Prince in the Tower

by Stephan Morse

  Others made poor feints in my direction. They understood nothing. I’d been reliving years of practice in the last month. All the lessons from Tal were fresh in my mind. I’d been doing exactly as trained, by focusing on one person at a time, pushing back attackers until my newest target went down.

  Spike was stupid enough to become the latest target. I punched him and his body crumpled with a groan. He attempted to curl and I shouldered past another inmate to keep Spike in the fight.

  I lifted my prey, Spike, by the neck, a snarl across my face. Leo was in the distance struggling to get through. I could see Nathan Simms standing up top, one hand clutching his side, likely still tender from yet another beating.

  His weakness pissed me off further. He needed to understand there was a very clear way to deal with those who threatened you.

  I believed whole heartedly in permanent forms of conflict resolution. I was not a man who could talk things out. I stared at Nathan for a moment before clenching my hand around Spike’s flailing form.

  His neck snapped and his hands, which had been digging at my arm moments before, flopped lifelessly.

  Death caused the others to pull back. Guards swarmed. Leo stopped abruptly, holding on the outer edge of my audience. I shrugged and dropped the limp body of Spike. My hands raised behind my head.

  “Strike two for inmate one, three, seven, four, four. Any further resistance from any party will extend the punishment.” Warden Bennett’s voice came from loudspeakers, but my senses knew where the man stood.

  He was in a room with long wires streaming in from other parts of the prison. A tenseness to his pose was hard to pick out from the siren’s drone. I felt enough to know he was frowning.

  I smiled.

  I had a solution to a few of my problems.

  In here, Atlas Island, I would simply eliminate a recurring headache like Spike. Leo’s strange view on the world wouldn’t stop me. Violence might not be the best answer, but I didn’t know how to be wise.

  I only knew how to battle. It was all I’d been trained to do from a young age. Focus on a problem. Fight it. Survive.

  10

  Too quiet

  They threw me back into the same solitary cell. Warden Bennett read me a series of results from my ‘little stunt.’ He didn’t seem phased by me killing Spike and acted as if it’d been expected.

  Of course in his mind, perhaps murder had been inevitable. Problems tended to resolve themselves. He’d classified me as a murdering brute from day one.

  I snarled and opened my stupid mouth again, “Don’t you have anything better to do than bother me?”

  There was a pause and Warden Bennett managed to go still. Too late I forgot he was a full-fledged vampire, in the room with me, and my brain felt foggy. Fighting humans had been one thing, throwing people and pulling on my strength another.

  Plus, during the fight, I’d pulled on my own powers to toss people. What kind of alarm bells did that set off to the Western Sector employees? Were Hunters in here?

  Warden Bennett, after his momentary lapse in movement, responded simply. “I’ve stepped up my end, and will continue to do so until the situation passes. Your actions have helped, which I assume was the point to the little drama.”

  I’m not sure if my surprise was concealed or not. After a moment I gave the Warden my best flat stare. “What do you think?” I asked.

  “I think you’re doing your job excellently. I do not envy those who go...” He almost looked sheepish. “Well, I shall say this, if you ever find yourself in a different line of work, do look me up. I’ve need of individuals who can rile a crowd. Talents against the grain are always in demand.”

  I chewed on a lip and wondered which way this conversation was going. Warden Bennett believed I was undercover somehow. Go team secret password sojourn. Using it had been a form of cheating, but it wasn’t exactly something normal people would slip into conversation.

  “It’s one of my few skills,” I muttered dryly.

  “Indeed.” The vampire turned and closed the door. The guards didn’t even bother looking my way.

  I surveyed the cell. In the last few weeks they’d managed to patch many holes with fresh cement and bolted down iron covers over other spots. The mirror was new, again, and the toilet functional.

  Fantastic.

  I’d decided how to handle the here and now, which was to simply kill those who were hell bent on hurting me. If I could murder droves of wolves to defend Kahina, I could off one racist piece of shit to keep from being annoyed.

  But it didn’t help the terror of going public with my inhuman nature. Ms. Sauter might have ideas and the legal background but Daniel was the only person with intelligence I trusted.

  I crossed my arms and flopped onto the bed, searching my memories for answers. Somewhere in the past Daniel might have left clues.

  I was a child, staring across another bowl of breakfast cereal. A giant raven with black feathers puffed up outside. It didn’t look in the window at me, but instead stared into the distance.

  Something aggravated the creature and it cawed twice and flew away. A single black feather, caught by a parting breeze, fluttered down. The moment passed and I sat up in the small room Tal had allowed me.

  Another memory spun by. It took me a moment to track what was happening in this moment of the past.

  Shouting echoed from downstairs. Tal was arguing with someone. They shouted back. None of the specifics registered because the conversation had happened before. It was simply the latest trainee trying to measure up to Tal’s insane standards. I’d heard the man working with person after person.

  He worked hard to train normal humans into something resembling warriors. His words, not mine. I’d recently learned what humans were, along with hundreds of others.

  I’d been repeatedly lured with food into working with Roy at night. He didn’t slow down the pace and Tal’s expectations cared not one whit for my young age. We got it worse than those other people who only practiced during the day.

