The Wayfinder's Apprentice (Shadows of the Umbra Book 1)

by K Dezendorf

  Once she’d regained her senses, she shoved off of him. “What the hell?” she shouted at him. Her legs were so wobbly she nearly fell over. “Are you insane? Warn me before you do something like that!”

  “I see you’re going to yell at me every time I help you,” Edward said, looking sullen as he gingerly rubbed at one of his hands, burned black again.

  “Anyone would react like that after being picked up and thrown off a building,” she stated vehemently. “Why didn’t you just do it like last time?”

  “They could have had ranged weapons,” Edward explained sourly. “They would have had a clear shot at us as we went through. At least this way they didn’t have a chance to attack us or see what I was doing.”

  Rose blinked. Thinking it over, his reasoning did seem sound. Even so, that had been insanely dangerous. “I guess I see your point.” She groaned, rubbing at her stomach which was feeling unsettled. “Sorry for yelling. I was just really freaked out.”

  He sighed, sitting down on the litter strewn ground. “I need to rest for a moment.”

  Having a chance to look around, Rose saw they were in an alley. Thankfully it was empty save for a few small birds picking at whatever crumbs of food they could find. She just needed to find a cross street and she could navigate from there. First thing’s first though...

  “Here.” She grabbed a black beanie from her bag. “You’ll need to cover your ears.” He put it on, and even though it looked odd, at least his ears were out of immediate view. No one would notice unless they were paying close attention, and it was only until they got to Jenkto’s hideout. “All right, let’s go.”

  ************

  Rose navigated them through the streets, Edward keeping close by. Unlike last time, where he’d been a flight risk, now he seemed very keen for the two of them to stick together. It only took a couple hours walking, since Edward refused Rose’s suggestion to take the bus or call another driver. She’d even tried calling Macklass, but the phone had gone to voicemail.

  Rose snuck in around the back, using the key Macklass provided for her. An invitation to come and go as she pleased. A safe haven, should she ever need it. She’d only used it a handful of times, on nights that had been particularly hard. Normally, she’d just use the front door, but she really wanted to speak to Macklass first, explain the situation, before introducing Edward to everyone.

  As they walked down the hall towards the bedrooms, Rose began speaking to Edward in a hushed tone. “So, I have some friends here that will be able to take care of you. If nothing else, you should be safe here until we-”

  “What?” Edward looked at her with a mixture of anger and panic. “You didn’t mention there would be other people.”

  “It’s okay,” she assured him. “They’re like you. They’re-”

  His voice became more intense. “No, it’s not okay.”

  “Is someone there?” a voice called out from the main area, farther in. The voice was male, but none of the elf brothers. Probably one of the other few human members.

  Just then, another voice called out, “They’re back! Someone get the door!”

  Edward’s eyes widened as his breathing became irregular and his hands shook. Looking at him, Rose suspected he was on the verge of a panic attack. Not wanting him to suddenly bolt or possibly attack someone, she grabbed a hold of his sleeve and pulled him into the supply closet just a few feet away and quickly but quietly shut the door behind them. Outside she could hear voices and people moving around. She fumbled a moment to find the light switch and flicked it on.

  Rose found Edward nearly doubled over, sweat beading his forehead and his breathing erratic. His eyes were wide and they looked bloodshot. She couldn’t tell if he was panicked or enraged. She needed to calm him down, and fast.

  ‘Kyan,’ she thought sharply. ‘I need your help calming him down. Can you do what you did before?’

  ‘Mm… I could, but it’ll cost you~~,’ his voice sing-songed.

  ‘Fine, I’ll owe you,’ she thought back urgently.

  ‘Grab a hold of him, I’ll do the rest.’

  Rose tried to take hold of Edward’s hand, but he seized her by the shoulders and slammed her painfully up against the concrete wall with a dull thud, nearly knocking the wind out of her. The impact and the feeling of being held down sent Rose into a momentary panic.

