by Megan Parker
Her clan.
She smirked at the sound of it.
Though many had died and their headquarters had been destroyed, the Clan of Vail lived on and, despite Keith’s plot to dismantle it and get its once proud followers executed in the process, she would lead them.
And she would win.
“Isaac! Round up everybody and make sure they understand the situation; anybody who wants out won’t have the option later. Keith knows where we are and he’ll think that gives him power! He’s trying to motivate a response—something he can use as leverage with The Council to get things moving—and I’m sure he’ll jump at the chance as soon as it presents itself. Everybody who chooses to fight with us should do what they need to prepare, I want to be ready to do this by tomorrow.” She turned and faced Zoey, nodding to her friend as she fell into a comfortable place as their leader, “I need you to send him a message. If you project a psychic invitation to discuss the peaceful surrender of the clan then he’ll be waiting like a kid at Christmas!”
“Surrender?” Isaac glared at her, “What are you saying?”
Serena smirked, “Not a gambler, are you?”
“A bluff?” Zoey frowned, “You’re going to lie to get him out in the open?”
Isaac shook his head, “Isn’t that a little underhanded? If he’s looking to provide The Council with evidence that we’ve gone rogue won’t that work to his advantage?”
“Short of killing him I don’t think we can do much more to incriminate ourselves.” Serena frowned, “He’s made very sure to paint an ugly picture of us, and bitching and moaning won’t make us look any prettier. He knows we’ve suffered a massive loss and he knows we’re scared, and, in his mind, all we have left is a ‘fight-or-flight’ option; either we take him on and prove him right, or we give him what he wants and try to flee from a global force. He’ll only come out from whatever rock he’s hiding under if he thinks he stands to gain from it, and we’re gonna use that for our advantage. I’m through playing fair, and tomorrow I’m showing Keith that he’s not the only one that can fight dirty!”
The others nodded and smiled, obviously strengthened by her words and set about their tasks. Serena let out a heavy breath that she’d been holding during her entire speech and thanked Zane for giving her the strength to move forward with her life.
Retreating back to the room, she began raiding the dressers and closet—containing a mismatched assortment of clothes in random styles and sizes for whoever might have needed them—and snatched up a black, sleeveless top that barely fit around her chest and a pair of black leather pants that looked like something stolen from the set of a bad 80s movie. Deciding that it was the best she could hope for—and, in all fairness, she could make that shit work!—she set the outfit aside with her boots.
When there was nothing left to distract her from planning, she sighed and began to strategize. Keith had always been stronger than her. Even as kids she had never been able to match his speed or reflexes, and his auric control had always been spot-on where she had been forced to teach herself to direct her own aura through motions and lessons she’d learned from archery. And now…
She frowned and shook her head, not allowing herself to finish a thought that would only justify quitting.
Strength and speed weren’t what would define this battle, anyway. Neither of them stood to gain anything in killing the other, outside of a warrant for their execution, and that shifted the nature of how they would fight.
The goal—for either side—was to incapacitate the other long enough for The Council to intervene.
And therein lay the second dilemma, how to get The Council’s attention and lure them in to see Keith for who he really was.
She needed to play off her strengths; what she could do better than even Keith.
Then, as the solution dawned on her, she couldn’t help but laugh.
With or without Zane, this was going to be epic.
Zane frowned as he continued through the mountainous terrain towards the caverns that the Taroe tribe that had cursed him once occupied, hoping that there might be some clue to his freedom in the remains. It had taken a lot of time and a lot of money to get him to that spot, and if he’d come all this way to find a dead end he didn’t know what he’d do. He sighed, assuring himself that they’d be there as he continued pulling himself up the mountain; remembering the last time he’d been in this place.
Finally, he reached the hollowed-out entrance on the side of the slope and he groaned and heaved as the beast began to struggle. It didn’t want to be there any more than he did. Being here was certain death for one, if not both, of them. The Taroe’s magic surrounding the mountain sensed what was coming and made an effort to keep him out, and though it was a powerful spell and fighting it proved strenuous on his body, he was able to push through.
