by Jade Alters
“Until some guys in robes started chasing you?” I ask. The Vampire lifts two perplexed eyes to me. How could you know that, they say, without need for his lips. “You said you all,” I answer. “But we’re not with them. I know this new world is terrifying, and you didn’t ask to be brought into it…but neither did we.” It’s only then that I realize every person chosen for this detail was with purpose. Not just me. I look to my companions to chime in as one Vampire after the next turns an electrified ear to listen.
“I was pulled into this Realm through a portal,” Fey Deller says, over the whimpers of the Norman she’s treating.
“I was raised to be a supernatural soldier,” Emery admits.
“Me too,” murmurs Helena.
“My brother was killed by a Vampire before I even knew what I was,” Cece tells the man at our feet. Yet there’s no malice in her voice. It’s just something that happened. Even to Darius Jecks himself, Cece seems to bear no will of hate anymore. She lowers a hand to the Vampire. I ease up on him with my foot, just a little.
“But those guys in the robes…they want to erase you. And not just you. Us. Every sense of order the supernatural world still has. They think we’re too dangerous,” I tell him.
“Aren’t we?” the Vampire mutters. But his eyes climb to my hand, alongside Cece’s.
“To them? That remains to be seen,” I tell him, “With your help, maybe. We can help you get the blood thing under control.” The Vampire’s cracking eyes shake from my hand to Cece’s.
“Come on,” Helena chimes in, “You can’t tell me that doesn’t beat roaming from one town to the next, waiting for the robed guys to catch up. You hear about San Francisco?”
“What happened in San Francisco?” the Vampire asks.
“They put your heads in bags. Like garbage,” Cece tells him. The Vampire looks to his hapless colleagues. Somehow, in taking a stance against us, it seems he inadvertently elected himself their voice. He gulps, and grabs onto Cece and me.
Word of the Adversary
Hoster,
Broken Academy, Darius’ Room
I don’t want to scare him, but this is the first chance I’ve seen since I woke to talk to him. Darius is finally alone. I float over his bed as quietly as I can. From what I’ve gathered, Vampires don’t sleep, so I’m not sure exactly what he’s doing. He lays on his back in bed, dead eyes trained on the mostly vacant bookcase at the edge of his room. I ease down from the roof like a leaf, drifting on a gentle wind.
“Darius.”
“What the fuck!?” he shoots straight up in his bed. Mission failed. I lift both hands in a shimmering show of surrender. Like that helps. At least I can materialize arms now, if I really focus. Somehow, in the dark of his room, Darius decides that I’m a safe enough presence to loosen up. It’s a signal that I’ve chosen correctly. “Oh, Hoster. You probably don’t remember this anymore, but there are a billion better ways to get someone’s attention.”
“So-sorry,” I fumble. Truth is, I’d have used one of them, if I remembered. If I could remember a damn thing.
“Everyone’s been wondering where the hell you’ve been, since you ripped open the Realms and all. So…what, you’re suddenly craving some insomniac bonding time?” Darius prompts me. Only then do I realize I’ve been hanging, a wordless blue wisp, beside his bed for about five seconds.
“No, I…I wanted to try and sort out some of my memories before I talked to anyone. But I noticed some things that might be important. And…you’re the only person I could think to tell,” I admit. Darius snorts and scratches his head.
“Yeah? Why me?”
“I… Well, you’re the only person I remember…sort of clearly. From…from when I was…” I choke. Wow. I didn’t think it would be so hard to actually say something so plain to see. I clear my non-existent throat. “Everyone else gets kind of mixed up in my head when I try to think back too far. But you’re... honest, I guess? Makes you easy to remember.” Darius chews his lip with a quizzical tilt in his brow. Then he shrugs.
“Alright, then. To be fair, you and I were never besties, but…I’m liking this new look, at least,” Darius smiles. Maybe that’s why. Things like that, when you least expect them from him. Hearing him poke at me sends a tingle of nostalgia through my misty frame. “Let’s hear it. What’d you see?”