  The redness had almost completely overtaken the white in his eyes as Edward glared at her, seething. His fingers dug sharply into her arms and she had to bite back a small whimper. He wasn’t acting like himself at all. This wasn’t the same as dealing with Chad. Edward wasn’t even seeing her right now.

  “Get a grip!” she hissed, both at herself and Edward. Reaching up with her hands, she managed to barely grab a hold of his bare wrists. The next instant, Rose was overcome by that strange feeling of an alien yet familiar force being pushed through her. It was hot, burning, and it escaped through her hands and into Edward.

  Edward’s body went rigid for a moment, then slowly, the red drained from his eyes, like blood being washed away in a tide. His body slackened, and his grip on her loosened. He was breathing heavily as he blinked a few times, then realized what he was doing. He let go of her and took a step back, looking both horrified and ashamed.

  “Are you all right?” Rose whispered, and she had to make a conscious effort not to rub at her smarting shoulders.

  He didn’t answer. He wouldn’t even look at her.

  Rose listened closely at the door, worried their scuffle might have been heard. However, it was just the sounds of people shuffling around and talking. She heard a nearby door close and voices drawing near. Rose quickly turned the light off in case someone might notice.

  “...was a close call. It’s a good thing Jerome was keeping a listen of the police radios.” It was Jenkto.

  “True,” Macklass’ voice murmured in answer.

  Rose’s heart gave a small jump in excitement at hearing his voice. She wished she could exit the closet now to greet him, but after Edward’s episode, she didn’t dare risk it. Besides, she didn’t want to explain to Jenkto why she was hiding in a closet.

  “With that incident from yesterday and today,” he continued, “what do you think it means?”

  “I don’t know,” Jenkto said. “Maybe their defenses are slipping. When our guest wakes up we can ask them about it. This might be the big break we were hoping for.”

  “You think they can help us get Andros back?”

  Andros… that was the name of their eldest brother. He was also the reason Jenkto hated humans as a rule. When the lot of them first came to Earth, they had a bad run-in with a group of humans, resulting in their oldest brother getting captured and imprisoned. Ever since, they’ve been trying to find a way to get him out so they could all go home.

  “Possibly. We won’t know for sure until she shakes off whatever drugs they pumped her full of.” There was a thudding sound. Perhaps a fist hitting a wall. “What I wouldn’t give to kill every single human in that place.”

  “Once we have Andros, we can leave this world. We won’t have to worry about them anymore.”

  “You’re not still thinking of bringing Rose along, are you?” Jenkto’s voice became suspicious, her tone clipped.

  Rose’s breath stilled in her lungs as she listened closely, her ear pressed flat against the door. It was so hard to hear with how soft spoken Macklass was.

  “I still don’t see why she can’t,” Macklass answered heavily, as though this topic had been discussed multiple times before. “She’s been more than helpful to us.”

  “Here, yes,” Jenkto conceded. “But she’ll be worse than useless over there. She’ll be a liability. We can’t handle that right now.”

  “But if we just-”

  “Macklass, I know how you feel, but think about it seriously. Do you really think she's ready to meet father? I’m sure you don’t want to be the reason her already limited lifespan is cut short.”

  Rose felt a mixt
ure of burning indignation and hurt. She wasn’t useless. She wasn’t. She waited for Macklass to rebuff Jenkto’s words, to defend her.

  “No,” he admitted, his voice weighed down with reluctance. “I don’t.”

  “Then we’re agreed,” Jenkto said with a tone of finality. “When we leave, she stays here. It’s for the better. She’ll never truly belong in our world.”

  There was no answer, and the footsteps moved away. A door was opened, then firmly closed.

  Silence.

  Rose slowly pulled away from the door, her throat tight and a sickening pain blooming in her chest. It seeped all the way to the tips of her fingers and toes, leaving her with an all-encompassing ache.

  After everything, she thought she had found a home. People she could rely on, who relied on her. People who cared about her. But clearly, she wasn’t important enough to keep around. She wasn’t useful enough. Worse than useless. She blinked and a stream of warm tears trickled down her cheeks. Her fingers felt numb. Her throat was so tight it felt like she was choking. She couldn’t breathe. She was going to suffocate.

