by Holly Martin
Quinn made a noise that sounded like a laugh. The Guardians looked at me as if I had finally lost my grip on sanity. Maybe I had.
‘Eve I think you should go home,’ said Abe.
Quinn suddenly shifted back into a dog again. The change was so quick, so smooth that I barely noticed it, it was just like watching an ice cube melting really quickly. The panther literally melted into my dog. I scrabbled up.
‘Oh and you might want to get some new clothes Quinn,’ said Matthew, holding up the remains of the black shirt Quinn had been wearing moments before.
*
As we walked back, the silver car screeched to a halt in front of us. Eli got out and opened the back door, indicating that I should get in. I didn’t argue. I knew better than that already. Quinn hopped in as well, causing Mason to moan in disgust as Quinn shook the wet from his fur.
‘I’ll deal with you two later,’ Eli growled at Abe and Matthew as he got back in and drove off.
I looked at Seth and Lucas who were in the seats behind mine. ‘Problem?’
‘Only Eli deciding how best to kill Abe and Matthew for their negligence, that mugger should never have got so close,’ explained Lucas.
‘He wasn’t a Putarian was he?’
‘No, just some idiot who picked on the wrong person to try to steal money from. At least he might think twice before he does it again.’
I looked around the car, noticing for the first time that Caleb was missing. Though from the talks with Eli that morning it seemed that not all members of my Personal Guard would be on duty all of the time. They didn’t need a lot of sleep but they obviously needed some.
Seth leaned forward to break my thoughts. ‘We have some people you need to meet.’
He seemed to be bursting with excitement. I smiled at his enthusiasm.
‘It’s about to get a whole lot weirder,’ said Lucas, a smile twitching on his lips.
At the speed Eli was travelling, it wasn’t long before we reached the wide dirt track that led up to the ruins of an old church that Seth and I used to play at as children.
The church was just four empty walls now and a tower. There was nothing inside except the weeds growing up the walls, as if the ground was actually slowly trying to swallow the church by pulling it in with its tentacles. It didn’t even have a roof.
I followed Seth up the short path. My Personal Guard surrounded me as I walked. I was confused slightly for the reason we had come here, but excited at the prospect of learning more about this strange world I now had VIP membership to. I stopped as I heard voices coming from inside the church.
‘Izri stop it, she’ll see,’ hissed a familiar voice.
‘Isn’t that the idea,’ said another voice I recognized.
Lights lit up the walls of the church, like a mini fireworks display was happening inside. I stepped closer, hesitant.
‘Yes but we’re trying not to freak her out, remember,’ said the first voice again, the lovely welsh accent I would recognise anywhere.
What looked like a ball of ice suddenly flew past the doorway.
‘Clem, don’t you start,’ my friend Persia hissed again.
I heard a giggle from inside the church, then a knife flew past the doorway too.
‘Izri!’
I smiled to myself. I wasn’t sure what was going on but I loved Persia dearly.
‘Persia,’ I called. ‘Is it safe to come in, or am I going to get a knife in the face.
Persia peered round the door, smiling shyly as she pulled her hat tighter onto her head. ‘Hey Eve.’ She had deep blue eyes and cute freckles on her nose. I loved her welsh accent, it was so soft and lilting, I could listen to it all day. Her hair was a mass of red curls, that seemed to bounce as she moved or talked. She gave me a big hug. ‘I’m sorry to hear about your parents, are you ok?’
I nodded, not sure how to convey the feelings of simultaneously finding out my parents were dead and that they weren’t my parents. Plus I wasn’t sure how much I could talk about with someone not part of this strange new world.
‘They’re still your family, even if they weren’t biologically. You have a right to grieve for them.’
I frowned with confusion. Did she know?
I walked into the church and looked round. Behind her, looking like they had just stopped doing something they shouldn’t be doing, were two willowy girls that I instantly recognised as Persia’s older sisters. Their similarity to Persia was striking.
