The Culling (Book 2): The Hollow:

by Bell, A. C.

  I flared my Splinter Skill and turned my arm metal and swung my fist. He’d probably intended to tackle me, but my fist connected with his jaw and sharply twisted his head sideways. There was a sickening crack before his weight slammed into me. I caught his dead weight and eased him to the floor. Panic struck me. I’d just killed someone. I clamped my hands over my mouth and backed into the wall. All I could do was stare at his corpse in horror until the front door opened at Slade’s and Kendra’s return. They froze. Their eyes flicked from the body to me.

  “He—I—he attacked and I-I just reacted,” I stammered. My metal arm started turning back into flesh as remorse flooded my chest from voicing it aloud.

  Slade rushed over to me and turned me away from the body with his hands on my shoulders to keep my attention on him instead. “It’s okay. He would have killed you if you hadn’t.”

  “I know.” I squeezed my eyes shut to get my emotions in check. “Who do we call?”

  “No one,” Kendra intervened. I looked over at her, shocked. She was inspecting the dead man. “If you’re right, then this is bigger than the Hunters. This man and his ally were sorcerers, which means someone else is working with the Hunters. Until we know who, we trust no one. You did it clean. That’s good. I’ll handle this. You two, get out of here.” I tried to argue, but she shot me a look. “Go.”

  “Come on,” Slade muttered. “It’s alright.” He tugged me out of the apartment. I glanced back on our way out the door and saw Kendra roll the man over. His head lolled unnaturally. I felt sick.

  Wisps

  Raiden's fingers found mine as I absentmindedly marched around a cluster of gossiping aspen trees. A branch briefly snagged the lightweight pack of climbing gear on my back. I'd insisted on carrying it since Raiden insisted on carrying the small duffel of picnic food. I wasn't about to let him carry both, especially since the burn on his back wasn't healed yet. We'd hiked half an hour through the forest so far, though Raiden hadn't told me where we were going.

  "What's wrong?" Raiden asked. His thumb tickled the back of my hand and riled the butterflies in my stomach into a flutter.

  "I dunno," I lied.

  Raiden halted and kept hold of my hand to tug me back toward him. I avoided looking at him. “You did nothing wrong, Adeline. He would have killed you or worse.”

  “I know. I just--” I dug my fingers through my hair frustratedly. “I’m training to become a police officer, right? Officers are supposed to be able to subdue someone without using deadly force. All I did was punch him and—”

  Raiden cupped my face in his hands and I gripped his arms to ground myself. His green eyes looked even greener with us surrounded by foliage and I let his gaze hold mine. “Your skill is still so new to you. You’ll learn how to control your strength,” he said.

  If only someone hadn’t had to die before I figured out how. I kept that thought to myself. “I suppose you’re right.”

  Raiden stroked my cheeks with his thumbs. “We don’t have to do this today if you would rather go back. We can come a different day.”

  I shook my head. “It’s okay. I could use the distraction.”

  His fingers found mine again and we trekked on in silence for a while so I could collect myself. Eventually, he said, “Part of my job at the law firm was environmental. Protecting supernatural habitats and such.”

  I wanted to say something clever, but all that came out was a small “aww” of endearment. He tried not to get side-tracked in a grin but didn't manage. A tone of blush even crept into his cheeks, I noted proudly.

  “There's a cave out here that I've managed to keep under the Preservation Act of 1912.”

  “I thought you were claustrophobic?”

  Raiden smoothed his hair with his fingers, preening himself to hide his discomfort. “I am, but I had to come out here for the case, so I’ve already been there. It’s fine.”

  “What's special about the cave?”

  “A rare benevolent species lives inside. I thought you'd like to see them.”

  Excitement made me smile. “Definitely.”

  It took less than an hour to finish our hike. The mouth of the cave in question looked like a glorified rabbit hole as if a black bear had decided to dig a home for itself under a rock. At least, until Raiden cracked a large glow stick from my pack and dropped it into the hole. It fell about twenty feet down a nearly vertical incline. Raiden secured the climbing rope around a sturdy tree while I fastened myself into one of the harnesses. I went down first and then waited anxiously at the bottom, ready to catch Raiden if the rope somehow managed to break or come loose. It didn't, of course.

