by Jeff Altabef
He cocks his head to the side a little the way he does when he’s worried about me, and the warm expression in his eyes melts my heart.
“When was the last time I did something I didn’t want to do?” I smirk, but after the words slip past my lips, I realize how silly they are. It’s one of those things that sounds cool to say. You wish it were true, but once you think about it, it’s not true at all. At least not for me. Peer pressure doesn’t easily bend me, but I’m always stuck doing things I don’t want to. And now there’s an entire destiny to fulfill that’s been thrust upon me. I’d rather be normal and have nothing to do with this future, but we don’t get a chance to pick our destiny. At least I don’t.
Troy, on the other hand, is part of this mess by choice. A choice he made. He’s always true to himself, to his Native American identity. He has no problem knowing what’s right for him to do. I wish I could feel that way for a little while.
Life is often confusing and unclear to me. I see grays where he sees nothing but black and white. He knows me better than I know myself, so he understands I’m a reluctant participant in this story. Still, I’m resolved to follow this path to the end. There’s no choice. I’ve already done too much to back out now.
“What’s your mom going to say when she finds out?” he says.
“Since when are you worried about my mom? You’ve been getting me in trouble since kindergarten. Your name has been etched at the top of her Undesirable List since we were six. Besides, she’s back home and we’re here. She doesn’t get a vote.”
He frowns. “It’s just that... once you do this, you can’t undo it. It’s forever.”
“Really. I get the idea.” I shove him lightly in the chest. I’m old enough to make up my own mind. He’s just trying to protect me, so I can’t get too angry with him.
“What are your classmates at that fancy private school going to think when they find out?”
I pause for a second and look at him. I mean, really look at him. When faced with change, we have a way of sorting events based upon our experiences. For example, the human eye doesn’t actually see what we think it sees. There are huge gaps in our vision, but our minds fill in those gaps and we imagine one unbroken image based upon our experiences. Troy is doing the same thing. He’s making believe things will go back to normal once I fulfill this destiny. If I fulfill this destiny.
He’s hoping life will return to the way it was, but that’s impossible. I’ve changed and will have to change even more to survive this journey. There will be no way to go back to normal. Normal has become a bad joke, but I can’t tell him this. He needs to sort things into some pattern he understands and imagine a time when life returns to what it was for us. It’s how he’s coping with the situation. I need to be strong for him. I can’t weaken his defenses, even if doubts and fears riddle my mind.
I straighten my back. “You know I don’t care about what they think at Bartens. This is something I want to do. It’s something I need to do.” The wind kicks up and the cool night air brushes against my skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake.
The almost full moon lights the cloudless sky. We inch toward the store and hesitate at the door. A red neon sign reading Tattoos lights the front. I take a deep breath and shove the door open. A bell jingles above us.
No one’s in sight. Pictures of various tattoos line the walls of the small rectangular store, creating a weird, colorful mosaic. Toward the front left is a glass case with a cash register on top and farther in the back is a flat massage table, some bright lights, and a rolling chair.
A woman strolls out from a back room. She’s in her twenties, gaunt with sharp features, smoky gray eyes, short hair, one nose ring and small hoops that circle the edges of both of her ears. She’s eating a wrap as she walks toward us. “What do you guys want?”
She’s wearing a loose gray t-shirt and jeans. Brightly colored tats cover her left arm, mostly eagles and hawks. On the left side of her neck is a teardrop the size of the palm of my hand.
“I want a tattoo,” I say casually, as if I’m ordering a cheeseburger at McDonalds.
The woman points to a sign taped on the cash register. “You’ve got to be 18 for me to give you a tattoo, and there’s no way you’re 18.”
I’m almost sixteen. In the right light, I could pass for eighteen, but she probably has a lot of experience with under-aged teenagers asking for tattoos. Still, I feel a lot older than eighteen. “No one else is here. It’s after eleven. this tattoo is really important to me.” My voice whines slightly at the end.
“Why?” She crosses her arms against her chest and arches her eyebrows upward. Two gold rings, one in each eyebrow, bob up and down.
Her teardrop tattoo must mean something important. What happened to cause her to get this ink? I get the feeling she has suffered loss. It dulls the sparkle in her eyes and shows in the muscles that tighten her jaw. She’ll relate to my story if it’s truthful. “I need to remember someone who died recently. He was really important to me.”
“Who?”
“My grandfather. I called him Sicheii. He died to protect me. He raised me like a father.” Tears moisten my eyes. The tears are real. Sicheii’s death is a fresh wound. Every time I think about him, pain flairs in my heart and salt water follows. People tell me the pain will get better with time, but they don’t know what they’re talking about. They mean well, but this pain will always be fresh. He’ll always be gone, and it’s partly my fault.
The woman’s face softens when she sees the tears. “Just for the sake of discussion, what’re you looking for?”
Troy drops the satchel looped over his broad shoulder, smiles, and lifts his t-shirt, which reveals his well-muscled chest and copper skin. Across his heart is a blue tat of two twisted arrows in a circle. Both arrows are different with different feathers and arrowheads.
