by S. M. Boyce
153
Audrey bit her lip, waiting for her friend to say something, anything, but it didn't seem like that would happen.
“Thank you,” Audrey said, standing.
The lawyer nodded and gestured to the door. “If you have any questions, Victoria, you have only to give me a call. You ladies have a nice day.”
A humorless chuckle escaped Victoria. “Yeah, right.”
As they walked through the lobby and out into the hall of the shared office building, they passed a row of windows facing the street below. Several shops squeezed together along the historic road, their signs swinging in the gentle breeze of the summer day. A tailor. A hardware store. A diner.
Victoria paused, her gaze lingering out the window. “Mom used to take me to that diner. We would get a hot fudge sundae and share it.”
Audrey set a hand on Victoria’s shoulder. “Good, because I could go for some ice cream right now.”
“You hate ice cream. You used to say it’s what weak people eat when they can’t handle whiskey.”
“True, but I'm worried about you, and ice cream usually cheers you up. Let’s go.”
***
Audrey munched on a fry while she watched the brooding Victoria stab her spoon into the sundae as it melted from neglect. She hadn’t even taken a bite yet. Plates clinked and coffee was poured in the bustling diner. The mumble of two dozen conversations filled the air.
“I think I'm broken, Audrey,” Victoria said.
Audrey tossed her half-eaten french fry onto her plate and leaned her elbows on the table, doing her best to give Victoria an encouraging look. It probably wasn't working, but she didn't care. She was really worried about her friend. “Victoria, stop this shit. Right now.”
“What?” Victoria snapped her head up, eyes wide with apparent surprise. Good. At least Audrey had her attention.
“I’m the asshole. You’re the fun one. That’s how this works. And come on, girl. You’re not broken. You're hurt. You're grieving. It’s called being normal.”
Victoria pointed to the dagger hidden by her long-sleeved shirt. Her voice came out in a harsh whisper. “This isn’t normal!”
“I—granted, no, that’s weird as hell.”
“And I can't cry. Not since I saw their bodies.”
“I know, but—”
“No, you don't understand. Not even a little. All I can think about is killing that guy. Slitting his throat and ripping him open with my bare hands. This isn't like me. I don’t even recognize myself.”
The man behind her stiffened and looked over his shoulder, a combination of bewilderment and fear on his face.
“Not your convo, buddy,” Audrey said.
He caught her eye and turned sharply back to his food.
Audrey leaned toward Victoria and pushed the melting ice cream aside. Honestly, she didn’t know what to say. “You just need time, V.”
“Maybe,” Victoria muttered.
“Time,” Audrey continued, “and revenge.”
Victoria leaned in, face stoic and intense, her voice a whisper. “I’ve never killed anyone before, but I'm not kidding when I say I’ll kill this man. He murdered my mother and father. He took everything from me. I don’t care if I’m only eighteen. I will not hesitate to obliterate this guy. Are you sure you want to see that?”
Audrey nodded, slowly at first. “I know you’re hurt, and I know you’re serious. I don’t blame you. This bastard killed your parents right in front of you. I would want justice, too.”
Victoria scoffed. “Me saying all this doesn’t freak you out?”
Audrey shrugged. “I love you, idiot. Of course I’m going to help you through this.”
That got a small smile out of Victoria, at least. “We just need someone to point us in the right direction, as Dad would say.”
“I think someone already did,” Audrey said, pointing to the key in Victoria's pocket.
Victoria nodded. “You think they left me answers? Some idea of what we’re really up against?”
“If I know your parents? All that and more.”
Victoria pulled the key out of her pocket, studying it once more in the sunlight coming into the diner window. “Let's not waste any time, then.”
Chapter 4
For the first time since the fire, Victoria felt excited. She had to actively keep herself from pushing past the bank manager and finding the damn safe deposit box herself.
The manager’s high heels clacked on the tile floor, the clicks echoing in the quiet space. There wasn’t even bland, outdated music playing—only silence and the incessant tapping of the woman’s shoes.
