by CK Dawn
“Well, I have a theory,” Marcus hit a button on his desk and his floor to ceiling windows overlooking Central Park turned an opaque white. “I’ve always believed krimdrogos age differently than you and I. And, from other netherwalkers for that matter.” Marcus touched the image on his computer screen and pulled it digitally into the air above his desk, creating a three dimensional wire replica of Lourdie’s three foot dragon. It hovered in midair as Marcus rotated and expanded it, examining it from every angle. “From what little I’ve been able to find in our scrolls about them, the very large ones are usually described as gangly, developmentally immature-- even awkward, while smaller ones have been more calculating, physically adroit, and cunning. So, like I said, you were lucky.” Marcus was staring intently at the conjured image as he minimized it to almost nothing. “I believe, if old enough, the krimdrogos may even get as small as darters.”
Lourdie let out a deep sigh and spoke in a huff under her breath, “Well, since we’re obviously never going to talk about why I’m really going to Britain or my prospect of future promotions, I guess I might as well tell you I saw another darter.”
“Hmm, what?” he said apparently deep in thought. “When?” Marcus’s head popped up and he gave Lourdie his full attention.
“On my night patrol, the same day as Abbey’s latest trial.”
“Curious. What’s more curious is why you’re just telling me this now.” Marcus drummed his fingers. “Did anyone else see it?” he asked with a furrowed brow.
“No, Kapoi thought I was just seeing things.”
He waved his hand almost dismissively. “Well, no matter. Best not to alarm any of the other guardians until we know if your sightings even mean anything. It’s probably nothing,” Marcus seemed to be trying to reassure her.
“Maybe these darter sightings were meant as a warning about the dragon. Because, if that’s not the case then what do they mean? Am I losing my mind? Sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy. No one else sees them, not even you. I mean, you’re an archivist but you can spot a benign shadow better than most hunters.” Lourdie slumped her shoulders.
Marcus Vaughan took on his knight’s tone, “Lourdes Reese, you are the best hunter I’ve ever seen. The best hunter I’ve had the pleasure of having in my court.” He seemed tempted to go on, but didn’t, “You are not crazy. And, as for the darters warning us?” He softened a bit, “Hmm, well, that is an interesting theory and could prove quite promising. I’ll study some of the ancient hunter scrolls and journals that have to do with dragons, see if any heightened darter activity is mentioned.” Marcus almost seemed delighted at the prospect of doing some research. “Actually, there are a few artifacts and illuminated manuscripts I’ve been meaning to study, so don’t worry about a thing. I’ll get to the bottom of this while you’re away.” He tried to give her a reassuring smile which made him look more like a politician than her friend.
She gave him a weak, slightly sarcastic smile and scoffed, “While I’m away? Maybe it is nothing. Maybe all of this is nothing,” Lourdie said, gesturing between them. After she got up she paused briefly and held the door knob to the knight’s office. Marcus had resumed staring at the dragon hovering over his desk. With a heavy sigh, she went to leave the room.
“Lourdie?” Marcus said.
She didn’t turn around.
“A lot is riding on this--I mean your assignment. I-- I’m sorry.”
With a heavy heart she walked through the door and without looking back she said, “Understood.”
Abbey hummed as the subterranean elevator descended towards her secret destination. Lourdie was debriefing Marcus about the dragon and the nest, so she figured she had an hour before anyone knew she was missing. As the doors opened she stealthily entered the old stone hallway. The young apprentice stopped as she passed the Rhan’Delvin vault, noticing the glass partition of the viewing room had been turned opaque. Denied a glimpse of the Sword of Twelve, she frowned. She never tired of admiring the ancient sword. It was more than a knight’s family heirloom used during gloaming bonds. It had given her a new life, and purpose, one greater than she could have ever possibly imagined.
