by S McPherson
People crush closer, listening with pressed lips and wide eyes, and some nod their agreement. ‘Why?’ Vladimir glowers at the blank faces around him. ‘Why?’ he roars, and thunder roars with him, shattering the still night and shaking raindrops from the clouds. Red water stains the steps of the Court as the blooded bodies become drenched. Vladimir slumps, as if his body might fold in half, then turns to an Ochi member who’s struggling to control her tears.
‘Call your others,’ he tells the dwarf, ‘and burn the dead.’
And whilst the Fuertés double in size, lugging the limbs and torsos down onto the gravelled footpath of the garden outside, the Ochis follow, fingers poised. Vladimir averts his gaze as the Ochis set the bodies ablaze, their fires writhing easily in the rain, but Lexovia watches it all, until bodies turn to ash.
The Court is still. The great hall a crush of members slumped against pillars, huddled on sand sacks and sobbing into their palms. None speak but none wants to be alone. Only Brixen moves, prowling around them like a wildcat. He snaps to attention as they all do when Vladimir returns sometime later. He is shrouded in his black cloak, the one kept aside for mourning and steps silently to the vast circular table boasting the crest of Coldivor bar the symbol of the Elentri.
Wordlessly, he unrolls the map that rests at the head of the table. His gaze skims over the Exlathar bases slashed in red—the ones already destroyed—and instead, falls on the bases they have yet to conquer. There’s one right next to the Elentri burial ground, no doubt another dingy maze of caves and tunnels carved into the earth like all the others—the one the members were surveying before their untimely end.
He must have noticed Baxter and Brixen step up beside him but doesn’t acknowledge them as he turns his attention to the grieving members before him.
‘For those of you who seek answers, and for those who will not rest until you get them: arm yourselves well.’ His voice is as deep and brooding as the ocean. ‘To better understand our enemies, I propose we get a better look,’ and his grin is something feral, a flash beneath his hood before he exits the great hall. Members spring to their feet and a buzz of fury boils in the air. They amble out, murmuring promises of blood rivulets through trees and jackets forged from flesh.
Lexovia pushes through the throng, following Vladimir as he veers down the staircase to the department of weaponry.
‘Don’t make this personal,’ she calls from the top of the stairs. She can barely see him now, no torches lit on the narrow staircase, but she notices the flash of his eyes.
‘I’m sorry?’ he asks, what sounds like a scoff on his lips. ‘This is personal.’ His voice gets closer, his steps heavy as he climbs towards her. ‘They made it personal when they cut down my people for the thrill of it.’
shakes her head. ‘No, they made a distraction, a trap for you so easily to fall into,’ and she takes a step down towards him. Her hand skates along the iron banister to guide her in the dark, the only light coming from behind him. ‘The Exlathars have been quiet for a long-time, Vladimir, so why now?’
‘That’s what I intend to find out,’ he growls, turning, his footsteps thudding as he hastens down the steps.
Lexovia hurries after him. ‘And you should, but not like this.’
‘Like what?’ he snaps, turning on her when he reaches the bottom. A torch billows behind his head, basking him in a red glow.
‘Like this,’ she cries, ‘emotional, bitter and reckless.’
Vladimir snarls like a caged animal but doesn’t respond.
‘Go after them like this and you’ll make a mistake.’ Lexovia points out, a hand braced on her hip. ‘Go after them like this and you and whoever follows you could end up the same way.’
Vladimir studies her, his expression unreadable. His chest rises and falls with the force of his breaths. ‘You won’t follow me?’ he asks after a pause.
‘Oh, I’ll follow,’ she snaps, ‘to make sure you don’t get yourself killed.’
He smirks, ‘Well then,’ and leans in so close she can feel the heat of his breath, the stubble on his chin grazing her cheek, ‘problem solved.’
Lexovia doesn’t get chance to retaliate. He pushes his way through the great wooden doors behind him and disappears into the department of weaponry.
Despite his desire to charge into the Exlathars’s base, wielding his xyen and crushing whatever moves, Vladimir leads the Court members stealthily through the Taratesia wilderness. They crouch in the disarrayed blades of grass that fork up from the ground, proud and glistening.
