See How She Fights (The Chronicles of Izzy #2)(24)

“Well, you are stuck in between planes while her mightiness over there tries to figure out what is going on.”

“Really, Ren. The girl just died. Could you at least show a little sympathy?” I said, turning away from the pair. It disturbed to me that talking to sightless gory people was becoming the norm.

“I’m dead. You don’t see me moping,” she muttered back.

“No, I just hear you annoying the crap out of me instead of helping me,” I said before turning my attention to the girl. Maybe she knew something that Ren didn’t. “Do you remember anything before the sacrifice? Did they say anything about why they were doing it?” I asked her, hoping for at least some answers.

“I just remember walking home from the library. I had to return some books on Druid sacrificial practices. My mom wanted me to study up on them. She said she’d seen something coming and didn’t want to go in blind. I still have no idea what she was babbling about because the books never sparked any sort of information in me. At any rate, I left the library and ‘bam.’ Someone side-swiped me into an alley and injected me with something. I don’t know what but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t yell for help. The first time I was able to yell was when you showed up. I could tell you were there somehow. So, I am stuck like this?” I was surprised at how well she had held it together. If I had been in her place I would have been freaking out. It seemed that Seers raised up to do this sort of thing were a tough lot.

“Unfortunately, it seems that you are. I am doing everything I can to figure it out, as is the Council. I am so sorry we couldn’t stop this from happening to you,” I said, giving up on the pretense and wrapping my arms around her cold form. The blood be damned, I needed to hug her.

“Gosh, emo, get it under control. You have a murder to solve. Can’t you figure out who that woman is?” Ren asked.

“No. No matter how much I push all I can see is a vague smoky outline of a woman. I don’t know who she is,” I said, stumped.

“Well, you better get going,” Ren said before pushing me from my vision. I really didn’t like that spook.

**********

As usual, I woke up surrounded by people. Kennan, Ian, and Conall all stood around me in a circle as Isadora kneeled down at my side. She wore a fluttery, lavender gown that I thought set her eyes off nicely.

I really needed to focus here.

“We need to talk,” I croaked before Kennan lifted me into his arms and carried me to Isadora’s office. I looked down at my arm and noticed it was wrapped in a blood soaked cloth.

“Conall, be a dear and fetch the medical kit would you?” Isadora said.

“Of course,” he said with a bow before sprinting Guardian speed down the corridor.

“Now, what pray tell has happened to you since we last saw one another?” Isadora asked.

“We need to get to the Lawndale Theater. I think there might be a dead Seer there,” I said before passing out against Kennan. My mind had apparently had enough for one day. Between the early morning wake up and everything else, I was well and truly done.

**********





CHAPTER NINE


When I finally came to, I was moving. I looked around, trying to gain my bearings, and found myself in the back of a van surrounded by Guardians. Kennan sat next to me propping my body up with his own.

I moved to sit up, causing a sharp pain to shoot up my arm. I looked down to find it wrapped in red-tinted gauze. I moved it gingerly, trying to see what had been done. From the feel of it I’d been stitched up. I couldn’t remember any of it.

“Where are we?”

“On our way to the theater,” Kennan muttered in my hair. “You really need to stop blocking me out, Izzy.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose. I think that it might be Ren messing with it. She was there again. Kennan, we can’t interfere in the sacrifice if it is still going on. Whoever this girl is, she has to die today,” I said sadly. As much as I wanted to change it, I knew the rules. It had been a solidified vision. For whatever reason, God had intended today to be her day to go. If I began messing with that, I would be a worse person than Xavier.

“What do you mean we can’t stop it?” The rage was building in his eyes.

I put my hand on his arm trying to get him to calm down and focus. He knew as well as I did that if it was a solid vision, neither of us had a choice. After a moment, he calmed himself enough for me to continue.

“I don’t begin to understand how this works, Kennan. But, I think that if she doesn’t die, then I would never have met her on the other plane and had that conversation. From what she said, her mom knows something about the rituals. The girl was leaving the library when she was taken. I think her mother knew, Kennan. So, we can’t stop her death, because if we do then I would never have known about her mom and that bare scrap of a clue,” I paused, thinking about it before adding, “I think.”

I was no scientist, but it sort of made sense. If she didn’t die, she couldn’t tell me that stuff. If we stopped her death, another reality might split off. I hadn’t seen enough episodes of Doctor Who to fully understand paradoxes. I needed to do more research.

“I know you’re right, but it doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it,” his voice vibrated with anger.

“I’m not happy about it either, Kennan. I wish, more than anything, that I could save this girl. The best way I can help her now is to figure out what is going on and stop it so that her soul can be at rest.”