The Culling (Book 2): The Hollow:

by Bell, A. C.

  She threw herself to the side to evade the strike, eyes wide. It was too late to catch myself and when I landed, I felt the wooden planks of the floor splinter painfully against my back. I had broken completely through. Luckily, the multiple layers of subflooring kept me from breaking through any further. Why was I so heavy all of a sudden?

  I was too busy staring at my arm—made of smooth glinting metal—in disbelief to ponder it. As I wiggled my fingers, as easily as if they were flesh, the sound of bending metal made my teeth grind. I stared up at them, completely stunned. I didn’t even hear Slade swear. Everyone was over me in a flash and both Slade and Raiden grabbed my hands to help me up. Only, I was almost too heavy. They settled for lifting me out of the hole and setting me on my back next to it. The planks complained beneath me and they slid me further away to a sturdier spot. Fear struck me.

  “What’s happening?” I asked. For how heavy I was, I didn’t feel any different when I sat up.

  “Wait, don’t move,” Slade warned. He pointed to the pit I’d made with my considerable self and to my horror, one of the jagged planks was dripping with my blood. The adrenaline had kept me from feeling it. I frantically checked myself over and started to feel pain in my lower back. Now that I could feel it, it certainly hurt but it didn’t feel deep. Raiden knelt at my side and lifted the hem of my shirt near my right hip. He inhaled sharply.

  “What?” I asked frowning. I couldn’t see around my shoulder to look at the wound.

  “The bleeding isn’t bad, but there’s metal inside. I think you’re full of metal.” That explained the weight. Slade crouched beside him to look and Raiden shook off his surprise. “Don’t try to change back yet, it would make the bleeding worse.” Raiden stood and offered a hand to help me up but I gave him a sarcastic look. He withdrew the offer awkwardly.

  “Ah, right.”

  I could almost hear him think “too heavy”. So, I helped myself up, wincing when the movement sent a pang of pain through my back. Raiden handed me my discarded hoodie so I could staunch my wound.

  “I’ll find Renenet to let her know what happened to her floor.” Slade glanced sidelong at his estranged wife as he strutted past. Only when his back was turned did she return the look. Before following Raiden to the door, I extended a hand to Kendra.

  “Good fight.”

  Her eyebrow lifted and I didn’t think she would accept the gesture. Then she shook my hand. I refrained from squeezing at all just in case this arm was indeed full of metal.

  “Better luck next time. You’ll need it,” she quipped.

  Okay, I squeezed a little. Her jaw set in an attempt to pretend she didn’t feel it. “Oh, don’t worry. I won’t hold back so much next time,” I taunted. Her cobalt eyes narrowed and her jaw clenched as if grinding her teeth together.

  Out in the hall, Raiden scowled ahead in a silence that made my heavy footfalls seem louder. I frowned. “Want to talk about what’s bothering you?”

  “That depends. Are you two done swinging those things around?”

  I glared at the innuendo. “Why are you mad?” I asked incredulously.

  “You’re being reckless again. Is it because you know I can just heal you?” He snapped. I balked and snatched his arm. His chartreuse eyes met mine in a stern glower.

  “Excuse me? I don’t recall asking you to heal me. And as for the match, I just wanted her to work out some of the resentment she has for me for being related to her dad. I’m pretty sure it worked, too, at least a little. At the very least I got her to talk about it instead of just glaring at me.”

  “And that was worth getting yourself impaled?”

  “You know I didn’t expect to turn into metal. Why are you acting like this?”

  “We just came here to talk to Lorraine before the meeting and now you’ve gotten yourself impaled by the floor. How do you find trouble so easily?”

  I waved a dismissive hand to him and marched away. “I’ll find Hemway to fix me up.”

  “Wait.” He caught my hand but I pulled it away and kept tromping down the hall. “Adeline—”

  “No, don’t worry about reckless little me. As I said, I didn’t ask for any favors,” I snapped. He made a frustrated sound and stopped following me to storm the other way.

  ***

  “You’re lucky. If the plank had gone much deeper it could have done serious damage.”

