by Rowan Casey
Charlene suddenly rushed Hannah, arms spread wide, intending to grab her in a quick bear hug, hoping her greater reach and girth would smother Hannah. The smaller teen easily sidestepped her adversary and ducked under her arms. She spun around and kicked out, pushing Charlene forward, making her stumble. Hannah then let out a war cry worthy of the most seasoned warrior and leapt atop the falling figure. She pounded her fists against the bigger girl’s shoulder blades, working her way down towards the softer tissue. Charlene, for her part, rolled on to her side, throwing Hannah off balance and letting her wave an arm to break up the rhythm of the beating. They were lying on the concrete side by side, arms flailing until Hannah coiled herself and then kicked out with both legs, sending the other girl rolling over twice, towards the lip of the platform. Hannah paused, letting her opponent stop her tumble, clearly not wishing to add murder to her growing rap sheet. Instead, she made fists and planted her feet, ready for whatever Charlene did next. A dark, dangerous look to the other girls froze them in place. The larger girl got onto her knees then rose, fury etched on her face. She charged at Hannah anew but his teammate swung with a right cross and then followed with a left worthy of Nadine Hagland. The first landed on the cheek while the second sunk into her neck causing Charlene to make a gurgling sound. Both of her hands went up to cover her neck while she struggled for breath.
The other girls were starting to shuffle about, inching closer to the combatants, ready to intervene on their friend’s behalf, unwritten rules or no unwritten rules. Daniel warily interposed himself between the fighters and the girls. They all glared at him but held their ground. Part of him wanted them to advance farther, right into his reach.
Hannah took advantage of Charlene’s injury and let loose a whirlwind of punches that landed all over the girl’s head and torso. Each blow seemed to be powered with increasing energy, as if her heart were generating electricity, amping up each punch. Charlene staggered, fell to one knee, and Hannah continued the assault.
Yaamini cried out, “Stop! You’ll kill her!”
“She can take it!” Hannah called out. “She served it up, now she gets to take it.”
It was clear to everyone else that Charlene could not take much more Daniel watched, timing his actions so he could intervene to end the fight without getting punched himself. Hannah paused, stepped back and getting ready to begin kicking Charlene. A flash of light shone on the tunnel wall and there was the distinct vibration of an approaching subway. He saw the light grow as Hannah reared back for the first kick.
“Stop, Hannah!” he called.
She paused mid-swing and looked his way.
“It’s over. She’s down. We have to go,” he said. He then turned to the onlookers and said to them, “Help her. We’re leaving. Don’t follow us. Got it?”
Yaamini glared, flexing her own fists, but one look at the battered Charlene and the seething Hannah changed her mind. She nodded. One of the others had already whipped out her phone to snap pictures of the battered leader, spittle and blood mixing on the concrete beneath her.
Daniel collected the backpacks and as the train hurtled into the station, he grabbed Hannah by the arm. Once the train doors opened, they backed onto it and he blocked the door, daring the girls to try and get aboard. Instead, they surrounded Charlene, who was still breathing raggedly.
The train bell rang and the doors slid closed. Within seconds, the train left the station and their troubles behind them.
“You okay?” he finally asked Hannah.
“Yeah,” was all she said. She slumped onto a seat, arms wrapped around Hello Kitty. He took the seat beside her and they rode quietly for some time. Hannah wouldn’t say a word as her breathing slowed to something resembling regularity. Daniel left her alone, his own thoughts now focused on the girls and the awareness that police would be able to tighten their search and maybe even step it up if they realized there were now videos and pictures of them involved in two different fights at subway stations within an hour. They would appear to be the victims in the first fight, but the attackers in the second. This tightened the feeling in his chest that staying in one place for too long was a bad idea. It also meant they had to be nowhere near that part of Brooklyn. He then was drifting from the teens left behind to the Horn and the growing certainty that they would need to find a way to wrest it from the Moderator.
There was one other thought haunting him: Who was the Moderator and what would he do with the ancient talisman?
11
Hannah
The red haze that had clouded her vision and thinking was fading as the subway she and Daniel rode traversed Brooklyn. Hannah really had no idea where they were or where they were headed. Now that the adrenaline had ceased pumping, she could feel the sore muscles and raw knuckles. She had broken skin in spots and relived the beating she gave Charlene. Even sitting there on the subway, all she wanted to do was keep beating her, pouring out her rage and fear and frustration.
She could have killed her adversary and killing another human being was never something she had contemplated. What was she turning into? What had being activated changed inside her?
Thankfully, Daniel broke things up and the girls stayed with Charlene. While she hoped they were gone for good, she knew better. She also suspected that at least one of those bitches would report their whereabouts which meant they couldn’t return to the Atlantic Avenue stations for the night. So, to sum up: they found and lost the ancient relic, got beaten by religious acolytes, then the fight with Charlene and they had nowhere to sleep and no food to eat. She was sore, hungry and tired, uncertain which took priority. Instead, she looked at Daniel, who seemed to be zoned out. He was just staring into space. Earlier, he seemed ready to punch out the girls himself, but was chivalrous enough to allow her the honor.
“Thank you.”
