by Miles, D. L.
Once she had steadied herself she looked down, checking to see what it was that had caused her private humiliation; blood. Not a lot of it, but enough drops to make her slip on the plastic construction sheets. Kneeling down she got a closer look at the red liquid, unable to tell if it was Vampire or human. Considering the recent spike in Vampire deaths though, she would bet it was one of the victims.
“It’s his,” came a voice and Zia whirled around to find Mal coming through the doorway. His hair was matted and he wore the same clothes as when she first met him; hadn’t he gone home? Ignoring her strange concern for him, she put her hands on her hips.
“What are you going on about?” questioned Zia. Mal’s eyes shifted from their usually unusual violet to a more normal one as they fell to the blood at their feet. He stepped up to her, eyes never leaving the blood that was on the floor.
“It’s Vampire’s blood,” Mal looked up, face solemn but somehow unreadable, “this is where he most likely died.”
“And you’re here to what, confess? I know it wasn’t you,” Zia rolled her eyes and spun back around, avoiding the blood. She took another step in and peeked through a plastic curtain. The room on the other side was empty, just like the hallway.
“I do not understand,” Mal spoke slowly, as if he wasn’t sure what words to use.
“What don’t you get?” Zia sighed, moving across the hall. “A confession is when someone is guilty and they want to be punished for their crimes. And you—“
Mal cut her off. “I do not understand why you speak of my innocence yet hate me.” Zia turned this time, her hand still placed on a sheet, ready to pull it back. He almost sounded heartbroken, she thought, but quickly shoved that thought away. What she couldn’t push away though was how it made her feel guilty.
“I don’t…” she started to refuse but couldn’t. It wasn’t that she hated him; she hated what he was. “I just don’t like Specter’s.”
“Have you always seen us as such monsters?” Mal followed Zia as she continued down the hallway, even checking in the rooms she had.
“Not exactly,” she mumbled to him. Now was not the time to have a bonding moment with a Specter, she told herself. “Didn’t really care either way when I was a kid.”
“What happened?”
Zia found a room that felt different, the fifth room she had checked. Just before she stepped under the pearly sheet, strangely cleaner than the rest, she said, “A Specter killed my brother.” Zia stepped into the room, allowing the sheet to flutter shut behind her.
Mal paused in the hallway, wondering if he had heard her right. Her brother? he thought. When he heard her shuffling inside the room he was brought back to his senses and tossed the sheet aside, letting it fall to the ground.
“I-I am sorry,” he stumbled, “I did not know.”
“Yeah, not exactly something I share with every Specter I meet,” Zia was walking around the room, arms out in front of her as if she were blind. She flailed them about, momentarily distracting Mal.
He asked, “What are you doing?” He continued to watch as she moved around the room, occasionally stopping to glance around.
“What do you care?”
“I meant it when I said I wished to help you,” Mal’s eyes drifted over the sheets in the room, also noticing that they were much cleaner than the others on the floor. Finally it hit him, the magic that was absorbed to hide something. Mal gasped and blinked hard, feeling its strength and wondering how he had not felt it before. While Zia wandered about in the room, Mal soon said, “You will not find anything that way.”
“Why not?” Zia asked, stopping herself from waving her arms. She turned to Mal, the man she had just told about her brother’s murder, the first person she had talked to about it since it had happened. Well, second next to Iscah.
“I can allow you the sight,” he told her, waving his hand from her to come to him, “but that is all. If I break the glamour it may alert the Caster that it has been found.”
Zia approached him, wary that he may be tricking her and as he raised his hands to her head, she flinched. He only gave her a weak smile before she closed her eyes, and touched his fingers to her temple. A small, static shock ran through her body and she opened her eyes, her face not far enough from Mal’s. When she tried to stumble backwards she bumped into something.
