Plague of Death

by D. L. Armillei

  Wiglaf stirred from his nap. He raised his tiny head and blinked at Van.

  This spurred Van into releasing her pose. She bent at the waist, placed her palms on the ground, and moved into the downward facing dog. Then seamlessly moved into the most challenging position—the plank.

  Her muscles ached from the beating her body took earlier during her surfing wipeout and intensified from the strain of the pose. Again, she breathed through the pain.

  She held the plank for an unnecessarily long time to challenge her mind and body. Pain made her weak. She wanted to be strong. Stronger.

  Van flowed into the upward facing dog, transitioned again into the downward facing dog, and then ended her routine in the mountain pose.

  In class, her teachers had concluded all yoga sessions with savanna—the corpse pose—for at least twenty minutes.

  Van laid face-up on the grass and attempted to relax into the sleep-like position.

  She fidgeted. Held herself still. Then squirmed again.

  She leaped to her feet.

  “I’ve no patience for this,” Van said to Wiglaf.

  The bunfy hopped onto his four paws ready to trot back to the house.

  When Van and Wiglaf returned to the manor, Genie hovered at the large butcher’s block table in the kitchen, busy fussing with breakfast. Her stepmother turned her delicate blue eyes in Van’s direction, her long, silky, white-blond hair sparkled as they caught beams from the morning sun.

  “Oh! Van,” Genie said, cutting a stalk of celery.

  “You sound surprised.” Van pulled out a chair and sat at the kitchen table.

  Wiglaf hopped onto her lap and then climbed onto the table. He peered intently, fascinated with Genie’s project.

  Her stepmother dropped one celery stalk into each of two tall, icy glasses filled with tomato colored liquid that sat on the table.

  “Nonsense.” Genie’s pink, pouty lips curved into a smile. “I thought you already went to training.” She fussed with the celery stalks making them just-so.

  “You want me to go to training?” Van’s curiosity peaked. What was her dingbat stepmother up to now?

  Van reached for one of the glasses.

  Genie slapped her hand. “Not for you!”

  Van winced. It was the hand she had scraped against the rocks earlier.

  “This is my special morning drink. Not for children.”

  Genie noticed Van cradling her injured hand.

  “What happened?”

  “Who’s the other drink for?” Van asked, trying to avoid getting into her personal life with her stepmother.

  “Purely medicinal!” boomed a male voice. The man chuckled as he barreled through the archway into the kitchen.

  “Oh, uh—” Genie said, obviously flustered.

  “Who’re you?” Van bounded from her chair, alert and ready to protect her stepmother and their home from this intruder.

  The loud man must have scared Wiglaf or annoyed him. In a flash, her bunfy disappeared back to his mysterious animal realm.

  “Call me Uncle Rummie,” thundered the jovial man. He extended his meaty hand to Van.

  Van didn’t take it. Instead, she stared at her stepmother dumbfounded. “You have a boyfriend?”

  “Secret’s out.” Uncle Rummie guffawed causing his protruding belly to bounce in and out.

  Genie giggled.

  Van’s jaw slackened. She had never seen Genie giggle. Her stepmother’s rules of etiquette stated that giggling was “unladylike and simply not done.” A rule Genie had drilled into Van’s head since birth had now been flushed down the toilet.

  Genie placed a gentle hand on Rummie’s shoulder and gazed at him with doe eyes.

  Van squinted, getting a closer look at Genie. Her stomach turned sour. Her stepmother emanated the glow of a woman in love.

  Van slid back into her chair at the kitchen table.

  “Honey,” Genie said to Van. “I wanted to introduce you, but we were trying to keep our relationship—”

  “Love affair,” Rummie winked at Genie.

  “—private. Now that you’ve met, I’m glad.” Genie paused and tentatively asked, “Are you glad, Van?”

  Van floundered, opening and closing her mouth like a fish out of water. She had no idea where to begin.

  “You might think it’s too soon after,” Rummie paused to form the right words, “the departure of your dear, sweet father, that our relationship looks bad for the family. But—”

  “—The vicious gossips on the island certainly will—” Genie added.

