Lucan (The Lucan Trilogy Book 1)

by M. D. Archer

  Everything will be better tomorrow.

  But it isn’t.

  I WAKE UP covered in sweat and crouched by the door.

  Taking my time to stand, careful with my complaining muscles and joints, I ease myself up and move back to my bed. I have been asleep for sixteen hours, and I still feel like death warmed up. I can no longer pretend that everything is okay. Something is wrong. It screams from every cell of my body. My muscles, bones, hair, teeth, everything, aches.

  I just have to do it. I have to take the test and find out if I’m pregnant. Even though the house is silent, with Mom and Dad at work, I tiptoe across the hall to the bathroom.

  Five minutes later, I have my answer.

  I’m not pregnant.

  Instead of relief, I’m shaking with fear. What is wrong with me? I have to go to the doctor. I’ll go to the one on campus. I’ll just show up. The nurse will take one look at me and usher me through immediately.

  I manage to have a brief shower and get myself dressed, but I know I can’t keep breakfast down, so I try to ignore the hunger-nausea combo that is battling it out in my stomach.

  When I near the bus stop, one is already there, but rather than run for it, I let it go. I tell myself that I’m too tired to run, but I know that it’s more than that. I really don’t want to get on the bus. The thought of being surrounded by all those other people… I can’t. But I have to. There is something wrong with me; I have to go to see a medical professional.

  Three more buses go past me and I just stand there. Come on, Tamzin, just get on the bus. It’s not far. When I see another one round the corner, I force myself to raise my hand, signaling to the driver to stop. But as soon as I get on, I wish I had trusted my instincts. I’m completely overwhelmed. Music from no less than ten iPods blare at me as if they are plugged into my own ears. Two people near the back are talking so loudly it’s like they think they are front row at a gig. The guy to my right took a bath in aftershave this morning, and the girl to my left hasn’t washed her hair in months.

  I gag.

  “Are you okay?”

  I grip the edge of the seat and double over.

  “Let her sit down.”

  “Here, miss, you can sit here.”

  I can’t respond, but I crumple gratefully into the offered seat, sweaty and nauseated.

  “Are you okay?” someone asks again.

  “Uh… I’m fine,” I croak. “I just need…”

  I need them to leave me alone.

  The guy leaning over me has coffee breath that could destroy a rainforest, and the girl next to me must have sprayed her deodorant directly up my nose.

  “Uh, I’m okay, just feel a bit sick,” I try to explain. I’m desperately trying to quiet my central nervous system, but it continues to scream at me. The girl next to me is worried that I’m going to puke on her and is considering leaving her seat. Her worry is justified. I can’t take this anymore. My brain feels like an arcade full of ten-year-old boys. I press the buzzer and stumble off the bus. The other passengers give me a wide berth as I push past them. Outside in the fresh air, it’s better. There is a bench at the bus stop and I fall onto it, putting my head between my knees.

  My phone beeps.

  Dana: R U OK?

  No, I’m not.

  My phone rings. I ignore it.

  It beeps again.

  Dana: Tam, please talk to me.

  I can’t.

  Then, this time without the assistance of modern technology, I get another message.

  “Tamzin, please come over. I’m at home.”

  Shock courses through me. That was Dana’s voice, but inside my head.

  That’s it then. I’m going insane.

  “You’re not, but you have to let me help you, otherwise you might.”

  I stay where I am.

  “I’m the only one who can help you.”

  What. The. Hell?

  “Tamzin?”

  No, this is insanity. I crumple backward onto the seat at the bus stop, thankful that no one else is waiting. With my head in my hands, I close my eyes to stop the tears that are right there, threatening to gush out. I’m hallucinating, or delusional, or something. I must have a brain tumor. That’s it—I have a tumor and now I’m dying.

  I don’t know how long I sit there for, but I’m getting pins and needles when a shadow stops in front of me.

  Dana crouches down, studying my face. “You’re really freaking out.”

