Darkside Sun (7 page)

Tears welled again, and this time they spilled over the corners of my eyes. “You wouldn’t,” I whispered, hearing the resignation in my own voice. “You said that before, that you wipe the memories of the hosts, but can you really do that? To anyone?”

“Are we clear?” He over-enunciated each word.

He hadn’t answered me, but I couldn’t take the chance that he’d take Dad away from me. I didn’t want to forget all of the board games we’d played by candlelight when the power went out, or the times we’d gone snowmobiling to search for our very own “Charlie Brown” Christmas tree every year. I had to endure until I could find a way out. Panic faded, and chilled acceptance slipped in. “We’re clear.”

“Outfitter!” He waited until I moved aside, then opened the door. Sophia stood on the other side. “Prepare her,” he said. “One hour, no longer.” With that last barked order, he marched down the hallway.

“Dad will be freaking,” I said, sliding my butt along the wall to the floor as Sophia padded toward me.

She knelt before me with care, as if I were made of glass. “Your father doesn’t remember your phone call.”

“So it’s true, that Asher can erase memories? He made Dad forget?” The thought of him near my family shoved me closer to the edge of my emotional limit.

“Not him, one of the other sentinels, but they didn’t harm your father. They just took that one memory from him, for his own good.” Taking great interest in her fingers, she shrugged. “Most of the guardians choose to forget their families, to keep them safe in case a wraith infects us. That way they can’t use our loved ones to hurt us or make us do what they want.”

How could anyone willingly forget their lives? I might as well be dead without a home to go back to. “You had no right to touch my dad. He did nothing wrong.”

She sighed. “I’m sorry.” Standing, she backed toward the door. “I have no time to explain everything to you. If I don’t get you ready, Asher will not only get even more pissed off at me, but he’ll get you ready himself. You really don’t want him to do that.”

I still wasn’t sure what I thought of Sophia, but I didn’t want her in Asher’s sights. Or for him to touch me, no matter how yummy he appeared to be. I’d go along with her while I tried to find a way out of this mess. “What exactly are you getting me ready for?”

Shaking her head, she offered a sympathetic smile. “I’m not allowed to tell you anything about that.”

I believed her. “Not much of a shocker there. I’m well aware of what a dick he can be.”

She snorted, covering it with her hands as if surprised by her own amusement. “I think I’m going to like you, Addison.” More serious, she added, “For what it’s worth, I am sorry you got mixed up in all of this. But I’m kind of glad you’re here.”

One snort from her, and my maybe-enemy became my maybe-friend. “I think I like you, too. And what did you mean about me outranking him? He seems to think he’s king of the anthill and I’m just a backwoods first-year accounting student.”

“He’s already going to chew my ear off for saying that to you and for talking to him the way I just did, so you’re just going to have to wait and see what the night brings. Let’s just say you’re already defying everything we thought we knew.”

Fair enough. Not really, but what could I do? I’d always been the oddest person in the room. Why would anything be different within the Machine? “Fine. So let’s get ready for this mystery thing so Asher doesn’t get his panties in a twist.” And so I could find a way back to Dad.

Chapter 8

Dressed in nothing but a lacy white bra and matching boy shorts—the least scary of the bundle of underwear Sophia brought for me to choose from, believe it or not—and a royal blue silk robe, I followed her down a wide hallway full of closed steel doors. All of the underwear had been new with tags, so I didn’t feel so weird putting it on.

The entire place had an industrial feeling to it. High ceilings with exposed rafters. The walls ended at normal heights, but the ceiling lay far beyond with rows of large, round lights dangling down here and there. A giant maze of walls all painted gray and with steel doors … how depressing.

“Where are my clothes?” I asked for the second time, distracted by the bouncing of my hair. After I’d showered in one of those open-room multiple-spout deals like they have at public pools, Sophia had asked me to blow dry my hair. I’d been forced to admit never having done it before.

