by Joshua Roots
What is more troubling than anything is the underlying threat that these recent attacks pose to Normals. There was a time before the peace accord when the Skilled kept themselves and the monsters that inhabited their world off our doorsteps. In the years since, however, there has been a startling rise of attacks on Normals, both by paranormal monsters and the Skilled themselves. If these recent events at the hands of Marcus Shifter are any indication, the future of a combined society is a dangerous one. And it begs the question of whether or not we’re truly better off.
“Aw crap.” I felt sick. I was supposed to be the poster-boy for the unity between the Skilled and Normals, but apparently all I’d successfully accomplished was generating a lot of drama and screwing over Quinn.
Pell shook his head. “It’s a tabloid, Marcus. Don’t put much stock in it.”
I handed the tablet back. “All media is a tabloid. The only difference is to what degree.”
The old man set the device on the table. “That’s a very pessimistic view. The media may be a machine that spins stories for sensationalism, but it is also a weapon. One that can be utilized for great things if handled properly.”
I bristled. “Is that what the Council is doing? Using me as the bullet in the gun of the media?”
Pell sighed wearily. “Essentially, yes.”
Anger clawed at my chest.
“Trust me,” Pell said, “it’s not easy nor is it enjoyable. There was a time when you could simply sweep an issue under the rug. Now everything has to be addressed. It’s why we’re spending so much money on PR people these days.”
“If that article is any indication, the ‘weapon’ is backfiring.”
“There’re always going to be people who try to find problems. You’re still very popular with most of the media outlets.”
“Golly, I’m so glad I’m still useful to the Council,” I grumbled.
Pell gave me a weary glaze. “Marcus, it’s late. Did you want something other than to gripe about the Council or whine about all the attention you’re getting?”
His admonishment sucked the wind out of my sails. The anger and bitterness devolved into fatigue. “Actually, yes. The whole use-the-media-as-a-weapon issue is exactly the reason I wanted to speak with you.”
“Oh?”
“You’ve been on the Council as long as Devon, right?”
The old man chuckled. “Pretty close. He was elected a year before I was, but yes, it’s been a long haul for the two of us.” He looked at me suspiciously. “Why do you ask?”
Of all the Councilmembers, only Dad and Pell were ones I felt comfortable enough with to be completely honest. “I did some digging into old newspaper articles hoping to find information about the incident at HQ. Seems there was a similar attack seventy years ago in a nearby town. What’s interesting is that the Council sent a team to investigate. A team that was led by Devon.”
Pell scowled deeply. “Marcus, your Wizarding privileges do not allow for that level of classification.”
His response sparked new life in me. “So you know what I’m talking about.”
“Yes, but it was well above my pay grade.” His jaw tightened. “Still is, in fact.”
“Meaning the Elders.”
“Exactly.”
“Actually, that makes sense.” I saw the concern on Pell’s face. “Listen, I’m not accusing anyone of treason, here.”
At least, not yet.
Pell relaxed slightly. “That’s good, but still, sniffing around in the classified bins will cause you problems if you’re not careful. The Skilled have a lot of things we’re not proud of in our past and sometimes it’s best to let the skeletons stay in the closet.” He inhaled deeply. “This is off the record, yes?”
I held up my hands defensively. “Hey, I’m not the media.”
The old man leaned back. “You’re right about the attack. It was a small town with a population of only a few hundred at most. The Mimics rolled through the forest, killing everything in their path. The populace was caught completely unawares. The Council didn’t hear about it until a week later when rumors finally reached us. Devon and his team inspected the damage, interviewed the surviving townsfolk, and pursued the remaining Mimics.”
I frowned. “The report said that all the Mimics were killed before the team arrived.”
“That’s true. Devon’s people found the creatures a few miles away. Apparently the creatures had turned on each other. It took several days to clean up the parts.”
“So, why the secrecy?”
The old man shrugged. “I don’t know, but my guess was fear of reprisal. Normals were still blissfully unaware of the Skilled’s existence, so the Elders made sure everything was cleaned up, then shoved all the data about the incident into a dark corner. Everyone involved never spoke of it again.”
I could certainly sympathize with the Elders at the time. Having been in hiding for centuries, the Skilled had become paranoid about being “discovered”—not that I blamed them.
History was filled with various forms of persecution designed to root us out—the Inquisition, witch hunts, you name it. And while modern Normal society was better educated and more willing to accept the reappearance of the Skilled, the people back then likely weren’t. At the very least, that’s what the Elders believed. So rather than deal with the issue, they buried it.
But something about Pell’s statement bothered me. “If no one ever spoke of it, then how’d you find out?”
“I was...close to a member of the team at the time.” He smiled wistfully. “She and I talked after she returned from the mission. Most of what you read matches the report, but she suspected that something was wrong with the Mimics. Since she was sworn to secrecy, she tried to conduct research outside of the Council, but when it became apparent that the entire incident was being swept under the rug, she became vocal.” He darkened. “She accused the Elders of forcing Blood Oaths on the team, but she died soon after on another mission before she could produce proof. I tried to follow up, but whatever evidence she thought she’d uncovered died with her.”