  “—I can assure you, I’m taking the utmost best care of your mother.” He grinned at Genie in a way that reminded Van of a hungry, stray dog eyeing a juicy steak.

  “Stepmother,” Van said.

  “We know this is upsetting for you,” Genie said. “I mean, you—with no boyfriend—and here I am moving forward with my life.”

  Genie kept her hand on Rummie’s shoulder, smiling at him in a way that made Van feel like an unwanted third person in the room. The loosely tied belt around Genie’s waist barely held her lacy bathrobe closed, as if the forces of nature thought it blasphemous to hide her staggeringly perfect figure.

  “Don’t tell me how I feel.” Van’s shoulder twitched in annoyance.

  “See—she’s upset. I told you so,” Genie said to Rummie as she stared at Van, frustrated. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you,” she said to Van. “Now you’re going to go around spouting off your mouth to all your little friends about what a floozy your stepmother is.” Genie’s cheeks flushed pink.

  Even furious and spitting out insulting words, Genie remained exquisitely beautiful, which further irritated Van. Bubbling anger rose inside her. She used her willpower to push the feeling back down. Genie’s life had nothing to do with her, or her training to fight demons, or her duty to protect her people. Genie meant nothing. Her stupid boyfriend meant nothing.

  “I don’t care.” Van shrugged. “Good for you.”

  The look on Genie’s face was precious. Relief mixed with disbelief.

  “By jingo, that’s wonderful!” Rummie reached over and clapped Van on the shoulder practically knocking her face into the surface of the butcher’s block table. “Could you do us a favor? Keep our little tryst a secret?”

  “Especially from your nosy teacher, Uxa,” Genie added.

  When Van didn’t respond, Rummie grew serious and asked, “Can we count on you, girl?”

  Van shrugged again. “I couldn't care less about you two and your love life. Do what you want. I won’t tell anyone. Warriors don’t have time for island gossip.”

  Van watched Genie caress Rummie’s back as if it were impossible for her not to touch him and felt pity for her stepmother. Genie obviously believed she was less of a woman without a man in her life, which revealed her stepmother’s only noticeable flaw—desperation. In Van’s opinion that made her pathetic. Genie wanted someone to love—anyone to love—solely for the sake of being loved in return.

  “Beautiful,” Genie cooed with a smile showing perfect white teeth. She detached herself from Rummie and twirled to reach the refrigerator. “Let me get you some fresh fruit.”

  “I want grains. Warrior food. Potatoes, oatmeal—”

  “With the weight you’ve gained lately?” Genie’s eyes roamed up and down Van. “You’re overeating has become a problem. So I think not.”

  “Since when do you care what I eat?” Van could no longer temper her irritation. “Stop trying to put on a show for your boyfriend.”

  “Girls, girls—” Rummie interjected.

  “Shut up!” Van screeched.

  “Van.” Genie turned to face her stepdaughter. The swift movement opened her loosely tied bathrobe. “Apologize this instant!”

  Van glimpsed a tattoo on Genie’s lower abdomen, below her belly button, of a red snake entwined with a gold snake. The larger, red snake rose upward, giving the overall impression that the tattoo was of one more massive serpent.

>   Stunned, Van stammered, “I apologize.” She had no idea what else to say. A tattoo contrasted with the prim, proper stepmother Van knew and the discovery completely threw her off balance. Who is this woman?

  Van pointed. “Is-is that new?” Did Genie get the tattoo to please her new boyfriend?

  “Of course not.” Genie hastily pulled her robe closed. “You’ll like Uncle Rummie if you give him a chance,” she said, changing the subject. “I’d like the two of you to get along. It’d mean a lot to me.”

  “Me too,” Rummie said. “All that stuff about your weight is pure hooey. Come on. Let’s eat.” He tried to whisper that last part in a conspiratorial tone, an impossible feat for the boisterous, obese man. He gave Van a sloppy wink.

  “How’d you get your nickname?” Van asked, warming up to the cheery man.

