Mortal Sight

by Sandra Fernandez Rhoads

  Ten of us zigzag through East Ridge, but no one speaks. Sparse streetlamps give enough light to guide our way around corners without bumping into parked cars or street signs. The air smells like snow, the coming of winter mixed with car exhaust and fried food. My cheeks are frozen and my lips numb. I run with my shoulders pulled back in hypervigilant mode. Barking dogs claw at the glass from behind windowpanes as we pass. Several streets over, cars thump over potholes and truck hydraulics squeak.

  I glance at Kellan as he runs with his head up and eyes watching the road. His body is lithe as he breathes steadily. Devon mentioned that Blades have an instinctive sense when something’s about to strike. I’m guessing Kellan will test that trait in me while we’re out here. I’m on guard for any sudden movements from him or any of the others.

  He slows his stride when we get about six blocks away from Hesperian. When we reach an abandoned warehouse with broken windows, he stops. “Let’s split from here. Claire, Rhys, and Cera will come with me. Tanji, take your group and head west.”

  “We’ll take the roof.” Tanji motions to the fire escape ladders on the side of the building as a group assembles behind her.

  “Use the clouds to signal when you’ve taken post.” Kellan walks over and yanks on a ladder. The ladder drops to his shoulders.

  Tanji flings herself on the bars with the ease of a gymnast. “We’ll walk the perimeter, make camp on the west side, and head back before sunrise.”

  Kellan nods his approval. Tanji scales up the side of the building as if she’s on solid ground. Her crew follows. One by one, they disappear across the horizon of the roof, leaving me in the dark with Kellan, Claire, and a guy with a stiff pompadour and sharp skinny jeans named Rhys.

  You’d think the Cormorants would spot them more easily if they’re up that high, but I shut my mouth. I get the impression that Kellan doesn’t abide ignorant questions very well. I wrap my arms around my middle to keep from shivering and wait for instructions. At that moment, a verse from Milton’s poem pops in my head: “when night / darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons / Of Belial . . .” Thanks for the warning, Milton. I search the cloudy sky for a Cormorant. The rooftops look clear. For now.

  As Kellan pulls out a leather flask from inside his vested jacket, I catch a glimpse of a hunting knife tucked in the lining. At least he’s armed, since I’m not. He unscrews the flask.

  “Warm up and let’s go.” He holds the canister in front of me.

  “What is it?” I smell coffee but there’s something else.

  Claire snatches it out of his hands. After taking a swig, she wipes her lips with her sleeve. “It’s Spike, and it keeps us up for hours.”

  Rhys takes the flask next. When he tilts his head back, I marvel at how each hair stays in place as he pours the drink into his mouth.

  “Is it alcohol?” I ask.

  Rhys coughs. “We’re not stupid. Alcohol affects our reflexes.” He looks into the narrow spout and swirls the canteen. “It’s natural. A mixture of some type of Chinese berry and mushroom, I think.”

  I sniff. “Made by Harper?”

  Kellan takes the small canteen back and offers it to me again. “It improves mental clarity and increases stamina.”

  As much as I want to prove myself to be a Blade without any help from Harper, I get the feeling this is a test.

  I give in and take a little sip. The warm liquid tastes woodsy, and the aftertaste is strange: salty, sweet, bitter, tangy, and acrid all at once. Not my favorite flavor. The bitterness lingers a bit too long.

  Kellan tucks the flask back inside his vest jacket. “We check the perimeter ’n stand on watch. That’s all.”

  I catch up to him and match his pace. Out of habit, I track each step as we go, mapping the way back. My face flushes, and warmth coils through my blood from the drink, but that’s about the only difference I feel. “Do you normally see the creatures on outings?”

  “If they’re passin’, then yeah, but they usually leave this part of town alone.”

  “Have they attacked Hesperian before?”

  He shakes his head. “We don’t think they know our location. And it’s not the smartest thing for us to go lookin’ for a fight. Since Hesperian is a safe house and not a training camp, most of the Blades, with the exception of Tanji, haven’t been prepared to fight. If we think the creatures are movin’ in, we pull everyone back inside and let ’em pass.”

