Fight the Darkness

by W. J. May

  Curious, yes. But also afraid.

  NEITHER SIMON NOR JASON spoke the entire way to the Oratory. The doorway was open, and Simon could see Beth and Jennifer already practicing inside. Beth looked up in alarm as he got closer. She knew he had his final day’s worth of classes this morning, and had no idea why she’d be seeing him so soon. Judging by the look on his and Jason’s faces, it clearly wasn’t anything good.

  However, as it turned out, they weren’t headed to the Oratory after all. Jason walked him right past it and marched instead towards the parking lot on the other side of campus. There was a hitch in Simon’s step, but he followed obediently along.

  Had he finally crossed the line so far that there was no coming back? Was Jason going to simply drive him out past the gates of Guilder and leave him there? Knowing Jason, he would take care to hit him first with the car...

  “Get in,” Jason instructed as he unlocked the doors.

  Simon did as he was told. Still too worried to say anything. Still too indifferent to care. His eyes flickered up through the windshield at the quiet campus, wondering if it was to be the last time he would see it so close. A vague part of him wondered what would happen to his things.

  Jason locked the doors behind them, but didn’t start up the engine. In fact, he tossed the keys up onto the dashboard with a quiet sigh. “What are you doing, Simon?”

  It was the ultimate question, wasn’t it? The same question that Simon had been asking himself with increasing frequency over the last few weeks.

  What am I doing? What am I still doing here?

  “I don’t know,” he mumbled childishly, staring at his hands.

  Jason flashed him a sharp look, but said nothing. Using the silence to force a better answer.

  After a couple seconds of it, Simon sighed. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know why I’m going to this school if there’s nothing in it for me afterwards. I don’t know why every single other person in my class was recruited by the Privy Council and not me. Why Tristan—”

  He forced himself to stop. He couldn’t say these things aloud. He could hardly think them.

  Jason was quiet for a moment, before he twisted around to stare at Simon face to face. His piercing amber eyes flashed in the noontime sun as he shook his head slowly back and forth.

  “Really?” It was amazing how all the sarcasm in the world could fit so neatly into one little word. “You really don’t know what you’re still doing here? Why you got left behind at Guilder. Why everyone else was recruited by the Privy Council except you.”

  They locked eyes and a look of genuine regret crossed his teacher’s face.

  “I warned you, Simon,” he murmured. “I warned you so many times.”

  A rush of unwelcome tears sprang up in Simon’s eyes and he glared them back, fixing his gaze on the steering wheel so he wouldn’t have to face the disappointment of being a disappointment head-on. Instead, he tried uselessly to defend himself. “I’ve got more talent than—”

  Then Jason started yelling, truly yelling. Ticking things off on his fingers, one by one.

  “Breaks curfew! Refuses to attend class! Forms a secret society to challenge the PC! Corrupts other students! Acts out in class! Calls out the faculty! Just today, practically threatens a teacher with physical violence!”

  His voice rose dramatically, before dropping suddenly at the very end.

  “Kisses an inked girl right there on the Oratory floor.”

  There was a deflated sort of hush between them now. Like everything that had been keeping the two of them propped up had suddenly melted away.

  “And you don’t know why you weren’t recruited like the rest of them?” Jason leaned back against his headrest with a quiet sigh. “Is it really that much of a wonder, Simon?”

  A wretched sob rose up in the back of Simon’s throat, and he swallowed it back down.

  No. No, it was not a wonder. It wasn’t a wonder at all.

  An unexpected wave of remorse crashed over him, and he bowed his head to his chest.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry you wasted so much time on me.”

  Jason looked over in surprise as a very peculiar emotion shadowed across his eyes. Even once it had cleared, the essence remained. A strange, belated sort of regret. One that had very little to do with anything they were talking about now. “It wasn’t wasted time,” he finally answered. “It’s only wasted if you say it is.”

