Luminous (21 page)

Consuela nodded. “I saw the note. Why one hundred twenty-six? ”

“Seven times eighteen,” Sissy said automatically. “A lot of his power was based on Hebraic numerology. It's not unusual; Abacus works on similar principles, although Chang's specialty is crunching numbers to calculate probability.” Consuela squirmed. Unaware, Sissy continued to find comfort in talking, her words growing rapid as her single eye burned. “He can triangulate our assignments back in the real world—mathematically predict events and outcomes—all by finding the inherent significance of numbers. Yehudah said everything has a sum since every letter in Hebrew has its own numeric value.” She paused, then recited: “Know the name, know its number, know the thing.”

Sissy watched her own fingers tap the keys as if they were separate, living things. “The word for ‘life' in Hebrew is
chai
,” she said. “The two letters that spell it are numbers eight and ten. Eight plus ten is eighteen. Eighteen equals ‘life.'” Sissy made an effort to look Consuela squarely in the face. “I'm eighteen. Doing one hundred and twenty six separate wards would increase the protective life force by a sacred number. The Yad figured that it would make Killian's room impenetrable from harm.” She sounded defeated.

“Even from carbon monoxide poisoning,” Consuela said. “It saved the boy's life.”

“But not his own.” Sissy's face grew hard again, the harsh light carving deep, ugly lines by her mouth. “Yehudah suspected something. That's why he went to increase the wards.” She swiveled her seat back and forth. “Maybe something that was meant for Killian got his parents instead?” she mused. “Maybe it got Yehudah or maybe it's been after us all along.”

Consuela fidgeted in her chair. Should she tell Sissy about Tender? What could she say? V was right—without proof, accusing Tender would just add paranoia. If he was trying to get rid of them, one by one, why did he try to get Consuela to leave voluntarily? Was Tender really capable of
killing
people? She didn't think so. She was caught in silent dread.

Sissy picked up her phone and slammed it down. “I wish Abacus would answer already,” she said. “I'm worried . . .” She let the rest drift off, unspoken. Consuela knew what she was thinking; she herself had been thinking the same thing.
What if Abacus
couldn't
answer?

Sissy yawned and knuckled her empty socket. “Oh God, I've
got
to collapse,” she said. “I just don't want to dream.”

Consuela gave her shoulder a small squeeze.

“Don't drink,” she said. “At least, don't drink alone.” Consuela tried to inject a little humor as she headed for the door. “I'll be back soon and we can play angels again.”

Sissy watched her go. “You'd better.”

Consuela nodded and closed the door.

 

THERE
was a knock on the inside of her bathroom.

“May I come in?”

It was V. Consuela looked up from the mess on her floor. “Sure.”

He walked over to Consuela, who was hunched over a pile of papers, books, pens, pins, paper clips, binders, notebooks, mugs, stray photos, bookmarks, string, and loose gadgets. She was inspecting a screwdriver.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

Consuela put the tool down. “Trying to figure out what's the one thing I have that can cross over,” she said. “It was one of the last things the Yad told me about, and I thought that I should at least know what mine was.” She played with the topaz cross on its chain. She'd hoped that the necklace would have been the key—somehow linking her back to her world, her parents—but so far, nothing. She let it fall against her skin. It felt like her last, desperate attempt to go back was slipping through her fingers.

“Can you take me home?” she whispered.

V sighed. “If I could, right this moment, I would. You know I would.”

She stared at the screwdriver. “I told Sissy about the O'Sheas, but she already knew. Now she thinks that something was after Killian and got the parents or the Yad instead.” Consuela shook her head sadly. “I didn't know what to say.”

V nodded. “I understand,” he said as he settled himself onto her pink carpet, fiddling with a red paper clip. “I had an interesting conversation with Joseph Crow,” he said darkly. The metallic hum trilled,
// Eerie/Ominous/ Saying nothing //,
while his true voice continued, “I can't find Wish. Sissy couldn't find Maddy. Abacus is out somewhere,” he said, nodding to her. “The Watcher's a wreck and Nikki . . .” V cast his eyes to the ceiling. She heard it before he said it.

