Purpose (24 page)

I thought about Owen’s fantasy and grimaced.
“I don’t know about that.”

“Let’s see what else you can do,” Owen
suggested, changing the subject as if he knew my thoughts. Perhaps
he did. I wasn’t positive I controlled my new “gift” very well.

They flashed and I walked to the edge of the
property, by the trees and brush. Tristan and Owen took turns
showing their strength by pulling out bushes with one hand and
knocking over trees. They seemed to be trying to one-up each other.
Of course, Tristan won on all accounts.

“All right, you’ve proven your point,” I
said. “Any more and you two will ruin our privacy.”

“You try,” Owen said. “Here, start out
small.”

He indicated a knee-high palmetto bush. I
grabbed it at the base and tried to pull it out with both hands.
The plant didn’t budge.

“Guess I still have to be pissed off,” I
said.
Or getting it on with my sweetie
. I didn’t have to
hear Tristan’s mind to know he thought the same thing. The small
smile on his lips and the twinkle in his eyes told me. It was an
inviting look and I so wanted to take him up on it. But we had
things to do and places to go. I distracted myself by looking up at
a tall coconut tree standing near us. “I won’t even try knocking
over a palm tree, so don’t ask.”

“I have an idea, though,” Tristan said,
following my gaze. He searched the ground and picked up a handful
of small rocks, then looked up at the trees. “Try to hit the
coconuts on that one.”

He pointed to another tree thirty yards away,
the coconuts twenty feet high. I missed by several yards on the
first try. Tristan stepped behind me and showed me how to aim
properly. The electric pulse when he touched my hand brought back a
memory, when he’d tried to show me how to shoot darts on our first
date. Unlike those of the last seven years, this memory came bright
and clear. I wondered if he remembered.

“
I thought you weren’t going to do that
anymore
,” he reminded me, his voice in my head.

I looked at him guiltily.
Sorry. It’s a
nice memory I wanted to share
.

“
Thank you for it.”
He raised his
eyebrows. “
Now please get out of my head.”

I grinned sheepishly and tried to close my
mind by focusing on the tree. But suddenly all I could see was an
image of many trees and brush stretching high over my head, as if I
lay on the ground in the middle of a forest or overgrown
vegetation. The vision disappeared as quickly as it came. I shook
it off, dismissing it as nothing but a quick thought. I just didn’t
know if it belonged to me, Tristan or Owen. And that annoyed
me.

Owen and Tristan still watched me, both of
their brows raised with expectation. I refocused on the tree and
imagined a line the rock would follow between my hand and the
coconut. I let the rock fly.
Oh!
I hit the seed dead on. And
after doing so once, it came easily. I
couldn’t
miss.

“What else?” I asked excitedly, wanting to
move on to the next thing. Now that I found something I
could
do, the tests were getting fun.

“Do you think she has enough power to
project?” Owen asked thoughtfully.

“We’ll only find out if we try,” Tristan
answered. He demonstrated by holding his left hand out toward a
tree trunk about fifteen feet away, twisting his wrist and
spreading his fingers in a flicking motion. A fireball shot out of
his palm, singeing a hole in the bark. I jumped in surprise.

“Crap, Tristan, you never showed me that
one!”

He chuckled. “I don’t like to use it. I can
aim the fire perfectly, but it’s hard to control once it starts
spreading. Besides, it’s much more effective to paralyze the
enemy—or take them out completely with one shot.”

I stared at him, realizing I never completely
understood just how powerful he was.

He raised his eyebrows. “Your turn.”

I looked down at my hands—my normal, human
hands. They had performed all kinds of tasks over the years, from
typing to changing diapers, from cleaning to throwing things, from
punching a dirt-bag in the nose to caressing my baby’s cheek.
Normal, human hands—amazing all on their own. I certainly didn’t
expect them to ever shoot fire.

“C’mon already,” Owen moaned, apparently
growing bored.

I lifted my left hand and made the same
motion as Tristan had. I felt a strange tug, as if a thin thread
was being drawn through my veins and out the center of my palm,
pulling toward the tree. As soon as it—
something
—hit the
tree, the feeling disappeared. A small wisp of smoke rose and a
black dot marked the bark, but nothing singed. And, although I’d
experienced a physical feeling, nothing visible projected out of my
palm.

