The Gathering (DR) Read online

  He was right. Both about Rafe and the van. I just hadn't made the connection.

  "What did you see?" Daniel asked before Corey could deny it.

  Corey stood there, cracking his knuckles.

  "You see visions of the future," I said. "That's your power. What's wrong with that?"

  "Seriously?" He looked over at me. "Daniel is a demon-hunter. You're a shape-shifter. Apparently, I'm a fortune-teller. On a cool scale, that ranks about a five. Add in the headaches and puking, and I'd knock it down to a two."

  "So, because you've decided your power isn't cool enough, you're going to let us walk into a trap?"

  "No. I warned you, didn't I?" He caught Daniel's look and shuffled his feet. "Fine. But if anyone starts buying me crystal balls and Tarot cards . . ."

  "Of course not," I said. "We can't afford it."

  He grumbled, then shoved his hands in his pockets. "There's not much else to tell and I don't know whether it's real or not, so I don't want you guys relying on what I say. Deal?"

  "Deal."

  "There's a guy waiting for us. A kid, I think. Maybe our age. Brown hair. Wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Tanned. I didn't see much of his face. I'm not even sure about the--"

  "We understand," I said. "Don't second-guess."

  "He's in the woods. In a tree."

  "A tree?"

  "Don't ask me. I just get flashes. Images. I saw Maya in the woods right over there"--he pointed--"and there was a guy in a tree." He jammed his hands into his pockets again. "Hell, now that I'm saying it, I don't even know if he's waiting for us. It could just be a kid goofing off."

  "Okay, well, let's just keep that all in mind, then." Daniel turned to me. "Are you ready?"

  I nodded.

  No one was waiting for us.

  After ten minutes, I said, "Maybe this isn't the right spot. We said just inside the forest, but . . ." I peered deeper into the woods. "I'd say we should split up, but considering what Corey saw--"

  I stopped and looked at them. "That's what Corey saw. We'd split up. I was in the forest alone."

  "Okay," Daniel said. "So we don't split . . ." He trailed off and scowled at me. "That's not what you're going to suggest, is it?"

  "Corey didn't see me getting attacked by some guy in a tree--"

  "Hey, no," Corey said. "I see still pictures. No action. A snapshot. You were under a tree with a guy in it. For all I know, he jumped you two seconds later."

  "But now I'm ready, so we'll get the jump on him."

  We had to at least pretend that we'd split up to search for our contact. That meant I couldn't exactly walk around gaping at the treetops. I kept glancing up, but with the dense trees and shadows, every nest looked like someone crouching on a branch. Then, as I passed under a tree, I heard a limb creak.

  I looked up. Sure enough, there was someone at least ten meters up, almost hidden by the thick needle-laden branches.

  "Guys?" I said.

  I waved Daniel and Corey over, and I looked up again.

  "I can see you," I said. "Come on down."

  The figure didn't move. I walked over and grabbed the trunk. That brought Daniel at a jog, but he didn't try to stop me, just watched as I shimmied up.

  I made it almost as far as the first thick branch when the guy jumped onto the limb below him, then onto a neighboring tree and shuffled down a limb, gripping the one above for balance.

  I grabbed the nearest branch and swung onto it. I caught a glimpse of the guy--just enough to see that he was young with brown hair, as Corey had seen. He didn't look back, just leaped down a branch, then along it, moving faster now. He swung to the next tree and almost missed. He righted himself, crouched, and jumped to the ground.

  Daniel caught him in a running tackle and took him down. Corey raced over behind and bounced there, fists up, like he was standing outside the boxing ring, waiting his turn. As the guy struggled, Corey tensed, ready to leap in, but Daniel got him pinned facedown on the ground.

  "What the hell is this?" the guy snarled. "A mugging? I knew I shouldn't have cut through the park."

  "You always cut through using the sky route?" I said as I bent down and patted his pockets. "Huh. Nothing to rob, I guess, because you aren't carrying a wallet. That's a little odd, don't you think?"

  He snarled profanities now. Daniel tensed, like he was waiting for the guy to aim those profanities at me. He didn't, though. Just general cursing. I double-checked inside his pockets.

  "No ID. That is weird. So where do you have it?"

