WeavingDestinyebook (15 page)

"I've enchanted her room. No one can reach her, only the illusion. She's not there anyway, not really. She'll be gone for three days and if she comes back, she'll be a true Healer. She'll be more powerful than all of us," Dr. Silva answered.

"What do you mean, if?" Jacob said through his teeth.

Gideon and Dr. Silva exchanged glances. "There's no easy way to tell you this, Jacob, the reason the medicine woman is over two hundred years old is because the last two Healers did not survive their initiation. Malini has everything she needs to survive but if she chooses not to trust in the gifts God has given her, she will die."

Jacob swallowed hard and fell back onto the sofa. To prevent sprinting out the door, he clutched the plaid fabric. She wasn't there, not really. And he couldn't protect her this time. He leaned forward and buried his face in his hands. He tried to accept that this was one journey she had to complete on her own.

Mara reached across the coffee table and grabbed Dr. Silva's wrist. "How many are their, Abigail?"

Dr. Silva frowned at Mara's grip. "There were thirteen on the list. Three Helpers, not including myself or Gideon, nine Horsemen, and one Healer. Thirteen Soulkeepers."

Mara dropped Dr. Silva's wrist and cupped her fist in front of her lips. "That's it? We need to hold back the tide of Hell with fifteen people?"

"No," Dr. Silva said. "Thirteen people, one angel, and me."

Chapter 20

At Death's Door

Malini awoke to Wisnu's wet tongue lapping up the side of her head. He alternated licking her face and nudging her shoulder. Once she was fully conscious, she understood the why behind the alarm clock routine. The stone's glow was noticeably dimmer.

She pulled herself to her feet feeling achy but better than before. The bruises she should have had from the snake's choking grip didn't exist. From the outside, she didn't look hurt at all. On the inside, well, she refused to give those feelings a voice just yet.

Wasting no more time, she continued her journey down the dirt path. Eventually, she could make out a magnificent stone castle on the horizon. She climbed on Wisnu and urged him down the path, closing the distance to the castle at a high run. But when they'd reached the garden in front of the stone steps, the mongoose stopped, pinned its ears against its head and growled in the direction of the dark fortress.

"I think I'm supposed to go there, Wisnu," Malini said. "I don't like it either but Fatima said I need to make it to the end of the path and the path leads straight to that castle."

Wisnu turned in tight circles. Malini slid from his back. "It's okay Wisnu. Thank you for your help. I'll go on from here."

Head hung low, he trotted off. Malini followed the path through the garden and up the stone steps to the gigantic iron door. She lowered the heavy brass knocker three times. The bang-bang-bang seemed to echo across the countryside. There was a moment of silence and then the door swung open.

No one stood on the other side. Past the entrance, a grand foyer of black marble rose above her. At the center of the room, a table held a vase filled with long-stemmed red roses. Their heady smell filled the air, the color an uncommonly bright red against the black walls.

"Hello?" Malini called. She took a step into the foyer and noticed the marble floor was discolored where her feet fell. The path continued even here. On the table with the roses, a note waited for her.

Take one
, she read. She reached out and pulled a rose from the vase before continuing forward. The path led her into a great ballroom.

"Welcome, Malini," a voice said, hollow and cool. A boy stood at the south end of the ballroom, a tight-lipped smile across his face. Dark brown hair swept across his forehead above eyes a shade of brown that was almost black. His pale skin stretched smooth over beautiful, almost feminine features. The tux he wore hung like it was custom tailored. He looked familiar, like someone famous, but Malini couldn't place him.

"Time to get dressed for the ball, Malini." He snapped his fingers and the rose melted down her arms like liquid mercury. When the red touched her sari, it transformed into a strapless red ball gown.

Freaked, Malini clutched at the bodice. Without her Sari, she was completely without guidance and she had no idea what this challenge would entail. "Who are you?" she asked.

"You look stunning. Would you like to see?" the boy said, ignoring her question.

