Zero

by Claire Stevens

  Chapter Seventeen

  After talking to Oriel, he’d shown me where the bathroom was, where - to my astonishment and delight - there was a fully-functional hot water shower. For a moment, all I could do was stare at it, in the same way that a caveman would stare at a BMW.

  And okay, it wasn’t quite like the showers back home - a chain fed down through the ceiling and you needed to keep pulling it to get the warm water to gush out, like an old-fashioned toilet - but as I languished under the running water I reflected that we could have avoided all arguments and tantrums if he’d simply offered me a hot shower in exchange for my promise to rescue Owen. I’d have bitten his hand off.

  After about fifteen minutes the water started to cool down and I reluctantly let the chain go and dried off. I tied my damp hair into a bun and put on a clean shirt and breeches and I was ready to go.

  Oriel was waiting for me downstairs with our bags and he rose when he saw me coming down the stairs. ‘Let’s go out through the armoury. We should probably stock up while we’re here.’

  The armoury at Rivermead was larger than the one in Saltmarsh and as Oriel stocked my quiver with arrows and poked critically through racks of knives, I wandered about the room. ‘Do you need anything else?’ he called out. ‘If you do, get it while we’re here; I don’t know when we’ll have a chance next.’

  ‘Yeah, actually. Can I take some clothes?’

  ‘Sure, they’re over there,’ he said, pointing to an entire row of shelves containing clothing of all sorts. ‘What do you need?’

  ‘Um,’ I blushed profoundly. ‘I could do with a couple of shirts. And some, um, underwear.’

  His eyes widened comically, making him look about twelve years old. ‘Oh, er,’ he blushed back at me. ‘I think...over with the women’s clothes? I don’t really know what sizes...’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said hurriedly and scuttled off in the direction of the clothes. I found the knickers - they were the kind designed to keep your kidneys warm, and looked really comfortable - and was just about to head back when a row of uniform tunics caught my eye, the sun reflecting dully off the dark green fabric.

  I hesitated and reached out, running the soft wool across my hand. Created to be worn over one of the green shirts on the next rack along, it was long with a mandarin collar and short sleeves and it fastened with a row of burnished buttons curving from the middle of the throat across the chest to the side of the hip.

  It hadn’t properly dawned on me until now, but this, this was what I’d been created for, what I’d been designed for. I was Blessed, and my reason for existence was to destroy demons alongside other Blessed warriors. This tunic represented everything about a life I’d never even knew existed.

  Could I imagine myself wearing one? My gut instinct hollered a big fat no. But then I closed my eyes and I could almost feel the sunlight on my skin, smell the rotted scent of the demon and hear the snuck of steel biting into demon flesh.

  ‘No one’s going to make you join up, you know.’ Oriel’s voice behind me was soft, but still made me jump out of my boots as it broke me out of my daydream. ‘It’s not part of the deal with your training.’

  ‘I know,’ I lied, dropping the tunic like it was on fire. ‘I was just looking. Nice tailoring.’

  ‘Here’s your quiver.’ I took it from him gratefully.

  As we were about to step outside, he picked up a gleaming wooden and metal contraption from the table by the door. ‘Also, I thought you might be able to use this.’

  I stared at the thing he was offering me. ‘Er, what is it?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s a repeater crossbow. You load it with a cartridge of bolts and you can fire a dozen or so shots without having to reload it. They generate enough force to pierce a demon’s carapace, which is the one area a bow falls down on,’ he enthused.

  A tiny part of me was thinking, More weapons? Seriously? but the rest of me was too busy admiring my new crossbow. Light enough to hold easily, but sturdy enough so that you didn’t feel it was going to fall to bits, I marvelled at its glossiness - it was just so good-looking. Sleek and shiny and it gave not a single hint of the mayhem and destruction it was capable of. I held it out at arm’s length, testing its weight, checking the sight.

  ‘It’s going to recoil, so you need to bend your arm slightly when you use it,’ Oriel said. 'And bring your shoulder down a bit, or you’ll injure yourself,’ he went on. ‘No, look, shoulders down. Down. No, you’re pulling them back. Look give it here, I’ll show you.’

