by Rin Chupeco
The mood was broken. “Get out of here,” Tala hissed without thinking. She expected that kind of behavior from Alex, but that his firebird would take after him in character was just too much.
She stopped. Ryker, too, was staring at the firebird, and his face was pale.
“You,” he whispered.
“You can see it?” Oh no. Was it her curse? Was his proximity to her enough to negate the spell and let him see? But then…
The firebird took to the air again without warning, and that was when Tala saw Alex.
He was surrounded by a group of boys and a few cheerleaders, away from the bulk of the crowd watching the fire. From her perch, she saw that Chris Hughes and his regular buddies were there and in fact appeared to be causing problems. Cassie Torelli, Hughes’s girlfriend, and a few other girls were watching avidly, staying clear of the confrontation while doing nothing to defuse the situation.
It was clear from their angry faces and Alex’s defensive stance that there was trouble.
“Tala!” Ryker exclaimed, but Tala had already vaulted off the rock, landing with a perfectly executed barrel roll before she was on her feet and running.
“What’s the matter, homo?” she heard Hughes ask as she drew nearer. “Can’t look me in the eye anymore?”
An infinite loop of choice Scottish curses that she’d learned from her father spun like turntables in Tala’s head. They knew.
“Where did you hide it?” Alex sounded remarkably calm despite being surrounded.
“So, you’re not denying it?” Hughes sneered. “Goddamn. We go out of our way to treat you like one of us, and in the end you’ve been some gay freak all along.”
Somebody was growling, and it wasn’t the firebird. Tala realized it was her.
Hughes glanced over, smirked. “And here comes your little friend just in time to defend you. If we had our way, we’d be running you gays and Mexicans out of town by now.”
Alex didn’t even look at her. “Where did you hide it?” he repeated.
“Chris!” And then Lynn was there, flinging herself onto Alex’s arm. “What are you doing?” she yelled at her brother. “Quit it! You’re making a scene!”
Hughes’s gaze flicked to the crowd of students now milling about. When none of them moved to stop him, he only grinned more broadly. “I’m doing you a favor, little sis. You always did have bad taste in guys. Your crush has been a raging homo all this time, and you should be glad I found out. Yeah, Smith, I’ll give you the video, but not before I upload it so the world can see you and your perverted boyfriend going at it. Go ahead and report me. See if anyone cares.”
Tala took another step forward, but so did Dryden and Landaker, Chris’s two friends. “You really want to do this, Warnock?” the former taunted. “I’m not afraid of punching girls.”
“Maybe Landaker should tell you how I kicked his ass the last time he tried.”
“Bitch,” Landaker snarled.
Hughes drew back his arm.
“Alex!” Lynn cried.
Ryker’s hands closed around Hughes’s wrist, holding him back. “Hughes, chill. You’re going to get everyone in trouble.”
“Stay out of this, Cadfael,” Hughes spat.
He moved to break free, and Ryker deftly twisted his wrist. Cassie shrieked, her face turning pale as her boyfriend sagged with a roar of pain. Landaker rushed to his friend’s aid, his own arms already raised to shove at Ryker, but Tala launched forward with a spinning kick and landed a boot right to his face.
“Fight!” someone yelled, and shouts and hoots erupted as more people headed closer, attracted to the noise.
Someone lunged forward, grabbing at her. Tala ducked low, escaping their grasp.
“Bitch,” Landaker snarled again.
“Don’t call her that!” Alex snapped.
“We’ll call that whore any goddamn name we want.” Hughes moved to punch Alex. Lynn planted herself in between them at the last minute, but her brother’s fist was already on a collision course. Alex yanked her close to him, raising his arm as a shield.
There was a delighted cackle and a sudden blur of feathers.
The firebird reappeared, popping out from nowhere to fly right into Hughes’s face, knocking him backward. It then dove down to grab both Landaker and Dryden by their shoulders, each talon sinking into the cloth of their jerseys. It rose, lifting the boys high enough in the air that the tips of their running shoes barely scraped against the ground. They clawed wildly at their shoulders, at something they could not see.
The bird dove forward, with a speed and strength that was surprising for something so small. The boys struggled and yelled out obscenities as the unseen force propelled them forward despite their best efforts.
And just as suddenly, the strange bird stopped, releasing them at the same moment. Unable to stop their momentum, Landaker and Dryden plunged headfirst into a nearby rock, hitting it face-first with a heavy thump. They both remained glued to the surface for a few more seconds, as if to defy the laws of physics on top of everything else, before toppling backward when gravity once again reasserted control.
The feathered creature crowed.
Bill Moretti took off after his friends, but hit something solid halfway. He crumpled, and the bird lifted its beak from where it had made contact with his head. Then it swooped down and flexed its left wing, tripping him so hard, he somersaulted from the impact, landing on his face.
People in the crowd were already shrieking, watching as one by one, the boys succumbed to some invisible force none of them could see. Hughes staggered back up, gaping open-mouthed at his fallen comrades. “What the hell did you do?” he roared at Alex, raising his fist again.
The bird glowed, and a lazy waft of smoke drifted from it to settle on Hughes’s hair, which promptly caught fire.
