The Culling (Book 1): Splinter Skill

by Bell, A. C.

  “You want to fly all the way to Quebec for dinner?” I teased.

  “Haha, you’re hilarious,” she said.

  The middle-aged man who had been finishing his purchase at the counter strode past me just then and I glanced back to see Raiden and Alexandra talking. From the looks of it, Raiden was gesturing to the Phoenix book with a broad grin. I smiled at his enthusiasm.

  I chuckled. “Okay, sounds good. Hey, how’s Mary Stuart coming?” The play Armani had chosen for this semester was about the last days of Mary Stuart’s life. She’d gotten the role of Mary several weeks ago.

  “Really well. I actually got a book about her from the library, to help me get into the character better. Did you know she and Henry were cousins?” She made a shivering sound and I laughed.

  “It was common back then, to maintain ‘royal blood’. So, creepy. Who’s playing Henry?”

  “Brent Ackerman.” The groan in Nikki’s words made me laugh so hard that a man poked his head out of an aisle. I quickly quieted down so I wouldn’t be rude to the shoppers around the store. Brent, for all intents and purposes, was Nikki’s rival. It’s not that they tried for the same roles or anything; that would be weird since she was a girl and she was, well, not. Brent had always felt that she and him would make the perfect Broadway power couple. Professionally, not romantically. Nikki couldn’t stand his ego.

  “I bet it’s interesting having to pretend to be in love with him,” I said.

  “You have no idea.” She groaned again more exaggeratedly.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and I swiveled to the windows. Someone was watching me, I could feel it. As I was trying to assure myself it was just my paranoia, I spotted a man across the street leaning next to the doorway of a restaurant. For whatever reason, he was in fact watching me. His demeanor was unthreatening, but I couldn’t relax. Something about the amount of focus he was giving me was unsettling.

  “Sorry, I’ve got to go. What time are you done with rehearsal?”

  “I can be there by six.”

  “Okay, see you then.” We said our goodbyes as Raiden appeared in my periphery with a bag.

  “Hot date?” He arched an eyebrow in a way that made me think of a cartoon supervillain.

  “Dinner plans with Nikki,” I said.

  “Ah.” He handed me the bag and slipped his hands into his coat pockets. I straightened to leave but hesitated. The man across the street was still watching me, but his face was now stricken with anger. A chill traced its icy fingers along my spine. He lifted a hand toward me and I scrunched my eyebrows in confusion. Raiden cursed.

  Raiden’s arm wrapped around me as the row of windows shattered in an instant. I think I screamed. Others in the store did. Raiden pulled me behind the closest bookshelf to shield us from the glass and even used himself to shield me. For several heartbeats of confusion and panic, everything was still and quiet. Then a few people in the store moved to see what had happened, including Alexandra. Raiden and I peeked out. Curious onlookers on the street were staring in baffled horror, some of them recording with their phones.

  Alexandra examined the windows, raking her hands through her hair in shock and dread. I hoped her insurance would cover it. Raiden stepped through the frame of the window, glass crunching beneath his weight. I followed suit, scanning the street for the man I’d seen. He was nowhere to be found.

  “What was that?”

  Raiden’s was on full alert, looking around. “I don’t know.”

  Just to be safe, I quickly crossed the street to the restaurant the man had been standing near. He hadn’t ducked inside from what I could tell. Raiden eased past me toward the restrooms. He checked the men’s’ while I peeked into the women’s just in case. We both returned empty handed.

  15 Worg

  Peter rapped his knuckles on the red painted door to Slade’s apartment. He knew Adeline would still be at the bookstore with the other one. Given how much Adeline loved books, they could be there quite a while. That gave Peter a good chance to chat one on one with the high-and-mighty prick who had instigated all of this and attempt to elicit some truthful answers.

  “Back so soon?” Came the muffled gravelly voice on the other side of the door. Slade pulled the door open, but the amusement in his face deflated to annoyance when he saw it was only Peter.

  “Oh, it’s you.”

