Runebinder

by Alex R. Kahler

Matthias would always know where they were. So long as Tenn was around, none of them were safe.

  * * *

  Tenn had become used to thwarted plans, so when they stopped by an abandoned traffic jam a little after sunrise, he expected the worst. Jarrett scouted the area with Air while they sat in the parked car, the engine rumbling and the CD still on repeat.

  “All clear,” Jarrett said, Air winking out in his throat. Devon turned off the ignition, and the sudden silence was deafening.

  “Are you sure this is smart?” Tenn asked. Now that he knew Matthias was on his heels, rest was the last thing on his mind. No matter how much his body and Spheres craved it. The Spheres normally gave the body power as energy centers, much like chakras were said to do in Eastern philosophy, but when they were used too deeply, they needed rest or nourishment to recover.

  Not even magic was abundant in this world.

  “There’s nothing around for miles,” Jarrett replied. “I’ll take first watch. Gods know I got enough sleep—I forgot how easily driving knocks me out. You guys rest. You need it.”

  The twins didn’t need any more coaxing, even with the knowledge of Matthias’s watchful eye. It seemed like nothing could disturb them. They both reclined their seats and curled onto their sides. Like true warriors used to the road, they were asleep in moments.

  “You, too, Tenn,” Jarrett said. “You’ve barely slept at all the last few days.”

  “I’m not tired,” Tenn said. His yawn betrayed him.

  “Like hell,” Jarrett replied. He smiled.

  Tenn wanted to tell him about Matthias haunting his dreams. He wanted to say he didn’t feel safe, that it was better for everyone if he stayed awake, but before he could say any of that, Jarrett had gently pulled him down, resting Tenn’s head once more in his lap. Jarrett ran his fingers through Tenn’s hair. Chills curled down his skin while heat flowed in his chest.

  “Don’t worry,” Jarrett whispered, looking right into Tenn’s eyes. Tenn could stare at those blue eyes for eternity. “I’ll protect you.”

  And maybe it was stupid, but that was enough. Tenn closed his eyes and said nothing.

  He knew Jarrett couldn’t protect him from Matthias, but there was a comfort in Jarrett believing he could.

  He’d let them both hold on to that dream for as long as possible.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  TENN DIDN’T DREAM. By the time he woke, the sky had darkened to slate gray, and the twins had already prepared a scant dinner of warm tea and biscuits. Tenn wolfed it down; it wasn’t enough to assuage Earth, but it was something. By the time they were on the road again, he was beginning to feel more human.

  They switched SUVs and drove for a few more hours, navigating around stopped cars and overturned semis, while a new collection of CDs played. Finally, they passed into Michigan. The sky outside had gone from gray to pitch-black almost as swiftly as his mood had when they saw the welcome sign.

  Then it began to snow.

  Slow, at first—big thick flakes that drifted slowly in the evening haze. Then more, heavier flecks of white streaking like falling stars in their headlamps. With every mile, the snow grew thicker. With every mile, the ground cover became worse. Clearly this wasn’t the first snow this area had seen and, without plows, the road quickly became treacherous. Devon slowed the car, but even that wasn’t enough to keep him from slipping around on the asphalt like a drunken teenager. He managed to avoid the stopped cars that hulked like igloos. Tenn gripped his fists tight to his lap, tried to keep his breathing calm and his jaw relaxed. After everything they’d been through, he would have found it terribly humorous if he died in a car crash.

  Devon slowed the car to a crawl. Tenn wanted to beg the guy to clear the snow with Fire or even Air, but to use magic out here would give them away quicker than the dull thrum of their engine.

  Tenn kept his eyes on the horizon, on the trees that loomed pitch-black in the deepening dark.

  The headlights caught on a graffiti’d billboard. He knew it before the words resolved through the swathes of snow.

  Silveron Academy

  Empowering Youth

  for an Empowered Future

  Water surged at the sign, at the familiar crest, at the pictures of campus. Water surged, and even though he wrestled it down, he couldn’t keep it from spilling between his fingers.