The woman glides toward him and examines the ink on his chest. It’s beautiful in its simplicity and symmetry. I can tell she admires it and wouldn’t mind trying to copy it. Her eyes widen as she lingers over the details.
“What does it mean?”
I hesitate. What am I going to tell her, the truth—the symbol represents the ancient Order of the Twisted Arrows. Or that my grandfather unwittingly injected me at birth with alien DNA, which has changed me forever. That I’m one of four Chosen thrust into a battle for our world against a powerful enemy from a different planet.
None of those explanations will get me a tattoo. She’d probably chase us from the store, so I settle for something bland. “It represents an old society he belonged to. It meant everything to him. It was kind of a club.” At least it wasn’t a lie. She’s probably used to people lying to her and would catch a whiff of one right away.
She traces the circle with her finger. “Is it some weird Native American thing?”
“You could say that.” Native Americans use tattoos generally to identify with certain tribes or to honor their animal spirit guide. I’m half Native American on my mom’s side. Sicheii was her father. I have long black hair, an oval face, coffee colored eyes and a long, pointy nose I unfortunately inherited from my Irish father. I look Native American except for the nose.
The tattoo artist leaves Troy, slides in front of me, and stands close. No more than a foot separate us. Traces of vegetable wrap linger on her breath. I’m taller than the average person and stand at least three inches higher than she does.
She studies my face for a long moment. I’m not sure what she’s looking for. Maybe she’s looking to see if I’m serious. “What’s you name?”
“Juliet Wildfire Stone.” I never used to tell people my middle name. It embarrassed me. Now, I realize it’s who I am, part of my identity.
“Wildfire, huh? I can see that. Where do you want the tattoo?”
I roll up the right sleeve of my t-shirt. “My shoulder would be great.”
She nods. “It’ll cost you two hundred cash. And you can’t tell anyone you got it here.”
“Done
.” I hand her four fifty-dollar bills.
She guides me to the table in the back and places a pillow on one end. “You want it the same color?”
I jump on top of the table. “Yep.”
She gestures for Troy to come close. “Keep your shirt up. I want to get it just right.”
She’s finished an hour later and wipes my arm with a towel. “That’s so weird.”
“What’s wrong?” My heart jumps. Did she just totally mess up my arm and leave me with some ugly circle thing? Troy’s smiling, so I can’t imagine she did that bad of a job.
“Usually it takes a couple of weeks for the tat to heal. It always bleeds a little or gets puffy, but your arm already looks perfect, as if the ink had been on it forever.”
She hands me a mirror so I can see the symbol. I smile. My tattoo is exactly the same as Troy’s. Exactly the same as Sicheii’s had been.
I shrug. “I’ve always been a fast healer.”
I hop from the table. My DNA’s been changed, so my body can regenerate itself almost instantly. I didn’t know that before. It’s just another one of my abilities, as Sicheii would say. I’ve started to think of them as aberrations.
I have four special abilities so far. I can hear other people’s thoughts and read their emotions. I have increased strength and speed, can move things with my mind, and heal instantly. There will probably be more, but they scare me. With each new one, I become less human.
“We’d better get going,” I say and head for the door.
She grabs my wrist. “Wait. I want to take a picture of the ink. For the wall.”
“You can’t do that.” I yank my arm away from her.
“I won’t take your face. Just the ink.”
“Tough.”
She scowls at me, but I ignore her and march outside. When we leave the store a sharp pain stabs through my head like someone has taken an axe to my skull and cleaved it in two. A wild rage burns through me and I see inside a villa—a piano and wooden floors. Breath catches in my throat and all the strength saps from my body. I slump to the ground when Troy catches me.
Air comes in bursts and then the pain vanishes. A cold sweat coats my back as I lean against him.
“Are you okay? What was that?” he asks.
I’m not okay and I suspect I’ll never be okay again.
“They’ve found the Seeker I killed five days ago. They’re in the villa. Now they’re coming for us.”
More from Jeff Altabef
SHATTER POINT
This suspense thriller is now available. For more information on this book, please visit the Evolved Publishing website.
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When her 19-year-old son Jack miraculously recovers from a serious head trauma, Maggie is sure her luck has changed. But when she’s abducted by a shadow from her past - a phantom with dangerous sapphire eyes - it’s up to Jack and his younger brother Tom to unravel the mystery and save their mom from a deadly psychological battle.
The brothers seek help from their colorful great aunt, who exposes them to a world of nefarious family secrets, explosive government conspiracies, and a series of horrific murders. Together they must navigate a dark underworld full of political subterfuge and class warfare.
Yet as they search for their mother, Jack changes—he’s raked by skull splitting headaches and weird visions. How exactly did he recover from his coma, and how does this tie into the psychopath who’s abducted their mother?
Will Jack and Tom save Maggie before Cooper reaches his shatter point? Does Jack have enough time left?
More from Evolved Publishing
We hope you loved Wind Catcher. If so, you’re sure to love these other books from Evolved Publishing’s talented team.
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We’ve provided, for your convenience, descriptions of 4 books/series, review excerpts to see what others have said about them, and links to the product pages at our website, from which you can link through to any retailer listings.
