Parker gave a ghost of a smile then stopped.
"We've been discussing these matters with a five-point Precognitive." He gave me his level gaze again and when I nodded my understanding of what that would mean he finished with, "She identified you as the catalyst."
"For what?" I asked, thinking: Get. To. The. Damn. Point already.
"The end of the Graysheets." When I raised my brows he nodded quickly. "What I thought was a bid to get at another AFTD, a powerful C-M, was actually them having the intel to know that you'd be a problem. Getting you to be on their roster as another five-point and having you under their thumb to derail you from doing the things you were supposed to do, well... that was a bonus."
Gramps scrubbed his face and lifted a finger, waggling it.
A point was coming, I could feel it in my bones.
"Question! How is my almost seventeen-year old grandson involved in anything here?" He threw his palm out at the zombies. "And," he gave Parker serious eyes, "if you lay a finger on him, I'll take your eyeballs out with a spoon."
Parker's small smile broke into a grin. "You might at that, Mr. O'Brien. You might at that. But, that's not my objective here."
"What is?" I asked, suspicion wasn't a strong enough word for what I felt.
"We want to bring things back to rights. I've never felt more sure than I do at this moment."
We studied each other.
"You've helped greatly by getting yourself caught up in enough trouble that the Graysheets, as you refer to them, can't make a move for you right now. But," he jabbed a finger in my direction, "they will if provoked. So, what I propose for you to do will have to be done with the utmost caution."
"The Precog says..." Logan started.
"What's that again?" Gramps asked, stroking his bristly chin.
Parker trained his intense eyes on Gramps and his zombies shifted their weight, the one that I'd raised on the power of a human's energy and made into something else... didn't. He stood motionless, the very air around him still.
"She's a five-point."
Gramps shrugged and an expression of frustration came over his face but I explained, "Pretty much, she's a crystal ball thrower."
"Huh?" Gramps asked, more confused, not less.
I tried again, "Wherever the ball lands is where stuff's gonna go down."
Tracker spoke again, "She's never been wrong, ever."
"Yeah? What's the broad saying?" Gramps asked, skeptical as hell.
Totally normal state of affairs.
Parker snorted, "That Caleb will stop the inoculations. He'll go to the source, put a stop to the splicing. Ruin the travel, the interference."
"What?!" I leaned forward. "What source? Tell me what the hell is going on!" I yelled. My zombie flinched and I cast a look his way. "It's okay," I said and he relaxed.
Surreal. The story of my life.
"You're going to have to trust me, Caleb. If I tell you too much, it will alter what you're supposed to accomplish. You are so much more than just AFTD," his eyes bored into mine, "That is not the sum of what you are, who you were meant to be. She gave me what I needed to tell you, no more, no less."
I threw my hands up. "That's not enough to go on. Say I wanted to do this... save the paranormals..."
"It's not saving them, it's saving the others," Logan said.
I paused, Gramps stopped breathing. "The mundanes?"
Parker nodded. "And so much more. Everything hangs in the balance of your choices."
Tracker grinned. "No pressure, right?"
I scowled at him. "What if I don't want the job? I've got plenty of crap to deal with..."
"Like Carson? And that pesky little death connection you established between Jade and Brett? Like your temper flaring and it ringing the dinner bell to everything dead within five miles? That?" Parker queried.
He'd passed the football and the quarterback for the team had taken it straight to touchdown territory.
I glared at his truth, staring him down. He stared right back.
Stalemate.
"Why should he do anything you say? Why should he listen? You're so damn consistent you take my breath away, Parker." Gramps folded his arms across his chest, his face a neutral mask, his eyes flicking to the zombie soldiers.
But Gramps was never neutral, he was just great at hiding what he was feeling. There's a difference.
I hadn't mastered that yet.
Parker let me think, my thoughts furiously driving my synapses to fire in the right direction.
Suddenly, I had a thought. "Does this have anything to do with this dome world?"
Parker smiled. "What do you think?"
I looked at him, Tracker and the assembled zombies.
"I think I'm taking a field trip sooner than expected."
He strode forward and Gramps tensed, I clutched the wrench tighter.
An involuntary reaction, I swear.
When Parker reached me, his zombie soldiers at his side, he put his palm out.
I looked at the innocuous hand.
Decision made, I fell off the cliff of my simple life. As I tumbled, I grasped the peace offering and made a deal with the devil, my hand closing around his. His zombies gasped when our hands clasped, a shot of death energy juicing them to the core.
Sometimes it was better dealing with the evil you know, than the one you didn't.
As our flesh pressed together in the age old gesture, I knew it was more than agreement, it was acceptance.
Of what I was.
Of who I was going to be. For him, for me.
For everyone.
Sometimes life was more than eating and sleeping.
Existing.
It was a machine of choice.And mine was made.
****
"No shit, Hart!?" Jonesy asked, sucker jammed down his throat as he rolled it around in his mouth as the girls watched, fascinated by his nimble tongue dexterity.
Except Tiff, 'cuz she had one jammed down her throat too. Only because it had the promise of a wad of gum at the end. She'd get to that morsel too. Like a goal.
I smiled, answering Jonesy, my arm wrapped around Jade's shoulder, "Yeah, it was creepy-surreal. Parker showing up all, 'can ya help the cause'..."
"I don't trust him," John said.
"Me either," Mia agreed.
Jonesy shrugged. "Doesn't matter, we were gonna do the dome world anyway?" His eyes fell on us and Bry said, "There is that. But somehow, Parker knowing what we're doing puts a spin on it."