“I don’t understand half of what I’ve seen here at the Academy. Don’t have the context, I guess,” I tell him, “But I’ve at least gathered that the Academy and Kyrie are working together…against the Lotus?” It comes out more like a question than I mean it to. Darius gives me a nod with his lower lip stuck out, like he’s impressed.
“Ghostly gold star for you,” he says,” That’s the gist of it.”
“So then it is weird that the Kyrie are still keeping so much information from the Academy,” I conclude aloud, more to myself than him. But Darius scoots toward the edge of the bed in sudden interest.
“Well, that depends. The Kyrie and Academy are only recent pals. What kind of information do you mean?” he asks me.
“I’m not…entirely sure. I’ve seen a few of their leaders talking in secret. Looking over their shoulders. It could be nothing, but…I pick up a weird energy from it. And I can’t get too close to listen. Some of them seem to be able to sense when I’m near,” I tell Darius. He nods right along.
“Yeah, the Dalshaks can probably feel when you’re haunting them,” Darius considers. “But it just so happens you’ve got a friend who doesn’t give off any spooky juju. And who has sensitive hearing.” He jabs a thumb into his chest to signify just which friend. The only one I happen to remember right now.
“Then…you’ll listen in and see what they’re up to?” I ask.
“I don’t like my girlfriend’s parents scheming behind her back. I’ll do some eavesdropping,” Darius assures me.
“Thank you,” I smile. I smiled! I don’t know if anything visible materialized from my misty blue form, but I actually felt lips for a second there. I float off on the high note for the wall. After all, Darius isn’t the only one with a mission now.
“Shit... never thought I’d be teaching someone else etiquette, but Hoster,” Darius calls me. I hesitate an inch from his wall, which I plan to phase through as an exit. I turn back to face him. “You…ah, should probably announce when you’re leaving. Especially considering your…condition.” That’s a fair point. He might have been left wondering if I’ll be back any second, with how quickly I can disappear.
“I’m leaving,” I tell him.
“Alright…to where?”
“Somewhere that might have answers about the Lotus,” I tell him. I’m halfway through the wall when he calls after me yet again. But my window of time is slipping away. I don’t have long to linger.
“What? How do you know-”
“My grandma showed me. Goodbye!” I call back to him just before I emerge from the other side of his wall.
“Weird bastard,” I barely hear him as Darius’ room vanishes behind me.
I wish I could stay and talk longer. It’s nice to talk to someone living. To connect with the other of the two worlds I straddle. But now it’s time for me to go back. To the place where I spend most of my time. The Blue Plane. My Astral body fades from the starry sky outside the Academy. Unseen, unheard, I focus to open a rift. A tiny slit in space heralds me back to the place where I first woke up. Darius will handle things here. I return to the first place I remember.
Hoster,
Silver Realm
I don’t know how I knew who to help and who to condemn when I first tore open a portal here. The last threads of my unraveling psyche I guess. How I wish I could weave them all back together. But I’ve been here several times since I dragged the others through, and still, nothing.
Grandma explained to me that these other Realms were once named after the Fiends imprisoned there. So, despite the navy blue endlessness of this void-like place, we call it the Silver Realm. The Fiends in question
twist on endlessly through the blue, like long ropes of flesh. Arms, legs and other horrifying knots of human appendages spiral in helices and form macabre bridges. They gobbled up and assimilated the Lotus members I brought here in minutes, but they don’t seem to mind when Grandma and I pass through. She says it’s because our Astral nature makes us something like their kin. That the original Astrals were created from the merging of these Fiends and humans. It all creeps me out too much to think about. After all, I just use this place for passing through, undetected.
“Hoster,” her voice echoes out through the blue. I float toward it until Grandma’s shimmering blue shape emerges.
