Chapter 7
The energy in the room is palpable. Shielded behind Papi’s rock-hard body, I witness their standoff. Papi hasn’t fought in decades, but we’re in the ring now and the bell just rang for round one.
Papi steps toward Ass—Ilif—and drags me behind him, my hand tight in his grip. Like the world champion he is, Papi circles, gauging Ilif’s reactions, assessing his weak spots. Ilif projects open and vulnerable. Smart man.
For a pompous ass.
Somehow he fits into this wild adventure, but I’m not about to ask how. Now he’s saying he’s been waiting to meet Papi.
Papi’s grip on my fingers is almost painful, and I lift my other hand to his shoulder. He tenses beneath my touch. Since Ilif made me feel better, Papi’s somewhere between accepting him at face value and knocking his lights out.
“How did you find me?” I ask.
Papi glances over his shoulder at me. “You know him?”
I tug from his grip and rub my palms on the back of my pants. “He showed up while I was in Spain.”
He spins around and grips my shoulders with both hands. “You went to Spain?”
I shrug. “We didn’t really get to talk about what happened before you decided we weren’t going anymore.”
Ilif steps forward. “What do you mean?”
Papi waves him away like a pesky gnat.
“I just want you safe. I didn’t know you went to Spain.”
I scowl. I never thought my location would have been his tipping point. “I didn’t know it mattered. Does it?”
It’s his turn to shrug. “Well, Spain’s a bit different from New York City.”
“Ah. New York City, with the mob,” I say. “We should talk.”
“Yes, we should,” Ilif says. “Please, sit.”
Papi glances between the two of us. He sighs, and his whole body relaxes. “If someone can shed a little light on the situation, I’m willing to listen. Even if my only option is a perfect stranger who materialized in my living room.”
He pulls me in front of him and makes me sit on the far side of the couch, keeping himself between me and Ilif.
Ilif looks relieved as he lowers himself. “I assume you’re Victor.”
“Vic.”
“Vic.” He clasps his hands together. “And Evy. Do you have other children? A son, perhaps?”
“Four girls.”
Ilif clears his throat. “Well then . . . the last time I saw you, you were just a boy.” Ilif lowers his eyes. “If I’d had any idea it would be almost sixty years before I saw you again . . .”
I can’t hold it in any longer. “What does
that
mean? Who are you? How do you know who we are?”
Papi pats my hand. “Relax.”
I resist the urge to shake him off. I want answers, and if Papi’s willing to listen to this guy, I want every possible morsel of info that might sway his decision to let us keep doing this.
“Will you allow me to start at the beginning?” Ilif asks Papi, ignoring my barrage of questions.
After a long hesitation, Papi finally answers. “Go ahead.”
“Some of this is going to be incredibly implausible,” Ilif says. “This information should have been given to you decades ago. I’m hoping your father filled in a few of the gaps—”
“He died when I was ten,” Papi says.
“Oh dear.” Ilif removes a handkerchief and dabs at his forehead. “This is more complicated than I’d anticipated.”
“Maybe you’d better get to telling the story,” I say.
What a drama queen.
Papi growls at me to be still.
“Yes. Sorry. I hope you know I’m as off-balance as you,” Ilif says, lowering his eyes while he refolds his monogrammed handkerchief.
“I doubt that.”
Papi doesn’t bother to reprimand my outburst this time. I know I’m lending voice to all his feelings, too, but respect for his elders and a warped sense of hospitality is getting in his way. Luckily I don’t suffer from that filter. Not today. And not with Pompous Ass here.
Ilif slips his handkerchief back into his pocket and addresses Papi. “You’re a time traveler—a lightning rider. Your entire family has been for centuries. I’m their guide. Your guide.”
“Where have you been?” I ask, annoyed. I could’ve skipped the entire fight with Papi if this guy would’ve shown his face before now.
Ilif holds up his hand to me, and Papi settles his on my arm. Silver tentacles of lightning crackle between our skin, and he jumps. I tug my arm free. This isn’t about my issues. Papi eyes me, a promise of a later discussion marked by the stern set of his lips.