  Standing behind me, he laid a hand on my shoulder and pressed it down and, okay, I jumped slightly, but only because he caught me off guard. When his other hand came to rest on my hip, and gently tilted it round, I bit back a squeak.

  ‘Don’t tense up or the recoil will smash your shoulder.’ His breath stirred the stray hairs on the back of my neck, making me even more tense than before. Holding my arm steady, he said, ‘Okay, aim for that chest plate over there. Great. Now squeeze the trigger, don’t pull on it.’ I did as he said and the crossbow seemed to explode, the force jerking back into my arm. Oriel let out a huff of laughter and I peered out from under my fringe. The bolt was embedded in the chest plate, exactly where my foe’s heart would be.

  ‘I did it!’ I turned to him in surprise, realising a second too late that our faces were only inches apart. He dropped his hands to his sides and flashed me a grin. ‘Gather up your things. I think we’re good to go.’

  ‘Go?’ I squeaked. ‘But I need to practise! I’ve never used a crossbow before - I can’t just go out there and start shooting it. The bolts will go everywhere!’

  For a moment, he looked at me like he was waiting for me to see the punchline of a joke. When I didn’t, he said, ‘Your aim is good, but it doesn’t need to be. Roanne, you’re telekinetic. At the end of the day, the bolts will go wherever you want them to.’

  Oh. Yeah.

  We set off from the Protectorate house through landscape which, disturbingly, was the scene of the post-apocalyptic dream-glimpse Coralin had given me.

  The copse of trees where I’d almost been swallowed by the giant earthworm loomed in the distance. I shuddered and glanced instinctively at Oriel and at the sword across his back. ‘What’s the matter?’ he frowned.

  I forced a smile. ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I just feel bad letting you carry all my stuff.’

  He snorted with laughter and hoisted our bags further up his back. ‘After Raelthos put you out, I carried you and your pack here. It was ten miles. I think I can manage to carry your bag to Thornsvale.’

  My mouth dropped open. ‘You carried me?

  ‘Ye-e-es,’ he said slowly. ‘You were unconscious. How did you think you got here?’ I cringed. I couldn’t believe he’d carried me all the way here. He caught my look of horror. ‘Look, I’m a Guardian. I’m strong; stronger than you could ever hope to be. I could carry a horse to Thornsvale and it wouldn’t slow me down.’

  A terrible thought occurred to me and I made a face. ‘Is the training you’ve got lined up for me going to be all about weights and strength and stuff? Because that’s not how you sold it to me earlier.’

  ‘No, your training is going to be different. Guardians are pushed to go faster, do more, be stronger, whereas Psions are taught control, to keep everything in, only let it all out when they need to. The guy we’ve got lined up to teach you, Vincent, he used to be in the Protectorate. He’s a Psion, an Influencer. Anyway, he explained it all to me and he used a lot of metaphors about valves and springs which I didn’t really get, but it did sound like there’s a lot of meditation involved. And there are physical exercises, but it’s all about the flow of energy through the body.’ He shrugged and kicked a stone neatly into the hedge. ‘Kallista’s the one to ask, really.’ I made a face and he laughed. ‘Or not. Seriously, though, I know she’s not been the most welcoming since you’ve been here-’ I treated him to a sour look that he chose to ignore, ‘but she’s a good friend to have. A really good frien
d.’

  Oriel’s standards when it came to his friends were obviously pitifully low. Unless… ‘Oriel, is Kallista your girlfriend?’ Because this made total sense. Why else would he be sticking up for such a walking cliché as The Pretty Mean Girl?

  Oriel, however, put paid to this theory by appearing to choke on thin air. ‘Gods! No!’ He looked at me in exaggerated horror and gave an all-body shudder. ‘My girlfriend? No! Just…no.’

  ‘But she wants to be.’ This wasn’t a question.

  Oriel made an awkward noise, like he didn’t know what to tell me. Which actually told me everything I needed to know. ‘Kallista has a lot going on. If she thinks about me like that, and I’m not saying she does, but if she did it’s because the rest of her life is so crazy. Kallista and I have known each other since we were born; it doesn’t take a head doctor to work out that she’s clinging to what’s familiar.’

