WeavingDestinyebook (7 page)

"It was a bad situation. I know why you did it, but I wish you'd stayed on the other side of the fence."

Malini became intensely interested in the corner of her comforter.

"And, if you need someone to talk to, talk to me. I'm your boyfriend. I want to be who you come to."

Malini's mouth opened on an intake of breath. "You're jealous," she stated firmly.

"No," Jacob retorted, "I simply want to be there for you."

"Bullshit. You don't want me to talk to Dane because you think he wants me...a little."

"Should I be worried, Malini? Do you want Dane, even a little?"

"Do you want Mara, even a little?"

"Mara? When did this become about Mara?"

"Since you couldn't take your eyes off of her from the moment she walked through that portal."

Jacob shook has head and scoffed in her direction. "Not true. And this conversation is so not what I had in mind when I came over here tonight."

"Hmmphf," Malini replied. Her arms had worked their way across her stomach.

He reached out and drew her into his chest, separating her hands in the process and wrapping them around his neck. "I love you, Malini. Only you."

Eventually her chocolate brown eyes softened. His lips found hers and she welcomed his kiss, eager for more. Lowering her head to her pillow, he stretched out over her.

"What
did
you have in mind, Jacob?" she asked.

"I'm not exactly sure but this is more like it," he said into her mouth.

She reached up for his face and it was a long time before they said anything else.

* * * * *

At dawn, Jacob returned to the Laudner's, feeling a pang of guilt that he'd spent the night at Malini's without permission. Nothing had happened except for some serious making out. They'd decided last year that they weren't ready for anything more. He'd simply wanted to stay to protect her and ended up falling asleep with her cuddled against his chest.

He scaled the rose lattice. Pushing open the window, he slid in carefully. It took a minute for his eyes to adjust to the dim room. the first thing he noticed was that his door was cracked open. Had he locked it after all? The second thing he noticed, as his line of sight passed over the bed, was the handle of a large knife protruding from the Jacob-styled pillow decoy.

The blade was positioned exactly where his heart should have been.

Chapter 7

Investigation

It was his mother's idea to call in Dr. Silva and Mara. Once Jacob had crept down to her makeshift bed on the Laudner's couch and told her about the stabbing, she'd texted the news to Dr. Silva. The next second, he was holding hands with Mara in the living room. They'd ascended the stairs hand-in-hand to the place where Jacob would be dead if he hadn't been at Malini's.

As Soulkeeper powers went, Mara's had to be the most mind blowing. The only thing keeping Jacob animated were her fingers linked with his. He couldn't stop looking at the bird outside his window. It was frozen mid-flight, suspended open-winged in midair. Everything was paused. Everything but the four of them who were connected to Mara by linked fingers.

"Remember, if you break contact with me, you'll stop like everything else," Mara said.

"Jacob, I'm happy to see you are not the one under the knife, but where the hell were you last night?" Lillian asked. Her voice had changed from a Soulkeeper's to a mother's and Jacob blushed as every eye in the room fell on him for an answer.

"I was with Malini."

"All night?" Lillian snapped.

"Yes. I was worried about her after what happened yesterday. I wanted to make sure she was okay."

"And you needed all night to do that?"

"Considering there's someone in Paris trying to stab us in our sleep, I'd say yes."

Dr. Silva interrupted. "Perhaps it would be beneficial if we focused on the task at hand. Jacob, was the window unlocked the entire night?"

"Yeah. I went out the window so it was unlocked."

"So, it could've been someone from the outside."

Dr. Silva waved her hand and a purple light shone on the handle of the knife. "No prints."

Jacob shook his head. "The door to my room was open when I came home. I'd locked it before I left."

"Are you certain?"

"Yes."

"It's Katrina," Lillian said.

Dr. Silva turned a quizzical eye toward Lillian.

"We think she's under a Watcher's influence. She's been acting strangely since the moment she came home. I can't figure out how it's getting to her though. To make her do something like this, it would have to be feeding her large quantities of elixir."

"I agree," Dr. Silva said. "If it was Katrina, a Watcher must be very close."

