Chapter 6 The Monster
One second, my heartbeat is my own.
The next, another heartbeat latches onto my pulse, a new, foreign presence sprouting in my blood.
Someone has found the necklace.
If it’s one of the Twelve—that third one specifically, here to taunt me—I’ll make sure my revenge on him is extra sweet.
What is wrong with me? A female voice fills my head: gentle and warm, like a sunray stretching out to caress you.
It’s too rich, the timbre too colorful, to be a Guardian, but I know she must feel our connection, too.
Must be aware of the electric tether now connecting us from either side of the Wall. Maybe I’m going crazy too, she thinks.
I wait.
Whoever this woman is, I need a second to figure out my tactic. If she doesn’t have a rebellious spirit like the other one, then how can I use her? I need to find the advantage.
It feels alive, she thinks, but it can’t be. It’s not real.
And I just can’t help myself.
Actually, it is, I reply angrily. For too long have the people of Xantera thought of me as a distant threat, a near-myth always prowling beyond their horizon of reality. I’m real. And I will not fade away.
Her gasp shoots through me, almost like she’s stolen the oxygen from my own lungs, and her thoughts go haywire.
I try to sort through them as I seek shelter from the chilly evening air.
No, that was my imagination. Take it off anyway. I don’t even know what it is. No, it had to be Malcom through the wall. Yes, it was Malcolm.
Who the hell is Malcolm? I ask.
Her response is a muffled scream followed by Get it off! Get it off!
I’ll admit, this is actually a little fun. For two hundred years, I’ve been tormented by the marble-cold voices of the Twelve. No one so naive has ever graced me with their mental presence, and her mind is better than sitting alone with my own thoughts. It reminds me of a prism, rich with color.
Let’s forget about Malcolm, I offer. It goes silent mid-scream. I’m much more interested in your name.
Who—who are you?
There’s a faint echo, like she whispered her disbelief out loud, and my chuckle turns dark.
That’s not how this is going to work.
But I’m the one with this thing around my neck… I could just take it off if you don’t answer?
She poses it like a question, almost to herself: a fleeting, threatening thought that she tried to suppress but let slip out anyway.
Perhaps I underestimated her.
Whoever it is that picked up the necklace, she doesn’t know who I am. She doesn’t know what I am.
Maybe she’s exactly what I need.