  I tugged up his pant leg. He tried to kick, but Corey dropped and held his feet still while I pulled a thin billfold from his sock. It was held on with an elastic for safekeeping.

  Inside the wallet were a few hundred dollars and three credit cards. I fanned the cards.

  "So are you Jason or Drake or Todd?"

  The guy didn't answer. He just kept staring at the ground.

  "You don't look eighteen," I said. "So they're fake. Or stolen."

  No answer.

  Corey pulled up the guy's other pant leg. "There's something here, too."

  It was a blue passport, attached with another elastic.

  "An American passport," I said. "I'm pretty sure these are hard to fake. So let's see who you really are."

  I opened it. My gaze headed for the name, but the photo snagged it instead. I stared at the picture for a moment. Then I looked down at the guy on the ground. At his bare arm. Corey said he'd seemed tanned in the vision. He wasn't. He was Native.

  I lifted the passport to get a better look at the photo. His eyes were hazel and his hair was light brown, but he still looked Native. As I stared at the picture, I could swear I recognized the face. I didn't, though. Not his name, either.

  "Ashton Gray," I said.

  He didn't respond. I looked at the birth date. It was a couple of months before mine. What was a sixteen-year-old kid doing climbing trees in Stanley Park with fake credit cards and an American passport?

  He seemed like a street kid. The soles of his running shoes were almost worn through, his jeans were frayed, and his black T-shirt had been washed so often it was a dirty gray. But his nails were trimmed and his hair was poorly cut but clean.

  I looked around. "Where are the others?"

  "What others?" His first actual response. He didn't try to look at me, though.

  "Someone contacted us and set up this meeting through an email address, which we only gave to one person. That person wasn't you."

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  Daniel backed off the guy, staying poised to pounce if he bolted. "Get up."

  "Well, since you're asking so nicely . . ."

  The guy--Ashton--rolled over and pulled himself to a sitting position. He moved slowly, getting to his feet as if taking his time meant he really wasn't doing as he'd been told. His hair reached his collar at the sides as well as in back, and hung in his face. Only after he was standing did he bother to push it back. He fixed Daniel with a hard stare. Challenging. Pissed off that he'd been taken down so easily.

  "Better?" he said.

  Daniel looked at him. Stared, actually. He looked at me. Looked back at the guy. Then he swore under his breath.

  I stared at Ashton Gray, too, and again I had this vague sense of I know you. Something about his face. Something familiar.

  "Maya?" Daniel said.

  Ashton flinched when Daniel said my name.

  "Hmm?" I said.

  "Rafe has a birthmark like yours, right? Where is it?"

  "On his . . ." I trailed off. Daniel thought this guy was a skin-walker? Why? Because he was looking for us and happened to be Native? No, Daniel didn't jump to conclusions like that.

  "On the back of his shoulder," I said. "A paw print like the one on my hip."

  "Turn around," Daniel said to Ashton.

  The kid's lip curled in a sneer and he seemed ready to snarl at us all, but when Daniel snapped, "Turn around" again, he obeyed. He was only a couple of inches t
aller than my five-five, which made him shorter than both of the other guys. Smaller, too--slight and wiry.

  He yanked up his shirt to his shoulders.

  The paw-print birthmark was there.

  "What's the birth date on his passport, Maya?"

  "Birth date? Um . . ." I double-checked. "August fifth."

  "Fake, then. It's more like October, isn't it?" Daniel said, walking around to meet Ashton's gaze. "Early October. I don't know the exact date, because Maya's isn't exactly right, either, but the doctors had a pretty good idea how old she was when she was found, and they wouldn't have been two months off."

  I tried to follow what he was saying. How would that have anything to do with . . . ?

  I stared at Ashton Gray. No. It couldn't be.

  "Is your real birthday in early October?" Daniel asked.

  "Yeah."

  "And you just turned sixteen?"

  "Yeah."

  "And you know why I'm asking?"

  A pause. But only a brief one. His gaze started my way, then stopped, and he stared at the forest instead.

  "Yeah."

  "Holy hell," Corey murmured. "You're Maya's brother."

  EIGHT

  IS THERE A PROPER reaction for meeting your twin for the first time? A twin you never even realized you had until a week ago?

