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Coleson turned away, stifling a shout. And then he ran.
Two days later, word of a terrible tragedy reached the inn where Coleson was lodging. The entire Stockflet family was murdered during a Hólmgang. The older brother’s body was never found.
When Coleson heard the news, he left the town and changed his name. He used the money from the valuables he’d collected to purchase an apprenticeship. He never spoke again of the family he’d abandoned.
NOW
The Surface. Still no idea where we are.
Cole stared at me, transfixed. I brushed my hair out of my eyes and waved him forward. I continued on with the rest of the memory Cole had shared with me. “You became obsessed with the myth of Hercules, particularly the part where he was cursed with the inability to discern right from wrong. You believed that would be a blessing. ”
The revelation explained so much about Cole.
Cole squeezed his eyes shut. “How do you know this story? Were you there?”
“No. It was a memory from your mind before the amnesia. You shared it with me when I fed on you. But I didn’t know the details of it until I started telling it to you just now. ”
“I thought you said the Everlivings killed my family. ”
Oh, crap.
“They did,” I said, flustered. “Your extended family. Not the immediate family. ”
For a moment I felt a little guilty about the fake backstory I’d given him for my own selfish reasons. It was becoming more difficult to remember all the reasons I hated Cole, especially now that I’d gotten this glimpse into his tragic past.
Jack was so quiet on the other side of me. I wondered if he felt sorry for Cole or if the story made him hate Cole even more.
“How could I have left them like that?” Cole asked. “It’s despicable. ”
I cleared my throat. “You used to say that there was no such thing as good or evil. There was only life and the absence of life. ”
In light of this memory of Cole’s, I thought that maybe I understood a little bit more about his motives. I could understand the yearning to forget. The urge to focus on something as simple as life and death, and not on wrong or right.
“Forget the past,” Jack said softly from behind me. “The question is, did the memory spark any sort of recognition in you?”
Cole closed his eyes, as if he were searching his brain for something. He shook his head. “No. But somehow I know in my bones that the story is true. ”
We were quiet as we walked toward the dot, which now that we were closer we could tell was a house. A farmhouse.
The faint sound of running farm equipment reached us through the air. A man steered a tractor through one of the fields adjacent to the farmhouse.
Cole’s eyes went wide, like a kid’s eyes in a candy shop.
Ten minutes later, we were riding on a hay-bale trailer connected to the back of the tractor. The farmer had agreed to give us a ride into the nearest town, Blue Hill.
We were in Nebraska.
The tractor stopped in front of a small grocery store set back off the desolate Main Street.
“We have to call Jules,” I said, hopping off the bale of hay. “If the queen knows who the Dead Elvises are, she’ll find me. And that means she’ll find my family. Jules can help. She can get them out of the house. ”
Jack’s phone was dead. He flagged down a man on the other side of the street, jogged over to him, and talked for a moment. The man nodded and handed him a cell phone.
Jack ran back and handed me the phone.
I dialed Jules’s number.
“Jules,” I said. “It’s Becks. ”
“Becks! Where are you? Are you okay?”
“Yes. We’re in . . . Nebraska. It’s a long story. But I need your help. ”
I explained enough of the situation so that she would know I was telling the truth, and then we devised a cover story she could use to get my dad and brother out of the house.
When we had settled on it, she asked, “Are you really okay?”
I looked at Jack. Well, I was stranded in Nebraska with an amnesiac Everliving and a claustrophobic boyfriend, having escaped nearly being smothered to death by an army of Shades. “Everything’s fine,” I said. “I’ll explain it all later. But Jules?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. Thank you. ”
When I hung up, I breathed a sigh of relief. “She’ll take care of it,” I said. “Though I think it’s safe to say that when this is all over, I’ll have to go to rehab indefinitely. ”
Jack got a bright twinkle in his eye, and I realized that I’d made reference to a future in which both of us were whole and alive and not fighting for survival.
But in order to reach that future, there couldn’t be an Everneath. And right now there was very much an Everneath.
EIGHTEEN
NOW
The Surface. Trying to get out of Nebraska.
Once we found an airport, we were able fly home, but getting to the airport took a hike, another ride on a tractor, and a ride on a bus and in a taxi.
We probably really didn’t need the second tractor ride, but Cole became so excited when he saw one for rent.
As we were waiting for the bus, we sat on a bench, me in between Cole and Jack. I couldn’t help yawning. Cole leaned toward me.
“You’re tired. Let me feed you,” he said.
I looked right and left at the people around us. “Not here,” I said.
Jack had gone rigid next to me, but he remained silent.
“Why not?” Cole asked. “You’re exhausted. ”
“We all are. ”
Jack turned toward me. “Just do it, Becks. ” He sounded resigned.
I didn’t know why I felt so uncomfortable about it. Was it hearing all the stories from his past? Hearing how he felt about love?
I would’ve preferred not to feed on Cole, but I couldn’t deny the exhaustion that reached my bones. I recognized the weakness coming on now.
I closed my eyes and felt Cole move toward me, his breath on my face, his lips touching mine. I was so aware of the way Jack was watching that it took me a few minutes to realize that Cole was unintentionally sharing a memory again. A dark memory. The first memory since his amnesia that had distinct shapes and a definite story line.
MEMORY
No idea as to the place and time.
I walked up a set of stairs, the paint on either side of the walls peeling, in the plaster a hole that hadn’t been fixed for decades.
I raised my hand to knock on the door and noticed tattoos on each of my fingers, making it look like I was wearing black rings. Again I was reliving things through Cole’s perspective.
Cole knocked.