The apprentice quirked her head in confusion as she neared the virtual chamber. The barely detectable smell of burnt popcorn wafted toward her. There were no scheduled trials or training today, she had checked. She did not want her super secret practice sessions to be seen by anyone. As the smell dissipated she shrugged her shoulders. She must have just missed someone getting some uber practice in. To have smells recreated in a virtual reality simulation was pretty impressive. She wondered who it had been. Just to be certain she was alone, Abbey logged in to find out if the chamber was in use. The usage log showed no one had used the room in hours. Phew. Maybe I’m hungry for some of my nerd’s ‘special’ burnt popcorn.
Looking both ways down the dim hallway, she entered the dark chamber and locked the door. Abbey turned on the chamber’s lights, temporarily blinding her eyes with the brilliant white reflections. The stadium sized room was empty and awaiting her commands.
Abbey sighed as she shortened the straps all the way down on a virtual backpack. I wish I would get a growth spurt already. I swear I’ve been fourteen for, like, a hundred years now. Sporting the new accessory, she did a few stretches before beginning her epic battle.
The young apprentice closed her eyes, took several deep breaths, and cleared her mind. The chamber darkened and the wind picked up. The air was being displaced by enormous flapping wings, thunder echoed off the walls. With a twinge of guilt, Abbey lowered her right hand and a weapon appeared out of thin air. She brushed its thumbprint scanner and the innocent looking flashlight morphed instantly into a magnificent stun baton. Pushing a button, pink light flicked out from the heavy metal casing. Abbey giggled. “Hehe, I love me some combat pink.”
A huge krimdrogo huffed as it screeched through the sky, circling its prey. Swirls of barely visible gray smoke spun behind the slick black creature.
The dragon rounded on her, lower in the sky this time. Its blood red eyes glowed, full of rage and hate before they closed and the creature began its invisible attack.
Abigail Thorne took a batting stance and gave a sinister crooked grin to the seemingly empty darkness, “Let’s dance.”
Lourdie and Kapoi mirrored each other’s movements effortlessly running up walls, jumping endless obstacles, and defying gravity as they chased their targets through the urban jungle. But there was tension in the air that Lourdie could taste. They usually moved as one without any effort, but tonight they seemed disjointed, separate, and his unusual silence was unnerving. She decided to break it with a hunter’s version of talking about the weather.
“So, how’s novice hunter training going?” Lourdie asked as she jumped from one building’s fire escape onto the ledge of another building’s rooftop.
“Well, there haven’t been any more broken bones if that’s what you’re getting at,” Kapoi said following her up into the cold night air.
Running together they jumped onto another rooftop, somersaulted to cushion the impacts, drew their weapons, and stood back to back. “That’s not what I meant and you know it!” Lourdie hissed quietly. “What’s wrong with you tonight?”
“I didn’t know you were the only one allowed to be grumpy on patrol,” he hissed back. “Seen any more darters lately?” he said sarcastically.
“What? No.” Lourdie’s skin began to prickle. Before she ducked and rolled to the side, she pushed Kapoi hard making him stagger, barely allowing him time to spin around and shoot the two shadows emerging from the darkness. She smirked as she conjured an extremely sickly looking orb and very forcefully threw it at Kapoi’s head just as he banished the first netherwalker with his own orb.
He laughed as he caught it and encased the second creature with ease, holding on to the disfigured orb until it imploded.
“Feel better?” she asked.
“Yeah, a little,” he laughed again. “Sorry, partner, I
guess I’m just going to miss this. Patrol is going to really suck without my favorite haole, that’s all.”
“Yeah, I’m going to miss you too, marine.”
“So, really, no more darters?” he asked sincerely.
“No. No more darters. Besides, it was probably nothing.” She waved her hand dismissively, mimicking Marcus subconsciously.
“No, now it’s just dragons.” His voice took on a sarcastic tone as he mockingly waved his hand dismissively as well.
“Just one,” she said innocently. “Besides, the incessant shopping that started it all would have made you extremely grumpy.”
“Ah, Tita, I said I was sorry.” Kapoi put his weapon away. “Come on, I’ll make it up to you. Your last American burger ever is on me. I’ll even spring for bacon and cheese. Side of onion rings?”
“Ooh, you know what I like,” she said slugging him in the arm.
