Root

by LeeAnn McLennan

  Aunt Kate yelled, “Dan, stop it!” She sprinted in front of him, raising her hands in an attempt to calm her brother. “We can fix this. I’m sure no one will recognize Olivia. And I can give it the National Inquirer treatment.” Referring to how they planted supernormal sightings as articles from the National Inquirer or hoaxes on the Internet. Emma and I used to make a game of guessing which stories were actual hoaxes and which were about supernormals.

  “She needs to learn her lesson, learn how to be safe, keep us safe.” Uncle Dan jostled past his sister, still dragging me along in his grip. I was too frightened to call on my abilities when I saw he was taking me towards the old tank Hugh used to train in before his death. It was empty of water now. I tried to pull away, but he held me tight. Aunt Kate and Zoe followed us, yelling for him to stop. Six stood to one side, watching with a shocked stare.

  Lange jumped in front of us. Using his superior strength, he shoved Uncle Dan away from me. Uncle Dan crashed into the lockers with a grunt.

  I staggered into Zoe’s arms. I was shaking and tears dripped from my chin. I hadn’t realized I was crying until that moment. Zoe and I clung to each other, gawking at the scene as Aunt Kate confronted her brother with Lange at her side. Uncle Dan leaned against the lockers, shaking his head as if trying to clear it.

  “Dan, what in the hell is wrong with you? We never threaten them like that! You can’t treat Olivia like a criminal!” Aunt Kate screamed in Uncle Dan’s face. “We don’t punish the kids with force.” It was jarring to see my normally composed, reserved aunt furious enough to shout.

  Uncle Dan backed away, eyes wide. He was breathing so hard I thought he was going break apart. “I, I…” His face was pale, but his features were no longer twisted into a terrifying snarl.

  Kevin burst through the front door with Uncle Alex behind him. Uncle Alex ran past his son straight to Uncle Dan, who was slumping to the floor with his back to the lockers. Uncle Alex slid to a stop, dropping to his knees beside his brother. “Dan? Dan?” Uncle Alex looked up at Aunt Kate with a quizzical expression.

  She answered the unspoken question, “Olivia got caught on camera. Dan freaked out.”

  I dashed the tears from my cheeksand opened my mouth to elaborate on her terse description, but Zoe squeezed my arm and shook her head, warning me to keep quiet. Six murmured something from behind me, but I didn’t catch it.

  Uncle Dan was on his knees, hands planted on the floor, his head lowered so I couldn’t see his face. His shoulders shook. “I’m sorry.” He raised his head, his eyes red. “I’m…” He trailed off when he saw my tear-stained face. He struggled to his feet, Uncle Alex following. “I just…”

  “Dan, can I read you?” Uncle Alex spoke gently, but his eyes were wide with shock and he hesitated even when Uncle Dan nodded. When he grasped Uncle Dan’s arm, he winced in reaction to the emotions that had to be swirling around inside Uncle Dan’s head. “Dan, you’re so angry.” Uncle Alex sounded astounded.

  Uncle Dan stepped away from Uncle Alex’s grip. “No, you don’t need to soothe me. I’m not going to hurt anyone.” His eyes met mine with a plea in them.

  “Why, I mean …why?” I had so many question, but they all boiled down to why he had gone so nuclear.

  He drew a shuddering breath. “We need to be safe. We have to be better than the rest of our kind. We have to survive.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t keep your mother safe. I tried so hard to teach Emma how to be safe…” He trailed off with a bleak expression.

  Uncle Dan was scared! Well, I could relate, but I wasn’t ready to forgive him yet.

  “Dan, you need to get help,” Uncle Alex said. “You should go to the healing center in Bend.”

  Uncle Dan gave a ghost of his usual frown. “I’m not going to talk about my problems with some empath.”

  “Hey,” Kevin started, but Uncle Alex held up a hand.

  Six spoke slowly, carefully keeping an eye on Uncle Dan as if he was a ticking bomb. “Perhaps it would be better to seek help at the medical center in Colorado?”

  Uncle Dan glared at her. “No, it would not be better. Stay out of this, Octad.”

  Six gasped at the venom in his voice while Aunt Kate put an arm around her.

