Muse (Descended From Myth) (16 page)

“Hello?” I yelled. “Open the door in the floor!”

I could hear stuff being moved around above me and a scuffling sound. The muffled voice answered, “I'm trying. There's stuff all over it! My friend needs help!”

I was starting to see light through the cracks around the trap door, and it lifted an inch or so. “Watch out, there's papers and junk all around it that might fall when I'
m opening this,” the girl said.

“Is Anna up there?” I yelled back, ducking out of
the way of the falling debris.

“Yes, she needs help!”

I pushed my torso up through the opening, forcing the trap door open the rest of the way with my weight. My shoulders barely cleared, and I experienced a moment of gut clenching panic as the tip of my foot left the ladder rung, leaving me dangling over the warehouse floor.  I clawed with my good arm and was finally able to haul myself through the opening. The nasty dirty closet space that contained the hatch opened into a hallway, which was now littered with trash bags and bottles of cleanser. I wanted to just lay there and catch my breath, but I had to find Anna.

“Where is she?” I demanded of the blue-eyed girl with pink and b
londe hair who hovered over me.

“She's right here. I don't know what's wrong! She was just fin
e and then she just collapsed.”

Anna lay slumped on her side, in an outfit I'd never seen before. If she had been conscious, I would have enjoyed seeing her in something so revealing, but under the circumstances, it just made me even angrier. I rolled her into a more comfortable position, trying to jostle her awake. Shaking her gently, her hair fell away from her lightly bruised throat to reveal my medallion. No wonder she thought I was dead.

“I don't think they drugged her. She was using her Influence on him and we can't do that after they drug us,” the girl said worriedly.

“Anna, honey, wake up for me,” I said, looking her over for any injuries. Her pupils were dilated, but her eyes twitched like she was watching something that only she could see. She was breathing in short, shallow pants. But, I couldn't find any obvious reason for her to be unconscious! Glancing up, I noticed someone laying inside the elevator, curled
up like a child and whimpering.

“Sebastian Finn?” I asked, incre
dulous. “What happened to him?”

Blue-eyed girl was pacing and wringing her hands. “I don't know! He pointed a gun at us and then all of a sudden Anna was yelling at him. He pointed the gun at me and she went all
Carrie
on him. All I saw was a bright flash, and they both went down hard. He just keeps mumbling about fire, and burns and how much he hurts! Anna just dropped, she hasn't moved at all since. Is there an ambulance coming? Who
are
you?” she asked, as though she'd just bothered to look at me and finally noticed that not only was I not wearing a uniform, I was also covered in blood.

“I'm Anna's Watcher, Daniel. Are you Claire?” I asked, while stroking Anna
's hair and checking her pulse.

Claire nodded, hugging herself. “Anna will be glad you're here. She was really scared and worried about you,” she sniffled. “I could feel it.”

“We had a hard time finding this place. Finn covered his tracks pretty well. Now, we need to get this elevator downstairs. Are you hurt at all?” I asked. It was hard for me to take my hands off Anna, but I needed to get her to help. I was starting to suspect that whatever was wrong with her, it was not a medical issue. I needed Gabriel. I grabbed the squirming, whining Sebastian by the collar of his jacket and roughly drug him out into the hallway with the rest of the trash. He howled and thrashed around, but didn't move from where I dropped him. Whatever Anna had done to him, it was all in his head. His outside looked perfectly fine, but I hoped like hell he was suffering on the inside.

Anna's skin felt cool, almost clammy, when I scooped her up and carried her into the elevator. She was still breathing, but it was still too shallow. I tucked her head up over my good shoulder, trying to brace her weight with my good arm, and using the numb one to balance her. Claire was frantically trying to figure out which button to push to release the emergency stop on the elevator
. She finally hit the right one, and the machine started to creak and groan as it made its descent into the warehouse.

The elevator doors opened and revealed a warehouse ablaze with light and two police officers sta
nding at the doors, guns drawn.

“Everyone keeps pointing guns at me today!” Claire squealed. “Hey, Officers, we need an ambulance for these two. They've been hurt. They're
victims
!”

I felt the tickling warmth of Claire's Influence wash over the officers as they slowly lowered their weapons. It's good to have resourceful friends. Of course, the blood smudged all over Anna and covering my chest might h
ave helped convince them, too.

