Chapter 9 #2
The angle shifted, and I could almost taste the earth in the air, almost feel her frustration, as if it were… I swallowed against a knot of fear that had lodged itself in my throat.
The girl in the Pearl of Truth was me.
And then, between one furious blink and the next, the vision changed. Day became night. It was still me, but this River was fuming—this River was hopeless.
Stomping and kicking and screaming on the tower’s doorstep while everything, everyone around her burned. The vast, rugged coastline scorched to dirt. The fields not lush and full of life but holding the ruins of a fallen city, a dying fire to indicate every razed home and building.
The moon shone. There might have been stars, but the sky was covered in red and green brushstrokes that glimmered and twirled.
And in the soft light, horned beasts stalked the horizon while women were dragged by their hair, children were stolen from loving hands, and desperate beings were left to cry over their dead.
Ash billowed beneath my other self’s footsteps, settling on the ground beside the bodies. A half-burnt corpse looked up at me, its face twisted in horror.
Death covered everything. Ribbons of flesh, severed limbs, torn wings—remnants of what seemed to have been a war.
Rain began to fall, dousing everything in scarlet. Horror seized both mes—within the Pearl and standing here in this empty cavern—because those weren’t raindrops at all.
It was blood.
I tore myself from the scene, and the momentum carried me as I slipped backwards, splashing into a pool of dark liquid.
Had I landed in blood or water? Wind carried the sounds of whips cracking, of people screaming. Fear rushed through me as the candles sputtered. Reality wobbled; for a moment I couldn’t tell which me I was, if I was the River clutching the Pearl, or the one inside it.
Muscles tight and locked, I planted my feet firmly in the sand, the wake lapping at my clothes.
With every rattling breath the night, the cave, the cold, the tide came whooshing back to me. My chest rose and fell sharply. It had just been a vision, and during it, at some point, the power holding the sea back had folded, and now the water was rushing in.
The grottos overflowed. The waves crashed overhead. I had to leave now.
I crawled out of the pool like a dripping swamp monster, pausing on the bank.
Angry surf rammed the cavern’s entrance, the current stealthy and sweeping, sucking up every little thing in its path.
And with the—acid singed my throat—ghosts lurking in the murky shallows, I couldn’t imagine even attempting to go that way.
I turned the other direction, where the path meandered into a pit of black, the Pearl of Truth lighting my way. The symbols on the wall were little more than fuzzy wisps of color as I passed them, faintly glimmering like a mirage.
Back here, the darkness was palpable, a sentient thing. It was the essence that filled this cave, watchful, illusory. I swore the chill running up my spine was actually a claw.
No way I’d turn around to confirm it.
Out of sight, out of mind. My useless mantra did nothing to tame the fear, but at least it kept my legs chugging forward.
Ahead, the path split in two. Footsteps slowing, I held up the Pearl, bathing the chamber in light. Someone else had been here and lit the candles, and no one in their right mind would choose to dive through those waters. One of these forks must lead out.
Nothing major stood out in either tunnel; they were both old and musty, both carved into the rock. I shifted towards the one on the left.
The ever-burning light in the artifact sputtered, shadows flickering over the walls. Heart thrashing against my ribs, I backed away, its luminance growing steady once more as I turned to the right.
Well, that settled that.
Turning away from one hungry maw of darkness to the other, my quick feet padded over the dirt.
That sensation, someone—something—was watching, listening, breathing on me never left.
I couldn’t shake it, not until I crawled through a narrow shaft, squeezed through a smaller hole, and stumbled into the starlight.
Head swiveling, I was able to gather the gist of where I’d ended up: on the sloped top of the cave, where it met the bluffs. I was out, but I couldn’t call myself safe, not yet.
Grasping onto roots and rocks, I snaked along the crumbling wall. Goosebumps flooded my skin. The other tunnel must go deep inside the earth. I definitely wouldn’t be exploring that one anytime soon.
The fog had dissipated, thank God. If I didn’t have a clear view of the bridges, there was no doubt in my mind I’d slip and fall into the raging sea below.
I rounded a corner, my stomach tumbling at a precarious drop-off. A white circle whizzed over the tide pools like a shooting star—a snarling, spitting thing clambered after it.
What the—?
The dwarf’s cackle drifted in the air, his shoulders bouncing up and down with mirth.
He was throwing his jawbreakers across the rock as if they were tennis balls.
The pathetic flock of scuttlers jumped away from his candy projectiles, chomping at each other, stains of sugary dye dripping down their damp, onyx skin.
Even with his back to me, I could just feel Nemuik’s diabolical, toothy smile.
“I thought those were for emergency measures,” I deadpanned.
Spine stiffening, he stole a glance back at me, and the color drained from his face.
Once he seemed to determine I wasn’t a ghost, he cleared his throat. “Jus’ tryin’ to pass te time. Ye took bloody hours in tere.”
“Here.” I thrust the artifact into his grasp. The second it met his hands, my tattoo flared one final time. A farewell. “It’s done.”
“I’ll be damned.” Awe softened his hard expression. “Te Pearl of Truth.”
A twinge of sourness curdled my insides as I watched him fawn over it like that. Mine—it was mine. The urge to steal it out of his hands was almost paralyzing. My gaze zeroed in on him, as if he were a target I needed to dispatch.
I staggered back.
It was just the pull of the tattoo, I told myself, just its magic diluting my emotions in a heady aftershock.
I breathed deep. With every crash of the waves, every inhale of salt, the painful wanting faded from my body. It wasn’t mine. I exhaled. I had no claim to it.
