Chapter 16- Luther #2
The relief in my chest is significant. “Glad to hear it, Devries.” I grin and rub the back of his hand on my cheek. “Look, we can drop it. You can tell me when you’re ready.”
“I am ready. But I…fear you’re not going to want to be with someone as fucked up as me when I’m done telling you.”
My throat goes dry. What did you do, Taz? “Um, okay?”
He takes a deep breath in and out as I try to memorize his beautiful face in the darkness. “After our mission last week, I went home and had the most vivid dream.”
“Okay.”
“It was more like a nightmare. There were these voices. I heard them when I blacked out during the mission. I think…the cultists got to me.”
Fear crawls up my spine. “What?” I whisper.
“I keep having nightmares of a dark dimension. I saw my brother being toyed with, like a bargaining chip.”
I shake my head. “You’re having nightmares about…the Other Side?”
“In these visions, I’m in the Other Side. A shadowy voice, something bigger than humanly possible, is calling to me. Let me show you what happened. Follow me.”
We make our way up the stairs to Taz’s apartment. The entire time, I think of every worst-case scenario. There’s no turning off my agent of SPELL training in my brain.
The two of us make our way past the small living room to the bedroom. After he turns on the lights, we sit on his bed, and he takes out a small shoebox from underneath. “I woke up from a nightmare after the last mission and…this appeared. The voice keeps telling me…to use this.”
“Use what?”
When he opens the box, the first thing I notice is a gilded glimmer.
“Is this…?”
“It’s the second half of le gantelet.”
My eyes are blown wide, and I dart my gaze from the infernal relic to my boyfriend sitting next to me. He’s even more strung out than before.
“Taz, did you…?”
“I swear, I didn’t use it for anything.” He sniffs and wipes away a tear. “But I wanted to,” he rasps. “God, the temptation is so powerful. That’s why those bastards gave it to me.”
“Taz.”
He shakes his head and pushes the box at me with force. “I don’t deserve to be an agent. I don’t even deserve to have a boyfriend as great as you.”
My heart breaks, and I place the shoebox to my other side. When I touch his shoulder, he seems so tense. “Taz.”
“I was so ready to do whatever it took to find my brother. I’m no better than those cultists.” He squeezes his eyes shut and sobs. “It’s only a matter of time before I give in. You need to take this gauntlet shit and stay away from me.”
“Hey, hey, no.” I hold him close and rub his back. “I’m not staying away from you, you hear me, Taz?”
“But I was too tempted―”
“But you didn’t. You didn’t use it, which means you’re so much stronger than you think. I’m honored to work with you every day. And I’m even more grateful to get to be your boyfriend.”
I pull back and blink away my own tears. Taz wipes his eyes, and I gently kiss his forehead. When I hug him tight again, the shivers subside. His pain and vulnerability make my heart ache, and if I could, I’d never let anything bad happen to him ever.
“Thank you, Luther,” he says against my shoulder.
I love you, Taz. The words almost escape my lips, but I’m not sure if it’s too soon. Instead, I pull back and then gently kiss him again, my lips giving him all the affection I’m holding back.
Taz agrees with me to go to the chief with the gauntlet piece, so that’s what we do the following morning. We decide on a small lie to not make it seem like Taz was tempted at all. The Other Side is nefarious in mysterious ways, so who’s to say we’re lying?
“Fascinating,” Chief Tuttle says, gazing at the piece of gauntlet. When he looks up at Taz and me, his expression is inquisitive. “It just…manifested?”
Taz tucks his hands in his pockets. “Last night,” he lies. They don’t need to know he’s been holding it for eight days. I’ve never lied to the chief before, but it’s only a half-lie, which is basically a half-truth. It won’t sound good to know Taz kept it for days. Our little secret it is.
“There is a historical precedent of objects being enchanted to appear and disappear,” I remark.
“That is true.” The chief ponders my words for a moment, then shrugs. “We have it now. Good work!”
Girish and Cleo approach with another glass box.
“This is great. We’ve stopped the dark cult in its tracks,” Cleo remarks.
“Precisely,” Girish adds. He touches the gauntlet, and his head shoots up. We all turn our attention to him as he gasps out loud.
“We should split up all three pieces of the gauntlet!” he shouts, his eyes rolling back in his head.
The four of us stare in stunned silence as he regains consciousness. He’s still holding the gauntlet piece, and after a moment, he places it into Cleo’s glass box, as if he didn’t just yell to the heavens.
After a moment, Girish looks at each of us. “What?”
When Taz and I crouch closer to the glass box, I notice something peculiar―the wrist area of the gauntlet has a massive divot. Every ancient image of le gantelet des ténèbres showed a band of red gems over the hand piece.
Taz and I stand up straight and share a fearful stare, then look at the chief and Cleo.
“What’s up?” Girish asks, blissfully unaware of the vision he shared with us. The rest of us come to the conclusion without saying a word.
The mission isn’t over; there’s another piece of the gauntlet out there.