He looked over at her, raising an eyebrow.
“You stopped me from really hurting Charlene. Daniel, what’s happening to us?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve never wanted to hurt someone so badly before. I could have killed her.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Only because you stopped me. Those other bitches didn’t twitch. Not once. I don’t like how I feel and if this is what it means to have the power of a Knight, then maybe I don’t want it.”
He studied her closely for a few moments, sympathy in his eyes.
They were an odd pair and idly she wondered if Dante Grimm somehow orchestrated events to bring them together or, if Daniel was right, there were forces at work. She was coming to see the world the way he saw it because to believe otherwise would be insane. But this was not the world she wanted. Hannah had college in mind, a career, a man, and a family. Hopefully all in that order. Maybe not the white picket fence, but she had been denied the American Dream growing up and wanted it for herself as an adult. Of course, without the Horn the Caeg Dimmre could not be assembled, the Veil could not be reinforced, and the nine nightmare races would come through, a wave of illegal immigrants that would terrify every nation on Earth.
No pressure.
“I…think the abilities we have inside us is new. I can’t explain everything I see, not yet. It must be like that with you. You have this fearless nature and have extra strength or something. We need to learn how these things work, how to harness them,”
“Control them before they control us? Like what just happened? Learn to stop myself on my own?”
Rather than think about the future, she needed to refocus her attention on the here and now. Goal one was to find the Horn. Everything else could follow.
“Daniel? You with me?”
“Yeah.” She was surprised how much weary emotion could be contained in a single syllable.
“What do we do now?”
“Find the horn.”
“Good, that’s what I was thinking,” she said. She flashed him a smile. “We can do this. I guess we have to do this. Grimm wouldn’t have chosen us otherwise,
right?”
“Are you feeling like a knight all of a sudden?” he asked in a flat voice. Her forced cheerfulness wasn’t working any magic on him at all. He seemed worn out, defeated.
“Why not? He sent them after us, after the horn, so now we take it back. All we need to do is find the Moderator and once I get a signal, I can track him down. Tomorrow’s Sunday, no doubt he’ll be preaching from somewhere. We know where that is, we can show up and find the Horn.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“You’re the planner,” she said. “Me, I intend on finding it, giving back some pain, and handing the thing over to Grimm and calling it a day.”
He snorted at that. “I doubt we’re done after that.”
That caused her to frown. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…let’s say we’re successful and so are the others. We turn the pieces over to Grimm and Morgan, they somehow put the pieces together and fix the Veil. You think they’ll deactivate us and that’s that until the next crisis?”
“Wasn’t that what we were promised?”
“Not in so many words, no,” he said. “We saw the troll or whatever that thing was. He’s not alone, we were shown that at Avalon. Now that we are knights, I bet we have to go round them up and scour the Earth clean.”
“That’s not what Grimm said at all,” she argued. “Besides, that’s all for later. Right now, we need food and the horn. Pretty much in that order.”
“And what about somewhere to sleep?”
“We’ll find something, somewhere,” Hannah said.
“When did you become the team optimist?”
She shrugged and that finally got a smile out of him. He definitely looked better when he smiled, weary or not.
They sat in compatible silence for two stops and then she spoke up. “Let’s go back to the White Mountain house we first visited. They’ll feed us, let us sleep, and I can use their Wi-Fi to figure out where the Moderator is in the morning.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “You’re forgetting that it’s his house we’d be staying at. Surely, someone there would know.”
“Think about it, Daniel. This is the last place they’d look for us and now that they have the horn they won’t think twice about us.”
That caused her to laugh, recognizing how silly she had sounded. They both laughed, perhaps more than necessary, but it was stress being released.
“You’re not worried about being so close to the home?”
She shook her head at him with another smile. “What home? Didn’t you hear, it burned to the ground? No one will be looking for us there.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Daniel said after considering the scenario. With that, he stood and walked over to the subway map and with an index finger, pinpointed where they were and then began tracing along the Yellow line to find his way back to a stop nearest the White Mountain house. He traced and retraced his moves, until he finally had a route settled in his mind. Watching him at work was about all she felt like doing. Her muscles ached, her stomach rumbled, and keeping alert was proving a brand new challenge.
Daniel returned to her side with some measure of energy. He fumbled in his pockets and counted out several bills and seemed to be mentally calculating their dinner plans.
“We gotta make that last,” she said through a yawn.
“We did when we didn’t know how long it would take to find the horn. Now we have an idea where it is, we can spend some on some food. Pizza?”
“Antonio’s,” she said with a yawn. It was her favorite place near the home and one of the countermen was always flirting with her, occasionally giving her free toppings. It sort of creeped her out, since he also spoke of his wife and children, but free was free. Especially with the counter between them at all times.
“Where did knights sleep on their quests?” she asked Daniel as they transferred to a new train.
“Castles, I guess,” he said. “Inns. Maybe even sleeping on their horses when there was no other choice.”
“So they roughed it too?” she said, settling heavily on the seat beside him.
“It’s not like they had Best Westerns back then. They probably looked regal and people welcomed them to their homes. I don’t really know.”
