The Kerrigan Kids Box Set Books #1-3

by W. J. May

  Probably why he keeps them in a chest.

  “Dude, this is awesome...” Benji muttered, lifting the pieces out carefully to see what was underneath. “Is that a dual-bladed chakram?”

  Aria was kneeling just behind him, aching to touch it herself.

  “Sure is.” Dorian tilted his head, watching them with a faint smile. “You ever try one?”

  Benji shook his head, running a finger along the edge. A tiny cut opened along the inside, smearing the skin with blood. “Not like that. Ours were smaller, with the uh...”

  “The crosspiece?”

  “Yeah.” He held it up with a frown, gauging the balance. “How do you even grip?”

  “Like this.” Dorian skillfully slipped his hand inside the middle, giving it a twirl with his opposite hand. “I trained with the smaller version myself, but this can do more damage.”

  With that, he let it fly straight towards the dummies on the far wall. There was a whizzing slice as a severed head fell to the ground.

  The friends stared in shock, then turned back to their teacher with a sort of awe.

  “You’re a telepath?” Benji asked incredulously.

  Dorian laughed, clapping him on the shoulder. “Even librarians know how to have a bit of fun.”

  FOR THE NEXT FEW HOURS, the friends delighted in the wonders of an abandoned Oratory and a lethal chest of toys. Dorian participated occasionally, each time stunning them with a flash of truly unfathomable skill. But for the most part, he leaned back against the wall and let them have the run of the place—playing out secret war games and fulfilling deadly fantasies to their hearts’ content.

  Ironically enough, it was the only thing that could have brought them together.

  The fight was forgotten. The feelings that caused it disappeared. For a few stolen hours in the middle of the night the eight teenagers forgot that they’d almost killed each other, and tried killing each other all over again. Only with slightly less blood and screaming. Slightly.

  “Oh come on!” Jason sprinted across the mats then dove into a rolling somersault, just as a serrated javelin soared over his head. “What the he—heck is that!”

  Aria flashed a breathless grin, giving the second spear a threatening twirl. “You said we could choose our own weapons.”

  He pushed to his feet, jogging over with a laugh. “Yeah, but I said it when you were holding a pair of throwing stars. How was I supposed to know you’d set them down and go for the heavy artillery?”

  She bit her lip, levitating the spear just out of reach. “That is a question I imagine you’ll be asking for a long time...”

  On the other side of the room, things were heating up between Benji and Sofia—both of whom had found themselves reaching for the same set of daggers. He’d conceded them with a gentlemanly nod, then leapt back with a shout as she gave one an expert twirl and stabbed it through the sleeve of his jacket. There’d been a charged moment where neither of them said a thing. Then a mangled zipper fell to the floor and both of them began to smile.

  It was the closest either would ever get to an apology.

  As it stood, they’d separated a bit away from the others and were using the crossbow to shoot targets on the other side of the room. Rather, Benji was shooting targets. Sofia was trying.

  “You’re supposed to aim for the center,” he said innocently. “Not the side—”

  “If you don’t be quiet, I’ll aim for the center of you.”

  She let loose another arrow, only to have it bury itself in the outer rim. He pursed his lips and dropped his eyes to the ground, while she turned with a slow glare.

  “Not a word, Fodder.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Another arrow flew. This one vanished into the wall.

  “Perfect.”

  “Shut up.”

  “No, I think you hit a fly.”

  She snorted in laughter, then shot him a rueful grin. “Show me?”

  With a little smile, he came up behind her—guiding her hands. “All you need is to relax...”

  Together, they loaded the bow and tried again as Aria and Jason watched with matching grins from the far wall. They didn’t even notice Alexander until he was standing by their side.

  “Well, this is precious.”

  They threw him a glance, but found it surprisingly easy to shrug off as they turned their attention back to the targets. Around the fourth or fifth time they’d squared off against the shifter, lunging with daggers or hurling deadly spears, some of the controversy had begun to wear off.

  “Shut up—there’s nothing weird,” Aria said dismissively. “He’s just helping her.”

  “My sister hasn’t missed the bullseye since she was nine years old.”

  ...oh.

  Aria’s eyes strayed once more to where Benji and Sofia were laughing quietly, his long arms running alongside hers as they leveled the arrow at the target. Before they could let go, she turned back to Alexander with a curious frown.

  “And why is that?”

  It was easy to ask the question privately, given that Dorian was currently showing Lily and James a collapsible scythe, and after having spent the last few hours together there was really no avoiding it. It wasn’t just that his sister was apparently a flawless shot, he and Eric were confident handling most of the weapons that had come out of the chest as well. And it wasn’t that they’d received training, per se. There was a rawness to the way they moved that spoke to most everything being self-taught. But there was talent there nonetheless. And experience.

  “What do you mean?” he stalled, wishing he hadn’t walked over.

  “The three of you...” Aria paused, wondering how to say it.

  She hadn’t told anyone the secret Sofia had shared the night of the attack. Strong as the urge was to spill every detail to her friends, she somehow felt the story wasn’t hers to tell. But knowing what she did about the shifters’ rather tragic origins, she couldn’t see how weapons training fit.