Tala barely remembered him, hopping about, screaming for water before dropping to the ground to perform several barrel rolls. She barely remembered people running and shouting while Hughes’s girlfriend frantically tried to smother her boyfriend’s head in a sea of sweaters. The only thing she could recall in stark, vivid detail was the strange bird performing loops in the air, crowing in victory—exultant, glowing brighter than any light he had ever seen—and Alex, smiling grimly.
The fire was soon doused. Alex pushed at Hughes’s sprawled form with a foot, turning him over, and bent down. Lynn sank down on the ground beside him, trembling.
“Where did you hide my phone, Hughes?”
Hughes stared up at him, face sooty and frightened. “Boys’ locker room,” he gasped out.
Alex straightened up and turned to walk away without another word.
“Alex!” Tala yelled at him. “What the hell?”
He paused for a couple of seconds but resumed walking. “Don’t come after me, Tala.”
“I deserve to know what’s going—”
At that point, more screaming began.
The burning bonfire had been the first target. The mist had passed so stealthily and soundlessly over it, consuming the very air so quickly that there was almost no time to process the aftermath. One moment the bonfire stood, brightly blazing the way bonfires ought to. In the next, it was a sculpture of ice, a fully formed fortress of icicles, and the breeze that swept through it to spread across the crowd was cold with the touch of winter.
Astonished, Tala only had time to gape before the ground underneath her iced over, a permafrost sheen spreading out from the newly frozen bonfire and rippling toward the celebrants. Stumbling over each other, alternating between curses and shrieks, the partygoers fled as the rising fog turned the air bitter and cold. The night stilled; something, however briefly, seemed to take shape against the moonlight—some strange figure of a shrouded woman, almost—before the image dissolved completely, and panic took its place.
“Tala!” Ryker soun
ded frantic, but Tala ignored him, leaping to her feet to scan the now-disorderly crowd, trying in vain to search for Alex, or her parents, or Zoe, anyone who surely knew what was happening and could tell her what she was supposed to do. But Alex was already gone, swallowed up by the crowd.
A cry from above made her look up.
Alex had disappeared, but the firebird was still going strong, flying across the sky like an avalanche on wings, screeching its graceful head off. Something was materializing in the air behind it, weaving in and out of visibility, in hot pursuit. Tala took off after both, shaking her arnis sticks out from her knapsack as she did.
The bird let out a cry of pain and landed. It swiveled to meet its pursuers, and Tala was stunned to see that they were bees made of crystallized ice, so clear that she could see through them. In lieu of bulging insect eyes, their faces were as smooth as a glass surface, and their stingers glistened with colorless ichor. They made shrill high-pitched whines instead of buzzes, and they surrounded the firebird quickly, moving in for the kill.
Tala didn’t even hesitate. Her stick flew down and swung at the nearest bee like she was swinging a baseball bat, hitting it with a satisfying thunk. The strange creature shattered on impact, small glitters of ice floating to the ground.
Tala swung again, meeting her marks each time. The firebird had also leaped into action, sending flames straight into the heart of the humming hive. What few of the bees escaped, Tala made short work of with her arnis, until there was nothing else to strike at.
Bereft of enemies, the firebird wriggled its tail feathers and puffed out its chest.
“What the hell was that about?” Tala growled at it. “And where’s Alex?”
The ground underneath them shifted once again from solid to slippery, and Tala promptly lost her balance.
She slid a few feet before struggling to her knees, her hands braced against the icy ground as she clamored for balance. With a loud battle cry, the firebird headed straight into her, slamming into her sides hard enough for her to see stars. She skidded right, just in time for a wave of ice to sail past, missing her completely.
“What…?”
A figure was striding toward them. It wasn’t human. Just like the bees, it was made completely of ice; a statue that had come to life under a skilled sculptor, but not adequate enough for the work to convey any warmth and passion.
It was constructed with a girl’s figure in mind, but the similarities ended there. It had a face—a lovely one in theory. But the beautifully contoured cheekbones sloped down into a cruel mouth twisted into a genteel sneer; the soft tapered hands were clenched like claws, and nothing in its large eyes suggested any impression of humanity.
It raised its hand, and the ground before it surged forward like a sea of waves.
Tala dodged to the left, and the next wave of ice slammed into the spot she’d been standing on, leaving a small mountain of snow in its wake. Without pause, the walking statue flicked its wrist in her direction again.
Desperate, Tala swung her sticks again as the fresh wall of ice rushed to meet her. Something went crack.
Against the wood the ice broke apart, splitting the frozen wave down the middle into two sections that spun away on either side of her. Both segments continued for several more feet before shuddering to a complete standstill. She was left without a scratch. The figure was gone.
“Tala!” Ryker was running toward her, and Tala wanted to yell at him to keep back, but she was trembling too much. He reached her without incident, and she clung to his chest. He was warm, like the cold didn’t affect him at all.
“What’s going on?” he rasped, staring up at the curtain of ice that had come dangerously close to killing her.
The firebird squawked several more times and took off again in the direction of Elsmore High.
