by Jessica Roe
Hadley raised an eyebrow. “And who are you exactly?”
Zay held out his hand for Hadley to shake. “Xavier Quinn. It's nice to meet you. Any friend of Nicky's is a friend of mine.”
Hadley's mouth dropped open and his eyes bugged out of his head. Hadley was so tall that he towered over Zay, but in that moment he was like an excitable child who'd just been shown the way to Legoland. Nicky began to suspect that maybe there was more to Zay than just being Charles' son. He kept his face blank, hoping that Hadley wouldn't realize he had no idea what was going on.
“You're Xavier Quinn?” Hadley asked, looking awed. “The guy who invented the Quinn 484? I read all about you. I researched you in collage! You're a freakin' genius.”
Okay seriously, Nicky really wanted to know who Zay was. And what the hell was a Quinn 484?
Zay shrugged, like he was used to the kind of worship Hadley was laying on him. “Yep. I'm also really rich, which is why I hired Nicky. Extra security, you know what I mean?”
Hadley slapped Nicky on the back, looking pleased for him. “This is a great opportunity, man. Well done. I knew something good was coming your way.” Nicky gripped the hand he held out to shake, knowing that he really meant it. Hadley was the only friend he'd had who'd stuck by him, the only person—parents aside—who'd visited Nicky in jail, and the first to offer him a place to live when he'd needed it. Nicky would always be grateful to him. “You know if you ever need anything, I'm always here.”
“I appreciate that, Had. Thanks for everything.”
Hadley grinned at him and then checked his watch. “Shoot, I gotta run. Got some new material I wanna record,” he explained. “Will you lock up when you're done getting your things?”
“What about your key?”
“Keep it, just in case. Don't be a stranger now you're moving up in the world. And call your folks,” he demanded, sliding into his leather jacket and picking up his guitar case. “They buzzed me last night 'cause they couldn't get a hold of you.”
He checked his floppy black hair in the mirror and then left. Once the door had banged closed behind him, Nicky punched Zay in the shoulder with a grin. “Quick thinking. I was stumped when he started asking questions. Thanks for stepping up.”
“No worries. You get used to making up fast stories after a while. You have to—things can get unpredictable sometimes.”
“You wanna know something stupid? When I first met you yesterday, I thought you were a vain jerk. But I was wrong; you're an okay guy.”
“Nope, I really am a vain jerk. It's what happens when you're this good looking.”
“Whatever. Pretend like you're douche all you want.” He reached underneath the sofa and pulled out a battered looking duffel bag. “You ready to go?”
“Where's the rest of your things?”
Nicky held the bag up higher.
“Christ.” Zay eyed the bag with distaste. “We've got to get you some more stuff. That's just sad.”
“Hey! I just got out of prison, dude.”
“Whatever. Get Queenie to take you shopping. She lives for that kind of thing.”
“SO WHAT'S WITH the Quinn 400?” Nicky asked, once they were back in the car. He helped himself to one of Zay's cigarettes and lit up.
“Quinn 484,” Zay corrected. “It's a computer security system I designed when I was fifteen. Six years on and people are still going on about it. It was cool for a while. Now it's just annoying.”
Nicky's eyes widened. “Wait, is Jemima—”
“I created her, yeah. I mean, the Guardians already had a security system, but mine is better. I sold a version of it to a bunch of rich guys, and all of a sudden people start calling me a genius. Which is a complete overstatement. I'm just good with computers.”
“Jeez. When I was fifteen I was skipping class and chasing girls.”
Zay looked mildly affronted. “I was still chasing girls. Brains as well as this handsome face...” He grinned from ear to ear. “Girls dig that.”
Nicky laughed. “If you're such a computer expert, why did your dad hire Kain?”
“Because he's better. Like seriously better. Compared to Kain, I'm a caveman bashing away at the keyboard with a rock. Besides, I never wanted to be stuck indoors working on a computer. I wanted to fight.”
“And you're rich, too? God, I could hate you.”