  “There’s something wrong with me. I think I’m dying. Everything is so… weird…. Dana… I’m so tired. There are things…” I stop, meeting her eyes. “How did you know something was wrong? How did I hear you?” My lip quivers. I’m so close to the edge.

  “Oh, Tam, come here.” Dana pulls me into a hug, and I let a few tears escape. “Okay, first things first. You aren’t dying. Okay? Trust me. You aren’t. Just absorb that for a second.”

  I pull back, blinking away tears to listen.

  “And everything is going to be okay, all right? Everything is going to make sense soon. I’m going to tell you what is happening.”

  Inside Dana’s apartment, I sit on the couch sniffling intermittently while she bustles around in the kitchen, filling the kettle and getting cups ready. A few minutes later, she presses a hot mug of tea into my hands.

  “You need to listen to me, and keep an open mind, okay?”

  I nod, wiping away a few remaining tears.

  “Okay, so…” Dana pauses, adjusting her position. “This is harder than I thought it was going to be,” she says, but she looks excited. “Okay, here it is.” She looks me square in the eyes. “You have the Lucan gene. At the moment, your body is adjusting to becoming Lucan.”

  “Lucan?”

  “Yes. And I’m Lucan too.” She squeezes my arm and beams at me.

  “Dana?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What the hell is Lucan?”

  “Oh right. Lucan is, well, the easiest way to explain it is that we are not totally human. Lucans have special abilities, like extra sensory skills, heightened speed and strength, the ability to speak telepathically…” She trails off, taking in the expression on my face.

  I wait for the punchline.

  “Tamzin?”

  “I heard you. No, that’s great. Uh-huh. Phew. I mean, I was worried something weird was going on, but it turns out I’m just not totally human.” I don’t remember standing up, but I’m now pacing the living room.

  “Just calm down and listen to me.”

  “This is crazy… Why are you saying this?”

  “Just listen.”

  But I keep pacing, shaking my head until, in one incredibly fast motion, Dana is standing before me holding my arm. Her eyes flash yellow and her grip is crazy strong.

  “Tamzin. Sit. Down.”

  I sit down.

  “Everything you’re experiencing right now is all part of Becoming. This sensory overload is because your senses are heightened but your brain isn’t used to that level of input yet.”

  I nod. That is exactly what it feels like.

  “This initial flush just lasts a few days—your body and brain are adjusting—and it will come and go with no apparent rhyme or reason. But once it settles down, you will have these abilities forever. While it’s a lot to take in at first, once you get used to it—” A big smile erupts. “—it’s pretty amazing, you know?”

  No, I don’t know.

  I stare at her blankly.

  Does she think this makes sense? That she is explaining herself properly?

  Dana eyes me, registering my expression. “We are mostly human,” she repeats, “but we have this Lucan gene that gives us special abilities.”

  Something surges in my chest, but I can’t tell if it’s panic or excitement. Maybe it’s both.

  “Before, when you told me to come over, that was telepathy right? Like on my birthday? You spoke to me in my head, right?”

  Dana nods. “I thought you were Becoming, b
ut you weren’t ready to deal with it quite yet.”

  “But… how…? Where does this come from? Why me, us?”

  Dana shrugs. “Where does anything come from? It’s just evolution, I guess.” She darts into the kitchen so quickly that I reel with surprise. Her speed and agility is beyond human. It’s clearly a demonstration, and it’s effective. I look down at myself, my hands, as if I will be able to see some observable difference.

  “The physical changes aren’t instant, but you’ll see them over the next week or so. And everything properly settles down after your first full moon.”

  “Wait.”

  Physical changes?

  The full moon?

  This is sounding a little too familiar.

  “Dana… are we…”

  Dana frowns.

  “…werewolves?” My voice drops to a whisper.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Werewolves don’t exist.”