The rain lashes down, turning the earth to mud but no one slips, their feet planted firm, steady, hungry to reach their goal. Lexovia stays close beside Vladimir, in spite of Baxter’s raised eyebrows or how furiously Brixen glowers. Vladimir doesn’t reprimand her or give her a rundown on ranks. There’s no one else he would rather have beside him. She looks as fierce as he feels. Her silver hair, plastered to her head, occasionally falls into her eyes. Absently, she pushes it back, her gaze locked ahead.
He halts and the others follow, as unfamiliar shrieks, screeches and the stench of brimstone assault their senses. The sounds drag through him and he winces, feeling like his skin is being stretched over rusted screws. Vladimir grits his teeth and struggles closer, remaining low.
Through the shifting blades of grass, he vaguely makes out the dull silhouettes of at least two dozen Exlathars, only they are small, smaller than he has ever seen. He meets Baxter’s furrowed gaze, confirming that he has never seen them this size either; no higher than his knees.
The smaller beasts hiss, snarl and writhe on the ground. They lunge at one another and soar into the air, leaking yellow mist from their fanged mouths onto sturdy trees that crumple beneath the haze. Their pale green eyes are alight with glee and rage. Vladimir gulps. They’re playing...they’re children.
With a barely notable flick of his head, he signals a retreat. He has no knowledge of Exlathar children but based on the bodies still smouldering in the Court garden, they are clearly erratic, unpredictable and murderous. He stifles a shudder as the children cry out, their wings whipping the wind, the rain swirling around them like daggers. The Exlathars are breeding, that much is clear. What’s not clear is why.
‘They’re building an army,’ Lexovia murmurs once they near Melaxous, the grass once again turning brittle and sparse. ‘They’re building an empire.’
The glass smashes as it slips from Yvane’s fingers, shards shattering like an explosion of crystal blades. She doesn’t flinch, not even when the base of the tumbler rolls across her blooded feet, now covered in splinters, nor when her mother shrieks her name and hurtles into the kitchen with that constant look of terror written plainly across her face.
‘Are you all right?’ her mother howls, bathrobe wafting behind her as she thunders in. It’s probably the most active Yvane has seen her mother in months, but she cannot summon the will to care. Her mind claims her, the corners of her vision fading as her body stills, paralysed by the onslaught of foreboding images flashing across her unseeing eyes.
She is no longer in her family’s kitchen but balanced atop a mountain peak, staring up at the black blanket of night, one blemished by something large, round and orange that hangs at eyelevel. It’s bright and cold, a dead wind clawing from it, and it crumbles with craters: the moon. Only, it’s a sickly shade of blood-orange and clouds seem to stretch across it like thick black smoke rising from flames.
Her head shifts, just a little, as cracks ripple down the moon’s surface and something red seeps its way out. She gags, the stench of bitter blood so overwhelming her eyes water. This blood is old, sour and thick. Yvane tries to rip herself from the vision, to smother her mouth and nose with her hands, but she remains stuck, trapped inside herself.
And then two figures, battered and bruised, crawl over the moon, somehow staggering to standing though from the angle, they should slip right off its surface. Yvane gasps, recognising one as Lexovia, her silver hair near blinding, her
amber eyes matching the fiery glare of the moon.
‘Fight it!’ Lexovia bellows at the person opposite her, but the position of her opponent has left them hidden in the shadows, ‘Fight it, now! I’ll kill you if you make me.’
Yvane watches in muted horror. Her heart races as an icy chuckle scrapes along her spine and a voice she barely recognises says: ‘I’d like to see you try’. Yvane staggers forward, her legs stiff, her movements jerky. That can’t be who she thinks it is.
A burst of purple rays soar from the figures eyes and plunge into Lexovia who cries out, convulsing and thrashing as though being electrocuted. As the mist clears, Yvane stumbles, disbelieving. It is who she thought—Dezaray. Her eyes are deep pools of burning violet, her mouth crammed with razor sharp fangs.
