“I can defend myself.”
“No you can’t.” I cross the room and look her in the eye. “Not against Creatures.”
She tilts her head, watches me as if I’m a puzzle she can’t solve—and then she solves me. She swallows hard. “I can defend myself.”
“You’re stupid,” I say, “and brave. You should stay away from me.”
“No. You’re the closest thing I’ve come to answers about my dream.”
I close my eyes. Finally I say, “Fine. Meet me at half two at the Lazy Latte.” I look at her. I take her apart until all I see is fear and fierceness. “Unless you’re busy.”
“I’ll be free.”
“Good.” I roll up my sleeves and get started on the morning’s bread. When I look up again, she’s gone.
I’m so conflicted—sometimes I admire Fray, sometimes I find her infuriating, and all the time I want to know more about her.
By the time Muffin bursts into the bakery, haggard and worn out already, I’ve worked off my frustration by kneading dough.
*
“Min,” I say into the phone. “I’m calling in a favour.” I explain what I need and put the phone down on a stream of grumbling. Despite her grumpiness, I know she’s excited.
Fray waits for me outside the Lazy Latte, staring at something in her hands. When I get closer, I see it’s a postcard of Callaire’s town hall, the clock tower in the centre with a message scrawled across the bottom.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” she says. “I shouldn’t have pushed you for information.”
I put my hands in my pockets. “It’s alright. It’s just—Since I was a kid, I’ve been told this was supposed to be secret. I don’t like breaking rules.”
“And I shouldn’t have made you. It’s my fault. Remember I said I like knowing things? That’s kind of an understatement. I get obsessive—really obsessive. I have to know every single thing about every subject, or I go crazy.”
“I can’t tell you everyth—”
“I know. It’s fine, I promise. I’m just explaining why I get a little … O.T.T. Can I get you coffee to make up for it?”
I try to dampen a smile but her hopeful expression coaxes one out of me. “Okay, but I think I’ve had enough caffeine for one day. I should probably get decaf’.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” She loops her arm through mine and guides me into the coffeehouse.
“You should definitely get decaf’,” I mumble.
“I heard that.” She taps her ear. “Impeccable hearing, Yasmin.”
“You and me both.”
She places our order and leans toward me with a covert whisper. “Is that a Manticore thing? Do you have super-senses?”
I keep my voice quiet. “Only near the moon.”
“What about—”
A scathing voice stops the rest of Fray’s question. “Do you want me to rent you two a hotel room so you can take this somewhere private?”
“You’re not funny.” I turn, grimacing. “Fray, this is Minnie. Minnie, this is Fray.” To a bewildered Fray, I explain, “I asked her to come so you could get some answers about your dreams.”
“Dreams?” Minnie looks between the two of us. “Do tell.”
I motion towards a table and the three of us sit, Fray pulling her chair a fraction closer to me.
“What are you wearing?” I make a face at Minnie’s headdress.
“A pineapple,” she says helpfully. “I had a dance rehearsal. That’s how I got here so fast.”
Fray looks mortified. “You didn’t leave your rehearsal because of me, did you?”
“Nah. It’d already finished. Now—I hear you need a reading.” In answer to Fray’s confusion, Min gets out her tarot cards. “Tell me about these dreams.”
I let Fray explain everything, since it’s her reading, but every so often she looks to me for confirmation. I get more anxious as the minutes wear on, dreading what Minnie will say.
“I think that’s more than your Psychic Majick, Yas,” Min says eventually. And to Fray, “Maybe you do have some kind of Majick. Maybe a weak form, like a Cross-Blood’s.” At Fray’s doe-eyed response, Minnie gives me a look. “How much have you told this girl?”
“Only what I am.”
“So she doesn’t even—what good is it bringing me here to use my Majick when she doesn’t even know what Majick is?”
“I know what magic is,” Fray says.
“I don’t mean rabbit-out-of-the-hat tricks or Expelliarmus. I mean real Majick, the inherited ability to perform a specific action or control and manipulate a specific entity.” I know that sentence. It’s straight from one of Mavers’s help books. “I have Divine Majick, which means I can Divine answers and see along people’s pathways, their futures.”