When she finished busting a gut over my ignorance and lack of fashion sense, she’d showed me how to use one of those giant round brushes while blast-furnacing my thick hair in sections. Now it swung strangely around my shoulders, like a silky cape I wasn’t used to wearing. I hadn’t noticed my missing clothes until I’d finished with the blow dryer.

She glanced at me and away again, all amusement gone. “Asher kind of …”

I waited, but she just kept walking. “Kind of what?”

I stopped. She stopped, too, but didn’t turn around. “He said he kind of … burned them.”

“What?” I threw up my hands. “That was my favorite shirt, like ever. I’ve had it since I started high school. Dad gave it to me for my birthday.”

“Sorry.” She shrugged in a way that made her appear younger than I’d first thought. “He does whatever he wants, because everyone’s scared of him. It’s just the way it works around here. I normally don’t stand up to him like I did today, because he outranks me and to defy him is to invite his wrath. But I couldn’t just stand there and watch your heart break when a little explanation would help.”

The sight of her obvious discomfort drew up a sigh from my toes. “Are they all giant asses like him?” I asked, sorry to keep putting her between a rock and an Asher-place.

Digging in her pockets, a grin splitting her face, she said, “Yeah, pretty much.”

More evidence that I did not belong with them. “Can I ask you a personal question, Sophia?” I ventured as she unlocked one of the doors and bum-rushed it open.

She snapped her head around to look at me. “Sorry, I’m not used to anyone using my name.”

Huh?
“You said they call you the Outfitter. So you mean they never call you by name?”

“I think that was the first time I’ve heard my name in the last thirty-five years.” She shrugged in that little girl way she had about her, grinning. “And we’re not allowed to ask each other personal questions.”

Even knowing they were immortal, I couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d given me a toaster and pushed me into the bath. She appeared seventeen or eighteen, maybe even younger. “You’ve been here thirty-five years? But that would mean … if you’re over fifty I’ll eat my boy shorts.”

“Oh, fudgit. I probably shouldn’t have said that. I don’t talk to people often, and for some reason, my filter isn’t working right around you.”

I followed her inside and shut the door, blinking when she flicked on several rows of fluorescent lights. “Why is it bad for you to know personal stuff about one another?”

“The more someone else knows about us, the more ammunition a wraith can attain to hurt or coerce us into doing things we wouldn’t normally do, like betray secrets of the Machine or identify other guardians. It’s the biggest reason most sentinels choose to forget their families, because the ones we love are the greatest weapons the wraiths can use against us. They can sense us from beyond the veil, and Asher thinks if one of them crawls into a Guardian, we’ll become a permanent doorway between our reality and theirs.”

A chill settled into my bones. “Has one of them ever gotten that far, even with a regular person? Come through a body and become … whatever it is … for real?”

“Oh, no, and hope it never does. If they ever regain their body on this side of the veil, we can’t kill them or send them back. According to the bible, anyway.” Her gaze seemed lost in the endless rows of plastic-covered clothing hanging from a moving conveyer, like at a dry cleaner’s.

I told her about the wraith I’d seen in the AL sniffing Whatshername. “Asher said that one was the lowest caste. What would have happened if it had gone inside of her?”

She grimaced, I assumed from my description of the wasp-man. “Those can invade a person but aren’t powerful enough to take full control. They’re more mischief makers, influencing their hosts to do things they wouldn’t normally do, lower their inhibitions, drink, sleep around, that kind of thing. They like anything that causes pleasure for the host and pain for anyone else. They can’t use a normal person to regain their body, only an unbound sentinel if they happen to find one before initiation, but they still suck. And now that I know what they look like, I’m not sure I’ll ever sleep again. Not that the lowest caste can inhabit soldiers like me, but if they look that creepy, the higher castes must look worse.”