“Nikki's dead,” he said, taking the screwdriver from her hand. “But you're safe,” he concluded, his accompaniment adding,
// There's still time. //

Consuela was too aware of his fingers on hers. Was it alarm or excitement that made her heart jump?
It didn't mean anything!
She swore he could see the pulse beating in her wrist. When had she become such a vulnerable, fleshy thing?

He tugged her to stand. “Come on,” he said. “I came to show you something and I wanted to see what you think.”

“Why me?” Consuela asked.

V grimaced. “Because you seem pretty smart until you say dumb things like that,” he retorted.

Her voice flatlined. “‘Excuse me?”

“Please tell me you're not one of those girls who thinks they're stupid or pretends to be so just they can hear compliments all day long,” he shot back.

Consuela arched her eyebrows, taking back her hand. “Issues much?” she said.

V let go, surprised. “Sorry,” he said. “Pet peeve. I have four sisters and they all play dumb. It isn't cute.” She rubbed her wrist where he had touched it.

He had the grace to look ashamed, then glanced over his wide shoulder at her. “You have any brothers or sisters?” he asked.

“Nope,” Consuela said, sliding her cross on its chain. “Just my mom, dad, and me.”

“Well, you're lucky,” he said roughly. “At least there's not as many to miss.”

He stopped in front of her full-length mirror and offered his hand, which she took with a boldness that was becoming familiar. “Now keep in contact,” he advised. “Don't let go.”

And with that, he stepped them through the mirror and beyond.

She'd hoped to see what was in the rumored Mirror Realm, but stumbled, surprised, into a blindingly bright hall with hardly a gasp in between.

They'd exited on the flip side of a large looking glass that had been left propped by a metal door. The floor was anonymous linoleum tile. The door was industrial-grade with a little glass window, crisscrossed with wire. Consuela peered through it, seeing nothing but white.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“I think it's Tender's,” V said quietly. “Tender's place in the Flow.” They exchanged looks. Consuela opened the door.

Instead of a room, there was a vacuum cloud—a formless, white nothingness and a chair. It was a cheap chair, metal-framed and plastic-cushioned, the exact bruised-red-orange color of summer tomatoes. The seat was scuffed a little with a slight tear on one corner; a few plastic threads stuck out of an L-shaped hole. Consuela nudged it; it moved easily even though she had the impression that it should have been bolted to the floor.

V circled it warily, trying to make out anything in the eerie dreamscape.

“This is weird,” he muttered in his low bass.

// Unusual. // Creepy. //
the violins trilled.

“Really?” Consuela said. “It doesn't seem much weirder than Abacus's place.”

“That's different,” V said. “Abacus made it that way once he was here; ‘the power of possibility,' he called it. He was always a little out there. But when we first come over, the scene freezes in exactly the same way as we left it, down to the dust. I don't see how anything could be like this in the real world.”

“Maybe he made this?” Consuela frowned again, thinking of chairs. “He feeds on the Flow,” she said. “And he can make things appear.”

“He eats,” V said, still searching. “And he makes illusions. This is real.” He knocked the chair. “Or, as real as it ever was, which is why this doesn't make sense.”

She paused, not wanting to argue, but she kept thinking about Quantum—Abacus had made something real out of the Flow. And Tender worked closely with Abacus. If Tender could make something real, what might it be?

V crossed his arms in frustration. “It's not even like a fog machine,” he complained, and waved his hand through the air, but nothing swirled or moved. “See?” V kept his hands out like feelers. “But it still
smells
like him—feels like him—traces of it, anyway. Can you sense it?”

Consuela tried to. “No. Sorry.” She stood in front of the chair again, the one solid thing in the vaporous room. She stroked the frame, aluminum and cool.

