by Dora Blume
Erik shrugged, “I’m not the one who got her involved and although she knows about us, I doubt she’s ready for that knowledge. Besides, if I’d suggested it there’s no way you would’ve allowed it.”
“Damn straight, and I know I need to talk to her. I just don’t know what to say to her right now.” Sloane sighed, the weight of telling Amy was hanging on her.
“You can’t keep ignoring her Sloane you need to talk to her.” Erik got into his side of the car.
Sloane waited a minute at the door and closed her eyes, “I know, trust me I know,” she said softly before opening the door and getting in next to Erik.
“Let’s go around the corner and grab breakfast before spending the day in surveillance. I don’t know about you but I’m starving.” Erik turned the corner and headed for Al’s Breakfast. He found a spot to park around the block and they walked to join the line.
“Seriously, I thought you were starving and now we’re going to wait in line to eat?” Sloane looked down the row of people.
“For Al’s, yep I’ll wait in line.” He leaned back against the building and started scrolling through his phone.
Sloane shook her head at him and settled in to wait. The line moved faster than Sloane thought possible and before she knew it they were done with breakfast and heading back to the car.
“Okay, I see why we waited, those pancakes were amazing.” She placed her hand on her stomach.
“I can’t believe you haven’t eaten there. How long have you been in the city?”
Sloane glared at him, “I live south, I don’t come here unless it’s at night.”
“Well, you’ve been missing out. Campus is where all the fun happens.”
“Okay whatever, so now what’s the plan?” Sloane liked knowing what their next move was going to be even if Erik wasn’t really a planner. She didn’t like him having control over the situation. She wished she would get a vision.
“Now, we go watch the boys down the street. I’m going to attempt to find a parking space near the frat house where they live. I’m hoping they don’t stay there too long cause parking’s a bitch around campus.” He found a spot and parked. They could at least see the door. Erik settled in his seat to wait.
“Can’t you just listen to them to know when they’re leaving?” Sloane didn’t like the idea of sitting in a car with Erik all day.
“Well I could, but it takes concentration to filter out everyone else and I need to be relatively close to hear them.” He closed his eyes to concentrate.
“Oh, so you’re not the all-powerful Erik that can hear people miles away. That’s lame.” She chuckled. Erik opened an eye to look at her and then closed it again.
“Ah no, I’m good but I’m not that good.” He huffed. “I don’t see you making yourself useful.”
Sloane’s phone vibrated again in her pocket, she fished it out to silence it. Looking at the screen she sighed.
“Answer it; we’re not doing anything. You might as well deal with her. You should at least let her know you’re okay.” Erik looked serious then looked out the window towards the frat house.
“Fine,” Sloane hit the button to answer the phone.
“Hey Amy… yes I’m fine.”
Erik huffed, “Yeah fine, we’re just hunting demons that may be organizing to kill us but yes, tell her everything is fine.” He smirked, and she swatted him with the back of her hand.
Sloane continued her phone conversation. “I’m not sure right now when I’m going to be back. I have some stuff to do.” She glanced over at Erik whose eyes were closed but his mouth was upturned slightly. “Yes, I know we need to talk but I can’t talk right now,” she waited. “I will call you later, when I have time okay. Yes, yes. And I will be fine okay. Don’t worry so much. Yeah, talk to ya later.” She hung up and dropped the phone in her lap.
“Now was that so hard? You at least let her know you’re okay.” He pressed his lips together holding back a laugh.
“Shut up, you don’t know what this is like. Do any of your friends know about you?”
“No, why would they?” Erik continued to stare out the window. He didn’t want to admit that he kept everyone at a distance because of being Shikari and he understood all too well the decision that she’d made. He pushed someone away because of his birth. The loss still hurt him, but he knew it was the right thing to do. He loved her and that was why he needed to stay away from her. He didn’t want to put her in jeopardy like his mother. He didn’t want to repeat his father’s mistakes. He knew the cost.
Sloane watched the emotions play out on Erik’s face but didn’t probe him.
“Time to move, our guy just got in his car and is headed to the west bank.” Erik started the car and pulled behind their target.
“Wait, what about the other guy?” Sloane asked.
“He’s passed out. I think we’ll get more info from this guy. We’ll figure it out later.” Erik followed at a safe distance. He didn’t want to alert the guy to being followed.
Erik followed until he entered the parking ramp. Erik pulled to the side. “I don’t want to go in the ramp. You follow from here on foot. As soon as I find a place to stash the car, I’ll meet you there. He’s headed to the social science building first floor.”
Sloane jumped out of the car and headed across the street to wait at the benches until she saw him exit the ramp. She didn’t want to look suspicious, so she played with her phone while she waited. When he passed by, she followed. Sensing him the moment he walked by, she was relieved not all her powers had gone berserk. She could still sense a demon. It gave her some comfort and hope her powers would be back in full force soon. He walked at a brisk pace straight for the social science building. Sloane was trying to get a read on him as he walked. She noticed a confidence in his stride, but he was also in a hurry, so it was hard to tell. She wanted to grab him and get information. It seemed so much faster to torture people for the information she needed. She wanted to know already so she could go back to her normal life. She had to take a breath to steady her nerves. She didn’t want to be discovered because of her sudden panic.