  “Your father and I went to school around here,” Mom says.

  Dad had stayed back home—couldn’t get the day off work—so it’s just the two of them heading up to Michigan to check out Silveron. He still can’t believe his mother had not only agreed to let him apply, but had offered to drive him the eight hours to check it out when he was accepted.

  Hell, he still can’t believe he was accepted.

  He doubts he will ever forget seeing that large white envelope on the kitchen counter, his name printed in royal blue. He will never forget the feeling of his heart in his throat and his hands shaking as he opened the envelope and pulled out the letter. Congratulations! You have been accepted to Silveron Academy. Together, we will create a magical future.

  A magical future.

  So why does he feel—even now, even as they drive—like he’s giving something else up? He’s supposed to be excited...and he is. He just didn’t realize how excited he could be while feeling terrified at the same time.

  He stares out the passenger window as the cornfields roll into evergreen forests and the air stops smelling like pollution and starts to smell, well, green. It makes his heart swell a little bit. It’s also a reminder that even the scents here will be new and different.

  “You’re going to love it out here,” Mom says. She reaches over and puts a hand on his shoulder.

  “Mom?” he asks. His voice sounds small in the silent car. Why does it sound so small? He has the opportunity to learn magic.

  “Yeah, sweetie?”

  “Do you think I’m making the wrong decision?”

  She glances over at him, then looks back to the road. She doesn’t take her hand away.

  “I think you’re making the best possible decision you can.” She pauses, considering her words. He glances at her and tries to memorize the lines of her face, the way the light catches on her hair in the sunset. Even now, it makes him miss her. “There’s nothing back home for you. This is your chance to make something big out of your life. I know you. You’d never forgive yourself if you let it pass by. You’re meant for bigger things.”

  He sighs. Bigger things. He can’t think of anything bigger than being one of the first students at Silveron, being among the first to learn how to use magic. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime, the promise of an exciting career and a ticket out of his backwoods town. He knows she’s right: there isn’t anything back home for him.

  Besides, this is his chance to make her proud. That, perhaps, is the most important thing of all.

  I will do something great with my life, he thinks. That will make this worth it.

  He goes back to staring out the window. He tries to find the stirrings of excitement he’d had at discovering his acceptance. Instead, he finds only the fear. He knows he will accept Silveron’s offer. He knows he will spend his high school years here.

  He knows that whatever they find when they reach the Academy will be his future. He just hopes it’s one worth the struggle.

  With a furious wrench, Tenn pushed Water back down into submission. It seemed to squirm against his concentration. Silveron was still a hundred miles and a few hours away, but that didn’t calm the memories. The closer they got to that cursed Academy, the more Water wanted out. It recognized home. It recognized the beginning of his pain. He gritted his teeth and didn’t relax until the Sphere finally died down.

  “You okay?” Jarrett asked, squeezing Tenn’s thigh.

  “Yeah,” he
said. “Just...memories.”

  Jarrett nodded like he understood, but Tenn knew he didn’t. Jarrett was an Air user: for him, memories and emotions weren’t tactile things. That wasn’t what scared him, though. He’d thought that Jarrett’s presence could calm Water’s raging, but Water wasn’t giving in. He should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.

  “We are going to have to park soon,” Dreya said. “We are nearly out of gas, and the roads are becoming impassible.”

  Jarrett nodded.

  “Any towns nearby?”

  “Yes.” Air glowed faintly in her throat as she searched—just enough to see, but not enough to be seen from far away. “We will come to one in a few minutes. It is deserted.”

  “Good. Let’s find a place there and settle in for the night. No use being outside in the snow if we don’t have to.”

  Dreya nodded and turned back to quietly confer with Devon. They pulled off at the next exit and drove into town.

  Tenn couldn’t see anything in the darkness, just the snow slashing through their headlamps, so he opened to Earth and pushed his senses out like sonar. The place was small, barely a handful of houses and commercial buildings. Podunk, his mother would have called it. Much like his own hometown.