  I'd seen long-lost-relative reunions in movies. I'd even read a couple of real-life stories where siblings were reunited. Judging by those examples, I should race over and throw my arms around his neck. Only I didn't.

  I stood there, staring at this stranger, thinking, My brother, my twin brother over and over. I couldn't process it. We'd shared a womb for nine months. We'd been babies together, probably in the same cradle, his face the first thing I saw every morning and the last I saw at night. And yet he was a stranger. A complete and total stranger.

  His reaction didn't help. He wouldn't even look at me. Just stood there, hands in his pockets, gaze defiant, as if . . .

  As if he couldn't bear to look at me.

  "It's true?" I said.

  "Yeah." His voice was gruff, emotionless.

  "Hi," I said, which was a dumb thing to say, but all I could manage. "I'm Maya."

  "No shit."

  Daniel rocked forward, like he wanted to cut in. He didn't, though. Not until Ashton yanked his hands from his pockets, the sudden move startling me. Daniel caught me and yanked me behind his back, then faced off with Ashton.

  "I wasn't going to hurt your girlfriend." A sneer. "Damn benandanti."

  "She's my friend."

  "Good for you."

  "Just my luck," I said. "Finally meet my twin brother and, turns out, he's an ass."

  Corey laughed. Ashton looked at me for the first time, staring, as if he'd misheard.

  "Oh yeah," Corey said with a chuckle. "She said that. You may have inherited the jerk genes, but Maya got the brutal honesty ones."

  "Enough," Daniel said, stepping forward. "Is anyone else here? Or were you the one who sent the email?"

  "It was me."

  We all struggled not to look disappointed.

  "So how did you get the email address?" I asked.

  He turned and looked at me. Just looked.

  "Great," I muttered. "Do I need to relay my questions through an interpreter?"

  "That depends. Are you going to call me an ass again?"

  "That depends. Are you going to act like one?"

  I expected Daniel to intercede. He just stood there, arms crossed, face impassive, as Corey struggled not to laugh.

  "Look," I said. "We're in trouble. Serious trouble. We reached out to the only contact name we had. You show up instead, spy on us, try to run, and now act like we're keeping you from a hot date. Somehow you got that message, knew it was your twin sister, and replied. That would make perfect sense if you wanted to help your sister. But that's obviously not the case."

  "Oh, that's obvious, is it?"

  "If I'm wrong, then let's start over. I'm Maya. That's Daniel and that's Corey. Is Ashton your real name?"

  "Ash. Nobody calls me Ashton."

  Guy couldn't even answer a benign question without attitude. This was going to be fun.

  "How about we sit down somewhere and talk. Maybe grab something to eat," Daniel said.

  "Umm, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you guys supposed to be dead? Currently being chased by two Cabals? You're waltzing around Vancouver, eating in restaurants?"

  "Hell, no," Corey said. "I never waltz. I do the fox-trot sometimes, though."

  "There's a cafe just a little walk away," I said as calmly as I could. "We'll get something there and find a private place to sit. It's been hours since we've had any food, and I don't know about you, but these guys eat like they're in permanent training."

  "So what's your excuse?" Corey said to me as we started out.

  "It's the cougar shifts," Daniel said. "They take a lot out of her."

  "Absolutely," I said, grinning at him.

  Ash snorted. "It'll be awhile before you need to worry about that."

  "Um, no," Corey said. "She's already shifting."

  Ash's look darkened--telling me he wasn't shifting yet--and I quickly said, "It's only been a few times."

  He glowered at me, as if I was bragging, then he fell back beside Corey and walked in silence behind me.

  Great. Just great.

  I inadvertently screwed up again at the cafe. Daniel, Corey, and I had pooled our money so we were taking turns grabbing stuff. Since it was my turn to buy, I naturally asked Ash what he wanted.

  "I pay my own way," he said, with a scowl that I was beginning to think was as much a part of his normal expression as Daniel's smile or Corey's grin.

  "Do you want me to grab it for you?" I asked.

  "No."

  As he stalked off, we watched him go, making sure he didn't bolt.

  "Don't let him get to you," Daniel murmured. "Whatever his problem is, it's not you. He just met you."

  "I know."

  He leaned closer, squeezing my hand, and whispered, "I'm sorry. I know this isn't how you'd pictured it."