  I winced as Hemway tightened a stitch. The numbing solution had worked on the soft tissue, but the metal was fading more and more and what had been metal hadn't been numbed. It also made the bleeding worse, as Raiden had predicted. I hated getting stitches. It was an unsettling sensation, but not as weird as changing back to normal. The closest way I can describe the feeling is when you release your abs after holding them tight for a while, only this was involuntary and all over my body. My arm was taking the longest to change back. The metal had only receded halfway down my forearm. Maybe Peter would be able to give me pointers. It wasn’t the same as turning into a wolf, but maybe the process was similar.

  Hemway taped a bandage over the area once he was done sewing me up. “All finished,” he said. I sat up from my sideways position on the observation table in his office/laboratory.

  “I can help fix the floor since this was my fault.”

  Hemway shook his head sternly. “You will do no such thing. The government expects things like this with so many “unnaturals” living under one roof. Our insurance will cover it. I would, however, like you to write up what happened.”

  I nodded. “Of course.”

  Hemway lent me a sweatshirt since my sweater had been ruined and I hid my metal arm in the sleeve until I could talk to Peter. Hemway then wrote a prescription for pain meds and sent me on my merry way. I ventured to one of the reading rooms upstairs, where the meeting had been planned for. The sound of voices inside told me they were still talking and I pushed the door open. Everyone looked to me in confusion from various seats around the room. Peter’s mom and brother and Lorraine looked confused, but Nikki and Peter picked up on my mood right away.

  “You okay?” Nikki asked. She had saved a seat for me beside her on one of the couches so I strode over and sat beside her, having to sit at an angle to keep pressure off my side. From the corner of my eye, I could see Raiden with his arms crossed, tapping his index finger on his arm.

  I smiled stiffly at Nikki. “I’m fine.” My injury burned, but I ignored it. She must have caught a glimpse of my fingers beneath my sleeve because her mouth fell open. I flinched when she reached for me but let her lift my arm and tug the sleeve back. Everyone stared except Raiden, who had already seen. I didn’t meet his unreadable eyes.

  “Whoa,” Lorraine gasped leaning forward in her seat on Nikki’s other side.

  Peter was looking at my face, instead. “What’s wrong?”

  “I...can’t get it to change back. It’ll work itself out.” I tried to pull the sleeve back over it but Nikki took my hand in hers and patted my knuckles. She held it between us. I knew I shouldn’t be feeling self-conscious about it. Maybe I was embarrassed because it was a physical representation of how weird I was, out there for everyone to see. That and everyone could see that I couldn’t control it. I knew I was being stupid. Shallow, even. It only made me angrier at myself.

  Talk returned to the trial, but I wasn’t paying enough attention to hear much. Mostly, I stared at my iron fingers between Nikki’s. Was this something I would need to control separate from the strength, or was it an escalation of my ability? No one had ever mentioned a dhampir having multiple Splinter Skills, so I suspected the latter. How long would my hand stay like this? Was stressing about it making it last longer?

  Nikki’s fingers wiggled beneath mine and I realized that in my reverie, I’d tightened my grip. I let go and frowned.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered in distress. She refastened her grip on my hand so I couldn’t pull it away. Raiden had stopped talking. He was looking at me, I realized, and when I met his gaze, he looked dow
n at his own hands clasped together as he leaned on his knees.

  “Alright. Call me anytime if you have any questions. I’ll meet up with each of you throughout the next few weeks to work on your testimonies, so let me know when you can.”

  “Okay.” Peter stood with his family and offered his mom a hug. “I’ll see you both later. I’m gonna hang around for a while.”

  Nahamina hugged him tightly. “I love you,” she whispered.

  “Love you too, ma’.” After saying his goodbyes, Peter pulled something from his jacket pocket and sat on the coffee table that separated the plethora of seating options.

  “Is that a deck of cards?” I gave him a weird look.

  “Yeah,” he said with a ‘doy’ tone. “Your problem is that you’ve gotten in your head, you’re thinking too much. We call it ‘constipation’.”

