Secrets of the Sleeper: True Nature Series: Book One (14 page)

“Some say the Usemi and Akharu are descendants of Cain and Abel and that they were cursed to be what they are now. There are lots of theories regarding the curses, but that’s neither here nor there.”

Here nor there? Who says that?
I thought. My head was busting with new information, old dreams involving biblical characters, and what this meant for me. I still didn’t understand how I fit into things.

“What about the Sethians? What’s their thing? You said some have superpowers. Do they live long, too? And when you say a long time, just how long are we talking?” The picture of the soldier still displayed on Dante’s computer screen. He looked human, like any modern-day soldier. He wore fatigues and carried a gun. Other instruments were clipped to his waist.

“Well, I’ve heard that Sethians used to live just as long as Usemi and Akharu, but many, many years ago their life spans began shortening until now they live as long as humans. I’ve also heard that there are still Sethians out there who have retained their longevity, something about them remaining uncorrupted. But I’m not sure what that means. Anyway, you remember the Bible characters like Noah and Methuselah? They were Sethian and they lived almost a thousand years.”

“Wow.” My fall-asleep-faster tactic, reading the Bible, just got more interesting. I was definitely going to look up these Sethians—if I ever got away from Dante.

“And their powers?” I prompted

“Oh, no. No powers, except for the uppity-ups. But they aren’t like ours. They seem to weaken over time, so they have to reinforce them.”

I was curious. “What do you mean?”

“Well, the official story is that they have some kind of secret ceremony during which the Great Spirit blesses them with gifts to help them strengthen the Sethians as a whole, enforce the laws over the other races, and protect humans.” Dante’s face was skeptical.

“But you don’t believe it?” I asked.

“Let’s just say I think The Collector collects Idimmu for more than their gifts—Oh, I shouldn’t have told you that!”

A cold finger ran up my spine. “Dante, what does he really do with them!”

Dante stood up quickly and headed to the small kitchen. He crushed his empty soda can in his hand before tossing it in a trash can.

“You know, it doesn’t really matter. Nothing you or I can do about it anyway.” He picked up his phone to check his messages.

He wasn’t going to tell me any more about it. So I took a different approach. “Dante, I thought you said the Usemi that fixed you ran away. Why would you go back now?”

He turned his full gaze on me then, and his eyes were wild again. A creepy smile spread across his face as he tilted his head mockingly.

“Why, Tru! I thought it would be obvious! I have you now. You can be the new fixer. The Collector is going to be so happy with me. He hoped that I would find Dubois, but I think I found something better!” He almost cackled.

Throughout his psychotic self-congratulations, two things stood out. One, he thought what I did for Bobby made me like whoever fixed him, and two, I’d heard the name Dubois before. It certainly wasn’t a common name. Zander and Peter referred to my wolf as Dubois. Everything seemed connected, but I couldn’t piece it all together yet. I felt dizzy and betrayed. I thought Dante was coming around. He seemed so normal most of the time. But now I saw that he truly was crazy.

Refocusing on my surroundings, I saw that Dante had pulled away a rug in front of the sofa and flipped open a trapdoor in the floor.

“No! You have it all wrong!” I couldn’t fix people like he thought. I just knew how to be nice. I wasn’t gifted. I was just a dumb girl who should have run when she had the chance!

Dante stood behind my chair, tipping it slightly to make me stand.

“Sorry, Tru, but it’s true!” He giggled. “Did I ever tell you I liked your name?”

“Dante!” I leaned hard backward, desperate, desperate enough to turn in my wolf. “What if I said I knew where the Fixer was?”

He laughed hard now. “Oh, come on! I have a feeling you would say just about anything right now.”

There was no way I was going down into that dark hole without a fight. I rolled out of my chair, picking it up to swing at him, but he grabbed it before I could build up any momentum. His eyes glinted with fury and he growled through clenched teeth.

“I was going to untie you first, but have it your way!”

Pitiful

With one shove I
was weightless seconds before falling through a dark hole and landing so very, very wrong, one ankle folding like a napkin, causing me to wrench back, smacking an elbow on the cement floor. The heavy wooden chair landed and broke beside me, but not before smacking me in the hip. My elbow throbbed. It was the mother of all funny bone injuries. I felt sure that my arm was never going to straighten again and that a bone may have penetrated my skin. The pain stole my breath far too long, and then I was gasping and coughing from lack of air and excruciating agony. I tried not to move, because the tiniest shift in my position made the contents of my stomach rise up.

“Oh, dear,” said a sickly sweet voice above me. Light from the room above surrounded me. Looking up, I could see Dante’s dark silhouette. “Did you hurt yourself?” He mocked. “Sorry about that. At least it will keep you from trying to escape. Oh, right! You can heal yourself! So what’s that saying?
Physician, heal thyself?
That’s it.” He pulled out his cell phone and tapped it.

