by H G Lynch
“Only sometimes. It doesn’t hurt them, so there’s no need to look so horrified, Chickadee. And I’m not telling you what my powers are. I see no reason why I should share such personal information with you people. After all, at least two of you want me out of the house, and one of you can’t decide whether or not to throw a plant pot at my head.” Hiro smirked, looking supremely amused as he rolled onto his side and looked up at them all.
Ember blanched. How could he know she wanted to throw a plant pot at him? That was awfully specific, and nobody could read her mind, not even Reid…
“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong, Cutie.” Hiro was looking at her now, and she shrank back, her temples tickling suddenly. Reid looked bewildered and irritated. “You see, vampires can’t read your mind. Something to do with the way the vampire blood manifests with the witch blood in you, makes your mind impenetrable to vampires, witches and other Elementals. Kitsunes and angels though, are a different story. We’re strong enough, after a certain number of years, to read the mind of anyone or anything. I’d have thought Raz would’ve told you he’d been prying into your head. He seemed so honest.” Hiro snickered.
Ember swallowed, feeling a little sick. She didn’t like the idea that anyone could read her mind without her permission. Sure, she could still feel it like a prickling at her temples, but only when she was paying attention. It was less defined than when Reid did it.
“Oh, hell no,” Reid hissed, eyes narrowed dangerously at Hiro, “you stay out of her head, or I swear to God, I’ll mix arsenic into your next bowl of milk,” he warned.
Hiro looked unafraid. He just sighed and rolled onto his back again, the firelight casting oddly dancing shadows across his narrow face.
“I have no interest in Ember’s thoughts. I was merely proving I could get into her head. You wouldn’t have believed me had I just told you. Your mind isn’t as safe as you thought, Cutie. And as for the rest of my powers, you shan’t know them unless I deign to show you.” Hiro closed his eyes again, and folded his hands on his stomach.
Ember could feel another headache coming on. “Okay, great. So now I have to watch my thoughts around him and Raz, too. Anyone want to add any other issues to the list while we’re here?” She slumped in her seat, and Reid reached up to run his fingers through her hair. With a soft sigh, she leaned against him, her head hurting a little less as his fingertips moved gently through her hair.
“Relax, Firefly. We’ll work all this out, I promise you,” he murmured in her ear.
“Right. We just need to wait and see what Cris can dig up on The Society. Maybe he’ll get us some useful info, and we can start to make a plan. But for right now, the safest thing to do is just to stay here, I guess,” Ricky said patiently, his tone soothing.
Ember tipped her head down so her hair fell over her face, so nobody could see her expression; she wasn’t so sure this place was so safe anymore. It was that niggling feeling in her gut again, telling her she wasn’t going to sleep well tonight.
Chapter Six
As it turned out, the niggling feeling was right. No sooner had she fallen asleep, than Ember slipped into a disturbing dream.
***
She stood in the park next to her Grandmother’s house, and it looked exactly as it had earlier in the day, before Raz had dropped out of the sky and complicated their holiday. Only, now it was night time, and the snow glittered icily under the moonlight. The fuzzy grey clouds drifted along like bubbles on the surface of a stream, occasionally obstructing the round circle of the silver moon. The air was chilled, raising gooseflesh on her bare arms, and she wondered vaguely why she wasn’t wearing a jumper. The bottoms of her jeans were darkened with melted snow, and the dampness was crawling up her legs, making her skin prickle uncomfortably.
With a sigh, she trudged through the snow to the swing set, and sat down on her swing. When she looked out over the park again, her footsteps had vanished. There wasn’t a mark in the pristine snow. It was eerie. And so was the silence. Usually, there would be rustling in the trees, the high-pitched squeak of the swing chains, the lonely hoot of an owl. But it was utterly silent. Ember felt like she’d gone deaf. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling, so in the hopes of making some noise, she twisted in her swing, expecting the chains to clank against each other. Nothing. Not a breath of noise. Her heart lodged in her throat, pounding like a bird trapped under her skin. Her fear was steadily increasing, though she couldn’t really say why.
She slid off her swing and walked into the middle of the park, turning in a slow circle, looking for a way out of this nightmare. She started toward the exit of the park, and hit an invisible wall as cold and sharp as ice. She gasped, but it made no sound, backed away and ran for the trees.