“Gram,” I nod to her with a grin. It’s still odd calling her that, when she appears to be around my age. But she tells me, once I learn to control my form, I can make myself any age too. I can see what I would have looked like, if I ever made it to the ripe old age she did. “Darius is looking into the Kyrie,” I tell her, before I can get too lost in my thoughts.
“You can trust him?” she asks.
“I think so.”
“Good. The fact is, the Lotus was formed for an important reason. A reason the guardians of the Origas’ knowledge have forgotten,” Grandma reminds me.
“Right, right. The wrong people can do terrible things with all the stuff we’ve dug up,” I assure her that my short term memory, at least, still works.
“Let us hope this is not the case. That the Lotus are entirely wrong and everyone can be trusted. But…if you’ve seen the Kyrie tiptoeing around…we have to be certain we’re not averting our eyes from a bigger problem for a good distraction,” Grandma nods. “Still, nothing changes the fact that the Lotus is the most immediate threat.”
“So let’s get through the other end, then. To the Lotus’ Vault,” I urge her. With nothing to do but float around the Academy and keep watch over a thousand strangers, to say I’ve been looking forward to this would be an understatement.
“Yes, let’s,” Grandma agrees. She spins around and floats off through the blue. I follow close behind. Below us, silvery arms and legs drift like reeds underwater. “Now, I’m not a Schism, like you are. I can’t open portals to or from the Silver Realm. Unfortunately, that’s the only type of portal that’s not going to set off any Lotus alarms.”
“So what do we do?” I ask.
“You’re going to open the portal, and channel my memories of the place,” Grandma tells me.
“I…I don’t…”
“An Astral as powerful as you is born once every few generations, Hoster. I sensed there was something different about you when you were younger, but your parents…they didn’t want to nurture it. They were both born without any Astral abilities. I never would have guessed you were an Astral Schism. You can channel not only the energy of the world around you, but of others, living and deceased. You can do things other Astrals can only dream of,” Grandma assures me.
“How…do you know I really am one?” I ask. It would help if I could remember something, anything, about my own time alive. Maybe I could convince myself if I could remember even one impressive thing I did. So far, all I know for sure is that I managed to get myself killed, and connected to this wretched place.
“That man… Heren. The one you imprisoned here, with the others. He used an artifact on you called a Black Cross. I’ve seen it used once or twice before… It erases the Astral body. If you weren’t a Schism, you wouldn’t still be here. You would never have been able to pull yourself together,” Grandma explains. Of course, she could be making it all up, for some reason. It sounds so fantastical. So grandiose. But…here I am, I guess.
“So...how do I do it? Channel your memories?” I ask, when the pointless wonder runs me in circles.
“Here.” Grandma puts her hands into mine. She holds them between us to form a perfect bridge. “It’s on the eastern edge of California…in the heart of the desert... South of Searles Valley…in the deep of a dead thicket of trees… Do you see anything?”
“Blackness,” I sigh. I squeeze Grandma’s hands tighter. I’m not sure why. Maybe part of me thinks I can squeeze it out of her. “How do you know about this place, anyway?”
“In my Grandma’s lifetime, information was shared between communities in the know more…readily,” she tells me. “She was friendly with someone in the Lotus. They gave her a very guided tour once. They even let her bring along a guest, her five-year old granddaughter.” I crack my eyes to find a very different person on the other end of the hands I’m holding. It’s a girl half my size now, in a pretty little yellow dress. I see in her face, she still vaguely resembles the woman my age I know.
“Gram?” I blurt.
“Don’t panic,” the little girl tells me, “You’re doing it, I think. You’re channeling my memories. You’ve brought me back to the form I was when I saw the place.”
“A-al-alright,” I manage to splutter. I ease up on my Grandma’s tiny, five-year-old hands. I close my eyes. I feel the air change around us in the dark.
Hoster,
The Lotus Vault
The rift closes behind us. When I open my eyes, we’re somewhere completely different. Grandma pulls her hands away from me.
