Exaltation (Insight #11)(31)



The lights came back on as they made a lap holding hands.

“Hot! Hot! Hot!” the DJ said. “My man Soren, can the rest of us come out and play?”

They waved everyone on the floor. That was their job. Now they were supposed to skate with everyone. Get them to have even more fun out here. They were paid to make this look cool. Sometimes Raven felt like she was robbing her boss. She really did.





Chapter Nine

The afternoon for Rydell King had been full of plotting and planning. First he’d checked on different parts of his faction, trying to gauge the curse they were all fighting—meaning he was trying to see how many souls they had actually led to their death. Too many.

No matter what they did, how they altered circumstances to get the souls to feel the rush of exaltation, as soon as they had their prize in hand the curse began. It was harder for them to feel it again, and if they did they’d have to have an even larger prize.

Rydell was certain if he didn’t figure this out soon, his sins were going to be far greater than Revelin’s. Hell, for all he knew he would end up creating a new line called Greed, because that’s all he seemed to come across.

He told a few sections of his people that had one too many victims to hang out at concerts, clubs, ball games, to feed that way until they could take a closer look at the curse. They wouldn’t really be satisfied that way, though. It was like being on a saltine diet—it was food, but light food that faded not long after it was consumed.

Beyond that Rydell was racking his brain about Jamison BellaRose. The name, something about the file they made for Berries, had given him an odd feeling. It was vague, but it was there.

Today as Rydell moved through the halls Jamison had walked he sensed him, his vim.

Every line of Escorts has their own scent, which tends to match the emotion or an occurrence in the sovereign’s rise. Rydell’s was an odd mix of ivory and fresh flowers. It had changed a bit since he had put space between himself and Revelin. The thing was, today, Jamison had near the same aroma—that clean nature scent. It was so familiar to Rydell it was driving him mad.

Insane enough to make him look back over all the notes he had of this prophecy. No one had the actual book. The tale had been told over and over. When this all came to light, Rydell started to look for solid facts.

He knew in order for the new sovereigns to rise they had to take out five souls in the line. Three seemed to be at random. The last two were the First, which was Rydell’s title, even though he left Revelin’s side, and the last was the current sovereign. It was done that way because the only way to weaken a God such as Revelin is to take out points of power in his line. Right after the First fell, the sovereign would weaken to a point where almost anyone could take them down, at least for a short time.

Over the years Rydell had spoken with Escorts in other lines, trying to see if they had found a way to avoid this fate. No one had a clue how to stop it beyond killing those meant to rise.

The idea of slaughter didn’t sit right with Rydell. It was a nagging thought full of dread he couldn’t shake. He had no choice, though. He had to end one soul to save the millions he was trying to lead. The choice shouldn’t be as hard as he felt it was.

All plans were moving forward now. Rydell would be in the same classes with Raven, which would get him close enough to charm her, let him past the spells around her, and in a few weeks time this would be over.

He and Dagen had a backup plan as well. They were taking Benjamin’s lead. He’d said that if one of the guardians let you near then you were good. Their recon had told them one of those girls had a thing for cars, and one of the racers around school knew her, meaning the guy actual managed to get River Sabien to acknowledge him.

Dagen had become friends with him; it was easy, Dagen spoke his language: horsepower. While Rydell had checked on his people, Dagen had worked on the boy’s car and gotten him ready for the race Rydell was getting ready to watch.

He was leaning against the building of the rink now, staring downhill at Dagen and Kade as they got his ride ready. There was no doubt Dagen could have made the car a winner tonight. Hell, Rydell could have vaulted it over the finish line with one glance, but they needed Kade around for a minute, they needed Kade to need them, so he wasn’t going to win.

Their hope tonight was that Kade could go ahead and break the ice for Dagen and Rydell, get them close to either the guardians or Raven. Step one.

***

Raven’s shift ended two songs after her routine, but she was still flying high on adrenaline.

Just to give Ash a hard time she had put her scarf around Ash and made her go on the floor—hardly anyone could tell them apart from a distance—then she nodded for Soren to go after her, and he did.

Feeling like a third wheel in the large crowd, Raven put on her outdoor wheels and made her way outside to where she knew River was. She planned to dance, laugh, something. They only had an hour or so left before curfew and she was way too pumped to go home and settle. She had to burn the rush off.

Raven found River sitting on the metal bleachers in the back with a girl that hung around them, Kimberly. They were watching the cars lining up down below.

“Is your boy in line?” Raven asked her.

“Firebird.”

Easy to spot, the car was in dire need of a paint job but looked fierce. Raven couldn’t check the guy out because he was under the hood with another guy. From what she knew of Kade, she knew he wasn’t River’s type, but Raven assumed if you were trying to get over an ex, finding his complete opposite might be the trick. Let the rebound begin!

Jamie Magee's Books