  At the bottom, Raiden cricked his neck a few times, taking deep breaths to calm his anxiety. I slipped my hand into his again and gave a squeeze that I hoped helped. He held it tight with a grateful grin. It was impossibly dark further in the cave. Even with flashlights, shadows clung to every crack and crevice and danced in the moving light like a web of darkness around us. He led me through the rough tunnels until it opened up into a little cavern. Stalactites clung to the ceiling, ever-reaching down toward their stalagmite soulmates on the floor. A cool gentle breeze whistled quietly through their longing fingers.

  “Wow...” I breathed.

  Raiden tugged me over to a ledge of rough stones that formed a natural sort of staircase off to the side. There was a flat enough surface down below for us to set up our small picnic. Raiden pulled what I had previously assumed were just large rose quartz points from the side pouches of the duffle bag, except that now they were glowing bright pink when he unwrapped them. They even emitted warmth that cut the chill nicely.

  “They’re enchanted,” he explained. “They respond to the magic down here.” While he set them about, I unrolled our picnic blanket and we sat with our backs against a boulder. The ambiance was captivating. “What do you want to eat first?”

  “One of the fruit cups,” I answered. He handed me a Tupperware cup full of various kinds of berries and I busied myself with eating to calm my nerves. “What are we looking for?”

  “You’ll know it when you see it.” He fixed a very serious look on me that caught me off guard. “So, where are you most ticklish?”

  Laughter bubbled out of me and made him chortle. “There’s no way I’m answering that. I do have a confession, though,” I muttered. His brows rose curiously. “I printed a list of first date questions in case I was too nervous to think of any.”

  His smile touched his eyes. “Let me see.”

  I pulled a folded piece of paper from my pocket and handed it over. He read the first question and started chortling and, knowing why it was funny, so did I.

  “So, are you strong enough to fight a bear?” I asked.

  “No, I’m not.” He moved to the next question. “‘List five things you can do with a pencil besides write.’ Let’s see: chew, bounce, throw, uh...snap, and stab.”

  “Wow, that got dark,” I teased.

  “You get the next one. Five things you can do with a brick besides build.”

  I tilted my head back to think. “Hide a key, throw, break into, clobber—”

  “And this isn’t getting dark?”

  I poked my finger into his side and he leaned away, laughing. “And prop a door open. You next. ‘How did you meet your best friend?’”

  Raiden propped his elbows on his knees, thinking. “We met during the War of the French Revolution. Back in 1798, a second coalition was formed to work against France and took back nearly all the territory Napoleon won in Italy in 1796. That’s where Slade and I met. I was a medic working the field. Slade and another guy had gotten separated from their unit and they got jumped by a French soldier. Slade’s friend didn’t see the knife in time and Slade lost it when he died. During the scuffle, he bit the Frenchman and his venom knocked the guy out cold. That was when Slade noticed me staring from behind a tree. He froze, thinking he’d just exposed himself to a human and then he got shot in the back. I pulled him to safety and heale
d him, but it took more out of me than I expected. When I came to, he’d gotten us both to safety.”

  “That’s…incredible,” I breathed.

  A flush crept into his complexion and he looked away. Suddenly, he straightened and pointed through the dark. “Look.”

  Three white specs drifted into the cavern through crevices in the back wall. They would have been impossible to see if it wasn’t for the pale blue, nearly white light they emitted. More began to drift into view until the cavern was lit in an ethereal glow, dotted with bright star-like lights. I stared in awe. Absently, I set my fruit bowl down and rose to my feet. Raiden ventured out to meet them and I followed eagerly.

  “What are they?” I asked.

  “Wisps. They’re only found underground anymore. These days, people can’t agree on whether they actually count as a living species since we can't prove whether or not they have any kind of actual thought or if they're just a manifestation of magical energy.”

