by H. D. Gordon
Or so I’d thought.
“You look scared, fairy,” Raven laughed, sidling up alongside me and giving me a nudge that tested my patience.
I gritted my teeth and ignored her, waving at Sam and Matt, who sat in the stands giving me thumbs up and smiles as big as crescent moons. The day was sunny and still, warm even for spring, the evening hours growing longer and brighter somehow, returning a hope that had slowly slipped away somewhere in the depths of winter, a revival of life.
From the concessions, I could smell roasting hotdogs and the gooey orange cheese that was draped over slightly stale nachos. The stadium was on the block adjacent the school, with a field so green it stood out like lipstick on a white collar, the concrete of the city ever lurking at its corners.
This field was used for all manner of outdoor sport, from football to soccer to field hockey. Beside it were three baseball fields that served not just Grant City High, but other various leagues as well. A chain link fence enclosed the space, and the eastern end was where the slackers and smokers hung out in their hipster jeans and leather jackets.
On the track ringing the field was where races would take place on the appointed evenings. Large stadium lights that I knew must attract countless night bugs were off until the sun sank low enough to be needed, but they stood overlooking the spectacle nonetheless.
All in all, it was exhilarating, a scene from a movie I’d never imagined playing a role in. When Coach Sanders gathered us all in a huddle, there was a small moment where I had a hard time believing this was my life, almost like an imposter in a uniform belonging to someone else.
“All right, ladies,” Coach Sanders began, “I realize for many of you this is the first game in the last season of your high school lacrosse career, and I know how much you all want to do well.” His beefy hand fell on my shoulder and that of the girl on his other side, who was Andrea Ramos, of course. “I’m gonna say to you the same thing I say at the start of every season, and that is that if we want to be champions, we’re going to have to keep getting better and better at being a team.”
He went on for a few moments about how being a team was like being a family, the lot of us sisters, and would give mine and Andrea’s shoulders a gentle shake at varying intervals to emphasize a point. Coach Sanders was a funny creature, almost chameleon in his ability to change his emotional state. I’d watched him go from elated to angry in the space between eyelashes just this past week during practices alone. He was a large man with a similar voice and personality.
Next thing I knew, the band was kicking up, and I was ushered along in a current of teammates, their heads and faces obscured by masks and their voices muffled by mouthpieces. We took to the field and were greeted by the cheering of the crowd. Cheerleaders stood on the track before the bleachers, saying something about how G-C-H-S was the B-E-S-T-best!
Whistles were blown and positions were taken, mine being that of second home. Andrea was in first home, and Raven in third—which I suspected she was bitter about. As I took the spot the coach had decided to place me in, I thought it was kind of ironic that the two other most offensive players on the team were both my enemies in certain senses of the word.
Despite our athletic prowess, as the opposite team assumed their positions, I wondered if our disconnection was going to negatively effect our ability to play the game.
And this suspicion would prove to be right.
***
“I should cut all three of you!” Coach Sanders yelled, slamming one of the helmets he was holding into the metal lockers. The clanging sound it made had me cringing as it rang in my sensitive ears. Though it had only been going on a few minutes, after the beating I’d taken on the field, it felt as though the man had been yelling for hours.
Coach Sanders was a big and tall middle-aged man with a balding head and a potbelly. His outfits consisted of varying t-shirts and khaki shorts that he kept tight around his ample waist with a bright blue belt that was almost the color of the school’s mascot, but not quite. Sometimes when he addressed us, his gray eyes would glitter. Other times, his face would go red and his eyes would bulge, as they were doing now.
Those gray eyes flashed from me to Andrea to Raven, and back again. “With the way you three were treating each other, I would’ve thought you were secretly playing for the other team! Like you were trying to lose!” Coach yelled.
The three of us sat in silence on the bench in the locker room, our teammates likewise behind us.
“I don’t know what’s going on between the three of you,” the coach continued, “but whatever it is, you darn well better kiss and make up, or else you won’t be setting a foot out onto the field again. We’re the reigning state champs, and what just happened out there was embarrassing! All those people out there, they came to see winners, and they’ll stop coming if we put on another display like that!”
Spittle flew from his lip as he said this last part, and I had to swallow twice so as not to twist my lips. I felt like all of three years old, being reprimanded this way, but if I were being honest, I knew he was right. We’d lost the game, and badly, not because we weren’t good enough to beat the other team, but because we’d acted like the opposite of a team. Andrea, Raven and I in particular had refused to pass the ball to each other, had refused to defend each other or communicate in anything other than mumbled jabs and pokes.
“You’re just gonna sit there, huh?” asked Coach Sanders, his voice lowered now, but no less filled with disappointment. “Nothing to say for yourselves?”
A cricket may as well have chirped. We may not like each other, but it seemed all three of us knew when to hold our peace.
With once last huff of disgust, Coach Sanders warned us to get it together, making us promise to work out our differences before our next practice on Monday morning, and finally dismissed us. Before retreating into his office, he told Andrea to stay behind so that he could speak to her, and watching the way her aura shifted at her anticipation of further reprimanding, I almost felt sorry for the girl.
Almost.
