by K A Riley
“Your mistress is a usurper, and you’re an infiltrator,” Callum snapped. “You know the rules. You can’t come here and take what belongs to a Seeker. I’m seriously tempted to burn your worthless body to ash.”
My breath locked tight in my chest, I stood there, my back pressed against the wall behind Callum, my fingers grasping at the bricks as I tried to will the nightmare to end.
Had Callum, the gentle, friendly boy I’d met this morning, really just threatened to murder someone?
“No, please,” the man replied, slouching in submission. “Please?”
Callum looked over his shoulder at me before turning back to the cowering man. “If I see you in Fairhaven again,” he growled, “I’ll summon him, and you’ll die. You and your Waerg companions. Do you understand me?”
Staring at the ground, the man nodded, his hair damp with sweat.
“Callum…” I whispered, unable to fully engage my speaking voice.
He turned my way, his expression softening when he saw the look on my face.
“Who…who is he?” I asked. “What is he?”
“You already know. You’ve seen it.”
I shook my head so violently it hurt. “No, I really don’t know anything at all. I don’t understand any of this.”
“Tell me, what did you see when you looked at him with your mask on?”
“I saw an animal,” I replied, my voice trembling. “A wolf. But I…I was only imagining it.”
“Look again.” Callum picked up the white mask from where I had dropped it near one of the garbage cans. His fingers brushed against mine as he handed it to me, just as they’d done in the bookshop that morning. The tingle of his touch made me fear that this—all of it—was real. “Put it on.”
Still hypnotized with terror and confused down to my bones, I pressed the mask to my face and looked through the non-existent eyes. All of a sudden, the man was gone, and in his place was the same gray wolf I’d seen a minute ago.
Well, almost the same.
The fierceness had left his eyes. He looked mangy. His fur was matted and dirty. His irises were dark, and his belly was pressed low to the ground. What moments ago looked like a terrifying beast now seemed pathetic, weakened to the point of near-death. Baffled, I tore the mask off again, and the creature slowly morphed into the dark-haired man, now shivering against the alley wall.
Callum stepped forward to stand over him. “Niala! Crow!” he called out into the cold gloom.
Two silent figures emerged from the shadows beyond Callum: the girl I’d seen with the ferret on her shoulder, and the boy with the scar. At Callum’s feet, the defeated man pushed himself up, his head sunk low, seemingly resigned to his fate.
“Get him out of here,” Callum commanded to the two newcomers. “Have him sent back to her with a warning not to interfere again. The Trials will take place soon enough. After that, she can do what she wants.”
Both the girl and the boy nodded, and as I watched, the ferret leapt down off the girl’s shoulder and landed in a quiet crouch on the alley floor where it transformed instantly into a large black panther, its golden eyes glinting in its shadowy face.
The large black cat let out a low growl as Callum’s two friends grabbed my assailant’s arms and pulled him down the alley away from me, the panther padding after them, its muscles rippling in the dappled light.
“What’s happening?” I asked. “Why did he look like that? Why did that girl’s ferret turn into a panther?” I flipped the mask around in my hands. “What the hell is this thing?”
Callum reached out and slipped his fingers under my chin, pulling my face up toward his. “You turned seventeen today,” he said. “You’re starting to discover your gifts.”
I waved my hand down the alley in the direction of Callum’s two friends, their pet panther, and the psycho man-dog mugger had just gone. “This? This is a gift?”
“More than you know.”
“Couldn’t you just have gotten me a card?”
Callum chuckled, a boyish smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “This birthday will see you getting gifts beyond anything you thought possible.”
“And probably ones I won’t want, right?”
“Well,” he drawled, suddenly serious. “In this case, what you want isn’t as important as what you are.”
“And what am I, exactly?”
When Callum didn’t answer, I shook my head and brushed the dirt from my hands. “I feel like I’m losing my mind,” I said, shaking my head as I fought back tears. “I’ve seen the strangest things today…I really need to get back to Will…and Liv…”
“You’re not losing your mind. And you’re not alone. There are others who understand.” Callum nodded back in the direction the man and his two captors had gone. “They understand. Crow and Niala are friends of mine.”
I was shaking, my fingers cold, my legs trembling and weak. “Who are you, Callum? Really. And how, exactly, did you manage to drug me?”
Callum’s eyes danced, and he let out a rich, baritone laugh. “You’re not drugged. I promise. In fact, what’s happening to you is kind of the opposite of being drugged. Drugs obscure the truth. Today has been all about introducing you to the truth behind what everyone else calls reality.”
“Reality? Ha!” I scoffed. “This has been the most surreal experience of my life. Even you—you don’t seem real, Callum.”
“Me? I’m just a guy who’s trying to protect you.”
“That’s great,” I said, running my hand along the back of my neck and inspecting my fingertips for traces of blood. “Do you think you can protect me about five minutes earlier next time?”
Callum looked shocked for a second before he seemed to realize I was joking. Then he burst into a wide smile. “I’m not so sure you’re going to need my protection for long,” he said. “You summoned a Breach. That takes serious strength.”
I must have had a full page of confusion written on my face because he stopped and took a breath. “You didn’t get a chance to look at the book, did you?” he asked.