The two walked to Phil’s as the sun began to rise, but Lourdie could tell there was still something on Kapoi’s mind. He was again being unusually quiet.
“Okay, spill it, marine.”
He let out a long sigh, “Tita, if you think you saw a darter, then you saw a darter. Something like that always has a meaning. Always. You shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss it. I don’t care what anyone else says, or who!” His last words took on an angry protective tone and he looked like he wanted to say more, but didn’t. “I’m your partner and your friend, no matter what continent you’re on.” He stopped and looked at her, “You can tell me anything, remember that okay?”
“Okay, partner. Okay.” She wondered what had gotten him so wound up, but knew he wasn’t ready to elaborate.
The clock on the wall wasn’t moving. She could have sworn it had been three o’clock for at least twenty minutes now, but unfortunately the second hand had proved otherwise. Abbey drummed her fingers impatiently on her desk. Chemistry class was dragging extremely slowly today. Actually all her classes the entire day had been agonizingly slow.
She absentmindedly tugged on the shortened strip of hair the netherwalker’s spittle had sliced off. Today’s the day, she thought, trying to blend it back into her longer locks. You’re totes history.
All of a sudden the lights shut off all around them. Students looked up from their work looking around at each other and their professor. Someone let out an ominous ghost sound and the rest of the class started to giggle. The electricity began its low hum as it slowly crept back to life.
“Old Belvedere’s flying through the rafters again,” one of the dociles said.
“After almost a hundred years, you would think he would have found his homework by now,” another boy chimed in.
The students laughed louder this time.
“Alright, class, calm down.” their professor said as she started opening the blinds on the wall of windows.
Ghost stories about Old Belvedere wreaking havoc around the school had been passed down from generation to generation. A power outage here or a strange rumbling there were all blamed on the infamous ghost, a student who had died in the 1920’s during a lightning storm at Belvedere Castle in Central Park while taking weather readings for a class project. Most docile alumni passed down the tales to their enrolled children and even added new embellished stories about their own time at the haunted academy as well. All accounts were ultimately written off on the building’s ancient wiring, centuries-old rickety floors, and a basement boiler room that looked like a medieval torture chamber.
Abbey’s thoughts went down the hall to the gym where the first year hunters were gaining control over their orbs. The lights flickered twice, but didn’t go out this time. Delvirs and other gifts from the Vaelosh a’Rue wreaked havoc on electricity. She smiled secretly to herself, Way to go, newbies.
Six
Pond Jumping
Lourdie knew she only had forty minutes to kill before meeting Abbey for their European adventure, but she wanted to spend some quality time with her favorite retired shepherd. The elevator dinged as she stepped into her building’s cozy lobby, “Hey, Bernie.”
“Hiya, hon. How are you this evening?” Bernie said in his casual, slightly southern, accent from behind the front desk.
“Can’t complain. How’s business?”
His salt and pepper hair and beard, along with a somewhat unkempt appearance, reminded Lourdie of a favorite school teacher. The kind that one could always count on for support and guidance. Which went a long way in a shepherd’s line of work. Shepherds guided lost Camelot descendants back to the King’s Court. Some neophytes slowly lost the sight, like Sebashtian’s mother, and would go on to live out normal lives, never knowing about the evils that lurked in the shadows. Others, like Abbey, got a sense of yearning and were drawn to the King’s Court. Shepherds like Bernie would seek them out and gently guide them into Court society. Bernie always took the difficult cases no one else wanted. He chose the rare cases of school dropouts, runaways, and addicts, never giving up on them no matter how long it took. He joked about neophytes finding him now, since he’d retired.
Bernie motioned to the two story glass entry.
Lourdie noticed an anxious girl outside the front doors pacing out of view then returning every few minutes. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen, “Neophyte?”
“Yeah, she’s been out there for about twenty minutes, deciding whether to come in or not,” Bernie grinned. “She’ll come in when she’s ready.”
