We were all standing on the threshold of the locker at this point, Jack’s nostrils flaring but his fists remaining by his sides.
“Seriously,” Cole said. “I was pulling my phone out to call you. Let’s go inside. See what’s here.”
“Why don’t you tell us what’s here?” Jack said.
“I told you. I don’t know what’s here.”
I’d already glimpsed the inside, because part of me wondered if this was the type of place where the old Cole would’ve hidden my compass heart. But at first glance there didn’t appear to be any jewelry boxes or anything that would hold a small jewelry item like my heart. Instead, it appeared the entire place was filled with old musical instruments. A couple of guitars with the signature Les Paul on the wooden bodies leaned against metal stands nearest the door.
As we stepped farther back, the guitars got a little bit older. There was one drum set, wrapped in plastic sheeting. A mandolin leaned against a banjo.
“Well, we’re set if we wanted to start that bluegrass band we’ve always talked about,” Jack said. “Otherwise, I don’t see anything that would help us.”
Cole stepped over the drum set. “I still think there’s something here. Something to do with that Devon guy that Mildred mentioned. You were right, Nik. Something clicked. I just didn’t want to get your hopes up without knowing for sure.”
I froze, a mini-harp-like object in my hands. “You think the Helmet of Hermes could be here?” I said incredulously. “In your storage locker.”
“I know; it sounds crazy. And maybe it’s not the actual pendant that’s here, but something that could lead us to Devon. Either way, we have to look.”
Now that we knew what we were looking for, we began to tear through the contents of the locker. After twenty minutes we’d barely made a dent in the place.
“Don’t break the lutes,” Cole said to Jack. “Hey! I know what a lute is.” He sounded so triumphant, I had to bite back a smile.
A pair of bright lights swept through the place.
We all turned toward the entrance. Jack, who was closest to the door, said, “It’s just a car pulling up to the gate.” He bent down again and reached for a package, but then he froze. “Wait a minute. Cole, if this storage locker is yours, does that mean it’s registered under your name? Or any band members’ names?”
I sucked in a breath. “If one of their names is on the register . . .”
“Bounty hunters might be watching the place,” Cole said.
“If they are, why wouldn’t they have just broken in?” I said.
“Maybe they’re not after your heart anymore,” Cole said. “Maybe they’re just after me.”
We heard the clink of the metal gate opening for a vehicle.
“Hurry!” Jack said. He went to stand by the door while Cole and I turned manic in our search. “It’s a big black truck. Gate’s opening slowly.”
From the pictures Jack had found on the internet, the pendant was large, but no larger than the palm of my hand, so I skipped over any packages that looked too big. But really, we would have to rely on Cole’s instincts. Otherwise we’d be here forever. We climbed up and down the piles of boxes and instruments. While I was stepping over another drum set, I accidentally put my foot through an ancient-looking bongo.
“Careful,” Cole said, still showing his affinity for all musical instruments, even in his amnesiac state.
“Shut up and look!” I said.
“The gate’s open,” Jack said. “The truck’s coming in.”
“Maybe they’re not for us,” Cole said.
“They’re turning down this row.” Jack pushed up his sleeves and flexed his hands.
I heard the screech of tires.
“I’ll hold them off,” Jack said softly.
I saw him reach for a saxophone and step behind the front corner of the storage unit so he was out of sight of whoever was in the truck. He kept the saxophone behind his leg.
I caught sight of the driver and passenger, and there was no question they were ten-Shade bounty hunters. One of the hunters looked to be at least six and a half feet tall and as thick as a boulder. The other was only slightly shorter, and just as muscular.
Probably thinking they had us cornered, they walked side by side toward the unit. And the second they crossed the threshold, Jack stepped out from his dark corner and swung the saxophone at the hunter closest to him. The saxophone made contact with the hunter’s leg, smashing his kneecap backward, turning it inside out, forcing his leg to bend ninety degrees in the opposite direction legs were supposed to bend.
The hunter dropped, an alien screech coming from his mouth. “Um, can the ten Shades escape the body?” I asked.
“No!” Cole said. Then he paused in his search. “At least no is my initial reaction, but I’m not sure—”
“Keep going!” I commanded.
With one move Jack had effectively taken out one of the hunters. Or so I would’ve thought. But the one-legged hunter struggled to straighten up on his good leg as if the only thing in his way were the logistics of a busted leg and not the pain of one.
I frantically turned up my search as I heard, rather than saw, the other bounty hunter collide with Jack. The unmistakable sound of fists crunching against jaws reached my ears, and—not wanting to waste any time looking—I could only hope it was Jack’s fists and the bounty hunter’s jaw.
I dived into the next pile just as Cole held up a brown paper package.
“Got it!” he said.
“The pendant?” I said.
“Yes!”
I checked on Jack. The second bounty hunter had him from behind, an arm around his neck. I grabbed the nearest weapon I could find, a ukulele, and scrambled over the piles of boxes and instruments. Jack hunched forward and then exploded backward, his head cracking against the nose of the bounty hunter.
I jumped off the last pile just as the bounty hunter collapsed behind Jack, and as I landed, I brought the ukulele smashing down on the bounty hunter’s black smile.
The instrument shattered into hundreds of pieces. And it didn’t even wipe the black smile off the bounty hunter’s face.
“You’re welcome,” I said to Jack as he grabbed my hand and whisked me into the passenger’s side of the truck. Cole scrambled out after us and hopped into the bed of the truck just as Jack peeled out of the parking lot.