  They pulled to a stop in front of an old farmhouse at the end of a winding drive, the tangled path and fading facade illuminated in the headlights. The house was huge—three stories tall with peeling whitewashed siding and large picture windows. A wraparound porch stuck out from the front, complete with broken rocking chairs and a swing. Something about it made Tenn’s gut twist: a familiarity, a call. Even though he was positive he’d never been there before.

  “This’ll work,” Jarrett said. Air glowed in his throat as well, and Tenn had no doubt he was scanning the interior, making sure the place really was as abandoned as expected. The fact that they hadn’t run into any wayward Howls was unusual. The cold must have driven them to shelter, whatever that was to the undead, and he couldn’t imagine any necromancers traipsing around in this weather.

  The first snow. When Tenn was younger, it would have been cause to run around outside, catching snowflakes on his tongue. He’d long since outgrown that, but staring at the snow-coated house through the beams of their headlights brought a little bit back. Some trace of antiquity, of perfection, even if his gut was saying the place was eerie. If not for the obvious disrepair, the scene could have been from a greeting card.

  Devon killed the engine and they got out, grabbed their things and then trudged through the snow up to the front door. Tiny orbs of light hovered around Devon as he opened to Fire, snow hissing against their glow. Everything was white and black, and it made Tenn feel like they were in some vintage fairy-tale film. Or noir horror.

  The front porch creaked under their combined weight. Definitely noir horror.

  Jarrett pushed the door open, the hinges shrill, the only sounds beyond the gusting wind. The air inside smelled stale from years of neglect.

  As they walked in, Devon shot lights into every room, upstairs and down. Dreya and Jarrett went off to investigate the kitchen and bedrooms and to scavenge for provisions, while Tenn stalked down another hall alone. In here, sheltered from the wind and snow, he could hear every shudder of the house, every throb of his blood. He paused by a door, listening to whistling on the other side. Pressing his hand to the ice-encrusted knob, he opened the door and stepped inside.

  Immediately, he knew he didn’t want to be in there. He’d never really liked abandoned places. To him, they smelled like ghosts. This room especially. Mainly because it howled like one.

  Two orbs of light hovered up near the crystal chandelier, making everything in the dining room a pallid grayscale. The air was even colder: with the great picture windows in the far wall shattered, a frigid breeze gusted in, billowing the long drapes in perfect horror-story undulations. What he had first mistaken for ice on the carpet was actually shards of glass, all glittering in the half-light like crystal knives. Everything was broken or flung about, from the overturned dining table to the chairs reduced to kindling to the plates and cups dashed to pieces as fine as snow.

  His fingers shook, and not from the cold. The air in here just felt wrong. Like it carried the rawness of an old wound, a scab peeled back from flesh.

  Almost against his will, his fingers trailed along the overturned table.

  Water uncurled in a wave.

  “What the hell is that?” the woman asks. “James, did you hear that?”

  Screams pierce the night. All close. Too close. Screams, and the thunder of gunshots.

  The man’s eyes are wide as he looks from his wife and kids to the window, to the flashes of light that last far too long for lightning or rifles.

  “Stay here,” he says, his voice frantic. He pushes himself from the table, toppling his chair, and runs to the hall. The woman stands and gathers her two sons, pulling them back to the wall. Their wide eyes reflect the light and chaos outside, but in here, they are so silent they can hear the rapid flutter of their breath.

  The man is back in a moment. He holds a shotgun.

  “Get to the basement,” he says. “Quick.”

  They turn. The basement is safety. It’s where they’ve gone for tornado sirens. It’s where they can escape.

  But before they can move, something crashes through the window, sends glass screaming through the room. They flinch. Cower. It isn’t a brick or bomb landing before them. It’s a human. He stands slowly, unfolding himself until he towers above them all. Save for his height, there’s nothing to make him stand out—faded blue jeans, old flannel. Eighteen, maybe. But his eyes...

