by M. D. Archer
“Then the Consillium Principali has to take action,” Dana says from across the room. “If you expose us, you risk death by the Consillium. And that is even for those within the Consillium community.” She looks at me like, see.
Vincent glances at Dana. “She’s right, but don’t worry about that. For the Principali to execute a member of the community is pretty extreme. For us to have to deal with an aggressive Rogue, on the other hand, is rather common.”
“What do aggressive Rogues do?”
“They break the law, steal, start fights with people, or with other Lucans, just for the sake of a fight, or to try to dominate them,” Vincent says. “If they came across a powerful Lucan, like your aunt and actually you too, Tamzin, they might want to fight you just for the sake of it. The stronger you are, the more likely you are to attract agro Rogue attention.”
“We’re powerful?” I say to Dana.
Dana nods. “The Cursus women are known for being strong. But don’t worry, I’m going to train you, Tam. If a Rogue shows up wanting to fight you, you’ll be ready.”
“Why are they like that?”
“Just like humans, Lucans exist on a continuum of good to evil, but we’re a little more in touch with our animal side, so Rogues that don’t live within our community, who aren’t interested in trying to control themselves or follow rules, they can be pretty nasty. They can’t, or don’t want to, control their more primal urges, whether that is greed, or a desire for violence. And that is where the Consillium comes in. Sometimes they just need a reminder. Other times we need a permanent solution.”
Yikes.
“I, personally, try to focus on the positive aspects of the Consillium,” Vincent continues. “We offer a community. We look after Lucans in any way that is needed, whether it’s financially or just a sense of kinship. But I do have to enforce the rules sometimes.” He leans forward, locking eyes with me. “It is crucial to our survival.”
“Okay.” I nod, enjoying his proximity.
“So, don’t expose us and don’t hurt or take advantage of other people.” Vincent summarizes with a smile.
“Hey.” Dana takes three long strides over to me. Vincent’s eyes travel with her, taking in the long lines of her body. She tugs my arm. “We should go. Vin should get back to running this bar.” She grins at Vincent as she adds, “Which just involves hanging out with his friends, drinking beer, and listening to music.”
“Hey, it’s harder than it looks.” He smiles, standing up too. “It was good to meet you, Tamzin. We’ll talk again soon, okay?” His strong, warm hand envelops mine.
“Yeah, okay.” My voice comes out as a bit of a squeak.
I move toward the door, and then as I turn back to check Dana is behind me, I see Vincent place his hand on the small of her back as he walks her to the door.
“Talk to you soon too,” he says to her quietly, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek.
Outside, we jump into one of the waiting cabs. Our next stop is not far, Dana tells me, but her heels are not designed for walking. Just as the cab pulls out, I spot a familiar figure entering The Public House. Tall, athletically graceful, magnetic.
“Nikolai,” I breathe.
Like he heard me, he turns, and we make brief, piercing eye contact. Just the hint of a smile precedes a nod before he pulls open the heavy wooden doors and disappears inside. Sitting back in my seat, slightly breathless, I can feel the weight of Dana’s gaze.
“Yes, that was Nikolai,” she says.
“Hey, so how come you never told me about Vincent before?”
“You hadn’t Become yet. I couldn’t tell you until—”
“No, I mean, you guys.”
She smiles. “You picked up on that, did you?”
“Uh, yeah?” I roll my eyes. “And I didn’t need to be Lucan to pick up on it either. Obvious.”
With a nudge to the ribs, Dana nods at the cab driver.
“What?”
“You can’t just throw those words around, Tam.”
“Like he’s listening. Anyway, whatever, so are you and Vincent a thing?”
“Umm…” Dana shrugs. “We hang out. He wants more, but....” She looks out the window. Her last proper relationship was with a guy called Jakob, in London. Even though they broke up ages ago, I think the wound is still healing.
I grin. “Nice one, by the way.”
She grins back. “I know, right?”
