by K.N. Lee
Her homeroom fell silent as she entered and found her way back to her seat. Not entirely surprising eyes followed her to that seat, only to hastily look away when she tried to look back. It was going to be another one of those long days in paradise, she could already tell. Lester's return, and choice to sit down next to her, only made things seem that much more difficult because again, she was stealing glances at him, just like the others did her, trying desperately to figure out what it was about him.
The thread was back. It hung tight between them, a violin string thickness of bright red cord attaching them heart to heart. It unnerved her.
Second period started with a summons.
"Melina Camp will you please report to the Principal's office."
Oh, this was going to be lovely, was the first and last thought she had on the subject before picking up her bag, a presentiment telling her she was going to need it, and started down the hall toward Murphey's office.
The final thirty feet was lined with people, one side and the other, men and women in suits, jogging pants, t-shirts, all of them wearing these thunderous looks on their faces. Dustin's father stood right at the door, his stance one of a fighter who expects violence to break out any moment. Melina looked up at him with interest.
"Can I help you?"
"Just get inside," he snapped.
Melina didn't respond but instead sauntered into Murphey's office already certain of the outcome before her. The suited man followed, closing the door behind them. Murphey sat behind his desk looking as if a hundred years had passed in the three days since the fire. And perhaps for him they had. He steepled his fingers and looked over the point at the girl who dropped herself into the seat in front of him, then flicked his eyes up to his other visitor.
"Melina, we need to talk."
"What about?"
"I think it would be best to lay all our cards on the table immediately." The man withdrew a sheaf of papers from his breast pocket and dropped them on the desk in front of her. "This is a petition to remove you from the rolls of Sun City High School. After the damage which occurred on last week and the testimony of several of your classmates, it has become apparent that you are entirely too dangerous to be allowed to continue in public school. For that reason, we are asking you to vacate the premises immediately."
There was no shock. It was more a surprise it hadn't happened sooner. Melina looked to Murphey for some help, something to say, anything to make this seem less final than it was. When he said nothing, she picked up the sheets and began to thumb through them.
"Is this legal?" she questioned.
"Entirely."
"Are you certain? Last I remember, a student had to do something willfully destructive in order to be expelled and public school is just that, public, you can't just tell me that I can't be here."
"When you've been deemed to be a danger..."
"Have I? Or do people just assume I am? Too scared to actually find out anything about me or even look me in the eye." The difference in their heights when she hopped out of her seat to confront him was marked, but he took a step back just the same, hands almost coming up to ward off a blow. Then he straightened his jacket and tie with a clearing of his throat.
"Melina," Murphey spoke up again, his calm tone at odds with her rising anger. "I already have someone looking into this, the legality of it. I know you didn't start that fire, so willful misconduct it isn't; however, if you hit him, which I know you want to, you will be expelled." He gestured her back to her seat. "Your mother is coming with one of your Aunts to pick you up. Take a few days and let me see if I can make some sense of this mess."
"You're asking me to take the blame even though I didn't do anything."
"Sometimes knowing when to drop a fight is as important as knowing when to pick one, as Arabella used to say. Concede the field, for today."
"Okay." She picked up her bag. "When Mom gets here, tell her I walked home."
With that, Melina walked out, giving the man in the suit the eye as she did so. He sneered but refused to look away. The crowd outside were less sure of themselves, dropping their eyes when hers sought theirs, shifting away when she came close enough to touch. The urge to reach out and grab someone, show them dangerous, was strong. Yet she kept walking. On the front steps, she took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
It was almost all the way out before the first hitch hit her chest and one single hot tear appeared at the corner of her right eye.
Second period held no interest for Lester, instead he watched the stretching thread as it proceeded across his desk and then in the direction of the office. Until it began to move. It moved around him until it walked itself through a wall, a steady vibration playing itself in his head as it did so. He looked out the window in the direction it went in time to see Melina walked stolidly past with her bookbag over her shoulder. Raising his hand, he asked for the bathroom pass knowing full well he had no intention of bringing it back. The teacher was too distracted to notice he took his bookbag with him.
He caught up with her at the edge of the school property, but only by running.
"MELINA!"
When she turned to look at him, he almost lost his nerve, but kept talking.
"I just wanted to talk to you."
"I don't really want to talk to you right now," she said continuing to walk away.
"Look, I know we have some kind of connection. I just wanted to know if it has something to do with this."
He thrust his right hand under her nose and the silver ring, covered in intertwined hearts, caught her attention with a wink of light.
"Where'd you get that?"
"A fairy gave it to me."
It didn't sound nearly as strange when he was saying it to her as it had sounded when he first admitted it to his Father. She turned to look at him, really look at him for the first time. He could feel the way she appraised and figured behind her dark eyes. It was predatory. There was no doubt about it, but not in the same way that other girl's had been. No, this was a predator sizing up a possible equal, not a predator looking at prey.