  “Dan, you need to get a grip.” Uncle Alex spoke with more authority than I’d expected from him. “I’m afraid you can’t be around here until you figure things out.” He gave a hard shake of his head when Uncle Dan opened his mouth. “If you won’t go to Bend, at least go to the mountain house in Hood River for a while.”

  Uncle Dan bowed his head, took a deep breath and then looked around at his family before nodding. “Okay, yeah, that’s a good idea.” His gaze lingered on me. “I’m sorry.”

  I didn’t say anything as he turned and walked out. Six frowned after him, crossing her arms tightly over her chest and shivering. I realized her eyes weren’t dilated. In fact, I didn’t think she’d communed with her sisters during the entire incident.

  Shrugging that curiosity away, I stumbled out of Zoe’s arms to sit on the couch. “Aunt Kate? What, why…” I didn’t know how to sort through my thoughts, much less express my bewilderment. Being filmed in supernormal mode wasn’t good, but it happened often enough that there was a protocol for dealing with the situation; it didn’t warrant Uncle Dan going ballistic.

  Aunt Kate sat down beside me. “Olivia, I’m sorry you had to see that.” She sent a fulminating look in the direction my uncle had taken. “Dan can be, well,” she sighed, “unstable and it’s gotten worse since –”

  “Emma went dark,” I finished.

  “No,” Aunt Kate said wryly, “since Emily was killed.”

  “Since Mom died?” I stared incredulously at my aunt. “He’s been like this for more than seven years and you haven’t done anything about it?”

  She swallowed and shook her head, avoiding my eyes. “We kept thinking he would get better. He usually directs it into being one of the best trainers in our world. So in some ways, it’s been useful.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “Until now, when it’s not.”

  I gritted my teeth for a moment before letting the words burst out of me. “Don’t you think, how he’s being so harsh, you know, like he was to me just now,” I struggled to stay calm so I could make my point, but I lost the fight, “didn’t you ever consider what it was doing to Emma?”

  Uncle Alex had remained standing during our conversation, staring at the floor with a pained expression. Now he lifted his head. “Yes, Olivia, we have. Ever since that night under the bridge.” He paced around in a circle. “But you must also consider this: Emma is responsible for her own actions, too.”

  Too astonished by their obtuseness, I just gaped at my aunt and uncle. I’d really thought they understood how mean Uncle Dan could be, but now I realized they were looking at him through adult lenses. I stood up and brushed off my pants. I looked directly at Lange, Zoe, and Kevin in turn. “Friday night dinner?” I flicked a glance at Six to let her know she was welcome.

  As one, my cousins nodded. Six hesitated, then nodded as well.

  Uncle Alex and Aunt Kate were quiet as I left the building, followed by my cousins and Six.

  Chapter 23

  “Where to?” I asked my cousins when we were a block away from the warehouse.

  Awkward silence answered me and for a moment I was afraid someone was going to insist on discussing what had just happened with Uncle Dan. Before anyone could speak, I said, “Okay, Por Que No on Hawthorne it is.” It was our default dining spot because the tacos were tasty and we all agreed the guacamole was the best in town.

  “I’ve never had Mexican food,” Six said a little wistfully.

  I threw my arms in the air. “Well, that settles it. We must introduce Six to tacos.”

  Zoe rolled her eyes but nodded, playing along at my attempt to be jolly.

  We were quiet on the run over, while ordering dinner, and then as we searched for a table in the Saturday night crowd. When we finally found a table n
ear the back of the tented outdoor seating area, Lange chatted with Six about her tacos, asking her what she thought of each kind he’d ordered for her, while everyone else ate without much chatter. Six’s new appreciation for tacos washed over me as I tried to eat, but I couldn’t force food past the lumps in my throat. I set down my partially-eaten chicken taco and stared moodily at the table. I felt exhausted, drained of all energy. I just wanted to lay my head down on the table and go to sleep.

  Strangely, I hadn’t heard from Ben in a few hours. I reached out, unsure if I could initiate a conversation with him. “Ben, are you listening?”

  I mentally jumped, a thrill washing over me when he responded, “Yes, I can hear you if you reach out.”

  “Neat.”

