Rise of the Discordant: The Complete Five Book Series

by Christina McMullen

  “Hand what over?”

  “The weapon you used to create this fiasco,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “How do you know I even did anything?” I asked, more than a little miffed that Desmond assumed I was the one who caused the blood geyser in the bathroom. I mean, I was, but accusing me without knowing was just unnecessary prejudice.

  “The same way I know the sky is blue, Nai. Now hand over the weapon and pray that I don’t drag your ass back to admin for a retirement trial.”

  “Fine,” I said and huffed as I handed him the silver letter opener. Interestingly, there wasn’t a speck of blood on the blade, even though there was no part of me that wasn’t soaked in it. Were it not for that odd fact, I would have assumed that I had screwed up somehow. Desmond looked at the opener and put it into his inside pocket.

  “Analysis, please.” A second later, he pulled it out again and there was a small card attached to the handle. As he read, his eyebrows shot up. “Well, Nai, I’m rather impressed that you were able to forge a rudimentary imbued blade with no instruction or magical aptitude for forging.” His cold, tight voice sounded anything but impressed. “Had you attacked a dark vampire, you might have even banished the soul. Your mistake was using a holy weapon on a blood hunter, but given your blatant disregard for your station, such a simple mistake does not surprise me.”

  The insult cut me deep. Jem might have been clueless, but I had studied the hell out of the Monster Curse wiki and probably could have recited it backwards and forwards. I did screw up. Massively. It would have taken me all of two seconds to figure out what type of a vamp he’d been, but I wasn’t going to let Desmond put all the blame on me.

  “Well if you had told us that in the first place, then maybe I could have used the right weapon,” I countered.

  “Had I told you, it would hardly have made a difference as you are not a Warrior and would have no way of distinguishing one vamp from another.”

  “Yes I-,” I began, but stopped when I realized that I could sense Desmond’s emotions. He was angry, of course, at what I had done, but more than that, he was scared of what I was capable of doing. I decided it was best to keep my skill set to myself.

  “You could show us,” I suggested, adding an obligatory huff of exasperation. I was already in trouble, so there was no sense in making him suspicious as well.

  “I cannot show you what I cannot see,” he countered. “The difference is not visual and you do not have the nose of a warrior. Besides, even if by some miracle you were able to discern one vamp from another, it is of no use. An imbued blade is a simple matter. Forging a thirsting stake is far more complicated than stealing holy water. Consider this your last warning Nai. You are a Guardian and you would do well to remember your role. Should I find you attempting to do the work of a Warrior again, you will be cycled.”

  “Okay, fine! I’m sorry!” I threw up my hands in surrender. “I was only trying to help. You had already left and he attacked someone.”

  “I can be here in a matter of seconds. You know this.” Desmond’s voice was flat. “And if you want to lie to me, you’ll have to do better than that.”

  “What lie?”

  Desmond leveled me with an incredulous glare. “Who exactly was he attacking in an empty bathroom with his pants around his ankles?”

  “What? He… Well before he went to the bathroom he was going to attack someone!”

  “Which means you had more than enough time to call me,” Desmond countered.

  “All right! Fine! It won’t happen again,” I said. Because I wasn’t going to get caught again. I filed away everything Desmond had said and I would do my research. Next time a vamp showed up at school, he was going to wish he had staked himself.

  “You’re damned right it won’t happen again,” Desmond growled. “If I catch you so much as thinking about trying this stunt again, I’ll have you cycled. Now hold still. You can’t go back to class like that.”

  I looked over and caught my reflection in the mirror. Jem’s clothes were spattered with blood, but I looked like something out of the last scene in Carrie. Desmond pulled another one of his strange bulbs out and aimed it at us, syphoning the blood away. I had to admit, I was impressed. When he was done, there was no evidence left to suggest that I had just been doused in the guts of an exploding vampire.

  “Now, I suggest you both get back to class and stay on your best behavior for the rest of the day. Am I clear?”