  “Lovely,” Nikki said with a grimace and a shake of her head.

  Lorraine crossed her arms over her chest. “Wait, that’s backward. She already got the cat out of the bag, she just can’t get it back in. Constipation would mean she can’t get it out.”

  “Lorraine, just...okay?” Peter said with an exaggerated sag of his shoulders that asked her to go along with it.

  “Yes, Peter,” she said teasingly. I bubbled with laughter.

  A grin split Peter’s serious expression. He refocused on me. “Okay. You need to distract yourself, so we’re gonna play cards. Raiden, get your swanky butt over here.” Peter snapped his fingers and pointed to the russet fan back chair on my left.

  “Yeah, yeah, I get the point,” Raiden grumbled. He slipped out of his blazer and let it drop onto the couch and then unfastened his tie as he moved to the chair.

  “Don’t listen to him, you look great. The envy of all accountants,” I teased.

  Raiden smiled sarcastically. Peter slid back and straddled the narrow table so he had room to deal four hands and swatted Nikki’s fingers when she tried to grab hers early. She cackled. He finished dealing the last two cards and then made a show of handing her a pile. I began analyzing my own hand, but Nikki subtly leaned closer to get a look.

  “Stoooop,” I whined dramatically, turning sideways so she couldn’t see.

  “Oh, so that’s your play.” Raiden’s voice was in my ear and I realized he was looking over my other shoulder.

  I crawled behind the back cushion of my spot and used it as a barrier to hide my cards. Everyone laughed. We played for a long while and it actually worked. I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point, when I looked at my hand, it was back to normal. I laughed so much during our games that I didn’t even care that I never won as I normally would have. After an hour or so, we said goodbye to Lorraine and adjourned to the parking lot. The sun had set some time ago and away from city lights, beautiful stars glittered in the sky.

  “Can I crash at your place?” I asked giving Nikki’s arm a bump with my elbow.

  “Sure.”

  “Hold up a sec.” Raiden appeared at my side.

  Nikki smiled. “Night, Raiden.”

  “Goodnight.” He returned the smile and she stalked across the gravel to her car, pulling a confused Peter with her.

  Raiden chewed on the inside of his lip for a moment. “I’m sorry about earlier. When Slade pointed out the blood, I freaked out. I went straight back to when Justin shot you. Back to when Peter called and told me Ian had taken you and to when I found you strapped to that chair in the cabin.” He rubbed his forehead tiredly. “I’m sorry about what I said.”

  I looked at the ground. “You weren’t wrong about me being reckless lately. I just—I don’t have a lot of family left. I don’t want her to hate me and I think the only way that’s going to happen is if I find a way to earn her respect.”

  Raiden’s warm fingers grazed my cheek and landed in my hairline below my ear. I looked up into his green eyes, pale blue in the moonlight. Those butterflies were desperately trying to flutter out of my stomach now.

  “She won’t hate you; she just has to get to know you. And for the record, being unusual is beautiful. Don’t hide it.” He brought my right hand up to his lips and kissed my fingers. My heart pounded.

  I smiled softly and gave his hand a gentle squeeze. "Thank you. Goodnight, Raiden."

  “Goodnight, Adeline.” He brushed past me and I watched him saunter across the lot.

  Nikki and Peter had teasing smiles on their faces when I approached Nikki’s car. Peter straightened from leaning against it.

  “You two go ahead. I’ll ask Raiden for a lift home,” he said. I tried not to look too exasperated when he strolled past me with an irksomely mischievous glint in his eye. “Night, ladies,” he waved at us over his shoulder.

  Nikki was still smiling. “You know he wants to talk to him, right?”

  “I know.” I climbed into her car before my feet could chase Peter to drag him back.

  Draugr

  The last draugr arrived a few days later. Worg wanted us to come to the ceremony. “No one wants to die alone,” he’d said. Apparently, Worg had a cell phone, though it had taken him half an hour to remember how to call Slade. Slade, Kendra, Raiden, and I now solemnly trudged through the forest, knowing this meant Worg would also be leaving us sometime soon. Slade looked the most downtrodden. If Kendra felt the same, and I suspected she did, it didn’t show. That shield she put up was a sturdy one.

