Ascension, Laura Hall [black books to read .txt] 📗

Adam led me farther down the hallway, around a few turns, and out a side entrance. Our shoes crunched over dead leaves and damp gravel as we crossed a small courtyard. In the center stood a weathered fountain, its tiers empty of water. A frigid wind blew past, lifting leaves into a frenzy and not so much drying my sweat as freezing it.

“Are you cold?” asked Adam. “We can go inside.”

“No,” I said quickly. “I’m fine. What did you want to talk about?”

He motioned to an iron bench backed by a vine-covered brick wall. I sat beside him, wincing at the cold metal, and a moment later magic flared. Winter was replaced by a tropical jungle; around our bench, at least.

“That’s so nice.” I slouched against the now-warm seat. “Thanks.”

Adam nodded, his dark gaze fixed on the fountain. “I need to tell you some things about Connor.”

Physical and emotional exhaustion were apparently a winning combination, because I abruptly saw the situation through unveiled eyes. My dad called such moments the right-sizing of the ego. In other words, the usually accidental process of being humbled.

“Don’t bother,” I said with a wan smile. “You don’t have to justify his behavior. He was right to remind me who he is. The Western-freaking-Prime. I haven’t treated him with the respect due his age and power, and he’s given me a lot of leeway thus far. I finally crossed the line enough times that he redrew it.” I shook my head. “I just want my dad back, Adam. He’s been missing for seven days. What have we accomplished toward that goal? Nothing.”

“Of course you’re worried and unsettled by being here,” he said softly. I glanced sharply at him; this was a new Omega, almost nice-sounding. “As of this morning, we’ve handed your father’s case to the FBI, with assurances that it will be given priority attention.”

“That’s actually very reassuring,” I said softly. “Thank you for telling me.”

“You’re welcome.” He sighed. “I know you don’t want to talk about Connor, but I think we need to.” I started shaking my head, but he continued, “It starts with your mother, Delilah.”

For close to a minute, I sat completely still, my mind strangely fuzzy. Finally, I nodded.

“Twenty-five years ago, Delilah was in Seattle. Connor had no idea who she was, but for days she kept appearing in the same locations as he—the theater, a park, the bar at the top of the Space Needle. Needless to say, Connor wasn’t the Prime then. Nor was he a daywalker. He confronted your mother when she tried following him home one night. He threatened her. He, uh, bit her.”

“So much for his fast.”

“He didn’t drink from her. But he did taste her blood.” He paused. “I realize that’s a fine line.”

I didn’t say anything. I was having a Zen moment. The bottom of the world was about to drop out and I was going to serenely watch happen.

Adam cleared his throat and shifted on the bench, as though summoning courage for his next words. “Her blood didn’t taste human. She wasn’t a mage or shifter, though. She was something other. Your mother… she has a gift.”

The surface of my calm shivered, cracks appearing. “What kind of gift?” I asked.

“She can see the future.”

Not what I’d been expecting.

“She’s psychic? As in palm reading and tarot cards?”

He shook his head. “No, I mean actual precognition. That was how she found Connor. She could glimpse where he would be at any future time. This all happened pre-Ascension, too. Now, her skills are greatly honed. She can find anyone, at any time, anywhere.”

I jolted to my feet. “Get her on the goddamn phone! She can find my father!”

He looked at me with such sympathy that I immediately wanted to punch something. “No one has seen or heard from her in years. Connor has been looking for her without success since the first whispers of the Liberati.”

Like tendons had been cut, I collapsed back to the bench. “If she’s some super psychic, like you say, then she probably knows my dad is missing, maybe hurt or worse, and is doing fuck-all about it.”

“Unless something has happened to her, then yes, that’s a possibility.”

I dropped my chin to my chest, then straightened as something horrible occurred to me. I stared at Adam unblinking until my eyes burned.

“Does Connor think I have Delilah’s skill?” He said nothing, which was answer enough. I laughed hoarsely. “Are you kidding me? All this focus on me tracking resonance is just a smokescreen while he waits for me to manifest some crazy psychic power? Has everyone been lying to me?”

“Fiona—” he began resignedly.

My breath whistled through clenched teeth. “Wow. I thought Delilah Greer had done damage when she abandoned her family, but that was nothing. A cake walk. This whole situation is her doing.”

Adam said softly, “Connor believes you can track magical resonance because the night before Delilah left, she told him you could. She also told him you have her Sight. I was there, Fiona. I heard what she said. I have no reason to think she was lying.”

“Because you’re a sucker,” I snapped.

“No. Because much of what has happened since Los Angeles, she predicted that night.”

The tension in my neck crackled as I turned my head toward him. “Explain.”

“Your hair turning white, the death of the Liberati agent, you freely offering blood to Connor… more random details, all of which have come to pass. But the larger message was this: she told Connor you would either be the catalyst of his success, or that of his failure. That without you, everything we’ve worked so hard to build would crumble.”

“Wow. No pressure,” I muttered.

“Fiona.” He said my name in a strange tone, both pleading and foreboding. It got my attention, dragging me out of a vortex of resentment. “There was someone else there that night, who heard Delilah’s words. Her name was Gabriella. Connor was her sire—he made her a vampire some fifty years before Ascension. It’s her room you’re occupying now.”

I scanned his face. “Past tense?” I asked softly.

“She was taken by the Liberati eight years ago.”

“Oh… Oh.”