“For an old guy, he is totally hot.”
She whacks me on the shoulder, and I laugh.
The cab pulls up outside an old brick building in the part of downtown where restaurants and shops start blending with industrial buildings.
“Thanks, Driver,” Dana says, handing him some cash. “This is it. Get out.” She prods me. We walk down the side of the building. “We need to get you through the first full moon, which is in just two days, so tomorrow we have work to do, but tonight, let’s have some fun.” We stop outside a red door where there is a large guy sitting on a stool.
“Hey, Miles,” Dana says.
“What’s up, Dana.”
“Just us two.” Dana gestures to me. “This is Tamzin,” she says as she hands him a couple of twenties. I smile a greeting and follow Dana inside.
The place is tiny and packed. The bass is so intense I can feel it in my chest, and I can smell Lucans everywhere. I don’t know how I know that, but I do. The air is thick and the atmosphere is primal. I’m gripped by an overwhelming urge to move, to sweat, to dance. Dana leans in to me to speak over the music.
“As a species, we tend to be hedonistic,” she says. “We’re sensation seekers and many of us have impulse control issues.” She pauses, surveying the room. “In summary, Lucans like to party,” she says, grabbing my hand and pulling me onto the teaming mass of bodies that is the dance floor.
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, I’m pounding the concrete outside Chris’s apartment building with a knot in my stomach. Something needs to happen, but what? How do I pretend things are the same when everything is so different?
When he opens the door, he doesn’t greet me with a kiss or a hug, just a dull, “Hey,” before returning to his desk. At least he isn’t totally clueless about the state of our relationship.
I hover near the door until Chris breaks the silence.
“So it’s kind of crazy about that girl, Carly King?”
“Yeah.”
What am I going to say to him? Is it time to have the big talk?
Wait.
“What do you mean about Carly King?”
Chris frowns as he turns his swivel chair to properly face me. “The night she went missing. You were there. You checked in at Spider. The night you said you had a fight with Piper.”
“I was?” I pull out my phone, but it’s not necessary because all of a sudden memories, previously forgotten, slap me in the face as they return.
I was there that night.
I collapse on the couch as I bring up the news website and read the most recent posts. The police are still asking for more information. I search my memory, but all I can remember is staggering along the road, weaving from side to side as I ricocheted off invisible barriers. I think I was alone, but I’m not sure.
Was I one of the last people to see Carly King before she went missing?
Chapter 10
The next day, I go over to Dana’s, and even after a crappy night’s sleep tossing and turning with dreams of Carly King wearing wolf ears and chasing me down a street, I still don’t know whether to tell her about my connection to the Carly King disappearance. Mostly because I’m not sure what it means. I had left Chris’s place dizzy with shock, but now it seems distant and irrelevant. So what if I was there, so were hundreds of other people, and I don’t have any memory of actually hanging out with her, only that she looks familiar.
I stand in front of Dana’s closet, marveling at her collection of workout clothes. She has black, sleek ensembles that you could wear clubbing; bright, high-tech I do C
rossFit outfits; and Lulu Lemon-style yoga gear.
“I can pick anything?” I call out.
Dana is already changed and waiting in the living room.
“Sure.”
I consider some of the fancier stuff for a second, then pull put a normal looking sports bra top and matching leggings. I study myself in the closet mirror, admiring my already noticeably more athletic physique, then return to her closet. I go through hanger after hanger of cute tops, sexy pants, and beautiful dresses. All these clothes are going to fit me soon. My wardrobe options are getting a lot better.
“Hey, let’s go,” Dana says when I join her in the living room. She has opted for a butch, old-school boxing outfit, which makes more sense when we pull up outside a boxing club east of downtown.
She unlocks the heavy door, switching on a few lights as we enter the musty interior, explaining that she has an arrangement with the owner so she can come here after hours. There is a Consillium gym we could go to, but Dana has been coming here since she moved back and she likes the quiet. With our nocturnal body clocks, a Lucan gym would be packed right now.