  “Yeah,” I mumbled as Jem nodded his head. In a flash, Desmond was gone.

  I decided to go to my last class of the day. Not because Desmond told me to, but because it was history. I didn’t mind sitting through the dumbed down version of past events quite as much as I did everything else. Still, after a few minutes of listening to the teacher tonelessly describe the crusades, my mind began to drift.

  Desmond was afraid of me. Well, he was afraid of what I was capable of, at least. I was capable of identifying Discordant and creating the weapons of a Warrior. The Creator claimed that Jem and I were Guardians for a reason, but I had a hard time reconciling that with everything that had happened since we got to Blackbird. Even Harry, the old guy from the church, knew there was something else going on. I fully intended to find out what it was.

  Desmond was down in the basement when we got home and Seth hadn’t come home from work yet. I knew he would still be mad at me and avoiding him would have been the smart thing to do, but my curiosity got the better of me.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. Desmond was hunched over his workbench, stirring some sort of purple liquid in a small bowl. An array of objects were set out on the bench. Among them was my letter opener.

  “Analyzing a potion,” he muttered, not looking up. “Is there a reason you’re down here?”

  “Maybe,” I said with a sigh. “I’m not exactly good at this.”

  “Good at what?”

  “Um… Apologizing,” I muttered.

  He poured his mixture into a bottle and stoppered it before looking up at me.

  “No, I imagine you aren’t,” he said, but there was no accusation in his voice. “And I suppose I too must apologize because although I am willing to forgive your indiscretion, I am less inclined to believe that your sentiments are not completely self-serving.”

  “Um, ouch!”

  “Hey, I apologized in advance,” he reminded me. “Nai, do not think that I don’t understand the hardships you and your brother are dealing with. I imagine you are both quite frustrated to be doing the same, seemingly useless job over and over, but I assure you, I am working on that.”

  “About that,” I said. After the ordeal with the vampire, I’d nearly forgotten that Desmond had a meeting with Mr. Marsden. “What did you learn earlier? He’s hosting the wraith, isn’t he?”

  Desmond’s face registered surprise, but recovered quickly. “No, I’m afraid the situation is a bit more complicated than that,” he said, turning back to his bench, reaching absently for the letter opener. Now it was my turn to be suspicious because it was instantly clear that Desmond was being evasive.

  “But he is possessed, isn’t he?”

  “He is affecting the student population, yes,” was Desmond’s non-answer. I was beginning to see a pattern here.

  “Which is the reason why Discordant are showing up at the school,” I concluded.

  “That is correct.”

  “So, it would make sense for Jem and me to be prepared for an attack.”

  “Forget it, sister. You are not getting the weapon back.”

  “Why not?” I asked. Now I was just mad.

  “For the last time, Nai, without the training of a Warrior, you will most assuredly create another mess. You are also quite likely to endanger the lives of the innocent.”

  “So train me,” I countered. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to have two Warriors when it’s obvious that there are more Discordant than you can handle? Jem’s more than capable of doing the Guardian stuff himself. He even
likes it.”

  “You are a Guardian, Nai,” Desmond reminded me unnecessarily. “You would do well to remember that. If I require assistance, I have more than enough mystics who are capable, magically inclined, and most of all, of age.”

  Ugh. The last part was an unnecessary low blow. Donna was only a couple of years older than me and Jem and one of the other witches wasn’t much older than her. I hate that. You would think that someone who has been around as long as Desmond would recognize that turning eighteen isn’t some sort of magical event that automatically turns immature kids into adults.

  “Fine, how about a compromise,” I said at last. “I won’t try to do your job and I won’t bug you to train me if you answer my question with a simple yes or no answer and not this evasive crap you were giving me.”

  “What question is that?” Desmond asked.

  “Is Mr. Marsden possessed by the wraith?”

  He looked at me for a moment, opened his mouth, and shut it again. “No,” he answered finally. “No, he isn’t.”