She jumped the broken fence, landed in a tangle of brambles. The thorns grabbed at her jeans and nipped at her ankles, leaving thin red lines on her skin. Jerking free of the brambles, Ember stumbled onto the snow-dusted trail, and stopped. She didn’t know which way to go. If she went right, it would take her to the road, but odds were, there would be another invisible wall. If she went left, she would wander deeper into the dark, shady, silent trees. For some reason, that idea made her shudder, her stomach twisting. Something prompted her to look up, and she tipped her head back. Sitting in the tree branches above her was Raphael, but he wasn’t alone. There were crows surrounding him, dozens of them, perched on branches so thickly they were almost just a black blur against the deep grey sky. Ember tried to scream, but, again, no sound came out. She felt her eyes sting with tears, her breath catching in her throat in a silent sob. She turned and ran, ran deeper into the trees.
Behind her, she could feel them, the crows. She looked swiftly over her shoulder and saw them winging after her in a great, black cloud, their black eyes glinting like onyx beads. The scariest part though, was that their wings made no noise. With that many of them, so close to her —just twenty feet behind her, she guessed — the noise of flapping wings and rough cawing should’ve been deafening. She couldn’t see Raz anymore.
Up ahead, the darkness seemed to thicken, coalesce into a grotesque shape in the middle of the path. Snow drifted lazily down from above, like glitter sprinkled gingerly over the world. Ember gasped and choked, kept running, closer and closer to the misshapen form ahead. She couldn’t stop, not with those crows behind her. But, as she neared the humped shape in front of her, she felt all the air rush out of her chest, and her knees went weak. Her foot jammed into a tree root sticking out of the ground, and she went down hard, scraping her elbows on the rough, ice-compacted ground. She felt the tears running down her face, freezing on her cheeks, and her chest heaved as she sucked in breath after breath of air so cold it was like swallowing shards of glass. But she couldn’t focus on that. The crows behind her had vanished, leaving the trail behind her clear, disappearing into darkness. Her eyes were locked on the humped shape looming over her. It wasn’t, in fact, one shape, but three. Three people. And one of them was Reid.
He was hanging limp and lifeless between two bulky men in white lab coats. His golden hair was white in the darkness, and it was stained thickly with black. Blood, she thought, horrified. Reid’s jeans were torn, also bloody, his shirt in tatters, exposing long, unhealed gashes down his chest and back, like they’d whipped him. And he hadn’t healed. How was that possible?
Suddenly, the two men holding Reid up let go of him, and he collapsed forward onto the ground. Ember let out a silent yelp and dove for him, but one of the men grabbed her arm. His grip was bruisingly tight. Ember fought against him; It had no effect. He was twice her size. Then, the other man brought out something long and thin that gleamed silver in the dimness. He stepped forward, out of the shadows and into a patch of moonlight, and she saw he was holding a cruel-looking knife, with runes carved into the shiny blade.
With her heart and lungs screaming in terror, her mind went still. She stopped struggling, and focused herself. She tried to feel her mind-limb, tried to suck in heat from aroun
d her, but she felt nothing. There was no springy, flexible layer in her head, nothing to pick up particles of heat from even the coldest of atmospheres. Her fire ability was gone, as was her compulsion. She was helpless. She felt weak, pathetic, useless. Human.
She realised, distantly, that she’d never even felt this defenceless when she was human. She’d always felt something inside her, strong enough to fight off any lethal threat. It had risen up when she’d fought off Joseph Rian that night when he’d tried to attack her. It had always strengthened her when she needed to defend Sherry, or when she disobeyed teachers’ orders, or when she’d done reckless things like climbing too high into trees when she knew the branches couldn’t possibly hold her.
That thing, that part of her, was gone. It left an empty space in her mind and in her chest.
The man in front of her moved ever nearer, the knife glinting wickedly in his hand. Now that he was close enough, she could see, with increasing horror, he had no face. No discernible features. Just a blank oval. Like skin stretched over a metal plate. For a split second, she considered screaming, and dismissed the idea. It wasn’t worth trying. There was no noise in this place, this horrible nightmare land. Tears were still streaking her cheeks, two lines of icy chill on her skin. She looked to Reid, where he lay, bedraggled and shredded, in the dirt and snow. Blood was staining the whiteness, turning it pink, and spreading out. She couldn’t see his face, couldn’t see any movement, not even a twitch. But he couldn’t be dead. That was impossible. But then again, those gashes all over him should’ve been impossible. They should’ve healed already.