“Lightning riders play a critical role in the existence of all things,” Ilif says. “It’s not a power to be taken lightly. And it’s the reason a guide is necessary. Your ancestors have prevented disasters and altered history for generations. You travel via lightning and—according to our tests—via a genetic mutation that allows you to manipulate the energy as your own personal time portal.”
“And what about the fountain-of-youth thing happening on his face?” I ask.
“A benefit. The toll on the body is immense. It must remain in pristine condition.”
Papi chokes. “I’m going to look like this forever?”
“You’d never survive otherwise.”
I drum my fingers in my lap. “Guess I’m already pristine.”
“I’m not sure how it works with females,” Ilif says.
“What? What does that mean?”
“There’s never been a female rider.”
Papi and I look at each other, and I puff up. There’s nothing cooler than being the first. I have so many questions. “How do we decide where to go?”
“You don’t. I watched you both today.” Ilif studies us and shakes his head as if some detail about us troubles him before inclining his head toward me. “I was unaware of your relation until my arrival here. In Spain, I thought your friend on the motorcycle was the rider. I assessed you as a mere traveler. You both exhibited interesting anomalies.”
“Like?” I ask. Seriously, getting details is like pulling teeth.
“First, you’re a female. Second, I’ve never had a beginning rider return without completing the alteration.”
I grin. I have no idea what that means, but it seems I’m abnormally gifted.
“And you.” He shifts his attention to Papi. “What you managed in New York was outstanding. Such a different set of talents. You both have a natural ability I’ve never encountered in all my years.”
“What did you do?” I ask Papi.
He shrugs and shoots a look at Ilif. He doesn’t want to tell me in front of our new guest. Fine by me, but he’d better not think he’s getting out of including me again.
“Such modesty.” Ilif turns to me. “He manifested a complete existence. Riders have always shown up as themselves, but somehow Victor understood an alternate version was necessary. It makes me quite proud.”
“So we just pick a place?” I ask. “And create a—what did you call it—an alteration?”
“No, lightning riders don’t know when or where they’re needed. Similar to how we never know precisely where lightning strikes, a lightning rider must be ever watchful and ready to arc at a moment’s notice.”
“Arc?”
“The arc is the movement between places.”
Papi stands and paces. “Let me get this straight. I’ve had a virtual superpower, quite possibly a dangerous one, with obvious physical and historical implications, and no one bothered to tell me? My parents didn’t think it was worth mentioning, and you were . . .” He turns on Ilif. “Where were you, exactly?”
Ilif looks away. “I suppose I owe you that.”
“Oh, and don’t think that’s the only question. I have lots,” I add.
“Me, too,” Papi says. “Not to mention the New York thing. It was far from what you described.” He walks to my side of the couch and glances at the seat cushion beside me, then the arm, then the chair. Finally, he folds his arms and leans a hip against the corner of the couch. He grimaces, and I wonder if his guts ache, too, or if he’s just frustrated. I wish his face was the old Papi’s.
“You would have been about eight,” Ilif says. “Your brother had just been killed, and your father wasn’t taking it well. He asked for some time. We knew how to turn off the access to the lightning, to close the door, so to speak. Because it’s a reaction that occurs in the brain, we discovered a way to trip the signal. A simple chant, a short meditation is all it takes. The danger, of course, is that when it’s turned off, I no longer have the ability to trace the rider.
“That detail never mattered until your father disappeared. After a week, I came to check on him, but he was gone.” He looks at Papi. “You all were gone. I searched everywhere I could think of, but you’d just . . . vanished.”
“We moved. Right after Rafe died.” Papi’s eyes drift closed, and the words tumble out in a pent-up torrent. “I was upset. I wanted to stay with his things. But we were moving to America, of all places. It nearly killed my mamá, but my father insisted. He never told us why. I assumed it was the memories.” Startled, his eyes fly open. “It was you.”
Ilif jerks. “No. It was your father. He couldn’t leave your mother alone anymore, couldn’t leave you. I understood his pain, but—to use your term—people with ‘superpowers’ don’t get a day off. There were people to save, alterations to manifest.” He stands. “People didn’t get saved, because your father couldn’t handle the pressure.”
Papi steps toward him, raising his fists. “His boy—my baby brother—was dead!”
“Not because of me. Not because of anything that could have been prevented. It was an accident.”
“Why didn’t he go back in time and save him?” I ask.