He went to his class. She strode past, unnoticed. She wasn’t sure what they were going to learn from him. She looked around to find where she could hang out. The guy was obviously going to be staying put for at least an hour, so she thought they could scope out the campus while they were here. She walked outside. Erik walked up behind her.
“So, he’s in class then?” Erik listened and confirmed this himself.
“I was thinking we could check out campus while we wait. The one thing these guys have in common are that they’re college students. We should see if there are possessed students here we don’t know about.” She looked expectantly at Erik.
“You mean you want me to listen and see what I can find out. I feel like I’m doing all the work here, when do you come in?” Erik went to sit at a nearby bench, so he could concentrate on the surrounding thoughts. He’d gotten good at blocking them which was good because otherwise he’d be flooded with thoughts all the time. Sloane patiently waited as he went into a trance.
“I only get the one guy right now; it could just be that they aren’t on campus right now.”
“Hm, how close do you have to be to hear them?” Sloane looked around at the campus and wondered if he could scan all of it.
“I don’t know like a couple thousand feet or something. This isn’t an exact science you know.” Erik glanced around wondering just how far he was able to listen. He wasn’t entirely sure. He knew it was a good distance, but he wasn’t sure if he could hear all of campus. “Why don’t you try to see what happens next. Isn’t that what you do?” He looked at her and began tapping his foot.
“It doesn’t work like that. I can’t entirely control when I have a vision, it just sort of happens.”
“Have you worked on it at all, through like meditation or something? I had to work at mine to expand what I can hear; maybe you just need to work on it,
so you can control it.”
“Yeah, maybe. In the meantime, let’s walk around making sure there isn’t anything going on here that we don’t know about.” Sloane wanted to be moving. She didn’t want to admit to Erik her problem. Although they’d been siblings, she hadn’t known Erik for a long time and she didn’t want to share her problems with him. Usually she would talk with Amy, but she couldn’t do that. She needed to keep Amy out of this as much as possible.
“Okay, we can walk around, and I’ll do the heavy lifting.” He winked at Sloane trying to lighten the mood. He didn’t remember her ever being so serious.
“Ha Ha, so let’s head toward the library, there’s something I want to check out there, anyway.”
“Oh, are you in need of a good book? I have a few ideas for you. I mean you should probably get some Vonnegut to prepare you for the days to come.” Erik grinned at her.
“Why doesn’t it surprise me that Vonnegut is your suggestion? But no, I want to use a computer. See if there’s anything going on in the world that we don’t know about. If these demons are the planning kind I want to see if there are any patterns in the news media recently that could lead us to understand what’s going on here.”
“Oh, I see, pretending to work, now are we?” he chuckled, “I guess that isn’t a half bad idea.”
“I’m so glad you agree.” She rolled her eyes at him. She was getting a little annoyed with his failed attempts at humor. “Sometimes when you try to be funny, you aren’t, so stop trying.”
Sloane went right to the bank of computers. She pulled up MPR first, then clicked over to the national site. Erik googled, murders in the last twenty-four hours. He stopped to listen to thoughts between articles.
“So, this might be interesting, apparently there have been a string of robberies at different labs. They don’t look like they’ve been connected by any authorities.” Sloane started.
Erik interrupted her, “If the authorities haven’t connected them why do you think they’re related?”
“If you would let me finish,” she huffed. “It’s what they stole that makes them suspicious. They stole chemicals from different laboratories. Nothing that would raise a red flag with the government but they all can be found in our books.” She pulled out her phone to take note of the laboratories to research more later.
“So, no one outside our group of hunters would know what the chemicals can be used for. Why are they be taking this stuff?” Erik asked. He moved closer to her computer screen, so he could read over her shoulder.
“Ultimately, to take us out.” Sloane turned to look Erik in the eye.
“Wait, what does that mean, take us out? How is that even possible?” Erik stared wide eyed at Sloane. He didn’t remember ever reading that.
“Yeah, not everyone in our society knows about it but there are some things that will harm us. Some combinations will disrupt our powers, some will strip us of our powers altogether, there are lots of things that can be used against us but very few people know what they are. As you can guess, this information is highly guarded.” Sloane got up from the chair. “Come on we have to go tell Bryant. He’ll need to alert the order before anyone is taken by surprise.”
Erik followed Sloane out the door. “So how is it that you know this if the information is so heavily guarded?”
“Mom taught me before she died. She was one of the people trusted with the information and it was entrusted to her to pass down to the next generation.” She turned to look at Erik. “Where’s the car parked?” she put her hand on her hip. They needed to get back to warn everyone. This affected the entire Shikari, and they needed to safeguard against an attack. If the demons found a way to weaken enough of them, they could do whatever they wanted without any worry of being stopped.
“I parked over in the Nineteenth Avenue ramp. I can’t believe we’re just going to leave the demon here to continue his class.” Erik looked back at the social science building.