A sudden stinging on her forearm made Ember flinch, and she cowered, lips trembling, as the man with the knife drew the blade down her arm, leaving a gash as long as her finger. Blood dribbled out, the cut burning white-hot like no other slash she’d ever felt. She waited helplessly for the cut to close up, for the skin to stitch back together. It didn’t. It just kept seeping blood down her arm, crimson drops spattering the white snow like macabre art.
The men grunted at each other, and then the one with the knife turned and knelt by Reid. He rolled him over, and Ember felt bile rise in her throat, panic tightening her chest until she couldn’t breathe. Reid’s face was smeared with blood, his skin paler than she’d ever seen it, his hair a tangled mess of yellow and red. His eyes were open, staring straight up, bleached of colour so they shone with a matt glow the colour of the dirty clouds above. Then, man raised his knife and, in a flash of silver light, brought it down, straight into Reid’s chest.
Ember couldn’t hold it back; she screamed. And this time, it made a sound. The most awful, heart-broken, wailing sound, shredding the eerie silence.
***
“Ember! Ember, it’s okay!”
She jerked awake, gasping, soaked in cold sweat, her hair straggling over her face. For a moment, Reid’s face hovered in front of her, white and streaked with blood, his eyes pale and metallic. Her throat closed, and she scrambled backward, her spine hitting the headboard, her head hitting the wall.
“Shh, Ember, it’s me. It’s me, Reid, look.”
She blinked, and the bloody face before her vanished. It was just Reid, his skin fair but not colourless, his hair a silky mass of gold, his eyes a bright, astounding blue that glowed in the dark. His brows were pitched at a worried angle, his mouth pinched, but he seemed unhurt. Just to be sure, Ember reached out —she saw with little surprise that her hand was shaking — and stroked his face. His lips twitched. She opened her mouth, but no noise came out. For half a heartbeat, terror swept over her, until she realised her throat was just dry —and sore. Had she been screaming in her sleep? She hoped not. She swallowed and tried again.
“Take your shirt off,” she commanded, her voice weak and trembling.
Reid’s brows went up into his hair, but he didn’t argue. He grabbed the bottom edge of his t-shirt and yanked it off over his head, held it in his lap while Ember gazed him over. There were no bloody gashes in the perfect skin, no tears in the muscles. She ran her fingers down his chest to be certain, and the skin was as soft and unblemished as it looked, as it had always felt. Finally, her heart and stomach stopped battling for positions in her throat, and she sighed, slumping back into her pillows. She swept her hand over her damp forehead, wiping her hair out of her eyes. Her pyjamas were twisted and very uncomfortable, and her skin itched, but she didn’t feel sick anymore. Reid’s voice was barely a whisper in the darkness, and she felt his hand touch her hers on the bed sheet.
“Emz, you’re okay. You were having a nightmare. Just a bad dream,” he murmured soothingly, his thumb making circles on the back of her hand.
She shook her head, felt water slide down her chin. Confused, she reached up and touched her cheek. It was wet. She’d been crying. She still was crying. How silly. Yet, she couldn’t seem to stop.
“Shh. Tell me what it was about,” Reid whispered, shifting to sit beside her against the headboard. Again, she shook her head. There was a pause, and then lips brushed her cheek.
“It’s alright, Emz. You’re safe. I’m here. I’ll look after you, I’ll protect you,” he said comfortingly.
Only, for some reason, she didn’t think he could.
***
The next morning, she felt like hell. Even after a scalding shower and a mug of hot chocolate, there was a cold knot inside her. She was tired and stressed and she had a headache again, and no matter what she did, the image from her dream, of Reid lying lifelessly, covered in blood, on the ground, wouldn’t leave her mind.