  Simon looked over in confusion, trying hard to follow. “I don’t know what that means—”

  “Would you come back to Guilder next year?” Jason asked suddenly. “Another year of classes. Another year of training. Would you try again next year for recruitment?”

  A heavy sort of cloud seemed to settle over Simon as he considered it.

  His first thought was to reject the notion outright. No. No, he would absolutely not wait around for another year to be offered a job by an institution he didn’t even respect. If they wouldn’t let him in so he could change it from the inside, he’d just have to start working from the outside instead. He’d start his own version of the Council. One with rules that made sense. One where he was the man in charge.

  But just as quickly as he’d shut the idea down, a small glimmer of hope penetrated the fog. A ray of light fighting through the darkness.

  “Yes,” he found himself saying. “Yes, I would come back next year to try again.”

  An odd sort of triumph gleamed in Jason’s eyes, and he nodded slowly.

  “This means that much to you? You’d commit yourself to try again?”

  This time Simon didn’t have to think. He knew the answer. It was, as always, right on the tip of his tongue. “Yes, I would.”

  A hint of that old sparkle danced across Jason’s face as he offered Simon a genuine smile.

  “In that case...you’d better follow me.”

  Simon sat stunned a moment, watching Jason lean forward to grab his keys, get out of the car, and start walking without looking to see if Simon followed. Blinking back to life Simon scrambled out of the car, slammed the door, and raced after his mentor.

  The walk back into the Oratory was full of more surprises than Simon could keep track of.

  He was surprised he wasn’t being instantly expelled for challenging a teacher. Surprised he was being allowed back on campus. Surprised the Oratory had a set of secret doors built into the walls. Doors that led to secret tunnels. Tunnels that sent shivers running up his spine as he followed Jason into the dark.

  He was surprised that Jason had seemingly forgiven him. And he was surprised that his Botcher actually seemed a bit nervous as they came to a stop in front of a rusted set of doors.

  But by far, the biggest surprise yet was waiting for him right inside.

  “Tris?”

  Tristan turned around with a wide smile, and got to his feet. He was flanked on one side by Francis Wainwright, the head of PC recruitment, and on the other by Royce Masters himself. By the time Simon’s eyes had adjusted to the dim lighting Jason had crossed inside to stand beside them as well.

  But strangely enough, even amidst all of those powerful figureheads, it was Tristan who was permitted to do all the talking. His blue eyes twinkled with adventures still to come as he cocked his head to the empty chair beside his.

  “What do you say, bud? You ready to go out and save the world?”

  Chapter 10

  “—AND I WAS SO NERVOUS when Higgins didn’t bring me back to Renley like I thought. He started taking me down to the Oratory instead. At first I thought they were marching me down there to tell Jason that I was on academic probation. I thought he was going to kick my ass, you know? But hell no. Jason seemed to be expecting me.”

  The car swerved sharply around a slow-moving semi, and Tristan kept talking.

  “So anyway, I get to his office and we immediately leave again. He takes me to this set of secret doors in the training room wall. It’s amazing that none of us have accidently hit
the levers, to be honest. The amount of blade-throwing we do in there. Anyway, we headed down the tunnel to the same office that you went to, and Masters and Wainwright were waiting for me. Said that they wanted to offer me a position on their staff. Said that I would start immediately. Slid a contract across the table for me to read over and sign.”

  For the first time, he paused to take a breath.

  “I couldn’t believe it! I said yes, of course, and asked if I could go and tell all my friends, but Masters said no. Said that from the moment I was recruited until I was officially sanctioned to return to Guilder grounds to continue my intermittent schooling, I was to maintain strict radio silence. Not tell anyone where I was. Not contact anyone back at Guilder. Like he wanted to make absolutely sure I would believe him, he dissolved my cellphone, right in front of me. The phone’s huge! Super creepy, by the way—how he can do that. Not to mention I lost all of my contact numbers...”

