The Rising (Darkness Rising 3)

Daniel caught him in a running tackle and took him down. Corey raced over behind and bounced there, fists up, like he was standing outside the boxing ring, waiting his turn. As the guy struggled, Corey tensed, ready to leap in, but Daniel got him pinned facedown on the ground.

"What the hell is this?" the guy snarled. "A mugging? I knew I shouldn't have cut through the park."

"You always cut through using the sky route?" I said as I bent down and patted his pockets. "Huh. Nothing to rob, I guess, because you aren't carrying a wallet. That's a little odd, don't you think?"

He snarled profanities now. Daniel tensed, like he was waiting for the guy to aim those profanities at me. He didn't, though. Just general cursing. I double-checked inside his pockets.

"No ID. That is weird. So where do you have it?"

I tugged up his pant leg. He tried to kick, but Corey dropped and held his feet still while I pulled a thin billfold from his sock. It was held on with an elastic for safekeeping.

Inside the wallet were a few hundred dollars and three credit cards. I fanned the cards.

"So are you Jason or Drake or Todd?"

The guy didn't answer. He just kept staring at the ground.

"You don't look eighteen," I said. "So they're fake. Or stolen."

No answer.

Corey pulled up the guy's other pant leg. "There's something here, too."

It was a blue passport, attached with another elastic.

"An American passport," I said. "I'm pretty sure these are hard to fake. So let's see who you really are."

I opened it. My gaze headed for the name, but the photo snagged it instead. I stared at the picture for a moment. Then I looked down at the guy on the ground. At his bare arm. Corey said he'd seemed tanned in the vision. He wasn't. He was Native.

I lifted the passport to get a better look at the photo. His eyes were hazel and his hair was light brown, but he still looked Native. As I stared at the picture, I could swear I recognized the face. I didn't, though. Not his name, either.

"Ashton Gray," I said.

He didn't respond. I looked at the birth date. It was a couple of months before mine. What was a sixteen-year-old kid doing climbing trees in Stanley Park with fake credit cards and an American passport?

He seemed like a street kid. The soles of his running shoes were almost worn through, his jeans were frayed, and his black T-shirt had been washed so often it was a dirty gray. But his nails were trimmed and his hair was poorly cut but clean.

I looked around. "Where are the others?"

"What others?" His first actual response. He didn't try to look at me, though.

"Someone contacted us and set up this meeting through an email address, which we only gave to one person. That person wasn't you."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Daniel backed off the guy, staying poised to pounce if he bolted. "Get up."

"Well, since you're asking so nicely . . ."

The guy--Ashton--rolled over and pulled himself to a sitting position. He moved slowly, getting to his feet as if taking his time meant he really wasn't doing as he'd been told. His hair reached his collar at the sides as well as in back, and hung in his face. Only after he was standing did he bother to push it back. He fixed Daniel with a hard stare. Challenging. Pissed off that he'd been taken down so easily.

"Better?" he said.

Daniel looked at him. Stared, actually. He looked at me. Looked back at the guy. Then he swore under his breath.

I stared at Ashton Gray, too, and again I had this vague sense of I know you. Something about his face. Something familiar.

"Maya?" Daniel said.