Scion of the Fox

by S. M. Beiko

  Fellin removes his spectacles in disbelief. “It . . . it cannot be.”

  The rest of the gathering remains still, as though they might perish for moving. Anton Bel is agog. “The Moonstone? But . . . it was lost —”

  “It is here. It is supreme. It is the wisdom of the forebears that impel me to act. Let none of this Family speak against it.”

  More murmuring, a mixture of awe and fear. He lets them turn it over in their minds — that these orders come from their very ancestors, and how can they be wrong? Eli is momentarily furious that his authority isn’t enough, but he doesn’t dwell in anger long. A soft suggestion reaches tentatively out of the group, a shadow of a thought, but Eli swoops down on it, clutching it to him as he whips his head towards the inner voice.

  “Whose thought is that?” Eli and the voices thunder, choking the rabble further. Their eyes go to him, then around the room. Only one head is dipped, but Eli forces it up by the power of his will: Jordan Seneca, the police officer sent to question the girl, Roan Harken, to see if she would meet her fate head-on. An offer she obviously refused. Seneca meets Eli’s eyes guiltily, but does not pretend to hide the intent in them.

  “Stand up and repeat your thought for all to hear, cousin,” Eli invites, his voice now his own, the effort of controlling it and his cruel smile enormous. But though the edge of Eli’s words strike Seneca hard, the accused stands firm, clearing his throat.

  “We could leave her be in her mission,” he speaks clearly, despite knowing his words betoken treason, “and be rid of Zabor once and for all. Have our ancestors spoken of this alternative?”

  The gathering had yet to reach utter silence, and now it does. There is nothing to say. Eli has the room again, looking to each assembled Owl and carefully recording their complete shock. It steadies him.

  “Oh?” he can’t help but smile again, placating. “And you imagine that this girl, along with the band of misfits she’s gathering to her, will be able to subdue a darkling older than time, and without the use of the targe that sent Zabor here in the first place?”

  Seneca tries to defend himself. “Someone is training her. There is a great power in the girl that will soon emerge. I could sense it when I met her. She may be able to —”

  Solomon dismisses Seneca with a sharp glance; for once, father and son are on the same page, though perhaps Solomon only seeks to spare his nephew. “It takes tremendous power and will to seal a darkling. This girl is a child. And so are the allies she gathers and pretends are worthy of the task.”

  “Yes, I had heard she was spotted with the Allen child, and a human-turned-Deer,” Fawkes muses with a tone that hints at gross fascination.

  Fellin scoffs. “A severed Rabbit child! An abomination, at that. No connection to Ancient whatsoever. And this Deer girl? The Deer haven’t fought a battle for centuries. They wouldn’t know what to do with themselves. Prey, the lot of them.” He glances reverently at Eli, as if trying to curry favour. “We cannot go against what our very ancestors have willed. The girl must be stopped.”

  “And what of the Seals, the ocean-born?” says someone in the crowd; Eli does not see whom. Eli sharpens his mind, searching everyone else’s and finds the source.

  “Enough,” he seethes, turning to Seneca and pinning him down with a glare. “We are here for one purpose: Roan Harken’s expedient demise. She stands in the way of our total destruction. I will not waste time entertaining hero fantasies. There is too much at stake.”

  Most nod, grunting or murmuring assent. They will not dare disagree now. Eli goes on: “I want a call put out to all of the Five that none are to fraternize with the Fox-girl Roan Harken. Anyone found helping her will answer to their respective Paramount or Ascendant on charges of treason. Zabor must be kept sleeping.” But he can feel that their loyalties are shaken; they must obey the will of the Owls that have come before, though murder doesn’t sit well with them. He scoffs. They are weak. “We will allow the river hunters a wide berth to do their duty. If intervention is required, it will be done.”

  “And is there to be a reward for killing Roan Harken, cousin?” Seneca retorts, though he speaks with the tone of sweet allegiance.

