Blazing the Trail (15 page)

I rolled to my side, turning to face her, and opened my eyes. I was just able to see her troubled expression in the darkness. “I don’t know, actually. Why?”

“It seems like he’s mad at you.”

“Well, he is. He thinks I should have taken him with me when I went with Trevor. Or at least told him.”

“Well, you did tell me.”

“And you discovered that Trevor was still in class, when I said he was with me.” I made a face.

Meagan, I could see, was thinking.

This could only be good.

“It is weird, isn’t it?” she said, patting Mozart as she frowned. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I didn’t know Trevor could cast a glamour. I thought that was advanced stuff beyond his powers.”

“Adrian did it at boot camp.”

“Maybe he cast the one you saw today, too.” Meagan grimaced. “But who cast the one of Trevor in school? Could Adrian do both at the same time? Or has Trevor learned more?” She turned on the light, pulled out her messenger, and began typing. “I’ll ask Jared if there’s a way to know for sure.” A moment later, she smiled at me, and I ached that I couldn’t just send a message to Jared like that, too.

Over. Jared was over.

Meagan turned out the light and put her glasses on the nightstand when she was done. “What else?”

“Derek’s mad that I won’t tell him what happened with Jessica today.”

“You promised not to.” She fluffed her pillow. “Isn’t there something else? Derek’s pretty loyal to you, and you’ve explained all of this to him.”

I fell silent, deciding how much to share.

But Meagan is my best friend, and she is brilliant, and the fact that she was staring at me, waiting for me to go on, made me spill it. “Derek saw Kohana kiss me,” I admitted.

“Whoa!” Meagan sat up, grabbed her glasses, and turned
on the light. “When did that happen? And why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t really want to talk about it in front of everybody.”

She was excited. “But that means that Derek could confirm that Kohana was here, which would prove that you weren’t dreaming.…”

“I don’t think he will.”

“Just like Kohana won’t tell anyone what
he
saw. Guys!”

To tell the truth, it wasn’t guys who were frustrating me in this moment.

Meagan sensed as much. She looked at me hard. “What’s the matter?”

I was telling her the whole story, wasn’t I? “So, you don’t believe me, until I say that Derek saw Kohana; then you believe it, even though Derek hasn’t said anything to you about it himself?”

“But that explains perfectly why Derek’s so mad at you. I couldn’t figure that out.”

“You could have just believed me!”

“Okay, sorry.” Meagan grimaced. “It’s not that I didn’t believe you. I wanted to believe you. I knew that you believed what you’d seen. I just thought that maybe you didn’t have all the information.”

“And now?”

“Maybe the Oracle’s the one who doesn’t have all the information.” Meagan fell back against her pillows, thinking. “I mean, let’s agree that it did happen and that we couldn’t see that kid at the lot today because of a glamour.”

“Okay.”

“That would mean that the ShadowEaters weren’t caught in their own realm anymore. They’d be here. Where?” I shrugged, but Meagan looked at me. “Seriously, why didn’t they attack us at the lot today when Nick dared them?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they’re messing with us.”

“No. They would have done it if they could. What’s stopping them? And how do we find out?”

“Ask Trevor?” I suggested.

Meagan snorted, then pursed her lips. “Wait a minute.” She was drumming her fingers on top of the bed, making enough vibration that King gave her a poisonous glance. She ignored him. “You see it, don’t you?”

“See what?”

“Maybe they need more energy. Maybe they don’t have enough yet to do whatever they want to do. So they’re using what energy they have to target you! If they’d shown themselves today, we would have all believed you. This way, they stay hidden longer.” Meagan was excited. “That means you’re a threat to their success.” She sat up, her expression triumphant. “That means
you
can ruin everything.”

She was right. She had to be right.

I felt invigorated again.

“I just have to figure out what their plan is.” I smiled at her. “You know, it kicks butt having a genius for a best friend. Thanks.” We reached out across the gap between the beds and brushed fingertips.

“You can do it, Zoë. You’ll figure it out.” She was smiling at me, exuding a confidence that fed mine. I felt again my happiness at her having her braces off, and took a good look at her. She frowned at me. “What’s wrong now?”

