Shadowed (Fated) (19 page)

He tried to peer through the glass and beyond, at
the display of books in the window to see if Darcy was inside the store. He’d
rather avoid her if he could. Making small talk when he could no longer
remember topics to talk small about was problematic. And he didn’t want to have
to make any more excuses about why he hadn’t called her. As if amnesia wasn’t
enough of an excuse.

But it was early, the store was still shut, the
lights dimmed. His mum had told him to come, so he guessed she must be inside
in her office. When he tried the door, he saw it was only on the latch. He
stepped inside, checking his surroundings, feeling the low voltage charge he
felt around the other Hunters – it was dimmer around his mum, most
amplified when he was around Evie.

His mum wasn’t in her office. She was sitting at a
table by the counter with a tiny espresso cup by her elbow and a pile of books
stacked neatly in front of her. She looked up at him and smiled wanly.

‘You need a shave,’ was the first thing she said.

Cyrus dropped into the chair opposite her with a
sigh. ‘I’ve been kind of busy.’

It was only then that he noticed the slim silver
blade leaning against the leg of her chair.

‘Expecting someone?’ he asked, nodding in its
direction.

‘Some
thing
,’
his mother stated drily. ‘They’ll be coming.’ As she said it she took a sip of
her coffee.

‘Is that what you wanted to see me about?’ he
asked, eyeing the red and silver coffee maker behind her. Caffeine would be
good right now, might help cut through the sludge of his mind and help him
locate some clarity.

‘I need to tell you something,’ his mother said.

He switched his attention back to her, feeling his
headache expand into his frontal lobe.

‘I think it’s open.’

He knew she wasn’t talking about the store. ‘You mean
the way through?’ he asked, standing and heading behind the counter to the
coffee machine. He flicked a switch. The levers and buttons looked familiar to
him. ‘I told you, we checked it,’ he said, glancing over at his mother. ‘It was
closed. I closed it.’

The coffee began to spring forth from the machine,
dripping viscous into his cup. It was like driving a car. He knew what buttons
to press to make coffee! It gave him hope for when he got together with Evie
– he checked himself – with
a
girl
– that he’d know what buttons to press then too.

His mum waited until he’d stopped frothing the milk
for his macchiato. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t think you did close it.’

He set the tiny cup down on the tiny saucer and
looked up at her.

‘We went back to that Bradbury place and checked.
It was shut.’

She shook her head. Her face looked grey. ‘I know.
It did shut. It just opened up someplace else though. Like plugging a hole in a
dam, the water burst through somewhere else. Another gateway opened up as soon
as the one in the Bradbury building closed.’ She saw the look Cyrus was giving
her and hurried on. ‘It would explain a few things’, she said. ‘How you’re here
for one. And why there seem to be even more unhumans around than there were
before. It can’t all be down to the Originals making more.’

Cyrus picked up his coffee and swallowed it in one
gulp, feeling the bitter burn as the liquid hit the back of his throat. He
walked back to the table.

‘OK, back up,’ he said, focusing on his mum,
registering the instant burst of clarity as the caffeine hit his bloodstream.
‘You made me come all the way across town to ply me with conjecture? Do you
have any proof? This whole
dam
theory
doesn’t seem like it holds water. No pun intended.’

She pushed a sheet of paper towards him across the
table, giving him an iron-clad stare. It was a print-out of an internet news
piece.

NAKED MAN FOUND WANDERING
IN BEVERLY HILLS

A man in his early twenties was found naked, wandering the streets in
the early hours of the morning. The man, who was carrying no ID, was in possession
of a two-foot long sword.

Nice
euphemism
, Cyrus mused,
feeling a momentary stab of disappointment that there was no photo to accompany
the piece.

‘I was naked. Where were they expecting me to carry
ID?’ he asked, tossing the article back to his mum.

‘Check the date,’ his mother answered, her face
serious.

‘What about it?’ he asked, glancing down again.

She stabbed the top of the page with her index
finger. ‘That’s the morning after the fight, after you walked through the
gateway and we thought you’d died. Just a few hours later.’

He studied the headline once more, trying to manage
the thoughts flying around his newly fired-up brain. The fact he’d been found
wandering brandishing a sword, or two swords to be precise, was irrelevant,
wasn’t it? But she had him on the number of unhumans still on the streets.

He sighed, ‘OK, just say I’m going with you on
this, for
conjecture’s
sake, why
wouldn’t it close properly? Tell me that. The prophecy said the way through
would be closed didn’t it? So why would it not be?’

Margaret’s voice was calm when she spoke. ‘That’s
easy. The way through wasn’t closed, the realms weren’t severed – because
you’re not the White Light. You never were.’

He frowned at her. Hard. ‘So what are you saying?
That it was Evie all along? That I sacrificed myself for nothing?’ He couldn’t
keep the anger out of his voice.

‘No,’ his mum answered quickly. ‘It’s not her
either.’

An immediate rush of relief punctured Cyrus’s anger.
He was glad. It wasn’t Evie. That’s all he could think. It wasn’t him either
– which was annoying, given he’d gone through all that self-sacrifice and
then spent eight weeks in a mental hospital wearing basically what amounted to
a dress and paper slippers. But it wasn’t Evie either – that was good.

He took a deep breath. ‘So who is it, then?’ he
demanded, standing suddenly. ‘Are we supposed to wait around for this White
Light person to show up, and just hope they know that that’s who they are and
hope they also come fully armed with an instruction manual on how to shut this
thing?’ He took a few steps backwards. ‘We don’t have the time for that. There
are unhumans walking around trying to kill us all off. How long’s it going to
take for this White Light to show up? Because the clock’s ticking.’