  “Yeah.” Peter stuffed his hands into the pockets of his faded green denim jacket. “Are you gonna let me in or not?”

  Slade failed to restrain an eye roll, but he stepped aside and tugged the door open all the way. Peter strolled in, taking his time while Slade waited to shut the door.

  Peter looked around at the strange decorum once again. “You’ve got a weird place.”

  “Thanks.” Slade let the sarcasm drip like venom from the word. He turned his back on Peter and marched into the lifted kitchen. “Why are you here?”

  Glass jingled in the fridge door as Slade pulled it open. At a glance, Peter saw glass beer bottles lining the door, but at closer look, he realized they were all labelled “non-alcoholic”. Slade straightened with one and, noticed Peter looking, narrowed his eyes and shut the door with a whoomp.

  “Why are you here?” Slade repeated as he popped the cap.

  “You don’t like me.”

  Slade tipped the bottle to his lips, not breaking eye contact. “Nope.”

  Peter chuckled. “That’s fine, I don’t like you either, but since Adeline wants to keep you guys around, I want to know a little more about you.”

  Slade took another swig of beer. When he didn’t tell Peter to shove off, Peter swung a leg around one of the stools on his side of the counter.

  “How old are you?”

  Slade smirked. “Old enough.”

  Peter narrowed his brown eyes. “What about your friend?”

  “Younger.”

  Peter rolled his eyes and looked around, swiveling on his stool. “So, you both live here?”

  “There weren’t any other openings when he came down. It’s more convenient, anyway.”

  “So, you asked him to come?”

  “As you may have noticed, I’m not much of a people person. He’s made a living off of being both good with people and good at reading them, so I asked for his help.”

  “You seem to get along with Adeline fine.”

  “That’s different.”

  “Because she’s a woman?”

  Slade screwed up his face in incredulity at the insinuation. “No.”

  “Then what’s your connection?” Peter forward over the counter, stubbornly fixing Slade with suspicious eyes as Slade looked away. “Why would someone specifically ask you to check up on a Viesci dhampir?” Peter eyed him, daring him to deny what Peter suspected.

  Slade exhaled frustratedly and thumbed the bottle on the counter with a loud twack high pitched enough to make Peter flinch. “Get out.” He marched around the other side of the kitchen to the living room, abandoning Peter and expecting to be obeyed.

  “I knew it.” Peter swivelled around to face him, ignoring the command. “You’re a Viesci. That’s why you smell different. Why haven’t you told Adeline? It could help her understand.”

  Slade paused his retreat and his head dipped toward the floor. After a few moments, he set his rump against the arm of the couch and let out a sigh, crossing his arms and still staring at the floor. “It’s not something I talk about.”

  Peter frowned in remorse. Given the Viesci history, he couldn’t blame Slade for distancing himself from it.

  “What about your friend?”

  Slade stiffened. “What about him?”

  “He has a heartbeat. I heard it pounding when we were chasing the cynephi. What is he?”

  Slade glared and crossed his arms tight over his chest. “Leave him alone. He’s been through a lot.”

  Another pang of guilt. “I’m sorry, I just…”

  “You want to look after your friend. I get it.” Slade ruffled
a hand through his dark blond hair. “We met during the War of the French Revolution. Raiden was a medic. He saved my life, then I saved his. After the war, we went our ways but stayed in contact. He’s gone back and forth from being a paramedic to being an environmental lawyer, always trying to improve the world while I, well, didn’t. I preferred lazier ways of making money, namely the curb exchange. These days I work when I get bored, usually as a chef.”

  Peter nodded, focusing on listening rather than making smart remarks. That war had been at least two hundred years ago. While he pondered, Slade leaned back and crossed his arms.

  “You know, from what Adeline tells me, you’re quite the animal activist. You and Raiden would probably get along if you gave him a chance. If you cared about who he is, not what.”

  Peter sighed guiltily. He was right. But knowing he was being unfair didn’t make him feel any less uncomfortable about not knowing what Raiden was. Peter had always been someone who needed all the facts. Not knowing made Raiden a variable he couldn’t account for.