  “Okay then,” I said. “Thanks. I’ll get out of your hair.”

  I ran up the stairs and into my room, locking the door behind me. With that one word, I’d learned two very interesting things. One, I didn’t have to soul gaze to see into Desmond’s mind. And two, he had lied. Gary Marsden was the wraith host and he knew more than he was letting on. Now it was up to me to use this information to put an end to this once and for all.

  Chapter 8

  Anger Management

  By the time my sister and I had been Guardians for almost a month, even I was beginning to feel the strain of frustration. No matter what we did, the number of lost never seemed to diminish. It was almost like that movie, Groundhog Day, where that guy had to relive the same day over and over again until he stopped being a jerk or whatever. I tried to be patient and understanding, but not knowing the reason why we were unsuccessful was starting to eat away at my confidence. Before that, not much really bothered me. Not even Nai and she tried hard to bother me all the time. But there was only so much even the light half of a split soul could take.

  I didn’t think much of the empty chair next to me in eighth period English. Nai skipped more classes than she attended, so I assumed that she was hanging out in the library, playing Monster Curse or just studying the wiki. It bothered me that she was less concerned about saving lives than learning about the Discordant, but I let it go. After all, it’s not like we made a whole bunch of progress and as long as we didn’t actually lose anyone to the Discordant, we were doing our jobs, no matter how futile.

  But as I sat, half listening to the teacher and half wondering how I was going to get the attention of the lost kid three rows away, something weird happened. It wasn’t a vision, exactly, more of an impression, a connection to Nai that I didn’t even know we shared. Somehow, I knew she was in trouble. What it didn’t tell me was that she had done something so completely stupid that she put her own life in danger. When the teacher turned around to write on the board, I slipped out the door and took off running for the bathrooms.

  Studying how to destroy the Discordant was one thing. Trying to actually do the job of a Warrior was just crazy. When I saw all the blood, I didn’t say anything. I just texted Desmond and didn’t stop to think about the consequences. I didn’t even know what he was capable of or whether or not my sister was going to get into trouble for what she did. It wasn’t until after Desmond got rid of the vamp and yelled at Nai that I realized how close she was to being cycled.

  I didn’t want to think about it. I went to my last class and threw myself into saving as many souls as I could so that I didn’t have to think about it. When the bell rang, I left. I didn’t wait for Nai. I ran home, ran up to my room, and tried to distract myself from thinking about the scene in the bathroom by playing video games. It didn’t work. I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened and what had almost happened. Finally, I heard Nai stomp up the stairs and slam her bedroom door. I got up and went to her room. The door was locked, so I knocked.

  “Nai, open this door!”

  There was no answer, so I knocked again. Harder.

  “I mean it! I’m going to break it down if you don’t!”

  The door opened and Nai glared at me.

  “For god’s sake, can I take a piss in private? What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “What the hell is wrong with me?” I asked, snorting in disgust. “Nai, what the hell is wrong with you? Do you realize how incredibly stupid you are? What were you thinking? Was it worth nearly getting cycled to try and kill a vamp?”

  She rolled her eyes at me. “Yeah, I know. It really was such a dumb mistake on my part. But Desmond is dead wrong. A thirsting stake is actually going to be really easy to forge.”

  “What?” Now I was getting even more upset. “Nai, you’re a delusional cow! You aren’t a Warrior. You’re not even a very good Guardian and… and… no one even likes you!”

  I hadn’t realized I was yelling until Nai flinched. Her eyes went wide and she shook her head at me in disbelief.

  “You’re mad at me,” she said. Her tone wasn’t so much accusatory as it was surprised.

  “Of course I am! What did you expect?”

  “This is fascinating.”

  “Well if you weren’t such a… Wait, what?”

  “Get in here,” she said and stepped aside.

  “Huh?”

  “Just do it!” Nai yanked me into her room and shut the door, locking it.

