The Culling (Book 2): The Hollow:

by Bell, A. C.

  "Mr. Fitch, your car is here." A woman, Wyatt’s assistant I recognized, strutted over in a finely tailored beige skirt suit and six-inch heels that made satisfying clicking sounds on the sidewalk. A ruby red cloche hat hugged her face and her sunglasses helped hide the dissatisfied look on her face, though her dark red lips made her scowl rather noticeable. I was still taller than her, I noticed when she stopped at my side. I tried not to grin, but she was so tiny. Wyatt glanced at me in amusement so I must have been grinning. Luckily, she was too busy typing something in her phone.

  “Thank you, Denise, but Adeline and I were about to, um, get coffee?” He suggested with a shrug. I flashed teeth and nodded eagerly. Maybe it would help calm my nerves. ‘Cause, you know, caffeine is calming or something.

  “Who?”

  Denise dipped her sunglasses down her nose to look at him over the rim. He pointed to me and she jumped when she found me at her side, having apparently missed me completely. I flashed another toothy smile and tried not to laugh out of sheer awkwardness. She glanced scowling from me to him and I got the impression that if she didn’t give him permission, he would go with her instead.

  “Be in at five tomorrow morning. We have a lot to sort out.” She tucked her sunglasses back on and turned on her heel to march the way she had come.

  I grimaced at Wyatt, who looked a little like a puppy who’d just been chastised. “She’s a lil’ spitfire.”

  “She’s much friendlier when I haven’t just caused a scandal.”

  We walked silently to a coffee shop I’d seen down the block. The delicious aroma of coffee beans, caramel, whipped cream, and creamer awaited us inside, where we ordered still in silence. When Wyatt accepted our cups and handed mine over, I had to break the tension.

  “Thanks,” I said with a grin. “And thanks again for what you did earlier.”

  “It was nothing.” Wyatt shrugged his wrinkled suit jacket off as we headed outside and draped it on the back of a chair at a little table by the windows. An awning above had kept the snow off. The pinking glow of the slanted afternoon light made his smile seem light and airy. “I’m glad no one was, well, more severely hurt.”

  “After how that man collapsed, I was worried you would be in more trouble than this.”

  “The forcefield took enough of the blow that it thankfully wasn’t too bad. Given the circumstances, I’ll have to pay a fine for interfering and I offered to pay his medical expenses as well.”

  I sipped my coffee to hide a smirk and quirked a brow up. “It also helps to know people.”

  His fingers tapped pensively on his cup, the corners of his mouth barely pulling up. “Yes, it does.”

  I combed my fingers anxiously through my hair. The folder in my bag felt like a lead weight. I was terrified to bring it up. Wyatt seemed to realize that I wanted to say something and tipped his head curiously.

  “About the metal,” I began tentatively. “How does it work?”

  “It’s a mutated bio-graphene layer formed by the folding and assembly of proteins. These molecules form a grid-like structure and their configuration makes them almost impenetrable.”

  “So, it’s a shield. The rest of us stays normal?”

  “Yes, otherwise we would be too heavy. Why?”

  This was the moment, then. I pulled my lips between my teeth and uneasily pulled the file from my bag and set it in front of me. I fingered the manila, worn by years of my hands running over the material as I’d tried to figure out what its contents meant.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “My father’s autopsy.”

  I’d brought the file because I didn’t think I would be able to say the words aloud. I slid it over to Wyatt and he hesitated.

  Grief distorted his normally light features. “I wish I’d gotten to meet him.”

  I couldn’t decide if I should feel guilty for being relieved to see the sadness in his blue eyes when he thumbed Dad’s name on the little tab. We really did mean something to him. He and I sat quietly until he was ready and flipped the folder open. The crow’s feet beside his eyes deepened and his brows pulled together in a knot. I watched his eyes flit back and forth, reading the coroner's report. Words I knew all too well. The bullet had entered between the second and third ribs on the right side and had somehow ricocheted around once inside my father’s rib cage.

