See These Bones

by Chris Tullbane

  “You can’t—”

  “I’m a Crow.” I let my smile grow. “What the fuck do I care about can’t?”

  Adam was terrified, and almost entirely back to human shape, but Jake was unconvinced, and he was the bigger threat by far. If he attacked…

  The ground before me suddenly split open, sending both Shifters scrambling back. I had a moment to mask my own shock and then called out to them. “Oh look, here’s a Walker now.”

  Neither man waited long enough to see what would crawl out of that pit.

  Damn good thing too, since nothing ever did.

  “Fucking hell, Boneboy. When you bluff, you bluff hard.” Silt stepped out from the trees behind me.

  “Don’t play unless you believe you can win,” I told her. “Where did you come from?”

  “About two minutes that-a-way.” She motioned in the direction Kayleigh had gone. “Our little bench clearing makes a fantastic make-out spot. Or it would have, if my date hadn’t just been interrupted.”

  “You date?”

  “Fuck you, Skeletor. Pretty sure I get more action than your crazy ass.” She rolled her eyes. “Anyway, when Vibe came out of nowhere with some injured normal—”

  “Are they okay?” I interrupted.

  “Yeah, my date’s taking them to the med center now. I promised Kayleigh I’d come find you and help.” She looked in the direction the two Shifters had gone. “Who were they?”

  “Students, I think. Regular ones, not Capes. Adam and Jake, both Beast-shifters. Shouldn’t be hard for school security to track them down, especially with Adam’s broken arm.”

  “What would you have done if I hadn’t showed up?”

  “Guess we’d have seen whether that full-Walker thing was just bullshit.”

  “And if it was?”

  “Then I’d have done my best to at least take the fuckers down with me.” I was a Crow. Silt and I were both training to be Capes. Wasn’t like either of us expected to die of old age.

  “You need a better name than Boneboy,” Silt decided.

  “Tell me about it.” I took one last look back at the clearing before we left it behind. “Why didn’t they smell you?”

  “I’m an Earthshaker,” she reminded me. “Nothing to smell here but good old natural dirt.”

  “You say that like it’s a good thing.” I paused. “Sorry about your date.”

  “They say anticipation just makes the final victory all the sweeter.” Silt grinned. “Besides, there are worse things than having a Crow owe me a favor.”

  I thought that over as I followed her back into the woods. “Want backup when you head down to Texas?”

  “If we both live that long, you mean? It’s a deal. Fair warning though; Brownsville’s a lot worse than Los Angeles.” A few minutes later, she shook her head. “I think that was the first time I’ve ever seen you smile.”

  “When?”

  “Back there. Staring down the Shifters.”

  “Oh.” I frowned. “Might be the first time I have smiled since coming here.”

  “Please don’t do it again.” She shivered. “Scariest fucking thing I ever saw.”

  CHAPTER 33

  It was a long time before we were allowed to leave the clinic, even though most of us had made it out of the woods unscathed. The girl we’d saved was named Sue, but I tried not to hold that against her. She’d gone into the woods to meet Jake for a moonlight stroll. Instead, she’d found both Jake and Adam, neither of whom had romance on the mind.

  The good news was that, other than a concussion and numerous scrapes from sprinting through the woods, Sue was going to be fine. Bad news was that she had seriously shitty taste in men. You’d think guys like Jake would have signs around their necks: will hunt for pleasure. Nah. People like Jake blend right in with those around them. It’s people like me that normals get all worried about.

  Guess I can’t blame them for that. Crows are a horror show waiting to happen, right?

  When we were done at the clinic, it was on to campus security, where I got to tell the exact same story three separate times to four different people. I left out my threats, for the most part. Wasn’t sure the real Capes would have approved. Was positive nobody wanted to think about me killing someone, raising them, and using them to murder a family.

  As threats go though, that one had been fucking golden.

