Scion of the Fox

by S. M. Beiko

  “Who were you talking to?” he asked, blocking my path to the stairs and the safe haven of my room. I’d need to get around him again, but he was poised to stop me.

  I tried to sidetrack him. “It’s not uncommon for people to talk to the comatose, you know. Haven’t you ever watched a soap opera?”

  I darted to the left, but he slammed his hand into the wall, arm at my eye level. I took a step back. He had gone from years of being an aloof, stuttering pile of apathy to an aggressor, and I had no idea what had changed. I tried to turn my spirit eye on him for some insight, but when I did, I felt hot pain travel down my optic nerve and into my skull. I hissed and put a hand to it, unable to stop myself.

  “How’s that new eye of yours?” he asked. He was suddenly a sly private investigator, too. But I had his number. I now knew he was a Denizen. Which meant he probably knew I had been marked. But with the way he was acting, maybe living to tell the tale didn’t sit well with him.

  Great. Like I needed an enemy sleeping down the hall from me. But had he always been an enemy, or just an indifferent bystander? Had he, like my grandmother, just counted down the days until I was given over, sacrificial-lamb style? What had he to gain or lose?

  “I’m fine, Arnas. But the twenty questions are killing me. I’ve got things to do.” I decided I wasn’t going to take a chance and let anything slip. I’d rather he thought I was still oblivious.

  He almost looked about to lunge, but whatever he was thinking of doing, moving wasn’t on the list.

  All right, time to review: what power did Rabbits have? Speed? From the spirit walk Sil had taken me on, I remembered that their element was earth. What did that mean? Could he summon a mudslide from the suburbs to crush me? Cave the house in on my head? In this hallway, it didn’t seem as though he had much of an advantage except his height (three inches on me) or his weight (barely thirty pounds more).

  I took the visualization route, tried to imagine my blood becoming magma, my veins volcanic passageways. My heart rate rose and I was getting slightly warmer, but what heat I could conjure felt more like a menopausal hot flash than Sil’s mythic firestorm. Even if I suddenly developed pyrokinesis, there wasn’t much stopping me from accidentally burning down the house and everyone in it. And the garnet blade was a few floors away, hidden in my room . . .

  This standoff had gone on way too long. I chose the aggravated teenager route and shoulder-checked my way past Arnas. I made it around him, but he grabbed my wrist. When his hand made contact with my skin, we both got a surprise. There was a hissing, a sudden reek of burning, and a shrill bawl that didn’t come from me.

  “What?!” I cried, whipping around, suddenly concerned for his well-being.

  He took a step back, cradling his hand and glaring at me, disbelieving. He let it drop, trying to make it seem like he was unfazed, but I saw the flash of rising blisters and the red-hot flesh of his palm. Arnas had burned himself on me.

  It wasn’t pyrokinesis, but it was a start.

  All I could say as I backed away was, “I — um, I’m sorry, Arnas. Find the nurse, maybe?” I couldn’t believe I was blurting apologies to someone who was probably out to get me, but I still didn’t have a handle on this hero-villain dynamic yet and figured I could at least be gracious for now.

  I reached my room and slammed the door shut with my body. I looked down at my wrist and felt it myself — it was cool to the touch, to me. Maybe the visualization had worked after all.

  I caught a flash of red as Sil appeared from behind my bed and began to pace. I didn’t bother asking how she’d gotten around Arnas and me; I trusted her methods.

  “Well, that was awkward,” I sighed, smoothing my hands on my jeans, waiting for the shakes to stop.

  “Things are moving faster than I thought,” Sil grumbled, tail stiff and twitching. “Your uncle is obviously working against you, and he isn’t alone. He was desperate for that photo last night. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s aligned himself with the Owls . . .”

  “The Owls?” I remembered the one I saw at the hospital; head swivelling, eyes piercing. “How can Arnas be working with them? I thought you said the Families were divided?”

  “They are,” Sil said, “but the Owl family controls most things, in their way — especially this city. The Families look to them to deal with Zabor, despite their archaic methods and shifty alliances. The Owls all have positions of power within the city itself, as well. They’ve been allowed to become the authority, and they are capable of doing terrible things to keep it that way.”