A mirror materialized at the center of the room, its gilded frame an intricately carved masterpiece. When she stepped over to it, her feet clicked against the floor. She lifted the full ruby skirt to find four-inch heels had replaced her slippers. Glancing into the mirror, she realized that wasn't all that had changed. Her hair was swept up high on her head with cascading curls brushing her cheeks and neck. Her lips were painted as red as her dress and her makeup made her look older than she was. The medicine woman's red stone was mounted on an elegant gold chain around her neck.

"What is this about?" Malini asked, turning to see that the top of the gown was a corset, tied tightly in the back.

"This is a ball, and we are here to dance." He clapped his hands and a man entered the room and sat at a grand piano that she hadn't noticed when she'd entered the room. The boy met her eyes and bent at the waist, extending his hand toward her.

"I can't dance," she said.

"Oh, I think you know this step," he whispered.

Tentatively she took what he offered. His fingers slipped in, as cold as death against her palm. The pianist began a heavy waltz and the boy pulled her into his chest. He led her across the floor, step-step-spin, step-step-spin, and she did know the steps as if it was a dance she'd danced every day of her life.

"I have a gift for you Malini. It is His will that you have a piece of what I am. It is a powerful gift and I do not give it lightly."

"Who are you?"

"You know who I am Healer. I am the thing you hate the most. I am the thing you mistake as your enemy when truly I am the world's most important blessing."

Malini felt dizzy, almost nauseous. The turning, the cold press of his skin, the music that was eerily strange. She stopped and he followed her lead although he did not release her right hand. The pianist played passionately, his fingers flying across the keys. But she realized she was seeing his fingers through his back. His body was opaque, dressed in ghostly clothing that reminded her of something from the seventeenth century.

"He's not alive." Malini's throat constricted and the words came out as breathy whispers.

"No," the boy said.

His icy grip tightened around her fingers. "Oww," she said. "My fingers are going numb. Do you mind?"

"An unfortunate side effect of my gift I'm afraid," he said.

A moment of clarity allowed her to see the room for what it was, not a ballroom but a grand funeral parlor. The flower arrangements in every nook, the melancholy dirge of the piano, the cold marble: this was a house of the dead.

The coldness advanced to her wrist. She could no longer feel her hand. The ghostly pianist continued to play, but the cadence of his music transformed into grief in D minor.

"You are Death," she rasped.

"Yes."

"But I don't understand. Have I failed. Am I going to die?"

"I am here to give something to you, not to take something from you," he said pulling her back into his chest. He forced her to continue the dance. Step-step-turn, step-step-turn.

Her forearm was frozen, icy numbness creeping toward her elbow.

He locked eyes with her, spinning her round and round the room. Those black eyes began to burn and in them she saw all manner of death: fire, pestilence, war. They were like Fatima's eyes, windows into the history of the world, but with a much darker view. Round and round he danced with her, toward the mirror at the center of the room. And then, without asking permission, he lowered his mouth to hers.

She tried to pull away but his arms held her tight to his body, his lips pressed to hers in an icy cold kiss. The chill filled her, the numb extending from her mouth to her throat, to her cheeks, and on to her toes until her speeding heart slowed, giving itself over to the deep-freeze. But it was her arm that went completely numb. She could no longer feel it at all.

And then he was gone. She opened her eyes and felt the warmth return to her face. Her heart started to beat again. She turned a circle looking for the boy but he'd vanished, as did the pianist and the piano. The only thing that remained was the mirror.

She looked into it and for the first time noticed what death had given her. Raising her right hand, the one that had gone numb, she stepped closer to the glass. She bent and released her fingers. But they were not fingers. The flesh of her arm ended at the elbow and her hand was nothing but skeletal bones that clicked as she moved them.

The skeleton arm flexed and stretched. She couldn't help herself. She screamed and tugged at the place the bones joined her elbow as if she could rip the arm from the joint. Echoes of her terror bounced back at her from the marble walls.

Death had given her a piece of himself. She had the hand of death. Eventually she accepted that the thing was a part of her. What kind of gift was a hand of Death for a Healer?

Determined to continue,  she left the ballroom and followed the path to the door on the far side of the castle. There, on a small table, was a brown glove with a note pinned to it.