“I have to go.” She didn’t want to leave, but Ryker shouldn’t be involved in any of this. She stepped back from his embrace. “I’ll explain everything later, but I have to go. You have to call 911 once the phones start working; make sure the others are all right.”
“Tala!”
But she’d already taken off.
9
In Which Loki Uses a Toothpick and Ken Loses a Fight with a Library
Sneaking into the Sydney Doering residence had been a cakewalk.
The mansion was equipped with the best and most expensive security systems that money could buy, and quite a good number of those were laced with spelltech of the technically-not-yet-legal-to-implement sort that only the very wealthy could get away with.
From their perch atop the high wall, Loki admired the impressive motion sensors strategically placed around the perfectly manicured lawn. Despite Invierno’s natural magical dampeners, the spelltech equipment resembled giant bowls of fluctuating energy, brilliantly bright in their vision, though invisible to everyone else. It must have taken an enormous amount of money to pay for the number of glyphs required to power this kind of surveillance.
The motion sensor spells were threaded throughout the back lawn like a giant cobweb, an obstacle course practically daring them to complete it.
Loki could never turn down a challenge.
Their fingers felt inside a pocket, fished out a small vial that they soon uncorked. A fine mist rose out from it, covering the lawn within seconds and, most importantly, shielding them from the cameras’ view. Half a minute later, it was as thick as split pea soup. Any normal person wouldn’t be able to see a few feet in front of them, in any direction.
Loki didn’t need to. They reached behind their ear, found the small toothpick they’d stashed there, and placed it firmly between their teeth.
Then they leaped.
Their feet made no sound when they landed, when they cartwheeled through the first set of sensors, slipping easily past the spaces between the threads. They scrambled partway up a tree and backflipped over a denser cluster, and then eased their way through the last remaining yards, sliding into the open garden patio just as the mist began to dissipate, leaving the garden as pristine as they had left it, their presence undetected.
West’s particular skill set meant he had an easier time of it than Loki. Having already shifted back into human form, he was waiting for them just outside the sliding glass that divided the back porch from the inside of the residence, half-hidden by some well-trimmed bushes.
Loki reached into their backpack and tossed a pair of pants his way. The boy opened his mouth to argue.
Loki stopped him with a shirt to the face. “Zoe made it very clear you can’t go in naked, West.”
He pouted but shimmied into his clothes all the same.
A rock song blared through several loudspeakers, threatening deafness. The town might not be predisposed toward magic, but the people inside were using enough spelltech for Loki to use the discharges as a kind of echolocation. Spells molded around the auras of teens passed out on couches and chairs, or those dancing to the music. They were counting on both the dim lighting and the partygoers’ poor life choices to proceed unnoticed.
West’s insistence on wearing his carpet of fur had been met with puzzled glances, but most people were too buzzed to say anything. For the better part of fifteen minutes they drifted from room to room; West would glance in and take in a quick noseful of booze and cigarette smoke, only to sadly shake his head. Loki kept an eye out for any disruptions in the air that might signal more shades. His Highness was proving to be difficult to find, but impatience now would get them nowhere.
Loki didn’t like crashing parties. Their idea of a good time was climbing a tree. West had more experience attending these sort of social functions, but the nobles who fell over each other inviting him and his family to events were willing to overlook his personal idiosyncrasies for the Eddings’ status. And as the night wore on and it became clear that Alexei Tsarevich was nowhere on the premises, Loki was all for l
eaving—after they’d searched the second floor, because they were nothing if not thorough.
There were even fewer people on the upper landing, all more inclined to be making out than dancing or drinking. There were far more rooms than Loki thought a house should have. “Anything?” they asked, speaking around the toothpick still clamped in their mouth.
“Not really.” West had his hands over his nose, already looking hungover. “Everyone stinks. Why do they like poisoning themselves this way?”
“They’re rich buttholes, West. Comes with the territory. If Alex isn’t here, we’ll still need to keep an eye out for the rabbit hole and hope we don’t have to dig up their garden to find it.”
“The phones aren’t working!” they heard one of the girls cry out, frustrated, as she jabbed at one of the keys with a bright pink nail.
“What’s a phone?” West asked.
Loki didn’t bother to answer. Their attention was elsewhere—specifically at a lone shadow that was steadily climbing up one of the walls, manifesting enough dark magic to power the whole house. Once it reached the ceiling, it opened suddenly red eyes at them, bared its wide mouth tipped with sharp fangs, and hissed. “So, that’s how it’s gonna be,” they murmured. They took the toothpick out of their mouth; a flick of their wrist, and it was now a long staff.
The shadow hissed, but Loki was already moving. They changed the angle of their thrust and the rod’s size lengthened , quadrupling its range.
The pole slammed into the lurking shadow’s approximation of a face. It lost its grip, tumbled onto the floor, still twitching from the blow.
“West,” Loki said, but the boy was already on the move. He threw the fur over his head again, and a large mastiff now stood in his place, frothing at the mouth and baring its own set of painfully sharp teeth. The girls in the hallway were screaming and scrambling back, but West ignored them. In two bounds, he was on top of the shadow, snapping at its faceless face. The shadow shrilled as an incorporeal arm came flying off, only to dissolve as it hit the plush carpet.
