Fell Beasts and Fair

by C. J. Brightley

  Wil bared his teeth, his chest heaving, and the boy stopped. Kept his hands up, palms out. Met Wil's eyes and held them.

  "I'll get it off," he said. "That's all."

  Wil felt the growl rising in his throat and had just enough clarity left to swallow it down. To shut his lips over his teeth. He stared hard at the other boy, assessing. His mind started to clear, with something tangible to focus on.

  He recognized the sandy blonde as Number 44. He could picture the surname on his jersey but couldn't remember what it said. Wil flicked a glance at the shower room. The water was off now, but there was still steam hovering over the tiles. He looked back in time to see Number 44's face fall, the bloom of shame in his brown eyes. He had been there the whole time.

  "It's just me," the boy said quietly. "I'm sorry."

  Wil let him take a few steps closer. Satisfied that Wil wasn't planning to kick him, Number 44 lowered himself to a crouch in front of the new kid and carefully began unwinding the tape from his wrists. It was hard at first; Number 44 was nervous, and his hands shook as he tried to free the end of the tape from the bloody, twisted mess around Wil's wrists. It came free after a few tries, and though by that time they were both trembling, Number 44 took his time, peeling the tape off with care, flattening his thumb against Wil's wrist and the back of his hand to dull the pain of it coming free of his bare skin.

  They didn't speak. Wil watched his face, and Number 44 studiously avoided his eyes until it was done. He glanced up and then quickly backed off, standing to grab his bag, his shoes.

  Wil pulled his arm out from under the bench, and sat with his hands in his lap, uncertain what to do. Then he heard Number 44 at the door hesitate, and then speak.

  "Don't quit," he said. "That's what they want you to do." Then he was gone.

  With a scream of frustration, Wil kicked the battered bench so hard at the lockers some of the locks snapped free, clattering to the floor. He threw his elbow at the locker stand behind him until he felt the metal beginning to cave, feeling his skin tighten across his shoulders and this time he let it happen.

  Wil was Gifted, and he was unlike anything the world had seen since the shifters of Dun Luna escaped into the sea and were never seen again. Tannis told him he was a miracle. The necromancer who bought him turned him into a science experiment. He had the essence of an Infernal spirit in his blood now, an exiled God, a son of one of the I'enna. Wil still wasn't entirely clear about what any of that meant, but he knew what he could do.

  His form bled into black and took the shape of a monstrous canine, sleek fur the color of octopus ink and dripping a tar-like substance that dissipated into wisps of ash and smoke when they hit the concrete around him. His paws left craters in the floor when he flexed his claws. He bristled, rolling his shoulders and feeling the familiar heat under his skin. All four of his eyes were the molten swirl of amber and liquid gold when he opened them. He felt the skin over his muzzle bunch and fold as he pulled his lips back over his long teeth, letting the growl build in his chest to a full-throated roar that shook the room around him.

  He slammed into the locker stands, riding them to the ground like living prey, pulling out sections of fragmented metal with his teeth, his claws sinking into the cement and steel.

  He put his shoulders down and ripped the other benches free of the floor, shaking his head violently, sending the pieces flying in all directions. Wil paced through the carnage as his fur began to turn from ash to embers and then to burn, his long tail cutting shadows through the flames. The wash of heat turned the metal and tile black. He found Rickey's locker and tore it to shreds, along with everything inside it. This set of lockers was bolted to the wall, and he unhinged his maw, his ancillary jaws opening horizontally from his back set of teeth, black muscle fanning like flower petals, a rolling staccato purr that sounded more like a shriek filling his chest and his throat as he crushed the locker stand between all four jaws and tore it free from the drywall.

  He could smell them. All of them. He shouldered his way into the shower room, knocking tiles free, the heat rolling off him creating curling clouds of steam as it boiled the water. He opened his jaws, ready to tear each shower fixture from the wall one by one, when the crunch of broken glass under one of his forepaws brought him up short.