“Shall we?” The dwarf tossed the artifact into a rucksack. As it plopped inside, I swore a sword glinted beneath the swirling matter. Blood flowed like wine. Red-slitted eyes fumed.
“Why do they call it that?” I wiped my brow on my dirt-crusted sleeve. “Pearl of Truth?”
“Reveals te truth,” he stated flatly, the tip of his beard twirling around him, flapping in the wind like the sail of a ship.
“Obviously,” I said with a saccharine smile. “In what sense? Past? Present? Future?”
“Te outcome of whatever path yer on.” He thumbed his sheath. “Any more questions?”
I got the feeling no more were allowed, but I asked anyway. “Who’s the client?”
“That’s confidential. Stalker business only.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed,” I gritted out, showing off the butterfly on my wrist, “I’m one of you now.”
Red bloomed on his light fawn cheeks, the tip of his nose, the tops of his ears. “Fine,” he spat, before turning on his heels. “Te Wizard.”
Suspicion lit like kindling.
“What would he want with it?” I needled, trailing his footsteps over the rocky shelf.
“Knowin’ te future is power. Maybe he doesn’t want it fallin’ into te wrong hands.”
“The king of an organized crime group is the right hands?”
“Tere not te worst ones.”
“Whose would those be?”
In a flash of silky hair and midnight shadow, he spun and shoved a dagger into the small space beneath my chin.
“Lots of questions.” He drew upward, pushing the sharp tip into my skin. “Did someone mess wit somethin’ they weren’t s’posed to?”
“No.” My lips hardly parted, afraid the movement might force the blade further into my flesh. Nemuik pressed in. “Ok—yes,” I choked out.
Cold night air filled the space between us as he withdrew his blade and stepped back.
I wiped my neck. A tiny bit of blood smeared my hands. “Are you joking?”
“What did ye see?” he pressed.
My jaw fell open. “You cut me!”
“’Twas jus’ a pinprick.” He waved it off like it was no big deal.
“Ugh.” Hands balling into fists, I let out a huff, too amped up to hold it in, too angry to stop and think about what I was saying. “I saw death. War. Beings being wrangled and rounded up. And then there was me, at the center of it all.”
The tide roared, slamming into the cliffs. My heart pounded just as loud.
Elbow resting on his knee, Nemuik stared out at the horizon. “Tere’s a storm brewin’.”
Despite the unruly surf dancing in his dark eyes, I had a feeling he wasn’t talking about the weather.
My knees buckled, fighting to sit and rest. “It truly was hell on earth.” Just like Finis promised. “I wish I hadn’t seen that.”
Nemuik sighed. “That’s te downside of soothsayin’. S’possible te know too much.”
“I mean, how do I just go on with my life knowing all this?” Acid burned in my chest. I’d never felt so helpless. “And that there’s nothing I can do to stop it?”
“One ting I know about destiny,” he said, running his fingers through his long moustache. “S’not linear. It can be changed.”
“How? I’m just one person, and I’ll shoot it straight, Nemuik: I’m a fuck up.
” I held out my hand, counting my faults with my fingers.
“I haven’t technically graduated high school, and I’m about to fail my final course that would get me my diploma, again.
I lost my job and most of my friends. I have no idea how to use my Source…
” I tucked in my lips, swallowing the rest of the words, already overwhelmed by it all.
The dwarf’s wiry brows dipped. “Ye got to believe in yerself first, Nephilim.”
As if it were that easy. I kicked a stray rock, and it tumbled into the sea.
“C’mon,” he said, sheathing his weapon. “Let’s head out. Maybe te Wizard can help us decipher yer vision. What it means, where ye were, all that.”
“I was near a lighthouse—” I said it out loud, and my stomach dropped, as if I were free-falling from one of the surrounding bluffs.
My eyes went wide and for a moment, I was inputting the coordinates I’d found scribbled on the back of my dad’s lighthouse article into my phone’s search bar all over again.
I stopped breathing; my heart was beating too fast…
Then I was pitching the idea to Ryder at a magical pub, that there were structures housing portals for the Watchers to access Earth, convinced of it even if he’d shut me down.
I glanced at my knuckles, at the raw, raised scabs…
And then I was pounding on the stubborn door at the Santa Cruz Lighthouse, the Pacific Ocean wild and unruly at my back, my Source buzzing in my veins as if to say this is home, this is home. But I was unable to get in, no matter how many times I tried…
The memories rose and fell like the tide.
The structure I’d seen in the Pearl of Truth wasn’t a lighthouse. It was a facade, retrofitted over time to look like an average coastal landmark, but it was really a bridge between worlds.
Just like the simple brick structure at the end of the grassy bluff, casting its beacon over the city of Santa Cruz. Unbreakable stone, unhackable locks… No amount of sweat or Source or will could get that thing open. It was impenetrable, really.
But it was only one of four.
Imagine our shock when the western watchtower did not fall, Finis had told me when she and her Night Stalkers had intercepted me while I was on my way to that very spot. That a child took the place of the Angel of Water.
“To your watchtowers,” I muttered Akosua’s infamous words under my breath.
“What ye say?” Nemuik’s pointy ears twitched. “Ye were near a what?”
“A—” Source fluttered next to my heart. “You know what? You head to the compound without me. I have something to do.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Ye need to close this out. Tere’s paperwork.”
“Forge my signature,” I said, before whisking past him.
“Ye can’t jus’—”
“Oh!” I tossed over my shoulder. “Can you give the Wizard a message for me? I quit.”