“I don’t know how, you idiot!” I screamed. With pain shooting through my entire body, my voice came out sounding as crazy as his. It was like I’d been transported to someone else’s nightmare, too horrible to be happening to me. Slowly, the initial shards of agony faded into a layer of numbness that allowed me to lie back on the ground.

Dante squatted, a dark silhouette in the cellar doorway. He sighed dramatically. “Tru, Tru, Tru. You do, too. I saw you, you little liar.” He paused and squeezed his head with both hands. “As you can see, I’m not quite myself. So the sooner we get you to The Collector, the sooner I can be fixed.” He spoke sweetly, like he was talking to a little child.

“Then why didn’t you have me fix you before you shoved me down here!”

“Tut, tut, Tru—oh my, the alliteration! It’s lovely, isn’t it?” He repeated the words several times, smiling. “Dear, sweet, girl. Your talent could go both ways. How can I trust you to fix me instead of breaking me more? No, no, I need The Collector to make you fix me. He has ways to make people do what he wants.”

A hopeless sob escaped me.

“There, there now. Don’t worry. All will be well. I think you are going to make me very rich, sweetheart, yes I do.” The more he spoke, the more song-like his voice became.

“They’re going to realize I’m missing,” I bit out with a low growl, grinding my teeth. I had to stop talking, or I’d really vomit, and that would make my misery so much worse. Cold sweat had broken out over my lip. Dante still heard me.

“I suppose. But they won’t find you in time. Those brothers! The Collector really has silly sons. Oh! Alliteration again. Did you hear it? Silly sons. Silly sons.”

“What?” Who was he talking about now? I suspected, but didn’t want to believe it.

“Zander and Peter, of course! Although, they have no idea who The Collector is.” He cackled. “What? Did you really think Zander liked you? Stupid girl. He was looking for the same thing I was! But I figured it out first!”

Suddenly, Dante grabbed his head like he was going to smash it between his palms. He yelled, “Stop it. Stop it!” And then he lay on the ground next to the opening. He must have passed out.

I wanted to scream out loud, but kept it in my head. Zander really was using me all along. It felt like little blood vessels around my heart were popping. Maybe this was what it felt like to get your heart broken. But to do so, you had to love someone first. Did I love him? It didn’t matter anymore. Zander wasn’t coming to help me. But someone would, right?

Someone, please help me!
I sent my plea out into the universe. No one knew where I was. Would Ruthie or Isaac look for me?

Above me, Dante groaned. He rolled over and looked down at me.

“Tru? What are you doing down there?”

“Are you serious?”

His eyebrows turned down at the corners. “Oh, man! I’m sorry about this. I must have lost it there for a while.”

Relief poured back into my chest and I breathed a little easier. “Ha ha. Can you help me out of here?”

“Actually, you are right where you need to be for now. I just didn’t mean to hurt you. So sorry! But don’t worry, I’ll get someone to come pick us up ASAP.”

He started humming as he tapped away on his phone.

What?
I couldn’t keep up with his personalities. I started shivering. It wasn’t that cold down here, I thought. I must be going into shock. I was going to die in a cellar, in a pit of no mercy, in the middle of nowhere, and my friends and family would never know what happened to me. I allowed the tears to fall.

Dante moved his phone around in the air, whispering something about service.

“Hey, are you okay down there?”

I opened my eyes. He was looking down at me, but all I could see was his silhouette.

“There should be a sleeping bag somewhere around there. Oh, I’m sure you can figure it out.”

I still didn’t say anything. It hurt to talk. I thought of Ruthie and how kick-butt she was. Really. She didn’t seem like the type, but she took martial arts classes with her brothers and could really tear someone up if needed. I smiled just thinking of her.

I breathed in and out, trying to manage my panic. I was not dead yet. Slowly but surely, my shivers died down. I was positive my ankle was broken. For once, I was grateful for the ability to see in the dark. I could even make out the walls around me. Shelves lined them, stuffed with boxes. I was beginning to suspect this was one of those underground survival hideaways. Perhaps there was a weapon or something in those boxes that I could use to get out of here. I needed to scoot over there. Plus, I hated that he could see me so clearly while he remained a black outline above. I took a look at the chair I was shackled to and received my first bit of good luck. It had broken, and with a little yank and wiggle, I slipped the knotted rope from the chair’s thick spindle. I bit my lips as I tried to drag myself toward the shelves. I only made it to the edge of the light before coming to a gasping stop. At least he couldn’t see my face anymore. No, I’d make it to those stupid shelves and find something to help me.

Crazy must have been reading my mind.

“You know? You remind me of a cockroach scurrying to a dark corner.” He chuckled. “Just to save you the effort, I removed the ladders and guns and pretty much anything you might be hoping to find.” He disappeared for a second and was back with a flashlight. I lifted a hand to block the beam of light shining into my face.

“There you are, sweetheart!” He turned off the light. “Just checking on you. I’ll come down later, when I bring your dinner. I can’t have you fading away on me. Besides, we could get to know each other better, no?”

He started to disappear again, and despite my awful fear of him, I was more afraid of him making that phone call. Right now, my best friend’s name was Stall.

