Rise of the Discordant: The Complete Five Book Series

by Christina McMullen

  “We’re not Warriors, Nai. Remember? We only get to protect ourselves.”

  “No, Pete said we had defensive magic in the event that we were attacked,” I reminded him. “Do you even know what defensive means?”

  “Uh, duh, Nai. I was only on the football and basketball teams.” Jem rolled his eyes as if he had just imparted some wisdom instead of a reminder that he was a stupid jock. “You’re thinking of offensive.”

  Whatever.

  “So, do you think these guys have cable?” I asked, picking up the remote control and flipping through the channels. “Ugh, no premium.” I tossed the remote back on the sofa and got up.

  “Oh yes! I love this show!” I glanced back at the TV and saw that Jem had found reruns of this super stupid show from the early nineties about some idiot kids at some school with an idiot teacher. At least it kept him amused and shut him up. I went back down the hallway. If our so-called guardians were going to ignore us, then I was going to find out all I could about them on my own.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I was you.”

  I turned around, expecting to see one of the guys from earlier. Instead, this little troll of a man with the worst fashion sense I’ve ever seen stood in the doorway, wagging a stubby finger at me as if I was a little kid who got caught sneaking cookies.

  “What the crap are you?” I heard Jem yelp as he dove behind the sofa.

  “Oh my,” I said laughing at Jem’s total overreaction. I was so hung up on the bowling shirt and fedora combo he was rocking that I nearly missed the fact that this guy was a Discordant. “He’s one of them, Jem! Let’s get him!” Finally! A chance to use these powers we supposedly had.

  “Hey now, hold your horses, missy,” the little toad said, holding up his hands. “First of alls, you twos bein’ Guardians ain’t got the power needed to send me anywhere. And second of alls, I’m just a lesser demon, a banished one at that, so don’t get your panties in a bunch, okay? Last of alls, it’s rude to threaten a guy in his own digs, got it? Now, who’s hungry?”

  “Huh?” Jem poked his head over the sofa.

  “Did I stutter? I said, who… is…hun…gry? I’m guessin’ the last time yous guys ate was before you died. Me? I ain’t had nothin’ since lunchtime yesterday, so I’m starvin’. Now, I know it’s late, but technically, it’s morning, so… blueberry pancakes or chocolate chip?”

  As he prattled on, the demon shuffled over to the kitchen and began to whip together pancake batter and heat up a skillet. Oddly, he was half doing all that by hand and half moving the stuff he needed with magic. I wasn’t sure what was more surreal, that he threw on a frilly apron, or the fact that Jem’s fear went straight out the window once food was introduced into the equation. He was too stupid to consider that the demon might be trying to poison him.

  “So, are you our legal guardian then?” Jem asked like an idiot.

  “Me? Nah, that’ll be Seth and Desmond,” the demon replied. “That’s kinda funny though. Legal guardian. What are yous guys then, the illegal Guardians?”

  He started cracking up over his own lame joke and of course, Jem joined in because like father, he had a rubbish sense of humor.

  “Was that the two guys who opened the door and stared at us?” I asked.

  “Yeah, that’s them.”

  “Ugh! Rude!”

  “Ugh! You was arguing,” he mocked. “Theys is downstairs tyin’ up some loose ends from earlier. You don’t even wanna know what kind of an evening they had, so lay off for the time bein’.” He started setting the table and looked up at me. “You gonna join us or you gonna just stand there and scowl?”

  I stood there and scowled.

  “Come on, Nai,” Jem said, patting the table. “Don’t even act like you don’t like blueberry pancakes. No one hates blueberry pancakes, not even you.”

  “Fine,” I huffed and walked over to the table. “But I’m not eating anything until both of you do.”

  “Hey, don’t knock my cookin’ ‘till you trys it.”

  “Nai, seriously, this is good,” Jem said while stuffing his face so fast I thought he was going to choke.

  “See? It’s just like my great uncle Howie used to say, ‘Make food, make friends.’ He was a wise man. It’s a real shame what happened to him. Now, have a seat.”