  “Follow me,” she said and opened her closet door, pushing aside her clothes, revealing the stairway to the attic.

  “Great. Where are we going, Narnia?”

  “Ha-ha, you are so funny,” she replied in a monotonous voice. “Just be careful and don’t touch anything.”

  “Touch wha-” I cut off as I looked around. I’d only been in the attic once when we first moved in. There had been boxes of junk left behind by previous owners, but nothing of real interest. Apparently, Nai had been busy. Most of the junk was gone. What was still there was boxed up and neatly stacked in the alcoves under the windows that ran along the front of the house. Along the back wall, Nai had built a makeshift worktable. On its surface sat a bunch of seemingly random objects, but I knew better.

  “Nai…” I began but she cut me off.

  “Shut up, Jem.”

  “No, Nai. I won’t shut up. What are you-”

  “You’re too stupid to understand even if I wanted to explain,” she said dismissively.

  “Okay, that’s original,” I huffed, getting more irritated with her.

  “Just talking down to your level.”

  “Screw you!” I said at last, sick of her unnecessary insults. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “I just had to be sure I wasn’t projecting,” she muttered, walking over to the worktable, where she picked up a notepad and scribbled something. “Definitely odd,” she muttered, as if suddenly oblivious to the fact that I was even there.

  “Oh my gosh! Will you please just speak English?”

  She looked up from what she was writing and smiled at me, which was weird under normal circumstances.

  “Jem, you’re pissed! You’re throwing so much anger at me that I wouldn’t even believe it was you if I couldn’t see your soul for myself. Seriously, I had to make sure you weren’t possessed or something,” she added, holding up her leaf of golden shade.

  It was my turn to roll my eyes. “Don’t be an idiot Nai! We can’t be possessed and besides, why wouldn’t I be mad at you? You’re acting like a total… Oh!” My eyes went wide as I realized why Nai was so happy and why it felt as if my life had been turned upside down.

  I was angry. Not mildly upset or worried, but full-on pissed off at my sister’s antics. Nothing had ever upset me like this. Not even the time she locked me in a closet and told our parents that I’d run away from home.

  “Am I balancing?”

  “Well, you were,” she said, shaking her h
ead with a sad sigh. “But now you have that stupid puppy look on your face again.”

  “But that’s impossible!” I sputtered.

  “Look, I don’t want to shatter your little world or anything, but I think there’s a lot going on that no one is telling us.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Like the fact that I can forge weapons.”

  “That doesn’t matter if you can’t use them properly,” I argued.

  “But I can,” she insisted. “Look, what happened today was a stupid mistake, but Jem, I shouldn’t have even been able to do that. And your wards. I can’t make individual wards like that and according to everything I’ve read, that’s not a typical Guardian trait either.”

  “Wards?” Now I was confused. “Wait, are you talking about the protection spell?”

  Nai nodded. “Whatever you call it, it’s the same thing. You save someone and they don’t automatically revert back to lost. I can’t do that. Even the ward I put up on the bathroom today disintegrated when you came through it.”

  I found that odd. “It’s just a simple spell that I learned from Donna and in case you hadn’t noticed, it doesn’t last forever.”

  “Yeah, but it lasts. Every idiot that I save just goes lost an hour later. Wait…” She wrote something down and narrowed her eyes at me. “Donna taught you that? We can’t do witch magic, Jem. Weirder still, we can’t do Discordant witch magic.”

  “How do you know it’s Discordant?”

  Nai huffed. “Ugh! You heard the other one, what’s her name. She said that Donna was the best at wards that kept Discordant out because she’s a Nyx.”

  Okay, she was right and that was odd. When Donna showed me what she did, she was impressed that I could copy her, but she didn’t act like it was a big deal. She, like me, assumed that this was something that Guardians could do.

  “Okay, so we’re weird. We knew that. I mean, that Harry guy pretty much said as much when we went to meet him. But I think everyone’s overreacting. I mean, we’re a split soul. We’re already weird.”