Shattered (20 page)

“I know,” I said, still staring at the
rings, at the symbols etched into them. There was something familiar about
them. I couldn’t figure out what it was, even with my powers on.

He snapped, and a compass appeared in his
left hand. It was made of rusted metal with a wooden face. A thin silver arrow
pointed at a hand-painted M, opposite a hand-painted H. The typical coordinates
were missing. This compass didn’t seem to measure direction. It measured
whatever the letters H and M stood for.

“I made this when I was eighteen,” he
said. “I’d met Sophia through a friend, and I’d heard she liked smart wizards.
Inventors. So I made this to impress her.”

I was about to ask more questions about
the younger Sophia and the ancient compass in his hand, but his face turned
serious again, changing the mood.

“When I met Sophia, it was abundantly
clear that she would do anything to keep the peace between magical kind and
humans. The compass was meant to help her do that. It predicts large-scale disruptions
of peace and warns us of which side will cause it.”

He slid the compass into my hand. The
rusted metal felt heavier than it looked. “H and M,” I said. “Human and
Magical?”

“Yes,” he said. I studied the compass and
frowned. The needle was pointing closer to M, frighteningly away from the
center that marked peace. “A few months before your grandfather quit, my
compass moved for the first time in years. It swung to the Magical side, but we
weren’t able to figure out what moved it in time to do anything about it.
Vincent had a reputation for being stern and intolerant, and his disappearance made
some of our people bolder and caused a wave of murders in quite a few
countries.”

His disappearance caused more than that.
Because he’d quit, he had a daughter. And that daughter had me. I owed my life
to that disappearance.

“When things were getting out of control,
Sophia went to work for one of the most powerful agents at the time. Back then,
like now, agents were more prestigious than hunters. They were powerful and
held prominent positions in society. It was usually political. You’d be
surprised at the people in your history books who were a little more than
human.” He tapped my nose, and I chuckled. “At the time, there were only a
handful of agents. My wife went to work for-”

“Mona,” I said.

“Yes. She was receptive of Sophia’s ideas
and restored balance very quickly. Mona created rules for hunters regarding
what they could and could not do to our people, and Sophia negotiated what our
people wouldn’t do to humans. More than a decade passed with no major issues on
either side, only a few disappearances and murders here and there. I remember
telling Sophia I was worried the peace would end. I saw this arrow creeping
dangerously towards the human side. A few months later, we found out why.”

He took the compass out of my cold hands
and rubbed his thumb across the H.

“I’m sure Julian wasn’t the first hunter
to breed copies,” he said. “But he popularized the idea. Suddenly, hunters were
able to produce their kind as fast as we could. And they were stronger than our
children. And violent. They disrupted the peace for years. Copies were all any
hunter wanted, and everyone knew Julian trained the most lethal psychics. They
expected his copies to be worse. Especially the copies of a female student he
bragged about in particular.”

“Mom,” I said.

He chuckled softly.

“I remember when my wife met your mother.
She came home and screamed that she’d met the devil. Vincent Shaw’s daughter,
Julian’s rumored student, and a demon all wrapped up in one little girl.”

I laughed, mostly because Sophia had yet
to rid herself of the devil she’d met. He clutched the compass in his hand and
swept his index finger to the M, where the arrow was pointing now.

“Your mother turned out not to be so bad,”
he said. “After a few months, she was rarely at Mona’s home, and then she disappeared
altogether. During that time, the arrow changed again, to the magical side.
Julian was doing more damage than ever, caging and killing so many of us, yet
we knew something was coming.”

“Because of the compass,” I said.

“Exactly. Word eventually spread that
Julian lost his huntress to Mona. And Mona had lost her to … a guy. Julian
couldn’t make good on the promises he’d made to so many, perfect children from
this perfect girl, and he fell from power. With the great Julian Polk out of
the picture, the spirit of rebellion spread like wildfire across my people.
First they wanted to live a free life out of hiding. Then … they wanted war.”

I sighed and shook my head. I would have
never connected Mom to the cause of the war, not in this direct of a way, in a
million years. I watched as he twirled the compass in his hand, my eyes
catching the metal arrow on each revolution.

“The fire started with one person,” he
said. “Dreco. Then he converted thousands to believe what he believed. In the
space of three years, we went from a secret people to the most feared monsters
of all time. He took out most of the agents and hunters, Mona included, forced
Julian into hiding, and ravished the world.”

I knew the rest of the story. This was
the part of history I was born into. Frederick Dreco and his followers killed
millions of humans in an attempt to become the dominant species. My mother
stopped them, and once again, Sophia aligned herself with someone in power to
restore peace.

I tapped the compass and sighed, unable
to take my eyes off of the M the arrow was pointing to. “It looks like it’s
predicting another disruption,” I said. “From the magical side.”

“Yes. Kamon and Devin caused enough tension
to start a war, but your mother made a deal with the Magical Council to keep
the peace. She changed the treaty and promised to kill Kamon. To her, this will
make everything okay. She thinks it will solve your problems and the world’s
problems in one act. But if that were true, the arrow would be pointing to the
middle, wouldn’t it?”

“I guess,” I said.

He rubbed his knees like they were
aching, and I plucked the face of the compass, trying to make the arrow move on
my own. It didn’t budge from the M.

“She plans to kill Kamon and his entire
army at Temple night in eighteen days,” he said. “It’s a service where Kamon’s
followers worship him and bring offerings. You attended one.” I shivered,
remembering that terrifying place and how those people were treating him like a
god. “Lydia plans to blow up his headquarters with him and his army inside.”

I frowned as I studied the compass again.
According to the arrow, Mom’s plan wouldn’t work. Maybe it was too simple.
Maybe it was impossible to blow up people who could predict the future.