Spinning around, expecting to see another Specter she found what she had been looking for. The once empty room that she knew wasn’t really empty gave up its secrets to her. What she had run into was a hospital stretcher, with large brown leather straps set where a person’s arms and legs should be. There was more hospital equipment that Zia recognized, but could never name; it was meant for drawing blood.
“It is Achaicious’s work.”
Zia jumped at Mal’s voice
“He has written the spell to hide all of this. How did you know it was here?”
“I could sense it,” was all she said and left the room. Mal quickly followed suit, his feet crinkling the plastic sheets that covered the floor. “We need to leave before it comes back though.”
“Ah, yes,” Mal nodded when they reached the stairs, “the Black Angel.”
“You know about the Crusnik?” Zia almost tripped over her own feet as she headed down to the chapel. “How—“
“There have been whispers,” Mal looked wistfully upwards, “about new Specter’s coming into the city…I’ve heard things about…” His eyes drifted down to Zia, who was holding her breath.
“About…?” she prodded.
“It is irrelevant,” Mal shrugged and walked past her, “but you should get reduc-chains, so that he is unable to use his strength.”
“I know what reduc-chains are!” Zia shouted as Mal disappeared down below. She hurried down and expected him to be gone, vanished into the air but he was there, waiting for her when she rounded the corner.
“You look surprised,” Mal tilted his head like a confused puppy. Zia felt something inside her shift and she stepped back, up one step so that she felt just a little bit safer.
“I just thought…nothing,” Zia snapped her mouth shut and pushed against Mal’s shoulder to move him. “I need to find Aeryn.”
Aeryn finally showed up, after another hour of Zia waiting inside the chapel with Father Killian. She had been trying to wrap her mind around Mal, to figure him out but she couldn’t think of any real reason he would want to help her. He almost seemed to be worried about her, and the intense way he looked at her with his strange Specter eyes made her feel like she was the only person in the world. He was intense, and she didn’t know what to think of it. A sigh escaped her lips, and her mentor noticed.
“Something wrong?” Aeryn asked, a playful tone in his voice. He held up the reduc-chains and passed them to her. Zia took them, confused.
“No, why would something be wrong?” she questioned back. The reduc-chains looked like regular handcuffs the human police in New Havilan would use on regular people, but a lot thicker. The links that bound them together were made with steel and iron, something that was hard to come by these days. Well, the pure stuff was hard to come by these days, since it was one of the only common weaknesses Specters had. It had to be shipped from overseas, and many of the boats sank before even arriving.
Something shifted in the sky, and the chapel grew darker. When Aeryn only gave her a quizzical look, she added, “I think Achaicious is involved in this.”
“Why’s that?” Aeryn was already moving out of the chapel, Father Killian and Zia close on his heels. The chains dropped down and clinked as she walked, and she couldn’t ignore this strange tightness in her chest. Was this fear finally coming for her? Was Kehzia Noble finally afraid of something? The only image in her mind was of Malachi Fel, and she felt the answer was yes.
“He’s done a spell to hide where the Angel’s killing grounds are,” Zia explained, only half listening to her own words.
Aeryn stopped suddenly, turning to face her. He asked with a smile,
as if already knowing the answer, “And how do you know that?”
Zia paused, wondering what she should say. But she confessed, “Mal told me.”
Aeryn’s eyebrows rose. “So it’s Mal, now?”
Aeryn couldn’t help but smile to himself as he and Zia waited in the room across from the last vampire in the hospital playing cards. He couldn’t believe her progress with Specter’s, specifically this Mal kid. Aeryn knew she had good reason to hate his kind, a very good reason, but she was already calling him by his name. Without any malicious tone, or anything.
“Five,” Aeryn said, and Zia groaned. She passed him a small card, and he added it to his pile. He was winning by a landslide, and she wasn’t very good at memory games.
It was almost midnight, and they were awaiting the arrival of the Black Angel, in hopes of catching him in the act. Aeryn knew that it would be arriving soon, but they were just waiting on Father Killian’s signal from the security office. He was watching the cameras, waiting for any of them to black out; that would be the Ventori’s cue to get moving.
