Othersphere Page 5

  “He sounded genuine when he spoke of God,” Lazar said. “I still can’t quite believe he said it, though. He has always claimed to be specially chosen.”

  I nodded at Arnaldo, who took the phone off mute. Ximon’s image jerked back to life. If anything, he looked smaller, more hunched. “Why would God abandon you?” I asked. “Has he finally figured out you’re insane?”

  “Insane.” It came out of the monitor’s speaker as a low groan. “Insanity would be a blessing compared to this. First I started blacking out. I had strange dreams, even when I was awake. My lieutenants claimed I gave them orders that I didn’t remember giving.”

  “He should stop hitting the bottle so hard,” Arnaldo said, but kept his voice low.

  “I understand that you can’t believe me yet,” Ximon said, glancing over his shoulder again. “Only let me finish. I don’t know how long I have.”

  “He’s acting like a prisoner sneaking a message out,” Caleb said under his breath.

  “Have you seen a psychiatrist?” I asked, knowing that would anger him. Ximon was the ultimate arrogant jerk who thought he was the strongest, the sanest, the one who knew all the secrets.

  “They would not believe me,” he said. “For they do not believe in Othersphere, or demons. Or in possession.”

  I caught Morfael’s eye. He raised his nearly invisible eyebrows, urging me to ask the next question. I couldn’t quite believe I was saying the words as they came out of my mouth. “Are you saying that you’re being possessed, Ximon?”

  Ximon exhaled heavily, as if in relief. “Thanks be to God you understand. Yes.”

  Muffled explosions of skepticism erupted from around the room.

  “What or who would take up residence in you?” I asked, unable to keep the derision from my voice. “And why?”

  “It is a demon from Othersphere. No, hear me out!” he insisted as I let loose a ridiculing hiss. “I know you don’t believe that evil resides in the other world, because you yourselves are connected to it, and you, Dez, were born there, but you must believe this: Something from Othersphere has taken hold of me. I can’t refuse when he calls. I need your help. I need an exorcism.”

  I almost said, “Oh, brother,” but controlled myself. “One moment,” I said, and Arnaldo put him on hold again. “What is really going on here?”

  The others did not look as contemptuous as I felt. “There was something odd about him tonight during the attack,” Caleb said. “His vibration was different.”

  November was hunched over, tense. “Whatever he’s up to, we should go along with it so we can find him and kill him.”

  “I’m the last person to believe him, but it’s possible he’s not lying,” Caleb said. “You’ve seen things from Othersphere take hold of me, back when I wasn’t as well trained in calling things forth from shadow. Of course, Ximon is better trained than I am, so it’s a very remote chance that anything could get to him.”

  “He was weakened by the lightning strike,” Lazar said, referring to a battle back at Morfael’s first school, when Caleb had called forth a bolt of lightning and struck his father with it, nearly killing him. It was weird to hear him say things that supported Caleb, but something about facing their father at the same time had muted their other conflict. For now. “And I’m sure his defeat at the particle accelerator was devastating. But still, it sounds like a very convenient excuse.”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  “We need to know more.” Caleb strode over to the computer and resumed the call. “Who is it that’s possessing you, Ximon? And what does it want?”

  “My son.” Ximon’s voice was creased with weariness. The light caught his wide forehead below the white hair. The skin was creased with lines. “I don’t know its name, but I have been locked in a battle for control of my will with it for weeks now. I’ve been forced to warn my lieutenants not to take any strange orders from me, to check my demeanor, to double-check with me on every order before carrying it out. And still this monster took me over long enough to plan and execute the kidnapping of your sister. He has sent her to Hell. . . .” The strong voice cracked a little. “To force me to yield my will to him forever.”

  I leaned in and spoke very clearly, to make sure he caught my every word. “I was there when you shoved Amaris into Othersphere, Ximon. That was you, not some creature from another world. I’ve seen things come through from Othersphere, and none of them looked human.”

  “You’re from Othersphere, yet you look human,” Ximon said.