For lovers of urban fantasy, this young adult novel is suitable for readers 13 and up:
DREAM WARRIORS
(A Joey Cola Novel – 1)
By D. Robert Pease
This young adult urban fantasy, featuring magic in a modern setting, is now available. For more information on this book, please visit the Evolved Publishing website.
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Joseph Colafranceschi is a fifteen-year-old, self-described geek, living in the Bronx. The second youngest of twelve sons of the former U.S. ambassador to Italy, Joey discovers that a small Egyptian statuette, given to him by his father, endows him with power to control his dreams.
After his brothers throw him down a manhole, Joey is drawn into a hidden society of warriors who have been battling a reincarnated Egyptian Pharaoh for over 3,000 years. In the dream world, everyone is not what they appear to be, and it’s impossible to tell who to trust. As Joey slips deeper into a world of gladiator battles and clandestine missions within other people’s dreams, he catches the eye of a beautiful Egyptian princess.
The only thing that keeps him grounded in reality is his best friend Alex, but even she may not be who he thought she was.
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Praise for Dream Warriors:
“I loved Noah Zarc, Mr. Pease’s MG trilogy. And I enjoyed his recent grown up fantasy, Shadow Swarm. But this is his best book yet. Just as Noah was a loose parody of the Bible story, so Joey has similarities to the biblical story of Joseph. If you’re familiar with those old favorites, I’ll let you pick out the parallels--there’s a bunch. But Joey soon takes a dive into the fantasy world that’s full of originality, fun, danger, romance, and suspense. There are some great twists and turns in here that I never saw coming! This one is appropriately billed as YA. There is some violence, but it’s mostly, well, dreamlike. Dream warriors have some great gladiator scenes, but they can’t die. Mortal blows simply send them back to wakefulness. But they can be killed if they’re followed back to their physical bodies. Also, romance is sweet. There’s some very mild sensuality. Nothing I’d censor for my kids (and I’m pretty conservative), but it might be enough to gross out fourth or fifth graders. Language is 100% clean. I highly, highly recommend this one for anyone eighth grade or older.”— Michelle Isenhoff
“Must say I was very impressed with this book. Very enjoyable. It even had me jumping off my bed in anxious excitement at one point. A mix of fantasy, action, mythology and our very own dreams. There is a bit of romance, some fun fight scenes, lots of ‘familiar’ faces, magic and a hint of mythology. A wonderful blend that I quickly latched onto and held on to the end. As soon as I finished this book, I jumped online to learn more about the next book. I am so impatient to read it!”— J. Rivera
“Yes, this is a book intended for young adults, but I enjoyed it so much that I immediately turned around to read it a second time. I wanted to make sure I had not missed any subtle clues Mr. Pease may have given. I didn’t miss anything that might have warned me of the ending to come, but was surprised at the detail that went into building the dream world and how it works. The characters are the type that stay with you long after you turn the page and close the book. I am admitting that as a woman well into middle age I am eagerly awaiting book two in this series to be released in March of 2015. I will definitely have a note on my calendar to be on the lookout for the next gem. If you do not want to wait for March after you finish Dream Warriors, you may want check D. Robert Pease’s Noah Zarc Trilogy.”— Del Anne
“What nerdy, geeky kid wouldn’t want to fall asleep and wake up in a dream world where he morphed into a cross between King Leonidas and the Incredible Hulk? This element of the story alone is enough to draw readers to Dream Warriors. The story rates five stars, it was a fun read and I’d recommend it to readers age 13 and up.”— Kevin Gerard
For lovers of grand sci-fa, a blend of science fiction and fantasy, this young adult novel is suitable for readers 13 and up:
THE SILVER SPHERE
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By Michael Dadich
This Young Adult Fantasy/Sci-Fi novel, an extraordinary tale of two inter-connected planets fighting evil, has won multiple awards, and is appropriate for adults, but also for kids 12 and older. For more information, please visit the Evolved Publishing website.
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Shelby Pardow never imagined she could kill someone. All she wants to do is hide from her troubled father... when she is teleported to awaiting soldiers on the planet Azimuth. Here she is not a child, but Kin to one of the six Aulic Assembly members whom Malefic Cacoethes has drugged and imprisoned. He seeks to become dictator of this world (and then Earth by proxy).
His father, Biskara, is an evil celestial entity, tracked by the Assembly with an armillary device, The Silver Sphere. With the Assembly now deposed, Biskara directs Malefic and the Nightlanders to their strategic targets. Unless....
Can Shelby find the other Kin, and develop courage and combat skills? Can the Kin reassemble in time to release or replace the Assembly, overthrowing Malefic and restraining Biskara?
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Praise for The Silver Sphere:
“The Silver Sphere is a classic good-versus-evil fantasy adventure of epic proportions. We’ve often said that science fiction and fantasy are the hardest novels to write as it involves the arduous task of world building. The Silver Sphere is successful in its creation of sister planet Azimuth, we suspect, because author Dadich let his heroic story marinate since childhood.