  Wyatt’s grip on the folder tightened and he set it down stiffly.

  “Is it what I think?” I asked.

  “Yes.” I almost couldn’t hear him. “He started to turn metal but it happened too late. The bullet got trapped inside.”

  There it was. The ability to turn bulletproof had killed my father. Grief for the cruel irony took over and I covered my eyes with my hand. Wyatt squeezed my other hand and let me cry. After a while, I calmed down enough to talk.

  “So, it’s metal, right? So, shouldn’t it be harder to move?”

  Wyatt’s lips parted in surprise and he blinked a few times. “Are you saying you’ve already done it?”

  I gnawed on the inside of my cheek. I hadn’t told him about Kendra. Was this the best time to bring it up? I opted for ‘no’ given the way Kendra had referred to him as ‘it’ in that disdainful way she has. “Once. Last week. I was sparring with someone and broke through the floor when I fell. I was metal below my skin where the boards cut me and my arm stayed fully metal for over an hour. How do you control it?”

  He offered a kind smile. “It sounds like your problem is that you’re relying on adrenaline to bring it out rather than learning to bring it out yourself. Adrenaline helps, yes, but you have to practice when you’re calm, too. Try meditation. It helped me. As for being able to move, well…” He scratched at the stubble growing on his jaw as he spoke. “It still listens to your nervous system; Answers to the same impulses. It’s part of you.”

  “How old were you when it started?”

  “The strength kicked in when I was about fifty. I was in my second century before I started turning metal. My daughter was eighty when she did it for the first time. Each generation is getting stronger, it would seem.” A proud sparkle glinted in his crisp blue eyes.

  “Why did you have a falling out?”

  Wyatt’s glance flitted down to the table. “She and I received a lot of ridicule back in more close-minded times. I tried to raise her to embrace who she is, but she started to believe everyone who made it their livelihood to convince her she was an abomination. Eventually, she didn’t want anything to do with me, either. I don’t even know who your grandfather is.”

  “Oh. Well, for what it’s worth, I’m glad you found me and reached out.”

  I reached over and clasped his hand in mine. The resemblance between him and Dad was striking when he looked up at me. It brought an ache to my chest, but also a comforting warmth. His hand squeezed mine.

  “Thank you,” he said with a grin.

  Purge of the VIesci Scourge

  “Hello,” I chimed along with the little bell above the door of the Amaranthine Bookstore.

  “Good morning,” Alexandra’s voice answered distractedly. When I found her at the checkout counter, she was reading something on her computer. A short stack of books sat on the edge of the counter, waiting to be returned downstairs. She held a list of checked-out books up expectantly between her middle and index finger. I swiped it and placed a cup of coffee in her still-raised hand. Startled, she finally looked away from the monitor.

  “Oh, thank you.”

  I slipped into the office behind her to clock in. She was once again reading when I returned and I folded my arms on the counter patiently to wait.

  “Yes, Adeline?”

  “What do you know about Purgatory?” I asked tactfully.

  She blinked in surprise a few times and met my inquisitive gaze. “There are a lot of theories about Purgatory, but they’re all just theories.”

  “Because no one has been there.”

  “Correct. Why do you ask?”

  I waved a
dismissive hand. “Just something I’ve been reading about. Got curious. I’ll get to work now.”

  After my shift, I hung around in the basement to peruse her collection. I’d translated “hollow” into other languages so I could go through my list of books to see if any had it in the title, but since it had only been Worg’s description of them, that probably wasn’t what they called themselves. So, unsurprisingly, no luck there. I found the Purgatory section next. A few tomes had already been checked out. I found the book Kendra had been looking at and nestled against the bookcase with both it and my tablet in my lap. This would be a great way to work on my German.

  The title translated to “A Realm of Shadows”. The table of contents suggested the book explored the different cultural and religious interpretations of Purgatory. Translating the first chapter was painful and slow, but it basically just talked about how Purgatory was a big question mark that people could only guess at. I skipped ahead to the chapter about what the general magical population believed. It was mostly thought of as allegory now, but some still believed supernaturals originated from this other dimension, separated by a dimensional veil.