“Mmhmm. I keep telling Dad to take the money and put it into the NYCGD, but he won't let me. Tells me to save it away for a rainy day.” He rolled his eyes.
“Smart guy. Parents are like that.”
“Talking of parents...” Zay handed Nicky a cellphone. “Call yours.”
Nicky told his parents the same story Zay had told Hadley. They hadn't heard of Xavier Quinn, but his mom was quick to look him up on the Google. She was so happy that Nicky was finally pulling himself together that she cried. His dad was his usual gruff and grumpy self, but Nicky could hear the pride in his voice when he told him that it was about damned time he got his head screwed on straight.
It felt good to finally be the one to make them happy. God only knew how many times he'd let them down in his life—certainly more times than he could count. He'd put them through hell, and disappointed them again and again. Yet they'd visited him in prison as soon as they were able and promised to stand by him. He'd make his job with the Guardians work, for them, if not for himself. He owed them so much. Being a Guardian was just the beginning.
“By the way,” he said to Zay as they drove back to headquarters. “You're not that good looking.”
Zay ran a hand through his curly, sun bleached hair. “Jealousy is an ugly emotion,” he taunted. “Anyway, the girls over here love the accent.”
“I bet if we were in England, chicks would love my accent.”
NICKY SPENT THE next couple of weeks training both physically and magically, and getting to know the team on a more personal level.
He spent way too many hours fighting Zay and Kain as they kicked video game zombie butt. It was dorky, and kind of stupid, but he'd forgotten how much fun it was to just hang out with friends, no drugs or prison involved.
Kain and Zay were as different as two men could be. Where Zay was smooth, cool and confident, Kain was nerdy and clumsy and had a tendency to babble about meaningless shit. He wore oddly coloured bow ties every day, even if he wasn't planning on going outside, and was happy to admit that he was a keen action figurine collector, despite being almost thirty. But put him in front of a computer and Kain turned into a sharp, calculating operator. A force to be reckoned with.
Despite their places on the opposites of the social spectrum, Zay and Kain were tight friends, but they welcomed Nicky immediately. Kain said it was because it was nice to have some fresh blood around, but Nicky suspected it had more to do with how easy it was to kick his ass on the Xbox.
After only a short space of time, it was painfully obvious to Nicky that Kain was bat shit crazy in love with Queenie. He watched her with wistful eyes whenever they were together. His back straightened when she walked in the room, his eyes brightened, his cheeks reddened. Of course he denied it when Nicky questioned, but his denial was partnered with a blush and a stutter, and Nicky didn't believe him for a second.
Zay snorted when he heard Kain's protests. “He's been gaga about her from the minute she first walked through that door. He's just too shy to actually tell her.”
Kain had slumped down in his seat with a sad expression. “Beautiful girls like her don't go for nerds like me.”
WALKER AND ZAY worked on getting Nicky trained physically. He was already strong, and Nan, his cell mate in prison, had been an ex Martial Arts champion and had taught Nicky a hell of a lot in their year together. Thinking back, he wondered whether Nan had been an Outcast too.
Even so, as Walker liked to point out—often, and usually with glee—his technique was sloppy and nowhere near up to Guardian standard.
And he had to—begrudgingly—admit that when Walker fought, she was fla
wless. Her movements were smooth and fluid and graceful. She looked like she'd been born to fight, and under her tutelage, Nicky's own skills improved vastly.
In the large training room, Walker and Zay taught him how to wield a sword, to shoot a gun, and how to fight with no weapon at all. They taught him how to use his surroundings to his advantage, and how even the most ordinary object could be used as a deadly weapon. He learned survival skills, first aid, and stealth.
Most importantly, he learned that he had finally found his place in life. He worked hard and he enjoyed doing it. When he fell into an exhausted slumber at the end of each night, it was with the satisfying knowledge that he was truly where he belonged.