  Eli narrows his eyes, hands clutched in a vise grip behind his back. The question is a trap. “We cannot put a price on peace.” He indulges a lucid fantasy of tearing into his cousin’s mocking face with the black talons he is capable of conjuring. But he only smiles back, inclining his head deferentially, for he knows they all think this new, strange Paramount seems almost too bloodthirsty.

  “Do not fear,” he reassures them, “Ancient may be silent, but our ancestors are with us. They are our compass towards the path of the greater good, and their wills are to be trusted.” Eli pivots away. “You are dismissed.”

  They are placated, for now. As council members and the heads of important Owl families murmur their goodbyes and depart, Eli can see it clearly: fear.

  It steadies him. The voices under his flesh hum their approval. He is pleasing them. For once.

  Seneca lingers, casting a glance behind him as he joins the exiting throng. Yes, an eye would have to be kept on him. They nod to each other, carefully hiding their thoughts, as Owls do. Eli met Seneca only recently and knows he has a bit of authority here. But Seneca has a different code of honour and ethics, one that could pose a threat. Eli needs him to stay as loyal as he knows him capable of being. As much as Eli balks at being challenged, Seneca is blood. Eli doesn’t want to punish him, not really. But he might have to.

  The heavy doors swing shut, and the gathering hall emptied but for Solomon and Eli. The light outside the high windows is fading. The setting sun heightens the power of the Owls; it clears their minds. But the tension coming off Eli’s father stings. His mind is far from clear.

  “I thought I dismissed this meeting, Solomon,” Eli says coolly as he joins him at the window. He will never call him “Father,” because this man has only just legitimized him, and he doesn’t feel anything close to gratitude for it. Eli stares straight ahead, even when Solomon turns to him, his weathered, aristocratic face dropping some of its edge. The expression is sad. Good.

  “I blame myself for this,” he whispers.

  Eli snorts. “If you want to blame yourself for something, then blame your failure to reach your potential. Then the stone would be yours, and you would see reason.”

  “Reason?” Solomon spits back, his mouth pressed in a grim line.

  Eli eyes his birth father with a mix of dislike and curiosity. “Careful,” he warns. “You are being weighed with every word.”

  “Let them hear!” he explodes, and Eli is taken aback. “Let that cursed stone know what a world we’ve made. You think it brings any of us joy to have to do this year after year? To sit idly as we deplete Denizen-kind because we can do nothing else? I can tell you now, Moonstone or not, killing children for no other reason than our impotence ages you, Eli.” He reaches out, but doesn’t touch his son; such gestures are reserved for real families. The hand drops.

  Solomon stiffens again. “If you would only put the stone away. I may not know you well, but I knew your mother. I knew that she had a mind for justice and serenity. That you shared her pure heart. The stone . . . it changes you. Destroys what makes you good. The girl is just a girl. You cannot let this happen. You have the power to make this end.”

  Eli’s eyebrows shoot up. Something of his true, old self emerges, and it is frightened with fury. “You sent me on the task to find the stone! Said that with it I could overcome a terrible evil.” Eli finally masters himself, shrinking back from the man before him. “Zabor cannot be defeated. The evil here is the weakened devotion of Ancient’s Denizens.”

  Solomon’s eyes fall. “You weren’t there when the pact with Zabor was made. Members of our family were. Your own ancestors died there, and she has killed many more since then. I thought with you, there might be hope . . .
”

  Eli suddenly snags Solomon by the shirt and slams him into the window. His strange eyes are not his own. “You are a fool,” hiss the hundred voices.

  Regaining control, Eli drops Solomon and backs away. He can feel Solomon’s thoughts — disappointment, fear, and a loss he dares not examine.

  “You are weak,” Eli scowls, speaking from the place that keeps him rooted, that assures him he is in the right. “The stone chose me, not you. Because I am willing to do what is necessary. I seek to defend our world and all Denizens.”

  “What frustrates you more?” Solomon asks, genuinely curious. “That the girl is alive, or that you can’t kill her yourself?”

  Eli takes a step back, slightly jarred. He makes doubly sure that his mind-wall is up and well guarded before he indulges the thought: If the opportunity arose, yes, he would kill her himself. He should have when he took those damn pictures, but he had been foolishly fascinated by her — an average, unremarkable specimen touched by destiny. For a moment, he had been able to keep the ancient, mysterious stone out of his thoughts, and he wondered if it had been because of the way she looked so deeply inside of him . . .