She turned a corner, leading them toward the open vault. The vault door sat open, the three-foot-thick steel almost as intimidating as the second barred door separating the hallway from the interior. Victoria marveled at the depth of the vault’s walls as she entered—if the door shut on them, they would be screwed.
Inside, the vault was lined with safe deposit boxes about as wide as a hardcover book, all of them adorned with gold locks and gilded numbers.
“Ah, here we go,” the manager said, tapping one of the boxes.
Victoria studied the number:
153
The bank manager inserted Victoria’s key and her own and twisted them both in their respective locks. With a tiny creak, the squat door opened, and she slid out a thin box the size of a textbook. Victoria nearly protested—this is something she wanted to examine in private. Heels clacking once more over the vault floor, the manager led them into the hallway again and closed the metal gate behind them.
A little confused, Victoria followed with Audrey in tow as the woman led them to a tiny room across the hall. Aside from the pale wood of the round table and the two bland chairs, the room had only florescent light. Not even a window.
The manager set the box on the table and smiled. “We like to give our clients a bit of privacy while they deal with their things. When you're done, just ring the bell here.” She pointed to a little buzzer in the wall, not unlike a doorbell. “Do you need anything else?”
“No, thank you,” Victoria said with a forced smile.
“I'll leave you to it, then,” the woman said, handing over Victoria’s key. Her heels tapped on the floor as she returned to the hallway, and the door clicked shut.
Victoria caught Audrey's eye as she readied herself to open the box. “Now or never.”
Audrey nodded. “I hope this has some answers.”
No kidding. “Me, too.”
The top of the box popped upward as if it were on a spring, and she lifted it the rest of the way to reveal the box’s contents.
A gun.
“Shit,” she hissed. A pistol not unlike the ones she saw in action movies lay in the deposit box, a full clip of bullets next to it. She lowered the lid and looked around for a camera or something that might be recording them.
“A gun?” Audrey leaned in, her voice a whisper as she set a hand on the top of the box as well.
Fighting the panic and nerves fluttering in her chest, Victoria did her best to keep her voice low. “What the hell did my parents get into?”
Audrey gritted her teeth and shook her head, apparently as mystified as Victoria.
Tenderly, gingerly, Victoria peeked underneath the lid again. The gun hadn’t budged. It must have been heavy.
A gun. Jesus.
Beside the pistol was an emerald-green pouch with gold drawstrings. She slipped it out, half-expecting a grenade based on the box’s contents so far. Instead, though, she found tiny crystals—hundreds of them. They glittered in the artificial light, glowing faintly green. She smiled, grateful that something beautiful was beside something so deadly.
At the bottom of the box was a white spiral notebook with a single word scribbled on the front in black Sharpie:
Oriceran
“I feel like I'm in a Jason Bourne novel,” Audrey muttered under her breath. “Cryptic clues left in a safe deposit box. A gun. Next t
hing you know someone is going to burst in here, bullets flying.”
“Well, don't jinx it,” Victoria said, rolling her eyes.
She picked up the spiral notebook, and a simple white envelope fell to the tiled floor. Her name had been written on the front in her father's handwriting.
Her throat caught, and she brushed her thumb across the letters. She paused, savoring something familiar in a sea of strange.
Audrey patted her shoulder, squeezing lightly for comfort. They had known each other so long that Audrey didn’t even need to say anything.
It’s okay, the gesture said.
With a deep breath, Victoria ripped open the envelope to find a single piece of paper covered in blue ink. Her father's familiar tight handwriting covered the page.
Darling Victoria—
If you are reading this, I'm dead. I’m sorry I left you to face this alone.
The writer in me hates those words because they don’t do the truth any justice. I never thought I would have to write a letter to explain things to you once I had passed, except maybe a few times in Afghanistan when I was covering the war and wasn't sure if I would make it home.
But this, Victoria, is worse than war.