WHEN WALKER AND Zay weren't helping him to improve his physical abilities, Nicky could usually be found in Cadby's tent at Yarmac and Bogely's, working diligently to improve his Shadow Guide talents. Oddly, it seemed to tire him out even more than the physical work, but was doubly as satisfying.
Cadby's plain white tent was smaller than Terelle's, and sparser too. A small bed and dresser took up one corner of the room, a table and chairs the other. Nicky knew that it was Cadby's own personal choice, because the other tents he'd visited had been filled to the brim, just like regular homes. But Cadby didn't seem to need much in the way of material possessions. He'd told Nicky it was because he already had so much inside his mind; physical possessions were merely a distraction.
He was surprising chipper for someone who was psychic. Nicky imagined it would be a terrible gift, to hear every thought, to know every emotion of the people around him. But Cadby made it look easy, and he was always smiling. Nicky couldn't help but like him.
Cadby couldn't see the shadows like Nicky could—his psychic gift didn't stretch as far as that—but he was powerful, and could sense them in ways that no one else could.
He started their training by helping Nicky to focus on his energy. When Nicky had trouble with that, he showed him how to manifest it, so that he would have an image to visualise when he focussed. It was similar to what Fabian the Healer had done with his purple sparkles, but the small ball of energy Nicky summoned into the palm of his hand was softer; a tiny pale sun on a frosty morning. It felt warm in his hand, and Cadby explained that it was a part of the light inside of him that drew the shadows his way when they were lost.
When Nicky was finally able to focus, Cadby taught him how to really listen to the shadows when they whispered in his ear, and he realized that the harder he listened, the easier it became to understand their strange, melodic language.
The first time he helped guide a shadow to the light, something inside of him clicked into place, and he felt wonderful and warm and worthy. He very nearly cried—butch, manly tears, obviously—but Cadby was still in the room and he didn't want to seem like an over emotional girl.
But then Cadby smirked at him and he remembered that the guy was psychic and he could probably tell that Nicky wanted to cry anyway. Working with the guy was seriously exhausting.
But fuck it, he didn't even care.
WALKER, ZAY AND Charles left to go on missions at least once a day. Sometimes they went alone, and sometimes they went together. Nicky wasn't exactly sure what it was they did when they went out, but he knew he was itching to be out there doing the real work alongside them, instead of training all day, every day. Charles insisted that he wasn't yet ready, no matter how many times Nicky begged.
It was frustrating as hell.
Not that it was all bad. It gave him time to bond with Queenie and Kain, who rarely went out on missions unless it was something to do with their own particular area of expertise. They explained to him that they liked to think of themselves as the brains of the team as opposed to the brawn, and were more than happy to hanker down in their labs.
After another disappointing refusal from Charles, Nicky flopped down on one of the stools in Queenie's lab, huffing loudly and obviously. He crossed his arms on the lab table in front of him and used them as a pillow for his head.
Queenie was in full science chick mode—lab jacket, nerdy glasses, wild hair piled haphazardly on the top of her head. Except her lab jacket had daisies sown on and Nicky was pretty sure her hair was being held up by the chopsticks they'd eaten dinner with the night before. On another lab table she had a line of test tubes filled with a dark red liquid, and she was busy adding various ingredients to them and making notes. She didn't even look up at his dramatic entrance.
He huffed again, even louder than before, and she smiled but carried on working.
“Charles made you stay behind again?” she guessed finally, when he had huffed for a third time. She took a sample from one of the test tubes and put a small droplet onto a clear slide so that she could examine it under a microscope. Her glasses slid down to the end of her nose.
“I'm starting to think he's never gonna let me do any real work. It'll just be train, train, train, for the rest of my life.”
She tutted at him. “You're being very dramatic today. Of course he'll let you work. He just wants you to be ready. Don't forget that you wouldn't be the only one at risk if you went out unprepared. You're responsible for a lot of lives now that you're a Guardian.”
He hated when his moaning was countered by logic. “I guess. Don't mean I have to like it though.”
She finally managed to rip herself away from her precious test tubes. “Aw, diddums,” she cooed teasingly, pulling off her latex gloves to pat him on the head. “Where's everyone else anyway?”