“Quick! Search the shelves!” she whispers in her oddly young voice, “We may not have set off any alarms, but I wouldn’t be surprised if their surveillance equipment could pick up a disturbance.” Grandma and I turn our backs out from one another instantly. My Astral eyes haven’t even adjusted to the area yet.
The lighting is a dim sort of yellow. I can’t spot just where it’s coming from, but it seems to bleed down from glassy veins in the tiled ceiling. One steel bookcase after another divvies up the black walls of this oddly huge room into rows and columns. I thumb through as many books as I can, sometimes with both hands.
“What should I grab?” I blurt. I’m baffled. All this time with nothing to do but prepare, and I have no idea what I’m doing. I don’t know enough about this conflict to know what to grab! Schism or not, anyone else might have been better for this job.
“Anything about supernatural history, their leadership, contingency plans. It’s all in writing somewhere here,” Grandma tells me. I almost snort at the mature words in such a chirpy little tone. I stack high the most important-sounding handful I can. Hopefully Grandma knows better than I do what the Academy could use. One book in particular that catches my eye reads Known Supernaturals, down the spine. I scoop it up.
“No, really, they extracted him today,” a voice murmurs from somewhere a few bookcases over. Grandma and I share a frantic glance, then scramble to scrounge up one last book or two.
“Is he...stable? I can’t imagine what being in that place did to him,” another voice answers the first. Footsteps pound lightly into our hearing. Lotus sentries. Grandma tugs my sleeve to signal another portal. Our escape route. I linger just a second longer. Enough to hear:
“I don’t know if stable was ever the right word to describe Heren. But he’s back, so you can be sure these raids won’t last much longer,” the first voice tells the second. Just the sound of the name freezes me solid. Heren. Lies. It has to be.
“Hoster,” Grandma hisses. The portal swallows us instantly, along with two fat stacks of stolen resources.
Hoster,
Silver Realm
Grandma and I have an important delivery to make to the Academy, and I intend to go straight there. It’s some kind of primal fear that carries me elsewhere first. Grandma tries to call after me as I drift down through interlocked knots of Silver Fiends, but I won’t be stopped. I have to know. I float down deeper into the blue, down to where the Lotus were dragged off to, when I first ripped a hole to this place.
I breathe a sigh of relief. Every robed figure is half-absorbed into a chain of flesh right where I left them. That breath catches in my throat when I see the dark void where Heren once was.
Whispers in the Dark
Darius,
The Broken Academy
Of all t
he people to send me on a mission. Well, I guess he’s not really a person anymore, but it makes it no less ridiculous. Ordered around by Hoster. Part of me wants to laugh. The other part of me is dead serious.
There are few things that animate me anymore than a threat to Emery Dalshak, and there are none more threatening to her than her backward excuses for parents. If there’s something up with the Kyrie, the stench of Horace and Deliah Dalshak is all over it. Emery’s out on a Vampire “rescue” mission for a few more hours anyway.
So begins my late-night race through the Broken Academy.
Who better to whisk around unnoticed? To spy on a potential coup? I shoot down hallways and rip through doorways. I blur past the occasional pedestrian, enjoying the temporary lack of curfew. They hardly have time to feel my wind in their hair before I’m gone. I fly over courtyard grass and skid across bulky, slick stone tile until suddenly, I hear it. Not the exact voice I was listening for, but one of interest nonetheless.
I drive my toes down hard to stop without a sound. I wheel around behind the stony pillar holding up a secluded hallway. With the absence of classes in the Academy and the instructors serving more as pop-up infantry, there shouldn’t be anyone here. Not in the common room between classrooms, and certainly not down this little offshoot path. There was hardly any activity in these corners of the Academy when the whole place was still in session. Now, it should be a hive for dust mites. Instead, I hear two people trading heated words. Even more alarming is the two people they happen to be. I lean out just far enough to poke my nose past the edge of my cover to listen.
“I am glad you’ve recovered, you know,” the voice of Stephanie, the Astral, bounces around my focused ear.