I chime in with, “Imagine little old ladies on Blackpool pier, with their crystal ball and palm readings. That’s Minnie.”
Her answering glare could turn me to ash. “And Yasmin’s a telepath. She’s basically a shit Professor-X.”
Fray snickers. “And I thought I was crazy. So what Majick do you think I have?”
I shrug. Minnie says, “The cards might know. Here, shuffle these.”
Fray does as instructed, pushing up the sleeves of her loudly-fuchsia coat, glancing at me every so often. I meet her gaze steadily, not sure what she’s looking for but hoping she finds it.
Minnie has Fray draw a card from the deck— the Nine of Swords, upright. I reach out to Minnie’s mind for the meaning and wish I hadn’t. The card preludes stress, anxiety, illness, and—especially—suffering. Great. I draw away when she touches the card with her fingertip.
She falls silent, lost in the pathways, before she says, “It’s not a good card. Not terrible either.” I don’t point out the ominous meaning she thought a minute ago. “In relation to you and your dreams it means something is developing, growing. You do have Majick, but I can’t tell which kind it is. I’ve never sensed that kind before.” She tilts her head, looking at Fray. “You’re definitely Pure, though. That’s weird.”
Fray looks down at the table. I touch her arm.
“I didn’t mean—that came out bad,” Minnie pulls her hair out of its braid and aggressively re-plaits it. “I just meant not many humans have Majick. And when they do, they’ve inherited it from someone in their family line. But your parents aren’t Legendary at all. You’re a mystery.”
Fray sighs. “So you don’t know what I am?”
“Oh, you’re human. No question. But you have Majick. Pretty powerful stuff, too, if that card’s anything to go by. What are you doing the first of March?”
“What? Nothing. Why?”
No! I think. I lean across the table until Minnie looks me in the eye, then I repeat, “No.”
“We’re having a party for the temple of Juno.” She says, overlooking my scowl. “You should come, Fray. You can be Yasmin’s date.”
“Oh.” Fray looks away, the apples of her cheeks flushing. My heart melts at the sight of it. “Well, I mean—”
“Yes?” Minnie prompts.
“I haven’t known Yasmin long, that’s all. And I couldn’t be her date because I don’t know if—”
“Oh, don’t worry about that.” Minnie makes a grand gesture with her arm. “Yasmin’s a lesbian, and she’s definitely attracted to you so there’s nothing to worry about there.”
I hate you. I hate you so so much. I am actually going to kill you, Minnie Ex Apolle. Slowly, with lots of pain.
You’re welcome, she thinks back gleefully.
I fix my eyes on a spot in the back corner. Minnie scoops up the tarot cards. Nobody speaks for a full minute until Fray blurts out, “I’m bisexual!”
“And I’m straight,” adds Minnie. “High fives all round.” I hear the sound of palms hitting but refuse to raise my own.
“I hate you so much,” I mutter.
“No, you don’t,” she sings in reply. “Besides, it wouldn’t be the same if I didn’t horribly embarrass you.”
“Worse. Wow—is that the time? Gosh, I’m going to be so late.” I glare when she pats my shoulder. “Have fun, ladies.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say when she’s gone. I dare to look up and find Fray smiling. “We’re distant cousins so she thinks it’s her job to humiliate me.”
“She didn’t humiliate you. At least—I didn’t think it was embarrassing.”
“Really?” I don’t believe her at all.
“Really. What she said … are you actually attracted to me or was that just something she said?”
“No—well—I actually am. Quite a bit.” I play with my necklace, turning the globe of Akasha around and around.
Fray exhales in a rush. “Me too. I like you, I mean.”
“Are you sure about that?” My stomach is doing gymnastics.
Her fingers touch my hand, cold where I’m warm, and I stop telling myself I don’t have an all-consuming crush on her. I lift my head to meet her dimpled smile, my heart expanding.
“So,” she says. “What should I wear for this party?”
