He was so powerful that the angels and other creatures called him a hero, because he had proven himself strong enough to fight off any evil that threatened their lives and their kingdom. His name was Tristan Silas, Prince Tristan Silas. He was caring, selfless, compassionate, and had a host of other qualities I didn’t have and frankly didn’t want. People said he was a beacon of light, a lighthouse guiding his people and the world to safety, and others called him the Creator’s only true success when it came to making a soul in his own image.
I called it bullshit.
“Tristan?” I asked. “Never heard of him,” I flashed the king another mocking smile to hide the fact that my mind was racing with questions.
Why in the name of the devil did they want me around their golden boy?
“Tristan should indeed prove to be a challenge.” Ooh, now I got why they were assigning me to him. “No Grandinians have ever been able to harm the humans Tristan guides. It has become a competition of sorts among Grandinians of a certain mindset to Shift to him so they can try to defeat him. So far, all have failed.”
“You didn’t summon me here to tell me how awesome he is, did you?”
I understood then. The king thought I wouldn’t be capable of even approaching a human that Tristan was guiding. What an insult. I’d never Shifted to Tristan because I could never sense him on earth, but I wasn’t exactly afraid of him.
Like Lumenians, each Grandinian was assigned to an énas at 13, but we didn’t have to stay with the énas we were first assigned; loyalty wasn’t regarded quite so highly among our people. We were free to move to another énas if we wanted, and this was called the Shift. Some angels chose to Shift when they became bored with their assigned énas. I’d shifted several times. I bored easily. And I killed rather a lot of my humans, but mainly, I bored easily.
Assigning me to Tristan meant, I’d have to Shift to him and his human. It would be my job to try and harm the human, and Tristan’s to try and protect the human.
“Starting tomorrow, I’d like for you to Shift to Tristan and his human. No human assigned to Tristan is served well by him, because he thwarts Grandinians too easily, and no human will is free to truly choose good if it is never even tempted by evil. Tristan needs a challenge, and all sides will benefit when he gets one. Besides, it’s become a point of honor for all of Grands. It would be good to show that one of us can stand up to the Lumenian champion.
“An added bonus is that he’ll be difficult to defeat. Maybe, just maybe, you won’t have so much spare time to spend wantonly killing. We could do with a little less of that, Gideon.” Wow, look who wasn’t scared anymore, talking to me like we were friends.
“So you want to pair me with the prince?”
“Last month, Tristan was assigned to a human named Abigail Cells. She is eighteen. It’s her final year of high school. She lives with her mother in San Francisco. She’s a very caring and loving girl, volunteers for a lot of charity work, she’s kind and she’s unselfish.” I took this as Daligo’s way of saying yes.
Look at that, not only was he giving me Tristan as an early Christmas present, but he was also throwing in a sweet girl as the bright red bow on the top.
“Here’s all you need to know about her. I think a little challenge would be good for all three of you.” The king snapped his fingers, and a file materialized out of thin air in front of him and flew to me. The file contained everything that was known about Abigail from the time she was born to the present.
I caught the file and, caused it to turn to ash in my hand. I’d be damned if I spent even a second reading about some human.
Working with Tristan did sound intriguing, though, I hated him and his squeaky-clean perfection. I hated that he was always saving people from me. I wanted him dead, but on the other hand, I didn’t like anyone telling me what to do as if they owned me, not even my king.
“I’m honored and all, but I don’t—”
The king cut me off. “I thought you’d be up for it, but it seems even you don’t think that you’re capable of besting someone as powerful as Tristan and...”
“Your Majesty,” I interrupted. What the hell was wrong with him? Did he seriously think I was afraid of what’s-his-face? “I’m up for the challenge. I just don’t like being told what to do, and it sounds as though you’re telling me what to do with this particular assignment.”
“I’m merely doing my job by pairing you with the prince, but of course, if Tristan becomes too challenging and you can’t handle him, you—”
Daligo didn’t get a chance to finish, because I threw a jet of flame at one of the nearby guards, hitting him squarely in the chest. He was instantly reduced to a pile of greasy cinders. I didn’t wait for the second guard to panic. I appeared in front of him and ripped his heart straight out of his chest. The angel fell, twitching, at my feet.
“No!” the king shouted in horror.
I was about to reach over and tweak the royal chin when I felt a presence. His presence.
“You just can’t stay away from me, can you?” I asked, turning to see Tristan standing behind me as if he’d been there all along.
HERO VS. VILLAIN
Want a chair, Your Majesty?” I asked, looking at Daligo, who looked like he might hurl.
It took him a second, but then the stunned look in his eyes was gone. “I’m fine,” he said, but I knew he wasn’t. He was just good at pretending to be.
Tristan sauntered casually toward the king, his eyes everywhere but the body on the floor. It took him only a wave of his hand to repair the mosaic and the enormous hole in the ceiling. Everything looked as it should.
Look at that: it took him only one second to make me angry. I pretended I hadn’t noticed what he’d done.
“You’re a long way from home aren’t you?” I asked, acting as if I couldn’t be bothered to fly across the room and rip his heart out, too. Which reminded me—the guard’s heart was still in my hand. Awkward.