  I shivered, and caught Caleb throwing me a glance. He almost appeared concerned, and then he turned back to the monitor. Ximon was saying, “And it . . . he told me that he learned not to announce himself after you saw him possess Caleb, back at my old compound in the desert.”

  Caleb inhaled sharply. Our eyes met again, and for the first time in forever, he didn’t look away. I knew that he, too, was remembering the night when he had called upon his powers for too long, and in his weariness had been unable to prevent a powerful presence from Othersphere from taking over his body. Caleb had altered under its influence, gotten sharper, taller, leaner, as if he’d been made of hard black stone. I’d understood then why Ximon thought Othersphere was inhabited by demons, for that creature had emanated a malevolence and power I’d never felt before. I’d known I could not defeat it physically. Instead, I’d called upon Caleb’s love for me. That was what had given him the strength to force it back to where it came from.

  Maybe Ximon wasn’t lying. How else could he know about that night? Then I remembered: Ximon had been there, too. He and Lazar had been nearby in a small plane, taxiing for takeoff, and could have easily seen what had happened to Caleb.

  “He got a taste of our world that night,” Ximon was saying. “And now he wants it for his own.”

  “Why the hell would anyone want to rule this stupid world?” London said, mumbling and low.

  November was nodding. “Total quagmire. Good luck with that, crazy Othersphere demon.”

  “But why kidnap Amaris?” Caleb said to his father. “How does that help him with his plans? Is it her healing ability?”

  “No.” Ximon paused. I could hear his uneven breathing. “His plan was to possess me long enough to capture either Amaris, or you, and then to hold one or both of you captive in Othersphere as hostage for my good behavior.”

  “Extortion,” said November. “Maybe not such a crazy demon.”

  “Why—because you care so much for us?” Caleb’s voice dripped sarcasm. “This demon of yours isn’t very bright.”

  Ximon didn’t answer right away. When he spoke, his voice was bleak. The light shining on his left eye showed that the white was shot with red. “Regardless of what you think, I love all my children. You may not agree with how I act upon that feeling, but in your heart you know that’s why I have strived to save you, to keep you from falling victim to evil. This demon is proof of what I have always thought—that Othersphere is just another name for the abyss of Hell. And I may have given the devil himself a ticket out.”

  Caleb shook his head. The bruises from his concussion stood out like smears of blue-black paint against his skin.

  Next to me, Lazar spoke, his voice clipped. “He believes what he’s saying. That’s how twisted he is.”

  “To be honest,” I said to the shadowy form on the monitor, “I don’t give a damn how much you do or don’t love anyone, Ximon. Why come to us? Don’t you have other Bishops or Cardinals, or whatever you call yourselves, to help you? Personally, I’d recommend a dose of antipsychotic meds.”

  Ximon raised a bottle of water to his lips and drank, swallowing hard twice. Then he said, “I think . . . I think the demon fears you, Desdemona. Perhaps because you’re from Othersphere, too, but I can’t be sure. That’s why I called you.”

  Goose pimples pricked all over my arms. The soft, undramatic tone in his voice only underscored the strangeness of his words. I still didn’t believe him, but the tone of his voice made me uneasy. �
��I’ve never understood how you knew more about me than I did, Ximon,” I said. “How do you know I was born in Othersphere?”

  “The signs are written all over you to one trained as I’ve been,” he said. “The Tribunal has records going back two thousand years, and in all that time, no shifter ever echoed the frequency of the demon world so strongly as you. We did a series of tests on you when you were first captured. They made it clear you could only be a creature from Hell. And not just any creature, but one of the higher devils, the rulers of that world. They are the beings who have been manifested through weak or tired objurers in the past, revealing themselves briefly, only to be exorcised. They call themselves the Amba. And you’re one of them, the only one I’ve ever known to come bodily through the veil whole. Probably thanks to that vile teacher of yours, Morfael. ”

  The Tribunal had been around long enough, and was obsessed enough with record keeping for all of that to be true. And they had captured me not long ago, the very first time I shifted.

