Fight the Darkness

by W. J. May

  The look on Jason’s face said he was not to be trifled with, and there was no legitimate reason Simon could think of that would allow him to stay. With the utmost reluctance he backed away, breaking into a steady jog while keeping an eye on the proceedings the entire time.

  Halfway across the room he grabbed Tristan by the arm, stealing his tatù in the process so he could still hear what was going on.

  “Shit, Simon! What have I told you?!”

  Simon waved him off with a dismissive “Carry on” before continuing with his jog. On the other side of the Oratory, Beth and Jason were hard at work once more.

  Her hands were raised again in the air, but no matter his prompting she seemed incredibly reluctant to simply ‘let go.’ All of her curiosity about developing full-body fire, as they taken to calling it, had been successfully quenched the second she’d lit half of London on fire. To try it again now in a room full of all her friends? She wasn’t exactly open to the idea.

  “I don’t know...I don’t know if I...” Her voice faded out as she shook her head nervously.

  Jason wrapped his fingers around her wrists. “You don’t know if you can?” he asked softly. “I know that you can. You know that you can. I just need you to try.”

  “No, it’s not that.” She shook her head again, trembling a little as she imagined the task he was asking her to do. “I don’t know if I should.”

  At this, Jason told her to open her eyes. She did so nervously, only to find him staring back with that same steady calm.

  “I promise you, I’m not going to let you hurt anyone in this room.” His eyes bore intently into hers, like a snake charming a mouse. “You have my word.”

  It was kind of impossible not to believe him. Even Simon found himself taking a tentative breath as he rounded the corner and headed their way.

  She wavered, and Jason’s face softened into a gentle smile.

  “Do you trust me?”

  There was a beat, then she nodded. “Yeah—I trust you.”

  He nodded, too, looking pleased. “Then close your eyes, and let’s try it again.”

  With a look of steely determination, she did as he asked. But in the split second before her eyes flickered shut, Simon ran past in his circle and the two of them locked eyes.

  In a single heartbeat, a rush of calm washed over her. At the same time, a rush of ice-blue fire rushed over her entire body.

  A gasp fell across the Oratory, followed by a simultaneous hush. Simon’s eyes danced and he froze where he stood. He had never seen anything like it.

  No longer was Beth the fifteen-year-old girl he’d first met and fallen in love with. No longer was she the kind but bold teenager, hidden away on her family farm with her head in a book.

  The person he was looking at wasn’t a girl at all. She was a full-grown woman.

  A woman of complete, blinding perfection.

  Jason paced back a few more steps as the front of his shirt started smoking dangerously. A second later, the mats she was standing on began to melt. Beth didn’t notice. She had eyes only for Simon. But it soon became clear that, unless the flames went out quickly, Guilder University would be one Oratory short.

  “Beth,” Jason said in his same mesmerizing voice. Then a little louder. “Beth.”

  She turned her head and seemed to notice him for the first time. The flames around her were so intense it looked like she was almost floating. If Simon’s eyes had been able to penetrate the light, he wouldn’t have been surprised if her feet were a few inches off the ground.

  “I need you to put it out now, Beth.”

  If anything, the flames only burned brighter. The rest of the students were beginning to back away now, their faces showing traces of genuine fear. Only Tristan and Jennifer remained on the outskirts, but even they were staring at Beth with a touch of anxiety.

  “Beth,” Jason said again, more firmly this time, “I need you to put it out. Now.”

  Her face tightened up in panic, as she shook her head. “I can’t!”

  “Yes, you—”

  “Jason, I’m trying! I can’t!”

  There was another burst of heat as the mats around her leapt with flames. Jason took another step back, and with one hand discreetly waved the rest of the children out the door.

  Again Simon silently remained.

  “You can do this,” he said, although it was getting harder and harder to hear him over the roar of the fire. “I promise you can do this. Just take a breath—”

  But the panic set in as the flames began to overtake her. Ice-blue tears poured down her face, and her eyes were so bright it was almost hard to look into them.

