by Rae Else
Hadn’t she just been fantasising about going back to Ingrid and her grandma, her studies and her work at Cobbold House? A carefree summer, with all this behind her. About just being … normal. But she wasn’t normal. And she was stuck here for the moment. She needed to know why.
El nodded but spoke up, ‘I still need to know what’s going on. What do the graeae want with me and my power?’ Surprise flitted across Anna’s face. She clearly hadn’t expected El to find out so much already. ‘Did I do something wrong? Is it against the law to use my power? Is that why they’re looking for me?’
This morning, under the shroud of her sack, El had had plenty of time to consider why the Order might come after her. It was either against the law for arete to use their power or the Order wanted it. She had seen Anna use her power last night and had just learned that she was able to use her power of manipulation on a vast scale for her business. Therefore, El had already concluded that it must be the latter.
Anna hesitated. ‘You manipulated one human,’ she said. ‘To the Order, that’s nothing. If you had compelled a crowd, I could understand them sending someone.’ She halted. Her mouth twisted and she seemed to struggle to say what she wanted.
Already, in the short time El had spent with Anna, she had the distinct impression that she always said exactly what she thought. El’s worry heightened. Her eyes bored into her mother.
‘The only reason the Triad, the most powerful of the graeae would track you like this – after using your power just once – is because they foresaw something. Something they want to stop.’
‘By stop,’ El said, ‘you mean like they stopped Grandma?’ Her heart quickened at the thought of her grandma’s injury. Had it really been self-inflicted like she claimed or had it been the Order’s doing?
‘The Order doesn’t maim,’ Anna said. ‘When I lived with your grandma, she used to tell me that she’d lost her eyes in an accident, but when I left home and found out about the Order, I knew that they must have hunted her. I realised that she must have cut her eyes out to escape them. Because, if the Order had found your grandma, she’d be dead.’
El shook her head. She’d thought Anna looked grave earlier, and suddenly the reason for it settled into place. She was afraid. Her heart hammered as she realised Anna’s collected countenance was beginning to crack. El hadn’t even known that these other arete and this secret world existed until yesterday. Now, it wanted to kill her.
She imagined the graeae’s foresight like a torch beam cleaving the darkness in two. She was reminded of nights out in the fields, the whites of animals’ eyes reflected back at her in the glow of her torch.
‘But,’ Alex said, ‘the serum I gave you will conceal you. You’re safe. And like your mum says, your power will become less visible with time. Once I’ve run a few tests and found out why your power flared last night, we’ll be able to get you back home, safe and sound.’
El only nodded, feeling the weight of everything that had happened again. The hope of a cure was slipping away, but perhaps these tests would give her some answers. She felt stupid for wanting to know the truth. It was bad enough that the Triad wanted her dead, but Anna had confirmed her fears that they had foreseen something in her, something in her that they wanted to stop. There was something different about her. Even in this world there was something wrong with her.
‘If this serum conceals my power, it suppresses it, right?’ El asked. Her mind was leaping around, trying to find some kind of reassurance. ‘Does it mean it’s less likely to go wrong again?’
‘It only shields your power from graeae,’ Alex said. ‘Imagine your power as a radio signal. The serum interrupts its frequency so it makes it hard for the Triad to see and find it.’
El’s heart sank. Her power was as dangerous as ever then. Around humans she was as dangerous as ever.
‘You should know,’ Alex added, ‘your powers are a natural part of you. Once we’ve done some tests, I’m sure we’ll get to the root cause of what’s happening.’
El continued to nod, casting her gaze on the tabletop. It was easy for him to say. He didn’t have to live with this power. He hadn’t been singled out by the Triad either. He wasn’t being hunted.
Anna found her voice again, sounding more familiar – cool and aloof. ‘Right, I really have to get going. I’ll send Dan to collect you once the tests are done.’
El opened her mouth.
‘Not again,’ Anna snapped. ‘This is for your own good, you have to stay.’
El shut her mouth, trying to disguise her hurt at being spoken to so abruptly.
‘What?’ Anna asked.
‘I missed dinner yesterday,’ El said quietly, ‘and I’ve not had breakfast this morning, and would kind of like some lunch…’
She enjoyed Anna’s crestfallen look. Yeah, that’s right, don’t expect to win mother of the year any time soon. At this rate, it wasn’t going to be the Order she had to worry about. It was starving to death. She hadn’t even had a cup of tea yet this morning. It was a miracle she was functioning at all.
Alex’s light-hearted laugh sounded. ‘I’ll get some food. How’s that?’
El’s stomach gave a grateful grumble at the promise.
‘In the meantime,’ he said, going to a filing cabinet in the corner, ‘you can peruse these.’
He presented her with a handful of leaflets. El scanned the top one: So, you're Arete. She opened up the inner sheaf and scanned the subtitle: 10 Things to Know About Being Arete.
She snorted.
‘Useful for those marrying into this stuff,’ Alex said, ‘which is rare but it happens. Better they're informed before their kids start flying.’
El gaped. ‘Is that possible?’
He grinned. ‘See air manipulators.’