There's so much more to our world than I ever thought possible. Your mother and I have discovered only a small part of it, and we wanted to protect you from it. But as you've probably guessed by now, we didn't have so much life insurance out of luck. We figured something would happen to us, and we knew in the long run we wouldn’t be able to stop the people coming after us from coming after you. We simply wanted to give you a proper childhood and a chance to live a normal life before you were inevitably ripped from it.
In the spiral book you'll find our notes, everything we've learned so far about the truth hidden right beneath our noses. There are all sorts of creatures, Victoria, all sorts of, well, there's nothing else to call it but magic.
A simple letter won’t do it justice, which is why we gave you the spiral notebook. Low tech, I know, but we didn’t want anyone to hack us. But know this: we love you. We love you completely, and we’re sorry for any way we have failed you. Part of me wanted to train you the moment your mother and I discovered this other world, this place called Oriceran, but you were so young. I was torn between keeping you safe and making you aware of the truth.
I hope I didn't fail you.
I can tell you that if your mother and I are gone, you're no longer safe here. As soon as you can, you need to go to Santa Barbara. I know that California is quite a drive, but there is a hidden city there called Fairhaven. Directions are in the notebook. Go there and find a man named Fyrn Folly. He can answer all your questions, and he'll help you figure out what to do next. He will keep you safe.
With all my love,
Dad
Doing her best to fight back the lump in her throat, Victoria set the letter on the table and picked up the spiral notebook, fingers brushing the black Sharpie on the front.
Oriceran
She hovered over the strange word, not even sure how to pronounce it. But it was more than a word, wasn't it? It was a whole world, the answer she had been looking for. She thumbed through the notebook, its pages alternating between her father’s and her mother's handwriting. There were entries with words she didn't understand and pictures that didn't make sense.
She paused on one picture of her parents posing with a seven-foot tall creature. It had thick arms, not unlike tree trunks, and a body as round as a barrel. Its brown skin was covered in boils and warts, and it grinned with a crooked smile full of teeth that didn't quite match up. One long tooth protruded over its lips, nearly touching its nose.
If Victoria hadn't seen fire shoot from the elf’s hand, hadn’t experienced a shield appearing out of nowhere, she might've thought it was a wax figurine, albeit a really, really good one. But deep in her soul, she knew better. This was a real creature, something magical.
Something she needed to see for herself.
She stumbled across a page with the title “Fairhaven” and skimmed it for answers. There was a bridge in Santa Barbara she needed to go to with a symbol she needed to press, and stairs would appear.
Jesus, what next? A broom and an invitation to Hogwarts?
She dropped the spiral notebook on the table, rubbing her temples as she fought to process the information crashing over her. It was almost too much, but her parents had taught her enough about journalism and investigative reporting to make it through. She simply needed a break, a moment to breathe. She would pick up the book again later.
“Fuck,” Audrey said under her breath. She set the letter on the table, eyeing Victoria with a combination of concern and fear.
But Victoria wasn't afraid. Overwhelmed? Sure. A little nervous? Absolutely. But afraid? Not a snowball’s chance in hell. This was exactly what she needed: answers, a direction, something to do.
She would learn everything there was to learn about this world, about its creatures, and about this monster named Luak. And when she had learned all there was to learn, she would use her new knowledge to make Luak pay for everything he had taken from her.
“Guess we're going on a road trip,” Audrey said with a smirk.
For the first time since her parents died, Victoria grinned broadly. Her eyes narrowing, she savored the wicked glee deep in her chest. It wasn't joy. It was vengeance.
“Yep,” she said. “We're going to Santa Barbara.”
Chapter 5
As she left the bank, Victoria held the notebook under one arm and savored the weight of the pouch in her palm. A few of the crystal tips poked her gently through the fabric, the gems shifting a bit with every step. Her mind buzzed, and she walked with her eyes on the ground, totally consumed by her thoughts. The bank’s tiled floor quickly became the concrete of a sidewalk outside. The heels of Audrey’s sneakers led the way and, after a few minutes, the concrete turned asphalt under her feet as they reached the parking lot. A gentle breeze toyed with her hair, but the pouch was all she could manage to concentrate on besides her overwhelming need to reach Santa Barbara. To find Fyrn Folly. To get answers.