“Hmm. Let me see how strong it is,” Tristan
said. He walked about ten feet out and stood in front of me. “Try
me.”

“
What?
I’m not doing that!”

He laughed. “If that’s all you can do to the
tree, I can take what you have.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and stood
in a stance that showed he wouldn’t budge. I sighed and twisted my
hand at him.

“Huh…that’s interesting,” he said. His lips
pulled into a grin. “I felt an electric current. A shock.”

“Oh! It was always
me
?!” I stared at
my palm as if it had turned into some mutant shape, but it still
looked the same.

Tristan laughed again. “Guess so. I guess I
pulled it out of you. Now try with your other hand.”

I did. I didn’t feel anything.

“Hmm…I felt a little warmth,” Tristan said.
“Try again, but with your palm straight out.”

He demonstrated by holding his arm out and
his hand up, as if motioning me to stop. I mimicked him and focused
on pushing energy through it. I felt a ribbon of…something…a warm
and soft feeling…flow through my arm and out my hand.

“Yeah, warmth. Ah.” He smiled. “Amadis
power.”

“
Really?
” I asked. I bounced on the
balls of my feet with elation. “Like Mom and Rina?”

“Not quite. It’s still pretty weak, but I can
feel it.”

I looked at Owen and he nodded approvingly.
My insides squirmed with excitement.

Owen fixed cheesy eggs for brunch that he and
Tristan inhaled while I picked at mine. I wasn’t hungry at all, my
stomach feeling as if I’d already eaten a plate of worms. Anxiety
for the afternoon ahead of us writhed inside me. As soon as he
finished eating, Owen disappeared.

“Why are we doing it this way?” I asked
Tristan as we left the house. “I mean, why don’t we just flash all
the way to the bank?”

“Because we need to be cloaked the whole time
and Owen can’t keep us cloaked when we’re flashing. If we appear in
the wrong place at the wrong time…there are Daemoni looking for us
everywhere.”

“So, this is probably another stupid
question, but why can’t we just flash into the vault where the
safety deposit boxes are and flash back here when we’re done?”

“Because we need the bank’s key that matches
our key to open the box.” I was about to point out that he could
easily open it himself if he wanted to, but he caught onto my
thought. “It’s against the rules to use magic or powers to gain
access to a bank vault.”

My brows furrowed together. “Whose
rules?”

“The Amadis. No using powers or magic for
personal gain.”

“Oh.” I remembered many years ago, when we’d
run into Ian, who had left the Amadis for the Daemoni. He’d
complained about all the rules and control the Amadis had over him
and now his dissatisfaction made a little more sense. “But this
isn’t exactly personal gain. They’re your belongings, right? It’s
not like we’re breaking into steal a pile of gold bars or someone
else’s money.”

“We’re not allowed. That’s how it is.” He
abruptly stopped in the brush and lifted my hand in front of me.
The air itself seemed to waver, like it does when heat rises from a
hot asphalt road. “That’s the shield. Can you see it? Can you feel
it?”

I nodded, though I only saw it because the
air vacillated when I touched it and I felt nothing.

“As soon we cross it, we have to flash
immediately. I need to concentrate, since I’ve only done this once
before.”

The worms in my stomach wriggled again. The
memory of Vanessa and the others flashed in my mind, followed by
the pseudo-memory of Tristan writhing on the ground in a foreign
land. We had been safely confined within Owen’s shield around the
beach house. The estate had served as our refuge. Now we were about
to leave its safety, risking our lives or separation again. I felt
sick and imagined throwing up worms. Sweat beads popped out on my
forehead.

“It’s okay,
ma lykita
. We’ll be okay.”
Tristan lifted me into his arms.

“Just don’t let them separate us, Tristan,” I
whispered. “I don’t think I could live through it again.”

“Never, my love. But we’ll be fine. We’re
just going to the bank.” He winked at me, calming my fears. It’s
hard to be scared when your mind goes blank. “Ready?”

I nodded and tucked my face against his
chest. He took two steps, then flashed us both. The air was sucked
out of my lungs, as if a vacuum mask had been applied to my face.
In a second, everything changed around us—the feeling of the air,
the smells, the sounds. I automatically inhaled deeply, trying to
fill my lungs again.