“There's only one thing for it,” she said simply. “We'll have to try it out.” Consuela gestured to V. “You want to?”

“Do you?”
// Bones
. // Both voices were terrified.

She gathered the strength from her mother-of-pearl soul.

“I guess I will,” she said, and before she could hesitate, sat.

The last thread of electric warning hung in the air.

Consuela waited, but she only sat in a slightly creaky, uncomfortable chair surrounded by nothing in all directions. She blinked up at V.

“Oh well,” she said. “I guess that was pointless.”

The correction hung between them. She inspected her cuticles in order not to betray that she kept overhearing his innermost thoughts. He found her brave. That was something. Consuela tried a smile, but his next unsung word stopped her.

// Beautiful, //
he all but said.

She froze, thoughts reeling.
How could someone like V find me beautiful? Okay, maybe as Bones . . .
She wouldn't deny that in her Flow form she was amazing—even Tender thought so—
but now? Like this?
V was something from a magazine ad, someone for tweens to fawn over at a comfortable, glossy distance.

But she couldn't correct him without admitting what she'd heard. And, knowing that it was his secret voice, what he said was irrefutably true.

Her heart beat thick in her throat. Was it really him or just a compulsion of the Flow? Did he even know what he was feeling? Thinking? Did she?

V stared at her. Consuela, wide-eyed, stared back.

“See anything?” he prompted.

“What? Oh!” Flustered, she blushed and was completely surprised when she did, in fact, see something.

“Wait a minute . . .” she said. Her vision telescoped down, zooming to focus on a pen. She shifted her eyes—the pen disappeared, replaced by a book nearby. She could still see the barest ballpoint tip.

Consuela tilted her head to read the title on the hardcover spine:
Faust.
She looked back to the first spot; the book had disappeared and the pen was back. The faux-wood grain beneath them remained the same. Consuela figured out that she could only spy a four-inch circle of space at a time.

She slowly discovered details, a jigsaw-puzzle picture, enough to piece together that there was a small side table on which there was a book, a pen and reading glasses, an adjustable lamp, a tin of mints, and an otherwise completely unnoteworthy smear of something wet leading up to a take-out coffee cup. TALBOT was handwritten on the cup in black marker. When she saw the plastic lid, the coffee smell hit her with the force of a truck.

Consuela swooned and gagged under the zero-to-eighty French roast filling her nose to the tear ducts and her mouth to the teeth. She pitched forward in the chair. V dove to catch her shoulders.

At first she wasn't sure which of his voices had spoken. As she blinked back the tears, she thought, maybe, both.

Consuela shook her head and clucked her tongue against the phantom taste. “I'm fine,” she said, incredibly aware of V's hands on her body. She wanted to move closer, but pulled herself back.

“Wow,” she said, covering the moment.

“What happened? ” V asked.

“Coffee.” She described the smell as best she could as V tucked his hands into his back pockets.

“Sensory memory,” he said quietly. “I've heard of it.” Consuela realized she was still reliving the feel of V's hands on her skin, her own sensory memory. He'd also called her brave and beautiful. It was hard to think straight after that.

She glanced back at the chair. Was this really how it had been when Tender crossed over? What had Tender's life been like to be frozen like this?

Consuela reached out for the space that should have held the table and the glasses and the copy of
Faust
, but she walked clear through the white nothingness. She reconsidered the chair, alone on the floor.

“We should tell Sissy,” she said.

“The Watcher,” V corrected.

“The Watcher.” Consuela groaned. “Fine. We should talk to her. She can find where this is. She wanted to get Maddy and . . .” She swooned as her vision plummeted out of focus. V grabbed her again. The movement was less romantic than strong.

“You okay?”

“What?” It hit her like the coffee truck. Her head spun and she all but fell onto the floor. V was there, his arms holding her up. The world was impossibly crooked. She tried saying something, but the words came out upside down.