Fell Beasts and Fair

by C. J. Brightley

  He was standing inside the cafe of The Wellspring, the little bookstore where Wil was supposed to meet his friend Maggie to study. He was there to pick Wil up, to take him home. But Wil wasn't there.

  He forced himself to listen as Maggie's mother, the charming and empathic Amelia, told him that Wil wasn't in the bookstore. That he never had been. She assumed his football practice had run over.

  "Jack?" she quested, lowering her voice. Her hand ghosted over his arm, fingers tightening almost imperceptibly in the folds of his worn leather jacket. He had the absurd thought that with her uncanny intuition and her natural discretion, she would be a potentially valuable recruitment opportunity.

  "Is everything alright?" She pressed, when it took him too long to focus on her face.

  Be calm, he told himself, even as his vision began tunneling. He smiled, and it was easy, convincing even. But Amelia was not a human civilian. He knew she was reading the colors of his aura, could taste the mounting panic in the air around him. He could see it in her eyes.

  "Yes," he said. Confident. Casual. "I'll give his coach a call. The homecoming game is coming up—I'm sure it was just an extended practice."

  In his mind, Jack was screaming around corners, checking for repeat faces in the crowds he had passed while walking through the plaza to the quaint little bookstore, the license plates of a dozen unmarked cars in the parking lot, cataloguing the exit and entry points of the small open-air shopping center and its handful of boutiques. Nothing had seemed out of the ordinary. He had been sure for months that their relocation to Rochester had gone unnoticed. They were in the dark. He would have known.

  He would have known.

  Amelia knew nothing of the nature of Jack's real work, but she had seen the way his eyes collected the details of a room with frightening speed. Knew instinctively the knowledge and skill that lurked behind those eyes. She had read it in the colors of his aura the first day she had met him, drank in the deep blue instinct that drove Jack to protect, to serve, grappling with the stain of black blood on his hands that clouded the purples of loyalty and patience and understanding. She knew he could be trusted, and that he was a vault of secrets, well-guarded as dragon's gold.

  "Let me know when you reach him?" She said, letting her hand fall from his arm.

  Jack heard the offer in her polite words. An attempt at casual, but edging on worry now.

  He turned and waved, gave Maggie a smile when she leaned over the counter of the coffee bar to catch his eye.

  "Thanks," he said. "I'll tell Wil to give Maggie a call in the morning. I'm sure he'll want to reschedule."

  Amelia said nothing as he swept out of her bookstore, her daughter oblivious to the fear that had coated the room like the trails of a thick, yellow slug.

  Jack hit the sidewalk outside and for ten seconds, he was firing on all cylinders before the machine came to a grinding halt. He stared out into the street at the end of the sidewalk, unaware that he had stopped moving for a few precious seconds. He had no idea where to start. He felt like he had the first time he had been operational on his own, well trained but inexperienced, coming to the fast conclusion that the bullet points in his apprenticeship were only a foundation to begin building on. He needed to act, but there was no clear directive. He dialed Wil's cell phone number. It went straight to voicemail. He checked the app that would allow him to track Wil's phone. Nothing. His cell was off, or it was dead.

  He resisted the urge to crush his own cell phone in the palms of his hands.

  Wil had been at school today; he knew that much. If he hadn't been, Wil's homeroom teacher would have had the office call him on his personal phone. If he hadn't made it to football practice, Jack would have gotten a call from Wil's coach.

