nearly half an hour passed, however, and despite the knot of worry in her stomach, none of her memories seemed to have faded in the slightest. maybe the torch was broken, she hoped. she didn't know how the others outside would know the ritual was over, though with the blessed torch, the candidate rang the bell after receiving the blessing.

elyssa thought back to when she'd received the novice blessing and found her memory of the trial to be rather fuzzy. no one was allowed to ask others about the novice trial. even if she wanted to tell someone about it, the only recollection she had consisted of her father placing the novice torch in the pedestal and then of her walking to the rope at the back of the room and tugging it to ring the bell atop the tower. everything in between was a complete blank. even stranger, she couldn't recall thinking about the novice trial a single time since then or wondering about the missing time.

did all of the torches screw with memory?

the ball of nerves pressed harder into her guts. she might pass out and wake up without a single memory of the events inside this room, though she had to say it had been awfully boring up until now.

the statue shimmered.

elyssa stared at it, unsure if it had actually moved or if the torch flame before it had simply played a trick on her eyes. the black pedestals to either side of it crackled with white and black sparks. jagged bolts of plasma arced into an invisible shield around the statue, looking much like one of the lightning globes she'd seen at a novelty shop in the grotto once.

all at once, the jagged arcs dissipated, leaving the room with the faint odor of ozone. the statue seemed different too.

elyssa almost shouted when the statue blinked its eyes. except it wasn't a statue. it was a woman. and as the woman smiled at her, elyssa realized she knew this woman.

and so did justin.

chapter 12

staring down the barrel of a glowing magic staff didn't seem a prudent way to prolong my life. i dove behind the old man's truck as the young man shouted at me. a female voice joined in the shouting. someone cried out in pain.

i risked a peek and saw a dark-haired girl beating the young man with the bristly end of a broom. his staff no longer glowed and he was, in fact, now using it to shield himself from the girl. she looked close to my age, her skin a deep copper hue. for a brief moment, i thought she might be nightliss, come to rescue me from this madness, but aside from a similar skin tone, her big brown eyes were round and without the exotic slant of nightliss's.

"senor?" she called, looking at me. "please come out. my brother is stupido."

the young man fired back at her in rapid spanish, his face tight with worry.

"i'm not dangerous," i said, more for his sake than for the girl's.

"what is your kind?" the girl called back in her heavily accented english.

"if i tell you, promise not to freak out?"

she quirked an eyebrow. "what is 'freak out'?"

"don't go loco on me." ah, one more useful word dredged from my meager spanish database.

"okay."

"promise?"

"si, i promise you."

i stood up, still keeping the truck between myself and the angry man with a sorcerer staff. his sister might not want to protect me after my next revelation. "i'm spawn."

she sucked in a breath, pressing both hands to her cheeks. her brother apparently understood english because his jaw dropped a fraction.

"oh my god!" the girl exclaimed and squealed.

i prepared myself to run as the young man lowered his staff and stared at me.

the girl rushed over and grabbed me by the arm. "are you hungry? what is your name? i cannot believe this is happening!"

"huh?" i said as she dragged me toward the house.

the young man spoke with the old one who nodded sagely at whatever he was saying.

"um, you know what spawn are, right?" i asked the girl.

"of course! you are related to demons. we have been waiting on this day for so long." she took a deep breath and regarded me with her big eyes. "i am so sorry. i forgot to, how you say, introduce ourselves. i am lina." she pointed at the young man. "this is my brother, alejandro, and our grandfather, senor eduardo romero."

i gave them each a nod. "i'm justin case-err, slade."

"and you are the one we have waited for?" alejandro said, hardly a lick of an accent in his english but a whole lot of doubt weighing down his words.

"i had no idea you were waiting for anyone," i said.

eduardo spoke in what sounded like a scolding tone and lina looked embarrassed.

"i am so sorry, justin. you must be very tired, judging from how filthy and smelly you are. please use our washroom in the hall. you look close to my brother's size so i will get you a change of clothes."

i looked at my hands. rust, mud, and grime coated them and lodged beneath my fingernails. dirt crusted my ragged jeans and my ripped shirt. i probably looked like a zombie. a very fashionable one. "yeah, a shower would be great," i said.

i followed her down the hall to the bathroom. it was a mid-sized affair with a large claw-foot tub squatting atop what looked like a painted concrete floor. a hand shower hung from a hook above the tub. lina vanished down the hallway and returned a moment later with a towel and a change of clothes.