  His tall pointed ears flattened slowly. He stepped back and whined at the sight of his cell phone. He touched it with his nose, pawed at it gently, his tail smoldering dimly before going out. Wil looked around, his four eyes picking up not only the carnage, the chaos, but the rage and fear that he had painted across the walls.

  He stumbled out of the shower room, his sweatpants damp from the steam, tripping over his own feet as he made his way into the gym and on to the basketball court.

  It was dark.

  Rook and Maggie were waiting for him, and he didn't have a phone, and it was dark outside, and what had he been thinking?

  He threw himself at the double doors that lead to the football field, tripped and sprawled in the gravel, cutting the heels of his hands. Wil stayed there on his hands and knees for a few precious seconds, his legs shaking, duct tape still somehow clinging to his skin in places.

  Varza was closer. He bolted.

  * * *

  Jack and Varza were staring at the locker room, unable to speak for the time being. Wil had explained it. But the words paled in comparison to the utter destruction in the room. The redhead was standing behind them, his hand fisted in the fabric of Jack's coat, murmuring apologies into the silence over and over in Romanian, in English. A Frankenstein version of both.

  Finally, Jack reached back to put a hand on Wil's head to quiet him. Tawny hazel eyes looked at him, lips parted like he was going to start apologizing again.

  "This isn't your fault, Marigold," Jack said. "You weren't the animal in this room."

  Varza looked at them both. Turned again to the room.

  "I will take care of this," he said in low tones. "The two of you go home. I'll keep you updated."

  Jack hesitated.

  Varza nodded at Wil. "He's injured. I'll deal with this."

  "Call me if you need anything," Jack told him, and he meant it. "Thank you, prieten vechi."

  Varza smiled softly, reached up and slid his glasses off his aristocratic nose. He folded them up and tucked them into the pocket of his vest.

  "Cu plăcere."

  Jack and Wil started to turn, Wil's pale, bruised fist still holding on to Jack's coat, when Varza stopped them momentarily.

  "Wil, take this for now. Until I can replace your old one."

  Wil caught the burner phone with one hand, seemed to struggle with the idea of letting go of Jack, and wanting to go to Varza. The blonde vampire waved him off, affectionately.

  "I know," he said. "I know. Go home now. Get some rest."

  Wil let Jack walk him back to the car, punching in the only five numbers he kept memorized for emergencies (plus Maggie), and set the speed dials with one hand. It was very quiet. The crunch of gravel under their boots sounded like machine gun fire. They said nothing on the ride home; Wil only letting go of Jack’s coat once they were both inside the car. When they were back inside the apartment, the stairs creaking and the hardwood cold under their bare feet, neither of them were ready to speak again. They went wordlessly into the bathroom, and Wil sat down on the tub so that Jack could clean his arms off and the abrasions on his collar bone and the ones across his back and shoulders. Jack stepped out once he was satisfied that Wil’s injuries were all bandaged properly, and found himself suddenly lost without something to do.

  He stared at the kitchen, the little balcony off the living room with the folding table. Wil emerged in the doorway, face clean and hair tied back, hovering near to his shoulder, but Jack didn’t mind.

  “Hey kiddo,” Jack said, careful to keep his voice pitched low. “Let’s sit outside for a while.”

  He could feel Wil visibly relax behind him. It was getting colder at night now, early October and the
re was the threat of rain in the air, so they both bundled back into their coats before going out onto the balcony. Jack set his phone to a Romanian Top 40s radio channel coming out of Constanta, and set it in the speaker before sitting down at the table. There was a puzzle laying half-finished on the cracked, weatherproofed surface, but neither of them moved to start working on it. Wil drew his knees up to his chest and they listened for a while as the radio droned on, alternatively playing eighties rock, current Romanian pop hits, and for some inexplicable reason, a song by Atomic Kitten.

  “Marigold?”

  Wil turned to look at him.

  “I wanted you to know that I’m really proud of you,” he said, the words sneaking up on him in the dark. Wil shrugged, turning back to watch the fairy lights hanging in the yard.

