Spring Tide (35 page)

“I can’t sleep now. Thanks a lot.”

“Would you like a snack?”

He ate triple-chocolate layer cake with a sour look on his face and semi-glossy eyes. “You’ve put the idea in my mind and we can’t be gettin’ it on until California. If I start taking off your clothes you have to stop me.”

“Okay okay, I’m sorry. I asked if you could. I didn’t order you to do it. You know you want to.”

He gave me the death look.

In the middle of the night, I shivered.

“Kris, get up! Go!” He pushed my clothes onto my chest and pulled my arms. “Wake up! You gotta go! Right now!”

I was half asleep and almost fell off the mattress. I heard a foghorn. Groggy, I looked around. I heard it again. The exterior door to his room was wide open and the wind blew on my face. Then I saw it, mist flowing over the ocean’s surface, glittering black and sparkling red, the two colors snaking in and out of each other. I hadn’t seen anything like it since my assault at The Bakery and was transfixed by its movement. It dissolved near shore.

In the distance, I vaguely heard Troy’s voice call my name. I dropped my clothes.
I’m coming …

Jericho must’ve noticed my sluggish motions because he suddenly grasped my arms. I came back to reality.

He took my face in his hands and kissed me gently. “Don’t fight me; I need to do this.”

Blue light raced into my eyes as I stood motionless.

“What’d you do?” I said when his light stopped. Every square inch of my skin tingled. It felt like the spark whenever we touched, except that it was travelling my entire body.

“Go. Now. I’ll find you. Don’t come back. Go!” He ran outside.

What did he whisper?
The tingles subsided.

I whipped on my shorts, grabbed my backpack, and dug around, but they weren’t there. I shuffled the contents, shaking the pack hard.
Where are my keys?
Running around the house, I finally found them on the kitchen counter. I tore out the deck door and saw Jericho standing near the water. A brilliant streak of silver and a streak of shining brown hit the deck. Donovan and Julia appeared, eyes lit. Donovan went down to the sand and Julia remained, her hands held out in front of her.

I jumped the deck wall to go to my car but then stalled out. Two people were walking up from the shallows. The one with fiery red eyes moved like a specter, her form appearing to float over the surface like her hair in the breeze. She was there at the shoreline and then she was gone. Stunned, I looked around.

“I’m not going to play hide-and-seek with you, Ava!” Julia made slow circles, her head turning left and right.

Hide and seek?
I was surprised by the tone of her voice. She sounded angry and I’d never heard her speak that way before. I continued to comb the beach, my sight stopping on Troy. His physical characteristics changed with every step he took. Brown hair became white blond, and tan skin lightened to pale against his white shirt. He looked older, maybe mid-thirties, but his face was even more striking than before. Troy had turned into a handsome stranger, making my stomach turn.
This is Devon?
He came to a halt ten feet from Jericho. If they were speaking, I couldn’t hear it, but both of them were still for minutes while Donovan carefully and slowly moved to position himself behind Devon. Julia crept from the deck and onto the beach, still watching everything around her. Abruptly, Devon unleashed a wide beam of glimmering black light from one hand, aimed straight at Jericho.
Go now! Run! He’ll find you.

Black thrashed blue, sparks falling at the collision. From thirty yards away, the immense power Devon held pricked my skin like hail—cold, turbulent, wrong.
Go!
I couldn’t move. Jericho was straining. I could tell by his stance, how his knees were slightly bent and his back was bowed. I craned my neck to look for Julia. She turned the corner and went around the side of the house, out of view. Donovan’s energy struck Devon’s arm and Devon didn’t flinch. Devon casually raised his other hand to Donovan and within four seconds punctured Donovan’s defenses, all the while easily fending off the magic from both of Jericho’s palms. Donovan fell.
Julia!
I scoured the area for her again, my keys slipping from my fingers. I needed to find her but my feet wouldn’t go.

Devon held something in his hand. There was a flash, a line, a point—a sword. Jericho spun away from the slash of the blade and continued the fight, his actions so swift I couldn’t track him. Immediately, Devon’s figure became untraceable. Their flurry was marked only by the gleam of the sword and the energies from their hands, blurred by speed. I focused on them for a split second and then lost sight of them again. I couldn’t gauge where they were going or where they’d been and felt drugged by the commotion.
How do they move so fast?

The altercation paused for only a second before black energy knifed Jericho’s body, exiting his back. He dropped to the sand. Devon stood over him. Jericho’s body lay still and my soul screamed so loudly that I lurched forward.
I can’t leave him!

Devon raised the blade and held it steady. At that moment, everything became very clear. I’d been thinking about purpose the wrong way. I’d been looking at it too broadly, like a life’s work—a talent to be found and improved on every day. But maybe purpose was specific: one act that could have lasting effects. The attempt I was considering wouldn’t solve the problem, but if it spared a few brights from conversion or death, or saved another person like Sylvia,
that
had purpose. This fight was mine. This moment was why I hadn’t gone to Rice. This moment was why I’d come and stayed in Corpus Christi, and this moment was why I hadn’t wanted to go to California. This was the signpost I’d been searching for. I had a purpose, a very important purpose, and knew exactly what it was and what I had to do. Nothing else mattered.

Fear and anger gave way to the void. My mind withdrew and I went to the place where there was only me and the notes. It was the place I went when I played my guitar, the place where reality and reverie combined. Everything around me went quiet, except the rush of a wave that was building higher and higher inside of me. My eyes lowered and flared, my head twisted left, my fingers tensed, and the wind blew hard on my face.