"thanks," i said, before shutting the wooden door and sliding the locking bolt into the frame. the water wasn't exactly hot, but it felt great to remove the layer of muck off my body. my hair had gone stiff with mud and other grunge from my swim in the river, profuse sweating, and, of course, a healthy dose of plain old dirt.

alejandro's clothes fit reasonably well, though he was a bit shorter, and the jeans hovered a fraction above my ankles. the aroma of food tickled my nose as i emerged from the bathroom. i followed it to the kitchen and found lina and alejandro cooking and chatting before the stove while their grandfather rocked in a creaky wooden chair, smiling and drinking green juice. he said something in spanish and nodded at me.

"you look much better," lina said as she sprinkled shredded meat over a flat piece of bread. "and your smell is not as bad."

"not as bad? do i still reek?" i wished fervently for deodorant.

she laughed. "no, i mean you do not stink. my english is un poco rough."

"it's actually really good," i said as my stomach growled.

she smiled wide. "thanks." she waved a hand at the small wooden table in the center of the floor, brought a plate over, and set it on the table in front of me. "i hope you like arepas and empanadas."

i salivated just looking at the food. "i'd eat just about anything right now."

"please, go ahead."

i didn't need to be told twice. i dug in and finished about the time the rest of them joined me. they ate, speaking in a mix of spanish and english about the weather and other inconsequential things until my curiosity smashed through my impatience like the kool-aid man.

"why were you so excited to see me? i don't usually get a great response when people find out i'm part demon."

alejandro glanced at his sister a moment before answering. "we are no ordinary community."

"so i gathered. you're obviously a sorcerer. and your english is too smooth for someone so far from any countries where it's the primary language."

"yes. i went to an academy in the united states. english is the preferred language of the overworld conclave anyway, so even if i had gone to school elsewhere, i would have learned it." he took a sip of his juice. "our town is made up mainly of arcanes. we're here to guard el dorado and make sure noms don't stumble into it."

"that place is a deathtrap," i said. "i barely made it out alive."

"our grandfather said he found you wandering from the only road leading there. when you told us you were spawn, it seemed clear you were the one spoken of in a foreseeance almost eighteen years ago."

my brain perked up at the mention of a foreseeance. i wondered if it was another foreseeance about me, or 4311. the pages underborn had given me were fragments of foreseeance 4311-all he'd been able to collect since most of the foreseers were either dead, crazy, or both. the assassin had also told me those who were behind the upcoming catastrophe had systematically destroyed all copies of the foreseeance. i didn't know what to believe, but i'd seen enough weirdness since discovering my demonic origins to take more things on faith nowadays.

"are you referring to foreseeance forty-three eleven?"

alejandro shook his head and looked questioningly at me. "this is foreseeance forty-two nineteen."

"do you have a copy?" i asked.

"several in fact." alejandro pushed his chair back and stood, reaching for a book atop the pantry shelf behind him. "after the original copy was almost stolen by a rogue vampire, our city council decided it would be wise to keep multiple copies of it and any other foreseeance."

"you have records of other foreseeances?"

he shook his head. "only three or so. true foreseeances are very rare. some among us believe foresight occurs when a major future event causes ripples across time, not only affecting the future, but also triggering the most sensitive mediums among us in the present. others think it is because foreseers detect a pattern of events in the present which lead to a certain outcome."

"like when a bunch of kids are forced to fight gladiator battles to the death, one of them will eventually rise up, overthrow the government, and fall in love along the way?"

alejandro laughed. "that's a pretty far-fetched series of events, but i suppose it could apply."

the theories he described were novel, making not only scientific sense, but also appealing to my inner nerd. sure, magic was cool and all, but i still had a hard time believing it was actually real, even with all i'd been through. anything related to time travel or seeing the future still seemed too impossible to believe. but i supposed it was possible if something caused a huge splash in the future of the space-time continuum, it might send shockwaves to the past. still, there were plenty of paradoxical situations that might apply.