  “That’s stupid,” I blurt. Kellan shoots me an irritated look. “I mean, if you hide back in Hesperian, then you’d be giving the creatures your location. Why don’t you lead them away? Make them think that Hesperian was at a different location so if they ever decided to attack, they wouldn’t know where the real hideout is?” I glance over my shoulder. Claire and Rhys follow behind us in silence.

  Kellan looks at me. “You come up with all of that just now?”

  “I was thinking of ways to protect—” I regret my word choice, because at the moment, I sound more like a Guardian than a Blade.

  Kellan scans the road before turning the corner. “Not a bad idea, actually. We might create a few alternative locations.”

  “And Tanji mentioned Legions . . . Are they like the Cormorants or something else entirely?”

  “The latter. In my opinion, Legions are worse than Cormorants. You never know when one will show up. One minute you don’t see ’em and then next thing you know, they’re torpedoing right at you. The only dead giveaway that they’re around is their sound.”

  My ears perk, listening for anything unusual. “Which is . . . ?”

  “Hornets.”

  “Brushed with the hiss of rustling wings. As bees / In spring time?” I quote Milton as the verse pops in my head. That’s how Milton described the sound of the demons as they assembled in Pandemonium after their fall.

  Kellan shrugs. “I guess you could say so.”

  We turn the corner, cross the street, and head to a chain-link fence surrounding a ten-story cell tower.

  “We’ll stop here and watch for Tanji’s signal.”

  Kellan hoists himself up onto the fence. Climbing up and over, he leaps on the other side in a matter of seconds. Rhys and Claire stand back and wait for me to go next. I look for security cameras but don’t find any.

  Climbing isn’t my strong suit, but I’m great at faking confidence. I plant the tip of my toe in the crosshatch of the bent wires, grip the fence, and scale my way up—not quite as nimble as Kellan, but at least I don’t slip. It’ll be getting over the top without catching one of the wire spokes that will be the tricky part. The metal freezes my palms as I grip the top of the fence. I swing one leg over, push myself up, and bring the other around when Rhys starts the climb. “Hey, new girl.” He scales up fast. The whole fence shakes, but I manage to keep my balance. “Time for a test.”

  Adrenaline rushes through me. “Bring it.” I try not to let on how terrified I am. The idea of being tested doesn’t freak me out nearly as much as the dizzying sensation of being ten feet off the ground. I’ve decided that heights and I aren’t compatible.

  Rhys laughs as he meets me eye level. Even in the dark, it’s easy to see his bright teeth are about as straight as his hair. “That’s a gutsy statement. You don’t even know what we’re about to do.”

  I climb over. When I’m a reasonable distance from the ground, I let go of the fence and jump, landing on my feet—not as graceful as I’d hoped, but at least I didn’t twist an ankle.

  Rhys glances down at Kellan. “Ready?”

  “Later.” Kellan walks off. Not only does he sound bothered, but the way his heavy footsteps grind into the gravel as he heads to the base of the cell tower confirms it.

  Rhys’s bright smile fades. “Why’s he being such a joy killer?” With a nimble jump, Rhys lands beside me. He tugs at his jacket, straightening his outfit as he stands.

  Claire follows, coming down with an agile leap, which only highlights how ungraceful I am. She links arms with Rhys and pats his shoul
der. “It’s the drink. You know K. He’ll come around.”

  “Hope so, or else it’s going to be a rough night.” Rhys frowns and marches to the base of the tower toward Kellan with Claire in tow.

  “We’re climbing a cell tower, huh?” I look up at the crossing metal beams as they shrink, disappearing into the night sky. More heights? I swallow. I agree with Rhys: it’s going to be a rough night.

  Kellan walks up to me. “There ain’t much to block the cold, so find a way to stay warm.”

  “Or we could drink more Spike to warm us up,” Claire says.

  He ignores her request. “You take the halfway mark with Rhys and search the ground. It’s warmer there. Cera and I will scout the horizon from the platform.”

  Kellan hoists himself up on the ladder and starts to climb. I’m a bit shorter and pulling myself up isn’t going to be easy. He looks down as I wait at the base of the ladder. “Rhys, help her up.”