I peered round. On a wall near the doorway a knife stuck out the middle of what looked like a snowball. I pulled the knife out the wall and the ball of ice sloshed to the ground.
Persia glared at Izri, the sister that was in the year above us at school, but Izri was unfazed as she stepped forward to take the knife off me. Clementine the eldest sister stifled a laugh.
Seth went to stand by Persia, slinging a casual arm around her, as Quinn appeared in the church in his human form pulling a jumper over his head.
‘Eve, you wanted to know about the Donum, so what better way to tell you than to introduce you to some of them. Persia and her lovely sisters are all Donum.’ Seth grinned with his big news.
‘What!?’
Lucas was right, it was about to get a lot weirder.
7. Donum
Persia came over and hugged me tightly again. ‘Don’t get freaked Eve.’ She pulled away from me looking into my eyes,. ‘Nah you’re tough, you can handle this. I thought we could have some fun actually today, after your heavy conversation with these two.’ She motioned to Quinn and Seth, with annoyance.
‘Hey!’ they both said together, affecting indignity.
‘Oh come on,’ she said to Quinn. ‘I’m not sure who I’m more upset with, we have Seth telling her all about the people that want to kill her and you changing into a panther, not bad for her first day, poor love.’ She looked back at me. ‘Bet you had some weird dreams last night.’
I nodded, was there no end to my bewilderment. ‘You’re a Donum?’
Persia’s face lit up and she nodded.
‘I don’t even know what that is.’
She grinned. ‘Quite simply the Donum are the gifted. We have powers. Some Donum have a few powers to their name, some are exceptionally strong.’
‘Persia is one of the strongest Donum in over a thousand years,’ Clementine said proudly as she moved to stand next to Persia.
Persia blushed. ‘Clementine, I hardly think that’s necessary.’
‘I do,’ replied Clementine.
I didn’t know Clementine very well, she was significantly older than Persia and Izri. I knew she had recently got engaged, I had gone to her engagement party, as Persia’s guest. But the one thing I did know about her was how fiercely proud she was of Persia.
‘Well that’s only the Oraculum’s opinion, I’m sure there are much stronger Donum out there than me, they just haven’t made themselves known to the Oraculum.’ Persia fiddled with her watch, in embarrassment.
‘You do yourself a disservice Persia, the Oraculum sought you out,’ Izri said, all traces of the laughter gone now. She looked at me to explain. ‘We don’t normally have anything to do with the Oraculum, we generally keep ourselves to ourselves, but they sought us out, well Persia mainly because she’s the strongest, they wanted her to be your friend. And although we don’t believe in their prophecies, we have our own Seers and your coming was foretold in our circles as well. We were interested to meet someone with such strength. We agreed we would stay close to you, to guide you when the time came but we wouldn’t be friends with you. The Donum are loyal and loyalty and friendship has to be earned, not bought with the promise of big houses and money.’
‘Izri,’ Persia muttered.
I looked down at my feet, my red shoes. Dorothy certainly didn’t have this trouble making friends, she just had to walk along the yellow brick road picking up friends like picking flowers. My friends and family were under orders to be my friends, to be in my life. It seems the Donum were eve
n offered money to be around me. Hadn’t anyone wanted to be my friend just because of who I was, not who I was going to be.
‘Oh don’t misunderstand me Eve, you’ve more than earned the friendship in our eyes,’ Izri continued. ‘The first day Persia came home from school, hating it. We have never been to school before, we were home schooled in Wales, the Donum think it more important to develop our powers than learn about Henry VIII. We learn everything we need from the world by touching it with our powers. The weather, the crops, the animals on our farm, could all be helped or influenced by our powers. That was all we needed. But like I said, you spiked our curiosity. We were prepared to give school a go, but thought we had made a big mistake when Persia came home on that first day, miserable. The second day was different because you were there. You looked after her, you were kind, you kicked some boy in the shins because he was mean to her.’
