The Hierophant (Book 1 in The Arcana Series) (21 page)

— 45 —

I must have blacked out. For how long, I don’t know, but when I hear the sirens coming, I open my eyes.

Water has flooded into the car. It’s shallow this far up the creek, but still deep enough to cover the top of my head while I’m hanging upside-down.

“Trebor?” I rasp, constricted by the seatbelt taut across my chest, cutting into my skin where my shoulder meets my neck. My face feels swollen from the unusual blood flow, and everything is spinning in the dark. “Trebor?” I realize his hand is not in mine anymore.

I reach for him, weak, disoriented, flailing in the shadows. My hand grazes his chest—it’s warm, wet, sticky with blood. I reach upward—downward—for his head. “Trebor, please, answer me.” Oh, God, what is that sticking out of his shoulder? There is his mouth—his nose—
good, above water
—his eyelids....

“Ana...” he mumbles. He opens his eyes for a moment, and I can only tell because they are burning so bright in the darkness, too bright to be real. But his eyes flutter closed again within seconds, and he doesn’t speak again.

“Trebor?” I beg. “No. No, no, no! Wake
up
!”

The sirens have stopped. Red and white lights flash outside my overturned car, dancing on the water; incoherent voices crackle over radios; shouts come from above us; boots tromp along the rocks by the creek; men and women call out for survivors.

I ignore all of it and reach for my seatbelt, bracing myself with my left hand against the roof, under water. I let myself fall. It is a bad idea, but I’ll pay for it later—right now, I need to know that Trebor is okay.

I twist onto my bare knees, discovering along the way that I might have broken a rib as sharp pains momentarily stop me from breathing. But I keep at it, dragging myself through the water until my face is beside his.

“Trebor,” I whimper. “Please.” My own heart is beating so fast that I’m certain it can’t be in unison with his, not if he’s unconscious. Unless...

Clamoring, I grab the back of his seat with my left hand—I think the right one is busted—and press my ear to his chest. “Come on, Trebor...come on...”

There. Faint, but still there, is the flutter of his heart, still in unison with my own, only weaker. “Trebor, please, you can do this. You can pull through. Please, wake up. Please.” I sink to the ground, unable to support my weight any longer as pain shakes through me with every wrong or sudden movement. I try to hold his head away from the water. He is so helpless.
I
am so helpless, trapped in a mangled heap of metal and glass, kneeling in creek water. Broken. Useless.

But the dominant thought pulsing through my mind is:
I could lose him
.

I could lose him.

I could lose him.

“Please don’t die.” I sob suddenly, lifting my face, touching my cheek to his so that I can whisper in his ear. “
Please
. Keep fighting. Hold on. Trebor?” I’m crying, and my lips are trembling, and my voice is shaking, but I can’t tell if it’s from the shock of the car crash, or because of how terrified I am of these overwhelming feelings breaking loose from my bones. “Please stay with me, Trebor. I need you. I think I—”

“Miss!” a booming voice shouts into the car. “Miss, can you hear me?”

“Help him! He’s hurt!” I cry out. Several pairs of hands latch onto me around my legs and waist, pulling me out through the glassless window. “Trebor...hold on...” My hands slip away from his face, and I notice with the increasing distance, as flashlights pass over him, that he’s gone translucent. “No...” I breathe. “Trebor!”

“Are you okay, ma’am?” The paramedic is in my face, obscuring everything.

“Help him! Please! He’s hurt. You have to help him!” I beg. But they’re looking around with their flashlights for other victims, and they’re passing over Trebor again and again, each pass illuminating his spectral face for me—the only witness to his existence.

“The other driver, miss?” the paramedic asks me. “Don’t worry about him right now. Worry about yourself.”

“No...” I moan, shivering, powerless in their hands. They can’t see him. They can’t
see
. Trebor is going to be stuck in that car until something or someone from the world of the Arcana comes along and finds him, and by then, it might be too late.

“Miss, where are you hurt?” the paramedic asks, holding me upright

Grimacing, my hand goes to the brush burn and broken blood vessels over my heart, and I cry.

— 46 —

I’m going on a picnic (during which I’ll have a terrible car accident), and I’m bringing:

-A totaled car

-A broken wrist

-Three bruised ribs

-A concussion

-and an endless list of lacerations.

