by Oxford, Rain
He gave me a fake smile, like he was being punked and I was stupid for thinking he would fall for it. “What?” he asked simply.
“Hail left.”
“For a few hours?”
“For a few days.”
He didn’t even pretend to smile now. “He didn’t. Don’t tell me he was that stupid,” he said. He got off the large rock under the apple tree. This place had been a training ground for Hail and me for many years and was our usual meeting place with the god.
I shrugged. “Stupidity and abandonment seem to run in our family.”
“Hail is your balance.”
“I know.”
“The balance of the universe is inside you, and you are no longer balanced. What do you think is going to happen?”
I shrugged. “He’s not a world away. He’s somewhere on Anoshii.”
“Can you hear him?” he asked. I shook my head. “Then you’re both in deep trouble. Without your balance, the darkness inside you will wake. It will instantly try to correct any and all unbalances. In a few days, it will no longer know what is and isn’t balanced. You must find Samhail.”
“No problem. I’ll flash to him. What about my dad and Mordon?”
“Dylan doesn’t have the balance in him, but the longer he and Mordon are apart, the more his force unsets the universe. Within seven to ten days, you would be unable to stop yourself from trying to kill him. However, that’s really not the issue; if you can’t find Samhail you would kill anyone, even whole worlds.”
“You never had a balance.”
“I am a god. You are something else. You are half god, half… Dylan.”
“Why did you bring me here?” I asked.
He sighed. “It is time for you to make your decision. Raktusha is ready for its Noquodi.”
* * *
I woke up with Sen way in the middle of my personal bubble. I was on the couch with him leaning over me, and he smiled when I opened my eyes. “The blue is pretty, but your natural green suits you more. Drink,” he said, putting a cup of water to my lips. I drank it, more worried about my throbbing head than dehydration.
I sat up and started to reach up to my scalp. Sen caught my hand with a desperate look in his eyes. “Don’t freak out. You were bleeding.”
I yanked my hand away and felt sticky medical paste instead of slick hair-jell. I whimpered. “My hair… It was perfect.”
“You can take a shower and---”
“No,” I cut him off. “I’m just going to have to rough it out.” I went to my room, grabbed my bag, and started loading it with clothes. Then I went into the bathroom and used the shower nozzle to wash everything out of my hair. I left the color, but towel dried it. So floppy… so pathetic. “I might as well be mortal and naked without my spikes,” I said to the mirror.
“So… Are we going somewhere?” Sen asked my suitcase.
“I am going after my brother. You can hold down the fort.”
“I can help you.”
“How can you help?” I asked, trying and failing not to sound snobbish.
His devastated face was my punishment. “I am half dragon, half mage,” he said.
I scoffed. “Mages use magic in stones. If I’m not mistaken, you don’t have any stones,” I said. This time, I did mean the snobbery. His mother hated his magic and did everything in her power to keep him from attaining so much as a jewel. She argued that people must never know that he wasn’t a full dragon. Everyone in the family knew the truth, though; she was afraid that if Sen used his magic, his father would find him. Mages apparently had a hang-up about lost members.
He glared. “I’ve got stones.” He started to undo his belt and I choked. Fortunately, he pulled out a small leather sack, from which he poured out a handful of gems and stones.
“Well. I was mistaken. Those are some nice stones. Let’s go.” We locked up and headed out, before turning right around to get food. The third time we had to turn back, Sen was grumbling. I ignored him.
Two hours later we were standing at the port with no ship in sight. “Um… what is the plan?” Sen asked.
“Excuse me? You’re the one with the glorious stones. Use the stones.”
“Okay,” he said, docile. I should have smelled the trap. A moment later, I was hit in the face with a rock. “Come up with a plan!” he yelled, and hit me with another. “Think!”
“Stop throwing rocks at me, you brat! You’re as annoying as your mother.”
He picked up his rocks and flashed his annoying smile at me, complete with dimples. “I’m as pretty as her, too. Definitely prettier than you.”
