Devon said.

“That’s the million dollar
question.”

Since neither of us had any ideas, we
moved on to the next file. This one was labeled “SEC.” Samantha
Elizabeth Cable, I realized the instant Devon clicked on it. My
mouth went dry and I wanted to turn away from the computer screen.
I couldn’t, though. I had to know why Dad felt the need to guard
that information with a password. The moment the only document in
the folder filled the screen, I wished that I’d listened to my gut.
It was a digital copy of Samantha’s Death Certificate. Cause of
Death: Exsanguination During Childbirth.

“I don’t want to see any more right
now,” I said quietly.

Devon said nothing; she just closed
the laptop without bothering to close the files or turn off the
computer. She wrapped her arms around me. I didn’t how I was
supposed to feel. Should I cry? Should I be mad? At whom? Mom for
sparing me the truth? Myself for causing Samantha’s
death?

“It isn’t your fault, Eel,” Devon
whispered, rubbing my back.

“Really? Because she died giving birth
to me, so that sort of sounds like it’s my fault,” I said pulling
away from her embrace.

“No. Complications during childbirth
are common, even now.”

“Can we just move on?” I asked. The
way Devon was looking at me, with so much empathy, broke my heart.
Her eyes watered, and I thought she might burst into tears at any
second. My own eyes burned with unshed tears, but I wouldn’t allow
myself to cry over something that couldn’t be changed, at least not
until I was alone in my bedroom.

“Of course.” Devon smiled. “We have
tons of other stuff to dredge through.”

We spent the rest of the afternoon
pouring over my father’s books and notes. The books proved
unhelpful, but some of Dad’s notes were interesting.

Apparently, Dad shared Kannon’s
confusion about how I’d been chosen to become an Egrgoroi. From
what I could piece together, Dad had made an internet posting
soliciting information from people who had the same electrical
quirks that I did. Of course, when we tried to access the website,
we were told that the site no longer existed.

There were legal pads filled with
Dad’s interview notes. Again, Mr. Haverty’s information proved
correct. My father had traveled to four continents to meet with
other Egrgoroi. In his notes from an interview with a Mr. G.
Rochester, Dad had circled Minos’s name and underlined it three
times. I took that to mean he was somehow more important than the
other two judges.

“What do you know about Minos?” I
asked Devon.

She consulted her own notes before
replying. “He is one of the judges. Son of Zeus and Europa. King of
Crete at some point. Some say he is half-man,
half-serpent.”

Half-man, half-serpent? Like the man
carved on the box my newest necklace had come in. That probably
meant the other two men on the lid were Rhadamanthus and
Aeacus.

“Anything that makes him stand out
from the other two judges?”

Devon scrolled through her notes
again, her blue eyes lighting up when they landed on a pertinent
piece of information.

“Some believe he is the appeals judge,
like if you don’t agree with your sentence. You can appeal to him
and he will let you argue your case for a better
afterlife.”

“Huh,” I said.

Appeals judge. That would make him
more important than the other two. Did Dad want to appeal my
sentence? But wouldn’t that mean I would have to give back my
second life? Sure, I wouldn’t be forced to carry out the work of
the gods for the rest of my days, but I would also be dead. Living
in Elysian Fields sounded nice and all, but I wouldn’t have my
friends, finish high school, go to college, get married, or
experience anything more at all. And there was always the chance
that wasn’t where I’d go. What if I’d been judged evil? After all,
Samantha had died giving birth to me. That probably hadn’t gone
over well with the Panel.