  As a child none of it made real sense. I only had one real person anywhere near my age and Roy existed without questioning his father’s orders. I assumed it was what young people did in this world. Even Daniel adhered to this insane standard.

  School was an experiment yielding poor results. There was no reason for me to stay, and home was easy to find. Multiple times I’d just walked out and gone back to Tal’s. People came in and frequently found me eating food from the fridge.

  Sometimes the police would find me first. Other times the teacher would try to stop me. After a while I got to stop going. Breaking a teacher’s nose and attacking the police when they came into Tal’s upstairs rooms had set the tone for my social interactions.

  Then the memories settled and played real details. I could remember punching a kid during a fight weeks before. Tal had congratulated me for winning my fight. I still felt pride at that.

  Daniel’s father was over and in a heated argument with Tal, about me. I felt their words through the floor. Sensations within Tal’s lair were very easy to read, especially at night when there were fewer people.

  “There’s no good options. The runt needs an outlet.” Tal sounded un-phased by the other man’s shouts.

  “There’s got to be an alternative. Putting him in the human circuits is too big a risk, and there aren’t wolves his age. Young don’t survive the change, except when it goes wrong.” I felt Daniel’s father put a hand to his face and wince. “This would have been easier if he’d been a wolf like we suspected.”

  “Jay won’t last without an outlet. Especially not until eighteen. He needs something.”

  “What about your son?” Daniel’s father said.

  I perked up and tilted my head. What about Roy? How would Roy help?

  Daniel himself certainly wasn’t helping. He’d run upstairs to the bedrooms with a bag full of food. I sat upstairs in my room, jealously guarding the doorway. Daniel couldn’t come in, not if I had my say.


  “C’mon, man, let me in. We’re friends, right?” he said.

  “No,” I responded. I moved away from the door to focus on the adults below me.

  “I brought food.”

  I opened the door immediately. I stepped out and closed the door, then flopped onto the ground. If Daniel wanted to eat, we’d have to do it out here.

  “Okay, man.” He sat outside of arm’s length, and rustled through the bag for items.

  I’d recently learned about fries. They weren’t as good as a hamburger and a far cry from steak but there was something enjoyable about the hot crispy ones. They were hard shelled surprises of crispy, like tortoises.

  Daniel shut up long enough for me to hear more of Tal’s words as they rumbled through the building. “Jay’s getting too rough for Roy to keep up. Soon, very soon, there won’t be many who can stand up to him alone. Not if he snaps again.”

  “Jesus, Tal, I don’t want to hear that. Things like that give me ulcers.” During their pause I distractedly fidgeted. I understood the words they were saying, but the context was broken. It didn’t seem real.

  Daniel’s father continued, “I don’t want to put the kid down.” Chills traveled up my spine, both in my memory and now in the cell. The adult sounded cold when he talked of ending my life. “But if he’s out of control, and can’t restrain his instincts, I may have to.”

  They paused their conversation while Tal ran his hands through his hair. Tal himself was checking equipment all over the bottom floor. I could feel fingers trace through laces as he picked up a glove.

  “It’ll kill Daniel.”

  Tal grunted in response and explained, “Jay’s just too strong, and it grows worse when he’s riled up. I’ve been working to instill discipline”—Tal shook his head—“but in a few years this will be beyond the boy and me.”

  “What else can I do? There’s no one like this, Jay, is his name? And the books haven’t provided me any hints on what sort of creature he is.” Daniel’s father waved his hands while talking. “Nothing anything in the archives either, and if I ask Central they may catch on.”

  Tal waved. “No. I didn’t ask you here for that. You risked much letting me and Roy slide, I’ll figure out something else.”

  Something bopped my nose. I blinked and lost the tactile sensation helping me eavesdrop on the adults.

  “Are you gonna eat that?” Daniel’s words were almost as muffled as Tal’s. I blinked and looked sharply at him. He had a giant burger shoved into his face and was trying to talk around it.

  I could see a silly grin.

  “You’re weird,” I said. Daniel was odd for a human, and I’d run into a lot by then. They were all strange. Lots of them loved to talk and refused to leave me alone.

  A crunching sound came out of the far room. At the end of the hallway was where Roy typically practiced. Seconds later he stomped by us, a barely restrained amount of anger crawling across his face.

  Down the stairs with a series of thumps. Then he shouted at Tal.

  I blinked. Tal and Daniel’s father worried about my issues, when Roy was a walking powder keg himself. He was officially a teenager. According to the television shows I’d watched, that was a bad time for mood swings.

  Granted, I only had a few shows to gauge by since dramas were less interesting than cooking shows. I’d been salivating over a barbecue show. There was an elf who constantly boasted his food was the best and offered money to anyone who could win in a blind taste test. One episode had left me slobbering and nibbling on a remote control.

  I’d recently learned plastic was not edible. The memory faded with me grabbing the food from Daniel and shuffling downstairs to see what Roy had stirred up.

  Morning’s sunlight was so close I could feel it on the other side of a double thick wall. Sometime during the mental playback I’d crawled to the closest side and managed to stay upright.