  “And how easy killing her would be.” Eli lets the smile creep over his mouth like a shade.

  This time, Solomon has no retort. The Denizens cling to their dwindling power and the hope that one day Ancient will return and answer their prayers, will cast back the darklings that humans and Denizens have allowed sway over this precious world. But they all rely on a primordial concept that has not spoken back for nearly a thousand years. And likely never will.

  The sun now fully set, Eli feels his skin bristling with the ache to transform. “This Fox scion has her part to play in the Narrative. And if I must do what is in the best interest of all, I will do it, for I was chosen for it. The girl will die, by the authority you yourself gave me. And that is a tenet you cannot break without admitting treason.”

  Solomon just shakes his head, turning back to the window in resigned silence.

  Eli approaches the round table, which has an intercom console in the centre. He presses the call button. “Send him in.”

  The doors swing wide moments after, and Arnas Harken is escorted through them, looking as anxious and flighty as always.

  Eli erases any emotion from his face as he nails Arnas in his place with a glance. “Now, then. Your part is next to be played.”

  The Sleeping Jaws

  I always find myself standing at the riverbank, half aware and exhausted, like I had to cut my way through a thousand-strong army to get there. I can’t understand why the river isn’t moving. It isn’t frozen, the water is just still — an artery blocked, a heart stopped. But I can still tread on the surface — like I’m walking on Jell-O, sinking a bit with each step. Less a river and more a carrion field, like the ones you read about in History class, like the crusades. Bodies, bodies everywhere, the crows turning above in the slate-dark sky as though they’re stuck on an axle. And the bodies are many, and for a second I think, They’re like the fruity chunks in the Jell-O mould, then I am ashamed. Their eyes follow me as I progress, faces contorted in death, arms reaching out, so much blind hope that maybe it’s just a dream. It occurs to me that I am not in my dream. I’m in theirs.

  I stop walking, sinking, sinking. I look down. I realize the bodies are stuck in a spiral, a silent maelstrom, all being pulled into the place where I am sinking. An open mouth, inhaling them in. I look up at the crows stuck on their axle. And all at once the world explodes, sucking me into the undertow of a hungry breath —

  Phae grabbed a handful of my jacket and yanked me back onto the sidewalk. I hadn’t processed that the traffic light was still red at Osborne and River and was about to get fatally intimate with the #16 bus.

  “Yeah, that would’ve been cool. The Chosen One splattered at a crosswalk.” Barton was joking, of course, but Phae’s lips were pursed sourly.

  “Sorry, sorry,” I mumbled. I looked around, a soft pinging noise in my head softening into the regular sounds of Osborne Village — honking horns, loud teenagers, the splash of tires intersecting with melting snowbanks. Yes. Yes this makes sense now. We’re going to Phae’s. I yawned, desperately trying to keep my eyes ahead and not meet Sil’s.

  To say I was sleep-deprived was an understatement, and the rules of the waking world didn’t seem to apply to me anymore. Over the last few weeks, nightmares swirled around me constantly, the kind where I found myself questioning whether or not I was actually awake. At least there were buses and decent friends to remind you of the difference.

  If I was going to be assaulted in my sleep, then I wouldn’t be caught dead dozing. This led me to spend more and more time in the summoning chamber with Sil, immersing myself in fire until my eyes were bloodshot and I reeked of smoke. Even my furry Yoda thought I was overdoing it.

  “Well, at least you’re committed.” Sil rode in the basket underneath Barton’s wheelchair, out of sight but well within earshot. “But rest is as vital to your training as the training itself.” Easy for her to say, considering she spent about eighty percent of the day napping . . .

  Phae, who was adjusting nicely to the concept of a talking fox, nodded solemnly as she linked her arm in mine. “If Sil is telling you to take it easy, then you should know better.” The white crossing-man flashed. I let Phae keep a hold of me as we moved on. I wasn’t about to shrug off support when I desperately needed it, even if I wasn’t asking.