I smiled. “Nothing. Just that when you get contacts, every guy in the world is going to be at your feet.”

She dropped her gaze and pleated the sheet between her fingers. “Well, that’s just it, isn’t it?”

I sat up, finally understanding. “Wait a minute. You don’t think that if I’m not going to the dance with Derek that Garrett won’t come?”

She flicked me a look and blushed. “I’d really like to see him again.”

“He’ll come. He was totally bummed at Christmas that you were away.”

“Really?”

“Really. I think you’re the only reason he came to Chicago.”

She was pleased by that—I could see it.

She settled down to sleep, but I knew I had to fill her in on everything. “Hey, there’s one more thing you need to know about Kohana and the NightBlade.”

“What?”

“Kohana made a deal with Adrian and Trevor that he’d wield the knife for their ceremony, thinking he’d learn something from it.”

“Yes, you said that he’d agreed to do the sacrifice. But he faked them out.”

“He said he would have done it if they’d brought Derek or Jessica, just to learn more about the NightBlade, but that he couldn’t do it to me. He saved me, then told me all that; then he kissed me.”

“So he knew they would sacrifice a wildcard. That must be important.” She turned to me. “Do you think Kohana is telling the truth?”

“I have no idea.”

“But do you like Derek?” Meagan asked quietly.

“I like him,” I admitted, “but I’m not sure I
like
him. I think I should be sure before… well, before anything more happens. I know he wants more commitment, but I want it to be honest.” Now I was blushing like crazy.

To my astonishment, Meagan smiled. It wasn’t like her to enjoy my discomfort. “What about Kohana? Do you like him?”

I shook my head. “I don’t trust him. He’ll probably turn up again, though.”

“He’s hot.”

I shook my head. “Not really. I think he’s just trying to mess with me.”

To my astonishment, Meagan seemed delighted by this confession.

“What are you so happy about?” I asked.

“You’re the Wyvern,” Meagan said with a confidence that warmed my heart. “You’re the key to everything, and you’re my friend, and I know exactly what I need to do to help you out.”

And with that, she went to sleep.

Leaving me in total suspense.

I
TOSSED AND TURNED FOR
a while, maybe dozed off and on. I was both exhausted and jittery. Running through the sequence of events in the vacant lot over and over again was doing exactly nothing to help me get to sleep. I reviewed it for the umpty-gazillionth time, looking for clues—I wasn’t sleeping, so I needed something to think about—when it hit me.

Kohana had been singing the invocation chant.

Kohana had been
casting spells
.

This was huge. It was epic.

And it had slid right past me.

“Kohana’s a spellsinger!” I said, sitting straight up in bed. How could I have missed that? Was that his special power as the wildcard of his kind? Was that why he thought he could destroy the NightBlade?

“Yes. I don’t know. Yes and yes,” said a man with a low, slow voice.

I jumped, then spun in the bed, knotting the sheets around my knees in the process. (Very elegant look, let me tell you.)

There was a guy sitting cross-legged on the floor, smoking a cigarette. He looked pretty old to be sitting like that, and his long dark hair was threaded with silver. His face was both tanned and lined, and so were his hands. He was wearing jeans and a red cowboy shirt.

And he was watching me.

Meagan was still sleeping, and King was out cold, too. (Even though I had pretty much shouted. I took it as a clue that I was in dreamland again.) The room looked completely normal, other than the guy on the rug.

This was like my conversation with Sigmund, chatting with a guy in what looked just like Meagan’s room. It was reassuringly Wyvern-like, so probably not some ShadowEater nightmare.

So, who was this guy? I had a feeling he wasn’t among the living anymore.

He took another drag, his dark eyes glinting, the end of the cigarette glowing, and watched me as he exhaled. The smoke made a silvery plume, like a snake winding toward the ceiling.

Mrs. Jameson would have a fit that someone was smoking in her house.

That was my first thought.

I said my second one out loud.

“Are you dead?”

“She will. And yes again,” he said, and this time he smiled a little. He twisted in place, showing me the bleeding gash in his back. It was a vicious wound.

