The 13th Sign Part 10

"Honest!" Virgo tossed Gemini aside. Our guide crumpled to the ground. My pulse slowed its pounding a bit. "Honesty? Is that what you want this to be about, Jalen?" She scooped up her bouquet and backhanded my head with it. "Then honesty you'll get. You get to decide."

I took a wavering breath to douse my anger and plucked a petal from my hair. "Decide what?" I asked. "And how come that guy can see you?" I pointed to the groom. The groom had been watching Virgo like she was a perfect present, a surprise with a bow on top.

Virgo snapped around to look at the man in the tuxedo waiting at the altar. Her face softened. "It's love, Jalen. Just like any kind of love. He sees what he wants to see of me."

I blinked. Was that true? Do we see only the parts of others we want to see, both good and bad? I motioned toward the guests. "And them? What do they see?"

"They see two people in love." Virgo's eyes narrowed and she smirked. "Don't you believe in true love, Jalen?"

So this was it. What I had to decide. My Challenge was to decide if Virgo's love was true, pure. Or if she-a Keeper, a thing so adaptable it could imitate my best friend and I couldn't tell the difference-if she was faking it.

Virgo leaned close. "Allow me that kiss, Jalen," she whispered. She smelled like sticky-sweet flower petals. "It is true love." She gathered my hand in hers.

"I can give you true love, too," she said. She glanced over my shoulder at Brennan, then winked at me. My face flamed.

"True love." Virgo looked down at my hand and linked my pinkie finger with hers. She lifted our knotted fingers, then pulled her knife out from behind her bouquet. The blade rested at the base of my knuckle. "For the price of a finger."

I saw the horror written on my face in the blade of that knife, and yanked my hand away. Virgo tossed her head back with laughter. She was just trying to scare me, confuse me. Right?

Gemini shook her head. "Jalen, you cannot allow Virgo that kiss. She must remain totally innocent."

Virgo huffed, reached in the folds of her wedding gown, and produced a large blue sapphire, her birthstone.

"Jalen," she whispered, pressing it into my hands. All her teasing had evaporated. "I was using this as my something blue, but I trust you with it. I trust that you'll allow me my first kiss."

She turned and climbed back onto the platform, scooped up the groom's hands, and pressed them against her heart. But she furrowed her eyes at the groom. "Straighten up, William. This is your wedding, you know." He straightened his back into a line.

Gemini shook her head, the nail file twiddling between her fingers. "No. No, Jalen, she's playing you for a fool. You must cast her to the skies. Now."

The preacher turned to the groom. "Do you, William, take Virginia to be your lawfully wedded wife?"

The groom, William, glowed. "I most certainly do."

Gemini was pacing now. "Jalen, cast her to the skies!"

Virgo looked at me with tear-brimmed eyes. "Please, Jalen? Just a few more minutes?" Was she truly in love? Or was she an excellent actress? Oh, who knew!

I looked to the closest Ellie, who motioned to Gemini. "I'd do what Gemini says, Jalen." I threw my head back. I knew better than to ask an Ellie. That would just confuse me more.

A tear slid down Virgo's cheek.

The preacher continued. "Do you, Virginia, take William to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

She nodded and could barely squeak out the words past her tears. "Of course I do. No one else would have me." The crowd of guests chuckled at her charm.

I turned to Brennan. "What do you think?"

Brennan's head swiveled from Gemini to Virgo as though he were watching a tennis match. "Gemini says it's the law, Jalen. I'm not so sure we want to go breaking any laws."

This, from the guy who had been driving since he was thirteen. Orange fire swelled inside me. Why couldn't I tell?

Virgo and William exchanged rings. William slid a big sapphire ring on Virgo's finger and said, "With this ring, I thee wed. I offer you my hand and my heart, as I know they will be safe with you. All that I am I give to you, and all that I have, I share with you."

My heart tightened. My mother and my father had once said these same vows to each other, long before me. I'd seen their cheesy wedding video, with its bad lighting and awful hairdos. Had they truly been in love? Yesterday, based on my mother's boiling resentment, I would've said no.