What if one of those was inside Dad? I scoured my memory for his every move in the days before I’d left for school. He had been acting strangely the day I left, but maybe it was just because I was going away? “Sophia, please,” I whispered, injecting desperation into my voice. “When will Asher let me out of here?” I would not be like Mom. From that moment when I was four, listening to Dad crying on the phone, I vowed that he would always be an integral part of my life.

Her laughter sounded frantic and edged with a little steel. It cut off abruptly. “There is no out, not really. You can call the Shift, obviously, but I can’t, and if you leave that way Asher will do what he threatens and take your memories. He’s not one to bluff. If I could call the Shift, I’d have been gone a long time ago. Nobody has anything to hold over me since I have nobody out there. I’m more afraid of rotting here forever than I am of dying.”

I reached out to touch her bare arm, needing to erase the utter despair radiating from her slender form, but she jerked away, moving farther into the largest closet I’d ever seen.

“Never touch another guardian,” she said, her eyes like blinking neon what-the-hell signs. “It’s not only a grave insult, but prolonged skin-to-skin contact is dangerous.”

“Uh … okay. Why is it an insult, and how can touching be dangerous?”

“To touch another is to say you don’t trust them at their word, about how powerful they are in the Machine. Soldiers, and especially sentinels, can sort of … taste your power through touch. It’s considered rude. No shaking hands, no hugging or kissing.”

“I thought the book said eyes told everything about power.”

Finger up, she paused as her mouth flapped open and shut. Did none of them ever question their own rules? Who made them up, anyway? It all sounded stupid and a little like fear-mongering to me.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Now, why do you think skin-to-skin contact is dangerous?”

She hugged herself. “Taka, one of the sentinels, disobeyed orders and was getting cozy with one of the soldier girls long before I came to the Machine, so I heard. Holly, I think her name was. After a few weeks of sneaking around, they finally … consummated their relationship. When he woke up the next morning, she was dead, bleeding out of her mouth and ears.”

“Jesus.” How could they survive without personal contact? Without sex? Not that I’d had any, but after my reactions to Asher, I thought maybe I would sometime in the future. Not with him, of course. “Is that also true with guardians touching regular people?”

“Oh, no. Only guardian-to-guardian is forbidden. It’s the mingling of power that causes the danger, and regular mortals don’t have any.” She smiled a little, but it didn’t last. “It’s the single worst thing about this job. Sometimes I just ache for someone to hold me, you know, so I can be sure I’m still real. I can’t just go to the true reality and have a one-nighter like the sentinels do, and I’m too embarrassed to ask one of them to take me. Not that they would, anyway.”

What kind of power was she talking about? Was that what had raised the hairs on my nape in Asher’s office when I’d brushed past him? I didn’t have any guardian power inside me, though, right? Was it dangerous for him and me to touch, like when I’d straddled him in my car? Although, I guess there had always been clothing between us … Did he have a bunch of one night stands to get his rocks off?

Clenching my teeth, I watched her gaze at the rows of outfit-laden hangers that seemed to go on for a mile into the room. She seemed lonely, lost. “You said you don’t have anyone,” I said. “Has Asher or one of the others taken memories from you? You know, like he’s threatening to do with my dad?”

Her face blanked. The color drained out of it to leave it almost white. “I’d never really thought about it before Asher threatened you back there, but now I can’t stop wondering if there was something before this. I always assumed I’d started here in the Machine, but that’s completely stupid. When was I born? Where did I go to school? And who were my parents? I mean, everyone’s got ’em, right?”

“Oh, shit.” Too late, I realized what a stupid question it had been. She wouldn’t remember if she had lost everyone she’d ever loved, or that a sentinel took the memory away. “I’m so sorry I brought this up.” As the proverbial bandage to fix a severed limb, I added “Maybe you chose to forget? You wouldn’t remember if you did, right?”

She turned away, and I wished harder that I’d kept my mouth shut.

Forcing my mind to the problem at hand, I wondered if I’d meet the rest of the Machine tonight. The thought of hobnobbing with a whole herd of people like Asher gave me the heebs. I’d rather have wrestled with a bunch of porcupines. At least then I’d only be picking quills out of my ass instead of bullets.