  I sat, but I resisted. The pancakes smelled okay, but I couldn’t help but think this was some sort of a trick.

  “So, I know yous two is the new Guardians, but Pete never got around to tellin’ me your names.”

  “I’m Jem, and the grump is my sister, Nai,” my brother offered. The demon grinned and I groaned as he caught the obvious and terrible pun.

  “Jem and Nai, that’s cute. Perfect name for a couple of twinsies.”

  “Dad was way into mythology,” Jem said with a stupid puppy smile because the demon ‘got’ the joke. It was always like this. As if Jem thought the regrettable pun was some sort of secret joke that only cool people understood.

  “Our father was an historian,” I corrected. “Brilliant, but not known for a unique or even marginally proper sense of humor.”

  “Hey now, don’t be too hard on your old man,” the demon said. “You should be honored to have a unique name. It has meaning.”

  “Says you,” I retorted. “What’s your name anyway?”

  “The name’s Hubert, but you can call me Bogie. Everyone else does.”

  “Ew!” My stomach turned and I was glad I wasn’t eating anything. “Why would you want to be called another name for snot?”

  Jem rolled his eyes. “Nai watches BBC America and thinks she smart because she knows British slang terms. Are you a golfer or something?”

  “Heh, no, Des gave me the name ‘cuz of the hat.” He lifted the fedora from his head, revealing a pair of short, stubbed horns high up on his forehead. Instead of making him look threatening, he just looked even more like a joke. If this Bogie character was any indication, I had no idea why everyone was so freaked out about the Discordant. I doubted he could scare a toddler on Halloween. Jem flinched, of course, but Jem’s an idiot.

  “Um… so you’re really a good guy?” Jem asked, leaning away from the demon, but still shoveling pancakes into his face like a moron.

  “I can’t say as I’m bad or good, seein’ as I’m a Discordant, but apparently, my soul’s got too much balance, which is why I was thrown out again.”

  “So you suck at being a demon,” I taunted. “Pathetic much?”

  “You might want to check your tone, missy. I’m likely to forget I’m a repentant demon and start pullin’ some of them skeletons outta your closet.”

  “Like what?” I said and rolled my eyes. “I don’t have the capacity for regret. That’s Jem’s job. Are you trying to hurt my brother?”

  “Would it even bother you if I was?” he asked.

  “Not really. Jem’s as much a wanker as you are.”

  “Wanker, that’s cute,” he said, turning to wink at Jem. “You ‘ear that, guv’na?” he said in a mocking Cockney accent, which made my idiot brother laugh and snort pancakes up his nose. Maybe if I was lucky, they would bad joke each other to death.

  Before I had a chance to come up with a scathing insult, the door opened again. Bogie had said that something big had gone down and from the way the energy in the small apartment shifted when the two agents walked in, he wasn’t kidding. They were both trying to hide something and I wanted to know what. Pete mentioned that we had some sort of power to see into their lives. Even though he didn’t explain how it would work, things just sort of came to me. Seth, the Observer, looked like he was one step away from dropping dead, so I focused all of my energies on the Warrior.

  There was an almost physical feeling in my brain, as if I was being plugged into something, and suddenly I was bombarded by a rush of information. All of Desmond’s previous cycles were revealed to me and I understood what Pete had meant when he said we would recognize patterns. I still had no idea what they were hiding, but what I did
find out was interesting.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Desmond turned and glared at me.

  Oops, I was busted.

  “I’m sorry, what am I doing wrong?” I put on my best innocent face, but I was sure that Pete had already told him all about us, because he wasn’t buying it.

  “I will forgive you once for ignorance, but you should know that soul gazing your peers without their permission is considered invasive and inappropriate. Please do not do that again. Ever. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Fine,” I said, holding up my hands as if I’d been caught doing something I shouldn’t, though what that was, I didn’t know. “I just think it’s weird that Seth was your-”

  Before I had a chance to finish my sentence, Desmond grabbed my arm and yanked me out into the hallway. The way he was glaring at me made me think he had some serious anger management issues.