  Jack had been against the idea of extracurriculars from the start. Especially one so intimately physical as football. Wil was ten times stronger than any average human teenager. One misstep and he could accidentally kill one of the other boys on the football field. Varza and Illinca argued that Wil needed an outlet for his strength, his natural aggression. Kade told him that football would allow him to exercise his anger without the fear of a real threat to test his control. In the end Jack had relented. But he had never stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  Wil had come a long way but he was still suffering, still unsure of himself and his place in the world. He was angry and scared and in too many ways still the mute, feral boy Jack had pulled from a dog crate in a burning building what seemed like a lifetime ago. At sixteen, Wil was physically maturing into an adolescent who had to be concerned with the emotional challenge of relearning how to be human, with the power of one of the Infernals suffused in his veins. It made him unstable. Jack had seen that particular pot boil over more than once in the two years he had spent trying to protect this innocent, bright, intelligent boy—to give him a measure of peace in a world that had already chewed him up and spit him out before he had learned to speak his first words.

  It had been the most difficult decision he had ever made, letting Wil attend a public school. When he’d first decided to let Wil stay with him, he thought it would be easy to send him to school, to let him explore his newfound freedom. He was wrong. It seemed like neither of them had slept a full night in two years. Countless nightmares, the anger, the sheer uncontrollable anger that built up in a flash and spilled over at a moment’s notice in the boy. It was broken dishes on the floor and blood in the sink from his constant nervous scratching at the skin beneath his ribcage, the curve of his shoulder, his hip. His absolute refusal to let anyone near him with a pair of scissors to cut his hair. It was the animal sound from the back of his throat, as if he’d been kicked, if Jack forgot in the first few days not to close any doors in the rooms where Wil was hiding. Endless hours of silence. The stealing; food, mostly. It had taken him half a year to convince Wil that he could eat when he wanted to. He just had to say something.

  He was at the end of his rope. He’d never had children, he was losing his mind, and for the first time in his considerable lives, James Rook asked for help. Two years in Boston; two years of combat training and surveillance exercises on the street and a thousand, thousand puzzles solved on the rug in the evening and Wil was making progress. Tannis and Kade had likely saved them both.

  So when Wil asked him if he could go to school, his cheek on one of his knees as he set the pieces in the jigsaw puzzle across the floor from Tannis, Jack was proud of the kid, and absolutely terrified. Jack compromised that they would consider it when they were back in Rochester. He had been doing well in his lessons with Arges and she agreed that Wil could be ready for a basic high school curriculum in a matter of months. She would prepare the documents and arrange the tests. All Jack had to do was choose a school.

  He had vetted the facility himself. Identified no internal or external threats. Broke into the school for three consecutive weeks with Wil until he was satisfied that the kid had committed the entire floorplan to memory and knew the most direct route to each exit. He called Arges once a week to confirm that she thought he was ready. She told him it was okay to admit that he was the one who wasn’t ready. He stopped calling after that.

  Jack scrubbed at his face, the phone still gripped in his hand. Willed himself to clear his head. He wasn’t thinking about the problem at hand, he was wasting time and Wil was still missing. What if this was a false alarm, if Wil had simply forgotten to mention a change of plans to him (Jack had to remind himself that it was possible, Wil was a teenager, a highly trained teenager but a teenager nonetheless), and even Amelia hadn’t been immediately concerned. But Wil wasn’t an average teenager, and Jack had his fair share of enemies, and they had planned for this, so why couldn’t he think straight?

  He would start at the school and work outward from there. The coach would have called him if Wil had skipped practice. The school had a very strict attendance policy; it was one of the reasons Jack had picked it for Wil.

  He stepped into an alley, looking for
a shadow that would give him access to one of the black paths—the hidden roads only traversed by the dead, which would get him to Wil's high school in the shortest amount of time possible. He opened his phone one more time and dialed Varza, dimly aware that his legs were shaking.

  Varza picked up on the first ring. Spoke before Jack could get a word out.

  "He's here."

  Jack stopped walking, stared at the greying red brick walls of the alley without seeing them. He was not relieved. Varza's usually calm, supple manner of speaking had come to him tightened. A vibrating tightrope about to snap.

  "What happened?" He tried to make it a soft inquiry, but it came out clipped and dark. Varza spoke very carefully, and that more than anything sent the blood rushing into Jack's ears, the pressure of his own heartbeat in his head physically jolting him an involuntary step forward.