The accusation of a Blood Oath stunned me. Since blood was the essence of humanity, spells that utilized it as a catalyst tended to be exponentially more powerful, and more deadly, than ones powered by other elements. Which was one of the reasons why Blood Spells were treated with a great deal of caution no matter what the scenario.
And why Blood Oaths were so frightening.
Unlike Soul Oaths, which sucked you dry of magical juice if broken, Blood Oaths literally killed you. Worse, by binding yourself through the spell, the power of the blood gave the other person complete control over you.
I’d seen it up front during the battle between my family and the Agents of Quaos. They’d executed The Conduit’s bidding until I killed the nutjob.
Sadly, breaking the bond didn’t mean his followers were cured. From what I understood, the survivors of the attack on the Homestead hadn’t fared too well. Having been under the spell for so long, they’d absorbed much of his insanity. When he’d died, it had literally driven them crazy. Only a handful, mostly the younger or newer members, regained any shred of lucidity.
If the team had sworn a Blood Oath, then they were sworn to secrecy. For life.
But Blood Oath or not, there were too many similarities between Devon’s report and recent events. Mimics gone wild, squirrel pumas on the prowl, rifts that were wacky because they were so stable.
I’d bet a month’s paycheck there was a connection. Somehow all the pieces touched. The problem was finding out how. But if I could find that, maybe I could figure out who was behind it.
Pell peered at me. “What’s going on in your head?”
“I’m trying to connect the dots. Maybe it’s all a coincidence, but I’m having a hard time believing it. There are too many oddities for people not to notice, yet no one seems to be noticing.”
“Careful, Marcus,” Pell warned. “Those kinds of comments sound almost like treason.”
Anger warmed my insides. “Messing with reality, especially when people get killed, is treasonous. So too is burying information, no matter what the reason.”
“Which is why you must be careful. I’m not denying my own suspicions, but you simply cannot throw around accusations without cause.” Pell leaned forward. “Don’t forget that you have been on the receiving end of such suspicions in the past as well. Others may use that against you.”
“I was just a kid,” I said, hotly. “It was an accident.”
“That is the only reason you were allowed to resume your training. But there were many who, at the time, wondered if the rift you opened was intentional. And if that was the case, whether or not you could be trusted.” He leaned forward, locking eyes with me. “You, more than anyone, understand that power is a blessing and a curse. Our Skill allows us to perform an impressive array of spells, but it can also leave a large swath of collateral damage. It’s the unintentional acts that tend to do the most damage, after all.”
The anger boiling inside me threatened to bubble over. It was hard enough to learn from my mistakes, but others holding that against me was downright infuriating. What more did I need to do to make amends?
But deep down, I knew Pell was right. Someone in the Skilled world would question my actions for the rest of my life. It didn’t matter that I was just a kid. That I’d been desperate to prove myself and, in doing so, was willing to extend beyond my training. A lot of people had died—including Healer Jenkins’s wife, Sparrow. He’d long since forgiven me, but others hadn’t.
Some never would.
The reality of his words stung more than I cared to admit.
Pell patted me on the arm. “Don’t beat yourself up too much. It’s all in the past. You’ve done a lot of good for the Skilled just in the last year. Defeating the Agents of Quaos, killing a Hellcat, risking your life to close these rifts. Your actions speak volumes and many, myself included, know your true soul.”
I nodded absently, too moved to say anything. All these years I’d felt like an outsider to the Council. Listening to Pell, I began to wonder if that wasn’t the case anymore. Could it be that after so many years hating the Council I was beginning to grow closer to it?
That terrified me.
My phone rang, shaking me from my thoughts. I cleared my throat before answering. “Hey. Any news?”
“Only bad,” Arbent said with a touch of anger.
I felt sick. “The blogger kids?”
He paused. “Dead. The police found both their bodies in a ditch near the girl’s home.”
I swore. I hated when my hunches were correct. Fire burned in my chest. “I want in on the case.”
“You got it.” He sounded determined. Maybe he was just as pissed as I was that more innocent people had been killed. “We can meet anytime you’re free and I’ll give you what I have. Sadly, it’s not much.”
“Something is better than nothing,” I said, heat filling my veins.
“Then you’re going to be sorely disappointed with the rest of this conversation,” Arbent said. “The team arrived at the location you called in, but we didn’t find anything.”
Confusion mixed with the flames. “Nothing?”
“Oh, plenty of dead creatures and some annoyed R&D folks who didn’t appreciate me disrupting their ‘crime scene,’ but no rift. They denied its existence.”
Even a dead man would have heard the ire in his voice.
Red-hot fury bubbled inside me. First the oddity with the rift in the farmer’s field, now a “missing” one in the Maryland woods. Add in an old report that hinted there was a connection between the phenomenon and crazed Mimics.
The latter of which was tied to the murder of two of my friends.
Someone was hiding information, had been for a long time. I was sick of being in the dark.
It was high time I got some answers.
“Marcus?” Arbent asked.
“Thanks for the info, bud. I need to go.”