  We were headed to Phae’s parents’ house nestled in the narrow streets of residential Osborne Village, beyond the numerous boutiques and cafés that made the area a big people magnet, even in February. Thankfully the snow had been melting (definitely not a Winnipeg normality), making the sidewalks and streets passable for Barton and everyone’s mood lighter. Everyone’s except ours. I tried to keep positive, but as the snowdrifts shrank and the asphalt shone slick and black, it made my chest tighten. Time was running out.

  “You’ve got the same look you used to get when your eye bugged you,” Phae said, snapping me out of my gloom.

  “Phae, could you maybe not use eye and bugged in the same sentence?”

  She rolled her black-coffee-cool, untroubled eyes, and we all kept walking. “So, Barton, are you going to tell Roan about what you found?”

  I gaped at both them. “Am I out of the loop?”

  Barton and Phae exchanged a meaningful glance, which annoyed me. “Well, you have been busy . . .” she said. I wanted to retort that I thought Barton was in charge of the intel, but I held my tongue. After all, I was the muscle of the (current) team, so I had more physical work to do. But I also thought I was sort of the de facto leader, and if the two of them had been hanging out alone together, that meant . . .

  “Yeah, yeah.” I rubbed a hand hard over my face. I’d think about the implications of that later. “So what’s the dealio?”

  “Oh man.” Barton shook his head; he was looking tired, too, but flushed in the determined manner of Indiana Jones knee-deep in a lost tomb. I envied him. “Where do I start?” He looked up at me. “Did that moth lady tell you anything about this Zabor thing? Its origin story?”

  I huffed hair out of my eyes and tried in vain to tuck it behind an ear. (It was still too short to co-operate.) “I only remember bits and pieces, but nothing specific. Specifics don’t seem to be a Denizen strong suit.” I shot Sil a sharp look, but she had hopped out of Barton’s basket to pursue a mouthy grey squirrel.

  The flurry of fox fur brought us up short. “Shouldn’t you . . . ?” Phae started, pointing.

  I waved her off. “Nah. Let her be a wild animal for once. Maybe killing something will mellow her out.” I acted casual, but I hoped she’d be back soon. She seemed to be doing okay as long as she didn’t use her powers. I hoped mine were useful enough now that she wouldn’t have to. I’d brought her along for this specific reason, though — so she could enjoy hers
elf. And do something other than badger me.

  The pause had allowed Barton to shuffle through his backpack and produce the book he’d been studying doggedly. The book, he told us, had belonged to my granddad, Aaron and Arnas’s father, who, according to Rebecca Allen, had been an influential neutralizer — a Rabbit that could perform the Rituals of Ancient, talk with the spirits, and open portals.

  “Portals to where?” I asked.

  “I’m getting to that,” Barton muttered.

  This was the province of the Rabbits; only they could tune into the earth and open gateways or channel Ancient in ways that other Families couldn’t — they weren’t just nervous game, after all. This explained Arnas’s former abilities; he struck me as a guy who couldn’t summon a sock from a dryer, but what did I know?

  “Well, that narrows it down to who can reverse the severing ritual.” I folded my arms. “So what does this have to do with Zabor?”

  Without a word, Phae took up Barton’s wheelchair when we reached a particularly icy stretch, and we continued onward. It was a familiar, affectionate gesture. And for some reason my stomach did a backflip and my face went red. Yep, they definitely have a thing. Now I felt really left out.

  Just as the queasiness set in, Sil appeared at my side and filled the sudden void. I even forgave the faint bloodstains smearing her jaws, the ghost of the squirrel’s corpse still lingering in her smile. Circle of life, I guess. Just like teenage relationships. It wasn’t like these two were a bad match, but I’d never heard Phae once express any interest in boys. She was too focused on prep studies to care, and she was a notorious scoffer at high school romance in general. I guess semi-apocalypses brought people together. I didn’t think it’d be important, but my chest buzzed.

  “. . . at the beginning of time. Hey, Earth to Roan?”