CHAPTER 11
Exiting the locker room felt more like escaping, the air easier to breathe outside of it, and not because the place always smelled of perfume and sweat. Maybe I hadn’t expected to be the best in the world at lacrosse, but I had expected to at least do well with it. If things continued in the same fashion as tonight, I may as well just quit the team now, because there was no way a college scout was going to look at me.
On top of that, I was disappointed with my behavior on the field when I’d sunk down to those two witches’ level and refused to work as a team. I was even more displeased that half of the school had seen this display. And let’s not mention the fact that stupid-head Thomas hadn’t shown up; I’m sure he’d had something so much better to do, the buttwipe.
These thoughts were solidified as I saw Sam and Matt waiting for me, pitying looks on their faces.
I stepped up to them, letting out a long breath and adjusting my backpack over my shoulders. “That bad, huh?” I asked.
Matt and Sam exchanged looks. Matt said, “It was your first game. Even for someone as badass as you, sports take practice.”
“Yeah,” Sam agreed and nodded. She patted Matt on the back. “And Matt would certainly know, since he plays so many sports.” I didn’t smile at this joke and she quickly added, “Don’t look so down. I hate when you look so down. Matt’s right, you’ll get better.”
“Are you over here crying, fairy? Typical,” said a voice behind me, making my shoulders go rigid.
Without turning, I said, “Go away before I knock your teeth out, Raven. I’m not in the mood.”
Smirking, Raven tossed her dark hair over her shoulder and joined our little group as though she’d been invited. Her gaze flashed down to the watch on her wrist while mine narrowed. “I touched a nerve,” she said, and laughed in a manner that tested my patience. “We made a stellar team, don’t you think?”
“You heard her,” Sam s
aid, “Beat it, evil Succubus.”
One of Raven’s dark eyebrows arched and her red-painted lips twisted. “Look at this little human, going around using words she doesn’t understand.”
We were standing behind the stadium in the small parking lot that was reserved for the coaches and players, and most of the people who’d been in the stands were across the field, a mini-traffic jam ensuing as everyone tried to make their way out of the lot. It was already after eight o’clock, the last of the light leaking from the day, the lamps surrounding the place sure to blink on at any moment. Buses idled some fifty feet to our south, the players from Grant City East celebrating their victory in chants and cheers as they loaded their yellow chariots to be carried away in unified joy.
No one was paying my odd little group much mind, everyone eager to get home for the evening or head to more interesting affairs, but for all I cared just then, we could have been upon a stage surrounded by a live audience, and I’m not sure I would have reacted any differently. I was disappointed, self-doubtful, and angry, and Empath or no, it didn’t take a genius to know this was not a good combination.
I spun on my heels and gripped Raven by the front of her leather jacket, yanking her up and bringing us face-to-face. As I did so, my anger only intensified, the memory of her shoving me out into the street and almost getting me hit by a car surfacing like a drowned and dislodged body. It was an ugly feeling, and I was in an ugly way.
“Why are you here?” I asked. “What the hell do you want from me? You want to fight? Let’s do it now and be done with it.”
In answer, her lips tilted up in a taunting leer. She lifted her arm and checked her watch again. In the same instant, there was an enormous boom that was so loud it seemed to shake the pavement beneath our feet. Immediately following this, there were screams and the wail of sirens.
“Done with it?” Raven said, her voice that of someone who feels they have the obvious upper hand. “Don’t be silly, fairy. We’re not even close to being done with it.” She laughed, but I barely heard it over the sounds in the distance, which were somehow calling my name without uttering a syllable. Raven leaned forward even more, her hands gripping my own where I still held her by the front of her jacket.
“We’ve only just started,” she told me. “The games have only just begun.”
***
It wasn’t my name being called. It was hers. Sometimes I had trouble separating the two, but they were separate… Weren’t they? The Masked Maiden was someone I became, someone I embodied, while Aria Fae was…
I guess that was it, wasn’t it? I was still trying to figure out who Aria Fae was. After living in Grant City for the last half-year, the realization that I had always been told who to be was really starting to settle over me.
I was no longer being told, and that had left me at somewhat of a loss, but the girl beneath the mask, I knew who she was.
“Talk to me, Coach,” I said, referring to Sam by her vigilante codename. I hadn’t used the moniker in a couple months, and it felt like slipping my feet back into comfortable shoes.
My earpiece crackled and Sam’s voice came back to me. “Almost at the lair,” she said. “Traffic is a nightmare. Nothing is coming up in the news yet, but the police blotter is going nuts with the emergency. Apparently, there’s some sort of animal causing a ruckus down town. They’re calling all available units.”
I tilted my head at this. An animal? Like, what, a bear? Or a gorilla escaped from the zoo? I asked Sam as much and she was silent for so long that if not for the sound of keys clacking in the background, I would’ve thought I’d lost the connection somehow.
“Sam?” I said. “You there?”
“Yeah, I’m here. I just… It’s weird. Something weird is going on.”
I leapt to the building beside the one on which I’d been perched, gripping the bricks and climbing up the side and over the higher rooftop in hopes that I’d get a better view. I’d gone back to retrieve my mask and suit, traveling by rooftop, and had made it back out before Sam and Matt had even reached the lair by taxi.