  "He's safe. Come by with your car. Take the long way. He needs some time."

  He didn't say, 'He needs some time to calm down', but that's what Varza had meant. Wil was in the room with him, and he was upset.

  "What happened?" Jack said again.

  Silence. Jack imagined the tightrope beginning to fray. He spoke again, quietly this time, closing his eyes.

  "Please, prieten vechi." Old friend. "What happened?"

  Varza had started breathing again. This time when he answered, Jack felt the weight of his fears slide like molten lead to his stomach, dropping it to the floor.

  "I don't know," he said.

  * * *

  Varza lowered the phone from his ear with deliberate, over-emphasized movements. Wil was sitting on the floor of his office, back to the wall, head in his hands. Varza noticed that Wil had chosen the one spot in the spacious office where the office door created a blind spot for anyone entering the room. He could see everything, but remain unseen himself until the door was closed again. At least, he would if his head wasn't bowed. Still, Varza was impressed.

  "Wil?"

  No response.

  Varza let the silence in the room hang. Took a moment to observe while he decided what to do next.

  He glanced at the door, which had closed, mostly, in its cracked frame. Wil hadn't broken in, not exactly. But he'd thrown his shoulder at it, pounding on the ironwood frantically until Varza had opened it for him. He didn't think Wil was even aware that he'd damaged it in his panic.

  The hair on Varza's arms stood on end when Wil exploded through his door. He was dressed in a pair of grey sweatpants and nothing else. His arms were bruised and torn up, and there were the remnants of what looked like duct tape on his wrists. His back and shoulders were covered in red welted abrasions, each of them two and a half inches wide, some of them beaded with tiny droplets of dried blood. There was a bruise on his cheek. Varza recognized the difference between an open palmed strike and a closed fist. Someone had slapped him, hard. More than once.

  Wil crashed into the wall and slid down it like he was afraid someone was coming after him. He was hysterical. Varza checked the hall, closed the door and managed to get the iron deadbolt in place despite the damage to the frame. He closed his eyes, checked the halls. The perimeter of his building. The streets in a five-block radius. Nothing.

  When he'd flipped out his phone, Wil spoke, his voice a choked off rasp that scared Varza more than the bruise on his pale cheek.

  "Don't call Jack," he said. Varza's head came up so fast Wil flinched.

  "I'm not calling him," the blonde vampire said calmly. "You are."

  Wil let out an inhuman noise and laced his hands across the back of his neck, bowing his head between bent knees. His knuckles were bruised.

  "Wil, he's going to be worried. You need to tell him you're safe."

  Varza held out the phone, but Wil didn't look up.

  "He's going to be so mad," Wil mourned quietly at the floor. "I did everything wrong. I just want to go home."

  "Then call your father," Varza tried again. Gently.

  "I can't," he sobbed. "I ruined everything."

  Varza crouched down, keeping always a little over an arm’s length away. He didn't know if Wil wanted to be touched. It was better to stay in his line of sight, outside of any threat radius.

  "Wil, you remember what we discussed, if anything were to happen? Anywhere, anytime?"

  The redhead nodded, his long hair framing his face.

  "What are you supposed to do?"

  Wil answered quietly. Efficient and precise.

  "Get out. Whatever it takes. Get in contact if there's an opportunity, but it's more important to stay in the dark. Meet here, or at the safe-house. Tell Varza…"

  He trailed off. His fingers tightened on the back of his neck.

  "Go on, frățioare." Little brother. "That's exactly right."

  Momentum was key. He had to keep Wil talking, or he was certain the boy would simply stop and not speak again. This had happened before. In the beginning, when Wil was still afraid of closed doors.

  Wil took a deep breath, and kept going.

  "Tell Varza, green for no action taken—clean exit. Yellow for action taken, no witnesses. Clean exit."

  Wil struggled with the next color.