“We’ve got bigger problems than one possessed college student. This involves the entire Shikari’s survival.” Sloane quickened her pace now that she had a direction.
Erik soon caught up to her. “I’m on the third level,” he said as they walked to the ramp.
They raced back to the house and burst through the kitchen. Amy was sitting at the table next to Bryant. Sloane stopped dead at the door and Erik walked into her back before looking up. “What the…”
“What the hell are you doing here?” Sloane glared at Amy.
“Finding out what the hell is going on since you wouldn’t tell me anything over the phone.” Amy took another drink of her coffee. She was too calm. She’d been a wreck yesterday. She sat relaxed with her elbows rested comfortably on the table, one hand curled around the handle of her mug.
Sloane crossed her arms over her chest and scowled at Amy. “You shouldn’t be here Amy.” Her tone was biting as her anger spilled out. She looked her straight in the eye, “Go home.”
“Ah no, you dragged me into this to leave me in the dust. You don’t think I care the world is in chaos and you’re fighting demons. I can’t just do nothing, I just can’t.” Amy began fidgeting in her chair.
“Ugh,” Sloane threw her hands up in the air, “Fine.”
Erik stepped around Amy to face Bryant, his tone low. “We have bigger issues than Amy being here Sloane, remember that.”
She looked back and met his eyes. She took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes, yes, you’re right. Have you been paying attention to the news lately?” She turned to Bryant.
“Some, why?” Bryant’s brows furrowed as he looked to Sloane.
“There has been a string of robberies around the country, different labs and factories. They’re stealing some key ingredients, ones needed to weaken us.” She crossed one arm over her chest and rubbed her elbow.
“I don’t get how we haven’t been informed about this; don’t we have people watching this kind of thing all the time? How did this slip by?” Erik turned accusatory, “And how do we not all know there’s something that can weaken us. I would think that Shikari members would know.” He sighed pushing his hand through his hair.
“Only certain people are entrusted with that information because we don’t want it to fall into the wrong hands. I’m not sure how it would have gotten past us. We have entire teams of people looking for that sort of thing. If you’ll excuse me, I need to make a few phone calls.” Bryant headed to his study.
“I think we need to do some reading, come on Erik lets show Amy the library.” Sloane headed out the door.
Erik looked to Amy, “Don’t worry she’ll get used to the idea.”
Amy smiled at him, “I hope you’re right. I thought we knew each other so well. Apparently, I was wrong.” She followed Erik.
“So, what are we reading?” Amy began playing with the chain around her neck.
“We’re going to go through our history books to see if anything like this has happened before. We’ve kept histories of all the demons we’ve dealt with as Shikari so there may be something we don’t know. You should probably read our vows. Now that you know, you’ll need to take an oath.”
“An oath, why?” Amy’s stomach clenched at the idea of having to take an oath.
“Anyone who is aware of our society must take the oath. It keeps us protected, but it will keep you safe as well since you’ll become part of the Shikari. Only under special circumstances are humans allowed to know about us. Sloane will have to come up with an excellent reason for why you know. I can’t wait to hear what she comes up with.” Erik looked to Sloane, and she glared at him.
“Who says I’m telling them anything?” Sloane had no intention of letting Amy take part in taking an oath. Therefore, she wouldn’t have to explain anything.
“You know that’s the rules. You’re going to have to tell them, she must take the oath. You have no choice.”
“Not if we leave after this is all over.”
“You know that’s not going to fly wit
h Bryant but think what you want. Not like you’ve ever listened to me before.” Erik grabbed a book from the shelf. “Here Amy have a seat. Just in case Sloane changes her mind. You should probably read this, so you know what we’re all about.” Erik handed her the book to read.
Sloane went to peruse the books on the shelf. She wasn’t sure where to start since they had so much history to go through. “Erik, can you remember any stories that we’ve heard before? Any weird happenings from the history we’ve been taught? We need someplace to start. There’s just too much here to go through.” She ran her hand along the books as she read each of the titles.
“You think they’d have this all in a searchable database by now, so we could search by keyword.” Erik understood their dilemma. “Let’s just grab one at random and start skimming. There’s no easy way to do this.” He grabbed a book down and sat across from Amy.
“This seems too impractical and we’ll be reading for days if we don’t know what we’re looking for.” Sloane grabbed a book and opened it. She sat in the closest chair, eyes focused on the book in front of her. Maybe they’d just get lucky.
After what felt like hours of reading Erik slammed his book shut and laid his head down on top of it. “I can’t do this anymore; don’t we have people that do this? Let’s call them.” He was not the library going type. He liked to be out on the streets grabbing and killing demons. He didn’t like doing the required reading when he’d been in training. Since he’d become a warrior, he’d just call the librarians who knew the histories. He wasn’t sure why they were doing this.
“You do realize that if this information is out, it was leaked by an insider. You trust calling the librarians to ask them? I don’t," Sloane continued reading. She’d plow through as many books necessary for the information they needed.
Erik got up, “I’m going to see what Bryant found out.” He swiftly walked out of the room.
Sloane looked at Amy to see how she was doing. She was staring off into space with her finger on the spot where she’d left off.