“You did it!” Owen said with a note of
triumph. He stood next to a black Mercedes sedan with tinted
windows, parked behind a small, brick building. I could see the
words Key Largo Christian Church hand-lettered on a sign by the
street. Owen had come ahead of us to lease the car because the
Ferrari was too small for the three of us and too beat up
anyway…and because the Daemoni knew to watch for the conspicuous
sports car.

Tristan set me on my feet and Owen started
rubbing his hands together.

“Wait,” Tristan said and Owen stopped,
lifting an eyebrow.

Tristan took my necklace off, fished the key
off the chain, then returned the necklace to my neck. He handed the
key to Owen, who stuffed it into his jeans pocket. Then Owen rubbed
his hands together again and thrust them at us. If Tristan still
hadn’t been holding my hand, I would have assumed he had flashed. I
could see myself perfectly, but there seemed to be nothing but air
where Tristan just stood, although the sandy ground indented where
his feet were planted. Owen had cloaked us. He ushered us into the
back of the car, then jumped in the driver’s seat and drove us
farther north.

The key I’d been wearing with my pendant all
these years opened a safety deposit box at a bank in Miami. Owen
pulled the car into a parking garage beneath the building. We
followed him inside, staying close to Owen to prevent anyone from
bumping into us. The stiff, commercial-grade carpet inside didn’t
register our footsteps. As long as we remained silent, no one would
know we were there.

I felt uneasy, though. My sixth sense—the one
that told me whether a person’s overall intentions were good or
bad—didn’t seem to be working. Nobody registered, not even the
neutral people. Instead, a low humming sound filled my head. I
hoped the
Ang’dora
wasn’t removing that sense. I’d come to
rely on it, especially the alarms the Daemoni set off. Now I felt
as if I’d lost one of my connections to the outside world, almost
as bad as losing my sight or hearing.

The feeling of vulnerability slid over my
shoulders and down my arms, as if an actual cloak were falling to
the floor and exposing us in the midst of the enemy. The feeling
was irrational, of course. So was my fear. After all, one of the
best warlocks and the most dangerous creature on Earth protected
me. Nobody could even see us anyway and, like Tristan said, we were
just making a trip to the bank. Daemoni wouldn’t attack now, not
with all these people around. I hoped.

Nonetheless, the worms wriggled in my stomach
again while Owen showed the banker the key and gave her the
safety-deposit box number. The hum in my head intensified, becoming
more like a buzz now. Tristan squeezed my hand, as if he could
sense my distress.

The woman led us down a narrow hallway to the
vault, where she stopped and pressed her hand against a pad
attached to the wall to the right of the door. A little light over
the pad flashed green, then yellow. She motioned to Owen. Owen held
his hand up toward the pad and I felt Tristan shift slightly. The
light turned solid green. I assumed Tristan had slipped his hand
under Owen’s to provide the correct biometric reading.

The banker didn’t even notice how Owen hadn’t
pressed his palm flat against the pad. Just a few days ago, I
probably wouldn’t have noticed either. Realizing there were so many
things we could do with these magical powers made me also realize
the Daemoni could do the same. In that moment, I gained a new
perspective of how criminals got away with their crime sprees
undetected—they didn’t work alone. Or they weren’t quite human.

With a hiss and a swish, the vault door slid
open automatically, opening into a room about the size of a
standard hotel room. Rows and rows of safety-deposit boxes lined
the walls, from floor to ceiling, corner to corner, making the room
feel as if it was covered in stainless steel. A chest-high,
stainless-steel table stood in the center of the room. The woman
led Owen, and us, inside the vault, selected a box and slid it out
of its designated space, placing it on the table with a thunk. She
and Owen both stuck their keys into the end of the box and it made
a clicking sound. She slid the lid just a hair’s width to ensure it
was unlocked. Then she stepped outside and closed the door to the
vault to give Owen privacy.

Owen waved his hands at us and there Tristan
stood, right next to me, already reaching for the box. I held my
hand out in front of me, flexed it and opened it again. I did a
quick visual check of Tristan’s whole body, hoping my own looked
just as real and
there
as his did. We’d been cloaked much
longer than I’d been the other day, when Owen drove me out of Key
West. I hadn’t felt any different while cloaked—then or now—but I
supposed some part of me worried both of our bodies might have
disappeared forever.