And I don’t care. My life has stopped until I know what has happened to Trebor. But if I’ve learned anything from television it’s this: never argue with doctors or nurses. Instead, after they’ve stitched and bandaged me up, set my bones, and fixed a cast on my wrist, I let them lay me down to rest while I plot my escape.

“Your father’s phone has been busy, but we’ll try him again in a few minutes,” my nurse says with a smile.

I smile back, cavity sweet, and nod, hating the smell of her perfume, the same scent I swear all nurses wear, that for years, as a child, I thought was what a medicine cabinet was supposed to smell like. The entire hospital inspires a sickness in me that I can’t abide. Death lingers in the air like sour potpourri, has stained the atmosphere a dead-tooth blue.

She sighs. “You poor thing. What a fright you must have had. Got off a sight better than the other driver I’d say.” She pauses. “But don’t you worry about him.”

I try not to glower. “I won’t.”

The nurse raises her eyebrows at me, and nods, a conspiratorial edge to her expression, as if maybe she doesn’t judge me for not giving a damn whether John Cassidy lives or dies. “You let me know if you need anything.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The second the door clicks shut, I throw off the covers and swing my feet over the edge of the bed. The floor is cold underfoot; I have no shoes, only paper slippers, no clothes but the hospital gown. But that doesn’t matter. There’s a thin robe in the closet. I put it on, cinching it around my waist, wincing at the new pain these too-fast actions provoke from my battered body. Then I tuck my feet into the slippers and float into the hallway, silent as a ghost.

Walking quickly, trying not to attract attention, I pass two reception desks before deciding it’s safe to stop. “May I use your phone, please?” I ask, trying to keep the desperation from my voice.

The young nurse looks up at me with tired eyes and tries to smile, but she’s practiced it too often—it looks robotic and cool. “Of course,” she replies, turning the desk phone to face me.

“Thank you.” I dial quickly and turn away, hoping I won’t be overheard or seen by my nurse in passing.

The phone rings on the other end of the line, slow and taunting. I swear there are extra seconds between and during each digital trill. I’m praying Kyla answers—it’s almost two in the morning, so she might still be out or passed out in bed. Worse, her mother might answer—but Amrita might be gone again on business this weekend, I can’t remember. This year she’s been gone almost more than she’s been home.

Finally, I hear the jostling of the receiver from its cradle.

“Hello?” Kyla answers, her tone already worried.

“Kyla,” I whisper. “It’s me, Ana.”

“Ana! What the hell, man? Where are you? Are you okay?”

“Yeah—”

“Vanessa said she saw your car in the creek! And John’s car all smashed up on Main Street? Someone said it looked like he ran you off the road!”

“Kyla—”

“I’ve been trying to get a hold of you all night, but your phone was off, and the line’s been busy at your house—”

“Kyla, I need you to do me a favor.”

“Are you okay? Seriously. Did you crash your car?”

“Yes. And no. And yes. But I need your help. Now.”

“Oh, shit.” She pauses, then says with more focus, “Of course, A. What do you need?”

“Meet me at the gas station down the street from ECMC, and bring clothes. And shoes.”

“For you?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you breaking out of the hospital?”

“Yeah.”

She pauses. “Sweet. I’ll bring my mom’s car, it’ll attract less attention. You sure you’re okay to go?”

“It doesn’t matter. Trebor’s life is in danger. I need to get to him as soon as possible.”

“Holy crap. You’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do, Ana.”

“Yeah. I really do. Listen, Kyla, I’ll tell you everything on the way back.”

“Absolutely everything?”

“Absolutely everything. Just...hurry.”

— 47 —

I don’t get as many strange stares from the people at the gas station as I expected, clad in my hospital attire with fresh wounds still glowing pink from scrubbing and antiseptic. There are butterfly bandages over the cuts on my cheekbone and eyebrow, a heavy plaster cast around most of my right forearm and hand, and, let’s face it: I’m going on three days without sleep and I look like hell. Who knows, maybe they’re used to seeing people from the hospital—they do have a psychiatric ward there.

Kyla must have sped the whole way from Williamsville because she’s there almost as soon as I arrive. I find I need her help changing in the restroom out back—I can barely lift my arms over my head without searing pain in my sides.

