Rival Demons (12 page)

I listened with patience, waiting for him to
talk about this book.

"At this battle, the Resistance managed to
capture one of the hunters," he said. "The soldiers spoke of this
event as if it were very rare."

"What did they do with her once they captured
her?" I asked. At this point, I was sitting on the very edge of the
coffee table, my hands sweaty with anticipation.

"They forced her to take them to the place where
she lives," he said. "A cave of some sort high in the snowy
mountains above Gollier."

He paused, putting one hand on top of the
book.

"This book is one of the things they found as
they searched her home," he said. "According to the soldiers, an
entire box of books had been found there in the cave."

"What kind of books?"

"Spell books," he said. "And more importantly,
records."

A chill slipped down my spine. "Records?"

"Notes about each demon the hunter had ever
taken from our world to yours."

I leaned back, my mouth dry. I wondered why they
would even be keeping records. "How did you get ahold of one of
them?"

Essex shifted in his seat. He didn't answer. He
simply looked down at the book and picked at the tattered edges of
the binding.

"He stole it," Mary Anne blurted out.

"I am planning to return it," he said quickly.
"I only needed to see if my own father's name was included in one
of the books."

"And was it?" I asked, trembling.

When he looked up, the pain in his eyes was
heartbreaking. "No," he said. "My father's name was not there, but
many others from my village and the villages near mine. It must
have been a different hunter who took my father."

"I'm sorry," I said, not sure what else to say.
"What happened to the hunter? The one they captured?"

"I do not know," he said. "They did not say more
about her. Only that they found these books in her cave. I was too
afraid to question the soldiers about what happened. I did not want
them to know I had been listening."

"Where did you get the book?" I asked, wondering
what other books might also be stored there. "Is there some kind of
storage room where they keep them all?"

Essex nodded. "Yes," he said. "In the council's
meeting hall. It is a large room here where all of our books are
stored."

"Sounds like a library," I said. "Can we not
just walk in and ask to see some of these books?"

His eyes grew wide and he shook his head fast.
"No. Going inside the council's chamber is strictly forbidden
unless you are a scholar or a translator or a member of the
Underground's council," he said.

"I don't understand," I said. "How did you get
the book in the first place if it's so hard to get inside?"

"It was an accident," he said. "Or perhaps it
was fate. One of the soldiers telling the story that day dropped it
in the marketplace very near to my tent. I picked it up quickly,
before he knew it was gone. When I discovered what was inside, I
knew I must study it before I could let them know that I had
it."

I thought for a minute, letting Essex's story
sink in. "You said they also had spell books?" I asked.

He nodded.

"Did they say anything about what was in those
books? Anything at all?"

Mary Anne sat up straighter. "I think I just got
what you're thinking," she said to me. "If the hunters here live
for hundreds of years, who's to say some of those spell books
wouldn't be extremely old?"

"Or extremely rare?" I added, excitement pulsing
through my veins. "What if one of the books they found had some
kind of clue about how to break the spell that ties me to
Aerden?"

"Aerden?" Essex said, confused. "You are tied to
the twin of Denaer?"

"Yes," Mary Anne said. "Only we call him
Jackson, not Denaer. Harper is the future Prima of the demon gate
town where his brother Aerden is being held captive. Her family has
been tied to Aerden's power for a hundred years."

"All I want is to be able to break the spell
that holds us together," I said. "I spent some time in our world
looking for any kind of clue as to how to do it, but the only
things we found would mean that either me or Aerden had to
die."

"I wish I could be of more service," Essex said.
"I have not known about the way things work in your world, so I
have not known of any way to break this spell you are talking
about. However, I do know that the Underground's council holds
hundreds of tomes that once belonged to the Order of Shadows. Some
of them date back to when the Order first crossed into our world
over two hundred years ago. Maybe one of these books could contain
the information you are seeking?"

My breath caught in my chest. Could this really
be happening? Had I really just stumbled onto the one secret here
that might save all of us?

One thing was certain.

I had to get into that library no matter what it
took.

I sat in the hallway until the sounds of the
marketplace died down and the Underground went to sleep. It was
hard to keep my eyes open, but I needed to see Jackson. Since I had
no way of contacting him directly, my only option was to sit
outside his room and wait.

I was glad we were the only ones living on this
hall or else people would have started getting suspicious. So far,
I'd been out here for at least four or five hours. What was he up
to all the time that he almost never came back to his room?

With a twinge of jealousy, I realized Lea was
never in her room either. Did that mean they were together a lot?
Had his feelings for me changed so much that he would honestly
prefer being around her than me?

Luckily, I didn't have to wait much longer
before he came walking down the corridor. If I'd had to be out
there much longer alone with my thoughts, who knew what I might
have come up with to worry about? Of course, it didn't help that
when he finally did appear, he wasn't alone.

"Hi," I said as he and Lea approached.

"What are you doing out here?" Lea asked. "It's
practically the middle of the night. Did you get locked out?"

"No," I said, not letting her snarky attitude
frazzle me. I turned to meet Jackson's eyes, ignoring Lea all
together. "I need to talk to you, and since I never see you, I
figured this was the best chance I had of getting you alone."

Jackson looked to Lea as if asking for
permission. My cheeks grew hot, and I fidgeted while I waited for
him to respond.

Lea rolled her eyes. "It's fine with me," she
said. "Just don't do it out here where someone might see you. Bring
it inside, okay?"

I looked around, wondering who exactly she
thought was going to see us down an empty corridor in the middle of
the night. I didn't protest, though. I just wanted to talk to him.
I didn't care where.

I turned toward his room, expecting him to
invite me inside, but he moved in front of the door and shook his
head.

"Let's go into your suite," he said.