  “But now you’ve sent Amaris bodily through the veil, whole,” I said into the phone. “How?”

  “It was not I who did it!” Ximon’s voice rose, and the cords on the side of his neck stood out. “The demon made me go to the oak tree, the one whose shadow is a perpetual storm, and there he pulled some strange rope here from Othersphere. He said that whomever it touched would be able to go through the doorway he created. He just needed you to be there as well. Somehow with you there, the doorway was possible.”

  “And how would he know I’d be there?” Damn, Ximon was good. He’d come up with a very elaborate series of lies to justify himself, but they didn’t explain everything. Caleb opened his mouth to say something, but I shook my head at him, still speaking to the man on the monitor. “You’re the expert at manipulating me, Ximon. You’re the one who predicted I’d help Lazar escape from you. You knew that would lead me to your trap at the accelerator. Tonight was a trap exactly like that. One made by you, not some alien.”

  “I haven’t been able to keep him out of my mind.” Ximon’s voice was hushed with humiliation. He bowed his head. “Although I pray for strength.”

  His shame sounded very real, but again, all we had to go on was his voice, which he used like an instrument—or a weapon. It was yet another reminder, as if I needed one, that he could not be trusted.

  Caleb put the call on hold. “That’s how it was when I was taken over by—whatever it was,” he said. “It knew everything I knew.”

  True, that creature had spoken of Caleb’s regret at not being able to return to me. It had also promised to swallow our moon and drink its blood. Now that I’d seen the veiny surface of the moon in Othersphere, it all made some weird kind of sense. But that didn’t prove Ximon was telling the truth.

  “All that proves is that he knows a lot about these things from Othersphere. You heard him. He’s got two thousand years of Tribunal research to call upon. He’s counting on my desire to help people to lure us all into some other trap. I’m not falling for it this time.”

  Caleb looked uneasy. “He’d never humiliate himself to you like this unless something was actually wrong—something to do with Othersphere. You’re from Othersphere, and Morfael’s actually been there. You two are the logical people to come to.”

  “With all their research, the Tribunal’s got to know nearly as much,” I said.

  “But he can’t go to them,” London said. “The moment the other Bishops and whatever get a whiff of any otherworldly demons around him, they’ll kill him.”

  “No!” I said. “He’s so clever. Don’t you see? That’s what he wants you to believe. Remember how I fell for everything he told Lazar? He knew that would win me over. He knew it would draw me to the particle accelerator and get us all there so he could infect us with that virus that would’ve cut us off from Othersphere. At least that didn’t happen, but . . .”

  “Siku died,” November said. London put a hand on her shoulder, but she yanked it away. “Dez is right—Ximon’s a liar and a murderer. I vote that we let him think we believe him, arrange to meet him, and kill him.”

  “After we get the information we need to bring Amaris back,” London said.

  Arnaldo narrowed his eyes, calculating. “If he’s lying about this demon, then he’s got to have more of that twine, or a map, or some way to open up the veil and locate Amaris.”

  “We get that from him . . .” I said.

  “And we get her back,” Lazar finished.

  “It’s a plan,” I said. Everyone had spoken except for one. “Caleb?” I asked. He was in this now, with the rest of us. “What do you think?”

  “I want Amaris back,” Caleb said. “But there’s more going on here than just a trap.”

  “Caleb’s vote doesn’t count,” November said. “Sorry, handsome, but you gave that up when you ditched us.”

  Caleb opened his mouth to retort, and then shut it again in a hard line.

  “Or if it does count,” Arnaldo said, his voice reasonable, “he’s outvoted. This time we lay the trap for Ximon.”

  “Good,” I said. I’d wanted Caleb to agree with us, but when he didn’t, I felt a weird, shameful satisfaction when my friends put him in his place. And it just felt good to be doing something, anything, to get Amaris back. “I propose that we let him think we buy his story and make him agree to meet us. He’ll think we’re there to exorcise this demon, but instead we capture him, go through all his records and his stuff for clues, and force him to tell us the real story.”

