by Plum Pascal
“Something,” I answer, then take a deep breath and try to force the vertigo away. I feel sick to my stomach. Weak.
“You’re lucky we let you in,” he continues, seemingly determined to make conversation. I’m grateful he opened the gates, but I’m not in the mood for small talk. I’m not in the mood for any sort of talk, actually.
There’s a pounding right between my eyes that wasn’t there before. Or maybe it was but I was so panicked I didn’t notice it.
“Why did you let me in?” I ask, craning my neck upward to look at him. It’s the first time I notice how massive he is. Maybe nearing seven feet, and his girth is almost as wide. He’s probably a demon.
How I know any of this, I can’t say.
“You’re an angel,” he answers with a shrug, like the reason should be obvious. Well, nothing is obvious to me.
An angel. The word holds no meaning to me. It’s as foreign as my name, this stranger, Precinct Five, the voice inside my head…
“Did you check her for the markings?” A woman’s voice sounds from in front of us, and I glance up and into the face of an Opalite Demon.
How do I know what she is? I ask myself as I study the pearlescent quality of her skin. I don’t have any answers.
The woman is wearing form-fitting pants, combat boots, a sleeveless camouflage t-shirt, and a machine gun strapped across her chest. The only hint at her lack of humanity, aside from the fact that humans are extinct, is her eyes. Her orange pupils aren’t pupils at all—they take up the entirety of her eyes.
The guard mumbles something unintelligible and the woman responds with a frown, grabbing my arm and forcing me to stand in front of her. She’s tall, though not as tall as the demon guard. But she’s still a head or so taller than I am. And she’s uncommonly thin, with a long, narrow face, a generous nose, and wide lips.
“What’s your name, gorgeous?” she asks, her triangular tongue coming out to swipe at her lower lip.
“Eilish,” I answer calmly. The pounding in my head is making me sick again.
“I’m Anona,” the woman responds. “And welcome to Precinct Five.” She takes a breath and studies me with a curious smile. Then, she rotates me around so quickly, I feel dizzy. “I just need to check you’re legal, otherwise we can’t have you here. But you already know that.”
I don’t know that, but I also don’t respond. Instead, I just stand there as she pulls my loose shirt up from my waist, all the way up until my stomach is in view. I pull it down to my belly button so I won’t risk flashing my breasts to no one in particular. The guard is still behind me. Anona runs her fingertips across the skin of my upper back, then drops my shirt back down and she wheels me around so I’m facing her again. She nods.
“You’re legal, which means everything’s okay,” she says with a clipped smile. Thunder breaks out overhead as another onslaught of rain comes down even harder. She looks upward, appearing to notice the inclement weather for the first time.
“Let’s get you out of this rain,” she adds with a polished smile.
I can’t even feel it. “Okay,” I answer, allowing her to pull me up the now muddied road and into one of the handful of buildings that hasn’t been blasted into oblivion. The demon guard follows us.
I want to ask her what she meant by my being legal, but I can’t seem to open my mouth. It’s like my brain isn’t communicating with my body. Instead, the headache increases and pulses inside my head, feeling like larvae ready to pop out of my eyes.
“How did you end up here?” Anona asks. She holds the door open, and I walk into the dark room. A second or so later, a lightbulb flickers overhead and bathes us in artificial halogen light. I take stock of my surroundings and find a wooden table in the center of the room with four chairs. Anona motions to one of them and I sit down, feeling exhausted all the way to my toes. In the corner of the room is an unattended cot and a dirty-looking pillow. There are no windows.
“She don’t know anythin’. Her memory’s gone. Probably wiped so she can’t tell us nothin’,” the guard says from where he stands beside Anona. She looks at him with a discouraged expression before she sits down across from me and tries to smile. It looks more like a grimace.
“You don’t remember anything at all?” she asks, and I shake my head. She continues, “You don’t know why you were on the road or how you got there?”
I shake my head and wince as the pain behind my eyes becomes intolerable. “I… do you have anything for a headache?” I shield my eyes from the suddenly blaring light overhead.