Yvane grits her teeth, her cheeks flushed, her head throbbing. Useless. She feels completely and utterly useless as Lexovia twists in agony. Whatever power Dezaray possesses burrows into Lexovia, puncturing a thousand holes in her flesh, blood shooting from her like a fountain.
As a Premoniter, Yvane has had her fair share of premonitions, but this one makes her blood run cold. Terror fills her every cell and if she could only find her voice, she would scream.
TAKEN
I wake up dressed in the same clothes as the night before, crumpled from where I’ve tossed and turned in my sleep. The first face I see is that of the woman from R.U.O.E., emblazoned on my inner eyelids. I blink but the image doesn’t fade. I see her shock of red hair as I fling her and Jude through the portal, but only one of them makes it back. The woman, the one I find out the Rijjleton Guards left unconscious in the woods, was taken by the Exlathars. According to Jude they left only scraps of her body behind. She was an easy target.
The boys tell me it isn’t my fault, that if she’d had the chance she would have killed Jude, or maybe even followed him and lain waste to many of the Court. But that hasn’t stopped the churn of guilt in my gut. What makes it worse is why she died: believing a lie fed to her by the very evil she despised. I wonder how many members of R.U.O.E. have gobbled up the same spiel.
My fists clench, my jaw sets and anger winds a chain around my chest. Enough is enough. I suppose I should be grateful that, at Lexovia’s insistence, the Coltis agreed to keep us informed on Operation ‘Gethadrox’, but I only feel chafed. Once again, I am left simply waiting on the side-lines, and I find that I have grown weary of waiting. Whilst the Court go about in Coldivor doing what they need to do to save the realms, I decide we mere Corporeal will be doing the same.
Fixer Upper, the front for R.U.O.E.’s undercover activity, hasn’t changed since Lexovia discovered it. It has the same washed out yellow letters against a blue backdrop with the same beige walls and wide glass doors leading to offices and a repair room. It still crumbles, revealing concrete gashes, and it reeks of spilled oil and petrol fumes. A dull rainbow of second-hand cars line the parking lot, some freshly waxed and gleaming, but most rattling piles of bolts and busted wheels.
I grimace as my cramped legs start to ache. We’re hidden in land surrounding Fixer Upper, a stretch of fields and marshes, abandoned enough to let Fixer Upper get away with murder… We stay low to the ground and close to its wall, nestled in thick bushes. Nathaniel is crouched beside me, looking as uncomfortable as I feel. Jude, on the other hand, is sprawled out in the grass, both hands tucked behind his head, but low enough to the ground that no one above the wall could see him. I roll my eyes and turn my attention back to the lot.
We have been to Fixer Upper twice since Lexovia first discovered it, hoping to see that blasted white van with the jagged lines symbol of R.U.O.E., or even to get a better look into the organisation. But so far, nothing.
I wince, unable to resist any longer, and stretch out my legs whilst Nathaniel shuffles himself into a sitting position. I don’t take my eyes off the building, though. Its garish yellow and blue sign flashes, pulses like the toxic heart of a waiting beast.
Like before, Fixer Upper is deceptively ordinary on the surface. Buyers come and go, haggle with the dealers, recite technical terms and phrases I have no hope of understanding and then go on their way. Sometimes a seller takes a potential buyer out on the road for a test drive, and every time I watch their car disappear, I hold my breath, certain they will not return. But every time, they do, and I find myself relieved yet slightly disappointed. Where is the evil, the discord, the monsters that hunt and slaughter for the alleged greater good? Where are the people like Drake?
My eyes ache from the strain of peering so hard, like a crack in the very universe might open up to reveal the answers. It’s as if only those who know to look for something that seems off in this place are the ones with a chance of finding it. I crush my palms into my tired eyes then stretch. But mid-stretch I pause. Two of the mechanics, dressed in blue and yellow overalls, exchange a brief yet definitive glance. They nod, a move so subtle that had I blinked I’d have missed it. Then both men move towards a boy, no older than myself, trailing his fingers along the bonnet of a car.