  Much to her surprise, Jason swooped in for the save.

  “Our parents are freaks,” he said with the hint of a grin. “Since we could walk they were showing us things like this. You three are good. How did that happen?”

  Alexander’s face lightened with a hint of surprise, but he betrayed no other emotion. Instead he gave the sword in his hand a quick twirl, eyes focused entirely on the movement.

  “Stuff like this was always lying around when we were growing up. You spend enough unsupervised time with it, you pick up a few tricks. Of course, when we turned sixteen and got our ink there was hardly a need—”

  He cut himself off quickly, shaken by what he’d almost said. There was a charged moment where no one spoke, then Jason’s lips twitched with the world’s most unlikely smile.

  “I can vouch for that.”

  ...seriously?

  Aria’s mouth fell open in astonishment, but he was already walking away—cocking his head as a silent invitation for her to follow. She hurried quickly after him, still blown away that he’d speak of such a thing so casually. But before they’d gone more than five steps, Alexander called after them.

  “I’m sorry.”

  There was a hitch in Jason’s step before he slowly turned around. The shifter was already standing behind him, looking as uncertain as Aria had ever seen. His lips parted suddenly, then froze, as if it was a physical torment to say the words. But he took a breath and forced on through.

  “The other night in the woods...I’m sorry for attacking you. For letting things go so far.”

  Across the room, target practice came to a sudden halt as Benji and Sofia looked over at the same time. Both were gifted with advanced senses. Both couldn’t believe what they’d just heard.

  “You didn’t deserve it,” Alexander continued quietly, staring at the floor somewhere past Jason. “I didn’t even want to...but I didn’t know what you were planning with that ice.”

  In a kind of daze, Aria turned back to Jason—rememberi
ng the moment with perfect clarity.

  The way a sudden chill had fallen over the clearing. The way his eyes turned silver and the air around him started to glow. She’d never seen anything more terrifying, or more beautiful. Her eyes flickered up to his fateful memento, a lock of shockingly silver hair.

  “I wasn’t planning to tear you open with it,” Jason replied softly.

  Alexander pulled in a tight breath, then bowed his head. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  A heavy silence fell between them. One that should have been impossible to break. But after a few drawn-out seconds, Jason nodded abruptly and gestured back to the chest.

  “You guys up for round two?”

  Just like that, the bloody night was behind them.

  Just like that, another bloody night was about to begin.

  After the chakrams came the nunchucks. Then came the crossbow. Then came a terrifying assortment of maces and pikes. When they were finished with those it was on to the throwing stars; the katanas and long swords were both on deck.

  Dorian flitted from group to group, taking a step back when those groups occasionally merged together in order to observe. Although it was now in the early hours of the morning, he didn’t appear impatient or tired. Quite the contrary, he watched their war games with a twinkling smile—vanishing only to procure a cup of coffee before returning to the mats.

  “What’s this?” James asked curiously, taking the final weapon from the chest. The sun was just beginning to peek above the horizon and the battles were finally winding down.

  Dorian set down his empty mug and stepped forward, taking the strange-looking instrument from his hand. “It’s called an urumi. They were used quite a bit back in India.” He motioned for the children to step back, then lashed it into the air. “As quick as it is deadly.”

  Aria flinched back with an instinctual shiver. Never had she seen such a thing. The grip resembled that of a sword, but it was as if the blade had been cut into ribbons. Each one sliced through the air like a whip before flying back into Dorian’s practiced hand.

  The children stared with a quiet sort of deference. Talented as they might be themselves, the mild-mannered librarian was on a completely different level. The kind that made you do a double-take from across the room. The kind that demanded both caution and respect.

  “Mr. Locke,” Aria began tentatively, slipping back into formalities, “we’re really sorry about the cottage door. We were just trying to...well, anyway, it’s clear you don’t need our help.”

  He lifted his eyes with a smile, putting the frightening weapon back in the chest. “Like I said, it’s the thought that counts...Miss Wardell.”

  She dropped her eyes with a grin.

  “At any rate, everyone needs help from time to time. Like this,” he said, gesturing to the various weapons strewn across the floor. “I never would have gotten these out if it weren’t for all of you.”

  The children followed his gaze, abruptly sad they’d have to pack it all away.

  “But I have a question,” Dorian continued suddenly, eyes resting on each one. “If you were really convinced I was the killer’s target...why didn’t you report it to the Council?”

  It was the million-dollar question. One with a simple and selfish answer.

  “We probably should have,” Aria mumbled, eyes on the floor. “But whenever we...” She trailed into silence, remembering all those hushed conversations. All those time she and the others had been sent outside to play. “We wanted to do this ourselves.”

  A sudden quiet fell over the Oratory as each of the friends acknowledged the unspoken truth. There was only so long they could wait on the sidelines. There was only so long they could linger invisibly in their parents’ glorious shadow. More than anything in the world they wanted their own page in the history books, to leave something behind written in their own name.

  A legacy of their very own.