He left when I was sick, so sick I was in intensive care, tied to a bed with tubes and machines of my own. So sick the doctors had told Mom and Dad that they'd tried everything, that nothing else could be done, that they should expect the worst. That's when my dad left. Mom carried so much anger about it. I remember Mom's face changing when she told me Dad was gone. It never changed back.

But now-now, it seemed, she was leaving us all to find him. She had loved him. She still did. She just had a funny way of showing it before.

"Jalen-" Gemini said, alarm in her tone.

"Jalen, please!" Virgo begged.

I raised the birthstone over my head.

"You have declared your everlasting love with the exchange of rings," the preacher said. "I now p.r.o.nounce you husband and wife."

Before, I would cast Virgo to the skies now. Before, I followed the rules.

"You may kiss the bride."

William reached up and cupped his bride's chin ever so gently with his fingertips. He saw her. Without the book, without the key. He saw.

How do you ever know if another person loves you? Truly? You just have to believe it when they say they do. It's all we've got. I had to believe she saw him, too. I had to believe that.

Gemini turned her head.

Lips touched, soft and perfect.

"Sic itur ad astra," I whispered.

Virgo was swept to the heavens, her veil a trail of light. She left one very confused groom standing alone. My insides twisted, watching him watch her disappear.

"Thank you, Jalen," Virgo's voice whispered soft as a sigh. Behind us, metal cages clacked open, and hundreds of white doves spiraled into the sky behind her. They were breathtaking, swooping, swirling, wings pumping open, flapping closed. Open, closed. Tiny flying heartbeats, each one.

"Virginia?" William was now shouting. "Virginia!"

Looking up, I had missed spotting the cat lurking under the bushes nearby. But now, this creature, orange and speedy, pounced into the air, wriggling and writhing to get ever higher.

His sharp teeth locked around one of the doves and dragged it back down to earth, a spray of blood and a tangle of feathers leading the way. He groaned a mangy, stray-cat groan, but he was wearing a flashy collar and appeared to be well-fed, his fur sleek. There was no reason this cat needed that dove.

"Virginia?" the groom wailed, his cries echoing the cat's.

What had I done? His new bride, now gone, forever. Would it have been easier for him if I'd cast Virgo to the skies before the kiss? But I'd made the right choice, right? Virgo had disappeared. And yet...

I looked down at the weight in my hands. The cool blue stone glistened in the morning sun. Virgo's birthstone remained with me.

In a panic, I showed Gemini the flashing blue sapphire. "Did I lose? Why do I still have the stone?"

"I don't know." Gemini was stunned. "I've never seen this happen before."

I couldn't take my eyes off the stone, heavy in my hands.

One of the Ellies whistled long and low.

"That is one ma.s.sive gem," she whispered over my shoulder. "Imagine what you could buy with that."

My mind flew to the pile of medical bills teetering in our kitchen corner, the bills from Nina and the leftover bills from me, years old, screaming at us in red-red ink to be paid-now. This stone could help with those and with our fine, old home crumbling around them.

But, no, surely that's not why Virgo left her stone behind. I shook my head. That just didn't feel right.

The wedding party, the guests, milled around, wondering at the bride's abrupt departure. Finally, I turned to Brennan to ask him what he thought.

But he was gone. Both of the Ellies, too.

"Ellie?" I asked. I heard panic in my own voice. "Brennan? Where are you guys?"

The park was a knot of people searching for others. I tucked the birthstone into the cargo pocket of my new khakis and made my way back to the main road. Then I saw it.

A black car.

Orange flames surged in my stomach.

Gemini grabbed my elbow. "Don't trust them," she said before fading away. "Don't."

At that moment, a single arrow whizzed through the air and planted itself with a sproing in the dirt between my feet. Sagittarius was near. The tip of the arrow buried itself several inches deep, the shaft waggling from the impact. If an arrow like that could dig into hard earth so easily, I could only imagine what it could do to soft flesh.

The back door of the car swung open, and Agent Cygnus leaned across Ellie and Brennan.

"Jalen," he called. "I think you should get in."

We walked under a dotted line of fluorescent lights down a long hallway and through a heavy metal door. It banged shut with an echo.

"Have a seat," Agent Cygnus said. He swept his hand at a long table with dozens of cheap folding chairs scattered around it. The lights buzzed overhead. We sat.