Gabriel met us outside before the ambulance showed up. He casually slipped a hand under the back of my shirt, which freaked me out for a second until I realized that he was taking my holster before the police found an illegal firearm on me. I let him tuck it into the pocket of his jacket as the police officers brought us blankets from the trunk of their squad car to
tuck around Anna's limp body. Claire was busy giving her statement to another set of officers, gesturing wildly, while she darted anxious glances in our direction.

Gabriel stood beside me, quietly assessing Anna's condition. I let myself slide down to the ground, still cradling Anna against my chest, trying to focus on the slight rise and fall of her chest. “Talk to her, Daniel, and prepare yourself. I think she may be facing the choice, son. Maybe she'll be able to hear you and it will help.” Then he backed away to give me some privacy.

I pressed a kiss against her cool forehead, far too aware of how eerily similar this felt to Anna's drowning. I thought I'd lost her then, but she'd fought her way back. I had to hope that she could fight her way back again. It didn't matter that no other Talent had. Anna was special. She was already unlike any other Talent.

“Anna, I love you. You know I love you. I'll love you no matter what. You can come back without any power at all and I will just love you more. It doesn't matter to me whether you're a Talent or not. I never wanted to be with a Talent, but I do want to be with you. When you wake up, I'm going to tell you all the things I should have before. I'll spend the rest of our lives making you happy. I promise, Anna. Just
fight. Come back, Sweetheart.”

The light was so bright it hurt my eyes. There was nothing
but
light. No ground. No sky. I just floated, suspended in brilliant white light. It was bizarre, yet somehow familiar at the same time. I'd been here before. I was sure of it. Hazy shapes circled around me, giving off their own glow. I was only able to differentiate them from the light because of their soft, swirling colors. There were pale pinks, greens, blues, and purples of every shade and hue, all glowing brightly within the misty white light.

I'd been filled with fiery rage just moments ago, but all of that had melted away. It had been replaced with an amazing feeling of tranquility. Peace, it was so peaceful here. Tinkling sounds like wind chimes or bells drifted in
the warm, swirling brightness.

“Welcome, Daughter, to the Realm of Influence. You have been chosen to return. You have proven yourself strong enough to return to our womb,” a multifaceted voice said. It didn't sound like a single voice, though, more like hundreds of voices, male and female, all speaking in perfect unison.

“Who are you?” I asked, looking around for someone to actually address.

“We are Fate, we are Destiny, we are Knowledge. We are the hands that guide the world of men through time eternal, and who see all possible outcomes.”

“So, no nickname to shorten that up?” I smirked. It probably wasn't a good idea to provoke a swirling mass of energy and light, but I'd been having a rough day. “I was kind of in the middle of something when you zapped me here. I'd like to go back and finish that up, please?”

“The event will conclude without your intervention. Your presence there is now unnecessary. We wish to offer you a place amongst us. Once we are one, you will know all ways that today's events have shaped what is to come and every potential outcome. You will know true power, and true influence, not just a thin illusion of it.”

“So, is this when I get offered my choice? Because so far, I haven't heard many options other than me being forced to stay here.”

“That which has marked you as special, which has given you Power and Influence over mankind, is a seed which was sown by us. It is time for us to harvest. Your gift has grown strong and you have gained strength through it. If you choose to leave our Realm, your gift will remain here. You will no longer be blessed with the gifts of Power and Influence. You will be but a weak human, not a spark of divinity left to you. All that will remain to you will be your blind and helpless physical self. You will be forced to toil and slog through the drudgery that will be your life. Then you will die, as all humans do. Here, your consciousness lives on forever in us.”

“I have family and friends who I refuse to leave. They need me,” I argued.

“They relied on your gifts, which you will no longer have,” the voices gently admonished. The light did have a point there. My friends would no longer find me so inspirational if I returned. But I'd only had Influence for the last two or three years at best, and I'd had my friends and
family a lot longer than that.

“I am capable of love and friendship without Influence being involved and so are they. They loved me before I had any of your power to use and they will continue to love me if I lose it. I haven't even told any of them that I have these abilities. They'll never miss them.”

