“Guys, you gotta come see this. Bring the flashlight.” Tony’s voice rang out from deep in the dark tunnel.
Lenny doubled back around us to unhook the flashlight, traipsing through the blackness ahead.
I lingered, unwilling to go into the unknown, not yet. With my fingernails, I dug out dirt from all corners of the stone tile. In the lower right-hand corner, I uncovered a symbol. The same one I’d seen on Felicia’s paintings.
“C’mon, they’re leaving us behind.” Bryan tugged on my hand, but I wouldn’t budge. “Hey, is this the symbol? I’ve seen it before, somewhere.”
Black shadows engulfed his body as if he’d disappeared into the darkness. When I flashed my phone at him, he was running his fingers along his chin scruff.
“What is it?”
His eyes ping-ponged from the symbol back to me. “It’s the Seer’s symbol, all right. All light from my phone faded and blackness surrounded us with its silence. His calloused palm encircled mine.
“Don’t be mad.” His words floated around in the darkness, like an apparition. “I seriously just remembered this. One of the Watchers’ goals is to mark the Seer, so both Nexis and the Guardians know who it is.”
“What does that mean?” I tried to drop his hand, but he clamped down tighter. “For a Guardian guru, you sure forget a lot.”
“I don’t know. It was all just legend. Until now. I never thought it would play out in real life.” Suddenly a square light cut into the darkness, his phone aimed at my face.
A patch of light in the shadows was all I saw. I held up my phone to see his face, too. “If Felicia’s dad is a Watcher, allegedly, then they probably know everything the Guardians are up to. At least here at Montrose.”
“They don’t know the whole truth. Montrose is just a small piece of the pie. There are Guardian outposts all over the world.” The way he said that, his eyes wide, stole my breath away.
“The whole world?” I heard his head rustle before I saw him nod. A sudden chill crept up my spine. I gripped his hand. “This is way more than I ever bargained for.”
He squeezed back. “You’re telling me. That’s life, honey.” With a soft tug, he led me deeper into the tunnel.
As I followed him into the shadows, the truth pierced me like an arrow between the eyes—he’d really given up a lot for the Guardians. A normal life, a normal school, maybe a girlfriend or two. I wasn’t sure I was willing to give up that much. Not yet, anyway.
Dark heads huddled around the flashlight. Just another weird carving, in a really bizarre underground tunnel. Goosebumps prickled up and down my arms, as if they knew more than I did.
Jagged rock bumped against my fingertips, unyielding as the tracks of sewn-together flesh hiding deep beneath my hairline. The stone scratched into my skin. All of a sudden I stopped, as my nails traced unknown ruts in the rock. Were there carvings on both sides of the tunnel?
A vague whisper hissed in my ear, forming a faint word. Look.
Pounding footsteps echoed off the arched stone. Tony shined his light on my face, then his chin dropped to his Adam’s apple. “Whoa, this has to be a Watchers’ tunnel for sure. Check this out.”
More clomps resounded behind him until everyone crowded around me. Slowly, I turned on my heel. A strange pile of carved rock-like shapes reached high into the sky, with figures trying to climb the makeshift tower.
“Is that what I think it is?” Heads bobbed up and down in the spotlight. I narrowed my eyes at the stone tile, but I couldn’t make sense of it. “I don’t get it. What does the Tower of Babel have to do with anything?”
Bryan cleared his throat. “It’s where Nexis started. When they couldn’t reach heaven on their own, they worked up a new plan to make their own heaven on earth. They made it their mission to find the twelve sacred stones and use them to make their own half angels.”
“More like dominating the world, actually.” Lenny’s deep voice rumbled on my right.
Genesis six domination. The words were back again, this time they almost left my tongue. Tingles crawled up and down my neck. “That’s just crazy. The three societies have really been at this for tens of thousands of years?”
“Afraid so.” His giant paw landed on my shoulder.
I gulped, bit my lip, willing myself to ask the question I didn’t want to ask. “And that’s why they want the Seer so bad, so they can finally get what they want?”
He stared down at me. “That’s it exactly.”
Strange fascination gurgled in my throat, a bubble of curiosity I couldn’t shove down. “And what are these sacred stones exactly?”
Brooke rubbed her hands together. “That’s my favorite part. It’s from the book of Joshua. Each group has their own sacred stone. The Guardian Amethyst, the Watcher’s Sapphire, and the Nexis Ruby. Each stone has a special power.”
I gulped. “That sounds cool. What kind of power?”
“Don’t worry yourself about the stones.” Bryan took my hand and squeezed. “We need to worry about Nexis and what they really want from you.”
Maybe, here in this dark tunnel, it was my time to be brave—to find out the truth. I swallowed down the lump of fear before it could shoot up again. “Has Nexis ever had the Seer on their side before?”
He raked his fingers into his two inches of hair. “No, never. Not that they haven’t tried. They’ve managed to get themselves in other positions of power and killed several Seers for not joining them. Even people they thought were Seers, like Joan of Arc.”
“Joan of Arc, really?” This time a softer grit of sandpaper grasped my hand. Bryan.
“Her and many more, though she wasn’t actually the Seer of her generation.” The goosebumps popped up my arms again. He squeezed tighter. “I think it’s time