  I hugged my coat tighter around myself. It was snowing fairly heavily, but at least the thick cropping of pine trees kept us fairly dry. When the mausoleum came into view, I spotted a figure pacing around outside. Upon getting close, I realized I recognized the man and my stomach clenched. I stormed forward in disbelief and, in all honesty, anger. He looked up at my approach and his icy blue eyes widened.

  “Marcus?”

  “Adeline?” He sounded just as astonished as I. His cheeks and nose were pink from the cold so why was he standing out here in the snow? And more importantly, why was he here? His glance flitted over my shoulder and his expression darkened. “And what are you doing here?” Surprised by his hostility, I turned to Raiden. His chartreuse eyes were wide and he’d stopped in his tracks. Kendra marched past the scene into the mausoleum, neither concerned or interested since it had nothing to do with her, but Slade looked confusedly at his friend.

  “What’s wrong?” He asked.

  Raiden didn’t answer and kept his unblinking eyes glued to Marcus. “I didn’t realize they would send you.”

  “Who else would they send to perform a powerful curse?”

  My blood stopped. “You’re a sorcerer?”

  Slade nodded. “Not just a sorcerer. He’s our Paragon. How do you and Raiden know each other?” He asked the oh-so-important Paragon.

  Marcus realized this information made me angry and frowned. I scowled deeply, but wouldn't discuss Nikki until we were alone. Instead, I turned back to Raiden.

  “I’m gonna go,” he blurted.

  “What? Why?” I started to follow but he shook his head.

  “It’s okay, go ahead.”

  I hurried closer. “But what did he do?”

  He shook his head. Deep-seated guilt looked back at me and he glanced down to hide it. “He didn’t do anything. I did.” He marched away with a dismissive wave. “Just go without me.”

  I turned a withering stare on Marcus again. He looked annoyed until my glare fixed on him and he tried to simmer down.

  Slade looked confusedly between us. “You two know each other, too?”

  “Apparently not as well as I thought and I didn’t think I knew that much to begin with,” I retorted snidely. Slade took the hint in my tone and retreated inside.

  Marcus settled an ornery frown on me. “You don’t have to like me, Adeline. I don’t need your approval to be Nicole’s father.”

  I narrowed my glare. “Actually, I’ve been her best friend for thirteen years, so what I think does matter. And being a sorcerer is actually an important detail, especially to her.”

  “I
didn’t even know she knew about any of this and I couldn’t just dump it on her after one phone call. I can’t just leap from ‘How’ve you been for the last twenty years?’ to ‘Guess what? I can do magic!’”

  “Yes, she called you. I know because I encouraged her to do it after you ambushed me on the street.”

  “I just wanted your help.”

  “So, you can ask for my help, but you don’t need my approval?”

  Marcus took a deep breath and rubbed his hands down his face. “Let’s take a step back. You’re here. What are you, then? I can’t sense any magic in you.”

  “Dhampir.”

  “Ah. Of course.”

  “Don’t say it like that,” I snapped. He flinched. “I know how some of you people feel about dhampirs like me, but I’m not going to apologize for how I was born.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Whatever. You have to tell her.” I tried to storm past him but he stepped in my way.

  “Are you even sure she has magic?”

  “Yes!” I couldn’t help pulling my lip up in a snarl when I said it. I was afraid this might break Nikki’s heart, but she needed to know. “Anna used to call her a witch when she had her episodes! Nikki told me the TV would change the channel or the lights would flicker. I thought it was just Anna’s condition making her paranoid about bad circuitry, but it wasn’t was it? Anna was terrified when she found out you were a sorcerer and you knew it. Then she became terrified of her own daughter to the point that she would hit her if the episode was bad enough. You knew Nikki could end up with magic, knew what it could do to her mom, and still, you did nothing. You could have helped her—done something—before she blamed herself for her own mother hating her.”