“Hmm,” she mumbles, reaching forward and gripping my arm. She pushes my long, tattered and soaking wet sleeve all the way up to my elbow and nods once she spots the veins in my wrist, which travel up my arm in glowing neon-green branches.
“She’s going through withdrawals,” she announces to the guard, who doesn’t say anything. I don’t know when he did it, but he’s taken off his helmet so I can clearly see him. Not that I want to. With his scaly red skin, underslung jaw, beady black eyes, and the ten or so horns protruding from his head, he’s an ugly son of a bitch.
“Get the Atacomite,” she orders. He nods and turns around, hulking out of the doorway and disappearing into the pounding rain. “We’re going to get you fixed up real soon, gorgeous,” she says as she turns her attention back to me.
But I can barely register that she’s even there. Even though she’s sitting right across from me, it’s like I can’t concentrate on her—can’t see her. But I can see everything around her. Until the room starts spinning, and the headache along with it. I drop my head into my hands and squeeze my temples, trying to will the pain away. Or maybe I’m trying to shove my fingers through my skull so I can shred my brain.
“Just a few more seconds and the pain will be gone, gorgeous,” she assures me.
I don’t respond.
DOWNLOAD ANGEL!
BAD BLOOD
ONE
♀♥♂♂♂♂
EVERLY
The first step to the school of my dreams isn’t a step at all. It’s a train platform. Passengers of all types (from other dryads to sprites to pixies to nymphs) file into the waiting car. I’m not shown any deference and seeing as there aren’t many of my kind leaving for far off places, I’m the only one holding a suitcase. Most of the other passengers look like they’re off to work.
My future awaits and I take it eagerly, but there’s one final goodbye I need to make before entering Arcadia and the Academy of Enchantment Magic.
“Everly?” My mom’s strained voice causes me to turn around from the open sliding-glass doors. Her light green eyes shine with unshed tears as she hugs me one last time. Her straw hair bats at my face and the scent of cedar rush over my senses. “I’m so proud of you.”
The words hold finality. My dryad family is all I know, but I’m making my own way now. Away from the forest. Far from the safety of the Circle. My home. Sanctuary to all my kind. But I’ll return to my fellow dryads as an Enchanter. Someone to follow in the long line of protectors who call the forest their home.
“It’s not forever, mom.” I hug her back, knowing the light of her warmth will have to tide me over for a while.
“I know.” She holds me a moment longer and then releases me. Her green eyes sparkle as the soft breeze twirls the ends of her indigo dress. “But it’s the first time you’ll be out there… on your own.”
“This is where you’re supposed to say I’m all grown up now right?” I tease, already knowing she’s ecstatic to have her own daughter, one of the few dryads, besides the High Priestess, to further their education. Something few dryads are willing to do, but we (in the Circle) need.
Mom gives me one of her special smiles. One only meant for me.
I give her one last hug, fully aware of the possibility she’ll be the last dryad I see in the months to come.
“Go.” She swats my butt and I laugh as I turn to the train.
Without looking back, I head towards the car, tra
iling my bag behind me. It takes me a second to board, owing to the older woman in front of me. But once I’m aboard, I feel my anxiety start to settle as excitement takes over. This train will take me directly to the Academy of Enchantment and my ride is set to take five hours, a much longer trip than those going to and from work.
All the seats are mostly taken except at the very front. Never one afraid to sit at the front of the class, I step past a lady and sit by the one empty window seat and tuck my suitcase underneath me.
As a dryad, forest magic flows through me, but communing with nature requires… well, nature. My new home will be the beautiful spiral of the Enchanted castle in Arcadia. I’ll be able to see the oldest oak in the world, talk about new magic with the fae, and practice techniques with other students. I don’t expect to have time to grow my own nature Circle and even if I did, it wouldn’t be anything like the Circle at home. I laugh to myself as I think about making a forest that big, but a small, grassy knoll to sit and listen to the forest would still be nice.