As he crossed the barrier’s limit the spell released him and he fell forward as its grip on him vanished. Hitting the cave floor with a pained grunt, he started to pull himself up and found himself staring at a pair of ankles. Lifting his eyes towards the owner, he was both relieved and terrified to find a Taroe woman with long, red hair and bright green eyes that bore into him. Her tattoos—following the same tribal style of his own—were pale-white and contrasted against her dark skin.
“Looking for something, Maledictus?” she sneered.
“You?” He glared and shot to his feet, keeping his eyes on her, “Tell me there’s a cure to these… these fucking things!” He gestured to his tattoos.
“A cure? For the tattoos; for the curse?” she scoffed, “Wouldn’t be much of a curse if there were,” she sneered, “And, like all tattoos, they’re permanent!” She frowned as she watched him, her eyes almost searching him for something he couldn’t name.
“Bullshit! Any other tattoos can be removed! Plenty have done it before! But these”—he slapped at the design on his arm and glared—“won’t go away! I’ve been to countless places—traveled the fucking globe—to find somebody with a laser strong enough to burn your accursed ink from my skin, and every time I’d return home with them just as dark and crisp as the day you fucks put it in me!”
“Then why come to us now, Maledictus?”
Zane glared, “That’s not my name!”
She chuckled, “That’s funny, because it’s written all over you!”
“That’s not funny!” he snapped at her, taking another step.
“Then I am glad,” she sneered, not budging an inch, “that I was not trying to be!”
He growled and tried to step around her. If she wouldn’t help him then he’d find the answers on his own. There had to be something that could undo his situation!
Anything!
She stepped to the side to block his efforts, “I’ve given you your answer, Maledictus! You earned those marks and the effects they have on you! You should feel honored!” she glared, “Nobody before you has ever worn the mark of Maledictus! You must be very proud of yourself! You’ve sealed your fate! Now leave!” she turned away from him.
“So why are you here? This tribe was destroyed years ago!” He narrowed his eyes and smirked, “I make a point of celebrating the anniversary of its destruction every year!”
“Perhaps I’m here to pay my condolences! You see, Maledictus, there are those who prefer to learn from the past and honor the lessons it offers us!” She sighed, “And what about you? Why come to a dead land looking for a cure you weren’t even certain existed? Are you really so alone that you had nobody worth staying for?”
He clenched his teeth and looked away.
She nodded, smirking at him, “I see. You’ve come here not because you are alone, but because you are not alone! Can it be? Can Maledictus, a walking Apocalypse, truly change what it is simply because it feels for one of those suffering from its wrath?”
“It isn’t like that!” he glared, “It’s not me that’s a threat to her!”
“Oh?” she raised an eyebrow, “And what makes her immune to the rage o
f Maledictus?”
He shook his head, “I… I don’t know. She just is! It won’t attack her! Hell, even its rage vanishes around her!”
Her eyes narrowed to slits, “You lie! Maledictus would never change its ways for anything or anyone!”
“Yea, I was pretty sure of that too, sweetheart!” Zane rolled his eyes, “I’ve been ready to wake up to find everybody dead—I’ve been expecting it!—so do you think that having my reality turned upside-down is a picnic for me?”
“Who are they? What are they to you?” she demanded, taking a step closer.
Zane stepped back, startled by her outburst, “I don’t know! Some chick! My old mentor’s daughter!” he shook his head, “But even her old man couldn’t sway the damn thing! There’s no reason she should!”
“No…” she frowned, looking away, “Maledictus doesn’t see a difference between friend or foe or their kin!”
“Then you see my problem, right? This broad’s done the impossible! Tamed the savage dragon, soothed the raging beast! For fuck’s sake, you said yourself that Melanoma—or whatever it is—doesn’t do this sort of thing! So that means she’s cracked the curse, right? Some sort of loophole in its design?”