  "What is… cum ar fi fructul? Portocaliu? Right?"

  "That's right," Varza said, lowering himself to sit on the floor. "Orange."

  "Orange for action taken, possible witnesses. Clean up required. Red for action taken, witnesses confirmed. Casualties. Damage control required."

  Varza was about to prompt him to continue, when his phone rang. He put it to his ear, holding Wil's gaze. Hazel eyes under a curtain of wild red hair.

  "He's here."

  When he hung up, Wil had gone silent, dropped his eyes to the carpet under his feet.

  "Wil?" Varza tried again, unable to completely cover the frustration rising in his chest. "I need a color."

  The boy was caving in on himself. His shoulders collapsing under the strain.

  "Wil. Give me a color."

  "Orange," Wil said.

  * * *

  Jack thought he had prepared himself for the day he would receive a message containing only one word—a single color.

  After he'd hung up with Varza, he'd taken one of the black paths to his apartment to pick up the car. While he was fighting with the old lift door on his garage—the thing was older than he was, he was sure of it—he'd called Amelia to assure her that Wil was safe. He’d gone to see a family friend, and Jack was on his way to pick him up.

  She was glad, and her gifts did not travel well over the receiver of a phone, so she believed the calm relief he projected over the strain in his voice.

  "Teenagers," she laughed. "If I had a nickel for every time Maggie forgot to text me something, I'd be a rich woman."

  Jack laughed, but it started to sound hollow and he cut it off abruptly. She was silent for moment and he waited, finally getting the garage door all the way up.

  "It's okay to worry, you know."

  He wasn't sure he could answer, so he didn't.

  "Maggie asked me if you would tell Wil she's free this weekend. She'd like him to stop by to work on their project."

  "Yes," Jack said, clearing his throat. "Yeah, I'll tell him."

  "Have a good night, Jack."

  He hung up the phone without answering her.

  Jack slammed the door of the Camry, slammed the key into the ignition and was about to slam the car into reverse, when his phone blinked on. He flicked open the screen and read the message from Varza.

  Orange

  For a second, Jack did nothing. He stared at the word, uncomprehending, and then, for the first time since he had gone to The Wellspring, the world came into focus. He dialed Varza as he floored the car back out of his driveway, leaving black rubber on the pavement behind him.

  "Put him on," Jack said when Varza answered. It wasn't a request.

  To Jack's utter astonishment and mounting fury, Varza hesitated.

  "He's been very quiet since he gave the color, Jack."<
br />
  "I know. It's alright, put him on."

  He did know. The reason he didn't have a set of coordinates or a place name could only be because Wil had stopped talking. It happened sometimes when he was startled or outright afraid. Switching to Romanian sometimes helped. Sometimes not.

  There was a soft sound on the other end of the phone as it changed hands. The first thing Jack noticed was how unsteady Wil's breathing was. It sounded like he'd been crying.

  Jack felt his boot flatten to the floor over the gas pedal. He forced himself to ease off the accelerator.

  "Hey, Marigold," Jack said without preamble. "Maggie missed you today."

  A whine. It was an animal noise, and Jack felt his heart in his throat.

  "It's okay," Jack said softly. "You're okay."

  A shift. Maybe the phone moving from one ear to the other. Still no words. Jack kept going.

  "Do you want to meet me there, or do you want me to pick you up?"

  He had no idea where there was, and he needed Wil to focus. To tell him.

  He let that question hang for sixty seconds before he tried again.

  "Wil, this is important. Anything over a yellow and we have to make sure that there's no traceable evidence at the scene."

  He had to force himself to say at the scene with a steady voice.

  "What was your color, Wil?"

  Finally, a very small response.

  "Orange."

  Jack tried not to let out his breath audibly.

  "Where?"

  "Where the showers are," he said. Jack was about to ask him what in the world that meant, when he heard Wil give a frustrated huff on the other end of the phone. He waited.

  Varza was murmuring something in the background.