Something dropped up? down? to Daya, only visible in the seconds before it faded again. It was enough for Daya to lunge forward. She grunted as something connected with her back. She swung around and her arms jarred as if they hit something.
“Okay, enough.” Elana clapped again and again there was no sound.
The world around them shifted again. They were back on the ground now and Erik’s stomach finally started to settle down. Daya and Matthias dropped down in front of them and let their powers fade away.
Elana turned to face the kids.
“You must learn to do that, to think on your feet, to analyze a battle to discover if it is better to fight or run. Most of the time running is better. Surviving is better. Tae, you’ll be working with Daya and Elliot. Patrah will be working with Melinda. Matthias and I will be working with Erik.”
They all separated and Erik noticed Luka and Hu entering. They stood near the door, arms crossed, watching.
Erik, Matthias, and Elana were nearest to them.
“Erik, the thing I think we should work on is getting you to drop in and out of your power on command. You have to find a visualization that works for you,” Elana said. Matthias nodded.
“How do you feel when you’re using your power?” Matthias asked.
Erik thought about it. “Confident, powerful, like I can take on anyone.”
“Is there a physical feeling that goes along with that?”
“Yeah, like a fire in my chest that spreads out all over me, under my skin.”
“Okay, well, let’s have you try to visualize that right now,” Elana asked.
Erik pondered the question. He closed his eyes and felt inside for the heat that burned in his chest. He found it easily; it was small right now, more a spark.
“Do you have it?”
“Maybe?”
He remembered with his whole body, the shaking of his fists, the flush of heat filling his face. It came slowly, filling him with joy. His eyes snapped open and Matthias and Elana already seemed to know. They were both smiling at him, not that their approval mattered at all. When he was like this nothing anyone said mattered; he was the only validation he needed.
Then he looked over at Melinda. She was sitting with Patrah. Luka and Hu were walking over to them. He narrowed his eyes at the two Maestres. Then Hu smiled and crouched down to put his hands on Melinda’s shoulders and something about the way he touched her, the ownership in that clench of fingers.
Erik was convinced Hu was a threat and he acted.
MAESTRA LUKA
Most Blooded suffered from some physical change when invoking the power in their bones and going full-blood. For some it was as small as a change of eye color, for others, like Daya, their whole countenance changed. So it took Luka longer than normal to realize that Erik’s power was live and boiling off of him as he approached, eyes trained on Hu. The young man looked exactly as he had since she had met him. The same short and stocky build. The same shaved head and same deep brown skin with heavy bags under his eyes.
Those eyes were wide, nearly all pupil, as if high on Angelic blood. His lips were curled into a smile. The corners seemed wider than any mouth should be, more along the lines of a toad rather than human. It was the absolute joy radiating from his smile and eyes that worried her the most. She had no doubt he would enjoy perpetuating whatever violence he was thinking of.
The thinking was what scared Luka the most. In her time on this earth she had observed nine berserkers in controlled and uncontrolled circumstances, and always they had been bodies moving on instinct. They relied on whatever their last thought was before acting and did not stop until that goal was completed. Erik was looking at them with awareness—in fact, he had stopped approaching and was now watching them both.
Planning.
All other activity in the room had stopped and they all watched him, except for Hu, Melinda, and Patrah, who were speaking and had not noticed his approach or the silence.
“Did you ask her if she wanted to be touched?” His voice was nearly the same; lower and rougher.
Hu finally looked up and Luka noticed the discomfort on Melinda’s face, the way she tried to shrug Hu’s hands off her shoulders.
“Mellie is a child.”
This only made Erik angrier and he came closer.
“That doesn’t mean you have the right to touch her. In fact, that makes it even more important that she decides whether she wants to be touched or not.” Luka studied his words. There was some trauma lurking inside of them. This wasn’t just about Melinda; this was about his past.
Hu stood and made the mistake of taking a step into Erik’s personal space. The Counselors stepped before their charges, but Erik was not even acknowledging that there were people in the room other than Hu. Elana and Matthias were close behind Erik, ready to intervene but anxious to see him in action. They trusted the Maestro to protect himself.
Erik was an unknown, though, and more than one Maestre had been taken out by underestimating an opponent based on similarities. Luka knew it would fall to her to save Hu from his own stupidity if necessary. Luka started to call her power up from her core, smiling with the odd lightness and burst of joy that accompanied it. Light built up under her skin, making her translucent. The particles of light in the room tickled her, rushing closer and closer as they tried to combine with the light coruscating from her body. Hu was mid transformation, rising up on his back legs, turning into an almost a ten-foot-tall polar bear.
With an uncomfortably human-looking face.
Erik stopped, tracking both of their forms now. The gold light she was radiating made odd shadows circle around the room. Erik crouched, hands loose on his knees. Faster than Luka could track, he was flying through the air. She ducked to the side and sent a blinding flash of light into the space where she had been.
But he had anticipated her movement and crashed into her.