I had forgotten about that, Steven Baxter, horrid little boy who had it in for Persia, because she was new, because she had that lovely accent. He had said something nasty about red hair and dodgy accents and I’d kicked him. He never came near her again.
‘Persia came home that night and was full of how lovely you were, so we had to meet you. That night when you came round for tea, well, it was impossible not to like you.’
‘Exactly, you’re incredibly loveable,’ Quinn said, grinning at me.
I blushed. Maybe I did have some redeeming features after all.
‘Anyway we are here to guide you in developing your powers, and we are here because Persia is very important to us, and as you were loyal to Persia, so we are now loyal to you too,’ Izri said.
‘And as I was saying, you will not find a better or more powerful teacher than Persia. You’re in good hands.’ Clementine said, like a proud mother.
‘You have great power too,’ grinned Persia, trying to deflect some of the attention her sisters were adorning her with back on to me. ‘We just have to develop it. I’m sure we can get you to do something with them today. Let’s start with something we know you can do. Eli said you shot at him last night with a sphere of lightning, that’s very advanced. Do you think you can do it again?’
I remembered the lightning, when it shot from my hand it was such a shock. ‘I don’t even know how I did it in the first place, it just sort of happened.’
‘Ok, what were you thinking of when it happened?’
I thought back to the night before, running from Eli, desperate for that moment of freedom and how angry I had been that I was never going to get away from them.
‘I was angry.’
‘Ok, any chance you can try to get angry again.’ Persia smiled encouragingly.
‘It’s not that easy, I can’t just get angry, I have to be provoked. Ok, let me think about how I felt, let me see if I can recreate the moment.’ I closed my eyes and thought back to the moment I was standing on the river bank. I tried to picture it clearly in my head. The men were after me, there was nothing I could do to escape them, my house had been set on fire, there was so much deceit. I clenched my fists, waiting for the anger to consume me. But as I waited for the anger, I couldn’t help thinking about how stupid I had been that night, of what could have happened to me if the Putarians or the Reapers got to me. I thought how the Guardians had always only wanted the best for me, to protect me no matter what, how my personal guard had pledged their allegiance to me. I couldn’t get angry over someone who was that loyal to me, they had committed themselves to me for life. I sighed, opening my eyes ‘I can’t Persia, like I said I need to be provoked.’
‘Ok a heat source. That is probably easier to produce than the defensive energy you produced last night. Your power can produce incredible amounts of heat. Think about that heat in your hand, think about creating a small ball of fire.’
‘Won’t I get burned?’
‘Not by your own power.’
And to prove it a small ball of fire appeared in her hand for a few seconds before she let it wink out. It was a small but wonderful thing to see. Finally confirmation that I wasn’t going mad. Persia had powers too.
I nodded and closed my eyes, imagining a hot burning ball of fire in my hand. I felt myself getting hotter and I tried to focus that heat into my hand. I opened my eyes in time to see a wall of fire explode from me. The Guardians, with their super speedy reflexes hit the floor in a blur. Persia and her sisters simultaneously shielded themselves and Quinn, who was luckily the furthest away from me, had time to leap behind a stone pillar before the fire consumed the church.
Flames licked the walls, hungrily, spreading quickly, burning and destroying the bricks that had stood for hundreds of years. The Guardians scrabbled quickly to their feet
I stood in shock. What had I done?
I could feel the heat, it was intense. The smoke was making it difficult to breathe. A great rumble like thunder tore me from my reverie and I turned in time to see part of the wall cracking and falling towards me. I opened my mouth to scream, but then something hit me with the force of charging bull, knocking all the breath out of my lungs. I was thrown to the floor, trapped under the protective cage of one of my Guardians as the bricks fell on top of us, entombing us in a prison of dust and complete and utter darkness.
*
‘Are you ok?’ That was Mason. Although I couldn’t see him, I could feel his heart pounding against mine.
‘Yes. Are you?’ I asked.
‘I’m fine.’
Twelve tonne of bricks had just fallen on top of him moments after I had nearly burned him to a crisp. I guessed ‘fine’ was quite far away for Mason right now. I coughed as the dust settled.