The lady next to me smiles, pushes her silken, black hair aside and says, “Off to school?”
“Yeah.” I tuck a strand of my lavender hair behind my ear and keep my eyes down. I’m a bit shy when it comes to new people. And that’s something I will need to work on because I intend to make lots of friends at the Academy of Enchantment. It’s one of my resolutions—to come out of my shell and be more social.
“Which academy?” Her eyes are completely black, with no flecks of color. It gives her an eerie ambiance, but her smile is wide and genuine.
“Enchantment.” I can’t help my smile as I look up at her approving expression.
She nods. “It’s a good fit for dryads. You’ll do well there.”
Just before the doors close, a person-shaped shadow steps onto the train. This shadow-person is like seeing the aura of someone or the outline of a person, but not really seeing the face inside the shadowed shell.
Instantly, all my senses curl in on themselves. A ball of sickness, fear, and the taste of rot lodges in the pit of my stomach, and I double over in my seat. The passengers in the full car hastily part and make room as the shadow-person steps past everyone and heads towards the back of the car.
Full body shakes overtake me as the lady beside me gasps. Nausea and the absolute feeling of repulsion go straight to my head. My seatmate grabs my hand, and the overwhelming need to throw up abates. I take sips of air, letting my mind relax.
A wave of compassion, not mine, but from the lady beside me, washes away the spinning in my head. In my mind, I see her stirring pots, tending to the sick, and prescribing medicines to a host of patients. Her compassion rivals my own family of healers.
Witch doctor. She’s a witch doctor.
“Thank you,” I whisper, and a plume of heat warms my cheeks as visions of her daily life play in my head. I hope she won’t be angry with me for the intrusion, but the uncontrolled clairvoyance is the bane of my perfect school record.
“I’m sorry, dear.” Her expression lifts into concern. “I didn’t mean to touch you, it’s just…”
“No, no, thank you.” I try to smile, but feel it more as a grimace than a genuine grin.
She extricates herself and flashes a sneer at the back of the car. “Shadow demon. Nasty things.”
“That’s a shadow demon?” I don’t dare look back. Just thinking about the creature makes me feel sick all over again.
“Yes.” Her lips compress to a thin line. “I don’t know why it insists on being shadow dressed. No doubt it has something to hide.”
“Shadow dressed?”
I watch her straighten, pulling her hands closer to herself. “It’s what they call that…” She waves her hand towards the back of the train. “The aura thing. It’s them being shadow demony.”
Her term makes me laugh. But my amusement doesn’t last long. Even from the back of the aisle, residual pain seeps to the front. I cringe as the backs of my eyes prickle.
My passenger friend furrows her brow. “Is it true, dryads are empathic?”
I nod.
But it isn’t the whole truth.
Clairvoyance is the only class I didn’t get a grade of at least a ninety-eight percent. I still technically got an “A” in the class, but I never fully learned how to control the ability. Especially when someone touches me. Thing is, these flashes don’t happen all the time. Thus the reason for my ninety percent grade. I couldn’t control it.
My clairvoyance mishaps combined with my natural empathy as a dryad compounds my senses. Pain stabs at my head. “Why does it hurt so bad?”
“Shadow demons, all they know is pain,” the witch doctor explains with a shrug. “Inside and out.”
“How… how was it allowed on here?” I ask as she touches me again and the pain abates.
She shrugs. “There are no rules prohibiting them from entry… anywhere.”
“I’ve never seen one before.”
She nods. “They are rare to find in these parts. Usually they stick to Dread.”
How horrible. A life knowing nothing but this agony. My very nature as a healer, a dryad, draws me to fix the problem. I look back at the shadow demon.
“Don’t,” the lady next to me says, shaking her head. “You can’t help him.”
“But…”
“Trust me.” Something in her eyes tells me she speaks from experience.
As I sit, I reach my hand out to touch her, to distract me from this swirling queasiness.
She looks down and clutches it with a smile. “Better?”