Even when Reid and Hiro were snapping at each other, and Ricky was struggling to keep them from throwing punches, she couldn’t rouse herself enough to help out. She just sat, half-dazed, on the sofa, with her knees tucked up to her chin. She hated acting so pathetic, but that feeling of weakness, of helplessness, had followed her out of the nightmare into reality. She almost wanted to drag a knife over her arm just to see if the cut would heal like it should. She was tempted to snap a flame off her fingers or lift her mug with her mind-limb, just to prove she still had it, but then she feared trying it and finding the mind-limb was really gone. If that happened, she didn’t know what she’d do. For all the havoc and danger her strange blood caused her, she found that she really didn’t want to be human again.
“Hey, Emz, what’s up?” Sherry was suddenly sitting next to her on the sofa, whispering in her ear. Ember turned and blinked at her friend. Sherry’s green eyes were full of concern, her mouth tilted down.
Ember felt her shoulders drop. “Nothing,” she said quietly, but the word was a meaningless echo.
Sherry didn’t buy it. She touched Ember’s arm lightly. “You know you can tell me, Emz. Tell me what’s wrong. I know there’s something. You’ve been withdrawn all day. And I heard you screaming last night. What happened?” Sherry kept her voice low, low enough that the arguing boy wouldn’t overhear.
Ember just shook her head, her lower lip trembled and she bit down on it stubbornly.
Sherry waited a moment, then took her hand, pulling her off the sofa. “Come on. Come talk to me,” Sherry said softly.
Too tired to struggle, Ember followed her down the hall into the guest room.
Sherry closed the door behind them and locked it, turned to face Ember with a look Ember knew well. It was Sherry’s ‘I’m-here-for-you’ look, and it eased the icy knot in Ember’s chest a little. Sherry sat down on the bed, and Ember did the same.
“Okay, now tell me what’s wrong. You had a nightmare last night, didn’t you?” Sherry asked gently.
Ember nodded, her eyes on her hands in her lap.
Sherry waited for her to expand, and when she didn’t, she asked, “And? What happened in it?”
Ember felt her eyes sting and shook her head.
Sherry moved closer, and put a gentle hand on her knee. “Come on, Emz. Talk to me. Please,” she pleaded quietly.
Ember sniffled, swallowed, and peered up at Sherry through her hair. “I ca—” she star
ted, but Sherry smiled and shook her head.
“Don’t tell me you can’t. You’ve told me everything until now. Whatever you saw…” Sherry stopped. She didn’t tell her it was just a dream, didn’t say it was all okay. She knew better. She knew Ember’s dreams weren’t always just dreams. They could be scarily prophetic. Somehow, knowing Sherry understood that made Ember feel a bit better.
“I was in the park. At night. And there was nobody else there. Nothing made any noise. Not the wind or the swing chains or my own voice. Nothing. Silent as the grave. And I couldn’t leave the park. So I ran into the trees, only Raphael was there. With dozens of crows. I ran, and the crows chased me, silent as everything else. Then, something formed ahead of me as I was running and I fell, and the crows disappeared. There were two guys in lab coats and they…they were holding Reid up…He was all covered in-in blood, and there were all these b-bloody gashes all over him and he wasn’t healing…” Ember paused to suck in a breath, “and they had this knife. I felt helpless, totally human. I didn’t have my fire ability or compulsion or anything. One guy cut me with the knife, and I didn’t heal. The cut just kept bleeding. And then the guy…he dropped down beside Reid and…and…” She choked and felt tears drip off her chin. She looked up at Sherry, feeling no shame over the tears in her eyes. “Sherry, what if it happens? What if Reid gets into trouble and I can’t help him? What if someone…” she broke off, biting her lip until she tasted blood.
Sherry leaned forward and put her arms around her, rubbing her back soothingly. “Shh, Emz. That won’t happen. It won’t. You know why?”
Ember shook her head.
“It won’t happen because I know you. Even when you were human, you were never helpless. If Reid was in trouble, you’d find some way to help him. No matter what it took, you’d help him, and Ricky and I would help you. Nothing’s going to happen to Reid,” Sherry pulled back and looked her in the eyes, her expression set and sure. Ember closed her eyes and drew in a long breath, let it out, and nodded. The knot in her chest had eased, almost dissolved completely. Sherry smiled lightly. “There we go. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Then she looked serious again. “Emz, you know you can talk to me about anything, no matter how bad or how trivial it seems. That’s what best friends are for.”