by Rae Else
Amidst the cheering and applause, El fumed at the woman in the centre. As the performance ended, the woman grabbed Dan’s hand and bowed theatrically. El moved away, waiting in front of the church for the crowd to disperse. She watched the reception the audience gave the troupe, noting the generous donations that were being dropped into the glowing, glass jar in the middle. Now that the rest of the flames were out, the light from the giant money jar was the only one. Curiosity drew people to it. It seemed to have flames, dancing up and down within the glass. Most people dropped something in and she could hear people debating about how it worked. ‘Money to burn,’ someone said with a laugh.
The first performer to detach themselves from the group was the woman with the nose piercing.
She spotted El. ‘Hey.’
‘Hi,’ El said. ‘That was brilliant.’
‘Thanks. You must be El. I’m Cam. I just need to go change in the van.’ She gestured to the cumbersome dress.
‘Sure.’
Left in the shadow of the church El felt deflated. Her eyes wandered across the dim square to where Dan and his friends were still answering questions from the last of the spectators. The sound of the woman’s laughter seemed to sear through El like flame. El tried to make sense of her feelings. Earlier when Dan had given her the brooch she’d felt a rush of feeling. Standing in the crowd watching the performance and holding his hand, she’d been happy. For a few precious seconds. This woman had taken away that feeling when she’d thrown the fireball. And now El was standing in the shadows, watching her throwing herself at Dan.
El moved out of the gloom of the building as the final humans moved off.
‘Would have been nice to get some warning about the audience participation and improv,’ the tattooed guy said, eyeing the woman.
She grinned and took this as another opportunity to touch Dan’s chest. ‘But it’s Dan. I couldn’t help myself.’
Dan extricated himself from the woman’s arms. His dark eyes met El’s fleetingly.
The woman seemed to take this as a cue to notice her. ‘Sorry – my aim was off there.’
El shrugged. ‘Not everyone’s a good shot.’
The woman gave a strained smile.
‘I’m Pete,’ the guy said. ‘This is Tanya and I guess you’ve already met Cam.’
El smiled. ‘Yeah, she’s–’
‘Ready,’ said Cam, joining the circle.
Dan reached into his pocket and turned to El. ‘Take my car. Cam will bring it back later.’
‘Woah, don’t think you’ve ever let me near your ride,’ Cam said. She looked kind of punkish now in her black, skinny jeans and ripped T-shirt.
Dan’s lips twitched. ‘Not a scratch, unless needed.’
He was talking about the blood and the kerykeion that Cam had to mark. El knew that Cam had seen Alex today. Both empousa blood and Dan’s were in Cam’s bloodstream so that she could sneak it in if they were searched. All she’d need to do was cut herself and find a moment to draw the mark on the inside of the building. Then Dan would be able to infiltrate the building when the time came. He’d be the first rebel in and would mark another kerykeion, containing blood from the other Opposition members.
El felt as though all the warmth had fled her body. This couldn’t be it, could it? She hadn’t thought about saying goodbye tonight. She’d known it wasn’t a good idea for Dan to come, but she’d expected something more than this. A moment. Some time to say … what? She didn’t know what she wanted to say to him. He’d been with her all week, not just in training and telling her what to expect in the arenas, but during the long hours of the night. When she was haunted by her mum’s moonstone eyes and porcelain skin; when Anna’s face crumbled to ash. Suddenly, she was more afraid of waking up alone in the dark, without Dan there to comfort her, than of entering the arena tonight.
Dan dropped the keys into her hand. She pushed them into her pocket and felt the cold metal of the kerykeion brooch. She offered it to him with a smile. He folded her fingers over it. The feel of his hand on hers seemed to charge the air like it was on the verge of sparking, as if what she had been struggling to say was about to become manifest. El remembered the thin film of fire that had occurred between him and Tanya earlier. She felt that there must have been something between them, or still was.
‘Keep it,’ he said. ‘A talisman.’
El’s gaze locked onto his. Dark eyes. Hard but only with belief. Like tempered metal they had taken on a rigidity to protect them from harm. Eyes she understood.
‘Remember the training,’ he said. ‘Stick to the trenches when you need to and don’t take unnecessary risks. You’ll get to the final when the time’s right and I’ll be there.’
She nodded. What could she say? She couldn’t possibly say what she felt just now – that she wanted him with her, wanted the comfort of him being near, that his voice had buoyed her up through the long course of each night. The feel of his hand on hers now was somehow soothing and at the same time dangerous, his brief touch coaxing up all the emotion that she’d controlled for so many years. She wondered what would happen if his arms were around her or his lips on hers.
She pushed the thought away. She reminded herself what was important: her grandma, the plan, getting through the arenas, the Opposition infiltrating the Olympia. She couldn’t risk falling apart just now. This wasn’t the time or the place to let emotion cloud her judgement.
‘I’ll see you soon,’ she said. She turned and, without looking back, walked away with Cam across the shadowy square.
- Chapter Twenty -
The Olympia
El drove. The route was programmed into the satnav and the automated voice was the only one to sound through most of the journey. The more El thought about what was to come tonight, the more she wondered about Cam. Dan had only told her that she’d competed once in the Olympia so could get in, but she didn’t know any more about her travelling companion.