“Will you be going with me?” I asked when my nerve frayed. “You know, to keep me out of trouble and from doing stuff that’ll make me look like a doof?” Not that I had a clue where we’d be going. Sophia had mentioned training, so I thought maybe he’d test me to see if I’d be fit to be whatever he was. Crawling into a corner sounded enticing, but I had a little pride.

Bitter laughter broke free of her throat, shattering the silence. “Soldiers of my rank don’t get invited to functions like this. I haven’t left this facility in more than ten years, and only then because …” She trembled from head to toe, and her face shut down. “Jeez, listen to me go on.”

She gasped and brought a hand to her throat. I glanced around for what had startled her, but found nothing out of the ordinary. Eyes closed, she nodded as if answering someone I couldn’t hear. “Crap, we need to move it,” she said, rushing toward the racks.

Before she made it three steps, the door opened behind me. “Do I have to do everything myself?” Asher strode into the room, wearing some sort of modern military uniform crossed with a fancy martial arts outfit. Spiffy and sort of shiny. Mostly black with red trim. Red piping ran down the outside of his shimmering black pants. An Asian-style jacket crossed over his solid chest. More red piping ran around the mandarin collar and followed the line of buttons on a diagonal across the breast. Runes were embroidered along the sleeve.

A few gold pins dotted the collar, reminding me of the officer rank pins on
Star Trek
uniforms. He somehow managed to be totally formal and still appear lethal and ready for battle all in one. Matched with his blue-black shiny hair, the combination was devastating to a girl’s libido. I’d always been a sucker for a guy in uniform. If only I could replace the cold bastard filling and inject a nice, moral guy in his place, I’d be all set.

As I continued ogling him like he was a fudge pop on a hot day, fire flashed up my cheeks. So he was spectacularly beautiful, so what? He’d still kidnapped me, shot my roommate, and threatened to take away the only man … hell … only person who’d ever loved me. Who needed a cold shower?

Asher walked a circle around us, one hand stroking his shadow beard.

I felt like a horse being inspected before the race, and by his scowl, he wouldn’t be betting on me. “Take off the robe,” he said. “I need to see what we’re working with.”

My chin might have hit the floor if not for my jaw bone being connected to my skull bone. “No damn way am I stripping for you. Are you nuts?”

Sophia offered a silent and sympathetic sucks-to-be-you look as she backed away. Fantastic. I was on my own, apparently.

He stepped in close. I stood my ground. If Sophia could stand up to him and not die, I could.

“I’m not trying to be a letch. I just need to get a better idea of your body shape. Now, take off the robe.” He sighed and added, “Please.”

Wow, did he really use the magic word? That alone made me shuck the robe.

He resumed his inspection, round and round, while I hugged myself, arms folded over the too-lacy bra. I didn’t have enough hands to cover everything I wanted to, and his stare seemed to caress me everywhere it landed. The bra and boy shorts covered me better than some bathing suits, but it didn’t feel that way. No guy had ever seen me in less than jeans and a T-shirt. Under Asher’s scrutiny, I might as well have been naked for all the squirming going on under my hood.

“You have a dancer’s body …” he said, and I smiled. It vanished when he added, “Who’s spent too much time sitting on the sofa eating chips and soda.”

Sophia made a sound of disgust to match mine.

I scowled at him, snatching up my robe from the white tile floor. I wasn’t ripped, but I wasn’t flabby, either. Soft, maybe, but not flabby. “I never claimed to be a supermodel, you ass. I bet you’re a real hit with the ladies … before you open your mouth.”

Sophia coughed hard. Laughter sparkled in her eyes. I felt better instantly.

He went back to whispers-in-the-dark scary. I backed up a step, tying the robe shut.

“We need to make an impression tonight,” he said, his gaze holding a new kind of heat I’d never seen before. “I know just the one. What size are you?”