“If you are joined with us, you can watch over and champion your friends and relations throughout time. You will be able to care for their great-great-grandchildren and beyond. Your vision is short sighted.”

“That may be, but I think I prefer a hands on approach when it comes to helping people. I don't know if I could stand just watching from the clouds, knowing what was going to happen. I want to help people here and now, even if I don't know how it will all end up.”

“We hear your arguments, yet we are…surprised. We saw many outcomes from this meeting, but in each you chose to ascend to your proper place. It is illogical that you would choose to remain on the human plane, stripped of all your strengths. We will offer you insight into what we offer, so that you may more fully understand.”

I opened my mouth to refuse, but never had the chance to form the words. Images slammed into my mind on extreme fast forward, and my awareness expanded outward until it seemed that I knew everything about everyone at once. I could see what was happening in a million places at once and how it would affect ten million other future events. It was intense, euphoric, an experience that cannot be described with words and is bey
ond normal human understanding.

But it failed. Within the flickering of possible futures and possible events, I'd seen a familiar face. The Fates might be all knowing and all powerful, but they'd made a tragic error. They had revealed Daniel to me as he would be
in the future
. If he was alive in the future, then he was alive now. Nothing, no amount of power or knowledge was more tempting to me than a future with Daniel in it. And I was going to be right beside him experiencing it.

“You have chosen. We see,” t
he voices intoned dramatically.

“I want to return. I have promises to keep. I will not break them.”

“You choose to forsake your gifts and return to the Guardian and your adoptive family. That is your choice, Daughter, and may you prove worthy of it.”

The colored glowing shapes began to swirl wildly, growing ever brighter until the white mist was completely drowned out by brilliant swirling colors. I felt as if an electric current passed through my body, exploding outward. Then, the warmth that had cocooned me began to fade away, replaced with a cool chill. My eyes shut tight, my body shuddered from the constant bombardment of sensation. Then, I plummeted through empty space. A single bright spark snapped inside me, and I gradually became aware that I was back inside my own, imperfect, human body. My throat ached from the bruises there, and my head throbbed. I seemed to be wrapped up in a scratchy blanket that smelled a bit like car exhaust. Soft lips brushed my forehead, and there was the voice that I'd missed so much. I had been so afraid that I would never hear him again. He loves me. I knew he loved me, but hearing it out loud is intensely exquisite anyway. A thrill of happiness raced through me, and I struggled to regain control of my body, to open my eyes and soothe Daniel's fears. We were both alive, and we were together. Everyth
ing else would sort itself out.

I managed to crack my eyelids just enough to see his face. His dark brown eyes looked so intensely worried. I wanted to see his eyes light up, the way they do when he
really
smiles.

“I did fight,” I whispered, trying to find the strength to force my lips to move adequately. “I fought and I argued and I won. My choice was you, Daniel. I told you that you weren't getting rid of me that easily—” I didn't even get to finish my line before his lips were on mine, making me forget
what I was going to say anyway.

The world around us was glowing with bright red, blue, and white lights, flashing and swirling. It reminded me so much of the other realm, maybe things there bled together with what was here. The paramedics were fussing over me, trying to remove me from Daniel's grasp so that they could examine me, shining flashlights in my eyes. I just wanted them to go away, until I saw the dark blood
seeping through Daniel's shirt.

“Stop messing with me. I'm fine! Fix him!” I demanded, moving so that I wasn't putting pressure on his chest any more. Daniel grabbed hold of me with his left hand, not letting me move too far away as the medics carefully removed his shirt so th
at they could get to his wound.

“Why is it that whenever there's an emergency you always end u
p shirtless, Daniel?” I teased.

“Because it always gets your attention, I guess,” he answered, wincing as they poked at his open wound. His chest looked wrong without his medallion resting there, so I moved to take it from around
my throat and return it to him.

“Keep it,” he said, before I could even get it unclasped. “It belongs with you anyway.”

“But it's your family crest. You should be wearing it!” I protested, stroking the smooth metal with my fingertips.

“You're part of my family now. I like seeing it on you.”

This seemed like a bad time, but I knew that I needed to tell Daniel about what I'd had to sacrifice in order to return. “I don't have everything that I did before, Daniel,” I said hesitantly. How could I explain in front of the paramedics and police officers? “I had to give up the talented part.”

