Summoned

by Tricia Barr

  Leif looked at Oberon, as if he needed further approval to do so. But Victoria was in charge. This was really happening.

  Taking a deep breath, he said, “I need to find the kraken. If you all have a way to locate him, I can handle the rest.”

  “Wait,” Ren said, rubbing at his temples as if his mind had just been blown. “Let me get this straight. The kraken is your lost love?”

  The room erupted with laughter, and Leif joined in.

  “The kraken is in possession of an object that belongs to my lost love,” Leif explained. “If I can get that item back...” He paused, wondering just how odd it would be tell them about his desire to bring someone back from the dead. “...then finding her will be easy.”

  The room quieted down and Victoria stared hard at Leif. “Attracting the kraken’s attention back to the Dome is the last thing I want to do. It’s far too dangerous. That being said,” she said rubbing at her chin thoughtfully. A quick thought formed and she looked at the kitsune, “Ren, what are the chances you’ve got the gear to locate the shifter remotely?”

  Ren perked up. “Do we still have chunks of that nasty tentacle?”

  Oberon nodded. “I believe it’s been cut up into chunks and frozen. The plan is to throw portions into Lake Michigan over time and give the fish a steady, safe source of food.”

  “Mind if I dig my hands into some of it?” Ren said. “A DNA analysis should allow us to track his location.”

  “You can have as much as you want,” Oberon said. “I’m sure the kitchen staff will approve of having more space back.”

  Ren looked at Leif. “I’ll whip something up for you. Shouldn’t take me too long to develop.”

  “How long are we talking?” Leif asked.

  The kitsune shrugged. “A week at most. I should be able to tweak some of the gear we already have that searches for vampires. Leave your number and I’ll call you as soon as it’s ready.”

  It was more than Leif could ask for.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you all so much. This means the world to me, and to my fiancé.”

  “We’ll make sure you find her,” Victoria said.

  He nodded, unable to say anymore as his emotions gushed within him.

  “This has been a productive meeting,” Oberon said. “Shall we conclude?”

  Everyone surrounding the table concurred.

  Leif was the first to his feet. As happy and grateful as he was, he had one last thing to take care of.

  “Leaving so soon?” Oberon asked as the simulation fizzled away, leaving the room as a nothing but an empty white box.

  “I’ve got a friend I have to check on,” Leif replied. “I’m hoping at my apartment in Chicago.”

  Oberon reached into his pocket and handed Leif a card. “You’re officially a shifter friend, which means you get an official key to the Dome. Feel free to come and go as you please. But please... don’t lose that keycard.”

  “Don’t worry,” Leif said, pocketing the card. “Consider it glued to me. Can you point me toward the exit?”

  Oberon extended his arm, pointing down one of the hallways under repair. “Follow it all the way down and you’ll walk straight to the door that leads to the subway. I must warn you, though, the train cars are lined with copper.”

  Leif shrugged. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

  Oberon gave him a confused look.

  “Another long story for another time,” Leif said with a grin. “Goodbye, Oberon.”

  “See you around,” the gryphon replied.

  Leif nodded and walked away, feeling the school director’s eyes on him. But Leif got lost in thought, barely even noticing as he exited the Dome and entered the train. The shifters were helping him. All the suffering he’d been through at Draven’s and Beatrice’s hands was going to pay off. He’d do it all again if it meant he’d get this kind of aid.

  The ride was smooth, and before he knew it, he was walking off the L and up the stairs that led to the location he’d been assigned to wait for Myreen and her friends to appear. And to his surprise, something was waiting for him.

  Rainbow sat on his hind legs, his gray tail whipping back and forth.

  “Rainbow!” Leif said, and as he spoke the vampire cat’s name, it leaped off the ground and landed precisely in his arms. “My friend, I have some good news.”

  And he told Rainbow everything, sensing no urgency to hurry back to his apartment, feeling truly free for the first time in a very long time.