"I don't like it, but, I think I've gained enough focus to get us in and out if something goes wrong," Randi said from her perch on Alex's lap.
"Corpse-boy can do the rest," Jonesy said subtly, swinging the ball of his sucker in the air, his tongue flashing blue as he spoke.
I felt a little shitty but I thought I'd mention it. "Yeah, Logan Tracker was there too."
I watched Sophie's eyes widen in surprise even as Jonesy's narrowed to black slits.
"Yeah? Who gives two shits?" Jonesy said, jamming the blue sucker back in his craw violently. Amazing he hadn't gagged himself.
Tiff laughed, pulling hers out with a disgusting plop. "Sounds like you care plenty, Jones." She eyed him up as he glared harder.
"Anyway, back to the logistics of our 'field trip' as Caleb so eloquently phrases it," Archer began.
"I think we need more than the sketchy stuff he's throwing our way, don't you guys think?" Mia asked, flicking a piece of dark blond hair over her shoulder.
Bry shrugged a huge shoulder. Damn... had that guy gotten big over the last summer, I thought. Then he spoke into the silence of the hideaway, "I think Randi's right, you pack of paranormals can keep a lid on the unexpected and she can zap us back and forth," he made a waffling motion with his calloused hand, beaten to death after our yard work blitz.
"Zap?" Randi said, sliding off of Alex's knee and he gave her butt a slap as she did and she whirled on him. "Stop that, Alex."
He waggled his eyebrows. "Just as soon as you stop squealing I will."
"Argh!" Tiff said, whipping her empty stick out of her mouth and popping an unnaturally blue bubble, collapsing it ruthlessly, she snapped it into submission and looked around the silent room.
"What?" She shrugged.
We all stared at her, our ears ringing.
"Anyway... can ya just not perv-out on asses for like, five minutes?"
Alex grinned. "I'll make a colossal effort, sweet thing."
"Yeah," she stabbed her stick in his direction, "see that ya do, perv-boy."
Randi giggled and Jade rolled her eyes.
Asses and Alex. Yeah.
John put up his hands. "You guys are so amusing, let's get back to business."
Right.
John outlined the plan, Jonesy paying close attention by unwrapping another sucker, swinging his legs, looking around the room and generally not paying attention.
When he finally wrapped things up he said, "So Caleb is the key here. But first, we do reconnaissance of the dome world, then go from there."
"When?" Jade asked then added, "I want to go, it seems safe." Tiff rolled her eyes but Jade explained, "Remember that first time you met Caleb in the cemetery, Tiff?" Tiff's face fell. "It wasn't so safe, right?" Jade looked at me and I smiled. "No offense, baby."
Right. None taken.
"But we can't live in fear. What if Parker is actually trying to help? What if..." she paused and we all leaned forward to listen, "what if we can stop the Graysheets from how they're trying to control everything. Us." She shrugged and met our eyes.
Couldn't fault my girl's logic. It was just... life had a way of unraveling that wasn't neat and perfect.
Usually it was a huge-ass mess.
John nodded. "Point taken. No time like the present, I guess." He leveled a stare at the group, his pale blue eyes glowing softly in the low light of the hideaway. "It'll have potential for danger, I'm not going to lie. But," he looked at each one of us, "if we can do something for the betterment of everyone, it will have been worth it."
"Betterment, Terran? Screw that blowhard, let's just go and kick some ass, do the fortune teller routine and see how the program rolls," Jonesy said.
John pointed a finger at Jonesy, grinning. "Or that."
"I'm in," Bry said, giving a sideways look at Mia.
Everyone gave their assent. Randi was the last, flipping her black hair over her shoulder. She mustered the sass that she had become known for and said, "I'm the driver so I'm on board."
She winked.
We buckled our seat belts and readied ourselves for inter-dimensional travel.
Weird even for our standards.
Which were expanding.
All the time.
CHAPTER 7
We fell out of a gaping tunnel of frozen blackness, rolling on top of one another in a messy tangle of limbs, the vertigo nailing us on the dirt of the floor where we'd landed, unable to stand from the dizziness.
Jonesy staggered to his feet, swaying. Turning to us he said, "We're definitely not in Kansas anymore! Damn!" He fist-pumped in the air. He reached behind him and pulled Sophie to her feet, her face pale beneath her normally healthy light coffee-colored skin.
The Js looked around, taking in the walls of a dome-like structure, the air like a sauna. "It's hot-as-hell in here Terran," Jonesy said.
I rolled my eyes and said, "Alex talked his girl into giving us the teleport shot to..."
"Wherever the hell we are," Bry said, looking around cautiously, his bravery springing back into action or his stance of Most Willing to take a Beating.
Tiff looked at her feet which stood on a dirt floor, then spied a bench that stood beside a huge door made of some kind of metal, a golden butter color. It shone softly in the ambient light that entered through walls that were milky and slightly opaque.
"Kinda reminds me of realm," Sophie said.
That couldn't have been a great memory, I thought, thinking of my "judo" instructor.
She slapped the dirt off her thighs. I noticed her wince and saw her inspect a nice red mark on her arm, probably from falling out of that weird time warp thing.
I turned my eyes to a spot of nothingness that was over our heads. Nothing looked different. I began to move away from the area then caught a slight shimmer in the air. So it wasn't totally invisible. Interesting. I was betting that outside, in natural bright light, it would look like a rainbow that moved and sparkled. Otherworldly.
I gave an internal smirk to my vocab. We were, after all, way the hell away from Kansas. Sometimes Jonesy had it goin' on.