  “But—”

  “Werewolves. Don’t. Exist.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “I mean…” Dana’s eyes flicker. “Some believe that we are descendent from an ancient species, the Lykos, a large wolf-like beast, and that we evolved over time, from Lykos to Lucan. Lycanthropes might be considered by some to be the evolutionary step in between, but—”

  “Lycanthropes? But isn’t that just another name for w—”

  “Yes, it is, okay? Some believe we evolved from wolves and werewolves, and others think we are a result of a genetic mutation.” She spreads her hands like this is all the explanation she can offer.

  “And you think…?”

  Dana silences me with a look. “We aren’t werewolves, okay? There’s no biting. There’s no changing into a wolf. Were means to change, and we don’t change.”

  “You said the physical changes…”

  “I just meant, your body adapts. You get stronger, faster, etcetera.”

  “So werewolves don’t exist, but Lucans do? You and I aren’t werewolves, but we are kind of related? Go back far enough and you find hairy, four-legged relatives?”

  Dana makes an irritated face, but then shrugs, as if saying, close enough. I put down my tea and stand up, head spinning.

  We are some sort of more-than-human wolf creature.

  Nope.

  This is insane.

  I have to get out of here. My muscles, having done nothing but complain for the past few days, are now bunched and trembling with anticipation.

  “Tamzin…,” Dana says.

  I bolt.

  Out the door, down the stairs, outside.

  But I don’t get very far.

  An office building a few doors down must be having a fire drill or something, as a wave of people flood toward me like a tsunami. It’s like they’re screaming at me. This time it’s not smells or sounds, it’s just like a mass of energy coming toward me like a physical assault. I double over, hands clutching my head. I can’t take this. How can I stop this, dampen the overload, or at least numb myself to it? Then, like some sort of omen, a guy walks past me with a beer in his hand.

  It’s not even 3:00 p.m., but I know what I need to do.

  Chapter 3

  When I wake up, my throat is so raw it’s hard to swallow.

  “Water,” I croak to no one. Like a miracle, there is a bottle next to the bed. I guzzle it back, but with my level of dehydration, I might as well be pouring it down the Grand Canyon. It’s as if someone has sawn off the top of my head, poured wine and vodka in, and then screwed my skullcap back on too tightly. My eyeballs bob around in acidic liquid, and my brain bangs against the side of my head as it sloshes around my skull.

  “Ugh.”

  There is an uncomfortable bunching around my waist and thighs. I’m still wearing my jeans. After a brief struggle, I pull them off and hurl them onto the floor.

  “Why is it so bright in here?” I enquire of my nonexistent roommate. A beam of harsh daylight pierces through the gap in the curtains like a laser of death. I stagger across and yank the curtains shut then flop back onto the bed. It’s only then that I realize I’m not in my own room. I’m in the spare room downstairs. The stairs must have been too much for me to handle. A wise decision, because I clearly hadn’t woken the parents when I came in. If I had, Mom would be all over me this morning and right now I would be doing something unpleasant as punishment.

  I cast my foggy brain back to last night, trying to piece together the events leading up to my current disastrous state. It comes back in flashes. I had found a dingy bar tucked away in an alley a couple of blocks from Dana’s. As I downed a few vodkas, I made friends with the other day drinkers, and then, I think at my suggestion, we made a group decision to move to tequila. I had wanted—needed—to feel numb. I had wanted to forget about everything. And it had worked, for a while at least. Now, with my body trying to restore itself after so much alcohol, everything seems even worse. In my hungover haze, my life seems even more unmanageable than before. What am I supposed to do with the information that I’m not quite human? And what does it even mean? If it’s anything like it’s been the last couple of days, then it’s going to suck. Dana had seemed excited to tell me about being Lucan, but from what I can tell, it is just going to make things more difficult.

  I throw my arms over my eyes, trying to dampen the pain from my throbbing head as I continue to piece together last night.

  Oh no.

  Amidst a hazy montage of drinking, laughing hysterically, and stumbling, one awful memory confronts me. It makes me bring my knees to my chest and wince like I’ve been kicked in the stomach. Me, screaming at Piper. About what, I have no clue. All I remember is that I’d gone to meet her at Sugar Bar. She’d convinced a reluctant bouncer to let me in—a decision they would both regret—and it had almost immediately all turned to shit.