The bile rising in my throat stops and the need to vomit fades. “Yes.”
“Good.”
It’s a testament to how clouded my senses are when the train slows. I don’t remember it taking off. We stop and people push their way out. Unfortunately, the shadow demon stays. More than half the car leaves and I have to wonder if the shadow demon has anything to do with the mostly empty car. Especially when a businessman takes one step inside, whips his head to the demon and then steps back onto the platform, letting the train continue on without him. A huge nope if I ever saw one.
Another station goes by, and another. More people get off. Few come on. It’s as if they know this car is off limits—the train of pain.
“Listen to me, honey,” the lady squeezes my hand. “You should get off at the next stop if that thing doesn’t.”
“I can’t. This is the only train that goes all the way to Arcadia.” The next train isn’t until next week. Without this train, I have no way to get to my new school. Money is a strange concept for dryads, but mom made it a point that if I get off the train before my destination, I won’t be able to get back on again.
The witch doctor sighs, and her dark eyes mourn for me. “Well then, since you’ll learn it anyway, and it doesn’t look like you know how yet, close your eyes for me.”
I smirk. “I know how to close my eyes.”
She grins like a Cheshire cat and says, “Don’t be ornery.”
I do as she says.
Tingling, then warmth spreads through my hands. “Now,” she says. “Focus on your heart, your core, the place where your healing comes from. Feel the compassion swirling like mist. Are you there?”
My nod satisfies her as I reach inside myself. The core that is my heart glows brightly. A foreign pulling draws me in, and then I’m inside a round chamber. The best way to describe what I’m feeling is—pink. It’s love and hurt. It’s forgiveness and redemption. Hope blooms as I look around myself in awe. Hundreds of little nicks scar the sphere. But a peaceful strength I’ve never felt before shines through. I can’t see in colors, but I feel the pink cascade into orange, yellow, and a lighter shade of red as if they shimmer on the curved walls.
“You have a beautiful heart, little kin,” the lady says, and I can hear her in my head. I can also feel her as if she’s standing next to me in this room.
“Is this my heart?” I ask.
“It is.”
It’s as if I’m inside a fortress, only the outside barrier of the fortress is actually me, in the world. But the “real” me, the eternal me, is within this sphere. This “room” is the power source of all my magic.
“Little kin,” the lady whispers, “learn well at the academy how to protect this.” The outside me feels her press warm a hand against the upper part of my breastbone.
“Stay in here,” the woman continues. “And it will protect you from the pain of the shadow demon.”
I know what she means. Stay inside my power source. My heart.
She’s right. My nausea’s gone. With a clear head, I’m able to think again. I open my eyes. “Thank you for showing me.”
“You’re welcome, little kin.”
She starts pulling away, but as the last of her essence fades, I hear her from the outside world. “This is my stop.”
My outside self nods. “Okay, thank you again… for everything.”
Then she’s gone, both from the sanctuary of my power source and from the train. A small part of me is sad and nervous to be left alone.
I can maintain my concentration for a long time. My body sways to the inertia of movement, but I’ll be able to stay inside my own heart. At first, it’s the wonder of it all. I’ve heard some people rule their magic with either their minds or their hearts. It makes sense that my power resides in my heart.
Some think the mind is more powerful, but I disagree. Maybe people who use their minds as a power source are clever, or can do intricate magic, but all I want is to become better at helping The Circle. It’s the place where all dryads are born. The place where we’re safest. And soon, after my time at the academy, I’ll be best qualified to become High Priestess for the next generation. But before then, it means leaving the Circle to study and bring that information to the Enclave.
It seems I’m well on my way. I learned something new. Something important. And it’s just like me to test the boundaries of this new talent.
I open my eyelids a crack to see if I can remain inside my heart, but still be aware of my surroundings. The barest of light and shadow comes through, and I sense being inside my heart again. I’m doing it! This is big. I could be fully connected to my magic and be aware. I turn my head to the side, but see no one. Slowly, I lift my chin to look down the car.