The bounty hunters, one with an extreme limp, continued after us; and even though they had no hope of catching us since we’d stolen their mode of transportation, they just kept coming.
“They’re not stopping,” I said.
Cole spoke through the open window that separated the cab from the bed of the truck. “They’re made for one purpose. They’ll never stop.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
NOW
The Surface. Salt Lake City.
We ditched the truck by Jack’s car and switched back to his sedan. We didn’t want to risk the truck’s having been reported stolen by its original owner.
Once in the car we all panted, trying to catch our breaths. Jack had a couple of spatters of blood on his cheek and his jacket, but it wasn’t his. It belonged to the creepy ten-Shade bounty hunters.
“Cole, you will not sneak away again,” Jack said. He sounded like a father scolding a child.
“Agreed,” Cole said solemnly from the backseat.
Jack drove us back to the hotel, where he and I collapsed onto the king-size bed and Cole stood at the foot. He held the brown paper package up high by one end and let it spin toward the mattress until the pendant fell out.
It looked exactly like the picture from the internet, but it wasn’t made of metal, as I’d assumed it was. It looked as if it were made of quartz or some other mineral, almost as if it had been formed naturally by the earth. But it was in the shape of a helmet, with little wings on either side.
Cole stared at it as he spoke. “There’s something important knocking at the door of my brain. But I just can’t grasp it.”
I wanted to be patient with him, but we had no time. “Cole, you’ve shared memories with me while feeding me. Flashbacks I don’t think you fully remembered.” Jack probably wouldn’t appreciate this method, but I was desperate. Cole looked at me expectantly. “Maybe if you fed me . . .”
Without hesitation, he grabbed me and kissed me, and something inside my head clicked like a key turning in a lock. I saw a memory quickly come into focus, as if someone were turning a camera lens, but I didn’t have time to interpret it before he pulled away. He smiled.
“I’ve got it,” he said. “I did time with this guy once, inside a Delphinian prison.”
“Delphinian?” I said. “Like the crazy, exiled Everlivings Ashe and Mildred were talking about?”
Cole nodded. “The guy in the cell next to me was named Devon. He was a mercenary. He’d been imprisoned because the Delphinians had stolen something from the woman he loved, and he stole it back. It was a rare artifact. He hid it before he was captured. They tortured him for its location, but he never gave it up. When it seemed obvious”—Cole paused and looked down—“that Devon was going to die, he asked me to retrieve it and take care of it. At the time, I didn’t know it was the Helmet of Hermes. I thought it was just a piece of jewelry.” He lifted his gaze to meet mine. “But when Mildred said the name Devon, things started to click.”
I gave a faint smile. “When were you in this Delphinian prison?”
He looked away. “I’m not sure. But it feels like a long, long time ago.”
I grabbed the pendant and held it up to the light.
Jack was staring at Cole. “Where exactly did you get it? Before it ended up in the storage unit?”
Cole looked at me but answered Jack. “In a locker. Originally in Riomaggiore. Italy. Where Devon had hidden it.”
Something in his expression didn’t seem right. He was smiling, but it didn’t seem to reach any other part of his face, including his lips.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m tired.”
“Lie down,” I said. “Get some rest. I won’t feed on you until you’re rested, okay?”
He nodded and crawled onto the side of the bed, curling away from Jack and me.
After a few moments he was breathing evenly.
“He’s lying,” Jack said.
“Shh,” I said. I got up and motioned for Jack to follow me.
Once the room door was shut behind us, he started in. “He’s lying, Becks. I know it. It all just seems so convenient. What if it’s not this instinctual behaviors theory of the professor’s? If he was lying, that instinct stuff is the perfect cover-up. He can reveal exactly what he wants to reveal and call it instinct.”
I thought for a moment. “I believe he’s telling the truth about the amnesia. But let’s say I’m wrong, and he’s been playing us this entire time. Whether he’s lying or not, there are certain things we know for sure. One is that I need him to survive. The other is that he brought us the Helmet of Hermes. So whether he’s lying or not, he’s given us what we need.”
Jack put his lips together and sighed. I could tell my words were making sense to him.
“Not only that, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what he stands to gain from lying about this. Yes, he’s lied to me in the past. But right now, I’m already dependent on finding someone to feed on. I’m dependent on him. What more could he want?”
“That’s the scary part. I have no doubt he has ulterior motives for pulling this amnesia stunt, and just because we can’t figure out what his ultimate goal is, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.” He shook his head. “Actually, we do know what his ultimate goal is. The throne.”
“The old Cole’s goal was the throne. The new one wants to help us. How much of the old Cole is back? I don’t know.” I took in a deep breath. “But right now, all I have to know is that we have the sickle—our first step to destroying the Everneath—and he holds my life in his hands.” It wasn’t a good position to be in, but my odds were never good in the first place.
Jack looked at me and nodded. I put a hand on either side of his face. “We have everything we need. All the pieces in place. The only thing left is following through with it. And all you need to do is trust this.” I brought his face to mine and pressed my lips against his one cheek, and then the other cheek, and then finally his mouth.
The hotel door swung open, and Cole stuck his head out.
Jack looked at him sideways. “Seriously, you are begging for a beating.”
“Sorry,” he said. He ducked back inside.
We spent the evening with renewed energy for our mission. Jack was up half the night at the computer. I wanted to help him with whatever he was researching, but I needed to feed.