  Chapter 60: Myreen

  It was such a nice day. The sky projected at the top of the Dome was sunny and bright, and Myreen could even feel the sun’s heat on her skin. The ingenuity of the kitsunes—namely Mr. Suzuki—never ceased to amaze her. Now that she was a vampire, a hybrid, this manufactured sunlight would be the only kind she’d ever get to enjoy again, at least until Kenzie used her magic to make Myreen a daywalker. With her vampiricly-enhanced vision, it was almost too bright, but Myreen savored it nonetheless.

  Yes, it was a beautiful day, even if it was for a mass memorial ceremony.

  The Dome was more packed with people than she’d ever seen. Parents and relatives, both of the students who died in battle and of the students who survived, were here en masse. The whole of the shifter military was in attendance as well. All to say their final goodbyes to the friends, teachers, children and soldiers that lost their lives to Draven’s forces.

  A week had passed since that bloody day, and it felt both like a lifetime and blink. The glass of the Dome had been repaired, as well as the buildings that had been crushed by the kraken’s temper tantrum. Everyone had worked tirelessly to pitch in.

  Classes were scheduled to resume after the memorial, but Myreen didn’t think life at the Dome would ever be the same. There were so many faces she’d grown accustomed to seeing that she never would again. Delphine’s loss would be especially hard to deal with. Myreen had never enjoyed Mer Training or Water Manipulation much before, and she was expecting to find both unbearable now without Delphine’s vibrant attitude to brighten the room. She didn’t know the mer they’d found to replace her, but no one could ever really hold a candle to Delphine. She was truly one in a million.

  “Are you ready?” Juliet came up beside her in the grand hall, looking very natural dressed in all black.

  “Yep,” Myreen said, even though she would never really be ready to say goodbye. “Where’s Nik?”

  The two had been inseparable since Nik’s resurrection, and they were almost disgusting to watch. Holding hands like they were joined at the fingertips. Kissing in shaded corners every stolen moment. Getting as much of each other as they could before he left the school to take up his new position as assistant to the Head of the Council, Mrs. Dracul. Myreen was happy for them. They were finally getting their happily ever after.

  It was just that whenever things were going well for Juliet and Nik, things between Myreen and Kol were rocky, and that had never been more true than it was now.

  “He’s getting ready with Kol,” Juliet said. “They’ll be down here in a minute.”

  Myreen nodded, though she did flinch at the mention of Kol.

  “He still hasn’t talked you, huh?” Juliet guessed with a frown.

  Myreen shook her head. Not that there had been much time to talk. Myreen had been kept quite occupied the last few days with the harpies tending to injured shifters, while Kol attended to whatever duties were required of the Dracul prince upon the death of his father. But whenever they were both in the Avian common room at the same time in the evenings, he didn’t avoid her, but he didn’t seek her out either, didn’t give her any kind of closure from the relationship-ending talk they’d had outside the training room all those days ago.

  She hoped he would just need time. He was dealing with so much. She knew from experience how soul crushing it was to lose a parent. And he’d almost lost his best friend too. She kept hoping that if she just gave him some space, he’d come around. They’d been through so much
together, after escaping Heritage Prep, she really thought they were done with this hot and cold nonsense.

  She had lost just as much as he had. Kendall. Delphine. And killing her own father had been no easy task emotionally. She didn’t know if she’d ever accept that it was necessary, that it was necessary to take a life—his life—for the good of the world. There was plenty of pain to work through, but it would have been easier to get through if she’d had him to lean on, to cry with, to hold her and tell her everything would be okay.

  “Don’t worry, I know you guys will get through this,” Juliet said. “You guys have that epic, star-crossed thing happening. An Edward and Bella kind of bond, only in this case I guess you’d be Edward, fangs and all.” She laughed, and Myreen gave her a flat look. “Too soon? Okay, but you know what I mean. Just give him time, and he’ll figure out that you’re still the most kick-butt girl in the world and that he’s being stupid.”

  Myreen shrugged and looked down at her feet. “We should get to the field before it’s too crowded. It’s going to start soon.”

  “Right.”

  Juliet looped her arm through Myreen’s, and Myreen didn’t realize how starved for physical touch she was until then because that little show of solidarity felt so good. They joined the flow of bodies exiting the grand hall heading toward the large field where the memorial was being held.