  The room filled with light and Rose startled, sucking in a gasp of air, as she looked to see a glowing blue portal opened in the wall behind them. Saying nothing, his expression grave, Edward took her firmly by the hand and pulled her through with him. Her mind was in too much of a daze to even resist.

  ************

  The sudden shift from a dark closet to broad daylight was enough to shake Rose out of her bout of anxiety. Once again, she found herself in a narrow alley set between two large buildings. She hurriedly wiped at her face with her fingers, smearing the tears so they’d dry faster. It was likely Edward had seen, and a curdling of shame stirred in her gut at the thought.

  “I’m sorry.”

  The words were unexpected, and Rose found herself gawking at Edward, unable to comprehend why he was apologizing. “For what?”

  His eyes looked to her shoulders. “If I hurt you.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about it,” she answered dismissively. “But, while we’re talking about that, what happened back there? Your eyes went red and everything.”

  Edward leaned against the brick wall of the building, his eyes remaining groundward. “It’s… a part of my bloodsin.”

  “What about it?” Rose asked. She’d heard the term from Macklass, and had assumed it was just synonymous with heritage.

  “I’m a Wild Elf. Whenever I get too angry, or if I feel threatened, I go into what’s called a ‘blood rage’. When that happens, I lose almost all sense of myself.” His expression was uncomfortable, his eyes sneaking glances at her as though gauging her reaction.

  “Huh…” That certainly explained a couple things. “Well, thanks for being honest about that.”

  “You’re acting surprisingly unconcerned about this,” he noted, giving her a stone faced expression.

  “I have a lot on my mind right now,” Rose answered, holding her stomach. She felt like she was going to be sick.

  “Back there,” he said, now looking suspicious. “You don’t know magic. Yet it felt like that’s what you used.”

  Rose hesitated, but she reasoned that he was being honest, so she should return the favor. “I have a poltergeist. Sometimes when I get really upset, he calms me down. I’m pretty sure he did the same for you, he just did it through me rather than to me.” It also wasn’t something he did very often, possibly because it wasn’t good for her health if the fiery burning sensation was indicative of anything. She tugged at her hair. “I hope that makes sense.”

  Edward frowned. “Poltergeist…” His gray eyes gleamed as he looked her up and down. “So that’s what it is.” His eyes closed and he shook his head. “You really are full of surprises.”

  Full of surprises, and fresh out of options. Rose wasn’t sure what to do now. She felt drained and tired, like she just ran a hundred yard dash. She leaned against the wall next to Edward.

  “No home… no friends…” Rose could feel her eyes burning with tears and she bit her tongue in order to quell them. “I’m all alone now.”

  “You’re not alone,” Edward told her soberly, and she felt his shoulder very gently nudge against hers. “I’m right here.”

  The tightness in her chest loosened, and Rose felt heartened by his words. Even if he was just staying with her until she could get him home, it was still nice to hear. Plus, she reminded herself, she always had Kyan. He would never leave her.

  “Right…” Rose clapped her hands over her cheeks, a gentle smack to get herself motivated. “Okay, so now we just need to decide our next move…”

  Rose felt Edward stiffen and glanced up to see him looking towards the mouth of the alleyway. She followed his gaze to see a small figure.

  Without warning, the air shifted dramatically. Rose felt her body freeze in place. Her heart was beating rapidly with anxiety, but her muscles were no longer responding to her. No matter how she tried, she couldn't budge. Her eyes shifted to Edward and saw he wasn't moving at all either.

  “I finally found you,” an older, male voice declared.

  A man approached them. Looking at him, he was roughly four feet tall, stockily built, and wearing half spectacles. He was dressed normal enough in a shirt and vest, and pants with suspenders. He was glaring towards Edward, and then his gaze roved over her, looking both calculating and… remorseful? It was then she recognized him as the same man she saw just the other day, before she met Edward. The panic she was feeling must have shown in her eyes by his next words.