  The apartment door burst open then and Raiden stormed in, trailed by Adeline. Her features were calm, trained not to give her way, but the pallor in her tawny beige skin gave her away. Peter puffed up in a protective air.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Raiden spoke first, tense and fiery from whatever had happened. “We have a problem. Someone blew the windows at the bookstore.”

  Peter knotted his brows. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean they all shattered at once. This guy just lifted his hand and they all broke.”

  Adeline stepped past him and set a bag of books on the counter, then leaned beside his stool.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “What are you thinking?” Slade asked Raiden. “Sorcerer? Someone trying to expose what the bookstore really is?”

  Uncertainty etched deep between Raiden’s brows. “I don’t know. I don’t think we can overlook the possibility that he might be another dhampir. It didn’t look like he was casting a spell, but he was across the street so who knows? But he seemed more fixated on Adeline than the store.”

  An uncomfortable frown curled Adeline’s lips.

  “The most important thing is finding out which one he was after, then we can worry about what he is,” Peter interjected.

  “There’s someone we could ask,” Slade said.

  Nausea roiled in Peter’s gut. Worg. He was talking about Worg.

  “Who is it?” Adeline asked.

  “An old friend of mine,” Slade said. “He’s a seer. Raiden and I will head out to see him and get back to you when we find out what, if anything, he knows.”

  “What? No. I want to come.”

  “No, you don’t,” Peter argued.

  Slade crossed his arms over his chest and fixed Adeline with an analytical stare. “You’ve had to jump into our world much faster than I’d planned. It’s a lot to take. Peter is right, there’s a reason Worg lives in isolation.”

  Adeline set her jaw. “I’m coming.”

  ***

  Peter had agreed to fill in for me with Nikki if I didn’t make it back in time for dinner. Given that the drive alone had taken us two hours over to Massachusetts and now we apparently had to go for a hike through the woods, it didn’t seem that unlikely that I would be late. Raiden’s insistence that I change into boots that travel well meant we could be in this forest for a while, as did the Maglite flashlight each of us carried.

  Despite the fact that the clouds had abandoned their symphony long ago, a gust of chilled wind stroked my face as I climbed from Slade’s dark blue Chevrolet Silverado. Wildlife bustled in the woods around me and I looked down both ends of the empty road. “How far in does this guy live?” I asked.

  “A few miles,” Slade said.

  Raiden trudged past me toward the tree line, a step behind Slade. He adjusted his jacket on his shoulders and zipped it up. First blushing and now getting cold? Lamia were looking increasingly ordinary. Except for the drinking blood part. I tried not to think about it like that. I used Slade’s metaphor and told myself it was like a diabetic needing an insulin shot or an asthmatic needing an inhaler. Raiden and Slade couldn’t help it any more than anyone with such a condition could.

  I sprinted after them. Autonomy made the long trek less tiresome. Mindlessly following my feet and enjoying the kaleidoscope of leaves kept me from getting impatient for our arrival. When our destination finally revealed itself, however, I hesitated.

  “What’s a mausoleum doing all the way out here?” I asked.

  This vast gothic structure could house at least two hundred, maybe even more. The ivory stone was filigreed around the doorways and the little cut-out windows. Natural overgrowth clung to the crevices of the stonework. It was beautiful to the side of me that enjoyed classic novels. The rational side of me wondered and even sort of dreaded the kind of person we would be meeting if he lived in a place like this in the middle of nowhere.

  Raiden nudged my arm and offered a reassuring smile. “It holds a specific kind of people, one we can’t let others see, especially these days. It’s enchanted, like Renenet’s manor, to keep them hidden. Just remember that you’re not in any danger.”

  I watched Slade flick his flashlight on and disappear inside. “Who are we here to see?” I asked.

  “The caretaker who lives here. He’s a seer, like Alexandra, just older and much more potent. Ready?”

  I nodded, staring at the doorway. Raiden was right, though; they wouldn’t have agreed to bring me here if it was dangerous. I followed Slade’s lead and pressed the switch on my flashlight.