  I wondered if I should tell him about Uncle Dan when Ben said, “Hey, can’t talk much now, focused on tracking Emma. She may know we’re here, so we need to be careful. Will talk later, okay?”

  “Yeah, okay.” I dropped my focus and sighed.

  Zoe interrupted my brooding silence. “So that sucked.” She poked me in the arm. “Are you okay?”

  Confused by her question, I blinked until I realized she meant Uncle Dan’s explosion sucked, not Ben being too busy to talk. “Yeah, I guess.” I rubbed my arm.

  Lange leaned forward, peering at me. “Uncle Dan’s not always an asshat.” He gave a half grin at my skeptical look. “He was cool for a while. He usually found better outlets for his anger, up until…” He trailed off with an uncomfortable expression.

  I was puzzled for a moment, but then… “Until I came back, you mean?” I put my head in my hands, overwhelmed by everything that had happened over the past few days. “Great, that’s just great,” I muttered.

  “Hey,” Kevin spoke sharply, “stop it.” We all stared at him, surprised by his authoritative tone. “You had to come back, and it’s been awesome. It’s not your fault some people can’t deal with it.”

  Kevin had been quieter than usual since we found out about Emma’s escape, but he’d been less sullen, too. Zoe had told me he’d even practiced his bouncing ability for a while yesterday. It had been a long time since he’d done any honing of his significant ability.

  Curious at the change in him but unsure how to mention it, I said, “Thanks.”

  I twitched when my phone vibrated in my cargo pants pocket. As I pulled it out, Lange, Zoe, and Kevin all looked at their phones.

  “Oh man.” Lange gave us a wide-eyed look. “Something is in the Hawthorne Theater, attacking people.”

  “Yeah, we all got the text from Mom,” Zoe said without her usual sarcasm..

  “Okay, let’s go.” Lange grabbed everyone’s half-eaten plates and shoved them in the bussing bins.

  I spent a moment wishing for my sword as we slipped out of the crowded restaurant. We walked quickly to a side street before running full out the nine blocks to the Theatre at the intersection of Hawthorne and 39th.

  I skidded to a stop in front of the theater, shocked by the chaos. People stumbled out the front and side doors like smoke escaping a fire. The streets around the building were jammed with screaming and crying people, and cars. I didn’t see any injuries, just a lot of terrified faces.

  Using her superior speed, Zoe had beaten us there and was standing still, hands on her hips. She turned to us with a frown. “It’s crazy in there.” I realized she’d already darted in and out. “Really dark, lots of yelling. It’s going to be hard to find whatever is attacking them.”

  Lange nodded and caught the arm of guy who had just staggered out of the door. The man wore a once-jaunty vest with the buttons ripped off and a straw hat smashed onto his head. “Dude, let go. What are you doing?” His eyes were wide and terrified.

  Lange released him. “What’s going on in there?” We gathered around the poor guy, creating a circle, briefly cocooning him from the crowd.

  The man rubbed his arm. “I don’t know, man. All I saw was the dude, tall with a wicked face tat of a jagged line across his cheek. He attacked the chick right in front of me.” The guy stared at Lange with jittery eyes, tears running down his cheeks.

  “Attacked how?”

  “Ah, you won’t believe me.” The guy shook his head so hard his tears splashed on me.

  “You’d be surprised at what we’ll believe,” Kevin told him.

  The guy sniffled, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. He shoved his hat up and it fell off his head. I bent down to get it.

  “Yeah, okay, well this is crazy. It was kinda dark; the band had just started to play, so I was watching them, but I swear it looked like the dude whipped her with his tongue.” He paused, eyeing us as if expecting incredulous shouts of “no, it can’t be,” but we all waited impatiently for him to continue. “It was really long, sort of spikey. I don’t know. He whipped her with it, hit a few people, and then he,” the guys shivered, “stuck it under her arm and yanked it out. And, something came with it.” He waved his hands. “And there was all this blood. And screaming. And r-r-running.” He stuttered to a stop.

  I felt a thrill of excitement – it sounded like he was describing the creature we’d been tracking. This could be our chance to stop it. My cousins all appeared to have the same thought. Zoe smiled grimly and eyed the door, obviously anxious to get back inside and hunt. Six looked nervous, running her hands over her pants pockets.