  By the time we were done with security, they’d captured both Shifters. Adam had actually gone back to his dorm room like a moron. Jake had tried jumping the wall and getting the fuck out of town. Neither succeeded. Wasn’t sure what was going to happen to them, but I hoped it was something nasty.

  It was somewhere around one or two in the morning by then, and everyone else headed back to the dorm. Not me. I was tired, yeah, but also kind of juiced from almost dying… and I wasn’t sure yet what I’d do when I saw my roommate. The whole Shifter thing had pushed the rest of my night into the background, but I was still pissed off. So instead of going back, I found a bench—not the bench in the fucking woods, thank you very much—and laid down on it, looking up at a sky whose stars were mostly masked by the lights around me.

  More than three months at the Academy, and things just kept getting more confusing, a big old ball of chaos spiraling in unexpected directions. Classmates that hated me. People digging into my past. Powers too weak to be Capes but still too much for a normal to handle. Tessa and her tits. And facing down two Beast-shifters… what the hell had I been thinking?

  Life at Mama Rawlins’ had been simple. Keep order. Protect the little ones. Fuck up anyone who got in the way. There was nothing simple about the Academy. Rescuing Sue had been a Cape thing to do, but it had been stupid too. I didn’t know her. Didn’t care about her. Yet I could have easily died trying to save her.

  It wasn’t the dying part that bothered me. Thing about meeting death when you’re five is that you lose that feeling of invincibility early. Stench of blood, smell of apple pie, and nothing in front of you but mortality at its most unflinching, sprawled across the kitchen floor. I’d known from that day on that death was unavoidable. Wouldn’t be many who cared when I was gone… the Beast-shifter had gotten that much right.

  It wasn’t the dying part that bothered me. It was why I’d done it. Was that what being a Cape was all about? Putting your life on the line for total strangers, for people you didn’t know, and probably wouldn’t like if you did know them? And then what? Suddenly, you’re responsible for a city? A fucking country?

  It was the first time I’d given much thought to Bard’s Orientation speech. First time I really wondered whether I had it in me to be that sort of Cape. Vibe did. She’d shown that much tonight, walking head-on into a hurricane of emotions, not once but twice. Paladin probably did too, as much as I hated to admit it. Unicorn would never have to actually face combat, but his desire to just help people leaked out of every overly pale pore.

  The rest of us? Fuck if I knew.

  Eighteen years old and the world was suddenly bigger than just Mama Rawlins’. Bigger than Bakersfield. A great empty unknown waiting to fuck with me. And every day, the Academy was changing me. Friends were changing me. Even enemies were changing me.

  Who the hell was I going to be when I graduated? If I graduated?

  I shook myself and swung my legs over one side of the bench, pulling myself back upright. Mom sat on the other end of the bench in her faded sundress, smiling like she didn’t have a care in the world. I studied her and for a moment—just a moment—I thought something close to recognition made its way into her empty eyes. Then it was gone, and she was looking past me, humming her soundless song.

  I was too tired for this shit.

  •—•—•

  Should have known the day wouldn’t just end like that. Shit day that turned into a shit night and had already gone on way too long?

  Of course it couldn’t stop there.

  There was one person in the common room when I finally got in. Rest of the class was
asleep—or banging each other silly in the privacy of their own rooms—but she couldn’t pass up the chance to be a pain in my ass.

  Of course Poltergeist was waiting for me.

  She was drunk too. Jumped up way too quick when she saw me, spots of color in her cheeks, hair halfway between curly and bird’s nest. She stalked over, green eyes flashing.

  “Can this wait, Tessa? It’s been—”

  Never got to say what a shit night it had been because she was jabbing me in the chest with an overly long index finger and its equally long nail. No clue how those nails survived Nikolai’s classes, but they weren’t far from the claws the two Beast-shifters had been sporting.

  “I don’t care if my neckline is down around my ankles,” she hissed. “If you ever look at my chest again, I’m going to pull out every one of your pubic hairs, one by one.”

  “With your teeth?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It just seems like the kind of threat that should involve teeth,” I told her.