  “I’ve got it.” I grip the cold metal and hoist myself up. I’m pretty sure I’ve pulled something in my shoulder, but hey, I did it on my own, and that’s what matters.

  I climb, keeping a few paces behind so I don’t get a boot in the face. The higher we ascend, the colder the air gets. I focus on my hands as they cling to each rung and listen for the cadence of Kellan’s boots above me. As I grip the metal, the ladder vibrates as the others scale the rungs below, but I don’t dare look down.

  After my hands freeze over and I feel as if we’ve climbed well over a hundred feet, I come up through a hole in the middle of a platform. I crawl up and grip a bar. Good thing there’s a low wall around the ledge.

  I back myself up to a metal pole and wrap the crook of my arm around a beam to hold on. There’s enough light from the moon glowing behind the blue clouds to give us light. Kellan stands not far from me. He’s surveying the night sky but is turned enough to where he can see me. We’re hidden in the skeleton of the cell tower. Creatures won’t find us here—I don’t think.

  As the wind kicks up, the tower sways. I turn up the collar of my jacket. My nose runs and feels numb, but at least the dizziness of being ten stories high subsides. Even though my eyes water, I search the skyline for Cormorants—or Legions, although I’ve never seen one face-to-face. Bright lights pepper the darkness, others extinguish like dying fireflies, but otherwise, the night seems remarkably quiet.

  A thrill courses through me as I stand above the city and overlook the train station, the surrounding narrow buildings, and empty parking lots. In the distance, on the other side of a dark expanse of trees, lies the evening glow of Wakefield’s lights. Mom will have left town by now. If she was strong enough to leave. Guilt twists inside my chest. Maybe I shouldn’t have changed the last digit when I gave Gladys her number.

  Far in the distance, a strong laser-like beam reflects in the clouds. “Tanji’s crew is in.” Kellan pulls out a thin flashlight from his jacket and points the beam at the clouds, signaling back. “We’ll park here for a while ’n keep watch. Look for anything unusual in the shadows.” He crouches down to sit on the platform. “You stay there.” He motions to the side that overlooks East Ridge. “I’ll cover this side.”

  I squat on the platform but hang a good distance from the ledge and keep watch. The icy air ruffles the jacket and creeps down the exposed part of my neck. I shiver, and my shoulders tighten as I keep listening for the shrieking cry of a Cormorant. In this cold, Tanji was right—it’s going to be a long night. But I’m determined. I’ll do whatever it takes to learn how to destroy the beasts so I can take them down for good.

  We stay in the tower with our backs to each other for what feels like hours. Claire and Rhys hang several stories lower to get a better view of the street. No one talks. After a while, I stand and stretch out my legs to warm up and keep awake.

  I lean against the bars and stare out into the night. My mind wanders, replaying Jess’s death, my mom’s drawings, that horrible bird monster hunting Maddox and me. There’s so much I still don’t know.

  A light chime of metal hitting metal, like a zipper tag, clinks somewhere behind me. The sound stops. A brush of cold wind swooshes nearby. I lean right, thrust the point of my elbow back as hard as possible, and hit something solid. Someone grunts. I turn around to find Kellan with a pained look on his face. “Your reflexes are slow.”

  He thought that was slow? “I made contact. How was that—”

  “You waited till I was almost on you.”

  “I wanted to see how quick I could react the closer you got.” A total lie.

  “That’s a stupid idea. Don’t ever do that again. Next time it might not be me.” Kellan rubs his side.

  “Talk about a stupid idea—attacking someone on the platform of a cell tower . . . What if I had fallen off? What if I had knocked you off?”

  “True.” Kellan tucks his hands in his pockets. “Except being a Blade means figuring things out real quick. We’re intuitive.”

  I glance at him, unsure if “we’re” includes me. “So you’re saying I passed your test. Despite my ‘slow’ reflexes, you think I’m a Blade?”

  He shakes his head. “You read as a lot of things.” My stomach sinks. Can he tell I’m a Seer?