  I handed the guy his hat and he jammed it back onto his head. At a nod from Lange, I gently led the poor guy across the street. “You should rest here. Thanks for telling us what happened.”

  “Okay.” He slumped down on the curb, took off his ruined hat and stared at it.

  I jogged back to my cousins. Lange started speaking when I arrived. “We gotta get in there, so Glamour up. Looks like there’s a bunch of cops inside.” He gave me a stern look. “Stay sharp. It would be nice to get this thing alive.”

  I frowned. Kill one evil monster and be branded for life. Not fair.

  As if on cue, Uncle Alex and Aunt Kate ran up. She carried a large duffle bag. “Good, you haven’t gone in yet. I brought your weapons.”

  No one mentioned the family incident that had occurred only an hour ago. One thing about the Brighthalls, we sometimes fuss and fight, but when there’s a hunt we all come together to help. I ignored the flare of resentment over how the ‘rents let Uncle Dan behave badly for so long. Right now our focus was clear – find monster, fight monster, and stop monster.

  Aunt Kate said urgently, “I’ve got more information about the lymph beast. It’s a creature who needs human lymph nodes to survive. They make it live longer, for a very long time, in fact.”

  “Ew,” was Zoe’s response.

  There was an intrigued light in my aunt’s eyes. “Some live as long as three hundred years.” She pulled out handcuffs and clipped them to her belt. “Can you imagine what they’ve seen? I wonder if it’ll be possible get anything coherent out of this one.”

  “If it’s like the cockroach cluster, it’ll be able to talk,” I reminded her.

  She frowned. “Repeating words back isn’t talking.”

  I began indignantly, “It wasn’t repeating –” but she stopped me by holding up her hand. “Okay, whatever.” I clenched my jaw to keep quiet, reminding myself to focus on the task in front of us.

  “What’s odd is it only needs to feed once a year. This one has been feeding almost daily.” Aunt Kate looked at us worriedly. “I wonder if it’s sick.”

  “Like a dog with rabies?” Impatient to hold his sword, Kevin was digging around in the large duffle bag.

  “Yes.” Aunt Kate pulled out a whip, which was similar to Zoe’s. Or I supposed Zoe’s was similar to hers. “So that’s why we’re here to help.”

  I was surprised. It was rare for an adult to go hunting with the kids. It was our job. Of course, most hunts weren’t as challenging as they had been lately. I glanced at Kevin, who still had the scars from the fight with the cockroach cluster. Considering how many people the lymph monster had kille
d in its short time in Portland, it probably wasn’t going to go down easily. But I felt a little ping of resentment. Didn’t the ‘rents trust us to get the thing?

  “Mom, since when do you hunt?” Zoe asked in astonishment.

  “I’ll have you know, I’m a good hunter,” Aunt Kate answered, handing out the rest of the weapons. With a silent hurrah, I reached for my sword when she held it out hilt first.

  “Lange, it’s your hunt.” Uncle Alex pulled on heavy gloves. His eyes narrowed and he was unsteady on his feet. At first I thought was he was drunk, but then I saw him wince when two wailing women ran past us.

  Aunt Kate verified my suspicions. “Alex, there’s too much emotion. You shouldn’t be here.”

  He shook his head. “I’ll manage.” He straightened up, smoothing out his expression so he looked calm. I wondered how much effort it took him to maintain it. “Lange, take the lead.”

  Lange nodded. “I know a discreet way in.” He winced at his mother’s raised eyebrow. “Not telling you how I know.” He led us around to the back of the building to a small door barely visible in the dim light. Smashing his fist on the doorknob, he pushed open the door and we followed him into a dark hallway.

  I heard screaming from another part of the building, but it was quiet where we stood. I hefted my sword, gripping it tighter. “There’s just one creature, right?”

  Six crowded in behind me, holding the heavy staff Aunt Kate had brought for her. I recognized it as the one she’d used in training this week.

  “As far as I can tell from the police reports, yes,” Aunt Kate answered. I knew Aunt Kate had hunted before she’d become our tech support, but it was still strange to see her out on pursuit with us.

  “Mom, dump the bag,” Zoe murmured as we started down the hallway.

  “It’s for creature retrieval,” Aunt Kate whispered back.