“Wait!” I called.

He paused and squatted back down.

“Aw, you missed me already?” He turned off the flashlight and set it on the floor next to him.

“Tell me more about what I am.”

He had called it my “true nature” before. I’d always thought that referred to the type of person you were, not what kind of being you were. Did an animal act solely based on its biological makeup or on something else I couldn’t name, maybe its soul? Personality? Was it a mix of them all? Was a being’s true nature a combination of all these things? It didn’t seem fair to lump a person’s true nature in one category. To me, the true nature of a being was as unique as a fingerprint.

“Sure, Tru. I wonder which one it is? Your father or mother?”

“What about them?”

“Was it your father or mother that spawned you? You know, which one of them was Akharu or Usemi?”

“Easy. Neither.” What was he talking about?

Dante tilted his head back and cawed loudly. “You really don’t know, do you? Did I forget to mention how we become Idimmu?” He was back to his singsong voice.

“Yeah. That seems kind of important to know.”

“Well, sweetheart, I hate to break it to you this way, but one of your parents has to be Akharu—aka vampire or blood-sucking spawns of Cain—or Usemi—aka lycanthrope or Abel’s cursed descendants. My father was Usemi, or so The Collector told me. He can do a blood test and find out. The bastard left my mother when I was just a baby. Usemi are natural wanderers, like gypsies.”

My mind swirled at his words. How was this possible? How could my parents hide this from me? No, there was no proof. Seeing in the dark didn’t prove anything. But Dante was definitely a demon in my book.

“I know it’s a bit of a shock and all, and I’m sure your parents are nice folks, but one of them caused this. It’s not your fault. They broke the law, not you. It is unfortunate that we have to pay the price, though. We are twice cursed creatures.

“Remember me saying that some call us half-breeds or demons? Sethians are afraid of what we can do. They convinced everyone that we need to be locked up—or worse—to protect good folks everywhere. Sure, some of us are dangerous, but every race has its psychopaths.”

“Who thinks we need to be locked up?”

“The pure races, of course—Sethians, Akharu, Usemi. Well, probably not our parents, but the rest of them. It’s always about power, and baby, we have power. Now if we could just stay sane long enough to overthrow them, yeah, that would change the world, wouldn’t it?”

My thoughts exactly. Anyone who controlled the Idimmu would have a lot of power. No wonder they wanted a healer.

“What exactly can you do again?” I asked.

“I told you! I see auras. Different kinds of creatures have different auras, and you have the most colors I’ve ever seen. Odd that yours are so different from our last healer. But that must be because she was also Usemi. Yeah, that must be it.”

“But you can do more, can’t you? You made Bobby and me go to sleep with just a touch, didn’t you?” It seemed so strange, but I had recently seen werewolves in my backyard and a mind-erasing army guy.

“Yes. They call me The Sandman. Isn’t that clever? It’s way more humane than other forms of fighting, don’t you think?” He yawned loudly. He was getting tired of this conversation.

“How do you know someone is, uh, Idimmu? I mean, how does their aura look?” I asked instead.

“Well, their aura changes when they use their gift. Usually, people have one strong color tinged with other colors depending on their mood. When Idimmu use their gifts, they become multicolored, usually two or three dominant colors, and their pattern is different than a human’s.”

“What color am I?”

“You? As far as I remember, you are every color.”

“What do you mean? I thought Idimmu had just a few colors.”

“I know!” He seemed excited. “That’s what I mean. Your aura is beautiful! It’s like a shimmery spectrum that goes on and on. The most powerful Idimmu I saw before you had four colors.”

Well, that sounded pretty weird. I was a freaking rainbow. Bring on the leprechauns.

“And,” he continued, “when you helped Bobby at lunch the other day, your aura was so bright, I had to shield my eyes! I knew you were doing something to him. I think you fixed his head, you know, his depression.”

That wasn’t possible. Suddenly, I didn’t want to know any more. Perhaps whatever Dante had was contagious. I was beginning to believe the mad ravings of a lunatic. But was I really any different than before? I mean, just last year I was a walking coma. If I was this “Idimmu” that Dante was going on about, then my stint with insanity could have been the beginning of more. Would I end up like him?

“Dante, I think I need a doctor.”

“What? You haven’t fixed yourself yet? Oh, well. No worries. When I call this in, they’ll send one to help you.”

Panic enveloped me again. I didn’t want to be collected. That sounded very, very bad.

“Dante, please! My dad needs me.” I couldn’t leave him like Mom left us. It would be worse, because I would simply disappear. I’d become some picture on a milk carton.

“You think someone didn’t need me?” He was angry now. He stood up suddenly and slammed the door shut. Tears dripped down my face, onto the gritty floor. Strangely, only one person’s face flitted through my mind. It wasn’t family. It wasn’t my best friend. It was Zander, even if he was the son of The Collector. Looked like I might be the daughter of a werewolf or vampire. That didn’t make me bad, did it? I wondered if I would ever see him again.