  Everyone but Caleb nodded slowly. “Tell him we need a phone number where we can call him back with details,” Arnaldo said. “We might be able to use that to track him.”

  “Cool,” I said. “I’m going to play it like we’re still skeptical but open to a meeting, so it doesn’t look like we did a complete one-eighty.” Arnaldo pressed the hold button again. “Okay, Ximon. We’ve discussed what you’ve told us. I’m not completely convinced, but my friends think you might be telling the truth, and we’ve got to take the chance on you to get Amaris back.”

  Ximon exhaled a breath so big, it sounded like he’d been holding it for days. “I . . . thank you. I promise you won’t regret this.”

  “I already regret it,” I said. “Give us a number where we can reach you. We’ll find a spot to meet up with you that works for us.”

  “I’m not far from Livermore,” he said, and gave us a phone number.

  I got up, moving toward the computer to disconnect the call. Caleb grabbed my hand to stop me. “One more question, Ximon.” His touch sent an electrical jolt through me. I pulled my hand away. But Caleb was focused on his father. “What does this demon want from you so badly that he’s willing to shove Amaris into Othersphere to force you to give it to him? We destroyed your particle accelerator. What else have you got?”

  “I don’t know the details yet,” Ximon said. “But he’s very interested in the files on a project I abandoned a few years ago in order to concentrate on the accelerator. I felt it was too dangerous, too likely to rip the veil between worlds completely.” He took a deep breath. “It involved construction of the world’s most powerful laser.”

  CHAPTER 4

  While Morfael vanished and the rest of us made popcorn, Arnaldo pulled up a Google map of Livermore, California, on one screen of his laptop, and a program he and Lazar had created to track incoming Skype calls on the other. I kept wishing I could get a moment alone with Lazar, to talk about the fact that his brother, and my ex-boyfriend, was now back at the school. But it had been hard enough to get time alone on an ordinary day, let alone a day Ximon rang us up on Skype.

  Lazar had never heard about his father’s supposed plans to build a powerful laser. “Either he’s lying, or it was something he worked on when I was too young to hear about it,” he said.

  “It’s probably a lie,” I said. “But he could be throwing little bits of truth into his overall lie to keep it real.”

  “Who cares?” London was impat
ient. “Exactly where and how should we meet up with him?”

  We talked about it till all the popcorn was gone and November brought out the ice cream. We couldn’t do it too near the school, or we’d risk giving away its location. I voted for a spot near Ximon’s old particle accelerator, where the veil was thin and my ability to destroy technology was enhanced. The Tribunal relied on guns and other machinery, so if I could help disable those tools, it would help keep us safe.

  “I think I found him,” Arnaldo said, the blue light from his laptop screen washing out his bronze face.

  Chairs scraped back, and we gathered around Arnaldo’s screen. “Thanks to Lazar sharing what he learned from the Tribunal, we can track calls to our computer to a precise location. Check it out.”

  London’s half-blond hair brushed my cheek as we both leaned in to look at Arnaldo’s monitor. It was weird to see the brothers so close together, with just November between them, doing the same. We saw an overhead satellite shot of a suburban neighborhood, complete with tree-covered medians and an even grid of streets with the occasional graceful curve thrown in to keep it from being completely boring.

  “Fourteen ninety-one Cherry Drive.” Arnaldo pointed to a small red dot on the grid. “Here’s the street view.” He clicked the mouse, and the screen switched to a shot of a wide driveway next to a narrow, evenly cut green lawn fronting an ordinary two-story suburban house, painted tan, curtains obscuring the few visible windows in the upper story.

  Arnaldo cued the street view around to show a neatly paved road, and on the other side, some narrow parkland with gravel paths and neatly spaced trees. Through their trunks you could see another street just like this one on the other side of the park, peppered with identical houses.

  “That’s not one of the safe house addresses I know,” Lazar said. “What city is it in?”

  “Livermore, California.” Arnaldo zoomed out to show us a wider view, which included the 580 freeway and the word “Livermore” to the left.