  “Just get out of here!” she cried. “Knock me out or something!”

  “No one’s knocking you out. You can do this on your own!”

  But Simon was no longer sure whether or not Jason believed that. As Beth covered her face in panic, he saw his mentor glance discreetly around for something that would be up to the task.

  It wasn’t a rational decision. It wasn’t anything he consciously decided to do.

  It was a pure animalistic instinct that sent Simon into the fire.

  “SIMON—NO!”

  Jason’s face twisted up in horror, but it was at that moment that Beth lifted her eyes.

  All at once it was like there were no flames between them. No roaring fire that could threaten to tear them apart. It was just the two of them. Beth and Simon.

  The way it was always supposed to be.

  He hurried toward her, flinching a bit as the heat bit into his face. He kept his voice calm. “Beth, you’ve got to stop the fire now.”

  Her eyes widened as she glanced helplessly down at her hands. By now Simon was only a few steps away, and getting steadily closer. The flinching grew more pronounced, and little abrasions began appearing on his skin.

  “You’ve got to stop the fire, or it’s going to hurt me.”

  Another step forward. Another rush of pain.

  Beth pulled in a series of deep breaths, her tiny shoulders rising and falling quickly behind a shimmering haze of heat. For a solitary instant the fire dimmed—before coming back in full force.

  “I can’t,” she sounded exhausted. “Simon, please. Get out of here.”

  A tender smile lit his face as he calmly shook his head. “Not a chance, sweetheart. You stay, I stay... remember? We’re in this together.”

  Their gaze met again—one full of terror, the other full of the gentlest love. Although neither one seemed to notice, Simon’s shoes caught fire.

  Then slowly, little by little, one by one, the flames began to disappear.

  Simon walked forward at a steady pace as they shrank back before him. Each time he thought he was going to get burned for sure, they managed to dissipate the second before they touched his skin. When he and Beth were finally standing face to face, it was only her body that was still on fire, shimmering with that radiant icy blue.

  “I’m going to kiss you now, Beth,” he murmured, unconcerned as to who else might be watching. “You’ll have to put it out the rest of the way.”

  He leaned in and closed his eyes, feeling the heat of the fire dancing across his face. But a second later, his lips closed over hers. Not a flame between them. Not even any smoke.

  The kiss was quick, but tender. Just a frozen moment in time. A solitary instant where they could be themselves, before their eyes opened and they were back in the real world.

  “Well, I think we know the key to unlocking all your other emotions.”

  Simon and Beth turned as one to where Jason was still standing a few feet way. His face was an indecipherable mask, and his voice was so soft it barely carried over the room.

  “Love.”

  Chapter 8

  “SO THEN...HE JUST WALKED out of the room?”

  Tristan and Simon were leaning back on the floor of Simon’s dorm room. Brick had been banished so the two of them could talk, and since they had purposely skipped dinner that night in
the cafeteria, they were already halfway through his ‘secret’ stash of snack food.

  “Without a freaking word.” Simon crushed a cheese wafer between his teeth as he replayed the frightful image again in his mind.

  He and Beth just standing there, frozen after their impromptu kiss. The look on Jason’s face as he spun on his heel and walked away. The chilling silence that followed after the door slammed shut behind him.

  A belated shiver ran up the back of his spine, and he shook his head. “It was kind of scary.”

  Tristan raised his eyebrows incredulously. “Kind of scary?” he quoted, heavy sarcasm dripping from every word. “You and Beth kissing in front of Jason was kind of scary?” He shook his head and snapped off a red vine in his mouth. “Yeah, Simon, I would say so.”

  The sun was just setting through the tall oriel windows, long shadows from the stone dormitory running down the dark lawns. From where he sat, Simon could just barely see the top of Beth’s little apartment, the chimney peeking up over the iron gate. They hadn’t really spoken to each other since the incident either. Just a mumbled, ‘we should probably go,’ before they quickly parted at the door and went their separate ways.