  He swerved again, exiting off the freeway and flying up a residential lane.

  “As if I would dare disobey Masters anyway, right? Well, I know we kind of shirked his rules when it came to curfew and open rebellion and stuff, but that’s different. So anyway, I’m sitting there—no dial up internet, no cellphone, no car—alone in this empty room. A room that I think has to be part of some kind of safe house, by the way. When all of a sudden, these two guys come in with a bunch of boxes. They tell me it’s all my stuff. Said this was my home now. Said that my car was parked out front.”

  Right on cue, he pulled to a stop in front of a beautiful, three-story townhouse. It was nestled right between a ritzy London neighborhood and a beautiful little park. The kind with whispering trees, scattered picnic benches, and little street lamps lighting the way.

  For a second all Simon could do was stare. Then he realized that Tristan had gotten out of the car already, and he hurried to follow suit.

  “My point is, the whole thing was rather jarring, and when I found out that they were finally bringing you on board I asked Jason if I could be there to help smooth the transition. They were going to partner us up anyway, and since we were both going to be living in the same house they said yes. And speaking of...” he stepped back and gestured to the house, “what do you think?”

  What could Simon think? It was what had to be a several-million-pound house right in the heart of rich London. It was absolutely perfect. Beth was going to love it!

  He paused for a moment. Would Beth even get to see it? He hadn’t even had a chance to say good-bye to her. He shook his head and focused on the moment, absorbing the fact that he was part of the PC now. He looked around his new surroundings.

  The walls were made of that old red brick that you saw in children’s books, covered in flowering ivy that stretched up into the sky. Two wide windows looked out over the park on the bottom floor, while another larger window looked over it from the top. The one on top was complete with its own miniature balcony.

  The house number was 2142. 2-1-4-2. That was going to be their new home.

  My new home.

  Simon blinked up at it for a moment before he dropped his eyes back to the street, lost in deep thought. Then, without a hint of warning his fist flew out and struck his friend in the face.

  “OW!” Tristan staggered backwards, catching himself on the gilded railing as he clutched at his face in shock. “What the hell was that for?!”

  “You left me.”

  Simon’s voice was as quiet as Tristan’s was loud. A startling contrast, and one that made Tristan walk tentatively back with a rather startled look on his face.

  “Simon, I didn’t—”

  “We said we were going to do this together, and then you...” Simon’s voice trailed off as the weeks of depressive abandonment piled heavy upon him. “I was the only one left, Tristan. The only one left sitting at that table.”

  A vague part of him knew this wasn’t his friend’s fault. A vague part of him new he was simply finding a target on which to focus his rage. But being aware of that had never made much of a difference with Simon.

  Tristan’s eyes grew wide with shock, and he slowly lowered his hand. “Simon, I didn’t have a choice. They took my cellphone. I was here with trainers watching me day and night; it’s not like I could sneak out and tell you. Besides...” He trailed off uncertainly.

  “What?” Simon challenged. “Besides what?”

  Tristan lowered his eyes with a helpless shrug. “I figured Jason would’ve told you.”

  “He didn’t,” Simon snapped. Then his voice gentled to softer tones as he accepted the fact that he was indeed arguing with the wrong person. “He didn’t.”

  The two teenagers locked eyes, and all the fight rushed out of Simon in one fell swoop.

  What was he fighting for anyway? There was no fight. No reason left to be depressed, to feel alone. He was here now. Relocated to a pricey house in the middle of London. Partnered up with his best friend as a spy, just like they’d always planned. The same job that his girlfriend was on track to get any day herself. A girlfriend who would be far easier to keep a secret the second that she was living away from Guilder in London, too.

  Things were looking up. In fact, the only thing that that seemed to be wrong was the fact that there was a chance he had, once again, broken Tristan’s nose.

  “Sorry about that,” he grimaced, studying the steady drip of blood, “reflex.”