“You’re going to show her this, right?” I
said.

“I have. And I’ve told her why I think
she will fail at restoring the peace. Lydia is great with fire. I’ve seen it. I
don’t think she will have any issues incinerating Kamon’s headquarters.
Actually, I believe her success will be the problem.”

“How could it be?” I asked. My powers
stirred when the question left my lips. The screaming blasted in my ears again.
I closed my eyes and saw fire. Chaos. I had the feeling of being trapped. I was
suddenly suffocating as smoke filled my lungs.

I knew it wasn’t real. This wasn’t really
happening, but it was as terrifying as being in a fire … or in a building after
an explosion. Before it overwhelmed me, I chose not to hear or feel any of it.
Amazingly, the chaos left my mind and fresh air flowed into my lungs.

“Are you okay, dear?” he asked. I nodded,
and he answered the question my powers had started to reach towards. “Kamon
formed his army mostly from our lost children. Some went willingly, but many
were captured and are too afraid to leave. Soon, they will all die with Kamon
if your mother’s plan works. She will appear callous. She also does not plan to
clear this with the Magical Council. I fear it will break down relations and be
the tiny spark that causes a new fire. The thing that makes the direction of
the compass true.”

I nodded slowly as I wrapped my head
around the idea of my mother causing another war. And it seemed unavoidable. If
Kamon’s army knew about me, I understood why she wanted them dead. But Sophia
and her husband had spent their lives helping their people. I saw why those hunters
and prisoners dying would bother them and the magical world, especially if they
hadn’t asked to be there.

I’d seen it for myself that night in his
chapel. Kamon gave his victims two choices: join him or die. They would finally
get the second option because of me.

“We’ve asked your mother to be more
discriminative and find a way to save some of his army,” he said. “But she
thinks it will tip Kamon off and ruin her plan.”

“Prisoners disappearing might do that,” I
said.

He nodded. “Yes. Unless we make it seem
unrelated, done by magic, but she still refused. So Sophia and I are on our
own, but none of our spells have worked. Mostly because we don’t even know who
he has, and without Lydia, we don’t have a way to figure it out. I asked
permission to ask for your help, but Sophia shut that down. She said you were happy
at Trenton and to leave you out of it. Trust me. I wish I could.”

I wanted to apologize to him. I’d taken
his emails for granted this whole time while he’d actually needed my help.

“So you want me to tell you who they are
or get them out?”

He answered in a hurry. “Just their
identities, dear. Nothing more. We don’t want to tip Kamon off. We just want to
help, but my hands are tied without you.”

Fear rose in my stomach and quickly
spread throughout my body. My family was right about me. This had all the
makings of being a horrible day–with me flying off of the handle, getting
wrapped up in my powers, and going after Kamon … dressed as a vampire. I
couldn’t let that happen.

“What if
I
ask my mom? Maybe she’ll listen to me and come up with a better
plan.”

“I don’t think so. Finding the identities
will take time and a lot of psychic strength. Sophia believes Lydia has refused
to help because she doesn’t have either to spare.”

My vampire hands shook on my lap. I
wanted to get my powers back for Nate, but involving myself in this thing with
Kamon was too much. I didn’t plan to save lives when I woke up this morning.

“I have more time than she has, but if
she doesn’t have the strength, I don’t either,” I said. “I have her powers. So
… I’m sorry.”

“You were born with the powers she had
when she was nineteen,” he said. “Now, she’s thirty-seven and severely
overworked. She barely rests. At times, her brain is as reliable as my knee.”

I ignored the terrifying feeling his
words caused. Mom getting weaker was a worry I didn’t want to have. A world
without the great and powerful Lydia Shaw was not a world I wanted to live in.

“We don’t have to do this, honey,” he
said. “I would help you get your powers back without requiring a favor. You
don’t
have
to help me.”

His tone and the frown on his adorable
wrinkled face said that I
had
to
help. Or at least try. If he was desperate enough to come to me–the loose
cannon–for help, he must’ve been at the end of his rope. And I really
needed him. Nate needed him. Trying was the least I could do.

“How do we do this?” I asked.

He took my hand and smiled.

“Follow my lead and trust your powers,”
he said. “And yourself.”

I nodded, promising both of us not to get
carried away, and he yanked us out of the room. His transporting light was
identical to his wife’s. We soared through bright air for a minute as he held
on to me.

I didn’t quite stick the landing. I
stumbled back in a large marble room, and he steadied me before I fell.

A man rushed to us with long red hair
blowing around him. He stopped, and it settled on his shoulders and chest. It
looked even brighter against his white suit. “I wasn’t expecting you today,” he
said.

“I should’ve called, Marcus,” Gregory
said. “It slipped my mind. This is Boyd. He’s a friend of mine. He represents
the Vamps’ interests in Council matters.” Gregory pointed to my mouth. It felt
like he wanted me to flash my teeth, so I smiled and exposed my sharp fangs.

“Okay, I see. Put those away,” Marcus
said. “You’re creeping me out.”

“Sorry,” I said, suppressing the urge to
jump at my unfamiliar voice.

He reached for my hand and shook it. The
touch revealed a lot about him. His name was Marcus Plummer. Wizard–a
talented one, I sensed. He was wondering how I fed–the old-fashioned,
illegal way or through the Council's blood bank method. I dropped his hand and
pulled out of his mind.

“I need you to bring me to the archives,
Marcus,” Gregory said.

“You don’t have clearance for those.”
After a tense moment, Marcus cackled, a wheeze of a laugh that lingered just
long enough to get awkward. “I’m kidding! You know, Pop, I miss living with you.
Bills are hell on my own.”

I had a feeling he wasn’t actually family
in the typical sense. But in the sense that the Ewings had taken care of so
many.