One man steps up first, a smile on his lips and poison in his eyes. I creep closer, pushing steadily through the overgrown shrubs. The men are close to the wall above us, the one leading down to the underground parking, and I strain to hear. According to Jude, Lexovia saw the white van disappear into the basement with something, or rather with someone, thrashing around inside it.
‘If this is your first car, lad, you don’t want to be settling for the first thing you lay your eyes on,’ the man is saying. He sounds normal, friendly even, a hint of Irish in his accent. The boy doesn’t even stop to question why a mechanic is bothering to try and sell him a car.
‘I don’t?’ he asks. I peer up at him through the hedge. If he were to look down, he’d no doubt see me—my restless eyes and my loose strands of hair catching in the wind. The mechanic-turned-seller has his back to me, which suits me just fine. It’s the boy I’m interested in. I squint. What was it about him that caught their attention?
He laughs at something the seller says and the wind shifts, bringing him to push his wafting brown hair away from his face. That’s when I see them: those too-large biceps begging to be set free from the confines of his shirt. I cannot see over the wall but I bet his whole body is jutting and bulging with untamed muscle. A Fuerté.
Jude and Nathaniel haven’t followed me, the three of us so close to the building would surely be noticed, but I feel their eyes intent upon me. Do they see the men as well? The other mechanic has hung back, waiting.
The seller slips an arm around the boy’s shoulders, steering him towards another car; this one sporty and black with a detachable roof.
‘Look at this beauty,’ the seller swoons, tenderly stroking the car. I carefully reposition myself, far enough back, that I can still see but close enough to hear.
After debating a while, the men meander on, looking at car after car.
‘Imagine the girls you could bed with this.’ The seller winks and playfully nudges the boy. He is taking his time with him, offering advice, gaining his trust, like any good salesman would. But I know what he is really doing: stalling. As they drift around the car lot, testing out suspension, discussing horse power and all that malarkey, the lot starts to empty as night begins to draw in, people leaving with flyers and brochures tucked under their arms. Until at last only the boy and the seller remain.
Now, the remaining staff simply mill about, as if uninterested, but I don’t miss their eager glances and the way they edge closer. I bite my lip to keep from calling out, from screaming at the boy to run. That will get us nowhere. Nathaniel parked our rented car a couple of miles away and we walked the rest, hidden across the road behind trees and the occasional dilapidated shed. If I do or say anything, R.U.O.E. will only catch us all.
Besides, this is what I wanted…isn’t it? A way to get more information, to learn everything about this miserable place. Any grain of information to use to tear them apart. So, instead, I sit silently and watch as the b
oy talks excitedly about the car his rival drives and as the workmen move closer, until they have him surrounded.
The boy clearly isn’t as oblivious as he seems, for after the second time he cracks a joke and the seller rewards him with a distracted chuckle, the boy tenses, peering over his shoulder at the cluster of men now behind him. I swallow, a tightening in my gut.
‘What’s going on?’ he asks warily.
The seller sighs. ‘It’s incredible how you almost seem human, kind even.’
I notice the boy’s fists clench but other than that he remains still, a pillar of hard muscle.
‘But you’re not, are you, boy?’ growls the seller as his cronies amble in closer with what look like spanners, iron rods and chains clutched in their grasp.
For a moment, I think the boy might lie, might feign ignorance but after a flicker of doubt, he shoves out his chest, his jaw taut. ‘I guess this is my cue to leave.’
He moves to go but the men block his way in an instant, sneering, sniggering.
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ snarls the seller, and faster than I can register, they’re on the boy. My hands fly to my mouth and cold terror trails beads of sweat across my brow.
One of the attackers raises his arm, moonlight bouncing off the iron rod he clutches as he brings it down at the boy. That’s it. I can’t just sit here. I go to stand, my legs trembling, but the sound of shock makes me pause. The boy has caught the descending iron rod and is attempting to snatch it from the man. Even with the others upon him, thumping, kicking and causing as much damage as they can, the boy holds onto the rod. His muscles seem even larger than before, and as his head pokes through the mass, I see purpose in his bruising eye. His lip is swollen and blood trickles from his nose as he wrenches himself free.