  His eyes keep them from running. They are the most piercing blue.

  Those eyes stop the breath in their throats.

  “Good evening,” he says calmly, as though he hasn’t just crashed through a window. The mother pulls her boys close, and it is only now that she realizes the boy hasn’t been cut by his entrance. The husband moves in front of his family. A shepherd, vainly trying to defend his flock. “I thought I might join you for dinner.”

  “Get out,” the husband says. His words waver. Outside, another scream rips through the air, cut off with a gurgle that makes the youngest boy shudder. “Whatever the hell you are, get out.”

  The intruder smiles.

  “That is no way to treat a guest.” His voice has a slow, Southern drawl. Charming. And dangerous.

  The stranger steps forward.

  The man shoots.

  The blast from the gun is too loud for the room, too awful for the place they’ve quietly made their home. The echo is the nail in the coffin, the trumpet blaring that their quiet life is dead.

  Blood splatters across their carpet, across the drapes. The boy staggers. Clutches his hands to his chest. But he only falters for a moment. When he looks from his bloody hands to the husband, his smile is gone. His eyes glow like the hottest part of a flame.

  The man had raised his children to be decent and God-fearing, but the evil that cracks through the boy’s face is a force no faith can withstand. The man tries to reload. He knows he has damned them all, and already he is praying for forgiveness.

  Salvation.

  The boy snarls as his blood drips to the floor in deafening pats. His wound is already smaller. His flesh knits itself together, bloody and raw. When he speaks, the drawl is gone, replaced with a grit from the bowels of Hades.

  “And here I was going to be merciful.”

  The boy inhales.

  It is like plummeting into the farthest reaches of space.

  The man drops his gun and reaches for his throat, choking and gagging as his eyes bulge and his family falls beside him. They can’t even cry out as their lungs collapse. As the intruder pulls the air from their chests with a single breath.

  The boy sm
iles again. There is blood in that smile. And hunger. He steps over to them. Just out of reach of their clawing hands, their rigid fingers. He smiles his demon smile and pulls the youngest child to his feet.

  “I think I deserve dessert first, don’t you?” he asks, looking down at the father. He wants the father to understand. He wants the father to suffer the most. He pulls the boy’s face close to his and inhales. The kid’s eyes widen and roll back, bulging; his skin pales, and turns blue. His gasp is a rattle, a gurgle of bleeding lungs.

  One long, last breath, and the child is dead.

  The demon drops him to the ground.

  “You will watch them die, old man,” he says, kneeling before the husband. His eyes dart to the rest of his family. “One by one.” Another flash of light outside, and the boy hesitates. Looks back to the engulfing darkness outside. “Actually, no.” He reaches out and runs a finger on the man’s jaw. “I think I will let you kill them. How does that sound?” He stands and walks to the window, calls out to the night beyond. “Matthias! I have a new convert!”

  The demon turns. The hole in his chest has closed.

  “Oh, we are about to have some fun. At least, I am.”

  Someone slapped Tenn’s face, jarring the scene from his head.

  Memories swirled in Tenn’s skull as Water slowly released its grip, sloshing back into silence in the pit of his stomach. His ears rang with the echo of gunshots and screams. So many screams. Matthias. Matthias is coming.

  “Are you okay?” Jarrett asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  It was only then that the room swam back into focus. Pain lanced through his hands where he’d fallen on shards of window. His blood had turned the stained carpet crimson. He shook his head and forced himself up to sitting. He focused on his breath, on being here. Present. There were no bodies in the room. No screams or gunshots outside the window. Just him and Jarrett in the dining room. Tenn opened to Earth and pushed the power through his palms, healing the lacerations as pieces of glass plopped into the chilling blood like tears.

  “What was that?” Tenn asked. He raised a shaky hand to his head. The ringing was worse, along with that train-coming-down-the-tracks vibration that always signaled a migraine. When he looked at Jarrett, the guy faded in and out of focus.