As they continued to play cards, Aeryn wondered if Mal was still nearby. He was a strong Caster, and it was almost impossible to sense him. He also seemed to have a strange interest in Zia, and proving to her that not all Specters were bad. Aeryn resisted the familiar twitch his lips did as they stopped a smile; did Mal have a crush on Zia?
“Three,” Zia demanded, hand already held out for the card. Aeryn shook his head, and she drew from the deck with a scowl. She said, “It’s almost midnight, you know. We should radio the Father and see what’s going on.”
“Alright,” Aeryn said, and reached next to him for the small black box connecting them with the security room. He clicked the button and asked, “Hey, Father, any signs yet?”
When his finger released the side there was only static coming through. Zia’s eyes met Aeryn’s, and they both instantly knew something was wrong. Aeryn asked again, but there was still no reply.
“I need to check this out,” Aeryn stood, the card game long forgotten. “You stay here, and whatever you do, don’t go outside.”
Zia nodded her head, but even Aeryn knew that nothing would stop her. She was too much like her brother, he thought.
Zia wasn’t sure what was putting her on edge all night. She tried to tell herself that it was just because she was about to catch her first STRAY Specter, and that the uneasy feeling in her chest had nothing to do with Mal. But she knew it did, and it was a new feeling for her.
Aeryn’s footsteps padded down the hallway, and soon Zia couldn’t hear them anymore. She sat on her little chair, the table of cards in front of her, along with the reduc-chains. She had never used them before, but she knew how they worked; just like regular handcuffs, but if thrown right, would automatically latch on to the target. Although she did wonder how strong a Black Angel would be even with his power taken down. If she could get them on him before he feeds—
A click caught her attention. Silently she stood, her hands moving over the chains but not quite touching them…yet. Something shifted outside, and she yanked the chains from their spot on the table, rushing for the door. She swung it open to reveal an empty hallway.
Zia stepped outside, and looked up and down under the dim lights. Nothing. She pursed her lips, and just as she was about to head back into the room she sensed something. It was just behind her as she stood looking down the hallway, a shadow on the edge of her mind. Slowly, she knelt down and reached into her boot, pretending to tie the laces. When she heard a shuffling, she whipped up and around with her blue chain and hit Mal right across the face with it.
He jumped backwards, barely making any noise despite the large burn that now blazed across his cheek. Zia pulled the chain backwards and it wrapped around her hand, no thicker than a necklace, but long enough to reach her enemies while she stayed a safe distance away.
“What the Light are you still doing here?” Zia tried not to yell, but it was hard. And she knew exactly why he was there; he wanted to help her.
Mal’s fluorescent eyes were watery, but he held back any tears he might have had. Zia felt a little guilty as he reached up and touched at the thin line on his cheek, the burn she had made for him with her magic weapon. She opened her mouth to apologize, but found she couldn’t say the words to a Specter.
“I am here to help,” Mal predictably said, and he wiped at the wound. In a single swipe of his hand, it was gone, as if it had never happened. His eyes fell onto the blue chain wrapped around Zia’s left wrist, and then on the reduc-chains that were in her right. He asked, “How do you have cobalt? That is the rarest of ores.”
“I know,” Zia smirked, “I have my ways.”
“I am sorry for scaring you,” Mal went on, looking like a guilty puppy as his hair hung in front of his face. Something tugged at Zia’s heart, and she ignored it.
“So how do you expect to help?” Zia placed a hand on her hip, trying to will away her guilt. He shouldn’t have snuck up on her like he so often did; he was a Caster, and she would not feel bad for hurting him. Besides, his wound was perfectly healed now.
“I want to help the vampires,” Mal explained, looking towards the closed door next to them, “I was worried that the Black Angel may be hidden with Achaicious’s magic.”