  Tristan shook his head, relieved they were past their inexplicable quarrel no matter the cost. “Sometimes I think you guys have a bet going. How many times you can break me.”

  “Would you be surprised if I won?”

  Tristan shot him a glowering look that brightened into an excited smile as he pulled out his keys and pushed open the door. A rush of warm air flooded out to greet them. Air scented with citrus disinfectant and the faintest trace of beer.

  “Come on, roomie,” Tristan grinned. “Let’s get you settled in.”

  FOR AS MUCH TIME AS the boys had spent living on the same floor, things turned out to be entirely different now that they were sharing a whole house. And, ironically, not really in a good way.

  Tristan had already set his things up in a room, of course. He’d been staying there for the last several weeks. And he had graciously informed Simon that while he might have taken the room with the slightly larger television set, Simon actually had the better view, right over the park. And who didn’t like parks, right?

  The rest of the move-in proceeded in a similar fashion. Who got the better bathroom? The superior shelf space. Who was going to take what chair as their ‘regular seat’ in the living room?

  The whole thing digressed to the point of lunacy, both nitpicking about little things they couldn’t have cared less about. But there were no bad intentions in any of it. Quite the contrary. It was all for the built-in excuse of spending as much time talking together as possible.

  It became instantly clear that Tristan had been just as lonely living in London as Simon had been back at Guilder. The trainers came by three times a week, he said. But they had stayed with him more in the beginning to make sure he didn’t call. More like babysitters, really. And that being said, they didn’t do much in terms of talking to him besides the basic drill sergeant speech.

  There was a miniature gym in the basement, equipped with basically everything they could possibly need. Simon was pleased to notice that they officially had to have the biggest turn-of-the-century weapons collection in all of residential London. And as a bonus treat, the back door opened onto a tiny hot tub nestled between the house and the spacious backyard.

  The place was huge. A virtual castle. And never once had there been a single mention of payment. It was assumed that until both boys graduated at the end of another two years, their living situation would be provided by the Privy Council. During that time, they were meant to be saving up their super-spy paychecks—just like any other responsible teenage boys. If at the end of that time they wished to purchase the house from the Council, the
y were free to do so.

  After just an hour of talking about it, Simon and Tristan were already seriously considering.

  “We should make dinner,” Tristan said suddenly. It was coming up on around six in the evening, and the ‘clubhouse’ feel had overtaken them entirely. “Cook something. Like, a home-cooked meal.”

  Although Simon had never cooked a day in his life, he was suddenly convinced that this was an absolutely brilliant idea. Of course they should cook dinner! To christen their new house!

  “Yeah, that’s perfect!” he exclaimed. Then, a little less sure, “What do you want to make?”

  Tristan had obviously not gotten nearly that far in his planning process. His face screwed up as he considered it, most likely racing back to the few home-cooked meals he could remember from his own parents, before coming up blank.

  “I don’t know, um...pizza?”

  The idea of pizza was seized upon with fervor, until they both realized they had absolutely no clue how to make it.

  “What about spaghetti?” Simon offered diplomatically. There were very few ways they could screw up spaghetti. It was just noodles and sauce, right?

  While Tristan looked it up online, Simon ran across the street to a pretentious little market to buy the ingredients. Much to his amusement, the same kind of people who made a habit of turning up their noses at everyone smiled brightly as he passed their way.

  This must be a young man of promise, they seemed to say, if he can afford to shop here, at our insufferable little market.

  He purchased what he needed quickly, charging it to his new company credit card, and proceeded back across the street to his house. Against some staggering personality-trait-odds, he actually found himself whistling along the way.

  Get used to it, Simon, he told himself. It’s like a whole new me.

  When he came back, Tristan was already in full swing. He had worked himself up into a frenzy—consumed with the same kind of giddiness that had caused Simon to go full-on Snow White as he whistled his way back across the street. The table was set. The water was already boiling. And two ice-cold beers were sitting out on the counter.