‘A while.’

‘How do you know?’

His mother weighed him up for a second, and then
she flipped open the book nearest to her. It fell open as if the page was well
read. She turned it around so it was facing him.

The whole page was covered in what looked like
ancient hieroglyphs.

‘What is this?’ Cyrus asked, peering closer. ‘It
looks like a game of Pictionary.’

‘It’s not. It’s the prophecy. The original in its
complete form. I only just found it. After you were … gone, I thought that
maybe there would be a way to open the gateway again. I had this idea that
maybe you were still alive, you see. That you were stuck on the other side. So
I started researching. I re-read all the books I had collected over the years.’
She swallowed, her eyes darting nervously to the page.

Cyrus glanced down again at the squares and
triangles and splots covering the paper.

‘Is there a CliffsNotes version? Or a translation?’

His mum thrust something across the table towards
him. It was a piece of paper with writing scrawled on it. ‘The funny thing is
that the Hunters had the prophecy in its entirety the whole time,’ she said.
‘It’s just the order of the verses that we had wrong.’

Cyrus frowned at her, not understanding. Then
looked down and read.

Confronting an army drawn from the
realms,

The sun, the giver of life and the light

Together will stand and together fight

One sacrificing all to close the way

Passing through the light and into the
dark

Memories will fade, shadows fall on this
day

Of two who remain a child will be born,

A purebred warrior, the fated White Light

Standing alone in the eventual fight

Severing the realms and closing the way

Passing through the light and into the
dark

Memories will rise, shadows fade on this
day

‘That’s you three,’ his mother said, pointing to the first verse,
‘You, Evie and Lucas. The sun, the giver of life and the light. This verse
here,’ she pointed to the first verse, ‘we thought it came after the White
Light was born. But it doesn’t. It comes before. Evie isn’t the White Light. The
White Light is a child that will be born to the two that remain.’

Cyrus read it again. Then he read it once more just
to be sure he was getting it. He looked up finally, meeting his mother’s eye.
She was studying him, waiting for him to figure it out.

‘Her child. Evie’s child is going to be the White
Light. Is that what you’re saying? Is that what it means?’

Margaret nodded.

Cyrus took a deep breath in and stared down at the
piece of paper in his hand, the ground tilting beneath his feet.

‘Of two who remain?’ he asked, hearing the weird
strain in his voice. ‘You’re saying …?’

‘Yes,’ his mother answered.

‘Evie’s the only girl. And Lucas is dead.’

‘Which leaves only you.’

Cyrus shook his head and pressed his hands to his
temples, reading it once more.

Of
two who remain a child will be born.

He sank down into his seat. ‘This is … I’m kind of
...’ He broke off, trying his hardest not to hyperventilate. ‘I need another
coffee. Actually,’ he shook his head, ‘scratch that. I need something
stronger.’

Evie woke with the sensation that Lucas was in the room with her. Not
just in the room – that he was in the bed with her, with his arms wrapped
tight around her waist. She stayed absolutely still, keeping her eyes scrunched
shut. If she lay just so, with the pillow wedged against her back, she could
pretend she was pressed against his chest. A blinding somersault of butterflies
took flight in her stomach for a blissful moment, before voices from the other
room pricked her waking dream and it burst.

She swung her legs heavily off the bed and sat up,
stretching out her limbs. She didn’t know how to let Lucas go. It was as simple
as that. Even if she’d wanted to, she didn’t know how.

Jamieson and Flic were busy making breakfast when
she wandered through into the kitchen. She noticed the time. It was late
morning. Damn. She pulled her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans. A
dozen missed calls. Eight from Cyrus – most in the last hour. There were
several messages too, all from her mother. She opened the last one. An angry
demand to know when she was thinking of coming home. She couldn’t think about
replying yet. Instead, with a shaking hand she called Cyrus’s phone.

He picked up on the first ring. ‘Where are you?’ he
demanded.

‘Are you OK?’ she asked at the same time.

He hesitated, ‘Kind of. We’re fine. Nothing’s
happened. I just … I need to see you. Now.’

‘OK,’ Evie said, pausing a second. ‘I’m staying
with Lucas’s sister and her boyfriend.’

There was a brief pause on the end of the phone,
then: ‘OK, I’ll come to you.’

She gave him the address.

‘I’ll be there in ten,’ he said before hanging up.

Cyrus was there in eight minutes. She felt the buzz
from him competing with the caffeine in her veins and jumped instantly off the
kitchen stool, getting to the front door before he could knock.

‘Hey,’ she said, looking up at him. He hadn’t
shaved. Darkish blonde stubble was shadowing his jaw.

‘Hey,’ he said back, raking a hand through his
unkempt hair. His cheeks were flushed.

‘You want to come in?’ she asked, stepping aside.
This was weird. He seemed embarrassed to see her – awkward – as
though he didn’t know where to look.

‘Sure,’ Cyrus mumbled, his eyes darting over her
shoulder.

She could sense his reticence, his hyper-alertness
as they walked down the hallway towards the living room. His body was
responding to Flic and Jamieson’s presence.

Evie was more accustomed to the sensation, having
been around Lucas so long and so intimately, but Cyrus’s instincts were putting
him on full alert: his heart was beating faster, his breathing running
shallower. He was scanning the hallway, looking for exits, his fingers flying
instinctively to his waist, checking his weapon. For an instant Evie wanted to
take his hand and tell him to relax, but then again she quite enjoyed seeing
Cyrus out of his comfort zone. It happened so rarely.