There were shouts beyond our grave.
‘Are the others…?’
‘They’re fine too.’
Suddenly light flooded into our tomb as one of the oversized bricks was torn off as easily as if it was a pebble. Seth’s concerned face filled the gap and then he grinned when he saw me blinking back up at him.
‘Thank God. Hold tight Eve, we’ll have you out of there in just a few seconds.’ He disappeared from view.
‘I did tell him you were ok, he clearly wanted to see it for himself,’ muttered Mason.
I realised in the gloom that Mason was holding all the weight of the bricks off me with his body, leaning over me like he was about to start doing press ups.
‘Does that not hurt?’
‘It’s not the best feeling in the world.’
More bricks were removed from above us.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s fine.’
There was that word again. Had my Personal Guard realised what they were taking on when they pledged their allegiance to me?
More bricks were lifted off Mason’s back; I could see all the Guardians helping. Eventually Mason was able to sit up, shaking the rest of the large bricks from him like they were merely dust. I sat up too and looked around as Persia and her sisters were putting out the last of the fires, shooting water from their hands like hose pipes. The church was nothing more than a blackened shell now.
I stood sheepishly as Persia hurried over. ‘I’m really sorry.’
‘Don’t be, it’s not your fault.’ She brushed some dust off my coat affectionately. ‘You’ve never used your powers before, they’re bound to be hard to control when you first start using them. To be honest I never expected something so huge from someone so new to their power. I would have never asked you to do that if I’d known what you could achieve.’
Avoiding Eli’s glare, I turned back to Mason. ‘Are you sure you’re ok?’
He nodded, seemingly confused by my concern.
‘Is everyone else ok, no one got burned did they?’
They all shook their heads. But then I noticed Quinn, shaking his arm, his jumper clearly singed. I ran to his side.
‘It’s nothing, it barely hurts at all,’ Quinn laughed, though I could see he was in real pain. His left arm was covered in big blisters, his skin raw where the fire had torn throu
gh his flesh.
‘I tried to shield him but I was obviously a bit too late,’ said Izri as she looked in horror at Quinn’s wounds.
Alexandria whistled as she looked too. ‘Good God, Quinn, I think I’d be crying like a baby if I’d been that badly injured.’ I smirked at the thought of my Guardians crying. ‘I’ll give Constance a call to come and look at that. It’s your vulnerable human side; you’re not as thick skinned as the rest of us.’
‘Nah I’m fine.’ He blushed.
‘Quinn don’t be a martyr, she only lives two minutes away.’
He nodded reluctantly.
‘Constance?’ I asked.
‘She’s a Zeki, a healer.’ Alexandria explained, as she flicked her phone on and walked out the church.
I grinned guiltily at the prospect that my heavy handiness was going to introduce me to another member of this strange world, the Zeki.
I looked at the Guardians. ‘How come you guys didn’t get burned?’
‘Alexandria was right, our skin literally is a lot thicker and harder,’ said Lucas. He rolled up the sleeve on his shirt and nodded to Persia. She rolled her eyes and created a small fireball in her hand. Lucas put his arm directly above the flame and I let out an involuntary gasp as the flames licked his arm. He didn’t even flinch. I moved closer and though I could feel the heat from the flames, they didn’t seem to be making any difference to Lucas at all.
‘Does it not hurt?’
‘It tingles, but no it doesn’t hurt.’
‘Have you finished showing off now?’ asked Persia and I saw a sudden flash of warmth in Lucas’s eyes as he looked at her and nodded.
She let her flame wink out.
‘Ok, let’s try something else,’ said Persia, magnanimously moving on from the fact that I had nearly just killed everyone and that my Guardians really were immortal.
‘Something safer,’ muttered Eli, his eyes filled with anger as he glared first at me then at Persia.
Persia ignored him. ‘We could try something really easy, telekinesis, that’s one of the first things I learnt.’