“Gideon,” Tristan said by way of a greeting, with that stupid, punchable smile on his face that he always wore.
“That’s my name,” I sneered. “Don’t wear it out.”
“It’s been a long time.”
And by that, he meant since we’d seen each other in Spain about an hour ago, when he’d come to save the humans inside a mall I’d set on fire.
“Not long enough,” I grumbled.
I glanced from the king to Tristan, and I knew I’d rather be anywhere but here, having those two stare at me as if my ship had just arrived from hell.
“That’s all for now, Gideon. I hope you’ll be there tomorrow: I heard school starts at eight.”
School? At this, I walk over to them “School?”
“Yes, we enrolled you. We thought it would be good for you to be seen during this assignment.”
He thought what?
I’d only been to a human school once, for a week, and God was it boring. In the end I couldn’t take it. I’d collapsed the damn building and moved on.
“Don’t push your luck, Your Highness.” I was trying to be cool, but I couldn’t hide the annoyance in my tone. “I haven’t even agreed to work with Wonder Boy over here.”
“The Elders requested this, Gideon. I’m only doing as they asked.”
I’d like to met these Elders and give them a piece of my mind. “Not my goddamn problem.”
Tristan stood calmly beside the king as if he had known all along I was going to react just as I was. The most annoying part was that he still wore that stupid smile. Was he being smug?
I turned from Tristan to Daligo. “I kill this Abigail, whatever, and this stupid assignment is over, right?” I turned back just in time to see Tristan’s smile disappear.
Finally! God, I hated that stupid smile! It creeped me out!
“Gideon, you can’t—”
I cut Tristan off. “I’ll take your silence as a yes, Your Highness.”
I turned to leave. I was halfway out when I remembered I was stil
l holding the guard’s oozing heart. “I forgot something,” I said, heading back to stand in front of Tristan. He didn’t look smug anymore. If anything, he looked confused. “Here.” I took his right hand and gently placed the heart in it. “It’s a souvenir. Something to remember me by.” I turned, and flew right through the ceiling Tristan had just restored, shattering it into pieces again.
When I hit the cold air, I tried to process what had happened, but I couldn’t think straight. I decided feeding might clear my mind. The Grandinian Town Square was nearby and couldn’t be beat as a food source, so I made my way there.
Unlike the Lumenians who fed on happiness and love, we, the Grandinians, feed on pain and fear. I liked to torture souls to feed, but most of my kind just go to a place where pain is already to be found, like a battlefield or an accident scene or a cemetery. They don’t bother to inflict the pain they feed upon, or to kill anyone. How boring.
Dark, gloomy, and dangerous though it might be, our Town Square was a center of admiration throughout the universe, the New York City of the non-Earth planets, you might say. Every trinket and trade goods from every planet could be found within its walls, for display or for sale. Tourists from around the universe came to Grands for their holidays or to admire baubles from other planets or dimensions. I loved going there, because I got to feed from different species, each with its own form of pain. A thousand different flavors of despair.
It didn’t take me long to arrive, and when I did, I flew down to see what I had to work with. You’d think someone might have noticed my resemblance to the face on the five-foot wanted poster hanging in the center of the square, but everyone was preoccupied doing their own thing and no one spotted me. I watched the young angels who chased one another through the crowd, shouting and laughing. A group of sightseers was mesmerized by a building hanging in mid-air, an architectural fad that was considered old-fashioned and gimmicky by the locals, though it still amazed visitors. Shoppers picked through colorful clothing from different planets and the latest cutting-edge technological gadgets, wonderstruck by the variety, and also by the steep prices.
The marketplace was packed. I knew I’d arrived on a good day.
I’d only just arrived, when—
“Looking for something?”
Tristan again! Seriously, did he live in Grands now?
I watched as he landed across the marketplace, glimmering brightly, his huge white wings stretched out behind him. Show-off.
“I’m looking for dessert. Know where I might find some?” I clenched my fists at my sides.
“What type would you like? Hot? Cold?” He conjured a steaming fresh blackberry pie topped with French vanilla ice cream. I seriously hate this guy!
I faked a smile to disguise the anger that was building inside me, and conjured a ball of fire, which I launched at a pair of angels haggling over a price of electronic equipment.
When the fire was inches from hitting them, it turned to ice, frozen in midair.
“Hot, then,” Tristan said through gritted teeth. Someone shouted my name. Panic ensued.
When I saw a mass of angels clamoring to escape the square I threw another fireball into the crowd, and again, Tristan stopped it. I threw another, which barely left my fingertips before it evaporated.
I growled, and took two steps closer to him. I aimed my next fireball directly at his chest, but it froze, thawed, and fell to the ground in a shower of water droplets before it could reach him.
Enough of this.
I gathered my strength and released a wall of flame that rushed outward from me in all directions; there was no way he could contain it all. On every side, displays shattered and creatures screamed as the flames swept over them.
The screaming made me happy.
I turned and walked away from Tristan, black dust swirling behind me. My footprints burned holes into the ground. I turned full circle to admire my destruction.
“Gideon! Stop this!” Tristan shouted, waving his hands.
Was he taunting me? Cheeky.