I have to clear my throat before I can speak. “Something bright coloured and dressy. It’s kind of a big deal to us. And there are more of us than me and Minnie—a lot more. I shouldn’t be telling you this, but there are eleven of us, all descended from mythological creatures and …. You might want to extend your research to the Gods of myth.”
Instead of looking daunted as I’d expected her to, Fray looks thrilled.
SEVENTEEN
THE BODY
Today is the only day of the month I surrender to the beast. The Crea moon will be visible in a matter of hours and I’ll be Changed. I do nothing but lay about my flat for hours, feeling sorry for myself. I’ve taken the day off work because there’s no way I’d last the day—the beast has me sick three times before evening.
The Change happens every month, but I’ll never be used to relinquishing control to a monster that answers only to its hunger.
At five in the evening I set out for Almery Wood. I’m still dreading the new Crea we’ll have to share the woods with—because we sent the hunters to their wood—but if I’m lucky I won’t come into contact with them. If I’m extra lucky I won’t be shot this month.
I can’t believe it’s only been a month since I first met Fray. It feels like three.
The Change comes over me abruptly. I push my backpack of food, drink, and clothes into the hollow trunk and fall to my knees as my stomach clenches and my body shifts.
It’s a torture that happens all at once, every bone in my body cracking concurrently, and then I am no longer human.
The beast roars, shaking out its fur and wings. For the endless time between this Change and the next, I know nothing. This moon is different. I’m no longer a silent observer to the Manticore’s actions. I’m stuck somewhere in the back of my mind, not able to watch or scent or hear.
*
I wake up the following day, human and covered in blood. I test my body, moving my arms and legs to find the source of the blood. I don’t hurt anywhere. I frown at the crimson leaves around me until my nose locates the source of the blood. I let out a whimper.
Standing on legs that don’t want to support me, I take in the carnage. I should not be relieved to find only one body.
My seventh victim.
I can’t tear my eyes away. Limbs have been torn from the torso of a man and strewn about the trees. His head hangs at an unnatural angle from his neck. He’s the seventh person I’ve hurt, the fourth person I’ve killed.
I drop to my knees and with unfeeling hands I gather the pieces of what was once a person. “I’m sorry,” I whisper as I put him back together. But it won’t bring him back to life. I pointlessly wait for signs of life but he’s long gone.
I crawl to the tree I left my backpack in and dress myself. My body is numb. How many people will I kill this year? It’s only the second Crea moon and already a man is dead.
I curl up in the leaves beneath the tree, numb. Hours later I’m conscious of solid arms picking me up and the scent of too-strong aftershave. Safety.
EIGHTEEN
THE SECRET
Guy is calling again. I put my phone on silent and throw it in my bag, pushing away all thoughts of what happened yesterday. Methodically tearing apart a muffin I can almost forget that I killed someone. Almost.
The beast in me is miraculously quiet. Maybe I’ve numbed every part of me.
“Yasmin?”
I blink until my surroundings come into focus. I’m sat on a bench in Callaire’s centre. I wonder if I’ve taken too long for my break. I should get back to the Muffin Emporium.
I startle, fixing wide eyes on the figure in front of me. Fray. She chews her lip as she regards me. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah.”
She joins me on the bench. I look straight ahead but I feel her eyes on me. “I don’t believe that. Is it to do with the body they found? I heard about it on the news this morning. Did the person who did that … did they hurt you? It was one of you, wasn’t it—a Legendary?”
“Yes.” I stand, watching the remnants of the muffin scatter to the floor. “That was one of us. That was me.” I turn my back on her and return to work. She doesn’t follow, but an hour later she sends a text telling me to go to her house if I need to talk.
I don’t plan on it but I find myself unchaining my bike from the side of my apartment building as soon as I’m home.
I cycle right across the Ward around Fray’s house and abandon the bike beneath a tall oak tree.
The painted-pink door opens without me knocking on it. Fray, haloed by amber light, watches me. I stand before her, waiting for the shouts and screams that I’m a murderer, that she’s changed her mind about wanting to know me.
But she says, “You’re not okay, are you?”