  “Listen, and listen well,” he said in a low and dangerous tone. “I am aware that you are the dark half of a newly split soul, but if you think for one minute that you are going to use this as an excuse for inexcusable behavior, think again. You still know the difference between right and wrong and I expect you to have respect for boundaries of personal privacy. Fail to heed my warning, and I will not hesitate to bring you before the Creator and argue for cycling. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yeah, sure, I made a mistake by looking into your past,” I said. “I already apologized for that. All I was about to say was-”

  “I know exactly what you were about to say and that is why I pulled you out here. Seth is unaware of who he was in my lifetime and for his sake, I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “Okay, fine,” I said, holding up my hands in surrender. “Look, I’m a bitch and apparently a horrible human, but even I can see that you love him and keeping that a secret hurts. It’s the twenty first century. People are okay with two men being in love.”

  His expression softened slightly. “First of all, if you keep telling yourself that you’re a bitch, then you will start to believe it and so will everyone else. So stop that. No more excuses, okay? Everyone has a steep learning curve to get past when they are first assigned to the Order and your, ah, unique circumstances probably won’t help much. But try, please. It will make life more pleasant for all of us. As for Seth, that’s a long story that we don’t have time to get into right now, but for his sake, please keep what you know to yourself, got it?”

  I didn’t really get it, but I nodded anyway. If he wanted to stay in the closet that was his issue, not mine. Besides, I got the impression that he wasn’t joking about turning me in and I really didn’t want to go to Hell.

  “Everything okay?” Seth asked. I noticed he only directed the question at Desmond and there was a whole lot of worry behind his words. Steep learning curve, my ass. From where I was standing, it looked more like prejudice against the evil girl.

  “Nothing to worry about,” Desmond replied, patting me on the shoulder and smiling like we were buds or something. Fat chance of that happening.

  * * *

  The new house was old, musty, and sat next to the river. I would have loved it were it not for the fact that there was only one bathroom. Seth promised he would turn one of the bigger closets into a private bath for me, being the only girl in the house, but I didn’t allow myself to get too excited. Instead of calling a contractor, he meant to do the work himself. Seth was kind of nerdy and reminded me of our dad, who could barely hammer a nail into the wall, let alone install plumbing.

  We spent the weekend shopping for stuff we would need, like school clothes and stuff for our rooms. While we were out, Seth had us practice casting out and reading people. We got pretty good at spotting Discordants. It was too bad our instructions were to contact Desmond whenever we saw them. I would have done anything for the chance to stake a vampire. We didn’t find any lost souls, but almost everyone we probed was teetering on the edge of lost.

  Not that I blamed them. From what I saw of Blackbird so far, this place was super lame. The mall was mostly empty and the stores that still existed were shady as hell. There was one movie theater and no other form of entertainment except for a bowling alley that sat on the edge of town and looked as if a strong breeze would knock it over. It was a good thing we had the internet, even if Jem and I were blocked from accessing our previous social media accounts because we were dead. That sucked too because there were a couple of bitchy girls back at our old school that I would have messed with big time.

  Monday morning came way too early. School didn’t even start until Wednesday, but we had to get registered. When I dragged myself down to the kitchen, I was surprised to see Desmond waiting for us.

  “Where’s Seth?”

  “Left for work,” Desmond replied. “Why?”

  “I thought he would have to come with us,” I said. Because we were still minors, our guardian was required to come with us for registration.

  “Seth is not your official guardian, Nai. I am,” he informed me in a voice that told me exactly how he felt about that arrangement.

  “You are? I would have figured it would be Seth,” Jem said, coming down the stairs with a little too much energy for the ungodly hour.

  “Why? Because he’s white?” I asked, putting the squirm on Jem. I mean, we were all thinking it, but I just wanted to see his reaction.