  My head snapped to one side, ears ringing from a slap that hadn’t involved hands. In fact, Tessa hadn’t moved at all.

  “You know what I think?” she asked.

  “It’s hard not to, since you never shut up.”

  “I think that everyone’s been giving you way too much credit, walking around on eggshells, worrying about what you might do. Other than bleeding all over Paladin’s fists, what exactly have you accomplished? Failed at Control and slept through classes? I’m not sure you even are a Crow.”

  “Maybe I’m not.”

  “What?”

  “Could be I was just added to this class as a test for you first-years, to see which of you would actually behave like Capes.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Guess who’s failing?”

  “Funny.” Tessa narrowed her green eyes. “When you flame out of here and end up on the streets or in an asylum where you belong, I just hope you don’t bring anyone else down with you. Someone like Kayleigh.”

  “Yeah, because you sure gave a shit about her before all of this.”

  She shook her head. “Why am I even bothering? I don’t understand how someone like you survives to adulthood. Let me guess… stim-weed addict for a mom and no clue which of three or four deadbeats was your real dad?”

  I thought back to what Silt had said earlier that night, and let my smile slip out. The Telekinetic went pale and took a step back.

  “Fuck your ignorance,” I told her. “Fuck your theories about my parents and your sad attempts at superiority, but most of all, fuck you.”

  An invisible hand wrapped around my throat, lifting me easily into the air. “You’re not a Cape, Damian. I’m not even sure you’re a person. You’re just some sort of thing, oozing along, not seeing how disgusting you really are.”

  I had a couple good comebacks to that, but they all required speech, and that was impossible with the telekinetic hand squeezing my throat.

  “He’s more of a Cape than you are, Tessa McShane.” I couldn’t see her, but I recognized Vibe’s voice. “Capes don’t go around choking people just because they’re drunk.”

  The hand let me go and I dropped several inches to the floor, gasping for breath. Vibe was standing in the doorway to the girls’ hall, skinny bare legs sticking out from under a voluminous sleep shirt.

  “Capes save people,” Kayleigh continued, “like Damian did tonight while you were busy getting drunk and making a fool of yourself at The Liquid Hero. Again.”

  Where my anger had just seemed to spark Tessa’s, Vibe’s had the opposite effect. Poltergeist winced and dropped her gaze. “What are you talking about?”

  I was more interested in what exactly Tessa had done to make a fool of herself, but it didn’t look like Kayleigh was in the mood to satisfy either of our curiosities.

  “I’ll tell you when you’re sober,” she decided before turning to me, her voice stern. “Good night, Damian.”

  I wasn’t sure why I was in trouble… or when Kayleigh had transformed into a disciplinarian, for that matter, but I recognized the out and took it, fleeing for the boys’ hall.

  When I made it to my room, I barely even glanced at the still lump of Jeremiah. There was a time to fight and a time to sleep, and I was way too tired to fight.

  Let that be a lesson to all of you on fucking with Telekinetics; just don’t.

  You’ll never see their punches coming.

  CHAPTER 34

  I don’t believe in God. If he or she exists at all, I think they’re probably something like Dr. Nowhere, using the world as their toilet and then heading off into the great unknown while the rest of us drown in shit. But fuck if there isn’t an occasional string of coincidences that pays off just right. If Vibe hadn’t gotten me away from the bar before telling me about our classmates’ project, if she hadn’t felt the girl’s terror, if we hadn’t gone to confront the Shifters, if those Shifters hadn’t both been caught shortly after, if Tessa hadn’t gotten in my face when I returned to the dorms…

  Probably would have done something rash. Probably would’ve gotten myself kicked out then and there, like Vibe had predicted.

  But fact was, all those things did happen. What’s more, by the time I woke up Sunday morning, Jeremiah was away; off to study, or exercise, or whatever the fuck the big bastard did when he wasn’t snoring like an earthquake. He was gone, and the anger was a smaller thing, almost manageable, curled up in my chest like some sort of multi-clawed beast.