Dana is going to train me because while Lucans have natural fighting instincts and heightened reflexes, combat skills are useful and training your body physically helps with controlling your emotions. So this is like preparation for my first full moon, which is only thirty-six hours away. Dana keeps telling me that it’s going to be intense and I need to prepare myself, but I think she’s trying to prepare herself. This is kind of new for her too.
The boxing ring in the center is surrounded by hanging bags and several smaller areas set up so people can spar, jump rope, and do press-ups—or whatever boxers do to prepare themselves to be punched repeatedly.
I take to it instantly, loving the full-body exertion, the combination of reflexive skill and pure grunt work. What I am less thrilled about, however, is the smell.
“Ugh… how can you stand it?” I say as soon as we stop for a break. I wipe the sweat from my face, swill water, and try to block off my nose. The odors of dirty socks, B.O., dirty towels, and even vomit are competing with each other for first place in some sort of grossness competition.
Dana grins. “It’s good practice for you. Learning how to tolerate odors is all part of controlling your abilities. You have to learn to switch it on and off, or at least block it.” Dana smiles as she throws her sweat towel at me. “Ten more minutes of sparring, then I want to do some breathing exercises with you. After that, we can call it a night.”
“Dana?”
“Yeah?”
“So, I get the impression the Consillium Principali wouldn’t be happy about any involvement with the police, right?”
Dana’s eyes narrow. “Why?”
“Just wondering. You said the rules were important. So, like if you see something that hasn’t got anything to do with being Lucan, but is still like, a crime, should you report it?”
“What did you see?”
“Nothing. This is just hypothetical.”
“Tamzin?”
“Forget it. Just trying to get my head around everything.” I start running on the spot. “Let’s keep working out.”
“You sure there is nothing you want to tell me?”
I shake my head.
DANA DROPPED ME off twenty minutes ago, and even though we worked out for nearly two hours, I wasn’t ready for sleep. So I’d turned around at the gate and gone for a run.
Turns out I love it, running at night. Deserted streets, the crisp night air, feeling my muscles warm and burn as my feet pound the pavement. I follow the same route I took a couple of nights ago, jogging along Lakeshore Drive. I do a full circuit of the lake before slowing to a walk, ambling down the road, drinking water and taking in the scenery.
“Hey.”
I stop and look around—like an idiot. The voice was in my head.
“You’re close.”
Even though I learned his name only recently, I know it’s Nikolai.
“Stay where you are. I’ll come to you.”
When he jogs into view, I shiver. He looks like a racehorse. His gait is so relaxed, so effortless. Is that a Lucan thing? Is that what I look like when I run?
“I was hoping to see you again soon,” he says as he draws level with me.
His eyes, which looked almost green in daylight, now look brown. The light stubble grazing his chin and jaw and his hair, longish and unkempt, gives me the impression that he just got out of bed. I work quickly to clear this image from my head in case I’m still projecting my thoughts.
“You’re Tamzin.” This is more of a statement than a question. Has he been asking about me too?
“Yes,” I say anyway. “And yes, I’m Cursus. You know, what you asked me? I didn’t know at the time,” I explain as we start strolling along the walkway.
“You were wearing that cap, but you and Dana look—”
“She’s my aunt,” I say unnecessarily.
We continue strolling, like we are two old friends and like it’s not the middle of the night.
“How is your transition going? You have your first full moon soon,” he says after a while. He has a serious, formal way of speaking that contrasts his shaggy hair and bad-boy stubble, yet suits him perfectly.
“Yeah. Dana is taking me away so I can, uh, freak out in isolation.” I smile, but a small wave of apprehension contradicts the lightness of my tone. “I don’t know what to expect, but from what Dana says…”
“It can be a powerful experience,” Nikolai finishes for me. “But Dana is…. Well, you are in good hands.”