  The cold, crisp air inside surprised me, even though I knew a place like this would be chilly. Despite the fact that we were in an old stone structure in the middle of Massachusetts, it was at least dry inside, so the cold didn’t feel as bad as it otherwise would have. I squinted as the glare of Slade’s flashlight burned my eyes for a moment and he lowered it. I made a face at him.

  His chuckle reverberated through the space. “Sorry. This way,” he said.

  I was careful when I strode after him, shining my flashlight on the ground for anything I might trip on. We passed a number of rooms and inside I caught a brief glance of rectangular wall departments in rows along the walls. How many, I wondered, were occupied?

  Slade’s legs came into view of the light when I found him waiting outside a room at the end of the hall. He laughed and squinted when I lifted the light to his face in retribution. Behind the heavy wooden door, I found a candle lit room about the size of a studio apartment. Large bookcases rested against the wall in front of me, filled with old tomes, and I had to pull myself away before I got sucked in by curiosity. Either the person who lived here had no idea it was the twenty first century, or they had a thing for old wooden furniture.

  A large decorative rug covered most of the floor and an unusual assortment of objects cluttered the room, some large enough to stand on their own, others sitting on tables or shelves. I avoided looking at a shelf that contained jars of various body parts or organs—I wasn’t even going to speculate why they were there—and one of the tables housed small display cases that held bugs of all kinds. On the shelf above it was a wooden jewelry tree. Each branch held the leather strip of a talisman.

  The room struck me as the type of alchemy lab you would find in a fantasy novel, as I had expected to find in Hemway’s lab. A great number of alembics, crucibles, mortar and pestle sets, and test tubes were left about in a seemingly haphazard fashion on other tables, some with herbs and liquids in them, though I couldn’t tell if any of them were doing anything at the moment. There was even what looked like a wall furnace for smelting metal.

  Raiden and Slade stopped to analyze the test tubes, speculating what might be in them among themselves. A desk was at the far end of the room, stacked with books and papers. Hemway would have been appalled by the mess.

  My heart stopped when I realized a man was seated in
the chair behind the desk. Or at least, he used to be a man. I couldn’t tell how long he’d been dead. Splotches of his ashen skin were purple with decay. His shoulder length dark hair looked as if it hadn’t been washed in quite some time. His features were sunken and his head rested against the back of his chair, eyes closed.

  “Oh no...” I muttered to myself. Had Slade or Raiden seen, yet? I stood transfixed, unable to make myself tell them of his fate.

  The dead man’s eyes abruptly sprung open and my voice caught in my throat. I backpedaled, nearly tripping on an elevated stone tile. Hands caught hold of me before I fell and righted me. Slade smirked at my side.

  “Sorry,” I managed to sputter. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the dead man’s form as he rose from his chair. His cataract clouded eyes were fixed on me as well, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand at alert.

  “Willkommen, stranger, to the world of the dead,” he said in a thick German accent. The hollow tone of his deep voice suggested it had been altered by the decay of his body. I felt goosebumps rise on my arms. He crept slowly to the end of his desk, but he must not have seen it correctly due to the cataracts. His thigh bumped into it loudly and he lurched over to brace himself on the wooden surface. His hair shifted, though he quickly righted it; A wig. He exclaimed what must have been a German expletive and, despite myself, I felt a giggle bubble out of me as the illusion of his creepy facade was broken. He straightened, rubbing his thigh. “I suppose the charade is ‘up’, as you young people say,” he said.

  Though he apparently hadn’t been using a fake voice or accent for intimidation, the lighter timbre he now adopted made him much less threatening. He grinned, showing a set of pearly white dentures instead of the rotten teeth I expected to see.

  “It’s good to see you, Worg.” Slade met him at the side of the desk and drew him into a familial hug that shattered any remaining tension in the room. Slade helped Worg back into his seat among friendly chatter the way one would assist an elderly relative. In German. Slade could speak fluent German. Raiden appeared at my side.