Old Beginnings (The Forgotten Slayer Book 1)

by Alix Marsh

  “Anyway,” Ice said, “Zeus bestowed his touch on three other of his half-mortal children, Atreus, Hellys and Perses, turning them into warriors with super powers to stand up to Deimonys and the other demons.”

  Just then, two older boys emerged from a side trail onto the path right in front of them.

  “Hey, Ice,” said the one, a tall boy with long blond hair tied back low against his nape, tanned, the kind of face girls seemed to like.

  Her miserable mood seemed to disappear behind the smile she brought out for him. “Hey, Julian.”

  “You doing okay?”

  “Yeah… You?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well… I should…”

  “Yeah…”

  The boys moved on, headed in the opposite direction up the path.

  Ice was still smiling. Flynn had no idea why. The whole exchange had seemed quite awkward from where he stood.

  “The things is,” Jack added, as if the interruption had never occurred, “while the slayers could vanquish lower tier demons, Deimonys proved impossible to slay.”

  “But Zeus got what he wanted… The slayers managed to bind Deimonys in Hades, and he’s been there ever since.” Ice threw her arms out. “And here we are, the Touch of Zeus passed down through our bloodline.”

  “Unfortunately, we’ve become more human and less demi-god with each generation,” Jack said. “Hardly any of us live forever anymore.”

  Flynn’s eyes bulged.

  “I’m kidding.” Jack burst out laughing. “We’ve always lived and died just like everybody else. But we’re no match for the original slayers. It’s a good thing we’ll never have to contend with Deimonys—”

  “That’s not precisely true,” Ice said. “There’s a prophecy…” She cut off the main path, ducking beneath a branch onto a dirt trail. “Deimonys will walk above ground again when a slayer is born powerful enough to vanquish him for once and for all.”

  “That’s not a prophecy,” scoffed Jack. “It’s a folktale carried down from the times when the only entertainment was making up nonsense around the fireplace.”

  They were walking in single file again, elbowing aside rude bushes, swatting overhanging branches and trotting over exposed roots.

  “Think about it,” Jack went on. “Our powers are growing progressively weaker, diluting as our blood pledges spread across more and more generations of slayers. So, if no slayer has ever been strong enough to fulfil that so-called prophecy up until now, how can it happen in the future?”

  “You seem to have given it a great deal of thought,” Ice called back. “For a folktale, that is. What do you think, Flynn?”

  On the one hand, Flynn was inclined to take Ice’s side, on account of her being the prettier of the two. On the other hand…demons. And not just any old demon, but the king demon, apparently. “Jack’s argument does make sense.”

  “If you can’t trust in the impossible, you live without hope!”

  “Hope?” blurted Jack. “You don’t hope Deimonys rises from Hades, do you?”

  “It’s not that simple, Jack. Of course I don’t want him up here terrorising everyone, but I’d like to know he’ll be vanquished one day, gone for good.”

  “By Hades,” Flynn asked, “we do mean Hell, right?”

  “Sort of,” said Jack. “Hades has different levels, some more hellish than other.”

  “Well, as long as it’s a lot further from us than the Bunker, I’m all for Deimonys staying put,” Flynn muttered. “Why on earth would the school keep that Shadow demon here?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” Ice said.

  “Maybe they use him for training,” Jack suggested. “Like a punching bag?”

  “That would be awesome,” Ice said, sounding like she really, really meant it.

  After taking a few forks in the trail and many twists, they arrived in a clearing; the first year meeting point. There were a number of stone tables and benches, a couple in the clearing and others set back just inside the forest line. Some kids were already there, gathered at the tables or standing in groups, and more joined every minute from other trails feeding into the clearing. They seemed to clump together by blazer colours. Perses House wore a very dark, olive green with a raging bull emblem on the pocket, their tie striped olive and cream. Hellys was a deep, chocolate brown, their tie striped through with gold and their symbol was a ferocious golden eagle with spread wings.

  The leaf embroidered on Flynn’s blazer was lame by comparison and he said as much to Jack as they found an empty table to perch on beneath a crabby tree with mangled branches.

  “It’s an oak leaf,” Jack said, as if that explained anything.