  I felt my phone go off in my back pocket. Ugh, Phae, not now. There’s intrigue afoot.

  I checked the screen anyway, and found a number I didn’t recognize.

  Hi Roan. Barton here. We met at the hospital today

  Jackpot. I quickly texted him back and pocketed the phone, trying to refocus. “Okay, so let’s rewind. The all-powerful Owl family and my uncle are working together. But why? What have they got against me?”

  “Think!” Sil barked. “The Owls are the ones who deal with Zabor. They are set on appeasing her and keeping this city intact. What role do you have to play in that?”

  Expect death every day. Okay, I got that part. But from everyone on all sides? “So the Owls just want to hand me over to the river demon. To save their own asses. Right?”

  “Right. And as I’m sure you’ve already seen, Arnas is a Denizen of the Rabbits. But I don’t think he has much favour with his Family. Whatever power he had was taken away from him. He seems the type to do whatever it takes to earn it back.”

  I groaned, sliding down my door all the way to the carpet. I suddenly felt so tired. My small uncle-burning victory vanished fairly quickly. “So I’ve got a crazy river demon waiting around with her mouth open, an uncle giving me up to the city’s Owl Police, and a bunch of talons scrabbling for me.” Good thing I was sleeping with that dagger under my pillow. “Am I even safe here?”

  Sil came and sat beside me, whiskers and muzzle twitching in a half snarl. “Barely. I’ll do what I can, but you will have to learn to protect yourself. And start gathering allies.”

  “Allies? From where? Should I start canvassing door to door, or start up a club at school?” I palmed my face, mouth twitching with laughter and fear. “It looks pretty much like every Family has me on a blacklist. How am I supposed to bring any of them together when throwing myself to the river is a better result to them?”

  “You’ll have to go to the fringes. If the Families are against you, it’s because they’re afraid. Because they would rather it be you than their children. You have to make them believe that you can end this.” Sil’s fatal tone made me cringe.

  “I’m beginning to doubt I can,” I argued. “All I seem capable of is burning people if I get riled up enough. I’m as useful as a baked potato.”

  “Just for now. That will all change.” But Sil switched tacks. “Tell me about this boy, the one from today. He may be useful.”

  I felt my phone go off again. Sil cocked her head and pushed her nose into the screen as I read the message. I need to know. How did u know about the dreams? The rabbits? When can we talk?

  I frowned. There was little I could go into just by hammering out a few characters on a keypad. I think we’ve been seeing the same things. I paused, thumbs hovering. You aren’t alone. We should talk at school on Monday.

  I rubbed my forehead. “Well, like I said before, he doesn’t have legs — um, functional ones. Deedee says he was born without them. But I saw these rabbits, dying, running away, fleeing from a —”

  “A scythe,” Sil finished for me. “Hmm. Yes, he was born without legs. But mark my words — he is what we call ‘severed.’ Cut off from Ancient. He had his legs taken from him when he was still in the womb.”

  “Severed? Literally?” I winced. “But who would have done that to him? And why?”

  “H
is parents, probably. To protect him.”

  I went so icy that if Arnas struck me now he’d probably get frostbite. “His own parents?”

  “It’s an old method. A terrible ritual steeped in blood that is dangerous to perform and irreversible. Zabor is only interested in the children of the Families, so if he was cut off from the power that connects us all —”

  “Then Zabor wouldn’t mark him. They did it to save his life.” I looked down at my legs, grateful that my parents hadn’t attempted something like that, but also sort of disappointed they hadn’t taken drastic measures to keep me from my fate. Maybe they had. They were dead, after all.

  I remembered Barton’s worried mother’s face as she hustled him away from me. She had done so much to keep him safe. No wonder she’d turned her back on me, the unwilling sacrifice. I would keep my kid miles away, too. “But why his legs? That I still don’t get.”