  “I didn’t do anything,” he said. “I changed at school, I ruined the locker room. I got angry.”

  “Hey, listen to me. Someone assaulted you today, and no one expects you to do nothing when you’re threatened. You could have hurt those boys. You may have even wanted to, but you didn’t. You didn’t change in front of anyone. No one saw you and you didn’t hurt anyone. I don’t care about the locker room, and neither should you.”

  Wil ran his finger down his nose, a tell that he was trying hard not to cry. Jack pretended not to notice. When Wil spoke, his words were thick and he couldn’t look Jack in the eye.

  “I just get… so angry,” he said, and to Jack it sounded like grieving. “I’m angry all the time, and I don’t know what to do with it all.”

  “It’s okay to be angry, no one’s telling you there’s anything wrong with that. Unless… someone has told you that it isn’t okay for you to be angry,” Jack said taking a risk. “Then I’d like to know who, and an estimate of their current coordinates.”

  Wil snorted, a wet laugh escaping him and catching in his eyes, holding there for a heartbeat or three. Jack leaned forward in his chair, his own smile relaxing as he continued.

  “It’s okay to be angry. It’s what you do about your anger, about any of your emotions, that defines you. The things that were broken today, Wil? Were just things. They can be replaced. You didn’t hurt anyone, that’s the important part.”

  “Am vrut să.” I wanted to.

  Jack did not say, I’m a little sorry you didn’t, but it was a near thing. He considered Wil, who was stealing glances out of the corner of his eyes at Jack, waiting.

  “Are you worried that the next time you want to, you’ll do something about it?”

  Wil didn’t answer right away. His shoulders were stiff—the question had caught him off guard. This was the hardest thing for Wil, to admit when he was worried about something. Jack could see it in his eyes every time they had occasion to address it, which was not often. Not often enough. Wil admitted to him recently after a brief, frustrated argument about communication, that if he gave his fears a voice then somewhere, someone would remember them; locked away in the recollection of the person he’d confided in, and they would never die. Jack could understand that, at least. So he gave Wil time to answer the question while he leaned back in his chair. It took Wil longer than usual to respond, and he picked his words carefully when he did.

  “I’m not worried about hurting anyone. I just don’t want to be so angry anymore. I don’t want to break things, or yell. Dar…” he trailed off. Struggled for a second longer. “Sometimes I’m angry and I don’t even know why. People talking makes me angry, the sound of chewing food, that guy who is always having a conversation with his neighbor in the middle of the street for no reason?” Wil finally looked at him, to confirm Jack knew what he was talking about.

  “And then he pretends like he doesn’t see you when you’re driving down the road?”

  “Yes!” Wil said, throwing up his hands. “Why would he do that?”

  Jack was trying very hard not to laugh, because Wil was being serious, but he couldn’t quite hold it in, and then Wil was laughing too and Jack couldn’t remember the two of them ever laughing so much together. His vision blurred, the fairy lights making the edges soft, because Wil was laughing, it had been such a terrible day, which was the biggest understatement since NASA described the Challenger explosion as a “malfunction”, but Wil was laughing and it was the best sound Jack had ever heard.

  It took them a while to settle down. They didn’t stop until the neighbor who shared their driveway came out into the backyard to tell them to keep it down. Jack apologized through some residual laughter, which their neighbor did not appreciate. Wil had to hold his breath to keep from laughing any more.

  When they had finally quieted, Jack tapped the table with his knuckle to get Wil’s attention one last time.

  “I know what it’s like, to be angry all the time. I can’t promise you that it won’t happen again, but maybe we can make it more manageable. Okay?”

  Wil was looking up at him, cheek resting in the crook of his folded arms, his hands bunched in the cuffs of his sweatshirt, hood drawn up over his ears. He nodded.

  It was getting late and even Jack was starting to feel the cold. He was about to suggest they go inside, when Wil spoke up.

  “Rook?”

  “What’s up?”

  “Are you hungry?”

  Jack stood up from his chair his chest swelling a little, proud of the kid, and nodded to the balcony doors. Wil stood gingerly, following him into the house.

