The hairs on my arms rose. Someone unearthly and powerful lived here. Someone like my sister.
As soon as he got out of his car, Will came over, rubbing the back of his neck. "Definitely the right place."
Staring at the house, I said, "You feel it, too?"
"Yep."
Dad stared at us a moment. "Captain, I need to take the wielders on alone from here. Would you mind stationing your men in a perimeter while we"re inside?"
Johnson looked around. Aside from the cl.u.s.ter of buildings, there wasn"t much cover. The village was remote, surrounded by forest and farmland, yet exposed at the same time.
"Something"s watching us," I said, not sure if those were my words or Tink"s. "I agree with Officer Archer. We need some cover."
"Will do." Johnson turned in a slow circle, taking in our position, then started a.s.signing teams to go out and keep watch. "If you need help, holler."
"Sir, yes sir." I sighed. I had so many questions and this Xing Li had answers. But was I ready to hear them?
Dad went to the door and knocked, three precise raps. The wind chimes picked up their tune and he eyed them warily.
The door creaked open and a teenaged girl in a red T-shirt peeked out. "You brought him?"
"Both of them," Dad answered. "Is he ready for us?"
"Yes." She motioned us closer, her expression eager and strangely awed. "Come. Hurry."
Will and I followed Dad into the little house. Inside, in a front room, a man sat at a kitchen table drawing Chinese characters on heavy paper with a paintbrush. I didn"t have a clue what it said, but it was a work of art. Each brush stroke was careful, elegant. Even if I couldn"t read it, I felt another thrill of power coming from the characters, like they were telling me to be strong.
"Please, sit," the girl said. Her English, while accented, was really good. When she caught me looking, she blushed and hurried to pull out a chair for me before ducking her head so that her hair fell to hide her face "Thanks." I sat across from the man and started when he turned his face up to mine.
His pupils were discolored from severe cataracts-he was blind. And yet, still painting.
"Xing Li?" I asked.
He smiled over my right shoulder and murmured something in Chinese. The girl came to stand behind his chair. "He says to welcome you to our home. He"s been waiting a long time to speak with you."
Xing Li didn"t look much older than fifty, with dark hair barely touched by gray and wrinkle-free skin-how long was a long time? "I"m, uh, sorry I didn"t find you sooner."
He painted another character then placed his brush on a bamboo rest before speaking. The girl translated, "He says to tell you that I"m his daughter, Jie." She blushed again, sneaking a quick glance at Will and me.
Will smiled back, flirting for sure, and I kicked him under the table. "Pleased to meet you both."
Jie nodded. "We"re honored to have you in our home. Ever since I was little, he told me you"d come."
I wondered if he could See, like Mamie. "A friend told me I"d meet him, too."
So now I"m your friend? Matthew, I"m astonished and delighted. Tink giggled. We should go out for tea.
Too bad I couldn"t kick her under the table.
"There are some things he wants me to tell you, then he"ll answer some questions." Jie glanced at her father nervously, like she was terrified she"d get something wrong. "He said you should know that your answers lie in the stars."
"Does he know what I carry?" I asked.
Jei relayed the question and Xing Li nodded, saying something. "Yes," she said. "A powerful, ancient spirit."
"Showing your age, are we?" I muttered to Tink and got a snap in the forehead. She could kick me under the table. Totally unfair. "My spirit told me that she and her brothers searched for the wielders through all the ages of the universe, waiting for our blood to be strong enough-"
Xing Li began speaking rapidly in Chinese and went on for some time. Jie listened, her forward wrinkled in concentration, until he finished. "Waiting for your blood to be strong enough, yes. But not the wielders" blood. Your blood, Archer."
"Um, no. She was talking about the wielders at the time," I said, glancing at Will.
Tink"s chuckle was coy. Was I?
Oh, G.o.d.
Xing Li smiled, almost like he could hear Tink"s question, and put a hand on Jie"s arm so he could whisper in her ear. She blanched, but said, "He asked if she specifically said the wielders when she talked to you."