“Kain's watching the extended Lord of the Rings trilogy for like, the fifth time. Walker and Charles are at Yarmac and Bogely's. Zay's out with Ellie. Or was it Uda?” Zay's revolving cycle of women was a source of much amusement.
Queenie snorted. “He's so bad. How does he keep up with them all?”
“What are you working on?” he asked. “What's the red stuff in the tubes?”
“It's your blood,” she answered simply, like it was completely normal.
“Okay...I thought you took my blood samples for medical reasons?”
She rolled her eyes. “What exactly do you think I'm doing with it? Making soup? I'm testing it to see if your Shadow Guide blood reacts differently to...you know, regular blood. That way if you ever need medicine, I can make sure it's altered to be the most effective for you.”
A chill ran through Nicky. He'd never even considered that being a Shadow Guide might make him less human somehow. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel about that. Scared? Confused? Nervous? “And?”
“Your blood is the same as plain old human blood. You're just a regular guy with a special gift.”
He let out a sigh of relief. He'd had enough surprises thrust upon him; finding out that he wasn't human might just have been the limit. “Right. That's good.”
“So what else is up?” Queenie sat down across from him, giving him her full attention. “Aside from Charles not letting you out to play, that is. You've been looking all troubled and grumpy for the past few days.”
That was the problem with living in such close confines with people, they saw too much. He shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. “I guess I've just been thinking about some stuff.”
“What kind of stuff?”
To hell with it, he decided. Get the crazy out. “It's just that I have this thing, which makes me a Shadow Guide. It makes me different. I mean, I may be human, but I'm not a normal human. Get me?”
“Yes. Go on.”
“What I've been wondering is...if I'm not a normal human, does that make me an Outcast?”
“Aw, honey!” She pulled off her glasses and reached across the table for his hand. “Of course it does.”
He slumped down on his stool. Queenie may have been the sweetest person he'd ever met, but she was also the frankest. “Nice. Thanks for the honesty. It was awesome how you didn't sugar coat it, too. That would've sucked.”
She grinned and rubbed her thumb and index finger together. “You know what this is? It's
the world's tiniest violin, playing just for you. Pull those drooping lips up, sulky pants. There's nothing wrong with being an Outcast. I'm an Outcast too, if that makes you feel any better.”
She threw that last statement out there so casually that it took Nicky a few moments to process it. “Wait...what?”
“I'm a Psychic,” she told him. “Not nearly as powerful as Cadby, but no one really is when it comes to mental abilities. He's kind of special.”
Nicky's eyes widened. “You can read my mind? Because I feel like someone should have mentioned that before now! Just a small heads up, like, 'Hey Nicky, you might wanna keep your mind out of the gutter so you don't scar the nice, innocent scientist!'”
She giggled. “Calm down. I don't hear thoughts. I'm a Seer. I get visions.”
Dayum, what a relief. Not that he'd had any thoughts of...oh, whatever, she couldn't hear him lie. “What do you get visions of?”
“All sorts of things. The past, present, future. I see myself eating a cream bagel for breakfast next week, and I see earthquakes that happened in Asia over a year ago. Sometimes it's hard to understand them. I'm actually the reason Charles even knew you existed.”
“You had a vision of me?” That was...weird.
“I had a vision of you getting arrested, and then of Charles telling you that you were a Shadow Guide. Didn't take much for me to figure you were someone important. Once you were arrested we tracked you, researched you. You know the rest.”
“Why didn't Charles tell me any of this?”
“Because it's not his deal to tell. I don't exactly shout about my gift from the rooftops. But I trust you. You're one of us now.”
Warmth spread through him at her words. She trusted him, and he'd earned it. He'd never been worthy of anyone's trust before. It was a heavy feeling, a scary one, but kind of awesome at the same time. “Is that why they hired you here? I mean, I know you're a good scientist, but you seem kinda young. What are you, twenty? Twenty one?”