Soon Anna and Alex headed to the lift. When the elevator closed, El wrenched open the door in the corner of the lab. She was right in thinking it led to the stairwell and took the steps two at a time. When she peered into the reception at the bottom, Anna was signing out. She strained her senses to detect Anna and Alex’s words and movements.
‘I don’t know, Alex. What was I meant to say?’
‘I don’t think lying like that,’ he said, ‘is the right way. It’s just what your mother did and look how that turned out.’
Without looking, El examined the frown marring Anna’s lips and brow. She’d wondered if she’d hear any more truths by listening in. What had Anna lied about? Was it about why the Order was hunting her? Was it to do with why her power had gone haywire? El worried again that being here was a mistake. She was unsure whether it was her mum’s lies she should be more worried about or whether it was whatever was wrong with her. She felt as if she was a bomb that might detonate at any time.
Footfalls sounded on the stairs behind her. A young man with strawberry-blond hair and pointed features jogged down. As her eyes marked him, his green gaze met hers. He had broad shoulders and was tall, perhaps over six foot. The pale blue shirt he wore accentuated his olive complexion. His gaze felt different to any of the arete she’d met so far, more of a tingle. She felt a residual coolness left by it across her cheek – a water manipulator. But what about that prickly feeling?
She could feel her muscles tensing, his proximity stirring something in her. Not again. Curse all these good-looking guys. She should get a warning tattooed across her forehead so they could avoid her. But, she remembered Dan’s words from the last night. Her power of manipulation only worked on humans. She forced herself to relax and look away, not out of fear, but shyness. She opened the door for the guy.
‘Please, after you,’ he said.
She flushed. Oh, God this was awkward. El breathed more easily as she realised the elevator doors were closing on Anna and Alex. The opportunity for eavesdropping had passed, but at least she could enter the lobby without having to explain that she was a stalker.
She felt her heart flutter as he smiled, revealing an arch of w
hite teeth. The outdoors was stamped all over him – tanned skin, hair that looked naturally lightened by the sun. She imagined that he’d look much more at home in shorts on the beach than the shirt and suit trousers he wore.
Distracted, she was in danger of being shut out from the lab and of Alex finding her dawdling in the lobby. She regretted that she wouldn’t get to talk to this guy, but hurried back through the door. ‘I forgot something upstairs,’ she mumbled.
She felt the cool tingle of his gaze and noticed that the pleasurable sensation marked the back of her neck. As she mounted the stairs, two at a time, the spark of excitement remained. She thought about the leaflets waiting for her upstairs. Never mind air manipulators, the first thing she was going to find out was what type of arete had a gaze that made your skin tingle.
- Chapter Six -
The Puppeteer
Whilst waiting for Alex, El read through the leaflets. She skimmed over how to identify each type of arete. Temperature changes were familiar to her with water and fire manipulators, as well as the weighted sensation she’d experienced with Adam’s eyes or the man’s in the waiting room. She realised the only arete she hadn’t come across yet was an air manipulator, reading that their gaze quickened one’s breathing.
Next, she read about nymphs and recalled yesterday’s conversation at the safe house. There was a familiarity to the words she read and she absorbed the contents easily. Dryad: earth manipulator. Naiad: water nymph. Hesperides: fire. Aurae: air.
Less comfortable was the reading about the different types of serpents. Arete like her. She knew that a fire serpent was a drakon. What she was, and Dan. The rest was new. A water serpent was known as a hydra. She pictured Anna and her chilly stare, and let the word hydra wash through her. An earth serpent was called a ladon, and a typhon manipulated air.
There were a couple of other types of arete who could alter human perception. One with their voice: an arete called a siren, who also manipulated water. The other, a harpy could compel with their breath. Their element was air. El sat for some time wondering about these two other types of arete, empathising with the strain of having their power too.
For most of her life, she’d lived in fear of what her gaze could do. When sitting her exams at school for the first time, she wore sunglasses, desperate to hide her eyes as much as possible. She remembered the terror when the invigilator had told her to take them off. The other students were curious at the sight of a new girl, but she averted her eyes from them, keeping them glued to her paper. She pretended to be studiously checking her answers when all she wanted to do was shove her glasses back on and bolt away.
Finally, hurrying from the exam hall, she was so afraid to look up that she collided with Ingrid. Embarrassed, she’d helped Ingrid gather up her stuff and, with her future friend doing most of the talking, somehow agreed to go for coffee. Months later, Ingrid admitted that she’d taken pity on El’s terminal shyness. Whenever the awkwardness of their first meeting was mentioned, El managed to laugh it off, but she knew that that day had been a massive achievement for her. She imagined how difficult life would have been – equally hard, perhaps even harder – if it were her voice that caused so much fear.
El read that serpents, sirens and harpies’ power tended to be stronger than that of nymphs. Perhaps this was because they had the added ability to alter human perception. She hoped that she’d get to meet some at the safe house. Some more rather. Dan and Anna were serpents after all, but they didn’t exactly seem eager to chat. It would be good to find others to talk to, people dealing with similar things to her.