  Back in the 1500s, there had been a war with a group of humans called the “Hunters” in Germany because they believed creatures like Viesci, lamia, canisi, and cynephi could be sent back to Purgatory by killing them. The war was ignited when the Hunters had made a public execution of a human woman and a Viesci she’d had a baby with, though they hadn’t been able to find the baby. The group that would later be known as the Magisterium intervened on the attack the Hunters made in Germany, but most of the Viesci were already dead by the time help arrived. They’d been trapped in their homes and burned to death, as fire was apparently the way the Hunters believed they could be sent back. The Magisterium then sent groups to check on the Roszak clan in Poland and the Tanikov clan in Russia. The same thing had happened to them, but they didn’t find any survivors this time. It took weeks to clear the carnage.

  I cupped my hands to my mouth as my eyes welled up. When I’d first asked Slade about the Viesci, he’d just said that there are “few” left. In Xavier's journal, the Viesci clan from Russia had fled back to Germany claiming to have been attacked by Hunters. I hadn’t realized how large scale the attack had been and hadn’t found anything about it in the Viesci section of Alexandra’s library. An image of the burn scars on Kendra’s legs popped into my head. From the look of it, they had almost gotten her. Slade had even believed they had killed her until I’d told him Alexandra had seen her. And the couple who had been executed in Germany must have been Xavier and Amelia, hence Kendra’s allusion to a public death.

  “Adeline?” Alexandra’s voice startled me so badly I nearly threw the book out of my lap. I hadn’t even heard the elevator. Surprise of all surprises, Nikki was behind her in the narrow aisle. “I’ll let you talk to her,” Alexandra muttered, letting Nikki pass. I sniffled and tried to compose myself but apparently, my distress was already evident, judging by the worried expressions on their faces. Alexandra disappeared again to give us privacy.

  “Marcus sent me to find some books on magical theory.” Nikki sunk to the floor beside me. “What’s wrong?”

  I frowned down at the book. “The Hunters killed the Viesci because they thought they belonged in Purgatory. Thought they were monsters. But no one’s even been to Purgatory, they can’t even prove it’s there. The Hunters just saw something different and wanted to get rid of it. They killed Xavier and Amelia; Burned them in a pyre in the middle of town...”

  Nikki wove her arm around mine and gripped my hand. “I’m sorry.” Her company made me feel better. After a few minutes, she leaned toward the book and squinted. "There's something in the pages."

  I frowned. "What do you mean? I don't see anything."

  "I can't focus on it." She touched the page and immediately jumped back with a squeak. I caught her arm before she stumbled over.

  "What's wrong?"

  "It sparked. You didn't see it?"

  I shook my head and she frowned. With a stubborn purse of her lips and a jostle of her arms to loosen the tension, she reached for the page again. She ran her fingers from top to bottom and squinted, tilting her head in focus. Sweat began to bead on her temples as she concentrated so intently that it looked painful. Then she flattened her hand on it and drew her fingers together as if to gather something in her grip. She tugged up and we both let out squeals of surprise and covered our eyes when a flash of light burped from the book. When I looked again, words of light clung to the page.

  "What the heck does that mean?" Nikki spat.

  Whoever had left the secret notes had done so in shorthand. I flipped through the pages to see that brief notes had been left sporadically throughout.

  I peered at the shelves around us. "Do you think they scribbled in any of the others?"

  "Let's find out." Nikki started at the beginning of the Purgatory section and flipped through each book for any signs of secret messages. By the end, she'd found three more. Nikki looked around the aisle and pointed at the ‘O’ section. ‘Aha! I think I’m getting a good feel for this guy’s magic.” She narrowed in and pursed her lips together, waving a finger in front of them as she decided which one was the culprit of whatever she was feeling.

  “What’s it like?”