“What’s wrong?” Pell asked when I hung up.
I relayed Arbent’s information.
The old man sighed. “I’m sorry, Marcus. I wish I could be of more help with all this.”
“That’s okay,” I said, brimming with rage. “I know someone who might be.”
* * *
“The Elder is unavailable,” the Admin Witch said in her frank, professional tone. “The first opening in his schedule isn’t until noon tomorrow, though.”
I stepped around her desk. “No, he’s going to have an opening right now.”
The Witch reached out with her Skill to trap me, but I slammed through the door to the Elder’s chambers before she unleashed it. I closed the door behind me, locking it with a basic defensive barrier. Granted, it was a weak one since I was already low on energy, but it gave me enough time to storm up to the large, wooden desk.
“What’s going on, Devon?” I snapped.
The Elder stared at me with a mixture of confusion and irritation.
“I’ll call you back,” he said into his phone, then set it aside. “Hello, Marcus. To what do I owe the honor of your visit?”
I seethed with fury. “You know damn well what this is about. The rift in the woods. The same woods that you investigated during the Mimic attack seventy years ago!”
“I heard there was no rift,” he replied evenly. “Plenty of corpses, but no tear in reality.”
“Stop screwing around, old man,” I yelled, slapping my palm against his desk. “I’m smarter than that!”
“Your recent actions say otherwise,” he snapped.
“I read your report!”
The man froze, his eyes wide with terror. He blinked, inhaling deeply. Behind me, the Admin Witch pounded on my defensive barrier with her Skill until it finally collapsed. The door flew open and she stumbled in.
“Leave us,” Devon said curtly.
The Witch started to protest, but the look on Devon’s face caused her to disappear immediately.
“Sit,” he ordered.
“I’d rather not.”
The Elder sighed. “Suit yourself. So, am I to understand you’ve discovered similarities between what you think you saw today and a file that’s almost a century old?”
I bristled at his condescending tone. “Seems a bit ironic how surprised we all were when the Mimics attacked HQ. Apparently it’s not the first time something like this happened.”
When he didn’t respond, I leaned forward. “What’s the matter? Blood Oath got your tongue?”
The old man glowered. “It’s way above your level, Marcus.”
“I’m getting real sick and tired of people saying that,” I snarled. “Two more people are dead because of these things and no one seems willing or able to talk about them. At least, not yet.”
It was Devon’s turn to bristle. “Is that a threat?”
“Absolutely. You spill the beans on this whole matter or I will go to the media with everything I know.”
“What do you have to go on? An old report that I can promise you will be gone tomorrow morning and a handful of oddities that may or may not relate? Sounds like fantasy more than facts.”
“Doesn’t matter. All I need is to plant the seed and the press will do the rest. I am, after all, quite the popular guy at the moment. If me taking a Minotaur to the Ambassador’s home made a huge splash, imagine the reaction when I give the media this juicy morsel to run with.”
“That would be...unwise for your career.”
I actually laughed. “You honestly think I care about climbing the Council ladder? I’ve been working here as a favor to Dad, not because I felt any loyalty to the uptight jackasses that run this place. I’ve been blackballed before, Devon. Shunned by the so-called elite of our little dysfunctional Skilled family. And you know what? I got along just fine. So too did most of the Normals I met. Seems they didn’t need our help to survive day to day.”
The Elder went crimson. The air around him crackled with an e
lectricity that popped and fizzed against my own Skill. It was like standing in front of an electrical transformer that was about to overload.
I flinched, but he inhaled deeply. The charge faded and his color slowly returned to normal.
“I do not appreciate you coming here at this hour simply to push my buttons, Marcus,” he said evenly. “Do you have a purpose other than petty blackmail?”
I wanted to keep needling him, but the information I sought was far more important than the joy I got out of pestering an Elder. “I want to know what’s going on with these Mimics. If it’s obvious to me that there’s a connection between recent events and the ones seventy years ago, then someone else must think it as well. You give me that and I’ll keep playing along as your poster boy. You don’t and I’ll gladly have a long conversation with the press hanging outside my home.”
Devon’s beard twitched. “As much as you think you are in control here, the fact is, you’re not. One day you’ll learn that some things are beyond your influence. Suffice to say, I cannot, and more importantly, will not talk about what happened seventy years ago. Those files were sealed for a reason.
“You should also learn some self-control,” he continued, interrupting when I opened my mouth. “The gruff, bitter exterior you present to the world grates on a lot of people’s nerves. And while you claim you don’t care about your career with the Council, I believe you do. But even if what you say is true and you could care less about your career, you should realize that your actions affect more than just yourself.”
I blinked, catching the veiled threat. “You’d screw Dad out of an Elder position just because I piss you off?”
Devon ran a hand over his face as if to wipe away his annoyance. “You must be pretty obtuse to think one person can do something like that. Elders are elected by a majority vote of sitting Councilmembers. Your father is very popular among his peers, but storming around, embarrassing all of us like you do tarnishes his reputation. Like it or not, you’re the heir to his empire. If you want to act like a child, fine, but realize that it is not without consequence.”