I threw a fireball the opposite direction from Tristan, toward the nearest group of tourists, but it evaporated into a chilly mist before it reached them, as though it had been stopped by an invisible barrier. I tried again, and again my fires evaporated on contact with the mysterious shield of air Tristan had put in place.
“Let them go, Gideon. They are innocent!” His voice, filled with pain, echoed through the marketplace.
“Innocent?” Anger rippled through me and I ground my teeth. “No one is innocent.”
Tristan landed in front of me. “Right now, I see you hurting them for no reason, and that makes them innocent.”
I gave a humorless laugh. “You tell Daligo I accept his challenge.”
Our faces were inches apart.
“I guess I’ll be seeing you tomorrow,” he said.
I pulled away from him and took a quick look around the square at the smoldering embers. A few bodies lay in the midst of the rubble. Beautiful.
“Save me a seat in first period.” I hurled flames every each way as I left him, and as much as Tristan tried, he couldn’t stop them all. I smiled as painful screams filled the air around us once more.
I threw a parting glance over my shoulder at Tristan, who was distracted protecting all those creatures he didn’t even know, and I couldn’t resist taking advantage of his distraction. I threw one last ball of flame toward him. No luck; he spotted it, and with a flick of his hand, the flames spun back toward me.
I had to jump out of the way, barely escaping my own creation. That was adding insult to injury. Smug little git.
Time to try something different.
I waved my hands, but this time, I didn’t bother with flames. Instead I conjured a cloud of dark, acrid smoke and sent it swirling around Tristan. Tristan stopped the smoke and contained it before it reached him, checking it with a blue smoke cloud of his own. I pushed with all my strength, but he countered. Surprisingly, the blue smoke started to move closer to me, giving off enough heat to singe the hair on my forearms and burn my skin.
I’d known Tristan was powerful, but not this powerful. His smoke crept closer and closer to me, and I feared I might lose.
Then again, losing wasn’t an option for me.
I braced myself for the pain, and then released my hold on the black smoke. The moment I did, Tristan’s smoke slammed into my chest, sending me crashing through the vendors’ tables behind me.
I won’t lie. It hurt. I felt as if I were literally on fire. But worse, I could feel my whole body weakening. Although I was a being who grew stronger on pain, and though I was standing in a marketplace filled with pain, I couldn’t regain my strength.
I forced myself to stand. The weakness stirred my anger far more than any injury could. It burned through me.
I raised my hand, lifting a little girl into the air. She hung there, a dozen feet or more above our heads, screaming as I slowly peeled back the layers of her mind one by one and mentally tortured her.
“No!” Tristan shouted, and by the time his voice had died out, the little girl was safely on the ground beside him.
I had already moved on to a new set of victims, levitating two angels, a women and a little boy. Their wings twitched uselessly at their sides. I brought down my hands to send them crashing to the ground, but Tristan stopped them, too, holding them suspended for a moment before lowering them gently to the cobblestones.
This guy was really cramping my style. I wasted no time in creating another fireball and hurling it at him.
This time he was too late to stop it. The fire hit him dead-on. I smiled as the flames swallowed him up, and he yelled.
Some of the angels shouted his name and rushed to his aid, forgetting that I was still there and that the danger hadn’t passed.
Of course they wouldn’t want Tristan to get hurt. No one wanted Tristan harmed because he was a hero, and the only effective weapon against me.
It took Tristan a few seconds, bu
t soon he had freed himself of the conflagration. Although he was in pain, I knew he would refuse to leave. I didn’t want to look like I was backing down, even though I was reaching my limits, so I did the one thing that I could think of.
“Until tomorrow, Your Royal Highness,” I laughed, and hurled a fireball toward a trio of angels just off to his left. I didn’t wait to see if it burned anyone. I doubted it had.
I snapped my fingers, transporting myself out of the town square and into the forest, to my house.
HOME. I’D HEARD it was where the heart was, but for me, home was where my annoying family was.
Our house was in the forest a little way from town. The forest was now called the forbidden forest, because I lived here. No one bothered coming here, which was good, because frankly, I’d be embarrassed if someone saw how homey our house looked.
Our house was warm and cozy. It didn’t fit in in Grands. It looked like a typical suburban houses on earth, the kind with the fancy furniture and the perfect landscaping and the happy family, except that ours hovered in the air, surrounded by darkness instead of a garden, and our family wasn’t a happy one.
Looking in through the window, I saw that the lights were on, and that everyone was home.
I retracted my dark wings and lazily pushed open the door to the house.
Valoel, my seventeen-year-old little sister, was hovering in the living room reading a teen magazine from Earth when I entered. To her, humans were the most fascinating creatures alive. Lumenians and Grandinians were stronger, faster, and smarter, but she had a point: all our strength and our smarts were bent on influencing human beings, weak and useless though they were.
Valoel was a know-it-all smarty-pants whose whole purpose in life seemed to be annoying me. Somehow, she always seemed to know what I was about to do and what I was thinking, and to make matters worse, she had essentially taken over my room as her own; she came and went whenever she wanted. I had no secrets from her. No one else dared defy me like that, but Val? She didn’t even respect my privacy.
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