  “You know those sparkly spots you see when you hit your head? If I focus enough, I can see things that look like that around the books that have been written in.” Two more books hid magical scribbles in this section. Three more in the Hs, one in the Ss, and another in the Vs.

  "I think I should let Alexandra know." I dug my phone out of my bag to call and she answered after a few rings. "Someone has been leaving disguised notes in some of your books.”

  "What?" She hung up and the elevator hummed to life soon after. She marched into the aisle clutching the logbook that tracked everyone who checked out books. I held one of the books out to her and her eye sort of twitched when she read the magical letters. It definitely twitched when she looked at the stack we’d found. She flipped through her logbook.

  “David Lynn.” She stormed back to the elevator and we carried the books after her. The elevator ride was tense with her seething in front of us. Back in her office, she shut us all inside. Nikki and I piled the books on her desk while she dialed Lynn’s contact number. I could faintly hear the dial tone as she waited. Someone finally answered.

  “Is there a David Lynn at this number?” She asked. I couldn’t discern the answer, but her lips slowly pinched together until they disappeared and she thumped the phone back into its port.

  “It’s a fake number.” She swiveled to the computer on her other side and clicked on the little video in the corner, which I realized was the footage from the security camera that observed the counter in case of a robbery. Or in this case, magical vandalism. She scrolled through a long list and found the footage from the last time David Lynn had come in. Nikki and I leaned in curiously.

  Alexandra skipped to the time the book was signed our mouths fell open. Well, Nikki’s and mine did. Alexandra’s face contorted in anger at this guy’s gall. All I could tell was that he was kinda short, muscular, and had dark skin. The guy’s face was blurred in every frame.

  “Magic?” Nikki questioned.

  Alexandra nodded. “This doesn’t sit right with me. Why would someone need to go through this much trouble to scribble in my books? I’m gonna call the SAU.”

  ***

  Alexandra slammed the phone back into its cradle and pinched her lips in frustration. "It's a false name. They're going to ‘look into it.’” The air quotes she made with her fingers suggested she didn’t actually believe they would. She slumped back in her chair and massaged her temples.

  I frowned. “The only reason you wouldn’t have picked up on him giving a fake name would be if he was a dhampir. That means someone would have had to help him unless his splinter skill is just to make his face blurry on camera.” I looked at the books, bu
rning with curiosity. What was worth that kind of trouble? “Can I bring these with me? Maybe I can figure out what they have in common or make some sense of the gibberish notes. Figure out what they’re up to.”

  “Yeah, go ahead. And thank you for bringing this to my attention.”

  Nikki helped carry the books out to my car. I was balancing my stack in one arm—trying not to drop any as I stooped to unlock the door—when my phone started to ring. Nikki laughed at my exasperation. I settled for setting the books on the hood and pulled my phone out. It was Raiden.

  I tried not to grin like an idiot, but the smirk on Nikki's face told me I was failing miserably. “Hi,” I answered as I unlocked the door and opened it so Nikki could put her books down.

  “Would you be comfortable with a little climbing?”

  “What?” I said with a laugh.

  “Rock climbing. It wouldn't be much.”

  “I went to an indoor climbing wall a few times growing up. Wasn’t hard. What's this about? I thought we were going to dinner?”

  “I have a more...adventurous idea, if that's okay. It would be close to midday instead of the evening, though.”

  I bit my bottom lip. “Okay, bring it on.”

  “Great. Can I pick you up at ten?” I could hear him smiling. “Oh, and wear something warm.”

  “Alright,” I said confusedly.

  “See you Saturday.”

  “See you then.” I tapped the back of my phone pensively with my fingernail after I hung up. What on earth did he have planned?

  Nikki and I went to mom’s house next. No cars were parked out front, but inside we found Peter strewn across the living room couch like a labrador, snoring quietly. I was surprised that the door hadn’t woken him since he was such a light sleeper. His fingers on his chest were clenched around a fistful of his shirt and his brows were scrunched, muscles in his face twitching. He was having a bad dream, I realized sadly.