Zia tried to argue with him, but couldn’t. He had a valid point; if Achaicious used his magic to hide where the Angel took the vampires to kill them, there was a chance that the creature itself would be hidden. But in the next room, sitting next to the cards, the radio buzzed, and Aeryn’s frantic voice came over the speaker, “Zia, get out of there! Killian was attacked and the cameras are blank! The Angel’s there, now move!”
She was standing in the doorway now, running to try and communicate with Aeryn when Mal suddenly grabbed onto her arm. She was ready to strike him again with the cobalt, but when she faced him he wasn’t even looking at her. Her feet came back into the hallway, and a hiss slithered down the hall. Zia turned, slowly and cautiously, to find the source of the noise. The Angel had come, and he didn’t look happy that there was an obstacle in the way.
The Black Angel looked nothing like Zia pictured, but then again, she hadn’t really thought of it. A man stood in the hallway, shoulders hunched and ready to pounce. He wore a black overcoat, with long, blond hair reaching down to his hips. Beneath that was a black suit, with polished black dress shoes. He was, Zia thought, beautiful, just as beautiful Mal’s eyes.
Mal raised his hand, ready to do a spell when the Angel straightened his back. The Caster paused, unsure of what to do when the enemy reached inside his jacket, and pulled out a piece of paper.
“No!” Mal cried, but it was too late. The Angel slapped the paper onto the wall, and with a snap of his fingers Mal was gone in a haze of green and white dust. Behind the Angel Zia caught a glimpse of that same dust coming around the corner, but she didn’t have time to think about it and jumped away from where Mal had once been. He had been banished, and Zia found herself hoping it was only temporary.
“From Achaicious,” the Black Angel said, his words thick with an accent Zia didn’t recognize. “Banish all Casters within area.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Zia said loudly, “I can take you.”
The Angel smiled and pulled another paper out of his jacket. He grinned wider, “For Ventori.”
Zia acted quicker than the Angel anticipated, and even quicker than she thought she could. She swung her cobalt chain around her, and flicked it at the angel, knocking the paper out of his hand. It fell into two pieces to the ground, and burned up as its magic disappeared. “Nobody’s banishing me to the shadows tonight.”
The Angel hissed at her, claws protruding from his hands now. Zia swung the cobalt back at him, and it wrapped neatly around his wrist. She smiled, watching as the chain burned him, even through his clothes, but he gripped onto it. His skin sizzled, and Zia tossed the reduc-chains in his direction, hoping they would latch on the way they were supposed to,
but they missed and clanked against the floor. The Angel yanked on the cobalt, and it shattered into a hundred tiny blue pieces.
“Not good enough, Ventori,” he laughed. But Zia smirked this time, and the Angel paused. Her eyes fell to the blue pieces between them, and his followed.
On the floor, the cobalt chain that had been taken apart so easily was beginning to meld together, gathering at the center to reform itself. In a matter of seconds the chain was back together, but still out of Zia’s reach.
The Black Angel moved quickly, and lunged at Zia before she could grab onto her chain. He tackled her in the chest as if it were a sport, and she flew backwards. The pain was unimaginable, and she felt a dull throbbing in her bones when she connected with the staircase door, and then the railing. She went over, and her hands scrambled to grip onto the metal before she plummeted to the basement. The Angel was gone.
Everything hurt; she had never been tackled before, especially by something as strong as a Specter. But like most of her feelings, she ignored it, and pulled herself upwards. It was easy to get over the railing once she had regained her footing, and she launched herself towards the door when she heard footsteps. She only wished she had her chain back.
The door had shut, and Zia didn’t wait for the Angel to come and get her; she kicked the door open, fists up and ready to attack.
“Whoa there!” Aeryn said, an amused smile on his face. He was holding her cobalt chain, along with the reduc-chains. Without a word Zia grabbed the blue links and wrapped it safely back around her left hand, leaving a small length to dangle at her side. She sighed, as if everything was all better now.