  “Because he likes to drink rum,” Genie answered, smiling. She placed a bowl of oatmeal on the table.

  “I thought it was because I like to play Gin Rummie,” he said.

  Genie giggled. “Oh, you’re such a card.” She poured hot water on the oats and then dropped in some cut fruit. She pushed the bowl toward Van.

  Puke rose in the back of her throat at their banter. If Van weren’t so hungry, she would’ve left. These two seemed perfect for each other.

  “A real joker.” Rummie chuckled, continuing the joke. He grabbed Genie by the waist and pulled her in for a hug, exposing the gaudy gold chain of a necklace that looked like something a woman would wear.

  Genie gleefully hugged him back, still giggling.

  Rummie’s necklace reminded Van of the necklace her father handed to Genie the night he died, with instructions to pass it on to Van. But Genie never gave the necklace to Van. When Van had asked about it, Genie claimed she hid it in the hollow of a tree for safe keeping when the Grigori stormed the manor last summer searching for clues about her missing father, who at the time was wanted for treason. When Genie returned to the tree to retrieve it, the necklace had disappeared. No one knew its whereabouts.

  Van made it her personal mission to find that necklace. Not only because it belonged to her birth mother, but her father had risked everything to deliver that necklace to Genie. Van scolded herself for not being able to locate it. She had traveled to the Living World, suffered a grueling journey to find and retrieve the Coin of Creation, yet she couldn’t find a simple necklace lost somewhere on Providence Island?

  “Now, now.” Rummie uncurled his arms. “We’re making the girl uncomfortable.”

  “What plans do you have for the summer?” Genie asked. “Are Uxa and the Elders assigning you to another summer project?”

  Genie used the word “project” and not “mission” leading Van to believe that Rummie hadn’t been told that Van carried the magical warrior bloodline of the Anchoress. Van had never seen Rummie around the island which meant Genie picked him up somewhere in Salus Valde, in the Living World, probably during one of her shopping trips.

  Rummie had come to Providence Island through the transportation building on the reservation, the off-limits side of the island to all except Grigori, Elders, and a select few, like Genie, and the children in the special classes, like Van. Yet, he apparently didn’t have a high enough clearance to be told about Van’s true identity or her importance to the Lodian people. Rummie probably thought Van was another teenage “Grigori groupie.” Van liked that he hadn’t disparaged her interest in warrior training.

  “Summer projects are great,” Rummie said. “Builds character.”

  “Embrace your destiny,” Genie said with a wink.

  Van scooped the last of her fruit-topped oatmeal into her mouth. “I’m late for training.” She scraped back the chair.

  “Training on a Saturday?” Rummie asked. “Good for you.”

  Van lied. Training was in an hour, but she got sick of being around the two of them. She arrived at the park early, and with nothing else to do but wait for the others, Van decided to finish her earlier yoga routine.

  She laid down on the thick grass and entered into the corpse pose.

  Chapter 4

  Van rested on her back, eyes closed, palms up, heels shoulder length apart. She fidgeted, unable to get comfortable.

  I’m sick of training. The thought pinged inside Van’s head. It’s time for me to go into the field. To kill demons side by side with the adults. Be a real Grigori. Not a Junior Grigori in training forever.

  Van couldn’t be happier that final exams at Canterbury Bells Charter School had ended that week. The grueling series of tests included standard academic testing done inside the classroom, and then the kids in high school were also required to compete in sporting events called the Jaychund Games. All the exams were designed to test the student’s wits, physical skills, and ability for teamwork.

  After the final exams concluded, the Elders assigned the undergraduates to a career track, and the seniors were awarded their permanent career placements. The seniors had to accept the career chosen for them by the Elders. Otherwise, they would be excommunicated from the island. “Elder’s rules or take a cruise” was a common saying to those who were unhappy with their placements.

  Pfft. Van’s poor sap classmates didn’t know the half of it.