  His lean, freckled face looks pale in the night. The fading Current is almost nonexistent between us. “I don’t think Hesperian is where you ought to be. If you really want to learn how to get at those creatures, someone like you should be at Council, training with Gray.”

  Gray. That name again. “What’s the big deal about him?” I bounce on my toes to keep warm.

  Kellan’s smile is loaded. “You’ll figure that out as soon as you meet him.”

  “So he’s a Blade.”

  “Best there is.”

  So Kellan thinks I’m good enough to train with the best Blade there is? That’s saying something. “Do I have to wait until I meet Gray to find out how to kill the creatures, or can you tell me?”

  “The tactic is simple.” His wavy hair doesn’t move with the sudden wind gust. Mine, however, tangles in my face, even under the beanie.

  I wipe the loose strands away. “Oh yeah?” I try to sound casual, nonchalant. This is the answer I’ve been waiting for.

  Kellan stares into the night. “Aim for the heart, strike deep, and pray you don’t die.”

  “Aim . . .” I think back. I tried throwing a metal pole at the Cormorant, but that didn’t do any good. “Are their hearts anatomically in the same place as ours?”

  The blue glow from the moonlight clouds deepens the shadows of Kellan’s expression. “I said tactic is simple. The execution isn’t. Killing any creature means gettin’ close enough. You’ll probably die before you make contact.”

  Maddox was so close to the beast, he could have easily died. . . A laser of white light flickers twice against the clouds. “Looks like all’s quiet. No sightings, which is good. Let’s head back.”

  Kellan makes his way down. So do the others. About twenty feet to the ground, my frozen toes slip. I fall a few rungs, gasping before I hook my arm on the ladder, feet dangling. Stupid. My heart races, and my breath turns icy in my lungs. I find my footing and descend a lot slower this time. No surprise that I’m the last to reach the ground.

  Kellan gives instructions, making no mention of my near-death fall. I’m thankful. “Rhys, you and Claire run the fourth quadrant, then meet Tanji’s group at the warehouse. Cera and I will take the first.”

  Claire fidgets, trying to stay warm as she leans up against Rhys. “Good. I hate running long distance.”

  “I’ll run with you,” Rhys says to Kellan. “The girls can go back together.”

  Kellan shakes his head. “You two go on. Cera and I will meet you there.”

  “You sure?” Rhys’s hurt gaze lingers on Kellan.

  “Come on, idiot head.” Claire tugs on Rhys’s arm. “Let’s get out of here. I’m freezing.”

  Rhys hooks his arm through Claire’s as they walk to the wire fence.

  Kellan is
patient as I climb back over. Why is Maddox so opposed to Kellan? Sure, he’s uptight, but he’s not jerk. I reach the ground and retie my shoe. After Rhys and Claire take off, I ask Kellan, “What’s your story? You don’t seem like everyone else around here.”

  Kellan watches me pull the laces tight. “Meaning?”

  “You seem to have a lot on your mind.” Intense. Burdened. Those are a few of the words I want to use.

  “I’m from Council. They assigned me here.”

  Seriously? I’ve been out all night with someone who’s practically CIA of this second realm, and if he knew I was a Seer, he’d lock me up. I switch position and tie the other shoe. “You don’t seem thrilled with the idea of being here.”

  “I’m not a babysitter.”

  “I’ll try not to be insulted.” I finish the knot. “Seventeen is old enough to not need a chaperone.” He might be in his early twenties, like Devon, but maybe older.

  Kellan takes the flask from his jacket. “I wasn’t talkin’ about you.”

  I don’t ask who. The bitter look on his face, coupled with the fact that he walks off, makes it clear that discussion is over. I catch up to him. “Have you known about this world your whole life?”

  Kellan takes a sip from the canteen. “Dad’s side. Mom didn’t know.”

  So he’s a Legacy like me but doesn’t have a dual Bent because both parents weren’t Awakened. “Was it tough having one parent who knew and one who didn’t?”

  “Dad taught me through stories and toy sword fights. Mom didn’t have a clue.” Kellan holds the flask out to me as we walk.

  I shake my head, refusing. “Does your mom know what you do now?”

  “She thinks I’m in the army. Dad’s idea.”