“You’re a fool!” she shook her head, “It doesn’t work that way! The curse was created—designed—to make your life and the lives of those around you miserable! By sheer definition of the symbols you wear, none—no matter who they are or what they meant to you—should sway the—”
“Dammit, bitch! That’s what I’ve been saying! Up until a few days ago she wasn’t anything to me! I didn’t know her. I didn’t grow up with her. I haven’t spent year-after-year pining and swooning and serenating this girl. Nothing!” Zane laughed as the tattoos started to tingle, “Oh, that’s great! See what happened? You went and woke the baby!”
She rolled her eyes as her own tattoos began to glow and she focused on the searing red design visible on his arm, “Superesse adhuc, Maledictus. Haec hora non indigetis videre ira tua.”
Zane grimaced and shook as a tremor shook his body and then went still, his tattoos shifting back to normal. “What the…” he examined himself, “What the hell? In just a few days it’s like everybody with a pair of tits can settle this thing down! What the fuck did you say?”
She exhaled slowly, letting her tattoos fade as well, “It’s Latin. And I think I should come with you.”
Zane stared at her in bewilderment, “Wh-what? What are you talking about? Why are you…” he shook his head, “Why should I take you anywhere?”
She stepped forward and, though she was noticeably smaller than he was, seemed to overpower him with her stare alone, “Because if this girl is as special as you say—if she does have power over Maledictus—then you may already have your cure and you will need me to administer it.”
Zane shook his head, “And why should I trust you? It was your people that did this to me in the first place! What happened to ‘earning the marks’ and all that shit?”
“Sometimes things change, Zane,” she smirked, “And if both you and Maledictus can come to see the ugliness in yourselves and seek retribution for noble cause, then perhaps the sentence can change as well.”
Zane bit his lip and sighed, “If I find out you’re fucking with me—”
“It is neither my nature nor my interest to deceive you!” she snapped, “So you can either accept my offer and bring me with you or you can carry on as you always have!”
Zane blushed at her fury, “Fair enough. So who are you, anyway?”
“My name’s Nicc’oule, but the humans I trade with when I’m short on supplies call me Nikki.”
He frowned, “You trade with humans? Do they know what you are?”
“They know that I am a woman,” she responded, “and they know I am tattooed.”
“Is that all they know?”
Nikki chuckled, “What more is there to know? I’ve had no reason to cast around them, so they have no reason to know I have magic, but just as you wear clothes to hide your nakedness, my decision to not reveal my magic does not mean that it is not there.”
Zane narrowed his eyes, “Do they or do they not know what you are.”
She scoffed and walked by him, “No, Maledictus. They do not.”
Zane sighed and shook his head, turning after to follow her, “Couldn’t you have just said so? Was all that really necessary?”
“Nothing is necessary.” She chuckled, “The decisions we make are motivated by circumstance and desire. We work so that we can afford to live. We bathe and make ourselves presentable so that we can attract a mate and start a family. And we act and behave as we do so that, when we die, we can be remembered.”
Zane growled, “Okay… so what is the circumstances and desires behind all this cryptic bullshit?”
She laughed, “Because it is fun!”
Zane stared after her, shaking his head. “Women…”
“This is taking too damn long!” Zane grumbled, ignoring a brunette woman with a little kid standing in line ahead of them in the airport terminal. Lowering his voice he leaned towards Nikki, “Isn’t there some—y’know?—easier way to get back?
Nikki frowned, “Easier than flying?”
“Yea…” he nodded towards her tattoos, “like teleporting or something like that.”
“Teleporting?” she stared at him, “You want me to teleport us with my magic?”
Zane held his pointer finger to his lips and glared, “Yes, Miss Share-With-The-World! That’s what I mean!”
“Like in the movies and on TV, right?”
“Uh… more or less, yea.” Zane shrugged. “Is something wrong with that?”