  Just as Ice was joining them, a Perses boy approached. Dark hair, green eyes, the same Mediterranean complexion as Ice, only slightly darker. He wore a sneer that looked as if it’d been there a while, corroded into the haughty angles of his face.

  He inserted himself between them, his back firmly turned on Jack and Flynn. “Hey, Ice, if you’re not busy on Friday night, we’re throwing a party at Perses. You should come.”

  “What are we?” mumbled Flynn. “Invisible?”

  “To Milo Christos?” Jack nudged his chin at the boy’s back. “Pretty much. He rarely lowers his nose low enough to notice, and then it’s usually to gloat over the poor sod he’s just trod on. Not a pleasant chap.”

  Flynn thought of Arran Marshall. “Perses House really knows how to produce them, huh?”

  Milo chose that moment to turn to them. He gave Jack a dismissive look, and then his nose actually wrinkled when his eyes came to Flynn, as if he’d just taken a whiff of something sour. “If they must,” he pushed out through lips curled in barely masked contempt, then said a stiff goodbye to Ice and returned to his group.

  Jack’s brow went up. “What was that about?”

  “That,” said Ice, “was your invitation to the Perses party.”

  “Not happening.”

  Flynn was in total agreement.

  “Oh, come on. It’s not like you guys have any plans for Friday night.”

  “I’d rather pluck my nose hairs,” Jack said, sliding off the table as a bell rang, sounding like it came from one of the many trails radiating from the clearing. “One. By. One.”

  Ice turned abruptly, walking a step ahead of them as they headed down the trail with everyone else. “The houses ought to try and get along a bit better and at least Milo’s making an effort.”

  “He’s making an effort, alright,” Jack said, “just not at improving inter-house relations.”

  Flynn chuckled.

  Ice walked faster, widening the gap between them.

  Someone tapped Flynn on the shoulder. He slowed, almost tripping the pair of Hellys girls at his heels.

  “Hi there,” giggled the one. “I’m Leva.”

  Flynn smiled at them, glancing back and forth between them and the path ahead as he continued walking.

  “Sorry to attack,” the other said, silky coal black hair fanning her cheeks and streaming over her shoulders, “but since Jack couldn’t be bothered to introduce us…”

  Jack had turned, walking backward. He grinned sheepishly. “Sorry, didn’t see you. Jin, Leva, this is Heath.”

  “Hello, Heath.” Jin smiled at Flynn, then looked past him to Jack. “Yeah, I saw you were busy….” A soft, musical laugh rumbled from her lips. “Busy getting chatted up by Milo.” Her eyes came back to Flynn. “Milo Christos is something else, right?”

  And the way she said it, Flynn decided then and there he could really like Jin.

  It was only a minute’s walk before they reached their classroom, a flat-roof stone cottage hunkering beneath the weight of the forest, the walls draped in ivy.

  “Morning, Miss Turtlebee… Morning, Miss Turtlebee…” Flynn heard called out as they filed inside what appeared to be a very normal classroom with rows of tables and chairs, a whiteboard up front, shelves and shelves of books, and Miss Turtlebee, a middle-aged woman wit
h short, spiky, ginger hair and a rather beaky nose that seemed to take up most of her face.

  She also, much to his alarm, plucked Ice from the line of pupils streaming in. “A moment, Miss Bridleton.” And then, “Davendish,” followed by, “Heath, I presume?” as she gripped his arm, and all three of them had been plucked to stand beside her at the front of the class.

  As soon as the last pupil had entered, she shunted Flynn, Ice and Jack straight out the door again. “The headmaster has sent for you.”

  “But why?” protested Ice. “What have we done?”

  “I have no idea,” Miss Turtlebee said primly, “but I’m quite sure you know perfectly well. Go along now, don’t keep Mr. Swan waiting.”

  “This must be about last night,” Flynn said as they hurried down the trail.

  “Of course it’s about last night,” Jack muttered.

  Not another word was said until they reached the paved path and spread out, and then Ice, looking a tad pale, said, “Let me do the talking, okay? I’ll take the blame.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Flynn said.