"We can't talk here," she said. Then she had his arm and was dragging him toward the road. Distantly, he could hear the sound of an engine revving up. By the time they reached the road, it was a roar coming toward them at speed, then with a squeal of wheels it stopped. She climbed into the driver's seat when the door opened for her and said, "Get in".
Lester stepped into the passenger side and sat down. The door shut behind him with a click and a questioning vroom erupted from the engine.
"He's cool. We need to go to the church."
What he could only credit as a chuckle seemed to come from the engine before it started up and the car cut across the road, into a turning lane, and then executed a u-turn without Melina touching the wheel. Lester drew in his breath, closed his eyes, and held onto the door handle.
"Calm down, he won't let us get hit."
"He?"
"This is the Pale Horse, the steed of Death, modernized and upgraded."
That ominous chuckle came from the engine again. Lester suppressed a shiver. It sounded like someone who would take, not only pleasure, but ecstasy from someone else's injuries. Or at least so he imagined.
"But we'll talk about that some more when we get where we're going."
The parking lot of the Holy Flock church was normally empty. No one parked there because no one had any business there anymore. Now, it was just an empty island of blacktop only occasionally tenanted by skateboarders looking for a flat space to practice. When the creamed butter yellow car pulled into the lot and came to a halt, it was occupied for a full two minutes, long enough for the two passengers to get inside and the car to rev once as a goodbye before disappearing into so much sunlight and dust. He would be back when she summoned. He always was.
Melina led the way inside, the lock no stopper after so many years. Lester wandered along behind, looking around as if he expected something different, grander, or m
aybe just a house. He almost tripped over a piece of dislodged carpet and cried out.
"Watch your step," she said without looking back.
The Iron Cross stared down the aisle at them from its place behind the pulpit and Melina walked toward it completely sure to the unmarked wall behind it. Then with a press her hands, a door opened into the wall, beyond it a staircase covered in darkness.
"Right this way, keep your hand on the wall and walk slow."
She didn't heed her own advice, taking the stairs two at a time until Lester lost her in the gloom before his eyes. His own steps were slower, measured, and careful. When they got to the bottom, she was lighting a candle by muttering words over the wick. It caught with a bright blue flame that flickered and tossed shadows back and forth along the walls.
He came to the bottom of the stairs and stopped. Three tables. Why were there three tables this far down and no chairs?
"Where are we?"
"This is what's left of the Holy Flock Church. I thought you knew that."
"I'm new to the town, not just the school, so you'll have to forgive my lack of knowing what the hell you're talking about."
"Religious cult went belly up years ago. Death used to bring me here to practice."
"Death?"
"Yeah, Death, as in the Immortal Death, former keeper of the ring I currently carry. That Death."
"Oh."
"You're new to this whole thing, huh?"
"Yeah. The ring came to me after Mother Skya died, I didn't know it could do things like summon a steed or anything else."
"I don't know everything the ring can do, but I'm pretty sure there is more to it. I only knew about the steed because Death has used him around me before and the whole walking through walls thing. I got the scythe the first time by accident."
"Woah, how much can that thing do?"
"I don't really know. I just know some of it." Melina admitted, leaning back on the coffin. "I wish he were around to ask."
"Isn't he?"
"I don't know where he is or even if he's alright. If he were, I think he'd have come to take this ring back by now." She examined the grinning skull on her left ring finger.
"Could that lady have gotten him?"
"What lady?"
"The red headed lady, she tried to kiss me the night I got the ring, but the fairy warned me she was dangerous and I ran away." He colored some at the admission of his cowardice, but didn't try to defend himself.
"Really pretty, bright red hair, kinda nasty disposition?"
"Didn't get a chance to really probe her personality."
"Cassandra, probably."
"Who's Cassandra?"
"Cassandra is the reason there was a fire at the school. She burned down the home of the bearer of the ring of Disease, Thomas Carey. I almost got caught in the blaze and some of it came with me when the ring brought me back. Took his ring too. She and her brother, Canenda, he's made of smoke, want all the rings for something, probably to end humanity or something like that."
"You don't know?"
"Not really, no. I only know they're killing people and they're responsible for my Uncle Patrick going crazy and trying to kill my entire family, and that's enough for me to want to get rid of them, but I'm not entirely sure how."
"Know anyone who might?"
"Yeah, but no one's been able to talk to her for months. She shut her doors and isn't talking to anyone."
"Who's that?'
"The Melesan, the Immortal of Knowledge."
"You're absolutely sure there is no way to get to her and ask her about everything that's going on?"
"I don't know." Melina held her head in her hands a moment. "But maybe Gergot probably does."
"Gergot?"
"Her gargoyle."
"A gargoyle?"
"Would you stop asking everything as if it's a question? Yes, a gargoyle, his name is Gergot, he used to live with her but ever since this mess started happening, he's been crashing at my house with my family. He'd be the one most likely to know."