"If it is her, what do we do?" Mara asked. "We can't take her out and if we get the police involved it could be a disaster. We don't need a bunch of people snooping around right now. Our cover is more important than ever."

"Plus, if we incapacitate Katrina, we'll never find the Watcher. We need to use her to lead us to it," Dr. Silva said.

"This is my niece we're talking about," Lillian said. "She's no sweetheart but she's also not a killer. I couldn't stomach the pain it would cause John and Carolyn if anything happened to her."

"Once the Watcher is dead, Lillian, Katrina will return to normal as soon as the elixir wears off. Dane Michaels was influenced last year and he lost the drive to hurt Jacob almost immediately once Auriel couldn't reach him anymore."

"How do we know a Watcher didn't come through the window, stab Jacob's bed, and then open the door to search the house when he realized it wasn't him?" Mara asked.

"Well, I'm still alive, so it didn't reach me," Lillian said.

"Maybe it didn't know what you are," Dr. Silva said.

"Maybe it was scared away by something else," Mara added.

Dr. Silva tilted her head. "Good point. Let's pay Katrina a visit and see if there are any clues to how the Watcher is influencing her. For the Watcher to be effective there has to be a source, something to maintain its influence over her when it returns to Nod. Look for an elixir or pills."

Hand in hand they walked to Katrina's room and slipped inside her door. She was curled under the covers, frozen in a state of peaceful sleep. Dr. Silva scanned the room.

"I can smell Watcher here. It's strong. It's very possible it just left, but I don't see any obvious signs of what it was doing in here."

With a flick of Dr. Silva's hand the drawers pulled out, the closet opened, and the bed-skirt flipped up.

"Shit, she folds her socks!" Mara said.

"Yeah, Katrina is a total neat freak," Jacob added.

"There are worse habits to have," Lillian added.

"There's nothing here," said Dr. Silva. "I don't see anything that could hold an elixir."

She waved her hand and the room righted itself.

"So, do you think it was Katrina who tried to stab me? Or was it the Watcher?"

"I'm not sure, Jacob. But I think we must all be very careful from this moment forward. There's a Watcher in our midst and it knows who you are. If it was your cousin who stabbed those blankets, she might try to finish the job," Dr. Silva said. "How long is she here?"

"The entire week. She's on spring break. But Malini and I go back to school Monday."

"Good. Try not to be alone with Katrina. And Lillian, I would keep that bed on the couch if I were you."

"And sleep with one eye open…" Lillian said, nodding.

"What about Jacob?" Mara said. "Are we going to do anything about keeping him from becoming a shish kabob over the next six nights?"

"I'll stay with Malini," Jacob said.

"Not a good idea, Jacob," his mom said. "Besides the fact that I'm completely uncomfortable with you spending the night with your girlfriend at sixteen, have you stopped to think what would happen if you got caught? Jim Gupta grounded her for six months for what happened in October. You may never be allowed to see her again.  This isn't just about you. Jim could make it twice as hard for us to work with her in the future.

"She needs protection."

"I don't know if that should be you, Jacob," Dr. Silva said. "Wherever this Watcher is, he's targeted you. You wouldn't want to lure the watcher to her. I agree she needs protection. Gideon and I will keep watch around her house at night. But I agree with Lillian. It's not in anyone's best interest for you to stay the night with Malini."

"Fine, so where do I go?" Jacob asked.

"You can stay with me at Dr. Silva's," Mara said. "It makes sense. We can protect each other. Maybe Lillian should come too."

"Mara is right. My house is enchanted against Watchers. It's the safest place and there's plenty of room."

"The Laudners will notice if I'm gone," Lillian said. "All it would take is Carolyn getting up in the middle of the night for a drink of water to notice me missing. I would never hear the end of it."

"I'll build you an illusion, Lillian, but I do think you should stay with me. The one thing we've learned from all of this is that what we heard in Chicago was no empty threat. There is a Watcher here, among us, and we have to assume it knows who we are. Whoever plunged that knife into Jacob's bed knows he's not dead. The fact that it left the knife in the pillow is a warning. It wants us to know it was here. I have a feeling, the next time it tries to kill one of us, it won't give up so easily."