I bite down on my tongue, my eyes glazing over. I don’t want to cry. I don’t want to come inside either but I don’t argue when Fray bundles me into her living room. She puts a mug of hot chocolate in my hands and though I can’t stomach it, the warmth is nice enough that I just hold it.
“Talk to me.” Fray sits cross-legged on the floor in front of me. There are papers everywhere—on the floor, the coffee table, the arm chair. My gaze slides off them. I don’t want to confess everything to Fray but her sad eyes implore me.
“I killed someone. The man you heard about on the news. I … I woke up and he was in pieces.”
“You don’t remember killing him?”
I fix my eyes on her and she shrinks back. I must look like a monster. I bite back a laugh. I am a monster. “Don’t. Don’t hope. I killed that man. I didn’t see it happen but I ripped him apart like a savage. The beast—” I shut off my words at the look on Fray’s face. “I told you I was dangerous.”
“You killed someone,” she whispers. “You actually killed a man.”
I claw at my coat. I should be at the Academy. Mavers has dealt with someone in my state before, someone who is still monstrous even though the moon has passed. He’d know what to do. “I didn’t mean to. I don’t have control of myself.”
“When you transform,” she guesses. She pulls herself onto the sofa, sweeping aside paper. It’s research on us. I see a page about the Scottish legend of Selkies and think of Vic.
“Please,” I beg. “Please don’t tell anyone about us. My friends—the others—they don’t deserve that. I did this, I killed that man. I know you—you must hate me, but this isn’t just about me, this is—”
She presses fingers to my lips, stopping the flow of pleas. “I’m not going to tell anyone. I wouldn’t do that even if I did hate you, which I don’t. I met your friend, remember, Minnie? I know this isn’t just about you. I don’t really understand what’s so bad about people knowing about you guys, but if you’re this worried, it must be bad.”
“It has to be kept secret.”
“I know. Don’t worry.” She draws me against her side
and holds me, the softness of her touch lulling me into calm. “And I’m not condoning murder but I think I understand. You don’t get much of a say when you’re in Manticore form do you?”
I let out a shuddering breath. “None at all.”
“Is there anything you can do to change that? Meditation or hypnosis or something?”
A sudden rap on the front door has me lurching to my feet.
“Crap,” Fray hisses. She scrambles to pick up the research and hides it under a sofa cushion. “Sorry about this,” she murmurs, unceremoniously shoving me down the hallway and into a pantry cupboard. “It’s my uncle. He won’t stay long.” She squeezes my shoulder, and then shuts the door in my face.
I’m too perplexed and emotionally wrought to respond. I lean my head against the wall and listen.
Fray exchanges the usual greetings with her uncle. He follows her into the house with a heavy tread—he’s either really tall or overweight—and the two of them go into the kitchen where something is set down on the table. The strong smell of lavender laundry power wafts under the cracks around the door, turning my stomach. I hold my sleeve to my face and breathe through the wool.
Five minutes and some boring conversation later, Fray’s uncle says something that makes my heart stop. “Did you hear about Wilfred Stirling? The party’s going out tomorrow to hunt the animal that killed him.”
“Don’t!” Fray’s breathing quickens. “It might be dangerous.” She’s lying. Her voice lacks passion.
“Fray.” Her uncle’s voice is fond and an edge condescending. “I know you’re worried for me, but people are getting hurt. You won’t change my mind.”
Footsteps spill into the hallway. I hold my breath until he’s gone. Fray frees me from the pantry. I stagger out, gasping for clean air. “Are you alright?” She flutters around me, wringing her hands.
“Your washing powder smells disgusting.”
Her answering frown carves a deep crevice between her eyebrows. “Oh, your senses are all weird aren’t they?” She shuts the kitchen door, locking the scent away, and urges me back to the living room where I can breathe clearly.
“Your uncle,” I rasp. “He’s one of the hunters.” That’s why she was thinking about them when I heard her voice on the bus. I thought it meant she was a Crea like me, but she’s just related to them.
The Beast of Callaire Page 9