  “The Rabbit family is rooted to the earth,” Sil explained. “That is where their power lies. Take that away and you physically separate them from their element, simple as that. There are other methods of taking away their power, but they would still be considered a Denizen. Born without it, they have been forcefully made human, and thus not an agreeable . . . meal.”

  Great. I’d already tapped Barton, gotten my little issues into his head, and now he might be a lost cause. “Is it really irreversible? There’s no way to restore his, um, power stuff? I got a spirit eye. Can’t we get him spirit legs?”

  Sil shook her head. “It isn’t that simple. You would have to find the person who performed the ritual, a severer. Finding one who is willing to give themselves up, let alone the one we need . . . that’s a task unto itself. Such rituals are forbidden, and those who perform them are dishonoured. Rebecca Allen used to be the representative of the Rabbits here, but she was denigrated for what she condoned. A small price to pay.”

  “For the preservation of her family, I guess. Do you know what happened to the guy who did the deed?”

  “Dishonoured, stripped of his powers, probably fled. Whatever happened, the Owls kept it quiet. They did not get their authority by having it defied.”

  I stood up and stuck my hand under my pillow, retrieving the dagger. Hiding it in my room probably wouldn’t be enough anymore. I’d have to carry it with me everywhere, what with Owls swooping in for the kill. But I’d need to keep this one-way ticket to expulsion out of sight on school grounds . . .

  “There’s something else,” Sil said, leaping onto the bed so we were face to face. “The Owls won’t come for you. Not yet. And your uncle won’t harm you. All they will do is make sure you meet your end as it was intended, with as little fuss as possible.”

  “Yeah, but I’ll make a fuss.” I frowned, flicking the blade’s sharp edge and producing a confident twang.

  “What I mean” — Sil extended a long black paw towards me and lowered the dagger — “is that they won’t intervene in Zabor’s affairs directly. But they will do everything to help her. Your uncle will monitor your movements. And he’s already given the Owls your likeness. I’m sure they’ve passed it on to Zabor’s river hunters. They are dangerous, stupid creatures. They will go after any target that remotely resembles you — by process of elimination.”

  I caught my reflection in the jewel-blade of the dagger. Hacked-off hair, mismatched eyes, hardened skin from all the biking, hair almost red. I was starting to look like a Fox at the rate I was going. I wondered how recent the photo was that Arnas had handed over, and if my hectic hairstyling had bought me some time.

  “Wait. These hunters . . . they’re going to go around killing girls that look like I do, just to get to me?”

  Sil just stared, the fading winter light casting odd shadows around her eyes. “This is why every day matters. This is why we cannot waste time. You have to be ready — now.”

  I put the cool blade to my forehead, hoping it’d ease the headache growing behind it. I hadn’t had a migraine so foul since the night of the moths, but I could feel something growing there — a knot, a tight bunching of nerves, each strand something more powerful and dangerous and conspiring against me. Eventually the knot would become the size of my skull, busting through like a weed and consuming every good part of me. But I knew I had the will to resist and something germinating in my spirit that could untangle it. Or at least burn through it.

  Just make it to Monday, Roan.

  *

  Things did not improve when Monday finally came.

  Sunday had been about avoiding Arnas at all costs while still trying to make it seem nothing was wrong. There had been no incidents with my grandmother and her nursing staff, so Deedee got a bit of reprieve there.

  But the tension was heavy. She was holding things together with practised strategy, trying to downplay Arnas’s strange behaviour and all my recent dealings. We ate together but I chewed more carefully, retreating to my room and marathoning TV shows. Trying to leave the house seemed even more dangerous than Arnas — what was out there, waiting for me?

  While the three of us remained housebound, there was no chance of alone time with Sil in the summoning chamber. But Barton and I found time to connect, which made me feel productive. I can’t tell my parents about the dreams, but I feel like they know anyway. There are a lot of things they aren’t telling me, he texted. I kept reassuring him that I’d explain, that it wasn’t safe to leave a trail of messages if he wanted to keep his parents out of it. I told him just to keep acting as though nothing was wrong, because it wasn’t. Not yet, anyway. I knew that each day it would get worse, that the briar patch I’d found myself in would tighten.