“What do you mean, Sam?” I said as I went to the roof’s edge and saw the smoke rising in the distance. I was getting close to the action, and would find out soon enough, but something about the tone of my best friend’s voice had set my nerves on edge. I cleared my throat. “Tell me what’s going on. Give it to me straight.”
“Uh… the word they keep using is—”
“Beast,” I said, cutting her off unintentionally. I didn’t need her to tell me what the police radio was saying. I was seeing it with my own eyes, and beast was the only description that fit.
CHAPTER 12
The building beneath me shuddered as I landed atop it, nearly knocking me off balance. I managed to keep my feet, but my head was another matter, my mind running a mile a minute.
The only thought that could penetrate the haze was, WTF is that thing?
That, and the fact that just seeing it sent a shiver of fear up my spine. I was a tough cookie, but I knew good and well that I wasn’t invincible, and the thing below me causing all the trouble would’ve sent grown men running in the opposite direction.
As it was, the beast was scattering the police as though they were little more than plastic soldiers and it an angered toddler on a rampage. It was slamming its beefy body into buildings and cars, smashing their hard surfaces as if they were made of eggshells rather than concrete and metal. As I watched, it ripped a streetlight post right out of the ground the way a wanderer might pluck a dandelion from the earth, then launched it away and shattered the glass of a storefront window. People were running and screaming, and the smell of panic and fear filled the air, floating up to me like clouds of black smoke.
“You see it, don’t you?” Sam’s voice in my ear made me jump, my heart ramming up into my throat. I was too far up for the camera on my Masked Maiden suit to allow Sam to get a good view, but I had a clear one.
“Yeah,” I answered. “I see it.”
“Okay… well, what is it? What does it look like?”
“It’s enormous,” I said, a little shiver going through me as a deafening roar rang through the streets. “It’s big and blue and strong as anything I’ve ever seen. It’s tearing apart cars and buildings like they’re made of paper.”
In the crackle of the earpiece, I could swear I heard Sam gulp. “But you know what it is, right? Some kind of supernatural creature?”
I shook my head, though she couldn’t see me. “If it is, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Just then, the building I was standing on shook again, but this time in a way that spoke of crumbling foundation, and I found myself jumping into the open air, spreading the wings of my cape, gliding down and landing in a stumble in the alley around the corner.
I heard the sound of whooshing air, and looked up in time to see a sizeable piece of building crashing down above me. There was no time to think or be afraid, only to act, and I leapt to the side just before being crushed, landing in a heap and activating some of the injuries I’d gained on the lacrosse field earlier tonight.
“Aria!” Sam screamed in my ear, making me squeeze my eyes shut and clench my teeth. “Are you okay? What was that? What happened?”
There was no way I could answer, because just then the beast stepped around the corner of the building, blocking the open mouth of the alley, trapping me between it and the crumbling building behind me. It sniffed at the air and spotted me, it’s red-streaked and crazed eyes locking like a target.
This close, it’s accurate to say that the sight of the thing stole my breath away. It had to be nearly fifteen feet tall, its body a mass of veins and muscles, its stance towering and intimidating. Its stretched skin was an unnatural indigo and wiry hair ran from the top of its head all the way down its bulging back, like a never-ending Mohawk. It slammed one of its enormous fists into the brick building beside it, sending red dust up in a puff.
Despite the appearance of its body, its
face was easily the worst of all. It was all hard ridges and dripping teeth, as though the sprouting of these fangs had caused contortion and agony. When it parted these jowls to let out a roar that nearly blew the hood off my head, it would also be accurate to say I was all but shaking in my boots.
Watching through the camera connected to my suit, apparently as stunned as I was even from her secondhand perspective, Sam said, “Oh… my… God.”
I didn’t respond to this. Instead, I held my hands out before me, like a lion tamer courting an unfamiliar feline for the first time. With every bit of Empath power I had, I put all my will into exuding calm, into forcing my mood upon the beast. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that this was not a threat that could be taken out with brute force.
As far as strength and size went, I was hopelessly outmatched.
“Hey, there,” I said, my voice as soft as warm butter. “Hey, there, buddy. Let’s just take it easy, okay?”
The beast shook its head and ropes of saliva flew from its jowly jaws, like a dog that had just indulged in a big drink of water. It let out a grunt, stomped its feet, but didn’t attack. I took this as a good sign.
“Aria,” Sam warned. “Be careful.”
I took a slow step forward, and the beast bent down and roared so loudly and fiercely that for all of five seconds I could not breathe, could not draw in air. The sweat rolling down the center of my back seemed to freeze and crystalize, a cold chill running up my spine in the same moment.
With enormous effort, I held my hands up further and pushed out my will, my aura stretching toward the beast’s like the tendrils of an invisible being… but it would seem my opportunity to play nice had passed.
The beast charged, the very earth shaking beneath my feet with its approach. I had a flash of thought that this must be how matadors felt when the bull finally dropped its head and rushed forward. I could not have attacked then had my life depended on it; there was only time enough to evade, and hardly even that.