Rather than go directly to the Coven house and thus have to deal with the family, Melina and Lester stopped a mile away and skirted their way back into the woods heading for the river. Gergot was more the likely going to be napping in the sun on the rocks near the bend in the river at that time of day anyway. Easier to talk to him alone than to deal with Phoebe and either of her sisters, all of whom were probably on the warpath by now about Melina's problems at school which kept growing by leaps and bounds. They didn't talk during the walk, each wrapped as they were in their own thoughts.
"So this Gargoyle is going to tell us how to get to the Melesan?"
"Maybe, I don't know. I can only ask. He's usually nice about answering questions."
As expected, the gargoyle was sunning himself on a rock, sitting like the sphinx, his head turned toward the river. His ears flickered at the sound of the two of them walking near.
"I thought you were supposed to be in school?"
"If you listen to the talk, I'm going to be expelled."
"Lovely,why?"
"Too dangerous for public school."
"If I understand what I hear in your news,that is fairly damned dangerous." The gargoyle turned to consider her and her companion, one eyebrow going up at the new face. "And he is?"
"Lester Jameson," he said shakily, holding out his hand in an attempt to make the acquaintance of the magical creature before realizing Gergot had paws and claws, not hands.
"The Line of Love," Gergot said wearily.
"Huh?"
"The strawberry blonde streak gives you lot away a good bit. It's not exactly common, you know." The gargoyle did a cat stretch and stepped gingerly down from the rock. "What do you two want then?"
"We need to know how to get to the Melesan."
"You know how to get to the Melesan, Melina, and it’s locked. She did that herself."
"I know about that, I mean is there any other way?"
The Gargoyle looked from one child to another and sighed.
"I'm going to regret this," he muttered. "There is a way, but it's liable to get you both killed, I wish to say that at the outset."
"Okay? We're not exactly safe anyway what with those two looking to kill us and take our rings away."
"I understand that, but you're asking to die between realms, to be lost perhaps for eternity unable to return, are you truly willing to risk it?"
"I am." Melina looked at Lester pointedly. He hesitated, but then finally said.
"I am too."
"If you go into the wilds between realms, there are other doors which enter into the realms themselves." The gargoyle's voice dropped into what Melina called his Teacher tone, and she stifled a yawn. "But the wilds between realms are where the monsters are, the things banished from this world so that mankind could flourish."
"Things like?"
"Dragons and ogres and gargoyles and other myriad creatures that look upon man as something soft on the outside and crunchy on the inside."
"Oh."
"Yes. So you're asking to possibly be eaten or destroyed, but either way, you're not likely to come back. So I have to ask again, are you really willing to risk it?"
"We don't have a lot of other choices. We need what she knows."
"All right then, I would suggest you tell your mother ahead of time."
"Thank you, Gergot." Melina threw her arms around his massive neck and the creature seemed, at least to Lester's eyes, almost to blush.
"Thank me when you're back safe and sound," he grumbled. "I really hope I don't end up regretting this."
"At least if you do, we won't be around to complain," said Lester. The others looked at him so hard he shrugged, his cheeks turning colors. "Sorry."
"Don't joke about Death. Sometimes he hears you," said Gergot gravely. "Go on, your mother deserves to know what you're planning and perhaps to try and persuade you not to be foolish."
Phoebe, after the initial how do you do's of meetin
g Lester, looked at her daughter with a look of undisguised pain in her eyes.
"Are you determined to make me gray before my time?" she asked sitting in the chair of the house library where she had been reading. "You're asking to do something impossible."
"Not impossible," Melina countered. "Just difficult and dangerous. You wanted me not to leave you in the dark. Can't back out of it now."
"And has she convinced you of the necessity of this course?"
"Someone tried to kill me, that was the convincing I really needed," Lester admitted.
"To travel in the space between realms and risk your lives to monsters and heaven only knows what else." PhoebePhoebe shook her head. "Are you absolutely certain there is no other course?"
"The Melesan closed her realm after that mess months ago, Phoebe, and said not one word since even though Gergot, her closest companion, is here. If she were going to just let us back in, she would have already."
"But isn't there anything here that can help you?"
"I don't think so, since the truth is, if there is anything to know, she'll know. Otherwise, I can spend most of the rest of my life looking and I don't think my life is going to be that long if I do."
Resignation paled Phoebe's face and darkened her eyes, turning her a shade of herself Melina had never seen before.
"If you're certain, then I won't stop you, but I'm afraid, Melina. You have to understand that. I'm afraid."
"You act like I'm not."
"You aren't going to be the one left behind, the survivor, the worst place to be in all things."
His name wasn't said. It didn't have to be. He stood in the room between them as clearly as if he had been there in truth: Alion Grimm. The lost lover and father.
"I'm going to come back, Phoebe."
"I hope that's true." She waved the pair out then, turning back to the book she had abandoned for the brief interview. Her face turned to the page, her hands on them, she didn't move as if she needed their absence in order to come into motion again. Melina let herself out, closing the door behind her carefully.