  I snorted with derision. A lot going on. Because thinking up new and clever put-downs for me and working out new excuses for touching Oriel’s arm must be really taking it out of her.

  ‘Honestly Roanne, I know it doesn’t seem like it, but she’d be a good friend for you. You’re going to be training in the Citadel for three months. Neve and I will be there, but Kallista would be able to give you a Psion’s perspective on your training. Don’t discount her too quickly.’

  We’d turned onto a path that led along the side of the fields and the landscape was spread out all around us. Behind us was the village of Rivermead, a smallish gathering of houses with the Protectorate’s house set slightly apart. We’d just stepped through the warded walls that joined the demon nets to the ground. Ahead of us stretched farmland as far as the eye could see, with the occasional patch of woodland to break up the monotony. It was a warm day and despite the sameness of the landscape and the constant threat of being attacked by demons, it was actually rather pleasant.

  We stopped mid-morning for water. Already it felt like we’d covered miles, even though Oriel was obviously reigning in his long strides so that I didn’t have to jog to keep up.

  I sat on a log by the side of the road and started unlacing my boots. The Sanctuary socks I was wearing were rubbish and kept bunching around my ankles. I sighed. I couldn’t believe I’d got to the point where I preferred green woollen army socks to my fluffy cow-print welly socks.

  ‘So, tell me,’ I said, crunching my feet up to stretch the muscles out. ‘What fun things are there to do in the Citadel?’ Oriel gave me a curious look and I shrugged. ‘When I get back home I’m fairly certain I’m going to be grounded for the rest of my life; the next few months are going to have to be my last hurrah. What do you do when you’re not, like, rescuing your brother from your evil uncle?’

  Oriel huffed a laugh and grabbed a long stick from the floor and started swiping the grass on the verge with it. Jesus. Even when we were stopping for a rest, he still had to be fidgeting. ‘Skulk around the Citadel doing as little training as I can get away with, mainly.’ He made a face. ‘I dunno. Go on missions. Watch Gossip Girl. Kill demons. Listen to Illvelios’s lengthy speeches about how it’s a great and noble thing to risk your life for the benefit of a humanity that thinks we’re a bunch of elitist snobs.’

  My ears pricked up and I felt my fingers tingle in excitement. ‘Wait...what? Did you say Gossip Girl? As in…Gossip Girl? You can watch television?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He frowned and scrunched up his face at me. ‘Didn’t I tell you this before? Huh. Maybe not. The thing I told you about, the Window - we can focus it in on any spot in the Sanctuary we want, so yeah, we can watch television. We scan through and see who’s watching what and then just watch it with them. It’s not fool proof; I can’t change channels or turn the volume up or anything.’

  He had a television. Wow. Just wow. Maybe my months of training wouldn’t be so atrocious after all. ‘Um. Would it be okay if I watched your Window-TV with you?’

  He turned to me and grinned. It lit him up. ‘Of course. Absolutely.’

  I grinned back. I couldn’t help it. I’d heard about people having infectious smiles before, but I’d never really believed it until now. ‘So, other than Gossip Girl, which obviously has a worthy place in the canon, what else do you watch?’

  ‘Honestly, we don’t get much of a choice so we can’t be too picky. Neve and I decked out the Window Room and stuck a sofa in it to make it comfortable, but mostly we just end up sitting there watching crap because we’re too lazy to skim over the entire Sanctuary trying to find something decent. Neve doesn’t watch television as often as I do and when she does she’s all, “Oriel, why are we only seeing a tiny bit of this person’s life? What about their childhood? What about their early trials and tribulations, the things that made them the person they are today?”’ He affected the clear-cut, slightly bossy tone Neve sometimes used; it was surprisingly effective. ‘We often watch what you’re watching. You’ve got good taste.’ He flashed me a crooked grin. ‘And we’ve watched a lot of history documentaries over the last few years. That was why we started watching television through the Window, to find out more about Sanctuary history. To find out if there had been anyone else like you before.’ He looked at me and shrugged a little. ‘So, are your parents going to be really pissed when you get home?’