They stopped at some traffic lights. ‘So, you’ve been in the Olympia?’ El said.
Cam’s gaze snaked to her. ‘Yeah, but only once – the serpent life isn’t for me.’
El’s questioning gaze remained on her.
‘You know – make mummy and daddy proud by getting into the Order, get a high-powered job and pair up with another powerful serpent so that the life cycle of the serpent can start again.’
El nodded and drove on as the lights changed. She thought about Luke and how competing was what he wanted – more than anything. Her mum hadn’t wanted her raised in this world; Anna had shielded her from the influences and aspirations Cam was talking about. El wondered what had caused Cam to deviate from the traditional path her parents wanted for her.
‘But you’re not in the Opposition?’ El said.
Cam shook her head. ‘Nah, I keep out of it. But I don’t mind doing this for Dan if that’s what you mean. He’s a good guy and helped me get away from my parents. If it wasn’t for him, I’d have been in this place every week, forced to lead the life they wanted.’
El fell silent at the bitterness in Cam’s voice, unsure what to say.
A smile played on Cam’s lips. ‘So … what’s the deal with you two anyway – you and Dan together?’
El flushed and regretted starting the conversation. She shook her head.
‘Why not?’ Cam asked, her eyes still on her.
‘It’s complicated,’ El said.
Cam sighed. ‘Mysterious like Dan. Boy, you’re gonna need help if anything’s gonna happen.’
Before El could say anything, Cam indicated to pull up on the pavement and the satnav chimed in to announce their arrival. El had assumed that the building would be located in the West end of the city, where there was an area named Olympia, but the route had brought them eastwards. She knew this part a little as Endon was nearby. Not far ahead was the Walkie-Talkie building – a curved cuboid that looked like one of the early, brick-like mobiles. Being based on the o
pposite bank of the river all week, she’d had a good view of its form and the other buildings that surrounded it.
The side street they were parked on was narrow. Most of the streets around here seemed to be pedestrianised or one way. With the tall office blocks and skyscrapers hemming them in, El got the sense that they were being herded, that they’d soon be backed into a corner from which there was no escape.
Cam turned to her. ‘Listen, no offence but I’m gonna go in by myself. It’s better for the plan if we’re not seen together – and for me to be honest. I’ll tell the guard inside that there’s someone standing outside.’
El nodded, trying to look nonchalant but anxiety filled her. She was here. And she would soon be alone.
When they got out, El locked the car before throwing Cam the keys. They walked together in silence, but soon Cam directed her to stop. El’s heart thrummed as she watched the black-clad girl walk a few metres further, and vanish. El tried to steady her resolve. She pictured her mum and fought the urge to burrow her neck into the collar of her coat, knowing the comforting floral fragrance would be there. She stood still and waited.
El felt the weight of the arete’s eyes before she saw him.
A tall, stately-looking man was suddenly before her as though he’d materialised from thin air. ‘Yes?’
‘I’m El Devereux,’ she said. ‘I believe the Triad is … expecting me.’
A wave of recognition swept his face at her name. ‘If you would allow me?’ He withdrew a knife and a vial. El extended her hand, wondering for a moment at how normal this seemed after only being in this world for a week. Then again, she supposed after being drained of most of her blood, she wasn’t about to get squeamish over a few drops.
The man retreated. El sensed the veiling shift to incorporate her. It seemed like the buildings had moved. In the blink of an eye, they were elsewhere. A wide, empty concrete space stretched out around her. El stared in amazement, feeling as if she’d been transported to a wasteland. Dan had warned her that the shift in perception would be sudden and disconcerting. He’d joked that all the maps, including the underground, were woefully inaccurate. And sure enough, the Olympia was a black hole, swallowing roads and train lines in a moment and making the city she’d been in for a week, unrecognisable.
El looked up at the new building, the only one to inhabit the area. Its glass façade was a few metres before her. Its surface glittered in the night sky, beneath the floodlights that illuminated its form. It didn't look like any of the skyscrapers she'd seen across the city's vista before. It stood conspicuously in the night as though contemptuous of the rest and proud to break ranks. The inner part of the building rose in angular lines, cuboid in form. However, wrapping itself around the inner section was a curving shape. The patterns in its glass weren't uniform, some sections were coloured, others clear. She recognised its structure and pattern as the body and scales of a snake. The whole building was shaped like a kerykeion. The inner structure was the staff; the outer, the coiling body of the serpent.
The arete guard drew back the door and she entered the lobby. The door closed. El gulped. There was no turning back. She was in. A female guard, whose gaze was warm on El’s skin approached her.
‘Put out your arms please, like so,’ the drakon said.
El held out her arms and the drakon patted down her clothing, running her palms down her arms and legs. The guard nodded and pointed towards the reception desk.
The room was wide and spacious. The reception desk sat at the back, slightly off centre and to the right. A woman clothed in a black dress was behind the desk, a human. El saw the value in this. Anyone else wouldn’t be neutral when serving all types of arete.