It was like being hit by a freight train. She grunted at the impact and Erik screamed, his skin burning on contact with hers. He scrambled away and Luka pushed herself along the floor. The skin where they had touched on his body was black and flaking. He hissed at her and then rose to his feet again. Hu tried to swipe at him but Erik was too fast and did something that made Hu roar in pain before he backed out of the bear’s range. Hu’s form was less than useful in this fight and she saw him begin to shift again.
Even as she saw this, Erik’s eyes were shooting back and forth between them in a way that made her nervous. Matthias simply watched, arms crossed, smile threatening to break out on his face, while Elana hovered uncertainly. Hu was shrinking when Erik moved again, ripping his shirt from his body.
Now Luka could see the form change to his body; across his torso, strips of skin were no longer their natural healthy brown but looked inflamed and red. They pulsed with something underneath. Before she could discern why he would show them this, he was moving again. Luka spun illusions of herself across the room, all of them identical, but Erik didn’t pause, blowing right through one and springing from the wall directly toward her. Only as she saw his outstretched hands were covered in wrapped fabric did she realize the danger and his plan.
“Hu!—”
The rest of her warning was smothered by the large palm covered in sweat-funky fabric that came down over her face. His other hand grabbed her torso and she was flying through the air. There was a loud scream as she landed but it was not her, too stunned by the impact to even speak. Her vision was suddenly filled with Elana, standing between her and the approaching Erik.
She was speaking quickly and soothingly but Luka could make out no words, the ringing in her ears too much. Then Matthias was between Elana and his aspirant and Erik stopped immediately. He observed Matthias and then glanced behind him to Hu and Luka.
As feeling came back to her body, she saw the marks on Erik’s torso fade to their usual chestnut hue and his stance change. The smile slipped from his face, becoming a somber mask he used to observe the scene be
fore him.
“Did you see enough?” He directed this to Matthias and Elana.
“You . . .” Luka paused to cough as her light faded and Patrah and Daya helped her to her feet. Melinda took it as an opportunity to run to Erik and grab his hand. He leaned down and she could not hear the quick, whispered conversation over her own body clearing itself of its recent trauma. “You remember what happened?”
Erik looked up at her and his back became straighter.
“Of course I do. It’s not like I go completely blank. It used to feel weird and jerky, as if time was skipping, but that fades more and more each time. Now it’s more that the urges come and they feel like the perfect choices.” Everyone was silent and Erik finally looked around. “Is that odd?”
“Only in that it’s different from what every other berserker has reported.” Elliot noted with a smirk.
“Doesn’t actually mean it’s unique,” Matthias spoke up. “Not every one tells the Organization everything. And vice-versa.”
“How did you see through my illusions?” Luka asked. Her illusions were reality quality; they could even fool the smell and touch of most non-Blooded.
“They felt wrong, like the energy there wasn’t wrapped around anything real.”
“The energy?”
“Yeah, it was like I could feel what they were made of and you were the one that was different.”
“Interesting.”
“Not that I’m not enjoying the third degree,” Erik said, “but shouldn’t one of you be worried about and/or checking on that guy?” He jerked his chin behind Luka and she realized the ringing in her head was not damage but a constant high-pitched whine. Hu was on the ground, convulsing, caught mid transformation into some sort of big cat. Some pieces looked human but others were twisted limbs somewhere in between. His neck was shortened and a ragged ruff of fur sprouted around his head. He smelled horrible, patches of skin and fur burnt where she had touched him. Even as she watched, though, parts of him were slowly becoming more human.
“Yes, let’s get him to his room.”
Patrah, Elliot, and Daya stepped forward, lifting the burnt man/ cat/thing that was Hu. He whimpered with each jostle as they carried him from the room, and she was left alone with everyone else, her strength slowly returning.
“Why did you use me as a weapon against Hu?” she asked.
Erik answered easily. “’Cause you burned when I touched you that first time.” At the reminder he looked down at his previously blackened skin to find patches of paler brown new skin peeking out from where it had flaked away.
“That’s why you wrapped your hands with your shirt?”
Now he looked at her as if she were stupid. “Yeah.” The “dumbass” was implied.
Luka simply hummed in response and the rest of them looked at her before beginning to speak among themselves.
She had learned much of Erik in the past few minutes and it made her more nervous. The fact that he could reason in the midst of fighting, it meant that he wasn’t simply the mindless tank they had thought him to be in this continuing war. Not something they could point at an enemy and let loose. He had also stopped when confronted with Matthias. Did that mean he already felt enough loyalty to the man that he would not attack? Even in a rage? Or was it simply a sign of this better control he displayed? More control than anyone could expect.
His bloodline suddenly became a priority. She had to know what Old One he sprung from, how strong he might be, and especially his weaknesses.
She had only been hurt as a consequence of being used against Hu. Something in that man, his actions toward Melinda, had made Erik hate him. She knew why Erik disliked them both; very few young adults did well with patronizing older people telling them what to do. Despite the extraordinary control and ability to reason, he was still deeply driven by instincts while berserking and something in or about Hu had triggered an all-out attack from the young man.