  “There’s no point in all of us getting into trouble and, well, it is my fault.”

  “I don’t recall anyone kidnapping me,” said Jack.

  Ice gave them a stubborn look, her chin set high. “But you didn’t know where I was taking you.”

  “This isn’t a debate,” Flynn said crossly.

  They were walking so fast, they were practically running, all the way up along the gradual curve in the path and, when they rounded the top of the bend, Crowley Manor came into view. Here, the forest had been hacked back for the trimmed hedges bordering both sides and the manicured garden in front. The pale, grey stone Manor couldn’t seem to decide if it wanted to be a castle or a house. The long body had a double row of oversized, leaded windows, the top level decorated with ornate trellis railings. The roof, however, appeared to have a crenulated walkway that ran along the front and wrapped around the enormous towers propped on each end of the manor.

  A pyramid of stone steps, the bottom as wide as half the length of the building, ended at a double-barrel mahogany door with beautiful carvings and studded through with iron.

  Ice seemed to know where she was going, taking them up the steps and through the door into a cavernous entrance hall, then a sharp left down a passage that brought them to a reception area.

  A man, sat behind an ancient relic of a desk, raised his head as they approached. His gaze flickered to Flynn and stuck. “Keep on walking,” he said, waving them past, that assessing look still fixed on Flynn. “The headmaster is expecting you.”

  The door they’d been directed to was closed. Flynn could feel the man’s gaze burning into his back, as if Flynn was the real troublemaker of the group, the one to be watched. Fine! He knocked on the door, loudly, before properly thinking it through.

  “Enter,” came a deep voice from the other side.

  “Whatever you do,” Ice said quietly, “don’t offer any information. If someone saw us hanging around the Bunker, they don’t necessarily know anything else, okay?”

  “And if he asks what we were doing there?” whispered Jack.

  “I’ll think of something,” Ice said. “Leave the talking to me.”

  Before they could protest (which Flynn had no intention of doing), Ice pushed forward and opened the door.

  Flynn went inside after her, and found himself in a stone chamber, completely round, the curved walls hung with huge tapestries, and he realised they must be in one of the towers.

  The headmaster, Mr. Swan, was just coming around his desk. He leant against the front, his legs stretched out before him, arms crossed. He didn’t look old enough to be a headmaster, in Flynn’s opinion. And he was dressed completely in black; supple leather pants, boots that stopped just below his knees, a long-sleeve ribbed T-shirt that skimmed impressive muscles.

  To one side, a pair of sofas were arranged around a low table, but he didn’t offer them a seat. He said nothing, just watched as they came to an uncertain halt in front of him. Flynn’s mouth went dry as his piercing eyes—the darkest eyes Flynn had ever seen—settled on each of them in turn, for the same unsettling second and with the same intensity, which Flynn thought only fair.

  Ice, surprisingly, was the first to falter, breaking her own rules. “Sir, I can explain. We were—”

  “Before you say anymore, Icilia,” he said, putting one hand up to stop her. “You should be aware that Cell B is equipped with surveillance cameras.”

  Flynn didn’t need to ask what Cell B was.

  “Now,” said Mr. Swan, his eyes narrowing on Ice in a way that suggested he would not tolerate any deviation from the truth, “you were saying?”

  “Um, nothing… Sir.”

  More silence. More watching. With each passing second, Mr. Swan looked less and less like a headmaster—and he hadn’t looked much like one to start with—and more and more like an enforcer for some lethal, possibly illegal, branch of the military.

  “You’re not the first pupils to discover that trapdoor, you do realise? Some of the teachers feel it should be sealed, but…” Mr. Swan unfolded his arms and gripped the edge of his desk, leaning back. “I’ve never seen the harm in a little curiosity and, of course, it’s certainly one method of illuminating our more challenging students.”

  “Sir,” Jack yelped, “we’re really sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” said Mr. Swan, his mouth edging up at one corner. “I’m rather fond of a challenge. However…” His mouth flattened again. “You are the first to enter the Bunker outside of training hours. My good humour, I’m afraid, does not extend to picking locks on school property… not without permission, that is.” His gaze swept across the three of them.

