WeavingDestinyebook (2 page)

On autopilot, she stood and walked back to her dorm. Her brain felt fuzzy. Exhausted, she let herself into her room and stumbled through the darkness toward her bed.

"Ohmygod, Katrina. I've been so worried about you!" Mallory said. Katrina heard a click and the soft glow of her roommate's lamp made her blink. "First, I couldn't find you at the party and then you weren't here when I came home. Where the hell have you been?"

"What time is it?"

"Four in the morning."

"Four? Really? Shit, I don't know Mallory. I think someone slipped something into my drink. I feel weird."

"Into your drink? What, like a roofie? Are you okay? Do you need me to walk you to health services?"

Katrina thought about it for a minute. "No. I feel okay. I don't think anything happened. I just need to sleep it off."

"Well, the good news is it's officially spring break, so you can sleep as long as you want."

"Yeah, spring break. I'm supposed to go home to Paris tomorrow…I mean today, later. Hell, I've gotta get some sleep."

Katrina didn't bother to undress. She slipped beneath the covers of her bed and closed her eyes. She was asleep before Mallory turned off the light.

Chapter 2

Work to Do

Malini Gupta was not the sort of girl who gave up easily. When she said she was going to do something, she did it. Despite being half past four on the Friday night of spring break, she concentrated on the task before her. She sliced through shiny pink foil with determined precision, ignoring the growing pain in her middle back. The floral knife Mr. Laudner had given her to use scraped across the stainless steel worktable. She handed the shiny square to Jacob who folded the foil around a pot of blooming tulips.

"How many more of these do we have to do?" She rubbed the place where her shoulder met her neck.

The backroom of Laudner's Flowers and Gifts was packed with dozens of spring plants in shipping crates. "Looks like maybe a hundred." Jacob said.

"Damn, really?" Malini whined.

Jacob shook his head. "Don't complain to me, Malini. You're the one who wanted this job. I told you it sucked."

"I need the spending money. Plus, it was an excuse to see you." She'd been grounded from Jacob since last fall when they'd lied to her parents about taking an impromptu road trip. The honest truth was much worse. They'd been in Nod rescuing Jacob's mother, Lillian, from the Watchers, the fallen angels who wanted their souls. But of course telling her parents that her boyfriend was a Soulkeeper, a warrior who protected human souls, was out of the question. So, they'd lied. Now, her father was convinced Jacob was a bad influence.

Without her job at Laudner's Flowers and Gifts, she would rarely have a chance to see Jacob now that school was out. Sure, they sometimes used the staffs that Gideon had enchanted from the branches of Oswald Silva to visit each other at night, but they always had to be careful not to get caught. Lately, it seemed like their entire relationship was a series of stolen moments.

"I know it's hard right now, Malini, but it won't be like this forever. Your parents will come around. Have you asked them about prom yet?"

"Prom? Jacob, I can't even get my dad to agree to let us study together. I hardly think I've worked up to the junior prom. Besides, it isn't even until May. We've got like a month and a half."

Jacob reached over and ran his hand down the line of her wrist, linking his fingers with hers. "I can't wait."

At his subtle tug, she leaned in over the tulips, her lips reaching for his, needing the reassurance of just one kiss. He pulled their linked fingers to his chest. For a precious moment, the only thing in the world was his face, the warmth of his breath, and the brush of his lips.

"What's going on in here?" Lillian Lau called from the door to the backroom.

Malini separated to her spot opposite Jacob. She smoothed her shirt and tightened her ponytail.

"Nothing, Mom," Jacob said.

"Well, do less of nothing and more of foiling those pots. I just sold another ten to the Westcott's. Fran says she's lining her porch with them. Her older daughter, Stephanie, is coming home on spring break and adores tulips. Isn't her son, Phillip, in your class?"

"Uhm… yeah," Jacob said.

"I thought so," Lillian replied.

Malini caught the look Jacob shot her and kept her mouth shut about Phillip. He'd been part of a group of kids who'd made their lives hell last year along with Dane Michaels. Dane had come around when Jacob rescued him after he'd gotten his ass kicked by a Watcher. They were friends now. But Phillip didn't like it. In fact, the new friendship with Dane had given Phillip one more reason to hate Jacob and Malini.