Nikolai’s voice, low and even, has just a hint of an accent. His vowels are rounder, smoothed out. I want to ask where he’s from originally, but I don’t. His reserved manner makes me think he likes his privacy. We keep walking. The occasional car goes past, headlights creating elongated silhouettes of our shadows in front of us.
“So, you’re junior Consillium Principali, right? What does that mean exactly? Like on a day to day basis.”
“I’m training to become Consillium Principali.”
“A leader, like Vincent.”
“Yes, or like my father or my uncle.”
“So is that like, a paid job you can have? You don’t actually go to college?”
“Yes and no. Kirsten does.”
“Oh right, Kirsten.”
“You’re welcome, by the way.” His brows are furrowed, but there is a hint of a smile in his eyes.
“For?”
“For removing her from the situation before you ripped her head off.”
“What do you see in her?” I blurt. “Apart from the obvious, I mean,” I add. “But I’m sure you could find a pretty girlfriend who isn’t also a complete cow.”
With a smile in his eyes, Nikolai shakes his head. “She’s not normally that bad.” He tilts his head. “You seem to bring out the worst in her.” He raises one eyebrow, almost daring me to react. I scoff. I know a Queen B when I meet one.
“We go back a long way,” he adds as we continue along the promenade. “I’ve known Kirsten and her family for years.”
“They aren’t…?” I stop, a weird tightness in my chest. Is Kirsten’s family Lucan? I couldn’t sense her like I could Nikolai, but I’m new to this. I feel oddly territorial. If she were Lucan too, it would detract from its specialness.
“No, we just used to be neighbors.”
“So she is the girl next door.”
“You think Kirsten is the girl next door?” Another small smile.
“You know what I mean. So it’s possible to keep up normal relationships with non-Lucans then,” I say.
Nikolai looks thoughtful then nods. “At least in the short term. Do you…?”
I nod. “Chris,” I say, and then clam up. I don’t have any reason to be guilty, but there is an intimacy between Nikolai and me that feels illicit. There is nothing I can do about that though, I remind myself. We are both Lucan, which is something Chris and I will never sh
are.
“Have you finished your run? Can I walk you home?” Nikolai says, his request is old-fashioned, but I don’t think it has anything to do with looking after me.
“Sure.” I smile.
But before we’ve even gone a couple of feet, a gust of wind brings us some unpleasant information. Something nearby is decomposing. I squint in the darkness toward the source of the smell. Nikolai looks around, frowning, then nods.
“Over there.”
We both stop, shocked into stillness. A female form, propped up against a tree. She looks like a doll waiting for someone to play with her.
Except someone already has.
“Oh God.” I pull out my phone.
“No, wait. We can’t.”
“Why not? We didn’t do it.” I start toward the body.
“Tamzin, no.”
“But she is lying there all alone. We have to do something.”
“I know, but it’s better we don’t get involved. We can’t risk exposure.”
“So we are supposed to just leave her? We can’t, Nikolai.”
“I’ll call it in anonymously from the payphone further along. You should go.”
I frown. Really? We can’t even talk to the police about something completely unrelated to being Lucan? This feels so wrong.
“Do you want to explain to your parents what you are doing out here at this hour?” Nikolai says. “Or your boyfriend?”
I meet his eyes. Fair point.
Chapter 11
The first day of the full moon is tomorrow. I can already feel it, the pull of the moon tugging at my internal organs. It sounds gross and it feels weird. I’m irritable, and I think I’m beginning to feel the emotional volatility that Dana warned me about.
Dana and I are leaving today for the cabin, a Consillium property only an hour away but tucked away from civilization, and I can’t wait to get away. Not just because of the whole full moon freak-out thing, but because things have been tense at home. Mom has been hassling me about the amount of studying I do, and Dana had to practically guarantee that she would tutor me the whole time we were away. But worse than that, I’ve caught Mom staring at me with a suspicious expression more than once over the last few days. It’s as if she knows something… but how could she?