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Chapter Nine
Prophecy
We drove down a wooded lane, where the road turned toward a private park. Ivy climbed over a tall, wrought iron fence that ran parallel to the path and then opened into an ornate double gate to the Adair house.
Logan pulled the car around the building and we went in through a side entrance. It reminded me of the Southmont house, but the colors were lighter, more welcoming, and the furnishings a bit more modern. And, like all Division houses, it was fully stocked with well-dressed guards and attractive young staffers, which we met right away. The guards, apparently recognizing Logan as a superior, simply gave us a small nod of acknowledgement before averting their eyes. A slim brunette in a business suit, however, marched directly toward us in her four inch designer heels.
“Mr. Black,” she said evenly, “we were not made aware of your visit.”
Logan slid a hand onto my lower back to guide me in an attempt to subvert her, but she adjusted course, determined to stop us in our path.
She straightened the sleeve of her blazer without taking her gaze from us. “I’m certain Mr. Samuels will want to be informed of your itinerary. How long will you be staying?”
“You can tell Brendan we’ll be here for two nights,” Logan said. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, Brianna has been suffering from a great lack of sleep.”
The corner of her right eye twitched, but her expression did not change. “Miss Drake,” she said finally, tilting her head slightly as she stepped aside.
Logan pressed me forward, apparently eager to be out of the main areas of the house. We took a wide staircase to the second level and walked down a hall lined with doors.
“We’re staying for two days?” I asked.
One side of Logan’s mouth rose. “I said she could tell Brendan we’d be here for two days.” He glanced over his shoulder before stopping at the fifth door on the right. “I was trying to buy us some time.” He keyed the door open and ushered me inside. “We won’t have as long to work as I’d hoped.”
A four-poster bed draped with sheers centered the large, windowless room. Two dressers lined the far walls, and a desk and reading chair sat near the entrance. Gesturing for me to stay there, Logan crossed to the smaller of the dressers and worked it across the thick silver-gray carpeting until it was clear of the wall by several feet. The second dresser, a low, six drawer antique model that looked to weigh about five hundred pounds, didn’t slide so easily across the pile. I bit my lip as he labored against it. It was unsettling how much I enjoyed watching that man move furniture.
When both dressers were clear of the wall, he drew a folding knife from his pocket and cut a long strip of carpet free. He tucked the loose end of it under a knee and dug at the wood flooring beneath with the knife to reveal a pair of dark metal fasteners. I had to stand on the tip of my toes and crane my neck to see how he released the plank that revealed the cubby hole.
He glanced up at me as he removed a few small containers, and I dropped my heels back flat. He took them to the desk and I moved to stand beside him as he opened the first case and unrolled a canvas on the dark glossed wood before us.
My hand went to my chest, air suddenly hard to come by. I looked at Logan, unsure, and his solemn nod confirmed the parchment’s authenticity.
I was seeing the prophecy.
I reached out, knowing I shouldn’t touch the ancient material, but unable to resist being closer. As my hand hovered above the fine script, so different than those that I’d been studying for the last days, I was overtaken by a giddy, child-like excitement. I glanced at Logan, uncaring that I had flushed cheeks and a too-wide grin, and he smiled back at me.
“Go ahead and take a look,” he said. “I’m going to close things up a bit.”
He tucked a pair of thin white gloves into my hand and returned to the space beneath the flooring.
I meant to thank him, but wasn’t sure I’d said the words out loud. As I tugged the gloves on, I glanced about the room, but there were no cameras in the bedrooms of the Division houses. No one was watching. No one would see my gloved fingers tracing the worn edge of a thousand-year-old document.
But the moment they contacted parchment, the trembling in my hands ceased. It was real. All of it. The visions, the prophecy, the coming destruction. Too real to deny anymore. There was no more room for doubt. No more uncertainty or possibilities.
This was it.
These words were for me. I was the prophet. It was all there was.
Vaguely aware of Logan’s movements across the room, I recited the words in the old tongue; the words I’d known by heart before the first time they’d even come to me through a revelation. It took several minutes, but they seemed to move at a drawn-out pace, each one cementing themselves once more in my consciousness. The gravity of them had somehow changed. The import shifting from burden to substance. Power. These would be the words that saved us.
As I came to the end, I realized Logan was standing behind me. I took a deep breath, and for the first time in a very long while, it didn’t ache.
“Thank you,” I whispered, sliding off the gloves as I turned to Logan. He noticed the change in me, I could see that, but before he had a chance to speak, his phone vibrated.
He pulled the device from his pocket, pressed two buttons, and tucked it back away. “Looks like we’ll have to finish this up later.” He moved past me to roll the prophecy into a tube, and placed it and a few other documents in a satchel before looping the strap over his shoulder. “Ready?” he asked.
I was. I didn’t know what for, exactly, but there was no doubt left in my answer.
We exited the room to turn the opposite direction we’d come in, and Logan led me by the elbow at an even faster pace, not stopping to round the corners before me. I glanced behind us, but the halls were empty. He took us down a set of narrow stairs, pausing only briefly to check the screen of his phone. From my vantage point one step above him, I saw not a text message, but a small red dot on a blackened grid. Like a tracking signal.