  Dorian watched them quietly, eyes resting on each one. “And you think you’re up for the challenge?”

  Before that evening, Aria might have actually said yes. The one thing they’d proudly inherited from their parents was an absurd amount of confidence that they tended to wear on their sleeves. But after seeing glimpses of Dorian? The sheer difference in skill?

  “No,” she said softly, “probably not.”

  A little smile crept up the man’s face, growing brighter every second.

  “In that case, we’ll have to train a little harder.”

  The others lifted their heads at the same time, throwing each other looks of confusion. Sure they hadn’t heard correctly, sure they’d misunderstood. Benji stepped forward, shaking his head.

  “...what do you mean?”

  Dorian stared at them another moment before flipping the chest shut. “Same time tomorrow?”

  Chapter 15

  The next few days were like something out of a dream—a dream they had been waiting for all their lives.

  The second classes were dismissed Aria and her friends would race back to the dorms, rushing through as much of their homework as was technically required. Then would tea back outside again and trek down the grassy path to Dorian’s cottage.

  From there, the routine was simple. He would greet them, offer them tea. They would decline. Then the whole troop of them would head outside to cheerfully beat each other to death.

  At first, they’d thought it would be better to keep meeting after dark in the Oratory. While there was nothing technically illegal about what they were doing, it still felt strange to be meeting with a teacher, not a trainer, and using the PC training grounds to do it. The cognitive dissonance was so strong that, by the same collective instinct, they’d all conveniently neglected to mention said training to either Carter, Tristan, or their parents. But the second time that one of them fell asleep in their morning classes, having been awake all night dodging spears, they’d decided on a change.

  The cottage Dorian had been granted by the school was conveniently distanced from the others. It was also on the very edge of the tree-line, meaning that instead of training right out in the open they could simply wander several paces up the hill to a little clearing. The fresh air was better than the smell of practice mats, and the distance from the school helped a great deal with the noise. Of course, if the students of Guilder listened hard enough they could still hear the shouts.

  “Again!”

  The friends stood in a line, watching as Jason and Lily slowly circled each other, drenched in sweat, the cuffs off their sweatshirts stained in blood. Each one was wielding a deadly khopesh—an Egyptian blade with a notch in the middle used for either decapitating or disarming one’s opponent.

  There had been several close calls on both counts.

  “What’s the matter, Decker?” Jason taunted, spinning the handle so the late afternoon sun glinted off the blade. “Scared?”

  She tightened her grip with a chilling smile. “Just waiting on you, princess. Think it through, take your time.”

  There was a fierce cry and they charged forward again, swinging at each other with the long, curving strokes that Dorian had shown them just an hour earlier. The sound of metal crashing against metal rang through the air as they twisted and spun, wielding the savage blades without mercy. Both trying fiercely to get the upper hand.

  It was bloodier and more dangerous than anything they’d done before—a definite escalation from the previous days’ battles. At any moment Aria expected Dorian to step in and intercede, but the man was watching with just as much intensity as they were themselves. Eyes dilated with absolute focus as they followed the children’s every move.

  “On your left,” he warned Lily, nodding with approval as she flipped out of the way. “It’s not going to lift itself, Jason. You’ve got to swing it higher.”

  Jason nodded quickly, panting with exertion as he hurried to do as his teacher asked. There was another deafening clang as the friends crashed together, fighting with all their might.

  Perhap
s the reason for the new level of tension was that, before the match, Dorian had stepped forward and removed the thin strip of rubber covering both blades. It was the equivalent of using bullets instead of blanks. Suddenly, if one of the people sparring forgot to duck or failed to move quickly enough, they wouldn’t get a welt. They’d get a cut. A deep one. Possibly fatal.

  These weapons weren’t designed to hurt, they were designed to kill. And the children were certainly swinging them with enough force to do so. Perhaps that was also the reason that every few seconds, either Benji, or James, or Aria would cast a nervous look towards the school.

  What would they say if they saw us? How could we explain something like this?

  “Stop pulling your punches!” Lily demanded, dropping down to the grass and kicking Jason’s legs out from under him with a sweep of her own. “Let’s go—for real!”

  At first the kids had been thrilled. Then they’d been terrified. In the end they’d settled somewhere in between the two. At times surges of adrenaline would take them, and they’d find themselves throwing caution to the wind and battling full force. Other times, one of them would land a strike on the other and pale at the blood. The intensity would immediately slacken. The looks towards the school would triple as they each silently wondered if what they were doing was okay.

  Jason was having a particularly hard time battling Lily. For the last thirteen years of his life, he’d come to regard the girl as a little sister—and he didn’t do ‘siblings’ like Aria and James. The guy was fiercely protective. Fiercely. And here he was hacking away at her with a blade.

  “Look at how I’m standing,” he panted quietly, “with all the balance on my front foot. Now’s the time that you should lunge—”

  “Are you serious?” she demanded, abandoning the weapons altogether and lobbing a punch at his face. “Stop helping me, genius. Fight back!”

  Benji leaned towards Aria with a hidden smile “This is definitely the kind of thing we should start placing money on...”