  One eye twitched. My body hurt from a strain equal to trying to right a semi-truck hell-bent on going the wrong direction. With my arms, before it ran me over.

  No. I had fought a truck head on and was blurring a memory together with the current time. A flash of the past hit me. I stood, arms wide, braced against an oncoming truck of unfair size. It slipped away as another series of unrelated thoughts passed my mind.

  Each moment was fresh and raw as if it happened moments ago, instead of years. I reeled with dizziness and barely kept from face planting into the ground. Dozens of emotions hit me, a throbbing forehead, phantom pains from broken bones, and sucking in breath in sharp gasps. The events weren’t what drove me batty, it was the sensations resurfacing with it. Every so often Kahina’s face would float by.

  Seeing her face hurt just a little bit less than reliving physical pain. The replaying memories made me shake and chatter uncontrollably. How had I held it together over the last few weeks in general population? Out there I’d managed to keep going without anything too obvious.

  Now though, it’d gotten worse. Maybe I just needed personal space to let myself break down. I prayed it would end soon, and that my mind would settle.

  Years passed. Things happened, but most were lost in the flow of my mind fast forwarding. Everything had changed, but so many things felt the same.

  The gym had slowly adapted over the last three years by going from mostly boxing to some mixed studio. Roy had purchased more property from the businesses next door. Expanded and put in a few rooms for people to rent. Our single focus sport became the kind of place that did Yoga, martial arts, and boxing. The old man had managed to coach a few champions and crowed it to anyone who’d listen.

  Roy wasn’t doing badly, all things considered. His self-control had been tested thoroughly over the years. He’d had a girlfriend, lost her to high school drama, got another. Then swore off them after that relationship imploded. I had no advice for him. Oddly, when it came to Roy, I was almost timid. Adult me might label it as a mix of awe and respect. After all, he’d suffered under Tal’s tutelage for years more than me.

  We trained at nights. He studied, high school homework, and had managed to reduce the number of violin strings being snapped to one a month.

  I only got to fight against people at the gym, adults mostly. It was something, and each battle was a moment of happiness. I looked forward to it. We, mostly Tal, had decided I was thirteen now. Though by the height and muscle I’d put on recently, thirteen seemed wrong. I was almost Roy’s size and he was years older.

  Both of them were getting sharp on the criticism. Roy caught a number of mistakes slipping past Tal.

  Tal gave orders and struggled to bribe me into action. Many times he simply ordered. The other fighters kept their chatter focused on techniques and rarely talked about anything else. Roy was angry half the time and snapped if I asked questions.

  So I stopped asking. My reading comprehension was low. Numbers and higher math were terrible. The only thing I had any success in was punching things. It turned out I was also extremely good at holding a pad and correcting people who couldn’t figure out how to use their waist properly.

  “Hips,” I said.

  On the other end of the pad was a girl in her mid-twenties. She’d joined our kickboxing classes and was working up a sweat. Her hands kept slipping downward.

  “What?” she said with a ragged word.

  “Turn your hips more.” My voice had started cracking, so I kept sentences short.

  “I am.”

  I shook my head. She was light, had too much hair in a ponytail, and entirely too tight clothing. I barely noticed, though.

  “I am,” she insisted.

  I shook my head again. “You’re not.”

  “Maybe show her,” Daniel’s voice floated over. He wore workout clothes and had turned into a toned but lanky teen.

  I waved.

  “Hey, man.” Daniel smiled and tilted his head a bit. His face wasn’t super tanned yet, but it’d grown in depth over the last year. “Sometimes people learn by showing, instead
of just talking about it. Here”—he stepped closer—“I’ll show you with hips, and without.”

  Daniel swapped places with the female.

  “Keep moving,” I told her. My words were Tal’s, learned over long hours of endless practice. He expected everyone to perform at a basic level. Plus, I had to earn my food money for the month.

  Tal refused to simply pay for my meals anymore.

  “Again,” Daniel said. I braced for the incoming kick. “With hips first, so you see how it should look.” He exaggerated the motion and I had to put more strength into the pads.

  “Without,” he said. My friend demonstrated the two methods a few times. This woman and he were about the same weight, and he’d made me grunt from the force of his kick.

  “It’s all in the hips,” Daniel finished.

  I nodded. “Punching is the same.” I managed to keep myself stable and only cracked a little. “Your body tilts, adds force to the blow, engages more muscles.” Tal had taught me that last line. The explanation behind engaging muscles took me a long time to understand.

  “More muscle work means more definition, more calories burned, and all that.” Daniel perked up and smiled.

  The redhead had ventured into to strange territory. I didn’t really know the ins and outs of what these calories things were. I could feel muscles move, so that clicked. Theory and names were beyond me.

  I nodded in agreement. The girl switched with Daniel and tried a few more times.

  “Better,” I said after a few kicks.

  “Hey, man, I’ll catch you after, all right?” Daniel waved. I could feel his footsteps trail across the room for a few moments before I shifted my senses back to the woman.

  Daniel went off to another corner and found a bar hanging from above. He and Roy were well trained. They didn’t even need bribes of food.

  “All right.” I kept holding the giant pad, bracing a bit more as the force of her kicks increased slowly with her improved movement.