Lillian looked at her watch. "You guys are on the clock for one more hour. Stop messing around and get the rest of those done. I don't want to have to explain to John that you didn't get your work done because you were fooling around in the back room. He'd have you on separate shifts in a heartbeat."

Jacob sighed.

"The answer is 'Yes, Mom'," Lillian said.

"Yes, Mom." Jacob turned his back on his mother and widened his eyes at Malini. The corner of his mouth pulled downward into a lopsided grimace.

Malini pressed her lips together and cut another foil square to keep herself from laughing. The telephone rang. Lillian retreated to her place behind the counter to answer it.

"Saved by the bell," Malini murmured in Jacob's direction. "There's always someone watching."

"It will get better. One way or another."

"What is that supposed to mean—"

Lillian was back in the doorway. "That was Abigail. There's been a killing... a homeless man in Chicago. She thinks it's Watcher activity. They're forming a team to investigate and bringing in another Horseman from the area. She wants us there tonight so she can fill us in on the details. I told her we'd come directly at the end of our shift."

"But I can't," Malini said. "I'm still grounded. I've got to go straight home."

"I'll talk to your father, Malini," Lillian said. "I'll explain you need to stay late."

"You mean you'll lie for me, again. What if we get caught? One more slip up and my father could lock me up and throw away the key."

Lillian glanced at Jacob who folded his arms across his chest, jaw clenched. "That's a chance we'll all have to take. It's the price of being a Soulkeeper," she said.

Malini slammed her knife down on the workbench and shot them both a dirty look.

"Excuse me," she said. "I need to use the restroom." She walked quickly, afraid the sting in her eye would turn into something more. The door closed behind her.

"Malini," she heard Jacob call. She pretended she couldn't hear him.

"Was it something I said," Lillian asked.

"Mom, could you be a little more sensitive. She's not…"

Jacob didn't have to finish. Everyone knew exactly what he meant. She wasn't a Soulkeeper. After months of meeting with Dr. Silva, of mysterious herbal concoctions, physical tests, and more talking than she'd cared to do, nobody knew what she was. The worst part was, no one would admit what she suspected all along: she was nothing. She wasn't a Soulkeeper. No matter how often they included her, or how many tests they did, it wouldn't change the truth. She was nothing more than an ordinary human girl with an overdeveloped sense of smell that just so happened to allow her to detect fallen angels.

* * * * *

Malini, Lillian, and Jacob arrived at Dr. Silva's gothic Victorian in Jacob's dilapidated blue pick-up truck. Once they were far enough into the thick of the maple orchard, the budding trees provided enough cover to camouflage the vehicle. Each of them had told a story about where they were supposed to be that afternoon. Each of them lied.

"Just in time." Dr. Silva held the sunroom door open for them. Her pale eyes were as disturbing as ever but the jeans and pink Henley she wore were a far cry from the head-to-toe black she insisted on wearing before she met Jacob. "Gideon and I are going to open the portal. We need to do it in the tower where there's more space and less chance of prying eyes. Come." She tossed her platinum hair over her shoulder and led the way through the kitchen.

Malini followed, down the hall, and up the stairs to the library. A tapestry of the four horsemen of the apocalypse hung on the wall. She balked when she saw Dr. Silva charge through it.

Jacob took her hand. "Close your eyes and jump. Trust me," he whispered into her ear. "The wall's an illusion."

Reluctantly, she followed his instructions, opening her eyes in a small room on the other side. The floor was wood. A spiral staircase made of wrought iron twisted up the center.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"In the tower," Jacob replied, tugging on Malini's hand to usher her up the spiral after Lillian.

"In all the time I've been visiting Dr. Silva, she's never taken me here," Malini said.

"I'm sure she has her reasons."

"Just like you're sure she has her reasons for blowing off our training sessions or wasting my time chatting for hours about nothing."

Jacob shrugged.

At the top of the stairs was a large room with a sanded wood floor and windows that stretched to the ceiling like a lighthouse. A desk and bookcase lined the inner wall where the tower was connected to the house and a telescope stood next to the windows. Gideon waited in the center of the cleared space in his angel form, his wings folded against his body. His glow cast the room in a bluish-white aura.