Dead calm.

My energy detonated in a discharge of thick green that broadcasted the beach, the explosion distorting everything in its wake. The transmission lasted a millisecond, but in my vision time stopped and was portrayed as a series of snapshots of the landscape. Millions of grains of sand were thrust outward from around me. The grasses in the dunes were ripped from the soil and sucked away as palms cracked in half and were hurled to the water. The loose sand gathered and drafted as a continuous curving line that flowed across the beach, preceding my energy to the shore. Devon never saw it coming. He was catapulted far into the ocean, his power subjugated by my will and his body gone from my sight. The breaking waves were reduced to ripples and silence.

There was no way he could survive out there, not having taken the fury I’d unleashed. With Devon removed from existence and the dark world, I’d started a battle within it. And once they regrouped, I’d do it again.

Julia was lying on the ground at the shoreline.
She got caught in its path? I didn’t see her. I didn’t know! She’ll be okay … we’re on the same team so my power didn’t hurt her. Did it?

The release was too much at once, my energy as bankrupt as my mind and body. Weaving and stumbling, I tried to get to Jericho. The dim light coming from the landscape lighting behind me showed on his face. One of his eyes was open, the other closed, his lips parted. At first I thought he was winking at me, giving me a signal, but then I realized his body was in the same position as before, except his chest wasn’t moving. I’d regained my footing and was ten feet from him when the other dark came around my back, unfazed from the attack. I’d been so crazed that I’d forgotten all about her.
Hide-and-seek.

The dark blue dress she wore reminded me of a bygone era, its long skirt flitting about her ankles. Auburn hair fell past her shoulders, her face pale and her features small. But she was beautiful despite her dark eyes that were challenging mine. She studied my face, sneering. Her head jerked and her stomach caved inward like she’d been hit in the gut. The beast inside of me growled, heat rising up my back. I raised my hands as crimson emerged in her irises.

The little energy I had left was funneled to my eyes as blood red lasers shot from hers. In the two feet separating us, I held her off near the center of the distance.
If she takes my eyes it’s a done deal.
Her light came an inch closer.
She could say anything.
Another inch.
Run.
Another inch.
So tired.
I forced her light back to center but could only keep it there for a few seconds.
Can’t
. I was tapped out, my energy failing. Pressing harder, I strained to solidify my hold but red light was glowing on my face. I had no option. I had to run. I closed my eyes, but not quickly enough.

Ice.

I was encapsulated by her frost, frozen in place.

Suddenly I was face down in the sand. I raised my head and glimpsed Jericho’s face, his one open eye staring at me.

Ava took ten steps and turned back to me, her voice low. “Dead.”

I thrust my left hand toward her. Four dots of green light spouted and wafted in the air. But then the tip of my index finger glowed scarlet and the few green sparkles came back to that finger. Whatever she’d done to me was taking effect. I looked up again and saw Jericho vanish in a cloud of red glitter over the water. He was taken from me, his body encased in the fog, and it ripped my heart to threads. Our connection had been obliterated. He was gone. Gone.

As the mist drifted away, I couldn’t hold on. My consciousness failed and was buried in the darkness of night, swept away by a spring tide. As my eyes closed, I wrapped my hand around the gold chain, the sea glass in my palm.

I was alone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

A wave came over her face. Coughing, she turned her head and spat. She wiped water from her eyes and checked herself, her hands moving over her neck and stomach. She saw the mist and jumped to her feet. “Jason! No! Jason!”

The glistening red cloud evaporated into the air.

“He won’t make it back,” she said quietly. Her eyes moved to the headlights of a green car parked along the side of the house, the circles of glass outlined by the exterior lights. “Kris.”

She ran for the deck and tripped, falling head first. In her haste to get up, she grabbed a leg.

“Donovan!” She took him by the shoulders. “Donovan?” She put her right hand on his stomach and her left hand off to the side. Slowly, she channeled the cold within him. Spasms wracked her body as particles of black energy entered the hand that was on him, went through her, and filtered out of her free hand.

After six seconds, she removed her palm from him. “There’s too much! You better have taught your students well, mister! It’s gonna take a lot more than me to get you on your feet! Do you hear me? Donovan?” Tears ran down her face, her eyes lit, and she looked to the ocean. “Take him! Please!”

She held him close and kissed his face. Sinking back onto her knees, she shivered as she siphoned more dark energy from his center. “I can’t get it all!”

His body remained limp and she watched the sky for the lighting. Her scan stopped at the shallows where she’d awakened. “How did I end up way over there?”

Her eyes travelled back and forth between where she’d remembered standing and where she’d come to. The glint of gold hair farther up the dunes caught her attention.

“Could she?” Her head tilted and she considered the three locations. “Oh my heavens, she used
the interference
.” She kissed her husband’s forehead. “I love you. Hold on.
They
’ll take you.” She threw out her hand toward the water. “Please! Now!”

She got up, swayed, and then jogged across the beach. “Oh, Kris, how did you do it?” She turned the girl over and checked her stomach before gently pulling back an eyelid. There was only white, the irises rolled back. “Sweetie? Open your eyes. Come on. You’re all used up, aren’t you?” With a heavy sigh she looked back to her husband. “Donovan needs me. You’re strong. You’ll recover.” Her voice wavered. “I don’t know that he will, Kris. Not without me. You’re important to us, you are, but I’m the only one who might be able to keep him alive.”

Silver lightning cracked from the sky and his body disappeared from her sight.