The room grew quiet as each of them processed the truth in Dr. Silva's words. Jacob looked at his mom and saw her eyes had gone glossy with tears. A chill ran up his spine. None of them were safe. Evil had come to Paris.

"We've got to go," Mara rasped. "I can't hold it much longer." Her face had gone ashen white and Jacob noticed her hand was icy cold within his. Her lips were turning blue.

Lillian led the way. Dr. Silva closed the door to Katrina's room behind them. Once they were safely inside Jacob's room, Mara dropped Dr. Silva's hand and rang the bell she'd stored in her pocket. The frozen bird in Jacob's window continued on its way as if nothing had happened. Mara released Jacob's fingers and fell into the orange chair by the window.

"That's a really powerful gift," Jacob whispered to Mara.

Flushed from the return of her body heat, she smiled. "Thank you."

Dr. Silva pulled the knife from Jacob's decoy and tucked it under her arm. Circling one hand over the other, she conjured a purple flame and tossed it at his bed. His bedspread stitched itself up and loose stuffing tucked itself back into his pillow. By the time the purple magic had burnt itself out, his bed looked like new.

"Thanks!" Jacob said.

"You are welcome." Dr. Silva paused, tilting her head. "I believe the heavy footfalls I'm hearing mean John and Carolyn are awake. Mara, let's make use of Jacob's window."

Jacob didn't hear anything, but he knew better than to question Dr. Silva. She raised the glass panel and leapt through, floating to the ground without the aid of the rose lattice. Mara sighed and climbed down the much more human way. Jacob waved as they crossed the yard toward Dr. Silva's gothic Victorian.

He turned back toward his mom who waited just inside the door.

"Do we need to talk about what happened with Malini last night?" Lillian whispered.

"I told you what happened," Jacob said.

Lillian rested her hands on his shoulders and looked him in the eye. "Tell me the truth. Did you have sex with her?"

"No, I didn't. I swear."

"You know you can tell me anything, Jacob, but you need to be honest with me. Did you have sex with her?"

"I am being honest. No."

His mom relaxed slightly, the tension bleeding from her shoulders. She embraced him in a firm hug. "I knew you were smarter than that, but I needed to be sure." She drifted toward the door and crept into the hall.

Jacob fell onto his newly repaired bed, thinking about Katrina, the Watcher, and the Soulkeeper he'd just seen stop time. He wondered if he'd ever have a normal day again. And more than anything, he dreaded having to explain it all to Malini.

Chapter 8

Family

Malini held the phone to her ear, hoping she'd put enough space between her and her father to be discreet. He wouldn't be happy if he knew she was talking to Jacob.

"I need to talk to you, Malini. Can you come into the shop?" Jacob's voice broke and Malini couldn't tell if it was the reception on her cell phone or something more.

"Your voice sounds funny. Is everything okay?"

"I'd rather talk to you in person."

"If you can't tell me over the phone, it will have to wait. We're in Springfield for the day."

"Springfield?"

Malini cupped her hand over her mouth and whispered into the phone. "Yeah, I totally forgot my dad's birthday. We're at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum. You know my dad."

There was a long pause on the other end of the connection.

"Jacob, are you there?"

"Yeah. When do you think you'll be back?"

"Late. We're having dinner here and then it's over two hours home. Can it wait until tomorrow at school?"

Jacob sighed.

Malini's father tapped her on the shoulder. "Who is that on the phone, Malini?" he said. "You'll miss the log cabin."

"It's Dane, Dad," Malini lied.

"Nice. Dane's okay but I'm not?" Jacob said.

Malini didn't know what to say.

"Sounds like you've got to go. Don't worry about anything, Malini. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"Okay. See you tomorrow."

She touched the end call button.

"Look, Malini. He taught himself how to read," her dad said excitedly, motioning for her to come over. There was a model of Abe as a teen outside the log cabin. The wax figure held a book in his hand.

"That can't be true, Dad. Who teaches themselves how to read?"

"Abe Lincoln, that's who."

Malini followed her parents through the one room cabin, wondering how much was real and how much was legend.

"Dad, what is with your obsession with Abraham Lincoln anyway? Why not...I don't know...Gandhi?"