The three of us walked into the bright light of
the suite. Lea said goodnight and slipped into her bedroom. Mary
Anne had gone to bed hours ago.

After weeks of being apart, Jackson and I were
finally alone again.

My mouth grew dry and butterflies fluttered in
my stomach. Every inch of space between us burned with tension.

"What is it?" he asked. "Did you need
something?"

His business-like tone hurt me. "Why are you
acting like this?" I asked, apparently missing the filter that
should have been working between my brain and my mouth.

"Like what?" he asked, shifting his weight and
avoiding my eyes.

"Cold," I said. "Like there's nothing between
us."

He looked up, a split second of regret in his
eyes that was immediately replaced by annoyance. "You do realize
that you're the one who was acting cold to me first, right?"

My face grew tense. "What did you expect? You
broke my heart," I said.

He closed his eyes and ran a hand through his
hair. "Is this what you waited up to tell me?"

I drew in a long breath and tried to calm my
rocketing pulse. "No," I said. "I wanted to talk to you about the
possibility of joining in with you guys on whatever it is you're
working on down here."

He snapped his head up, surprised. "Joining
in?"

"Yeah," I said, pacing. "You're obviously
meeting with Andros and the council a lot, and I have to assume
you're talking about plans to fight against the Order, right?"

"Something like that," he mumbled.

"Okay, so I want in."

He shook his head and walked over to the couch,
leaning against the back side of it. "It's not that easy, Harper.
The council accepted you as a resident. That doesn't mean they want
you in on all their secret plans."

"Am I not a part of this?" I asked. "Have I not
proven my commitment to destroying the Order? Or is it just that
you don't think anything I do is going to make a difference?"

Jackson sighed. "It's not about what I
think."

"Yes it is," I said. "I've seen the way Andros
hangs on every word of yours. He trusts you. He listens to
you."

He shook his head and paced the area in front of
me. "It's complicated, Harper," he said. "I wish I could help, but
things take time down here. I need more than a couple of weeks to
convince them to change the entire way they think about human
witches."

Bullshit
.

I didn't believe him. There was some other
reason he was shutting me out. I could feel it. And I could tell he
was struggling with it to. But why? Did it have something to do
with Lea? He was always looking to her for permission these days,
as if he answered to her.

"Fine," I said. "But what about training? Can
you get me into any of the Resistance training classes?"

Jackson's eyes grew wide as if I'd just asked
him to fly me to Mt. Fuji. "Why would you want to do that? And how
do you even know about the training classes?"

"Do you think I want to be weak and powerless
for the rest of my life?" I asked. "If I'm stuck down here, I want
to at least make the most of it. I'm bored to death down here. I
feel like a prisoner."

He lifted a hand in the air as if he were going
to say one thing, then he put it down and turned his back on me,
changing his mind. After a few moments, he finally turned back to
me and said no. "I can't even ask for permission for such a thing
right now," he said. "The training is for their soldiers, Harper.
They don't even let all the demons down here into the training.
They're certainly not going to let a human in."

I walked to the door and opened it for him, so
frustrated I wanted to scream. "I don't know what's gotten into
you," I said. "But you're not yourself. The Jackson I knew back
home would have fought for me. I don't know what it is that's
changing you here or why you can't just tell me what's really going
on, but I miss you. I miss the real you."

Jackson stood there, just staring at me. I could
tell I'd stuck a chord with something I'd said, but he still didn't
tell me what was going on in his mind.

"Everything I've done," he said, walking toward
the door. He paused right in front of me, his face so close to mine
it made my heart ache. His green eyes were filled with secrets and
sorrows. "I've done to protect you."

I watched as he made his way back to his room,
not once looking back.

The marketplace hummed with life. The late
afternoon crowds filled the makeshift streets. Barely anyone
noticed me anymore. I had become a permanent fixture in the Grand
Hall over the past couple of weeks. I don't know if that meant they
had begun to trust me, exactly, but at least they no longer seemed
to fear me.

Today and every day since Essex first told me
about the library, I'd spent at least a few hours here watching the
soldiers and the council members come and go. I wanted to know how
often the soldiers seemed to go on missions. And I wanted to see
where it was the council members kept disappearing to. Since the
council's library was such a restricted place, I knew I couldn't
just walk up and ask where it was.

In some ways, I had become exactly what they'd
all feared I was all along. A spy.

The difference was that the last thing I wanted
to do was spy for the Order. No, I gathered information for myself
only.

If Jackson and Lea had insisted I be included in
all the meetings and treated as an equal, I never would have gotten
myself into this situation of spying and sneaking around to get my
own information. But since they had decided to shut me out and
treat me more as a visitor than an actual participant in this war
against the Order, what choice did I have?

So I watched.

I made notes in my journal.

Since I didn't have a clock or a sun to keep
time for me, I kept time based on the rhythms of the people. In the
mornings when I heard the door of our suite slam closed, I knew Lea
had left for her daily meetings or whatever it was she and Jackson
did all day out of sight from the rest of us. In my mind, I labeled
this as the beginning of the morning. I spent this time working on
my magic. When the smells of food on the grill stretched all the
way down to the suite from the marketplace, I figured it was about
noon. Lunchtime.

Then, when the voices grew louder and the market
buzzed with conversation and excitement of another finished
workday, I knew it was quitting time. Somewhere around five or so
in the afternoon. This was when the soldiers and the council quit
their work and emerged from their secret caves like tiny ants from
their hill.

It took me a few days to pinpoint the exact
location of the training area. At first, it seemed the soldiers
just magically appeared out of nowhere. I recognized them by their
matching black uniforms and serious looks. I had expected the army
to be made up of mostly men, much like the army back home. I was
pleasantly surprised to see an equal number of men and women had
joined in the training and fighting against the Order.