  “Well, no,” he said with a frown, but not enough uncomfortable squirming. “Seth just seems more parental.” After that, he did squirm and looked over at Desmond with a deep blush. “I mean, not that you don’t…”

  “It is quite all right, Jem,” Desmond said. “I am well aware that the arrangement is odd. Your sister is correct. Blackbird has a decided lack of diversity. However, it was decided that because I am new to the area as well, it would be far more convenient to insert two wards into my history rather than Seth’s. As such, welcome to the Hawthorne family.”

  Desmond slid our new birth certificates and Social Security cards over to us and I stuffed mine into my bag. Hawthorne was a weird name. It made me think of old white guys in powdered wigs. Still, it was way better than our old last name. At least, I think. That was another annoying thing. They made us forget certain things, like our name, so that we wouldn’t be tempted to go back and look for our families. And that was on top of making it physically impossible for us to go home even if we wanted.

  “Um, Desmond, there seems to be a mistake,” Jem said, looking down at his birth certificate. “Our birthday is this month.”

  “Was,” Desmond corrected. “Your birthdays, along with your name, had to be changed. We don’t have the power to erase your previous existence completely, so we make some changes.”

  “Huh?” I fished around in my bag for the paper. “Aw, man! Are you freaking kidding me?” Jem was right. In addition to having Desmond’s last name, my birthday was now listed as May 24th But instead of making us eighteen four months early, Desmond also changed the year we were born, meaning that we now had an additional eight months of being a minor. If that wasn’t enough, our zodiac sign was now Gemini, which just added a layer of suck.

  “Why not just change our names entirely?” I asked. “I’d be more than happy to have a nice normal name like Taylor or Becky.”

  “Our given names hold power,” Desmond explained. “I don’t know all of the mechanics as to how it works; only that it does work. Likewise, we can run into grave consequences if we don’t use them.”

  “What do you mean, grave-” I started to ask, but Desmond was already up and out the door.

  “Well, come on,” he said, jingling his keys at Jem and me. “Registration closes at ten and you don’t want to be late.”

  I rolled my eyes at Jem and shouldered my bag, following him out the back door.

  “Where’s your car?” Jem asked, looking out at the empty driveway.

  “I don’t have one.” Desmond answered and kept walking down the steps and out to the street.

  “I thought you came from LA
?” I remarked. “Doesn’t everyone have a car there?”

  “Yes, they do, which is exactly why I do not have one now. I’ve spent more than a lifetime parked on the freeway in a rolling death trap. I’m not going to subject myself to the same here. Should an additional vehicle become necessary, I will select one at that time.”

  Meaning, we were walking to school. Great. I bit my tongue, not wanting to start another argument with Desmond, but Jem caught my expression.

  “A little exercise won’t kill you, Nai. Besides, it’s a beautiful day.”

  “Today’s not bad, but in a few weeks, this is going to suck,” I reminded him. “We may not be in Minnesota, but we’re still in the Midwest. It’s still going to get down to freezing temperatures.” I turned to Desmond. “Are Jem and I allowed to get driver’s licenses?”

  It was something I hadn’t bothered with while I was alive. After high school, I had planned on moving to London where I would have no need for a car. Thinking about the fact that I would never get to do this just darkened my already bad mood.

  “You can,” Desmond replied. “But if you want a car, you’ll have to get a job to earn money. Neither Seth nor I make enough to buy one for you.”

  “Can’t we just…” Jem started, but cut off with a blush when Desmond raised his eyebrows. “Never mind,” he mumbled.

  “Were you going to suggest we steal a car?” I asked, somewhat impressed.

  “No,” he said just a little too fast. “I just thought since we were, you know…”

  “With some exceptions, we have to earn our living just like normal people,” Desmond explained. “We have some manipulation abilities, which is why we were able to produce official and legal identifications for the both of you, but taking liberties is strictly forbidden.”

  Neither Jem nor I said anything, both of us thinking about what Desmond said. At least, I thought about it. I suspected that Jem never really thought about anything at all. His brain was probably like that of a puppy. Everyone knows happy people are idiots and being the good half meant that Jem was the biggest idiot of them all.