I thought back, dread gnawing at my insides. What had she said?
I said the wielders roles were set before any of you were born, and that we"ve been waiting for you all the ages of the universe. But I never once specified that the second "you" in that sentence meant all five wielders.
"Stars," I murmured. "You said something about being born under the right stars."
Jie perked up. "Yes, my father said this as well. Astrology has been practiced in our country for thousands of years. My father"s fathers, back through time, studied the movement of the stars, waiting for a sign. One sign came on February tenth, seventeen years ago."
My birthday. "What sign?"
She smiled. "That our protector had arrived."
Will stared at me. "Somehow, me being descended from the Normans pales in comparison to that."
"No doubt," I muttered, glancing at my father. He gave me a grave nod. "I really thought Tink meant the wielders, not just me."
"Men-and women-capable of wielding those blades are few, but have existed since the beginning of time," Jie said. "Except one. It would take someone special to earn the blade, and the spirit, that you carry."
Xing Li interrupted and Jie nodded. "Do you know Yin and Yang?"
I frowned. "The circle thing that"s black and white? And there"s a dot of the opposite color inside each side?"
"Yes. Everything has an opposite. Up needs down to exist. Right needs left. And Light needs Dark." She paused and the tension in the room seemed alive. "When in balance, all is well, healthy. When out of balance-chaos."
Xing Li nodded, adding something.
"Yes, right." Jie laid a hand on her father"s shoulder. "The very heavens are in chaos right now. Darkness will destroy Light because Dark has forgotten its place and must be stopped."
"What does that mean?" I asked. "What are you asking me to do?"
Jie relayed the question, and Xing Li smiled. "The Archer will bring balance."
His English was more accented than Jie"s, but it was likely he"d understood everything we"d said, even without Jie"s translations. He launched into another explanation in Chinese, leaving me shaking and sweaty-palmed. But when Jie started speaking again, I understood I had absolutely no idea how far this rabbit hole went.
"This is important, he says, so please listen well." She shot her father a somewhat distressed look. "He has witnessed two other, similar signs in the stars. One, almost nineteen years ago in late November. Another twenty years ago, in the spring."
Quick as a lightning strike, Dad"s hand gripped my forearm. His eyes burned, and his calm spy facade was in serious danger of cracking.
His moment on the verge gave me the strength I needed to ask the really important question. "My sister"s birthday is in a week, November twenty-third, and she"ll be nineteen. My brother is twenty and his birthday is in April. Is that what he means? Did he see all three of us?"
Xing Li nodded, smiling, and held up three fingers. "Yes. It had to be three."
"But why?" Will asked. I was glad he did, because my jaw didn"t seem to be working. "Why three? Why them?"
He murmured something in Chinese; it sounded like some kind of poem.
"One to shine, one to fight, one to guard," Jie said. "My father would say that over and over to me when I was scared as a little girl. "There will be one to shine, one to fight and one to guard. When they come you need not be afraid of the dark any longer.""
Cold stole down my back, numbing my legs. I fought, that was true. And Brent guarded, both as a football player and as our sister"s bodyguard. But Mamie ...
If anyone I knew could be accused of shining, it was my sister.
This new idea pointed to something even more terrifying, a thought I could barely wrap my head around. I wasn"t the only one charged with saving the world from the dark-it was going to take all three of us.
Chapter Twenty-Three.
"Excuse me," I said, thinking like I might puke at any second. "I need some air."
I stumbled out of the little house, past the magically tinkling wind chimes and into the street. We knew there was something special about the Archers. We knew. But this kind of cosmic confirmation? One that told me my brother and sister were in far more danger than I"d realized? I was half a world away and there wasn"t anything I could do about it.
"Tink? Do I need to go home?"
Not today. Right now, I need you to listen.
Her voice was so terse, her earlier warnings about danger awoke in my brain. There, underneath my concern for my family, hiding behind the panic, was a trembling that seemed to come from the earth. It vibrated against the soles of my boots, setting my teeth on edge.
"What is it?"