“We are going to have read more history and learn more about our previous lives,” she said after a large yawn. They’d better get the pizza soon, otherwise she was going to just nod off on the subway and skip the White Mountain house entirely.
Daniel didn’t address her point which was fine with her as she succumbed to the exhaustion and dozed off. However long it was, it clearly wasn’t enough. Daniel tugged on her arm, forcing her to her feet.
“We’re here, come on,” he urged her. She’d traveled on enough subways to know the doors wouldn’t be open for long, so she lunged forward and let momentum and his strength carry her forward as she blinked herself alert. The subway platform was empty, save the echoes trains farther away, and the smells of piss and rotting food.
They hit the streets and began walking towards 49th Street and the familiar home of the White Mountain Worshippers. She began recognizing streets and buildings, giving in to her hunger long before they got near Antonio’s, settling for two slices apiece from a different pizzeria, eating quickly and in utter silence. It was hot, greasy, and she liked watching the cheese ooze off the edges as she hoisted each slice. She bought a bottle of water and sipped it as they neared their target.
As the first time she spied it, the simple two-story structure appeared peaceful and welcoming. She actually smiled at seeing the building and the bright blue light by the side door; it wasn’t home but it’d do for the night.
“It looks safe,” Daniel said after intensely studying it from several angles.
“What if we recognize one of the attackers?”
“We run.”
It wasn’t a great answer but it would have to be good enough and she led them into the house. Hannah expected to see Gerard, who was on duty the other night, but instead it was Marissa, seated at the table, hands wrapped around a mug of tea. She looked up, recognized the teens, and smiled at them.
“Welcome back,” she said then she saw their cuts and bruises and rose. “Oh, my!”
Without asking what happened, Marissa reached into a kitchen cabinet and withdrew a large white first aid kit and began unpacking things. The woman was probably in her forties, with graying hair that swept over her shoulders, wearing the regulation blazer over a pink blouse. The blazer made Hannah inwardly wince, reminding her of the beating they received earlier that day.
With practiced ease, she looked over Hannah’s hands, then arms, finally her face and back. Then, she applied anti-bacterial cleanser and bandaged what she deemed appropriate.
“We’re sorry we missed your cleanup,” Hannah said.
“Hush. It got done,” Marissa said then gestured at the table. “Talk to me. You hungry? Thirsty?”
Daniel dropped his backpack and slumped into the offered chair, while shaking his head in refusal. The exhaustion was getting to him. Marissa didn’t act like she knew other Worshippers beat them up or they had been targeted by the Moderator. She hoped Marissa wasn’t a very good actress and all this was real. Hannah glanced over at Daniel who had used his vision or sight or whatever he called it to check her out. He acted as if there was no danger.
“We ate on the way over,” Hannah said.
“Now your turn,” Marissa said to Daniel. He submitted to her ministrations while Hannah shifted to make room. While the treatment didn’t make her feel immediately better, she knew she was better off with the help. Apparently, Daniel’s injuries were more internal than external and she was quickly putting Band-Aids on his chin and hands.
“We were hoping, though, we could spend the night before we move on.”
“Of course, my dear. Tonight there are three others staying so you’ll have to be quiet when you are ready for sleep,” Marissa said.
“Which is go
ing to be soon,” Daniel said.
“Can you tell me what happened? Are you two in trouble?”
He waved her off and Hannah said, “We got mugged elsewhere in Brooklyn. We’re fine.”
“Thank goodness. Now, what about tomorrow?”
“We honestly haven’t thought about it,” Hannah said, earning her a sharp look from Daniel. It was true wasn’t it?
“Actually, we were curious about the White Mountain homes. Are there more around?” Daniel asked.
Marissa nodded and rose, walking out of the kitchen for a moment, returning with a glossy, tri-fold brochure. The White Mountain Worshippers logo was emblazoned over the top of the cover and inside there was a map of the five boroughs, tiny logos indicating where existing homes were. The largest, though, was in lower Manhattan, not far from the Freedom Tower.
“That’s the largest congregation in America so far,” Marissa said softly, pride clear in her voice. The Moderator speaks to us from there on Sundays and Tuesdays. He has a YouTube channel with live video feeds and a weekly podcast. He really knows how to get the word out.” As they looked over the brochure, she packed away the first aid kit and returned it to the cabinet.
Hannah nodded avoiding her gaze because to her it sounded fairly ordinary, not special. Then again, the woman was of an entirely different generation so it all seemed pretty spectacular to her.
“What time does he speak tomorrow?” she asked.
“At ten.”
“What do you think, Daniel, should we go and hear him for ourselves?”
“You could watch her with us. We have a lovely 48 inch screen where we all gather around to listen.”
“Thank you, but Hannah’s got a great idea. We haven’t been to the city in a while so we could have a nice day of it before Monday.” Daniel trailed off and Hannah wondered what he would have finished with since they had nowhere to go, and school was still more than a week away. Like they were ever going back to high school.
“I’d get there early, then,” Marissa said with her ever-ready smile. “It fills up as you can imagine. There’s an interactive welcome center that you should make time for. It’s down on West Broadway, so getting there by subway shouldn’t be a problem.”