  Ice was all over that one. “That was me, Sir!”

  His gaze stopped on her. “And do I have your word, Icilia, that it won’t happen again?”

  Ice bit down on her lip.

  Flynn couldn’t believe it. She was actually hesitating. His elbow shot out, giving her a nudge.

  “Um, yes, Sir, of course it won’t.”

  Mr. Swan’s eyes never left her. “A slayer’s word should never be given lightly, Icilia. We wear many faces in our life, but we live and die by our pledge. Once broken, honour can never be mended, not fully.”

  “I understand,” Ice said. “You have my word, Sir.”

  “Thank you.” He pushed off the desk. “We’ll say no more on the matter, then.”

  When he dismissed the others, though, he asked Flynn to stay behind.

  Jack caught his eye on the way out. What?

  Flynn shrugged, trying not to look as apprehensive as he felt. Being in trouble on your own was way worse than being in trouble with your friends. Then again, they hadn’t gotten into trouble, had they? It was as if…as if the headmaster had merely wanted them to know that he knew. Flynn turned from the door, feeling a whole lot better about his plight.

  Mr. Swan had crossed the chamber and was settling back onto a sofa, one leg squared over the other. He indicated for Flynn to join him.

  Flynn seated himself on the edge of the adjacent sofa, facing Mr. Swan. As he slid his schoolbag off his shoulder to the floor, his gaze landed on the tapestry behind the headmaster. This close, he saw it was a bull, almost fully blended into the background swirl of dark browns and deep reds. He glanced across at the tapestry hung behind Mr. Swan’s desk, an eagle on the verge of taking flight, the feathers shades of dark and darker gold, practically camouflaged against the drop of a ragged cliff. He wasn’t surprised to see the third tapestry on the wall opposite from him was a splash of greens and brown in the vague outline of a leaf—an oak leaf, he corrected, wondering if oaks had some ferocious quality he wasn’t aware of.

  “The bull, the eagle and the oak tree,” said Mr. Swan, seeing where his attention had drifted. “Symbols of Zeus.”

  “Oh.” Flynn brought his gaze back to Mr. Swan. “I thought he was associated with a lightning bol
t.”

  “That would be Zeus’s most recognised—and powerful—icon, true.” He looked over the three tapestries, frowning, then he nodded once, as if he’d just reached some decision he’d been warring with.

  Flynn had no idea what he’d just decided, and he wasn’t going to ask.

  Mr. Swan’s frown cleared. “I understand you had no introduction into our world before taking your pledge,” he said. “Are you settling in okay?”

  Flynn nodded. “Yeah, thanks. Sir.”

  “Excellent. The transition can be daunting, even for our first years from the most seasoned of families. No doubt you’ll find your feet in no time.” He leaned forward, bringing his face a whole lot closer to Flynn, elbows resting on his thighs. “Flynn, could I take a look at your Darswich?”

  “Um, yeah, sure…” Flynn bent over his schoolbag and brought out his swich.

  Not odd. Not odd at all to be showing your headmaster—headmaster!!—the dagger you stashed in the very bottom of your schoolbag.

  Mr. Swan’s jaw went completely slack. But only for a couple of seconds, and then he seemed to remember himself, pulled himself right and snapped his angular jaw solid again. “May I?” he asked, holding out a hand.

  Flynn gave it over, wondering if there was something wrong with his swich. Mr. Swan cradled the Darswich in one hand, shaking his head slowly as he traced over the snakes with tentative strokes.

  But then he murmured, “Amazing,” and, “Beautiful,” and Flynn, looking at his swich resting on Mr. Swan’s palm, realised that it really was. He didn’t care about the girly coloured stones or the excessively elaborate design, it was beautiful and, suddenly, he felt a pang of possessiveness. He clasped his hands to fight the urge to grab his swich back.

  What if Mr. Swan confiscated it?

  His heart raced a little.

  He didn’t really know what was happening, and, sure, he’d never owned anything as cool as a dagger before, but this was worse, a rush of panic, and worse still, a feeling of dead certainty that he’d never allow anyone to take his swich away from him, no matter what he’d have to do to prevent it.