“It doesn’t work like that,” Ilif says. “Lightning riders don’t choose the when or why of their arc. I’ve spent years working on what determines it, but we still don’t know how each alteration is selected.” He turns to Papi. “Your father couldn’t accept that. He knew in his heart Rafe’s death was an accident, unpreventable. But he became obsessed with getting back to that moment to create an alteration. I did everything I could to help him, but we’d never been successful in pinpointing a location before. He wouldn’t listen to anyone on the team. He kept at it for days. He didn’t sleep, just tried to conjure the lightning over and over, but nothing worked.”
“So if he couldn’t save his own son, he didn’t want to save anyone else’s?” I ask.
“Evy,” Papi says, his voice low. “Watch the disrespect.”
I twist my mouth and duck my head.
“I don’t think it was that simple,” Ilif says. “Or that selfish. Rafe’s death crushed his focus, understandably. But he was so deeply affected by the loss, we were unsure of his future, unable to predict how he would manage the level of intensity he’d exhibited in the past. Lightning is energy. Powerful energy, that must be managed at all times, or there are repercussions, both physically and mentally. I consider both of you lucky to have managed it as well as you did without any preparation or instruction.
“Your father stopped his normal routine of preparation. He decided that without some time off to recover from your brother’s death, his true essence of self—spirit, mind, soul—would never recover to the point he could arc again, and I agreed. It was why I consented to the break. I failed to realize he saw it as a permanent break. I foolishly calculated a few weeks would be enough.”
“To heal the pain of his son’s death?” I ask, not bothering to hide the bite of contempt. What a dick. Papi seems so hungry for answers about his father that he’s missing the subliminals rolling off this guy.
“People do it every day,” Ilif says. “They find a way to manage the pain and move on. They have to go to work, care for their families, go back to being a contributing member of society. Your father’s obligations were no different.”
I’ll give Ilif credit—he’s a worthy opponent for a verbal match with a world champ fighter.
Papi recovers but only enough to stagger to his corner and ice the cuts before the bell rings for round two.
“We’d been playing by the creek behind our house like a million other afternoons,” Papi says quietly. “The sky turned dark, but we were in the middle of a make-believe swordfight and ignored Mamá’s warning to come in. I backed Rafe into the middle of the river. We were laughing and splashing. Then Rafe slipped, and the water soaked him to his waist. I moved in for the kill, but he faked and nearly got me, so I fought harder. The water was churning, but we didn’t care. We’d played by that river our entire lives, so much it was like a member of the family. We’d seen it swollen to overflowing and back down to a trickle. This was just a harmless late-summer wash.
“Rafe fell again, and this time he went under the water. He’d done this before, hid underwater until he was behind me, so I circled to fend the sneak attack. The water was up to my waist, and I got pushed a few feet downriver. I kept circling, but Rafe didn’t surface. Then I panicked. I felt around for him with my arms, but the muddy water made it impossible to see anything beneath the water’s surface. The current carried me farther away, and I searched the bank for Rafe, but he hadn’t climbed out. I screamed his name until Papa hauled me from the deep water. We found his body a mile downstream.”
“Papi?” I keep my voice soft as I pull him from the memory with a touch on his arm. He’s trembling.
After a moment, he focuses and says, “No. No, a few weeks wouldn’t have been enough for my father.” He looks at Ilif. “He died a year later.”
“How?”
“Lightning.”
Ilif purses his mouth. “With his mind closed to arcs, he still could have called lightning to him and been susceptible to a direct strike. Without the ability to redirect the energy, he’d be killed. He knew that.”
“Maybe he didn’t care,” I say. My heart hurts.
“He was a shell by then,” Papi says. “He’d turned in on himself, and we barely saw him. I don’t think he ever forgave himself for not saving Rafe. For not being there.”
“Nor have I.” Ilif sits back down. “I hope someday you’ll know how hard I searched for you all these years. I’d nearly given up hope when you triggered the monitor.”
“Monitor? You’re monitoring us?” I knew this guy was a Grade A jaghole.
Ilif looks at the floor for a second, then meets my challenging stare. “I must.”
He shifts to Papi, sensing weaker prey. “I spent years writing the program to track you. It’s for your own safety.”