“Jesus, Ana,” Kyla breathes, helping me pull a pale blue tee-shirt over my head, eying the black and blue splotches around my ribs. “Are you sure you should leave the hospital?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “I’ll be okay. Trebor might already be dead. I have to get to him.”

She makes a concerned face at me in the mirror. “Ana...what’s going on? What happened to Trebor? Why might he be dead?”

“They didn’t see him in the car with me,” I mumble, my face hot.

“What do you mean? How could they not see him? He’s kind of a tall guy.”

“Because sometimes people can’t see him. Because...he’s not human.”

Kyla raises a dark eyebrow at me. “What,” she says, disbelieving.

“He’s an Irin,” I admit, pulling on a pair of black yoga pants. Jeans would have been better, but Kyla’s would have been six inches too short on me, so these will have to do.

“
What
?” She says it more sharply this time. “As in
the
Irin, from Shemayiim? The
Watchers
? Ana, how have you possibly justified not telling me this?”

I frown, guilt chomping at my insides. “I was afraid of getting you involved. This isn’t all fun and games, Ky. The Sura are trying to kill me—to
empty
me. And now I think the Irin want me
and
Trebor dead.”

“But I thought you said he
is
an Irin?”

“Yeah, well, I guess he’s gone rogue.”

Kyla stares.

“Please, Kyla. You have to believe me.”

“Oh, I believe you. I just
can’t believe you
. If you weren’t already beat to hell I’d slap the shit out of you right now for not telling me.”

“
I’m sorry
, Kyla. I
know
it was stupid not to tell you, but I was scared—I was confused. Please, I can explain everything. I
want
to explain. But I need to get to him—” I push the door open.

Faye is standing there.

I try to close the door.

“Anastasia, wait!” She shouts in an unexpectedly high voice, and stops the door with her foot. I think there is more strength in that little leg of hers than in my whole body. She stares up at me, bright green eyes burning. “I’m here to help.”

“Like I should believe—”

“If I’d wanted to hurt you, I could have already.” Her eyes blaze. “Why do you think I hesitated at the cemetery? Why do you think Trebor didn’t hit me with that net?”

I swallow, glance at Kyla, but her dark eyes are moving between the two of us like she’s watching a game of tennis.

“He’s family,” Faye says. “I’m not going to let anything happen to him if I can help it.”

“Then let us go to him, he’s hurt—”

“It’s too late for that. The Sura have him. We saw it happen—the water spirits came and took him through a thin spot.”

My heart drops into my stomach. “But I thought Irin couldn’t go to Sheol?”

“Not while conscious. Not unless they’ve Fallen.” She gestures with her chin. “Come, I can explain. But first we must go somewhere safe, where Raven can’t find us.”

I swallow, thinking, doubting. Ultimately, I have no choice but to trust her.

“I know a place.”

— 48 —

It’s still dark when we get to the Crimson Oak. I haven’t been back here since the first time with Trebor, but I remember the place in the woods where they became unfamiliar, and I can feel the edges of the loka with my mind, the same way I can feel around for meaning when I read tarot. Faye’s presence is helpful too, I’m sure—as an Irin creation, the loka seems to react to her, as if opening its arms to her.

At the moment, Kyla is standing in awe at the base of the tree, head tilted all the way back to look up at the branches, arms stretched out to touch the roots, the smooth texture of the time-worn bark.

“This is amazing,” she breathes. The life sparkling behind her eyes makes me nostalgic for a time when we discovered things together—when
all
of our adventures were together. We used to blaze trails in the very woods that hide this loka, winding between old trees, stumbling over crooked roots, crossing water on fallen branches. We always hoped we would find something out there, no matter how crazy, just something to break us out of our mundane lives; strangers practicing witchcraft; dead bodies; Native American buried treasure; and yes, even portals into other worlds.

I’ve found quite a bit in these woods over the past few months, and none of it has been with Kyla. The guilt of that is terrible at times, especially now, seeing how eager she is to take it all in.

“I’m surprised you can even enter this place,” Faye remarks to both of us, anointing herself as Trebor once did. I bend to do the same, and she raises her eyebrows.

“There are a lot of surprising things that have been happening,” I say.

Kyla appears at my side by the edge of the silver pool, watching me, copying my movements. There is reverence in her, far more profound than I had expected the gesture to elicit. When she touches the water to her forehead she closes her eyes, and when they open they seem changed—darker, deeper, diamond constellations shimmering closer to the surface.