  By the time I saw him again—later that night, and then the next morning when we all headed off for the food we’d probably vomit right back up in Nikolai’s class—I had myself under control. Had myself almost convinced the whole thing had been a fair trade. Jeremiah had gotten the place of my birth along with a load of utter bullshit, and I’d gotten a reminder that the only thing free in this country was its name. Everything else—even a night at The Liquid Hero—had its cost, and that cost couldn’t always be paid with coin.

  Hard lesson to learn. One I’ll keep learning until the day I die. Maybe even after that, when I’m one of you, and some shit-souled Crow pulls me into his orbit.

  If you’re not learning, you’re dying. Not sure who said that. Was probably someone Pre-break.

  Truth is, most of us are doing both.

  •—•—•

  It was several weeks before things went sideways again. Late June. Not long before presentations started, and only a few weeks more until mid-year exams. I wasn’t looking forward to more tests, but I thought I had a fair chance at passing everything but Ethics.

  And fuck Ethics anyway. Ms. Ferra was going to flunk me no matter what I did, oblivious to the irony of her actions.

  Anyway, late June. I was flipped around on my bed, looking at the sunlit sky through our room’s one window, when Jeremiah headed out for the day. I hadn’t spoken to Stonewall since The Liquid Hero. Had worked my ass off to ignore him, in fact. I’d decided not to make something out of the whole class project thing, but I sure as fuck wasn’t going to be friendly about it.

  Might’ve stayed in that weird sort of status quo for weeks. Might’ve kept my anger nailed down all the way up to the presentation, maybe even further than that.

  Might’ve done a lot of things, if Jeremiah hadn’t left his Glass behind.

  From my spot on the bed, I could see its screen, still online, still active. A minute or so of idle time before it would shut down, inaccessible to anyone but the big Shifter.

  I don’t remember deciding to move, but the next thing I knew, the Glass was in my hand. I tapped through the file system, found a folder helpfully labeled ‘Crow research’ and sent a copy of the entire folder over to my own Glass.

  Didn’t have a clue how to erase what I’d done from the logs. Didn’t even think of it, to be honest. I’d gotten better with the tech since coming to school, but four months can only teach a guy so much.

  Safely back on my side of the room, I turned to my own tablet, and started to dig through wha
t I’d recovered.

  The first sub-folder was all about Reno. Fucking Reno. The Crimson Death hadn’t been the most powerful Crow ever—that was Lord Bone or Sally Cemetery—but his one very bad day in Nevada had sure as shit caught the public’s attention. A whole city murdered on the sly while the Free States’ Capes fought off a large-scale invasion from the Pacific. By the time even the fastest Flyboys had made it inland, there was nothing left to greet them but the Necromancer himself, elbow deep in carnage, a wide smile on his bone-white face.

  Additional folders held information on the other big names and their atrocities. Pictures of the aftermaths. Accounts from the survivors, on the rare occasions where there were any. Page after page after page of the shit my fellow Necromancers had perpetrated, of the lives that had been ruined in their wake.

  None of it was good. I mean… I’d known that, already—was living proof of the sort of damage Crows could wreak—but having it all laid out there like that—pools of black blood and wide, staring eyes—really brought the fucking point home.

  Pretty soon, I was wondering what Bard had been thinking in letting me enroll.

  Then I hit the last sub-folder in the directory. Its label was a single word.

  Bakersfield.

  Motherfuckers.

  •—•—•

  It was my fault. I’d woven a web of lies for my big bastard roommate, even before I knew why he was digging for information, but it hadn’t occurred to me to lie about where I was from.

  Turns out, that was all they’d needed to track me down.

  I just stared at the folder for a long while. Bakersfield. Shit name for a shit town, but seeing it sent a cold chill down my spine. I stared at it, then stared some more, not wanting to click into the folder, not wanting to see what they’d uncovered.

  Sad reality is, shit doesn’t go away just because you want it to. Twenty minutes of staring, and that folder was still there waiting.