Nikki rolled her eyes and turned to face him, “Okay, let me break down what you’re asking me so that you can understand how stupid you sound. Now, you want me—somebody you’ve known only several hours and is more likely to kill you than offer kindness—to use my abilities to take both of us apart molecule-by-molecule. Then—now being nothing more than a microscopic jigsaw puzzle of myself—consciously direct both of us, in our molecular multitude, hundreds of miles away to a pinpoint location beyond sea, city, and forest that I’ve never been to and then, assuming that enough of me has survived this trip and is still actually all together and not spread out halfway across the planet, reassemble both of us into something hopefully resembling what we look like now. That about wrap up what you’re asking of me?”
Zane shook his head at her, “Anybody ever tell you that you’re a really abrasive fucking cunt sometimes?”
The brunette ahead of them whipped around and jabbed a sharp finger into Zane’s face, “Excuse me!” she hissed at him, “There is a child here!”
Zane frowned and looked down at the little boy; shaggy brown hair, a hooded sweater that was several sizes too big for him, tiny jeans with the ghostly remnants of grass stains on the knees that couldn’t be washed out, and a pair of red Converse shoes that needed to be re-laced.
In a word: typical.
“Yes. Yes there is a child here! And I’m certain he’ll even grow—as children have a way of doing, I’ve heard—into a young man where he’ll sprout some god-ugly acne and all sorts of body hair and start borrowing your fashion magazines for prolonged trips to the bathroom. Then, when he’s done pumping protein into every piece of fabric in your home, maybe he’ll march off to college and, if he’s miraculously avoided knocking up some future pole-dancer, maybe even get a job that won’t leave him selling drugs to make rent on a shitty studio apartment. Shit, lady, he may even grow up to be president some day! So bravo, toots, you’ve reproduced; now, while I thank you for showing me that there is, indeed, a child present, I’m going to return to the conversation I was having and you’re going to turn around and shut your fucking mouth!”
The woman’s eyes grew wider and wider with every sentence as her jaw dropped lower and lower. By the time Zane had finished, he wasn’t sure if the woman would attack him or if her head would just pop off her shoul
ders from sheer rage. Fortunately for both of them, her son, having overheard the rant but not understanding most of it, provided a distraction:
“Wow, Mommy! Can I really be president some day?”
The woman, still shaking with rage and barely registering her son’s words, shook her head. “No, Eric! Don’t listen to a word he says! He’s a crazy ma—” then, suddenly realizing what she was saying, turned to the boy as the first wave of tears cascaded down his cheeks and he ran away from her with a shriek.
Firing Zane one final death glare, the woman sacrificed her spot in line and began running after her traumatized son.
Zane smirked and stepped forward to the now-open spot.
Nikki, frowning at him, shook her head as she stepped up beside him. “That was horrible!”
“I agree.” Zane nodded, “No parent should discourage their kid like that.”
“You know what I mean!” She looked past him towards where they had run off to, “I just don’t see how you find that funny.”
Zane shrugged, “Serena would’ve thought it was a riot.”
Nikki frowned and stared at him, “Is that the one you were talking about? The one that calms Maledictus?”
Zane nodded.
“So what do you know about her?” Nikki asked.
Zane sighed, “I know that she’s stubborn and arrogant and obnoxious and an overall pain in the ass!”
Nikki raised an eyebrow, “And this is the woman that soothes—”
“In my defense, I did already point out that it makes no goddam sense!”
“But…” she shook her head, “but there must be something about her! Some goodness or sincerity or affection or magic!”
Zane shook his head, “Only magic with that woman is how she can bust my balls over and over again and still irritate the shit out of me every time she opens her mouth.”
Nikki laughed and smiled, “I like her already!”
“Yea,” he groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose and advancing as the line moved ahead, “I’m sure you two will hit it off just great! She’s already turned one of my clan mates to the dark side, too!”