A look of shock passed over Daniel's face, but it passed quickly. “Doesn't matter, Anna. That doesn't change a thing. We'll work it out,” he responded softly,
brushing a hand over my cheek.

Gabriel approached, clearing his voice to get our attention. “I hate to intrude on this most happy reunion, but I think there is something you're both overlooking that is quite significant. I know we have an audience, but Anna, you should know that you're positively
glowing
.”  He said it with such heavy emphasis that I knew I was supposed to be picking up on something, heck even the paramedics picked up on that. I had no idea what he meant, though. I looked at Daniel, who was looking at me speculatively, but didn't say a word.

One of the medics glanced at my abdomen and raise
d an eyebrow, questioning.

“Gabriel, are you trying to ask me if I could be pregnant?” I burst out, baffled by the
absurdity of the conversation.

He turned beet red, and spluttered, “No! No, that wasn't my intent at all. I meant that
I
can see that you're glowing! Perhaps Daniel can feel it, too?”

Daniel's face suddenly split into a wide grin and he laughed, even through the pain. “I can! It's still there, Anna. You haven't lost anything!”

My Influence? How could I still have it? I'd felt things change. I still felt different! I focused on Daniel and formed a quick image in my mind, then pushed it his way.

He smirked, chucked me on the chin with his good hand and laughed. “Very nice, Anna, but I'm a little too tied up at the moment for that.”

One of the medics gave him a stern look and asked him to please sit still or move to the ambulance where they could see better. I
made
him move to the ambulance. It felt really good.

I was enjoying the blissful happiness of having Daniel back, safe and whole, when an icy wave of terror rushed down my spine.
Family.
How could I have forgotten? Would Daniel forgive me if something terrible happened to Kaitlyn?

I ran to Gabriel, desperate to tell someone else about Daniel's sister. I didn't want to tell Daniel until they had finished stitching him up, or he'd never allow them to finish. “Gabriel, we need to question Finn. When he was trying to get me to cooperate with him, he told me that his men had Daniel's sister. He might have been lying, because he kept telling me that he had Daniel too, but we need to be certain.”

Gabriel's face paled. “Yes, we do need to be certain. I'll make a few phone calls. Do you think that you could work with Mina and Claire to get past the police long enough to question Finn?”

Squad cars had been arriving steadily since I'd woken up. The entire area was bathed in flashing red and blue lights. I had no idea where Mina and Claire were. Up until this moment I'd only cared about Daniel. “I'll figure out a way. Do you know where the girls are?” I asked,
steeling my nerve and my voice.

I found Mina and Claire with the novices across the street. Mina was busy making sure that every cop who wandered over to question them got distracted and wandered away again. Claire just looked terrified. I doubted anyone had had a chance to explain things to her, but she wasn't going to get
any coddling from me just yet.

“I need help. Finn may have taken Daniel's fifteen year old sister, too. I need to try to get to him so we can ask him some questions.”

Mina and Claire exchanged a troubled glance, and Claire shifted uncomfortably. “I'm not sure that's going to work, Anna. He was pretty messed up mentally when I saw him last. That whole building is crawling with police, too. They found the weapons and drug stashes.”

I just kind of stared at her, uncertain how to respond. I didn't really remember what had happened in the elevator, and I sure didn't have a clue what I'd done to Finn. Could it be undone? Claire started to make eye contact with me, then flinched away. Ouch. Maybe I had done something really monstrous!

“I'm sorry, Claire. I'm not sure what exactly happened, but I lost control in there. I didn't mean to frighten you, I swear. I was just trying to protect us.” I felt my voice shake, concern and frustration making it hard to express myself.  “I promise, it won't happen again. I would never hurt you. I—”

“You don't have anything to apologize for. He was going to shoot me, I could tell. I'm not scared of you, I just don't want to face him again. I
just
got away from him!” Claire sniffled, wiping her eyes on her sleeve.

Mina stepped over and wrapped a protective arm around her shoulders. “Who
is your Watcher anyway, honey?”

“I don't have one. Unless you count Finn. He's the one who paid my foster mom the last few years, until he brought me here three months ago. He said it was time for me to start earning my keep.”