The black car had taken us backward, backward, away from the river to a government-looking building with no windows. I guessed we were near the naval base. I guessed we just lost two miles in two minutes. The orange inside flickered.

"Can I get you anything? Something to eat, maybe?" Agent Cygnus said. Ellie shook her head sharply. One Ellie, thankfully, since we'd climbed into that dark car. I clutched her hand. This was my Ellie.

Agent Cygnus leaned his chair back and propped his wing-tip shoes on the table. I thought about how much damage I could do with a pair of pointy-toed shoes like that. I was totally losing it.

Agent Griffin joined us, spinning his chair around and leaning over the back of it like a hungry wolf staring at meat. I thought I saw a leather holster strapped to his side. "How did you do it?" he grumbled, shaking his head at me. "How did a kid like you unlock the Keepers? We've been trying for years."

Agent Cygnus banged forward in his chair and shot Griffin a look that said all too plainly, Shut up! He turned to me and his face softened. "Nothing at all? A soda?"

I didn't have time for this. "How did you find me?" I asked. "Originally, I mean."

Agent Cygnus smiled again. "Yes. Let's see. We'll start at the beginning, shall we?"

I couldn't tell if he was taunting me. "Just make it quick. I'm on a deadline." Wowza! Me, talking to government officials like that. I hoped I wasn't about to be handcuffed.

His face grew serious. Maybe even miffed. "Of course. Well, finding you was easy enough. We simply traced the ultraviolet patterns that the Keepers leave behind in their travels. They led directly to your doorstep. They faded after scattering throughout the city."

They knew about the Keepers, even though they couldn't see them. "You traced ultraviolet patterns," I repeated.

Agent Cygnus nodded. "It's part of what our agency does."

"Are you..." I felt silly even asking it. "FBI?"

Agent Cygnus chuckled, stood, and tugged his jacket lapel. "No. Not FBI. We spend a little more time...stargazing, if you will."

"Like NASA?" Brennan asked.

Agent Griffin snorted. "No. Not like NASA."

Agent Cygnus scowled at his partner, then turned back to me. "We're a little more discreet than that."

Discreet? Sounded very secretive to me. I hesitated before asking my next question, because honestly, I'm not sure I wanted to know. "What do you want?"

Agent Cygnus paced the cold tile floor. "You're aware that every personality on earth has shifted, aren't you, Jalen?" he asked.

I shrugged, unsure of what exactly I should admit to knowing.

"Jalen!" Agent Griffin slammed his fist on the metal table. His coffee sloshed out.

Agent Cygnus looked at him and shook his head, then continued, "This shift has major consequences. Surgeons are suddenly squeamish and refusing to perform surgery. Airline pilots are afraid to fly. And our world leaders are now timid, or aggressive, or lax. Over the past few hours, several enemy countries have escalated toward war." He leaned on his knuckles, glaring at me. "Jalen, world peace is at stake."

World peace. Those words sank in, turning my insides from sharp orange to steely metallic. I tried to swallow but couldn't.

People across the globe, unfit for their jobs, unfit for their lives.

Somehow I forced my voice through the dust in my throat. "I understand. You need me to switch everyone back." I stood, reenergized by this new information.

Agent Cygnus eyed me, and it was like he could see Virgo's blue birthstone tucked into my pocket. Instinctively I touched the side of my pants leg.

"Oh, you don't understand the half of it, Jalen." His eyes were unblinking. "Take a seat."

I did, and Agent Cygnus continued. "What we need," he said, "is Ophiuchus's stone."

The stone? He didn't mention the pin I was wearing, the lock, the book. He wanted the stone? It occurred to me that these agents really didn't know how to unlock the Keepers, or the consequences of what happened when you did. They just knew about the stones, it seemed.

"Jalen, that stone?" Agent Cygnus was staring at me so hard, I felt like he was trying to hurt me with his eyes. "It can cure anything. Even death."

My eyes clamped shut, my chest clamped shut, my brain clamped shut. Ophiuchus held more than the power to shift our personalities. Ophiuchus held the secret to death.

"Immortality?" I hadn't realized I'd whispered it out loud until Agent Cygnus answered me.

"Not exactly," he said. "The stone doesn't prevent death or illness. But it can reverse it. The ultimate cure."