  “And what do you think?”

  He held his hand out as one neared and it bobbed lazily around his fingers as if to analyze him. “Anything that behaves is alive in my book.”

  The wisps all slowly drifted our way, likely drawn toward the bewitched quartz points Raiden had brought. I held my arms out and a dozen drifted toward the movement. They wove around me curiously and danced around my fingers when I wiggled them. It tickled whenever one touched my skin. One tried to go up my nose and I pulled away in a fit of laughter, bumping into Raiden. He was watching fondly.

  Suddenly, standing so close to him with his perfect green eyes fixed on me instead of the breathtaking view around us, I didn’t feel nervous anymore. Warmth and easiness spread through me and I couldn't help but smile up at him. I put my hands on his shoulders for support to balance on my toes. It only took a breath to bridge the gap between us and my lips found his in a slow kiss. They were as soft as they looked. He drew me closer, one hand on my waist and the other coiling in the waves of my hair and grazing the nape of my neck in a way that made me tingle. My heart fluttered until light shone through my eyelid and something tickled my cheek. I giggled and pulled away from the wisp, wincing at its bright light. It continued to follow my face as I ducked, regardless. Raiden chuckled and gently nudged it away.

  “Our food is getting cold,” he said quietly.

  I was about to observe that it didn't matter if picnic food got cold since the whole idea of a picnic was to bring food that kept, but a playful spark in his eyes told me it had been a joke. “That was an expert use of sarcasm,” I complimented.

  He laughed. “Thank you.” We walked—trailing specs of light—back over to our picnic so we could finish our lunch under the enchanting glow of wisp light.

  ***

  “Why am I so nervous?” Nikki complained. She stopped outside the room and set her forehead against the wall. A few people shuffled past, giving her and Peter mistrustful looks. A whiff told Peter they were Viesci, here for Slade’s meeting. Peter ignored them and rubbed Nikki’s back.

  “It’s okay to be nervous. You’re taking a big step.” Especially since she’d had such a negative idea of magic after the mess with her mom.

  Nikki straightened and smiled anxiously. “Wish me luck.”

  “You don’t need it. Go kick magic’s smug little hiney.”

  She laughed and opened the door. Markus Ware stood beside a table inside, which was covered in open books with aged pages. Peter didn’t envy the amount of extra work she was taking on, but at least it was summer. Markus’s glance lingered on Peter for a moment and then he shut the door behind Nikki with a wave of his hand.

  Peter exhaled to expel his annoyance. As if her absent father had the right to judge the boys Nikki hung out with. He turned from the door. Maybe there was food available in the guest lounge. These days, he was always hungry. As he passed a window on his way, however, he caught movement across the expansive backyard. Lorraine slipped into the tree line, disappearing into the forest. Was she okay? Adeline said she was better now, but the last time he’d seen her, her change into a cynocephalus had rendered her into an enraged, depressed mess. All because Gabriel had been looking for him.

  He went to find her. The icy snow on the ground outside crunched beneath his feet. It was almost up to his knees, now. He stuffed his hands into his pockets until he reached the windshield of the trees. He could smell her, but she wasn’t visible anywhere. He listened. Wherever she was, she wasn’t moving.

  “Lorraine?” Peter called out.

  Feet rustled the underbrush, still learning how to move quietly. He followed the sound to the northeast. There she was, tucked as much as she could behind the trunk of an adolescent white pine. She was in her cynephi form. He could see the edges of her narrow arms and her furry ears twitching at every sound she heard. Peter walked carefully closer. With each step he took, she tried to scrunch behind the trunk even more, hopeful that he hadn’t yet seen her.

  “You don’t need to be embarrassed, Lorraine. There’s nothing wrong with what you are.”

  Warily, her head peeked out from behind the tree. Her long, fur covered snout let out a plume of warm air as she stopped trying to hide her breathing. They’d only met a few times, so she probably hadn’t recognized his voice, but when she saw him the tension eased from her shoulders. Grief and guilt gnawed at him, along with a desire to show someone what he had been too afraid to tell anyone since he’d come back, afraid of how they would look at him.