“No blood on the rug, okay?”

He smiled and smoked. I realized now that I could see a second smaller tendril of smoke winding out of the wound. So his lung had been punctured. Nice.

I sat up, shifting around so I was sitting cross-legged on
the bed facing him, the sheets wound around my lower body. He said nothing more. It seemed that I was going to have to start the conversation. “So, the thing is that when I see other dead people, they come to tell me something. Or give me a clue. Something like that.”

I was ready for help—you can believe that.

He glanced at his back, then at me again, and took another drag.

Wait a minute. This guy knew about Kohana’s powers. I guessed. “Are you the
Wakiya
elder who was killed by the NightBlade?”

He almost smiled; then he nodded slowly.

I was excited. Dead men might tell no tales, but their ghosts might be able to help me out. “Can you tell me more about the NightBlade? What about the ShadowEaters? What do they want?”

He exhaled, launching three smoke rings in succession. They floated toward the ceiling, then slipped inside each other, changing order as he watched with a smile. I was amazed. “I suspected that there was a connection between the NightBlade and the ShadowEaters.”

“I’ve seen it. It’s true. They called it to them.” I had a thought. “Is that why you died? Because you were figuring things out?”

He pondered that. “Possibly. It acted seemingly of its own volition, but now I wonder if the ShadowEaters dispatched it—and me. They feed on shadows, but shadows exist in our realm, not theirs.”

“So without Mages to offer them shadows, they’re hungry?”

“Impotent,” he corrected. “Shadows give them power and energy. To be hungry is to be weak.”

“And without Mages to offer them sacrifices, they were
starving,” I guessed. He nodded. “So, somehow they managed to use the NightBlade to free themselves.” He nodded again. “So I
did
see the truth!”

He frowned then. “Kohana plays a dangerous game on behalf of our kind. You must help him. You must save him.”

“But I don’t know where Kohana is.”

He looked at me steadily and I saw the vacant lot in my mind’s eye, the snow falling over it.

I frowned. “Why couldn’t I see him when I was there?”

“Why couldn’t you see the lot when you went to the library?”

Okay. It made sense that if ShadowEaters were Mages who had done a ritual wrong, as the Oracle declared, they would still have some Mage-like abilities. “They can cast glamours in this realm, too, then?”

He nodded. “The more they feed, the more powerful they will become.”

“What do they want?”

He smiled. “What they have always wanted.”

I remembered what the Bastian Oracle had said. They wanted to become pure spirit but had failed at the ritual. They were trapped between here and there, but still wanted to go
there
. “They came here for more fuel. For shadows.”

He smoked calmly, and I thought he was considering this. Eventually, he nodded, then frowned. “You, too, are targeted,
Unktehila
.”

I shivered at that.

I realized then that it must have been hard for this elder to come to me, given the broken treaties between our respective kinds. So there must not have been many other options available.

It was up to me to do something.

“What can I do to ruin their plans?”

He smiled and smoked.

I tried again. “Is there a way that I can undermine their glamours and spells, so we can see what they’re doing?”

He pursed his lips and hesitated so long that I didn’t think he’d answer me. “I can tear the veil of illusion and shred the glamours,
Unktehila
, but only at your command,” he said finally. “You are the center of the web.”

Well, that had to be a step in the right direction.

In fact, I was thinking that Meagan might be right, that this might be the one thing I could do to trash the ShadowEaters. Tearing the veil would mean that we would have more information to finish them off—instead of arguing about what had really happened.

Worked for me.

“Tear it, then. Tear it, please!”

He watched me for such a long time, just smoking without breaking eye contact, that I feared I’d asked for something terrible. More than I expected. More than he could do. Something was wrong with this choice.

“Zoë?” Mrs. Jameson called. “Who are you talking to? And is that a cigarette I smell?”

Was this a dream or not?

I glanced at the door in uncertainty, then back at the elder.

“Be warned that you must act swiftly,
Unktehila
,” he said in an undertone. “You will see all possibilities and realities merged together, but still you must choose with speed.”

What did that mean? I was on the verge of asking him for more information when his eyes flashed golden and he leapt straight up with incredible power.