“You’re not even prettier than a shoe. I’m a guy; I’m not pretty. You’re a fruitcake.”
“And you’re a snarly jerk. I’m confident in my masculinity. If anyone calls me a froutake, I can eat them, because I’m a dragon,” he said, completely mispronouncing the English word, but giving it his best shot anyway.
Unfortunately, he had a point; his mother was unbelievably pretty. He had inherited her gold and red hair, her eyes, and her complexion, but his father must have been a brute, for he was built better at ten than I was at fourteen. I found this to be completely unfair because I was still a lot smaller than Dad. Although he tried to tell me he was a late bloomer and it was possible I would shoot up in a few years, I didn’t believe him. Mom was tall, but she had a small bone structure.
“Hold on to something, froutake, and close your eyes.” With no further warning, I focused my mind on my brother and flashed. I hated flashing; it always disorientated me. However, I had done it enough times to realize when something went wrong. I felt the world contort violently around me, like I was trying to land in Anoshii and was bounced off. When the ground formed beneath me, I tried to hold onto it.
“This isn’t Anoshii.” I looked up to see us in the very crowded downtown Shogo of Mijii… and people were staring. Erono was going to be so mad.
“Yes, I know.” The words were barely out of my mouth before the air filled with the light again and I felt my body being tugged in several different directions. I hit dirt hard, but it was gone again before the light could clear. This time, we landed in an alley. I rolled over and lost the few bites of breakfast I had enjoyed. Sen managed to pull himself right to his feet, no worse for wear. Stupid dragon. He helped me to my feet, but I had to hold onto him, the wall, and whatever else I could reach to stay on them.
“Please don’t go that again.”
“The second time wasn’t me. I have no idea what that bouncing was,” I panted. Unfortunately, I had a suspicion. If my separation with Hail affected my powers, I was going to beat him up so bad.
“Let’s find your brother. He can get us home.” He picked up our bags, which I was amazed we didn’t lose, and started down the alley towards the busy street.
“I flashed to him. He should be right here,” I said, stopping cold in the middle of the street. “Hail? Where are you?” No response. I couldn’t feel him. “Answer me, Hail. I’m on Anoshii. Where are you?” Nothing. It was so lonely in my head without him. “Something’s wrong.”
“We’ll find him. Everything will be fine.”
* * *
After two hours of wandering around Anoshii, Sen convinced me to find a hotel. I couldn’t blame him; the boy grew up with Kaori-mor Emiko. To him, anything less than luxury was an insult. He didn’t just want to go to a hotel, he wanted to stay in the nicest one. Of course, he also had no money, so I had to pay for it.
We wandered the streets, asking for directions to the nicest hotel, and I was getting seriously frustrated. We ended up returning to the first hotel we had looked at. It was the shape of the house that I liked, as it looked like one of the old mansions from Zendii. There was nothing symmetrical about it, but the rich red stone and the dark green roof made it sort of charming. The windowsills and doorways were also green. We opened the small iron gate, which was obviously more for decoration than anything else, still arguing over our standards.
The pretentious entryway was a dark omen for my saving, but at least it was clean. It was a mixture of modern and traditional. Like in traditional hotels, we had to take our shoes off at the entrance because of the special wood flooring, which was soft and textured. The high, vaulted ceilings and pale cream walls were more modern. A wide, glossy red wood desk greeted us… as opposed to the woman who occupied it, for she sat in her seat, absolutely engrossed in her novel.
“We would like a room,” Sen said in Sudo.
“Of course,” she answered without looking up.
Sen and I glanced at each other. We had never encountered a rude attendant before. Of course, when my family went traveling, we attracted a lot of attention. “We would really like a room with indoor plumbing as well, seeing as how I plan to kill my little brother here and bathe in his blood in the bathtub,” I added.
Still, the woman nodded, not looking away from her book.
“Also, we are both underage,” Sen said quickly. “You can’t call our parents because they are on another world.”
“We can do that,” she said.