“Book?” I replied. Even as I said the word, my jaw dropped open. “The book you gave me this morning,” I said. “Before the incident in the park…” I wanted to kick myself. “Oh, no. I must have left it on the park bench.”
Callum let out a strange chuckle. “It’s all right. It was only your invitation into another realm.”
“I’m going to pretend I understand what that means, even though I totally don’t,” I said. “But you said I summoned a Breach…”
“You did, yes. A Breach is like a door. Only not just anyone can summon it, and very few can walk through. The calling up of a Breach…it causes a ripple effect in our reality. It’s how I knew where to find you—and it’s how I knew you were the person I’d hoped you were.”
“And who’s that, exactly?”
He reached out and tapped the dragon-shaped pendant dangling from my neck. “This key of yours? The one that’s been causing you so much trouble? It means you’ve been recruited by the Academy for the Blood-Born.”
I let out something midway between a laugh and a sob. “Excuse me?” I asked. “Recruited?”
Callum shot a look toward the street, where a few people were milling around at the entrance to the alley.
“Look,” he said, “I want to tell you everything. Really, I do. But this day—as you know—has gone terribly wrong. I was supposed to help you. To get you the book, to steer you in the direction of the Academy. Unfortunately, it would seem there are some pretty powerful people who consider you dangerous and don’t want you there.”
“Oh, sure,” I grunted. “A psychotic wolf-man attacks me in an alley, and I’m the dangerous one.”
“You might be surprised, actually.”
“I don’t think so,” I shot out. “Listen, I don’t know who you’re really looking for, but I’m pretty sure you have the wrong girl, Callum.”
He shook his head. “You’re wrong. I definitely have the
right girl.” With that, he reached out and pulled me toward him.
Oh my God, I thought. He’s…he’s going to kiss me. Well, I guess one kiss wouldn’t exactly be unpleasant. A kiss goodbye, then we’ll never see each other again.
But whatever fantasy I might have entertained about being swept off my feet by a knight in shining armor was put on hold as he turned me gently around, brushed my hair to one side, and inspected the cut on the back of my head.
“It’s nothing,” he announced with the clinical distance of a pediatrician telling a worried mother that her kid just had a minor cold. Callum pulled a small wad of white napkins from his pocket and pressed them against the cut. “Don’t worry,” he assured me. “They’re clean. Hold this here. It’ll be healed before you know it. Damn it. I should have asked Niala to look at you. She’s way better at this sort of thing than I am.”
Turning me back around, he touched my face again, his fingers slipping along my right cheek. I closed my eyes and embraced the sensation of being alive and safe, grateful I could feel something other than fear.
“Go find your brother,” Callum murmured, pulling away after a moment. “Find Liv. Enjoy the rest of the parade and your birthday. No one will be coming after you again, at least not tonight. I promise. As for the Academy, we’ll talk some more tomorrow. Come find me in the shop. There are so many things you need to know, and we don’t have much time. You need to make your decision quickly, I’m afraid. Lives depend on it.”
“No pressure though, right?” I whimpered.
Callum issued me a cryptic smile before turning to walk back toward the crowd in the distance. About halfway down the alley, he stopped and turned back to face me. “You deserve to have a taste of the life you were meant to live,” he called back. “You deserve good things, you know.”
I raised my hand and said, “Thanks?” before doubling over, my hands on my knees, as I tried to stave off a wave of nausea.
When I looked up, Callum was gone.
After checking to make sure the bleeding from my wound had stopped, I stumbled out onto High Street. I still had my mask in my hand, but I was too afraid to put it on. My breathing had calmed a little, but I still felt like I was floating somewhere between reality and an impossible dream-world where nothing was quite as it seemed. I couldn’t get the image of the wolf’s face or the huge wooden door out of my mind.
As my eyes adjusted to the streetlights flickering overhead, I looked around until I spotted Will and Liv bouncing their way through the thinning crowd toward me.
“Vega! Are you okay?” Will asked, pulling his mask off. “Where the hell have you been?”
“I…I was just catching my breath,” I replied.
“You’re as white as your mask,” Liv added. “What happened to you?”
I opened my mouth to reply but slammed it shut again. Telling them the truth would be a mistake. At best, Will would have me committed to the nearest psychiatric ward.
At worst…I didn’t even want to think about it.
“I lost track of you guys when a car pulled out in front of me,” I finally stammered. That part wasn’t a lie, after all.
“The guy nearly clipped my leg,” I said. “I jumped back and hit my head on the corner of that building back there.” I held out the wad of napkins Callum had given me, still red and wet with my blood.
“Oh my God,” Liv gasped. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I assured her. “I looked for you, but I guess I lost you in the crowd. I never realized how many tall people there are in Fairhaven.”
“Well, don’t lose us again,” Will said as he leaned over to inspect the back of my head. “You had us worried.” I could tell he suspected I was hiding something, but he didn’t press me.
“Don’t worry,” I said, relieved beyond words to have my brother and my best friend by my side. “There’s no place I’d rather be right now than with the two of you.”