  After getting kicked out, I’d taken a cab with some random, equally drunk people to an Irish pub known for much laxer attitudes. After that, the memories fade out. With a sinking sense of impending doom, I reach down to my bag—on the floor with half its contents spilled out like some sort of gutted animal—and rummage until I find my phone. I brace myself. A few Facebook notifications provide photograph evidence of the awful state I was in. But after I’ve finished scanning and untagging myself from the damning photos, Facebook has something else to tell me. Most of my high school group have unfriended me. It’s not a huge surprise.

  I would choose Piper over me too.

  Among a bunch of awful texts, there is one from Chris, sent earlier this morning.

  Chris: Interesting voice mail. Good night, was it?

  Sarcasm. Heavy.

  I called him, but what did I say?

  Unable to tolerate the tangy, dense air in the room any longer, I crawl upstairs. In the bathroom, I risk a look in the mirror. Red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes framed by chalky skin. It is official—I look as bad as I feel. Fighting nausea, I move over to the shower, gripping the basin for support as I take careful steps. The last thing I want is to fall over and be found by my parents passed out and semi-naked on the bathroom floor like some sort of burnout cliché.

  After a cold shower, I eat a bacon-based breakfast, which helps a little, but I still go straight back to bed, exhausted by this brief surge of activity. I burrow under the covers with my phone in hand and stare at the screen. I need to call Piper and Chris, but I can’t remember what I said to either of them. My phone startles me as it comes to life in my hands. It’s Dana, requesting Facetime, but there is no way.

  Ten minutes later, I hear the back door open and close. It’s Dana, I just know.

  I leap up, ignoring my reeling head and racing heart, and scramble around my room, getting together the necessities for an escape.

  Dana appears in my doorway. “Tam—”

  “Don’t. No more about this Lucan stuff. It’s nuts. And I’ve got other things to worry about.” I move past her through the doorway. An unpleasant swirl of nausea accompanies the sudden movement.

  �
�I need you to get your head around this. Please. We can go through it again.”

  Instead of answering, I go into the bathroom and slam the door.

  “There are some things you need to know sooner rather than later. The full moon is coming up.”

  I yank open the door. “The full moon? I thought you said we aren’t werewolves.” I shut the door again and turn on the shower.

  “Seriously, Tam. Can you at least attempt to be a grown-up, for like five minutes?” Dana calls through the door.

  Me be grown up? She’s the one talking about werewolves.

  Through the door, I can hear my phone ringing. Leaving the shower running, I open the door and push past Dana. It’s Chris calling. I should talk to him, but I don’t answer. A text comes through a second later.

  Chris: I’m home. Come over?

  Dana has turned off the shower and is back in my room, so I grab my wallet and keys and move past her to run down the stairs. She calls out after me, but I keep going. Where, I don’t know. Should I go see Chris? I’ll have to deal with whatever I said on my message. It’s probably an alcohol-induced confession about one of two things.

  Either the doubts that have been nagging me about our relationship, or that I am not totally human.

  Chapter 4

  Chris lives in a cluster of student housing just off campus. Normally I wouldn’t walk all the way there, but there is no way I’m getting on public transport. Whether you want to call it a hangover or becoming Lucan, my senses are in overdrive and confined spaces are not an option.

  He meets me at his door and gives me a wary once-over. “Based on your message, you should look worse… but you don’t smell great.”

  My hangover had started easing on the walk over, each step seeming to clear the toxins from my system, or maybe it was the breakfast burrito I scarfed down, but now that I’m facing Chris, my head is thumping again.

  He lets me inside and I go to the kitchen to chug water straight from the tap. “Do you have any lemonade or anything?” I burrow in the fridge.

  “Sorry. Hey, don’t drink that. It’s Ben’s.”

  I go back to the faucet.

  “What did you do last night?”

  I stand up and wipe my mouth with my sleeve. “Caught up with Piper and some others.”