I stand and look at Faye. “What do you know about where they took Trebor? How do we get him back?”

She hops up and sits on a high root, legs dangling, strangely playful at a time like this. “If he’s still alive, they’ve got to be holding him in some kind of suspension. Unless he really is Fallen.”

“He
isn’t
. Why would he be? Just for betraying the Malakiim?”

Faye shakes her head. “Trebor has spent a long time away from home. It changes us—it would change anyone. Even the Sura cannot live in this world for long without changing. We don’t know what he’s been doing, only that he has been motivated by anger and despair—”

“It’s not like that,” I insist. “He’s good. He’s in control. There is no darkness in him.”

“There’s darkness in all of us, Anastasia,” Faye points out. “Even in the angels.”

I hold my ground. “He hasn’t Fallen.”

It takes a moment, but she nods, only once. “The only place in Sheol that can hold an Irin is the darkwater. There is a river that runs through the mainland—the Black Gash. It cuts through the wasteland all the way to the city of Naraka. It’s not real water, it’s…more like a concentration of shadows. They keep outsiders there, suspended in nightmares to keep them unconscious. Sometimes they feed on them—other times they just leave them there to suffer. But if you can get to Trebor, and wake him, Sheol cannot hold him.”

I pale, imagining motionless bodies at the bottom of a black river. “Trebor is there? Living in a nightmare?”

Faye sets her jaw and nods. For such a small creature, she projects incredible ferocity.

“Are you sure he’s still alive?” Kyla asks, sitting on a root next to me.

Faye hesitates, brow bending. “No. I can’t be certain of that. But they do know he’s an excellent bargaining chip, and though the Sura may be prone to whim and chaos, they are not blind to opportunity. They know the Irin and the Malakiim will do what it takes to prevent a skinwalker from getting a Fallen Irin vessel. And they know Ana will do everything in her power to rescue him.”

“How do they know that?” Kyla asks, eyeing me.

Faye cocks her head and studies me, too. “Because Ana cares too much for him.”

I flush. “He’s my friend. He saved my life, more than once. I owe him.”

Faye nods, stiffly. “Whatever your reasons, they know. Trebor knew, too. It’s why he was preparing to leave.”

Her words are a blow. I try not to let the hurt show, but I feel it spread across my face like a welt.

“Trebor wants to protect you,” Faye explains, filling the space left by my telling silence. “You’ll be safest when he’s gone. But in the meantime, I don’t know you, and we need to get him back before the Sura decide to cut him open and put a skinwalker inside of him. If that means risking your life, I’m fine with that.”

“Gee, thanks.” I frown.

Kyla raises her hand. “I’m coming too.”

“No, Kyla.”

“
Yes, Ana
. You’ve left me out so far, but you can’t keep me out of this now. If you’re going to hell, I’m going with you.” She crosses her arms over her chest.

I frown at her, and Faye, and when I look at my battered and bruised reflection in the pool between the three of us, I frown at her too. “How do we get into Sheol?” I wonder.

Faye jumps down from her root seat, dusts off the pants of her uniform. “Trebor is friends with a psychopomp by the name of Lykos—that’s how he’s been able to cross back and forth from Shemayiim to Iritz all this time. I can summon him when I get back to the village. He’ll help you cross if it means helping Trebor.”

I nod, and my insides hum with anticipation. “Okay. Let’s go then.”

Kyla and Faye exchange a brief look.

“A,” Kyla ventures. “Maybe you should sleep first. You nearly died tonight, and it’s not even night anymore. It’s almost morning.”

I shake my head. “Trebor needs my help.”

“But your friend is right,” Faye says. “You’ll be useless to him if you’re exhausted. You should sleep here tonight. I’ll go back and get Lykos.” She looks between us both, her face a mask. “Are you certain you want to do this? It’s an exceptionally dangerous task. You will be walking into a trap, unarmed.”

“Not entirely unarmed,” I admit. “Trebor has been teaching me to use magic.” Though I have no idea if I can use it yet without Trebor’s help.

Faye inhales deeply and considers what I’ve told her as she looks me up and down. She shakes her head. “I certainly hope his instincts are right about you.” She turns and begins to walk back the way we came.

“Get some rest,” she calls over her shoulder. “You’ll leave for Sheol in the morning.”