  The crowd congregated around the human-sized newly added headstone, inscribed with the names of everyone who died defending the school. Myreen hadn’t seen it up close yet, hadn’t counted the names carved on it. Part of her didn’t want to know exactly how many died for a war she was partially responsible for. It was her father who started it, after all.

  Myreen spotted Kenzie standing between the hunter-turned-mao Wes and her grandmother and mom. She pushed through the crowd to join her, tugging Juliet along. Despite the black dress that covered her curvy figured, Kenzie was positively glowing. Myreen couldn’t think of a time she’d ever seen her selkie best friend looking so deeply content. Maybe it was her acceptance into the school, or the new guy, but she appeared to want for nothing. That made Myreen smile.

  “Hey Myreen,” Kenzie greeted in a hushed tone when Myreen and Juliet fell in behind them. “Why don’t you stop by my room tonight and I’ll perform the daywalker spell for you? It would sure be nice not to have wait till nightfall to go out with my bestie.” Kenzie winked.

  “Sure, thanks Kenz,” Myreen whispered back. Kenzie had been given Myreen’s old room in the Mer wing. Since selkies had never been admitted before, finding the prime they best fit into was a bit of an argument for the prime leaders, but it was ultimately decided that Oceanid was the most appropriate, as selkies could shift into a marine creature. It would be strange entering the Mer wing on a regular basis again.

  “We’ll do the copper spell too, so that you can actually leave the property.” She snickered, and Myreen managed a smirk.

  Wes whispered something to Kenzie and took her attention off Myreen, so Myreen took that as a chance to look behind her in search of Kol and Nik, who should be arriving any second. The crowd was filling in thicker and thicker, and if Myreen were any shorter, she wouldn’t have been able to see over the heads to know that Kol’s overstretched figure wasn’t among them.

  When Nik appeared next to Juliet a few minutes later, sans Kol, Myreen really got confused.

  “Where’s Kol?” she whispered at Nik.

  “Up front with his mom.” Nik pointed to the upper left corner of the congregation closest to the headstone, where there were chairs for the new Council members. There, Myreen saw Mrs. Dracul with her son’s unmistakable head of thick black hair beside her. While it made sense for Kol to be with his mom during the ceremony, Myreen couldn’t help but feel, in the hidden corners of her heart, that he was doing it to avoid having to be around her.

  The crowd fell silent as Oberon rose from his seat and stood in the open area next to the headstone.

  “We have gathered here today to remember the colleagues, friends, students and family that fell during the Battle of the Dome.” His voice was smooth and steady, yet echoed in the courtyard as if he was using a microphone. “We all lost someone precious. But we must remember that they did not fall in vain. Thanks to their bravery and unbreakable spirits, the battle was won, and the rest of us will live to fight another day...”

  Oberon’s speech continued, but Myreen’s mind was on those she had lost. Kendall. His spirit was unbreakable. She wouldn’t exactly call him brave, but he had a conviction about him that was admirable. He really thought he was doing what was best. She remembered how he had allowed Draven to turn him into a hybrid in front of the entire school. He had believed that joining the vampires was the only way to survive, to end the war, just as Draven had promised. He no doubt hoped that others would find hope in his transformation and follow his example. He was only trying to prevent the bloody battle he had foreseen all his life. He had made plenty of mistakes, but his heart had been in the right place. And even through Draven’s siren command, he fought to resist, for her.

  And then there was Delphine. Myreen remembered watching her die, and it felt like her mother died all over again. They would have gotten along well, Delphine and her mom. They were both fiery and strong-willed. And Myreen had failed her so many times. First as a student, and then after her death.

  Once Myreen saw how Ms. Heather had been able to resurrect Nik, she snuck off to find Delphine’s body to do the same. Ms. Heather was only a harpy, after all, and Myreen was a hybrid chimera, acclaimed by many after her defeat of Draven as the most powerful being in the world. If Ms. Heather could do it, why couldn’t she?

  Myreen had brought a lighter with her and lit some paper on fire to use its light. Then she focused on Delphine’s lifeless body, focusing as hard as she could. She syphoned the light so forcefully that the fire went out! She released so much of her energy that, even though she no longer needed to sleep, she felt like was going to pass out and sleep for days!