  “I could eat,” Jack said, shutting the doors behind them. “You?”

  “Yeah,” Wil said. “I could eat.”

  About the Author

  Amanda Nargi is a graduate of the Creative Writing program at the State University of New York at Oswego. Her short fiction has appeared in the Great Lake Review. In 2010 her flash fiction was recorded for release on NPR. Amanda is a member of Publishers Marketplace. She currently lives in Rochester, NY.

  Inheritance of Nightmares

  Beth Powers

  The dragons dropped me off just before the foothills to the mountains. Much as they wanted to be rid of me, they said they daren’t go closer to the territory of the darric fieron. I did not turn to watch them fly away or wish them well. Nor did they return to their human forms to offer me words of parting. But I understood. They had given me—a lone woman running for her life—sanctuary, and I had brought destruction to their peaceful community. We did not part ways as friends.

  With my feet firmly planted on the ground once more, I took a deep breath—pine and wildflower—and sighed. This place smelled of home, and the air was crisp, rather than heavy with moisture and salt like that which rolled off the south sea. I had been away for many years, but my feet would never forget the path they had run in the other direction, fleeing the nightmare beast that had become my permanent shadow.

  I had no doubt that it was chasing me still.

  Before I’d walked more than a few hours, the wind shifted, and I knew it would snow before the day was out. My mother was a powerful windshaper, and I had only inherited a small amount of her skill—I knew when the weather would change, and I could make minor alterations to the courses of winds that swirled near me. Since I was almost always on the road, predicting the weather had been useful on more than one occasion.

  But I could not change its mood. For that, I was glad that the dragons had insisted on giving me a heavy fur-lined cloak for the chilly journey through the air. I had shed my own when I fled to the south—no, I would not think on that brief, happy time.

  The first flakes didn’t begin to fall until I was well into the scraggly pines that clung to the hills. It took me longer than it should have to realize that the raised hairs on the back of my neck weren’t just paranoia at being back in these hills. Someone—or something—was watching me. I suspected I knew what it was, but I hadn’t thought the beastie would be able to outfly a dragon. Besides, I didn’t smell anything out of the ordinary—maybe a hint of copper but the scent wasn’t right for the monster that haunted my nightmares.

  Even without
heightened senses, I would have likely noticed the boy before long. He was doing a poor job of trailing me. Pivoting, I plucked him from his hiding place and pressed him against the nearest pine with my hand on his throat. Closer now, I could smell wood shavings and grain interlaced with the fear. He smelled like valleyfolk. “Why are you following me?” I demanded.

  Before he could answer, I realized that he wasn’t the only one I smelled. There were at least four others, and the scent of copper had grown stronger. Magic. In addition to the minor windshaping abilities, I had a bit of leeching magic, which, in theory, allowed me to steal power from others, but it also meant I could smell magic. It had saved my life more than once because I usually smelled the beast before it arrived.

  Shifting, I let the hood of my cloak fall, but kept my face profiled to the boy and the others who still believed themselves to be concealed. I tightened my grip on the boy’s throat, so he would know not to move and addressed the rest, growling darkly, “Move against me and he dies.” I had no intention of strangling a child, but I’d lied enough that I knew they wouldn’t hear it in my voice.

  The skritch of a drawn blade interrupted the silence. Before its owner could use it, a woman stepped out from the tree line. She wore leather armor and carried a sword, but hers was not drawn. The scar that split her forehead from hairline to eye made her seem older than she probably was, but her voice held the confidence of command as she ordered the others, “Hold.”

  “But she’s—” a whiny voice protested from somewhere behind and to my right.

  “I said hold,” snapped the woman before turning. She held her palms away from her sides. “The boy is inept, but we mean you no harm, traveler. Your path simply crossed our patrol.”

  After giving her another assessing look, I shifted my grip from the boy’s throat to his leather jerkin and shoved him in her direction. She seemed sincere, but then, so had I. I’d just as soon part ways with them quickly.