The last type of arete mentioned were arachnids. They possessed enhanced dexterity, agility and strength, as well as possessing an artistic flair. However, they didn’t have an elemental ability, or any power to alter human perception. Their gaze possessed a tingle or prickle. El thought about the guy in the stairwell and thought he must be one. She swore she’d picked up a coolness to his eyes though. Perhaps she was remembering it wrong.
Alex returned with some lunch, and the secretary from the front desk in tow. He explained she was going to help in El’s tests. First, he took a blood sample and analysed it. He confirmed that there was still enough serum in her bloodstream to shield her from the Triad’s view. They were good to get started on the tests. Alex monitored her blood pressure, as well as her heart rate. A series of graphs and numbers were transmitted to the screen that was hooked up to an electrode headset El was wearing.
She thought that this was all that was involved in the tests, but Alex explained that the secretary had agreed to act as their guinea pig. For a while, El refused to use her power, but with Alex’s reassurance and the administrator’s consent, she reluctantly manipulated the woman. She influenced her to do a few mundane tasks: to pick up objects, walk across the room and share some basic information about herself. Each time El compelled her, Alex recorded the data. He finished up by giving her another injection of serum – enough to last until tomorrow.
When the tests were complete, the secretary left. Alex asked El to talk him through last night’s events. It was the first time she’d spoken to anyone about it. Although she’d heard earlier that the guest was expected to make a full recovery, it wasn’t easy recapping what had happened. Guilt gnawed at her insides as she spoke. She cringed too when she had to explain why she’d got flustered – because she had the hots for the guy. She would have preferred talking to another woman about this stuff; Ingrid, or even her grandma. It would have been nice if her mother had stayed around. Then again, Anna didn’t seem eager to have a heart-to-heart, and El couldn’t see them chatting about boys anytime soon. Perhaps it was better this way. Alex was very professional. In light of this information, he said he’d check for hormonal imbalances too, as that might be a contributing factor.
He began to tidy things away at the side of the lab.
‘I’ve got something else that might interest you,’ he said.
He retrieved a tote bag. Endon was scrawled across the fabric in a bold typescript. Below was the company logo: a silhouette of a face within a face.
‘Nice branding,’ she said. It suited both the cosmetic surgery company and the hidden arete part of the business. The mask-like design reminded her of the kerykeion and how it concealed arete places from humans.
‘Alex?’ she asked. ‘You know how there’s kerykeion veiling this building – and what’s here isn’t visible to humans – how come you can see it?’
‘Any human’s blood incorporated into the kerykeion when its drawn acts as a kind of antidote to the veiling,’ he said. ‘My blood, along with a few other human employees, is within the current one. It is a pain whenever I take on a new human employee, although that’s rare. I have had to get more kerykeion added a couple of times to incorporate them.’
‘So … some humans really do live knowing about the arete world?’ She was thinking about Ingrid and wondering if she’d finally be able to tell her the truth sometime.
‘Some do, yes,’ Alex said. ‘More often than not though, they are just under arete control. I mean, even some of the employees here – top scientists – are manipulated to keep the information they are working on secret. I guess it’s like being a secret agent, but–’
‘Not having a choice in the matter…’
Alex seemed to realise that El was getting close to debating arete ethics again and motioned to the bag of books she held.
El peeked inside. There were three hefty looking books. She drew one out. At first its cover read: The Age of Myth by A. F. Bennett, but soon the kerykeion had morphed on its front, and the words changed. She reread the title: Origins of Arete by A. F. Bennett. Each volume worked the same way and she grinned as the real title appeared on each. A Brief History of Serpents by Tessa Carras. Man or Monster: Understanding the Arete by R. J. Turner.
The kerykeion were more detailed on these covers. El could distinguish that the curly stroke wrapped around the vertical line was, in fac
t, a snake. Its upper body and head became the horizontal line of the cross. It was clearer now that the upright line was a staff and the rest was the snake twisting around and across its trunk. She recognised the symbol from the signs of medical organisations.
‘That’s the rod of Asclepius,’ she said. ‘Not the kerykeion. She remembered that the kerykeion or caduceus had something to do with Hermes, the Ancient Greek messenger god. It was two snakes around a winged staff.
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘you’re right. That’s the kind of thing Bennet goes into: the origins of arete and the corruptions of their symbols over the years. I don’t have much time for the various hypotheses about where arete come from – beings cursed by ancient gods, as most legends passed down say, or whether they’re from an earlier culture, such as Mesopotamia – but I know your leanings are far more historical than mine.’
He was putting things away and El opened the cover of Man or Monster and skimmed a paragraph:
The hypothesis that all arete power lies in sight is firmly supported by their inability to alter the internal elements within either humans or arete. In theory, gases, fluids, mass and energy within a living organism should be able to be altered by an arete, but a number of case studies have proved unsuccessful. Manipulation of an element can only occur when the subject has the element in their line of sight.
El grimaced. She hadn’t even thought about internal alteration of elements. Altering bodies and their internal processes. Gross. Thank god that wasn’t possible.