"Hello Jacob, Lillian, Malini," he said, nodding his head of wild auburn hair in their direction. His green eyes lingered on Malini who was embarrassed to be caught staring. It was hard to look away from Gideon when he wasn't in his usual form of Dr. Silva's red cat.

"Nice to see you again, Gideon," she said, breaking the awkward silence.

"Shall we get started?" Dr. Silva grabbed two wooden staffs that leaned up against the wall by the desk. She handed one to Gideon. "If everyone would stand back, we'll bring in our other team member."

Malini took a step toward the windows. Dr. Silva and Gideon faced each other, tapped the staffs together and then pulled them apart. Their muscles strained with the effort. Between the two staffs, thin blue fibers stretched like electric taffy. A girl formed within the blue web. She stepped out, looking around the room as if she'd landed on another planet. Gideon and Dr. Silva closed the portal behind her.

To Malini, the new horseman was the one who looked alien. She guessed the girl was not much older than herself. She wore a hooded leather jacket over a clingy, gray sleeveless t-shirt and skinny jeans. Her lips were too red, the lower one pierced with a metal stud. A hot pink streak of hair fell from her widow's peak to her chin. As the girl turned to face Gideon, Malini noticed a tattoo on her neck under her jet-black ponytail, but from where she stood she couldn't make out the details. Everything about her was hard, tough, unarguably a Horseman.

But she also had a figure. She reminded Malini of one of those girls in a video game, all muscles and boobs. If that wasn't enough to make Malini feel inadequate, the girl's roving peeps landed on Jacob. Her eyes worked their way from his head to his feet, then back up again. When she reached his face, she stood up straighter.

Malini tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and hugged her stomach. Maybe, after this, she could start working out.

"This is our new Horseman, Mara Kane. She comes from Chicago. She witnessed the kill."

Mara did not attempt to shake anyone's hand. Instead she reached inside her jacket and pulled out a sucker, the cheap kind they gave away free at the bank. She yanked the wrapper off the red candy top and popped it in her mouth. She rolled it across her tongue as she turned toward Dr. Silva. "When do we start?"

"It's nice to meet you, Mara," Lillian said with exaggerated zeal. She extended her hand to the girl who shook it without enthusiasm.

The prompt spurred a rash of similar greetings from the others. Malini smiled and nodded to be polite.

 "Perhaps each of you Horseman can demonstrate your gifts," Dr. Silva said. "Jacob, you first."

Jacob removed the flask he kept strapped to his ankle and stepped to the center of the room. Into his hand he poured a pillar of water that rotated in his palm before freezing and reshaping into a double-edged sword. He maneuvered the weapon around his body so quickly Malini saw only flashes of white. When he'd completed a turn around the room, he tossed the blade into the air. It rotated to the ceiling where it exploded into a billion bits of white.

Snow floated down overhead, fluffy white flakes that settled on everything. Mara caught one in her palm but before she could close her fingers, Jacob whistled. The flake jumped from her hand and flew across the room to Jacob's waiting flask. The remaining flakes followed, until every drop returned to its origin. He screwed the lid back on.

Malini clapped excitedly until she realized she was the only one applauding.

"Nicely done, Jacob," Dr. Silva said. "Lillian?"

In a flash, Lillian dove forward, executing a series of handsprings between the other Horsemen before landing with a short knife in each hand. Malini noticed the sheaths at her thighs, but hadn't seen her draw the weapons. Slicing at the air in a whirlwind of acrobatics, she kicked up a random piece of paper from the desk against the wall. Her knives worked swiftly as it floated to the floor. When she was done, she sheathed the knives and lifted the paper up to the light. In perfectly carved letters it said,
Hello, Mara. Welcome to Paris
.

Malini applauded again. She couldn't help herself. Lillian smiled and nodded in her direction.

"That's cool," Mara said around her sucker. She sounded bored.

"Mara, your turn," Dr. Silva said.

Mara pulled the candy from her mouth and folded it into the saved wrapper. She stuffed it back into her pocket.

Then she disappeared.

"What the hell?" Jacob rushed forward, toward the spot where she'd been.

Malini felt a tap on her shoulder and turned around. Mara stood behind her, close enough that turning had caused her to brush the edge of her open jacket. There was something in her hand, something metal with a wooden handle. Malini tried to see what it was but in the blink of an eye Mara was gone again.