"Use me," she read. "How very Alice in Wonderland." She slipped the glove onto the bone hand. Once it was on, it transformed to match her skin. She let herself out, hoping never to return.

Death's voice came to her through the closing door. "Thank you for the dance." The words held nothing but genuine gratitude. Malini thought she heard loneliness in those words. She didn't stay to find out if she was right.

As she ran down the hill, she was grateful that the gown had been replaced by her sari and slippers and surprised that the red stone remained set in its cocktail splendor. When she realized Wisnu was waiting for her at the bottom, she threw her normal arm around him. Into the furry bend of his neck, she buried her face and cried.

Chapter 21

Practice

Going to school without Malini sucked. Jacob rested his head in his hands over his uneaten lunch and tried to keep himself awake. He'd tossed and turned all night wondering if she was okay. Whatever the Healer initiation was, according to Dr. Silva it was deadly. Of course, it seemed like everything in the Soulkeeper's world was deadly. That's why they needed a school. Soulkeepers needed to learn from each other, especially if Watcher activity was on the rise.

"Earth to Jacob!" Dane waved a palm in front of his face.

"Wassup, Dane?"

"Wassup? You look like the walking dead, that's what's up. And where is Malini? What the hell is going on?"

Jacob met Dane's eyes and couldn't hold it in. He needed to talk to someone or he was going to explode. "There was a Watcher in Paris. Malini—"

Jacob stopped because Dane had jumped to his feet and was holding his fork like a weapon.

"Dane, sit down. She's okay…for now."

"I want to know what happened," Dane said, returning to his seat.

Jacob ran a hand down his face. Why did he start this? It wasn't the time or place to be sharing the details.

"She's fine, okay. And it's gone for now. But, my God, Dane…" Jacob paused gauging Dane's reaction. "Are you in love with my girlfriend?"

"No!"

"Then why are you acting like you're about to jump on a white steed and ride to her rescue?"

Dane's hands clenched into fists on either side of his orange tray. "You don't get it, do you? I would act the same way if it were you."

Jacob shook his head. "Yeah, right."

Dane leaned forward, and whispered across the table, "How do you feel about Dr. Silva and Gideon, Jacob? How do YOU feel about the people who saved you from THEM, those…things?" He straightened in his seat but didn't break eye contact.

When he did think about it, he understood where Dane was coming from. There wasn't anything Jacob wouldn't do for the people who had saved him from Nod. He never thought about it before, but he had done the same for Dane. He was the one who saved Dane from Auriel's wrath.

"You two are the only two who understand why I still wake up at night. And the only two who can tell me if I really have something to be afraid of."

"I guess I get your point," Jacob said. He thumbed the corner of his tray thinking that they'd far exceeded the depth of conversation he was comfortable with. Dane must have felt the same way because he shifted uncomfortably and became preoccupied with the window.

Eventually he found a topic to fill the awkward silence.

"So are you coming to the meeting after school today?" Dane asked.

"What meeting?"

"Prom committee. It's just around the corner. We're voting on a theme, today."

"Sorry, I can't. I'm supposed to spar with Mara. Dr. Silva says it will be good practice in case the Watcher comes back."

"Fine. You go save the world. I'll deal with the prom."

"What themes are you thinking of anyway?"

"Um, I've thrown out a few to the group. Zombie apocalypse, NASCAR, sports legends...but the girls weren't crazy about them. Besides Malini and us there's only senior girls on the committee. I dunno, I think zombie apocalypse was growing on Bridget Mason."

"There's nothing like a few decaying body parts to make for a romantic prom," Jacob added.

"I know, right?"

* * * * *

After school, Jacob met Mara in Dr. Silva's backyard. He only had an hour to practice. He'd promised the Laudners he'd take over in the store tonight so that John could go back to the hospital. Katrina's status had improved slightly in the last twenty-four hours but she remained unconscious.

"Thanks for coming," Mara said. She must have sensed him because she didn't turn around when she said it. Sitting on the garden bench, she stared toward the raised beds, her long black hair braided down the back of her head.