  He shrugged out of his coat and hid behind a tree to Change. The process had become more painful, but it happened faster. The agonizing part was how much he grew. Rather than turning into a wolf as he had since he’d hit puberty, he retained much of his human shape. His hands and feet stretched, his nails thickening into claws. The fur that sprouted over his skin helped warm him in the crisp air and his head reshaped itself into that of a dog.

  When he was done, he stepped back out so she could see. As a cynephi, Lorraine retained her regular height of 5’5, but Peter now stood over eight feet tall when he stood up straight. He was a wulver, just like Gabriel. Lorraine’s wide, dark eyes took in his appearance and then she turned and sprinted away through the forest.

  Peter flinched. Feeling ashamed and embarrassed, he Changed back. She was still so new to the supernatural world. What had he been thinking, scaring her like that? Just when he was finishing pulling his coat back on, snow crunched where Lorraine had been. She’d Changed back as well. Not afraid. She’d just gone to find her clothing. Her eyes and nose were red and puffy.

  “He got you, too?”

  All he could do was nod.

  ***

  I couldn’t believe how nervous I was about Slade’s meeting with the rest of the Viesci. It couldn’t be that bad, right? I was only the product of a taboo love affair in their culture. I stood with my arms tightly crossed before the large front door of Renenet’s Estate. It seemed bigger, more imposing somehow, knowing what lay behind it today. I pulled my lips between my teeth and gnawed on them, holding fistfuls of the sleeves of my cozy coat as I worked up the nerve to ring the bell. My nose and cheeks were turning pinker from the cold by the second. Eventually, I sighed.

  “You’re being stupid,” I said to myself. Finally, I yanked on the doorbell chain and waited. Renenet grinned cheerfully when she pulled it open.

  “Good morning, Adeline. Slade said to expect you.”

  It was exceedingly warm inside and I peeled my coat off as soon as she shut the door behind me. She wove a hand over her shoulder as she sauntered around me and I heard the lock of the door click into place. The sorceress led me to the second floor. I could hear several dozen voices behind one of the doors before Renenet pulled it open for me.

  “Thanks,” I said with a smile.

  She nodded with a grin and didn’t comment when I hesitated to go in. Of the dozen people I could see seated in rows of cushioned folding chairs, half turned to see who had arrived. When they didn’t recognize me, they whispered to
each other to see if their companions knew who I was. I pulled a deep breath into my lungs and stepped across the threshold before letting the air back out. The heads swiveled back around to face forward. No one turned to welcome me or ask my name.

  After a scan of the thirty or so people in the room, I deduced that Slade wasn’t here. No sign of Kendra, either. Walking into a room full of strangers, I wasn’t sure where to sit. But not all were actually strangers. I found Raiden in the last row all the way at the other end. Four empty chairs were beside him as no one had deigned themselves to sit beside the outsider. He was dressed to impress the family and friends of his oldest friend in true Raiden Christopher Lewis fashion, attired in light grey slacks and tucked in, white button-up shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Staring absent-mindedly forward, he didn’t notice my approach.

  I crouched beside his right ear and slid my left hand along his chest and under his dark blue tie in somewhat of an embrace and pressed a kiss to his right cheek. Tension eased from his features and he smiled, turning to touch his lips to mine in a pleasant greeting kiss.

  “Is this seat taken?” I asked sarcastically, tipping my head toward the one beside him. He laced his fingers with the hand I had on his chest and tugged me around the chair, scooting over to give me his seat. He draped an arm around my shoulders and I nestled against his side.

  “Where’s Slade?” I asked.

  “Trying to convince Kendra to come. I don’t think it’s working. How was your morning?”

  “Interesting. Peter might call you ‘Papi Chulo’ next time he sees you.”

  “What?” Raiden asked amidst a comical chuckle. “Why?”