“Maybe we should go to another hotel,” I suggested, starting to turn.
The woman’s head shot up. If she was of legal age, it was by minutes. Her hair was white and her eyes were a light green, almost yellow color. I didn’t like it at all, but her smile was rather desperate.
“Hello. I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there! We have plenty of rooms available.” She stood and motioned with her arms that we follow her into the hallway behind her desk.
“Are you sure what I asked for wouldn’t be a problem then?” I asked.
“It is no problem at all, whatever it is.”
“Great, because I said I was going to kill my little brother and bathe in his blood in the bathtub.”
Sen smiled at her and nodded.
Her smile faltered for just a moment before it returned ten-fold. “Well, in that case, I will delay the morning cleaning maids.”
We were shown to our room and left alone. The walls were stonewashed maroon in color and the floor was hardwood with a nice, black faux fur rug in front of the stone fireplace on the north wall. On the west wall was a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking a lake behind the hotel.
Unfortunately, there was only one bed, but since I wasn’t sharing it with my brother, it was big enough for two. Sen sat on the dark blue blanket and ran his hand over the fabric. “It’s firmer than I like, but this will work.”
“Good. Then now we can focus on finding my brother.”
“Maybe he just doesn’t want to be found. Maybe he wants time alone with his girlfriend.”
“No. Hail doesn’t shut me out. I have blocked him sometimes, but Hail would never hide himself from me. He can’t risk it. No, something has happened to him. This must be Zherneboh’s doing or the demons. We need to find him and rescue him.”
“Do you know where to start?”
“Yes. I’ll be back.” I flashed to Vretial, not the Land of the Iadnah, so the fact that I was alone confused me. I stood in the clearing before the apple tree, but the dark god wasn’t there. “Vretial! Don’t play games with me!”
“You cannot save him. He will die,” whispered a voice I was very familiar with. The presence I suddenly sensed behind me, however, was dark.
I turned, but neither my uncle nor a horrifying foe was there.
“Ron.” I turned back to the tree to see Vretial sitting on the large boulder beneath it. “Where is your brother?”
“I don’t know. I tried flashing to him, but something went wrong… it was like I was bounced off Anoshii. Then I flashed again to Anoshii, but it wasn’t to Hail. I came here to ask you to send me to him.”
“I’ve never heard of that happening before. Normally, I would suggest that your magic was trying to protect you, but that isn’t it. Your magic wouldn’t disobey you. Therefore, I assume either your father or your brother was trying to protect you.”
“Well, override them and send me to my brother.”
“If you don’t find him, the balance will become volatile. If I put you in danger, your father will destroy me.”
“Are you more afraid of the balance or my father?”
“The balance can be manipulated and your father owes me a favor. The one I have to worry about is Zero.”
“We haven’t heard anything from him or the demons in five years.”
“So you thought that was the end of it? Your brother is alive for now. If this war is starting, you will lose someone.” I didn’t say anything when he paused. “I refuse for it to be my choice this time. Who do you choose to lose, your father or your brother?”
“Neither of them. I will not lose my family.”
“I can help you, but not even I can save them both. Choose now or I will leave and you will lose both of them.”
Pain clogged my throat and the darkness stirred inside me. “If my dad dies, I will destroy you. Save my brother.”
* * *
The flash cleared, leaving me in the hotel room with Sen. Hail was still missing.
“Did you find him?” Sen asked, foolishly. He was sprawled out on his stomach with his schoolbook in front of him as if we were on vacation or something.
“If I found Hail, do you think I would have returned without him? Work on your damn potions homework and leave me alone to think.”
Chapter 2
Dylan
Edward coming to me with a mission wasn’t exactly unusual. We worked well together, and sometimes Mordon wanted time off. It was the mission itself that had me concerned.
We were sitting on the wicker lawn couch on the porch. The couch and two matching chairs were dark cherry wood with dark gray cushions. One of the chairs had a chunk out of the leg from Hobble chewing on it, so none of us sat in it. Of course, we didn’t get rid of it either.