Without warning, a chill ran down her spine.
Not fully understanding why or how, she knew something was wrong. Out of instinct and with no plan or idea of what was happening, Victoria ducked to the ground and pulled Audrey down with her.
A blaze of fire roared over her head and hit the side of a building, and an alarm went off somewhere nearby, screeching in her ear. A car alarm blared. Not far away, a woman screamed.
Heart thudding, Victoria scanned the parking lot. Cars. A white van. A dozen empty spots. And there—across the way, a familiar man with pointy ears stormed toward them, a nasty grin on his face. He wore a new suit today, one without blood.
Luak.
He lifted one hand, and another swath of fire sailed toward them. On impulse, Victoria lifted her arms to protect herself, and once again the shield appeared before her. It was larger this time, big enough to protect both her and Audrey as the flames rained onto the metal. The handle in her palm began to heat up, searing her like a hot stove, and Victoria cursed under her breath.
“We may never get another chance to kill him,” she said, gritting her teeth as she strained to keep the heavy shield in position.
Audrey nodded and pulled the gun out of her backpack. After fumbling with the clip for a moment, she managed to shove it into the base of the handgun and cocked the weapon.
Victoria eyed Audrey. “How the hell did you know what to do?”
Audrey grinned. “You and that woman were taking forever to put back the empty deposit box, so I looked up how to load this kind of gun while I waited for you two. I'm shit at it, though.”
“Better than me. Shoot that asshole.”
Audrey smile wavered, but only for a second. She frowned with grim determination and, just as the flames subsided, lifted the gun above the shield. Pausing for only a second, she opened fire. The recoil kicked her backwa
rd, and she stumbled.
The sound of gunshots by her ear reminded Victoria of sticking her head in an iron pot as a child and banging on it with a metal spoon. Her ears began to ring almost immediately, and she couldn't even hear herself cursing.
Luak stumbled, and the blaze of fire stopped. Victoria peeked over the shield as he staggered backward, hand on his chest. A hole in his sternum pumped fresh red blood. Falling to his knees, his mouth moved as if he were yelling something, but Victoria couldn’t hear anything except the incessant ringing in her ears. She wanted to take this moment, to use it to her advantage, but the ringing seemed to mess with her balance. Her shoulder rammed against a parked car, and the shield disappeared from her grasp. Suddenly lighter, she fell onto her palms.
Audrey screamed, and the gun shook in her hands. Luak grinned, his hand outstretched, and it didn’t take much for Victoria to figure out what he was about to do.
“Throw it!” she shouted.
Audrey tossed it into the air. Seconds later, the weapon exploded. Shrapnel shot every which way. Victoria grabbed Audrey and pulled her to the ground, lifting her hands over her head and hoping against hope the shield would appear. The magic in her arm granted her wish, and the heavy weight of the shield pushed against her arms and shoulders. They huddled close, debris smacking the shield with the force of hail.
And, once again, the shield disappeared on its own.
“Christ, I wish I could control that stupid thing,” she muttered, glancing around the parking lot. She tried to stand but once more fell, her head reeling from the explosion. Skin still hot from the shield, she was surprised when her knuckles brushed something cold—a metal coil. She blinked herself out of her daze to find the burned remnants of her parents’ journal. All that was left was a large “O” on a piece of the cover that had blown several feet away. Although the pouch of crystals had slid under a nearby car, not a single page of the journal had survived.
“You goddamn bastard!" she shouted.
Without thinking, not caring what happened next, Victoria charged him. His gaze shifted from Audrey to her, and he lifted his hand as he had so many times already. But Victoria didn't care about being burned. She cared about stabbing him. Making him bleed. Making him beg for mercy that wouldn’t come.