She would have to watch them both in the future.
MAESTRO HU
The pain was so intense he could not even catch enough breath to scream, only gasp. It felt as if every part of him was being pulled apart molecule by molecule and then reassembled. Randomly. His right leg was whole, human and aching, but his left was still twisted into a back haunch and the muscles burned. Worst of all was his head, which felt like a hangover to shatter the world, his thoughts pulled between animal and human. He whimpered as he was lifted into the air and then jostled as he was carried.
He could hear voices over him and he concentrated on them to distract himself.
“. . . would work?”
“. . . no idea . . . Matthias already . . .”
“. . . not the only one with a hold . . .”
He couldn’t follow the conversation. He suspected his ears were not completely human and so were too easily distracted by sounds in the walls and the earth, small mammals moving that his animal ears were more interested in tracking. The sides of his head felt hollow and empty but he was slowly filling in, fading back to human, even if each piece burned like fire upon its return.
When he came to himself he was laid on his bed. He groaned and moved his legs around.
The pain was not as bad as it had been and he could think about what he had learned. This Errikos Allan was going to be a problem. His presence could change everything; the balance was already changing as the Angelics pressed them; any more issues could lead to chaos. He had no ties to the Organization and thus would have no problem disrupting their plans for the young dream-walker. But what to do about it?
He would have to talk to his friends, the other Maestres who agreed with him. They would be interested in this development. Together they would come up with a plan to deal with Erik. Perhaps they could also deal with Matthias. He was a loose end that needed tying up.
ERIK
Erik spent the rest of the afternoon in meditation, bringing on the rage at will and letting it fade away. By the end of the day he was exhausted but confident in his ability to bring on his rages whenever he wanted. Calming it was harder, and his nerves jangled from pulling his power up so often with no physical outlet.
“Good job. Tomorrow we’ll focus on this in the morning and then forms and fighting styles in the afternoon. Dinner will be in an hour, so why don’t you take some free time till then.”
Erik smiled and rose immediately. He needed to move, to burn off some of this energy that flowed through him. The most torturous part of the practice had been sitting still. He moved past Tae, who was sparring with Daya, and Melinda, who was sitting with Patrah, both looking deep in sleep. He exited the training room and immediately his eyes began to water. So much unrelenting white for so long; his eyes were over-stimulated by the gray of the hallway.
He leaned against the door and blinked his eyes a few times to clear them before heading to his room. After a quick search, he found his cell phone in the drawer of the nightstand and dialed his mom’s number. As it rang he paced the floor.
“You’ve reached the voice mail of artist Dayida Jayl. If this is about a commission, please contact me via my website www.djayl.com. If not, please leave a detailed message and I’ll return your call at my convenience.”
Beep.
“Hey Mama, it’s me. I just wanted to let you know I’m okay. I’m training with Matthias this weekend so I’ll be back on Monday. I hope Robert isn’t acting too much . . . like himself. I have a lot of questions. Love you. Bye.”
It wasn’t unusual for his mom to not hear the phone when she was working on a painting. After he disconnected, he took a deep breath and dialed another number by heart.
It was a bad choice. He knew that, no use pretending otherwise, but just the chance of talking to Daniel calmed him down. The phone rang repeatedly before it also went to voice mail.
“This is Daniel. If you have this number you know I might not be able to get back to you for a while. Leave a message, I’ll do what I can. Don’t text me.”
It always wen
t to voice mail.
“Hey Daniel, it’s Erik again. Um . . . I hope you’re doing okay. I know it must be horrible but I want you to know I’m still here. Even if you just want to be friends. Or if you don’t want me to call you anymore. . . just call and let me know. I’d just. . . like to hear your voice.”
He took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry.”
Then he hung up and threw the phone at the wall. The crack was both immensely satisfying and caused a large swell of disappointment in his gut. If he’d broken it, he’d just destroyed his one means of independent communication for the rest of the weekend. He didn’t have it in him to check right now, so instead he curled up on the bed and allowed himself to fall into a restless, intermittent sleep.
He was woken by a knocking at his door. He stood and took a moment to remember where he was and everything that had happened. When he was no longer thinking through a film of confusion and sleep, he opened the door. Patrah stood on the other side.
“Dinner is being served in the cafeteria. If you don’t want to eat with us, you can come fix a plate.”
Erik was far from sure that he wanted to eat with a large group right now, but he nodded anyway. They had given him an out and he would take it if necessary. He thought of changing his clothes for a second, since he’d wrinkled and wrecked these through exercise and sleep, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
He followed the shorter, plump woman down the hall. She moved like a cat, silent even with the heavy boots she wore. The cafeteria had changed. Instead of the smattering of smaller and larger tables that had littered it before, there was one large oval table with the surface a mosaic of different shades of white. Everyone else was seated around it: Hu and Luka side by side, an empty seat next to Luka, then Melinda, followed by Daya, Elana, Elliot, Tae, another empty seat, then Matthias and Hu. The room was silent, as if they were all waiting for him and Patrah.
The Root Page 12