  He was proud of her. He wanted her to know that. He had never in his entire life seen a display of power as great as the one he’d seen that day. His very bones were still vibrating with the thrill of it. Desperate to see it again. Aching to try it out for himself.

  But all of that was somehow overshadowed by a single kiss.

  Truth be told, he didn’t know whether or not he was even going to be at Guilder come the morning. Chances were, Jason was with Dean Robbins right now, and the two were conspiring to throw him out for good. At this point, he could hardly blame them. He hadn’t done much these last few weeks to endear himself to any of the faculty, and he had long since topped the Guilder list of being a giant pain in Jason’s ass. If it were Simon in charge, he’d probably throw him out as well.

  As usual, Tristan seemed to be reading his thoughts. “Do you think you’re going to get expelled?” he asked quietly.

  Simon lowered his eyes to the floor, thinking fast. “I don’t know.”

  To be honest...he wasn’t sure if he cared.

  He had a handle on the warlock now. It no longer controlled him—he controlled it. Yes, it would take years and years of more practice to fully master it, but Jason had given him the tools. He technically knew how to do it by himself. Even if it wasn’t the ideal situation, he could find a way to make it work.

  The problem was Beth.

  No way was Simon leaving her here all by herself. No way was he going to abandon her now that she’d unlocked this new and impossible level of her powers. No way was he leaving her... period.

  Unfortunately, that was the other part of the problem.

  “Fifty-six days,” Tristan announced suddenly.

  Simon glanced up. “What?”

  “That’s how long the two of you made it before someone besides me found out. Fifty-six days.” Simon stared at him in shock, and he continued with a slight frown. “That’s not counting Jennifer, of course. But at this point I think we all know that she’d already caught on...”

  “Fifty-six days?”

  “That’s right,” Tristan said proudly.

  “Fifty-six?”

  “Yep.”

  “You’ve been counting?!”

  “Well...when I gave you the inevitable I told you so, I wanted to have the specifics.”

  For a second, the boys just stared at each other. Then, at the same time, they broke into wild, breathless laughter.

  To be fair, it could have gone either way. A laugh or a fight. They’d done both many, many times before. But whatever the reaction, the both of them needed a break. Tension had been mounting inside the Oratory like a pressure-cooker set to blow. In a way, they were almost relieved the nagging secret had finally gotten out into the open. Now at least they could breathe.

  “I’m going to kill you,” Simon gasped, when he finally got control of himself. “I’m going to wait until you’re sleeping, then drop you from the top of Joist. You should remember how a fall like that feels. It’ll be damn near poetic.”

  Tristan dodged the pillow he threw, and came up grinning. “You couldn’t kill me. No matter how hard you tried.” His face grew abruptly thoughtful. “Your girlfriend probably could, though. I have never seen anything like what she did today.”

  Simon sobered up to, his face growing suddenly solemn has he remembered. “Me neither. She was...spectacular.”

  Tristan cocked his head to the side, remembering as well. “Makes you wonder about her dad, right? The things he was capable of?”

  Simon shook his head bitterly. “The man doesn’t need a tatù to be capable of terrible things. Trust me. He can do them all on his own.”

  The two of them were quiet for a while, letting their minds wander while consuming several tons of pre-packaged, processed food. It must have been a funny sight, Simon thought to himself when he finally glanced around. Sitting there, lazily snacking on the floor, was probably one of the only times that he and Tristan would ever look remotely like ‘normal’ high school students.

  “Hey, did you ever explain to Mary about the email?”

  Tristan broke out of his salt-induced reverie long enough to scowl. “She wouldn’t even talk about it. Just threw a balled up piece of paper at me and slammed the door.”