  On the way to school on Monday, the wild black thorns snagged me harder than I’d expected.

  It’s funny how, when it really happens, finding a dead body seems like anything else in the day. Like getting out of bed, or looking out a window, or crossing the train tracks on Wellington, like I had for years.

  My bike jolted over the tracks. I wrenched the handlebars when I saw the girl in the road, and flew out of my seat as I lost the bike under me. I scrambled backward, yanking my face away from hers. At first, I didn’t want to believe she was dead. I reached for her, squeezed her shoulder and shook it, but pulled away. She was stiff and staring listlessly into the iron sky with her one remaining eye.

  It was just like Sil had said. A girl who looked like me, broken and tangled and dead, auburn hair and all.

  One of her eyes had been savagely ripped out, but I forced myself to look into the untainted one. To look and to apologize from the depths of me, because this was my fault. This was something that had happened because of me, even if it wasn’t me. I silently promised the girl that I would stop all this, and that she wouldn’t have died for nothing.

  A flash went off nearby. I lurched away from the corpse and twisted around. A tall boy stood in the road, snapping pictures with an expensive Pentax. He didn’t look like the press, didn’t seem like he had any authority to be here. And I knew booking it now was my best bet. Shielding my face, I went for my bike and hustled, shoving past the vulture photographer, and snagging him with my handlebars. We caught a glimpse of each other in passing — icy eyes glinting in the harsh morning cold and, worse, a horrible smile on his face. Had he just been waiting around for a dead body to pop up for some sick art project? In my hurry to get away, I hadn’t thought to turn my spirit eye on him. He was probably just a harmless, human sicko. I had gods and demons to worry about.

  I got to school and found every bone and muscle and nerve fighting for control over my body. I had told myself to be ready for all the death heading my way, but I think actually seeing the body had fried my synapses. I could barely lock my bike up without falling apart. I couldn’t believe I’d just run away, but what else could I have done?

  I looked around, hoping Sil was hiding somewhere nearby to offer courage or comfort. No sign of her. School had once been
a refuge from my problems, but it was now a prison, a waste of precious time that could be spent, oh, I don’t know, stopping a city-wide cull of teenaged redheads and, ultimately, the flood that would drown us all.

  At least school wasn’t a danger zone (for now); I could be safe here in the crowds of kids who didn’t know any better.

  Find Barton. That’s all I needed to focus on right now. I bit my glove off and fished my phone out of my pocket, checking for messages. Nothing from him, but still a few unread from Phae. She hadn’t texted me in the last day; I think she’d caught the cue to give me some space. I wanted nothing more than to let her in on all of this, but I wondered if always-calm Phae could handle it. And was I willing to put her directly in danger just to have her tell me it’s all going to be okay? It was probably best to keep her at arm’s length; I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if she suffered because of me, no matter how annoyed I was that she thought I was nuts.

  I was in a haze, haunted by the chewed-up face of the river hunters’ first victim: In my warped imagination, her good, dead eye looked right at me.

  I careened back to reality when I found Barton in my path and nearly tripped over him. Luckily he had better reflexes than I did, and he manoeuvered to avoid me.

  I tried (and failed) to collect myself. “Oh. Hey.”

  “Hey!” His face dropped when he got a better look at me. “Are you okay? You really don’t look so good.”

  “Oh, uh . . .” I brushed my hand past my throat and jaw, pulse fluttering there like a caged animal. I needed to abort the oncoming panic attack. “I’m fine! Well, I mean . . . you know, things could be better. But we don’t have to get into that right now.”

  I checked my phone for the time as we walked to class. I needed to be open with him, and it wasn’t just because of this morning’s dead girl; Sil’s insistence that we couldn’t waste any more time was weighing on me.

  “Listen, Barton. I . . . I asked you about the dreams, and the rabbits, because something bad is happening. Not just to you or me. But it involves us. You know? I don’t want to stress you out or anything, or make you think I’m some kind of wack job. I wouldn’t blame you if you did . . .”