It was getting darker and colder outside by the minute, “I’ll be right back.” Lourdie ducked into a small kitchenette off to the side of the large guard desk. She returned to the lobby and put a pot of hot chocolate and mugs next to the plate of banana bread and cookies Bernie had set out. She flicked the switch on the fireplace and it roared to life in the welcoming seating area. The elevator door dinged and out popped Abbey. Her light blond hair was about six inches shorter and cut into a bob. The front of her hair was cut at steep angles that highlighted her soft cheek bones while the back was cut shorter in layers.
“Look at my cute!” Abbey spun around and one pink streak danced around in her soft waves. The strip of hair the netherwalker had shortened, now proudly dyed pink, was prominently on display.
“Abs, I love that cut on you! And the color is great.” Lourdie couldn’t believe her apprentice could get any cuter. “That krim should retire and become a hairstylist.”
Abbey rolled her eyes and smiled with the confidence her mentor always gave her, “I know, right? It smells good in here. Did you make enough banana bread for me? Are we expecting company?” She sniffed the air again.
“Of course. And, we hope so,” Lourdie gestured to the front doors.
Abbey looked a little sad, “Is that what I looked like a year ago?” The anxious rail thin girl was wearing a waitress uniform, chain smoking, and still pacing.
“Ah, hon, we all have our own demons to fight, guardians or not,” Bernie said. His comfort and certainty had been formed by his forty five years of shepherd wisdom. He was the best at what he did. He was not just a guide, but a friend, counselor, and father. Bernie was the one who had found Abbey, his last case before he had retired.
Abbey gave Bernie a hug, remembering the condition he had found her in, “Can I talk to her?” Her eyes were pleading.
“Of course you can,” Bernie squeezed Abbey tight as it started to drizzle outside.
Abbey walked over to the front door and smiled at the jittery girl who was trying to apologize for trespassing as she put her cigarette out. “It is stupid cold out here, come on in, we have hot chocolate. I’m Abbey by the way,” she said as she held the huge door open, motioning her inside, “What’s your name?”
The girl looked like a deer in headlights as she looked around, in awe of the simple modern elegance of the building’s interior in contrast to its English Tudor facade.
“Scout,” she finally said with a southern twang.
Bernie grinned at the sound of her accent.
“I’m sor
ry, it’s just...this place feels familiar somehow. I’ve dreamt about it and... nightmarish creatures... I shouldn’t have come here. I’m sorry to have troubled you. I know I sound stupid...” The poor thing had heavy dark circles the size of half dollars under her eyes. She looked exhausted.
“Not stupid at all. Welcome to the Vaughan building, hon, we’ve been waiting for you,” Bernie said channeling old Saint Nick.
“For… for me?” Scout shook her head in disbelief. “No, not for me. There has to be something wrong with me. I can see strange shadows. I think I’m going crazy.” she sniffled.
“You’re not crazy, we see them too. This building houses dozens of us, just like you. The creatures in your dreams, the strange shadows you see, they’re all real. We can help you understand what you see, answer all your questions. I’m glad you found us, Scout. You’re not alone anymore. Welcome home, hon,” Bernie said as the guardians consoled the tiny waitress. The tension and jitters rushed from Scout’s body as relief flooded in. Joyous tears drenched her face as the neophyte took her first step towards acceptance.
“Welcome home, Scout,” Lourdie said warmly.
“Welcome home, sister.” An emotional Abbey placed a hand on Scout’s shoulder.
Lourdie smiled softly at her young apprentice who was remembering her own lonely and difficult journey. She lovingly wiped the tear from Abbey’s cheek.
Lourdie and Abbey entered the Court’s private jet admiring its decor. The rich oversized buttery leather recliners were cocooned by storage compartments veneered in golden burl wood. Luxurious caramel colored cashmere throws were draped on the backs of the seats. The aisle’s carpet was vanilla Berber flecked with pecan and bordered by soft ambient light. A flight attendant welcomed them aboard and the pilot nodded a friendly knowing hello. Although the pilot was a sleeper within the King’s Court, the co-pilot and flight crew were dociles.