"The one you seek," Jie said behind me. "A creature of fire and hate."
Oddly, she didn"t sound scared, or even surprised. I turned around to find her standing not three feet away, her chin tilted defiantly.
"I don"t seek him," I told her. "He"s looking for me."
"Correction-he found you." She laughed. "But only because I let him know you"re here."
Her voice was a purr and I took a step back as the tremble in the ground became a definite shake. "What?"
"My father believes in old legends. False hopes." She put her hands on her hips. "I believe in a new order. One where old powers are laid to rest. One where little girls won"t be told stupid stories to protect them from fear, but will wield fear as a weapon."
In the distance, a long horrified scream rang out. "What have you done?"
She looked at the ground, her hair falling so it covered her face, like before. But this time when she looked back up, her eyes glowed green. "What my master required."
I unsheathed my knife. I didn"t want to kill this girl, but if she tried to attack me, I"d have to do something. "Are you Nocturna Maura? If you are, then you need to know Ann Smythe is dead, but told her covens to stand down. You shouldn"t be doing this."
She crept closer even as I backed farther into the street. "Nocturna Maura. Children, the lot of them. I"m older than they are."
Another scream broke out. "Yeah, because sixteen is ancient."
"I"ve lived two hundred lives, Archer. You weren"t the only one born at the right time and place." Her hands twisted into cruel claws. "I"ve been seeking full immortality, and now the Dark Master will give it to me."
"You"re a demon," I said, tightening my fingers around my knife"s bone handle. "I don"t like demons."
Her eyes went from green to a sickening yellow. "Yaoguai, actually, but if you must use that crude term, then yes."
"Matt! Get in here!" Will yelled from inside the house. "Something"s wrong with Xing Li. He"s ... he"s ... "
"Dying?" Jie-or whatever she was-said. "Good. I poisoned his paint brush. Too bad you didn"t handle it, too."
"Why not kill him before I got here?" Now we were circling each other. More screams and shouts came from the far side of the village. I didn"t have much time to finish this off before the next wave came. "Why not kill all of us when we first got here?"
"He had information we needed." Her smile revealed fangs. "Confirming things we thought we knew, telling us things we didn"t. But he"d only speak to you, which is why he had to live until you came here. It"s like he suspected something was wrong with me these last few weeks, that something had gone awry with his perfect little girl."
I"ll tell you what went awry with his perfect little girl, Tink growled. She never existed in the first place. I"m going to work.
My blood sang as her power latched on, while I tried to act like nothing was happening. Hard to do when it felt like my brain was going to ooze from my ears like candle wax. Still, I couldn"t signal to Jie that I was prepared for any attack she threw at me.
"You speak very poetic English for a Chinese teenager. I probably should"ve questioned that." I glanced over my shoulder to see if the new danger was close, but a field of mist hid the village. Shots rang out, followed by shouted orders.
"That"s the problem with humans. They believe with their eyes," Jie-Demon said in falsely sweet tones. "And guess what I"m going to make them believe today? That they should be very afraid of what comes out of the dark."
This was going downhill fast. I stopped circling and held the knife loose and ready. "Yeah? Show me."
Her eyes flashed brighter and her fangs lengthened. I dug my heels into the dirt, making sure I had traction to spring away if need be. The mist had become so thick, I couldn"t see Xing Li"s house and I had no idea if Will was still inside or had gone to check out the screams. A less rational part of me wondered if Dad was creeping around with a sniper rifle in his hand, looking for a way to bail me out.
I hoped he was.
Jie"s eyes spoke of malevolence and pain, and my blade matched her light with a blue glow of its own that slowly burned hotter until it was white.
I laughed low in my throat. "Now you"ve done it. Tink"s p.i.s.sed with you."
In between one heartbeat and the next, the demon girl was on me like a rabid fairy. She led with a blur of claws, and when I spun away, I found out the hard way that she"d faked me out. Like an extra out of a Bruce Lee movie, she whirled faster than I could track and landed a kick right in the center of my chest. Something popped on impact and I could barely draw breath afterward.