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never been my
forté, but isn’t that impossible? Isn’t having a kid a genetic roll
of the dice? A fifty/fifty kind of thing?”
    Agatha cracked
her knuckles. A pinched crease manifested itself between her
eyebrows. “Forget about biology. Biology doesn’t apply here. Not
the kind they’ve been teaching you, anyway. Once they undergo their
rites, these men are immortal. They’re nothing like regular human
beings. Genetically, they’re something entirely different. They’ve
always had male children. That’s just the way it’s always
been.”
    “ Uh-huh…” Disbelief laced my tone. “Next you’ll be telling me
they’re all vampires or something.”
    “ Ha! Don’t be ridiculous.”
    “ How is that any more ridiculous than what you just told me?”
I snapped.
    “ It’s all tied in with what I said before. They’re Reavers.
They steal from others. They grow powerful from taking other
people’s life force. Tell me, if you wanted to steal someone’s life
force, would you take their toenail clippings?”
    I just stared
at her. This conversation was getting weirder by the second.
    “ Blood is just another part of the body. Your soul is your life force.
The soul is key. That’s what they take.”
    And suddenly we’d moved beyond the realms of unbelievable
into the downright crazy. The fact that I’d let this woman carry on
with such a ridiculous tale made me feel slightly cruel, but there
was a perfectly good reason for it. If Agatha believed in all this
crap, then she clearly  was  mad, and everything she had
been saying was complete nonsense. Including the part about my mom
being dead. Especially that part.
    “ Look, thanks for meeting with me. I appreciate you trying to
help me out, but I really have to go now. I have friends waiting,”
I lied.
    Agatha gave me
a sad, almost disappointed look. “No, you don’t. The only people
waiting for you out there are the Immundus—your father’s men.
They’re human, but they have a direct line to the Reavers. They’re
stronger than they should be, and they do have some power. Who do
you think put that image of your mother into your head?”
    Something
about the hint of pity in the tiny woman’s eyes was incredibly
annoying. I bristled and pulled myself up straight. “I’m sorry I
don’t believe in your fairytale. I choose to believe that I did
actually see my mother out there. Now if you’ll excuse me—”
    “ I’m afraid what I told you is no fairytale. This idea that
your mother is still alive is the only fantasy here.”
    The words
themselves were harsh, and yet Agatha managed to deliver them
softly. They stung all the same.
    “ We’re done here. Goodbye, Agatha.”
    As I marched
out of the tent, the canvas flap snapped on the icy breeze that had
materialized out of nowhere, blowing it straight into my face. I
pushed it aside and charged across the fairground, wanting to put
as much distance between me and Agatha as possible. A sensation at
my back told me I was being followed, though. I didn’t need to look
back to know the pixie-like woman wasn’t very far behind.
    Not for long.
Shaking her off shouldn’t be that hard. I was almost at the exit,
the illuminated archway throbbing like a gaudy beacon just fifty
feet away, when I saw my mother again. This time she didn’t melt
into the background. She stood watching me, intermittently visible
above the dipping and spinning of a whirling bumper car ride, with
a cold, distant look on her face. The breeze caught her hair and
tousled it about her face. She didn’t move to brush the hair back
out of her eyes; she just stared at me. Her expression was empty,
flat and lifeless.
    “ Mom!” 
    How could Agatha not see? How could she not see that my mom
was standing  right
there?  But Agatha was gone. Instead,
when I spun around, there was something else—an elusive streak of
black, prowling through the crowds like a silent wolf. A flash of
green. The suggestion of a curved eyebrow.
    Daniel.
    I