The door opened slowly, revealing darkness behind it. I couldn’t see who had opened it. I would’ve hesitated at the threshold, but Cole did not. He went inside, and as his eyes adjusted to the dark room, he saw a figure sitting in the corner.
“What’s with the foil?” Cole asked. It was then I noticed the aluminum foil covering the windows, letting in only one tiny sliver of light.
“The darkness reminds me of home. The one you burned. ”
Cole nodded. “So did you really find it?”
“Yes,” the man in the corner said. “Did you bring the Helmet of Hermes?”
“Yes. ”
“Give it here. ” The man held out a bony hand, extending his long, pale fingers. The longest fingers I’d ever seen.
“No,” Cole said. “Show me the memory first, then I’ll give you the pendant. ”
The man in the corner chuckled. “That’s not how it works. ”
“I saved your ass from a napalm fire. You owe me this. ” Cole’s mind flashed to an image of a dungeon. He was running through stone hallways, escaping from some sort of captivity. The walls were on fire.
The man was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “This is true. ”
He stood, an
d that’s when I noticed his head. It was enormous, as if it housed a brain three times the normal size. It made his face appear squished. I would’ve leaped back at the sight, but Cole didn’t move.
The man produced a wooden box. He must’ve been holding it the entire time. He opened the box and took out a black square of material that swished in the air like gossamer, then balled it up in his hands and threw it against the wall. It silently shattered into millions of tiny pixels that rearranged themselves into an image against the white paint.
The image showed two women facing each other, one tall and regal, with long, black hair, the other petite and fair-haired. I recognized the latter immediately.
Adonia.
The current queen of the Everneath, before she adopted her red-haired look. But in this frozen moment she didn’t seem powerful. She was cowering like a dog.
The image remained frozen only for a moment more, then it melted into action.
The dark-haired woman flicked her fingers, and a cage appeared around Adonia.
Adonia grabbed the bars and shook them, her eyes wide with the terror that comes with being trapped. The woman flicked her wrist, and a dagger appeared in her hand. She threw it at the cage. It sliced through the air between two bars, speeding toward Adonia’s face. Adonia closed her eyes and threw up a hand to block it. I was worried that the dagger would slice right through her hand, but just as it reached her, a wooden shield appeared in the hand she’d held up.
The dagger glanced off the shield and hit the bars of the cage before falling to the ground.
The dark-haired woman conjured another dagger, but Adonia, her eyes squeezed shut, raised her hands above her head and began drawing circles in the air with her fingers. The air around her cage began to move, becoming windy. She touched a pendant at her neck, and immediately the storm gathered intensity. Tiny flecks of crystalline snow appeared, swirling around outside the cage, a blinding blizzard localized within a ten-foot radius.
The cage disappeared behind the wall of white flakes.
The dark-haired woman stared, dumbfounded. She threw the knife into the blizzard, but the wind sucked it into the tornado of snow.
The blizzard died down, and as it did, I could see Adonia lowering her arms. She closed her eyes again, and a long, metal club appeared in her hands. She swung the club, and when it made contact with the bars, they shattered.
That must’ve been the reason for the blizzard. So the iron bars would freeze, and she would be able to break them.
Adonia leveled her gaze at the dark-haired woman. She raised her hands again, and two spiked walls appeared next to Adonia’s opponent, one in back and one in front. The spikes were pointed toward her.
Adonia clapped her hands together; and as if they were mirroring her hands, the walls smashed together, collapsing on the other woman.
The movie stopped playing at this point, frozen on the image of Adonia collapsing to the ground in exhaustion.
“Oh, Nikki,” Cole muttered. “We’ve got a long way to go. ”
The man with the huge head turned to Cole. “There you go. The memory you had me dig up. Now, where is the Helmet of Hermes?”
Cole reached into his satchel and pulled out a wooden box. He handed the box to the man. “It’s in there. ”
The man took the box, an expectant smile on his lips. “Invisibility. This will get me by until my exile is revoked. ”
“I’ll leave you alone with your prize,” Cole said. He started to walk toward the door.
“Wait!” the man said.
Cole’s hand froze on the doorknob.
“Remember. If this works out for you and you have a seat on the throne, you will revoke my exile. ”
I could almost feel Cole’s pulse settle back down. “Of course. ”
He turned the knob, stepped out, and closed the door behind him. The second the lock latched, Cole started running. Down the stairs, to the landing, down the next set of stairs.
Then the screaming started. From the apartment he’d just left.
“Coleson Stockflet! Where’s the Helmet of Hermes?”
Cole kept running, but he called out behind him. “I’ll get it. I promise. I know where it is!”
As he burst through the front door of the apartment building, I heard one more faint shout. “You will pay!”
Cole ran.
NOW
The Surface. Nebraska.
I pulled back from Cole, releasing myself from the memory. Cole’s head was tilted back on the bench. He had fallen asleep.
“Becks?” Jack said. “Are you okay?”
I took a few deep breaths. “I think I know how Adonia defeated the previous queen. And how Cole wants me to defeat Adonia. ”
NINETEEN
NOW
The Surface. Nebraska.
I told Jack all about the memory, about how Cole had gone to a strange man with a huge head and had promised him a pendant called the Helmet of Hermes in exchange for someone’s memory of Adonia killing the previous queen.
“I know it was a memory of Cole’s. Maybe it’s still buried deep in his subconscious, and it could only come out in a dream. ” I thought about the timeline. “It obviously happened before Cole was captured. What if the guy with the huge head betrayed him? What if, when Cole didn’t have the”—I shook my head—“Helmet of Hermes thing, what if he turned him in?” I sank into the chair and put my head in my hands. I couldn’t stop obsessing over the fact that this might have been the point that got Cole in so much trouble.