  “Apologies, child.” His voice was gentle with an accent she couldn’t fully pin down. “I promise, I have no intentions of harmin’ you. That said, you’ve seen too much. I’m truly sorry.”

  Rose didn’t respond, not even certain if she could. She was too freaked out and bewildered by the sudden change of the situation.

  He rounded on Edward. “And you. You and I are going to have words.”

  Rose tried to fight the odd sensation of her body being out of her control. It felt wildly different from Kyan’s tricks, which were warm and familiar. This was oppressive and unrelenting.

  The man turned towards the building and began leading the way. Her body followed behind on full autopilot, Edward shuffling along beside her. Her mind reeled with questions. What was going on? Who was this man? What was going to happen to them?

  She followed him through a back door of what she recognized to be the tarped building. The inside smelled musty and for the most part looked unused. It might have been an old office building. The walls were standing, albeit decayed and falling apart. Rose noticed there was hardly any roof left and the only covering was the tarping.

  The man stood aside and she continued to walk past him, her feet crunching on the dust and rubble strewn floor. She wanted to look back at Edward, but she couldn’t. Her legs were carrying her directly towards one of the inner walls. At this rate, she was going to walk right into it. Rose could only stare ahead as she mentally braced herself for impact.

  Chapter 5

  Young Rose didn't know what to think. She had been walking home from her first day of junior high, minding her own business, and then suddenly was grabbed by an invisible force, pulled through a whirlwind of colors and light, and somehow ended up in the middle of a forest. It was unlike any forest she'd ever seen both in movies and in real life. The trees were impossibly large, so large that their roots alone were thicker than most trees she'd seen. It was also impossibly green, so much so that what sunlight was managing to filter through the canopy shone the color of bright emeralds.

  The air was damp and warm and she was already starting to build up a sweat just standing there taking it all in. Compared to the dry air she was used to, it felt like she was breathing water. She smelled and tasted multiple things; something rotting, something sweet and something bitter all at once. It was all very strange and alien to her. Occasionally she could hear bird cries, the fluttering of wings, or the rustling of plant life making her
jump.

  Once she was able to fight down her panic, she realized she couldn't stay in one place forever. She needed to find help, find someone. Rose began attempting to navigate through the forest but it was an arduous task. There was no path and she found herself having to stumble around and over the thick roots that were damp and slick with moisture. Many times she slipped and fumbled and it wasn't long before her shoes, clothes, and hands were dirty. Her clothes became damp with sweat and stuck uncomfortably to her skin.

  Rose wasn't sure how long she wandered, but several times she thought she heard something moving nearby, the rustle of leaves or the snapping of twigs. At one point a bug the size of a small bird zipped past her face, buzzing and thrumming. It startled her so much she fell over, landing in a cluster of pink and purple mushrooms that covered her clothes in a pale powder.

  Rose couldn't remember being more terrified in her life, overwhelmed by the hopelessness of being lost in an unknown forest with the notion that something could jump out at her at any moment and rip her to shreds and no one would ever know. After hours of wandering she noticed it was starting to get dark. However, good fortune smiled on her when she came across a small stream of water. Rose nearly cried in relief, she was so thirsty. She knelt down to scoop up some water to drink.

  That's when she heard it. The footfalls of something large and heavy. She whipped around just in time to see something very large attack her. She saw the flash of dark fur covering a massive body and teeth that would have torn through her like paper. Just when she thought she was done for, there was an eruption of blue fire. The startled predator changed course at the last moment, skirting away. Rose looked up to see what new threat had appeared.

  Before her was a very tall, thin creature, with long angular limbs that appeared to be roughly carved from wood that ended in claws. It wore old ragged and tattered clothes and a wide-brimmed hat. Its face was composed of two eyes of burning cyan colored flames and a mouth that stretched into a wide menacing grin. Flames also licked at its hands and joints, perpetually burning.