Touch of Death(30)

The servant looked at me briefly before his body crumbled on the ground. I couldn't be sure, but I thought he'd looked thankful, relieved to be free. I smiled, and my legs gave out from beneath me. Alex rushed over to me, helping me stand. He draped my arm over his shoulders to steady me. "Why did you do that?" he asked.

"Because he didn't deserve to live like that. He was being tortured. Releasing his soul was the only way I could make up for what I'd almost made him do."

Alex sighed. "You definitely aren't like the rest of the Ophi."                       
       
           



       

"Don't say that. You make them sound like awful people."

"No, I didn't mean it like that. I meant, you can do things the rest of us can't."

"You said you haven't been taught how to do that yet, but that doesn't mean you can't."

"I wish I could've done that for-"

"Matt."

"I had to use my blood on him. Kill him for the second time." Alex closed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. "If I had your powers, I could've released his soul without having to put him through dying all over again.

"I don't blame you for what happened. And neither would Matt. You did what you could to fix the situation. A situation I created. Any suffering Matt went through was my fault. Not yours."

"Thanks, but sometimes I think it would be a lot easier if I were like you."

"Hey, you want to be the Chosen One with a prophecy written about you? Please, be my guest. Then maybe for once in my life, I could be the normal one."

"No, Jodi." He smiled and shook his head. "You could never be normal."

Somehow when Alex said it, it didn't seem so bad.

He nodded at the body on the ground. "How are we going to explain to Victoria why she's down a servant?"

Ugh, I hadn't thought of that. Victoria wasn't going to be happy about this.





Chapter 20

Alex said someone would bury the body in the morning. It felt wrong to leave the guy lying on top of the grave, but Alex had a point. We could barely see a thing in the darkness, even with the cemetery lights. We headed inside to find Victoria waiting for us at the door. "There you are. We've been looking everywhere for you. I held dinner." She must not have known Alex had food sent to my room, not that I'd gotten to eat it.

"Sorry. You didn't have to do that."

"Nonsense. It's your first real meal with us. I wouldn't think of starting without you." I guessed my little outburst at lunch didn't qualify as eating with the group. "Besides, we can't find one of the servers. Alex, have you seen him? He's the one with-"

"You don't even call them by name?"

Victoria glared at me. "They are no longer alive, Jodi. It's not as though we revived them immediately after they died. We brought back bodies that had been gone for a while."

I remembered what Alex had said about how scary it was to bring back bodies that had been dead for a long time. He'd known because his parents had done it. But these bodies didn't look like they'd decayed completely. "They couldn't have been gone for that long or they'd be nothing more than bones."

She smiled at me and put her hand on my shoulder. "I have to remember that you are new to all of this. If we use enough power while restoring a soul to its body, some or even all of the flesh returns along with it. You have many abilities, Jodi, and in time you will to learn to use them."

"Um, speaking of Jodi's abilities." Alex looked back and forth between Victoria and me. "We know what happened to your server."

Victoria cocked her head to the side. "Go on."

"I used my powers on him," I blurted out. I couldn't help it. Victoria wasn't like my mom. She looked for any reason to be disappointed in Alex. I had to let her know this had been my fault. "I didn't mean to, but I commanded him to go back to his grave."

"You controlled him?" Victoria raised her hand to her mouth in shock. I thought she was going to be upset, but instead, she smiled. "Jodi, that's wonderful. Most Ophi don't learn to do that until they reach eighteen. You're even more advanced than I thought you'd be."

"That's not all she can do," Alex interrupted. Victoria's eyes widened. "She released his soul. He was digging his way back to his grave when Jodi released him. His body is still there. Someone will need to take care of it in the morning."

"Yes, yes, of course." Victoria put her arm around me. "You can release souls. That is amazing!" Her voice was a bit awestruck as she stepped back and clapped her hands together. "We must celebrate. Come, come." She took me by the arm and led me to the dining room.

Like last time, the table was set and everyone was already seated. I wondered how long Victoria had been making them sit there staring at empty plates. Abby narrowed her eyes at me, and I got a little satisfaction out of making her wait for me. My eyes immediately lowered to Abby's neck. She wasn't wearing the locket. Maybe she wasn't quite gutsy enough to steal it and then wear it in front of me. It had to be hidden in her room, which meant I had to find a way to get in there.

Victoria whispered something to one of the servers before taking her seat at one end of the table. "Everyone, I have very exciting news." The servants brought out glasses of wine for everyone. "It seems dinner was held up for very good reasons." She paused and looked at me. "Jodi's powers are progressing better than we could have hoped. This evening, she not only took control of one of our servers, but she also released his soul." There were murmurs and gasps all around the table. Once again, all eyes were on me. "This is more proof that Jodi is the one we've been waiting for. And with her powers coming on so strongly-well, let's say we will all benefit from her being with us." She raised her glass, and everyone else followed. I hesitated for a second but Victoria nodded to me, so I picked up my glass as well. "Welcome to our family, Jodi."

While everyone else joined in with the welcome, Abby downed her wine in one gulp. "Yeah, welcome, Sis." She leaned her shoulder against Alex's. "Welcome your new sister, Alex."

He moved his chair away from her and closer to me. "We aren't all blood relatives, Abby."

"Sure we are. We've all got Gorgon blood, don't we?" She reached for his glass of wine and drank that, too.

Alex rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean. Jodi isn't my biological sister." I was trying to pretend I wasn't listening, nodding along to a conversation at my end of the table, but I saw Abby lean over and run her finger down Alex's arm.

"And neither am I, Alex."

Alex pushed her hand away and motioned for one of the servers. He placed his meal request and ignored Abby. Dinner was pretty normal after that. Except Alex wouldn't look at me. I wasn't sure what I'd done wrong. Abby was the one making all the comments about blood relatives and blatantly coming on to Alex. I kept stealing glances at him, which wasn't easy since we were sitting right next to each other. I sipped my wine, more for something to do than for the taste, which was strangely metallic to me.

As soon as Alex finished eating, he took his plate and went into the kitchen. I wasn't sure what he was doing since the servants cleaned up after dinner, but I grabbed my plate and followed him.

"Hey." I put my plate on the counter next to his. "Something wrong?"

"Just Abigail being Abigail."

"You don't like her much, do you?"

He raised an eyebrow. "How can you tell?"

I leaned against the counter while he fidgeted with the plates. "Well, she certainly likes you."

"Abby likes everyone."                       
       
           



       

"Not me."

"That's because-" He shook his head. "Never mind. She's not even worth thinking about." He stopped playing with the plates and turned to me. "You want to take a walk? I'll show you around."

"Yeah. Okay."

We went upstairs, but instead of stopping on the second floor where our rooms were, we went up to the third floor. It was pretty awesome. We passed a library that stretched the length of one entire wing of the mansion, a sunroom, some rec rooms with movie theater screens, and a few classrooms. Alex brought me into a classroom and sat down.

"How long have your parents been in charge here?"

"My grandparents were the ones who found this place. They wanted a safe place for Ophi to meet and teach the younger generations. Somewhere other than Serpentarius. The Ophi there don't really believe in using all their powers. My parents came here after … "

"Your grandparents died? Is that possible? I mean, can't you use your powers to bring them back?"

"That's the ironic thing about Ophi. We can't use our blood on each other. When we die, we die."

"That doesn't seem fair."

"It's another way Hades makes sure there aren't too many Ophi running around. We don't get to live forever. We're not immortal."