It was early spring and pretty much the first decent day of the season. I had woken to a perfectly normal morning that was quickly turning dubious. “About three hundred years ago, there was a witch hunter. He was supposedly the best,” Edward said.
In the eighteen years I knew my uncle, he never changed. With the exception of my slimmer stature and my green eyes, I looked just like him and his twin brother. Eighteen years since I became the Guardian of Earth…
“Pay attention.” Edward snapped me out of my reminiscence. “We tracked him down and killed him.”
“Three hundred years ago,” I said. He nodded. “Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is he’s back.” He paused for me to interrupt, but I stayed quiet. “He killed hundreds of innocent people in the name of witchcraft. Ronez stabbed him in the heart and buried him in a coffin. Now he’s been sighted again. If it is him, we have worse problems than him hunting witches.”
“Are we talking time travel, space travel, or zombies?”
“We’re talking about blood magic.”
“The witch hunter’s a witch?’
“We knew that from the beginning. He’s a master of ritual magic. He used to say it was a form of prayer, for cleaning the devil out of people before they were sentenced to death.”
“If I remember correctly, the difference between a witch and a wizard is that a wizard is a descendant of a Guardian, whereas a witch is someone who studies witchcraft. Witchcraft uses nominal magic, so someone can be both a witch and wizard and neither term is gender specific.”
“Correct.”
“Compare nominal energy to ritual magic,” I said.
He sighed. “Ritual magic uses nominal energy, but it’s extremely powerful. Far more powerful than what we do on a daily basis. It is, however; extremely slow and rather limited.”
“Compare it to Iadnah energy.”
“Outdated. Ritual magic actually has nothing to do with god magic; it is slower, far too limited, and wouldn’t hold a flame next to the higher magic. In fact, I suggest you dig out your lotus wand. That combines ritual and Iadnah magic. However, if we’re talking about bloo
d magic, we might have trouble. It is ritual magic, upgraded with the blood of innocence. Which makes a lot of sense when I consider the man we’re after.”
“Can we fight it?”
“We can fight anything, but if he is using such tactics, we need to outsmart him, and be quick about it. Think of blood magic like demon magic.”
That actually gave me a really good idea. “How did Ronez kill him last time?”
“We followed the rumors to him, then set up a meeting, saying that our neighbor was a witch. He came right to us and Ronez killed him with no fuss.”
I looked at him. “Um… That didn’t sound like a trap to you?” I asked.
“It was three hundred years ago. Things were different then.”
“People were idiots then? A high-powered witch hunter just meets with someone without some kind of reference or checking them out in some way? I mean, if he’s a witch hunter, wouldn’t he work real hard not to get ambushed by witches?”
“He probably felt he could handle himself.”
“You know him better than me, but if he’s over three hundred years old, he didn’t get that way by being overconfident. Just from what you told me, it sounds like Ronez did exactly what the witch hunter wanted him to do.”
He rolled his eyes. “Be ready to go in an hour.”
“Ron is making spaghetti. Stay for dinner and we can leave in two hours.”
Edward was about to argue, then thought better of it. My son was a great chef. We went inside to find pretty much everyone. Meri gravitated towards Edward, trying to get away from Emiko without being rude. Emiko’s son was missing, which told me he was in the kitchen with Ron. Mordon was talking to Hail, and it looked to be a really important conversation. I figured that Mordon would tell me later. I was heading for the kitchen when Divina intercepted, wrapping her arm underneath mine and pulling us both over to sit on the couch.
Shinobu jumped into my lap. She was getting pretty old, but she only rarely showed it. Dinner was an adventure in itself; our family was rowdy and goofy and just a little insane. Sen kept sneaking Hobble spaghetti and Hail kept pushing Shinobu off the table. We spoke of everything except work and school. Sen was a smart kid, but he and Emiko lived on Mokii, so he went to public school. He was rather jealous of Ron and Hail.