  Last summer, Van learned the Jaychund Games were actually secret Grigori tryouts designed by Uxa and the Elders. They observed the students to see if any developed ichor in their blood—making them vichors, or people who belonged in the Living World—all while training the children like Van, who they knew from birth had ichor, to become Grigori.

  None of her peers, except Paley and Brux, knew the reservation was off limits to the island’s townies because it housed the portal to the Living World. Few people on the townie side of the island, including her classmates, were aware the other world existed.

  This was neither here nor there. Van had come into her Anchoress powers so she could protect the townies and all the other oblivious terrigens from the demons running wild in their world. Controlling the demon population in the Earth World would prevent the evil creatures from accumulating enough power to reach the Living World.

  Last year, Van had no desire to leave Providence Island, but Uxa had coerced her into going through the portal to the Living World. Uxa used Van’s missing father and words like “family duty” to pressure Van into accepting what Uxa called a “summer project,” allowing Van the chance to earn a placement as a junior Grigori.

  The mission proved successful. Van found out why her father had disappeared and much more. Then, she discovered that she was the only person in both worlds who could stop the Balish from invading Salus Valde by retrieving the Coin of Creation, the ancient relic that proved she, the Anchoress, existed.

  Now, she couldn’t wait to get to the Living Word during the Alignment. She wanted to check on the Moors, the ruling monarchy, to make sure none of them were consorting with demons like Princess Solana had done. Van had a particular interest in meeting the newest heir, Solana’s younger brother, Prince Ferox, to make sure he didn’t carry the same dark thread as his sister. Additionally, Van wanted to get an in-person update from the team Uxa had sent to find Brux’s sister, Daisy.

  But Van also wanted to stay in the Earth World. She wanted to start training with the adult Grigori on the mainland, also known as being “in the field.”

  Van’s desire to do both pulled her in two directions.

  Her restlessness made her unable to concentrate so she couldn’t call on Jacynthia for guidance. But, her spirit guide had given Van advice in the past about dealing with boredom. What had Jacynthia told her? Van wracked her brain. Oh yeah—

  “The time comes in life when everything becomes boring, even beautiful sunsets. Excess of all things can become boring in the end if we don’t understand that the essence of our enjoyment of them comes from inside. The senses may tire, but the soul never does.”

  Paley was right, why couldn’t Jacynthia tell her what to do? Why be so obtuse? How could enjoyment come fro
m the inside?

  Van relaxed deeper into the corpse pose.

  Her stomach gurgled; hunger invaded her musings, although she had already eaten breakfast.

  She got great enjoyment from food. That was true. She envisioned eating a mound of cheese doodles and licking the orange, flaky coating off each of her fingers.

  Hey Jacynthia, Van said in her mind. I could get enjoyment from the inside by eating those, right?

  “If you continue to indulge in a bad habit, no matter how small, eventually you will fall into an abysmal pit,” Jacynthia warned.

  Van’s mysterious spirit guide had returned. She had called out to Jacynthia in jest, and the woman had appeared in her mind’s eye. This made Van aware of two things: she must be nearly asleep, and Jacynthia’s visits into Van’s consciousness were increasing in frequency.

  Nice to see you too. Van used non-verbal words only heard by Jacynthia.

  Jacynthia continued, “Leave behind your incorrectness now and follow your heart, it knows what is correct. If you persist in improper behavior, you will become hopelessly entangled in troubles. Act with sincerity and the Creator will deliver you from danger. By opening your heart, you can save yourself and return to the light.”

  Before Van could respond, she heard a twig snap. Her eyes shot open, disconnecting her from Jacynthia.

  Someone crept nearby, attempting to sneak up on her.

  Van cautiously raised herself from the ground as silently as possible. Her eye caught the flicker of a shadow dashing behind the statue of Zurial, one of the four honored warriors from the Dark War.

  To Van’s understanding, the shadow couldn’t be a demon. Demon’s vibrations were too low for them to reach Providence Island from the mainland. The island was a Grigori outpost in the Earth World, yet it was considered part of the Living World’s Salus Valde. The number of vichors here made the island’s vibration too high to sustain the existence of demons.