Her eyes ran over the smooth, polished marble floor and walls. In the very centre of the room there was a rectangular pool set in the atrium. It was illuminated by two shafts of light, angled from the walls at the side. As she moved across the room, she spied that the light came from two windows, absent of glass. They had a strip of fire dancing across their bases, which reflected in the metal strip embedded there, the light danced across the pool of water in the centre. It wasn’t just water in the middle but earth that encircled the pool too. Earth, air, fire and water all represented in the design.
The human smiled at El. ‘You’re expected on the fiftieth floor.’
El failed to reciprocate, unnerved by the human’s artificial expression. A pang of sickness swept through her as she thought about how malleable the human was. El entered the cavernous elevator and looked back, noting the multi-coloured light playing on the white marble at the other end of the lobby. It came from an archway where the walls were made up of stained glass. She recalled the snake coiled around the outside of the building with its coloured panels.
As the doors closed and the lift ascended, El wondered who was expecting her. Would it be the Triad themselves who received her? Perhaps Louisa? Both prospects made her blood boil. A lump rose in her throat and it was a challenge just to breathe normally. The last time she’d seen them, they’d just executed her mum. Her heart seemed to swell in her chest, its rhythm travelling through her like the beat of a bass.
She forced herself to get her temper under control. She had to regulate her emotions if she was to govern her elemental power successfully. If she won in the first match tonight, tomorrow she’d compete in the second. And then if by some miracle she succeeded there too, she could be in the final next weekend. The rebels would infiltrate the Olympia and both she and her grandma could get out of here.
Coming out onto the fiftieth floor, El found herself in a bar. It was busy – packed in fact. A group of ladon fell to watching her – she felt as though she was walking through swampland. Remembering the way Louisa had affected her breathing, El focussed on taking deep, regular breaths. She wandered through the space, determined that if the typhon was waiting for her she wasn’t going to be taken by surprise.
A woman in a sparkly dress caught her eye and El was mesmerised when it changed from white to crystal blue, to turquoise green and back again. Various arete throughout the room were adorned in shifting clothes as if bright beams constantly cascaded over them.
As well as the arete and their strange clothing, the space itself was peculiar. The first thing El detected was the chill air wafting over her cheeks and down her neck. She pulled the fur more tightly around her, pleased of it. The lighting was soft and caught the clear glass walls and marble floor. El spied an archway leading to a glass passageway. She looked out into the tubular corridor. The building’s spiral staircase was contained in the curved section.
As El returned to the room, she heard a crunch under her boot. At first she thought it was glass on the floor but then realised it was a blanket of snow. The glass walls were opaque in places, sheets of ice clinging to the panes. She travelled further into the room, and found that the tables were similarly enveloped. Icicles hung from the ceiling and the ledge of the bar.
There were clearly more air and water manipulators present tonight, blanketing the room in snow and ice. Some of them were delighting in their ownership of the space and setting mini snowstorms throughout. She smiled as flakes settled on suit jackets like flecks of dandruff. There was a group of typhon and harpies in one corner. They had skirted around the issue of limited floor space and were having a tête-à-tête in mid-air.
Humans were serving behind the bar. She overheard their jokes about being out of ice as she got up to it. Propped up at the bar, she eyed the other clientele curiously. A few sat at tables, others on couches, while many stood around the room – a typical bar scene except for the thick coats and that most of the groups were playing with elements.
El’s eyes fell on the giant screen on the wall as listings flickered across the display. Only the matches soon to start in arenas two and three scrolled across it. She caught sight of the two names she recognised from Dan’s explanation of the London Olympia: Asphodel, arena two, and Elysium, number three. The Gy
mnasium was the first arena, but there was no schedule presented for it. According to Dan, no one up here would care about what went on down in the lowest arena. New recruits and novices didn’t warrant the attention of Order members.
Her gaze skimmed a woman nearby who rose into the air, accompanied by a flurry of laughter from her companions. El watched the group and spotted one arete with a scar running along her cheek, which proceeded down to the corner of her lips. It gave her mouth a lopsided look. Another in the bunch wore a plaster cast on his arm. Had they competed in one of the arenas recently? Which ones resulted in these kinds of injuries? How long had this woman been trying to qualify for the Elysium and the Order, where she might in time secure enough empousa blood to heal her face?
Not wanting to get caught staring at the scarred arete, El looked away. Still, everywhere she looked she found traces of the elemental matches: the shuffling gait of a woman approaching the bar, a man who sat with his arm dangling in his lap. He must have just competed as there were tremors in his arm. He was grimacing and, every so often, nursed the drink in front of him. Perfect droplets rolled from the tumbler into the air, each of which he savoured as they hit his tongue. El sensed in the way his muscles relaxed that it wasn’t water he was drinking.
‘First time?’ asked the guy next to her at the bar. His gaze made her feel light-headed – a graeae.
She felt sick as the sensation recalled the dank catacombs. El didn’t much care for the suggestive twinkle in his pallid eyes either. She nodded.
‘Shame about the cold,’ he said. ‘I prefer drakon nights personally – you guys know how to party – more like the Bahamas. I mean, hello, we’re in the UK. Where’s the novelty in this?’