  I could say that I hadn't pictured it--there'd been too much going on for me to even think about my newly discovered brother. Yet that was a lie. I had thought about meeting him. I'd thought about what it might be like to have a twin. Everyone said they shared a bond beyond mere blood.

  I looked at Ash, standing in line, glowering.

  Nope. No bond there.

  I joined the line behind Ash. He must have known I was there but didn't turn, not even when I cleared my throat and said, "Ash?"

  I tried again. "Can I, uh, ask you something?"

  He glanced back. "What?"

  "You are by yourself, right?"

  "Said that, didn't I?"

  Actually, no. He'd never answered the question. But I didn't point that out.

  "So she's not with you," I said. "Our, uh, mother?"

  "Nope."

  "You left her behind?"

  A look. One I couldn't decipher. "Not exactly," he said, and turned away.

  "Is she . . . dead?"

  He paused so long I thought he wasn't going to answer. Then he said, "No idea," and stepped up to the counter to place his order.

  NINE

  MY BROTHER HAD NO idea if our mother was alive or dead? That made no sense. I'd been told she'd kept him. He'd grown up with her. Had he run away? Or was "no idea" just his way of saying "piss off"?

  At the table, Ash ate his wrap, but not without complaint. Wraps? Seriously? In a park? Where were the burgers and fries? Damned West Coast.

  "So where are you from, then?" I asked.

  From the look he gave me, you'd think I was asking for his home address so I could send a death squad.

  "Around," he said.

  "So where did you get the email address?" I asked.

  "From the person you gave it to, obviously."

  I shot a look at Daniel.

  "We called the number for
Cyril Mitchell," Daniel said. "That was the emergency contact another skin-walker gave Maya. The woman who answered said he was dead. She claimed to be his daughter. Is that true?"

  "Yeah, he's dead. Yeah, she's his daughter. But if you expected any help from that dumb bitch, you're even more clueless than I thought."

  "So tell us what we're missing," Daniel said, his voice low, calm. "Clue us in."

  Ash shrugged. "Later. Maybe. Point is, she's not going to help. She didn't want her dad mixed up with the St. Clouds or their genetic projects. Blames them for his death."

  "They killed him?" I asked.

  He looked ready to shoot back a sarcastic response, then checked himself. "No. It was a heart attack. She blames them because he was working for them. Working both sides--employed by the Cabal, but helping some of the Project Phoenix parents. So she blames us, too, which is why she isn't going to help. But she did decide it was her duty to pass on your email to me and tell me you phoned from a Vancouver number. She knew you were my sister. Acted like she was doing us a huge favor. She shouldn't have been passing out your contact info without asking you. Like I said, dumb bitch."

  "So she told you I called, gave you the email address, and you decided to come meet me?"

  "Yeah."

  He was sitting there, barely able to look at me, barely able to speak without snapping at me, yet he'd dropped everything, paid God knows how much for a plane ticket, and crossed an international border to track me down. I didn't know how to reconcile that. I would have been sure it was a trap except, if it was, he wouldn't be nearly so pissy about the whole thing. He'd be all, "Hey, I'm your brother and I'm here to help."

  "You know Daniel's a benandanti, and you know we're supposed to be dead, and you know there are two Cabals after us. Did Mitchell's daughter tell you that?"

  He snorted. "She didn't tell me nothing. I already knew about the crash and the escape. There are a few parents out there who left Project Phoenix, like our mother. They've kept in contact with me. One of them contacted me after the crash. She had a Google alert on Salmon Creek. She told me--" The briefest hesitation. "She told me you were dead."

  "Oh."

  "Then I get this call from Sylvia Mitchell. So I made another call, to another parent, and found out you survived. This guy knew how to contact me, knew that I thought you were dead, and never even bothered to phone when he found out otherwise. Said it wouldn't do any good. That I was better off thinking you were dead."

  "Nice," Corey murmured. "So I'm guessing these parents aren't going to be helping us anytime soon."

  "You guess right. The one who told me you were dead is okay but useless. Just wants to protect her daughter." He paused. "Can't blame her, I guess. The other guy is even less helpful, though he knows more. He has contacts. Won't share them, though. Might endanger his kid. Cyril was in charge of this little network, but when he died, it just fell apart. He's the only one who would have helped--or made them help."