  Just last week, Tristan had been hanging out with his girlfriend when he had received an email message from a certain Jennifer Jones. While Tristan had never once done anything to invite her multiple advances, that didn’t stop her from sending him the occasional topless photo. That night was no exception. But since Mary had been the one on his computer, thinking it was her own, the text had done more damage than most.

  Simon let out a low whistle and shook his head. “I don’t know what to tell you, man. I don’t know how you would explain someone like Jennifer without meeting her first.”

  It was true. The girl was endearing, but as thoroughly warped as they came. Despite her penchant for leather and topless propositions to Tristan, Simon felt sure that the real one she was after was him. Only, there seemed to be something more genuine about her affections. Something she didn’t want to risk with brash proposals and tawdry texts.

  He wondered vaguely how things would change, now that there was no longer any way she could pretend that he and Beth weren’t already together.

  “That’s alright,” Tristan yawned, crumpling an empty bag of crisps. “I’d rather not take advice from someone whose love life is about to get him kicked out of school anyway.”

  Simon snorted and tossed over a wafer. “Thanks, man.”

  “No problem.”

  But beneath the teasing, the boys were troubled. Ever since that fateful night when the two of them had tried to kill each other in the Oratory, they had been inexplicably bonded together as best friends. Never was there one without the other. Never did either one have a single thought they didn’t immediately have to share.

  “Actually, I...” Tristan hung his head. “I can’t picture this school without you.”

  The unexpected burst of honesty caught Simon by surprise, and he looked up to meet his friend’s suddenly somber gaze.

  “If there’s a hearing or some way they might let you stay...I’ll speak on your behalf,” he promised quietly. “Say whatever I need to.”

  For a second, Simon was sincerely touched. In a way, he hated it. The way that Tristan could cut right to the core of him. Beth was the same way. He hated how open it made him feel. How vulnerable. On the other hand...a part of him secretly lived for it.

  He brushed off the touching words with a casual shrug. “Actually, I’d rather not take the support from someone whose academic life is about to get him kicked out of school anyway.”

  Tristan’s concern melted away with a bark of laughter. It was true. Although he had maintained a perfect grade point average throughout his e
ntire time at Guilder, there was a chance he was in some serious trouble. Not due to poor performance, but due to a truly incredible amount of unexcused absences. Simon had the same number of absences, of course, as the two of them were usually truant together. But Tristan had made the mistake of taking an extra ten units this semester in the vain hope of making his parents proud. It was a failed venture on all counts.

  “Fair enough.” He shook his head when Simon offered him a soft drink, but ripped open a bag of M&Ms. “I basically had to get down on my knees before Renley allowed me to take a make-up exam. Said that if I missed even a single question, he was writing off the class as an incomplete.”

  Simon shook his head. “It’s ridiculous. You’re in training. And you were in a coma.”

  Tristan grinned. “Actually, I was in hiding with you that time. Trying to sneak back out of that club over on Maxwell.”

  A deep chuckle shook Simon’s shoulders as he remembered. “How is it possible that two people with super powers had so much trouble with one human bouncer?”

  “That guy was not human,” Tristan swore darkly. “He was some kind of robotic demon. I’m fairly sure over the course of the night, he cloned himself several times.”

  Two sets of laughter rang back out over the room, before they were cut short with a loud and incessant knock.

  “Hey guys,” Brick called angrily from the other side, “I’m only doing one more lap around the building, and then you have to let me back in, alright? It’s almost lights out.”

  Simon and Tristan chanted cheerfully in unison. “Sure, Brick.”

  The big guy took a step away from the door, breathing heavily. “And you two haven’t been eating all my snack food again, right?”

  There was a pause.

  “No, Brick.”

  “Good.” He shuffled off down the hall, still muttering something that sounded like, “No respect for other people’s property. There are boundaries, damn it...”

  Tristan flashed Simon a grin as he got to his feet. “I should go. Good luck with him, by the way. You might want to clean this stuff up.” He gestured to the mess of aluminum wrappers and half-eaten chocolate bars littering the floor.