  ‘Hmm? Oh, yeah. This little stunt-’ I cast my arm vaguely around to encompass Gileath in general, ‘-means that I’m unlikely to see the outside world for the next fifty or sixty years. My folks have always been kind of…stifling? In a nice way, you know, but still a bit clingy. They were only eighteen when they had me and Chec-’ I closed my eyes for a moment. ‘When they had me and we spent the first five years of my life travelling round the world, never staying in one place for long, never really meeting any new people. Then when we got back to England we just kind of carried on like that. Just the four of us. Three of us. Whatever.’

  ‘So yeah, they’re pretty much going to pitch a fit when I get back. Everyone’s terrified of my mum, and it’s true she’s pretty fierce, but my dad’s the one you really have to watch. Usually he’s like this completely mild-mannered janitor, but he can turn into the conniption king when you rattle his cage. There was this one time, a few years ago, a pap found out who he was and tried to get some pictures of him while I was helping him wash the car. He broke three of the bloke’s ribs.’

  ‘Wow. Protective.’

  ‘Yeah. What are your parents like? Regal, I’m guessing?’

  ‘My dad was a farmer before he got made king,’ Oriel laughed. ‘So no, regal probably isn’t the word I’d use to describe him. I dunno. They’re okay. They’re often away on state business, so Neve and I don’t see them that often, and even when they’re at the Citadel my apartment is miles away from theirs. Hands-off parenting is more their style.’

  Oriel didn’t seem bothered by this and I tried to wrap my head around a life where I didn’t see my parents every day. But then I remembered that that was exactly what I was doing by being here, in the Jeopardy.

  I re-laced my boots and stood up. Oriel pitched his stick back into the hedgerow and shouldered our bags again and we set off along the road.

  ‘Hey, Neve told me you went to a flotsam sale the other day, back when we were in Hawksrest. Did you find anything good?’

  ‘They didn’t really have much. Litter, mainly.’

  ‘Litter?’

  He snorted with amusement. ‘Yeah. Fast food wrappers and stuff. You wouldn’t believe the crap some people will buy.’

  I thought about this for a moment. If I knew that there was a parallel dimension sandwiched right up against my own, a place I could never visit, a place that only existed because my own world protected it from dark forces, would I be interested in their crisp packets and Coke cans?

  Yeah, probably.

  ‘I did manage to get something, though,’ Oriel went on. ‘An old Cat Stevens album.’

  I brightened. ‘Seriously? He’s one of my favourites.’

  Instantly
I wanted to take back my words. Spending the last year in a mainstream school had left me in no doubt that Cat Stevens was by no means at the cutting edge of the music scene. Oriel laughed. ‘I know. You told me before.’

  His answer made me pause in my steps for a moment. No, I didn’t, I thought. We’ve talked about loads of things, but never music, I’m certain.

  I knew that Oriel and Neve had been watching me through the Window. They’d told me it was only ever when I was with someone else; I was never watched when I thought I was alone and while it still felt a little odd, I was mostly okay with it. Was Oriel lying? Had he been watching me more than he was letting on? Is that how he knew what music I liked? I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. He didn’t look like a stalker.

  Besides, he’d already let on how he knew.

  I’d told him.

  If someone had told me a few days ago that I’d forgotten that I’d had a conversation about music with an attractive boy, that I’d somehow blotted it from my memory, I wouldn’t have believed them. Now though, with worrying gaps in my memory surrounding my Blessings, I wasn’t so sure.

  Unaware of his slip-up, Oriel strode blithely on beside me. Other things occurred to me. Sometimes when we were talking, the things he told me sounded…practised. Well worn. Like they do when you find yourself saying the same thing on a regular basis.

  ‘Oriel, can I ask you something?’ I had to ask him. Had to.

  ‘Of course, anything.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘Where do I know you from?’ The words came out quiet and breathy but he still heard them.

  He stopped short and turned to me in surprise, blinking, his green eyes dark and serious. ‘I- Ro, I-’ He didn’t say any more, but there was something in his face, like he’d been found out.

  I stared at him, open-mouthed. ‘I knew it,’ I whispered. ‘We already knew each other, didn’t we? Before I got here, I mean. Oriel, you have to-’

  But my words were drowned out by an explosion of branches and bracken from across the field. It was a demon, and it was headed our way.