  But life didn’t return to Delphine. Her skin remained cold and blue.

  Myreen refused to give up. She relit the paper, her hands shaking and her fingers slipping against the flint of the lighter several times before it ignited. But as she placed her hands on Delphine’s chest once more, her energy was so drained that she couldn’t even pull light from the dying flames of the mostly charred cinders.

  All the hope that Nik’s revival had inspired snuffed out like a candle in a rogue breeze. Myreen broke down and cried. She hadn’t been able to save Kendall, and she couldn’t save Delphine. She may have killed Draven, but she was the one who was defeated.

  “I’d like to offer this moment for anyone who would like to come up and share a fond memory of someone we lost,” Oberon invited as Myreen came back to the moment.

  For the next hour, mourners stood before the crowd and shared stories of fallen students, teachers and soldiers. Some of the stories made Myreen laugh and some made her cry. Especially when Princess Reya of Zardani, Kendall’s mother, shared a story from Kendall’s youth. The princess broke down in tears before she could finish the story and fled from the spotlight. Kendall was her only child. Myreen couldn’t help but blame herself for the Princess’s pain.

  Eventually, no one else wished to speak, and Oberon ended the ceremony, welcoming everyone into the Dining Hall for the reception.

  Myreen hung back as people funneled toward the main building. She wanted to pay her respects to Kendall’s mom.

  Once the area had cleared enough for her to navigate through, she found Princess Reya wiping her eyes beside Queen Anali. Both women were stunning beauties, even for mermaids. Princess Reya had the same sandy brown hair as Kendall, yet it floated about her in a way that reminded Myreen of her mom. She remembered that Kendall had told her the two princesses had met years ago and become friends. Myreen could easily imagine the two young women talking and laughing together.

  “Princess Reya?” Myreen began as she approached.
“I’m Myreen, Zaia’s daughter.” She extended a hand of introduction.

  Nostalgia sparked in the princess’s eyes, for a moment taking her away from her sorrow. “You’re Zaia’s daughter? Yes, I can see her eyes on your pretty face. How is she? Is she here? I’d love to see her again. It’s been ages.”

  Myreen’s heart dropped. “Umm, no, she...passed away a few months ago.”

  “Oh, dear, I’m so sorry.” Her brows pinched in sincere pity. “To lose a mother at such a young age.”

  Myreen nodded, momentarily choking on the loss of her mother. She swallowed. “I knew your son. Kendall was a good person.”

  Princess Reya laughed pitifully. “You don’t have to sugarcoat it for me, dear. I know all about his desertion. He disgraced the royal family when he sided with the vampires. But...he was still my son.” She bit her lip as it puckered in sadness.

  “He may have made some bad choices, but I wanted you to know that in the end, he fought bravely. In the end, he made the right decision, and Draven killed him for it. Your son died redeemed.”

  Princess Reya smiled and really started weeping. “Thank you, Myreen. Some day, when the wound isn’t so fresh, I’d love to hear your side of the story. It would be nice for our people to remember him as a hero and not a traitor.”

  “Of course,” Myreen said. “I’d be happy to preserve Kendall’s memory any way I can.” She smiled and rubbed the princess’s shoulder, then quickly withdrew her hand remembering that she was touching royalty.

  Queen Anali excused the two of them and they adjourned to the main building with everyone else. Myreen felt a little lost as they left, like she was floating alone in an empty sea.

  A tap on her shoulder made her jump. She spun around.

  Kol stood in front of her with his hands shoved awkwardly in the pockets of his black dress pants. His expression looked conflicted, yet surprisingly vulnerable.

  “Can we talk?” he asked.

  Yes, yes, YES!!! she screamed in her head, but shrugged and nodded.

  He began to walk toward the garden, gesturing for her to follow him. They strolled leisurely until they reached the pavement between the flower beds, the tension between them tighter than a tightrope. Kol sat down on the nearest bench, and Myreen sat beside him, waiting with baited breath for whatever he had to say. Was this the end for them, or was it an apology? Or was this talk going to be about something completely unrelated and they were just supposed to sweep their issues under the rug? All three were possible with Kol.