Stopping along the way to buy three cups of iced tea from one of the many vendors lined up along the parade route, we managed to finish the procession without incident. I didn’t see Callum again, or the strange ferret-girl and scar-boy. I reached for the key around my neck, feeling its jagged outline through my shirt. Without understanding why, I knew the trinket was important and powerful, somehow. It had nearly gotten me killed, but it had also saved my life.
As for Callum’s talk about magic doors and mysterious academies…on the one hand, it was an insanity overload. On the other hand, stranger things had happened.
I just couldn’t think of any at the moment.
Good-byes
After walking Liv to her house, Will and I headed home and plopped down on the couch to immerse ourselves in a sci-fi movie marathon, a tradition we’d begun years earlier with our father. The goal was to stay awake as long as possible—all night, if we could manage it—until finally passing out in a pile of couch cushions and popcorn bits.
None of the films we watched was especially good, so we wound up talking through most of them. I asked Will about the engineering courses he would be taking in September at the University of California. He answered to the best of his abilities, then, cleverly changing the subject, he asked me about school, boys, and dating.
“Anyone in your life?” he asked point blank, after tip-toeing around the topic for a little.
“Sort of,” I blushed before realizing what I was saying. “I mean no. I mean, there’s no one in particular. You know me. I don’t hang out with anyone but you and Liv.”
He nodded and gave me an “I don’t believe you” glance out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t press me on it.
Right on cue, I found myself thinking about Callum again. About how he’d found me in the alley and how he’d scared off the psychotic man who’d come after me. His threats, the anger in his fierce eyes, the power behind his words. I couldn’t wait to see him again, to get some answers to the questions I’d been too afraid to ask. All of a sudden, I desperately wanted to set my eyes on him once again, if only to prove to myself he was real. I couldn’t get his face or his voice out of my head, but they felt like a dream, somehow.
After another three or four hours of bad movies and good conversation, Will and I got tired and agreed we’d both rather wake up in our beds than on the couch and loveseat. I gave him a hug goodnight and padded off to my room, where I collapsed onto my bed and fell into a restless sleep where dreams and reality wrestled all night for dominance.
The next morning, I woke up wiped out and bleary-eyed. I stumbled downstairs to where Will was sitting at the kitchen island with two steaming mugs of coffee in front of him. He slid one of the mugs toward me as I dropped down with a grunt onto the stool across from him.
“Thanks,” I grumbled, taking a tentative sip of the scalding hot drink. Normally I wasn’t a big fan of coffee, but the morning air felt oddly frigid, especially for the middle of summer. I had to admit that I appreciated anything that might warm and wake me up all at once.
“How about some breakfast to wash that down?” Will asked, watching me with an amused grin.
“I’m not hungry,” I said, my head in my hands. “Why do I feel like I’ve been hit by a car?”
“Probably because you almost were,” Will reminded me.
I sat up, remembering the white lie I’d told Will and Liv the night before. “Right. The car.”
“Sounds like you had a close call in that alley.”
“You have no idea,” I muttered into my coffee.
“Listen,” Will said, standing and stuffing some snacks from the kitchen counter into a red backpack. “I need to know you’re going to be okay here on your own.”
“I’m legally emancipated,” I reminded him. “I can look after myself. You know that.”
“That’s not what I mean. I know you can take care of yourself. You’ve been doing it practically since Mom and Dad died.”
“Then what—?”
“I just worry about you, Vega. It’s not a
big house, but you’re going to be alone in it. School is still a month away. Liv is leaving today, and I’ll be gone. Even the bratty kids you sometimes babysit across the street are away at camp.”
“And I’ll be fine,” I said, laughing. “I do best when left to my own devices. When’s your flight, anyhow?” I asked.
Will whipped out his phone, his eyes going wide when he saw the time. “Jeez. Three hours. We’d better get going.”
My heart sank. I knew his stay was really just a layover, but knowing I was losing him quite so soon was a shock.
“But you just got here!” I protested, jumping to my feet.
“I know. I’m really sorry. But hey—at least I got a chance to stop in for a day and spend some time with the most important thing in my life.”
“Aw,” I said.
“By that, of course, I mean Liv’s rubber zebra head.”
“Jerk.” I punched him, and he winced like he’d been slugged by a prize-fighter before throwing his arms around me and pulling me into a giant bear hug. Ten minutes later, after downing a piece of toast to go along with my morning coffee, I joined Will outside, where he was tossing his bags into the trunk of his 2003 Toyota Matrix.
“She’s seen better days,” he said, running his hand along the strip of rust above the driver’s-side door.
“Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of it—her—while you’re gone.”
“You should,” Will said with a sly smile. “She’s yours now.”
“Wait,” I said, my jaw dropping. “You’re giving your car to me?”
Will nodded. “There’s no way it would make it out to California, but there’s no reason you can’t boot around town in it. This car served Mom well. It served me well. And now it’s your turn. Call it a slightly-late, extremely crappy birthday present.”
“Thanks, Will,” I gushed. “I really don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t get too excited,” he said, patting the hood with his hand. “I’m already thinking what to get you when you turn eighteen, because I don’t think this old beater is going to make it to your next birthday. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that it makes it to next week.”
