The Root

by Na'amen Tilahun

  “What happened?” Elliot’s voice was shrill and Matthias could feel his power roiling around him looking for some direction, something to do. He held his helmet in one hand, visor up, almost as if ready to use it as a weapon. Daya had placed hers on the bike itself.

  “A way-station. An Angelic came through right as we were leaving.”

  The silence was answer enough and he opened his eyes to find the two partners staring at each other worriedly over his torso. Meanwhile, Elliot was running his hands over Erik as Daya did the same for Tae, trying to suss out any injuries.

  Tae came awake with a start and smacked Daya’s hands away from his body.

  “What’s going on?”

  “What’s going on is you disobeyed a direct order from your Counselor!” Daya yelled as she tried to check him over again. He pushed her away and sat up.

  “There was no time and I’m fine.”

  “He probably is, I had him in contact with Erik this whole time and his powers are running high healing him up. There’s a lot of spillover.”

  “No wonder.” Elliot leaned over Erik’s side where the pointed tongue had gone limp and flopped back onto his chest.

  “Don’t take it out until we get to Brisbane. It’s stopping him from bleeding out and even with his healing ability I want him near a facility when we cut it out.”

  “Let’s get going then.” Tae sounded enthusiastic but his voice was strained as he rose to his feet. He swayed on his feet before he locked his knees.

  Elliot and Daya looked at one another. “Yeah, I don’t think you can drive,” Daya stated.

  “I’m fine. Besides, you need three drivers. One for my car, one for Matthias, car, and one for your bike.”

  Daya shook her head. “Nope. Matthias’s loaner will be fine here for a few hours. It has protections, we’ll summon it back to the garage. Elliot will drive your car to Brisbane with all of you piled in and I’ll ride my bike.”

  “But—”

  “End of story.” Her voice was hard and full of the warning that he was still in trouble for entering the house in the first place. Matthias smiled; he remembered that tone from years ago, and Tae seemed to have learned it quickly enough since he just dropped his head and handed his keys to Elliot. Daya picked Erik up bridal-style while Elliot helped Matthias to his feet. He was mostly healed, but his leg still ached and he was glad for the help.

  They piled in to Tae’s powder-blue SUV, Matthias and Tae both in the back to help stabilize Erik’s form during the ride.

  As Elliot pulled out of the parking space, his own b’caster chirped loudly. He inserted it into his ear.

  “Answer.”

  He listened, then let out a laugh.

  “Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.” He threw it down on the empty passenger seat, glancing into the rearview mirror. “That was a notification call that an Angelic had been registered as entering our location minutes ago.”

  Matthias met his eyes grimly in the mirror. They both looked at Tae, who was staring determinedly out of the window. One of Ophde’s spawn probably already knew too much, especially if he was as powerful as Matthias suspected. He smirked and allowed his power to furl out. With the delicate surgeon scalpel of long practice and a long time on his own with nothing to do but practice, he surrounded himself and Elliot in the bubble of his power, cutting Erik and Tae out completely. He wasn’t sure it would work against Tae’s vision until the child’s head whipped around viper-quick, eyes narrowed.

  “Something’s wrong,” Matthias said, ignoring the teen’s searching gaze.

  Elliot rolled his eyes. “Yeah, no fucking duh.”

  “Hu?”

  “Maybe . . . but wouldn’t that be completely obvious? I mean, he sends you on the mission and you die? How could he even make sure you would be there as soon as that thing made its way through?”

  Matthias nodded reluctantly. Hu was an easy target, but there were at least a dozen factions in the Maestres and he’d managed to piss a whole lot of them off over the past few years.

  “We need to find out who gave Hu the tip,” Matthias decided.

  “I could ask, but he’ll know the question is from you and will probably demand you come to him. You know how he can be. Especially after your aspirant embarrassed him so thoroughly in the training room.” Elliot smiled wide.

  Matthias returned the expression. “Yeah, but I need to know, what if it wasn’t an attack against me, what if it was against—” He stopped himself in time, but Elliot’s eyes flashed to Erik and Matthias looked away from the mirror.

  “You really like him, don’t you?”

  “Don’t be stupider than usual. We just met and I’m four years older than him.”

  Matthias saw Elliot shrug out of the corner of his eye. “Four years isn’t much and sometimes a week is all you need.” His voice had gone wistful in a way that Matthias knew meant he was thinking of losing Elana and Daya choosing his sister over him. Matthias dissipated the bubble around them and went silent, holding on to Erik as they sped down the darkening streets.

  ERIK

  He didn’t have a legitimate reason to be mad at Matthias. Okay, not exactly true, but he didn’t have a reason for how angry he was at Matthias. Some of it was because everyone insisted he rest for the last twenty-four hours, even though he was perfectly healed. At least Melinda had come to visit and spend time with him. The rest was because of the sudden distance Matthias seemed to be deliberately placing between them.

  Either way, he was done sitting around. Tae and Matthias were fully healed thanks to him, but they all still insisted that he was still convalescing for some reason.

  It was really ridiculous.

  He got up from the bed and carefully pulled his clothes on. He winced; he was healed, his side was just tender as fuck. He peeked into the hallway. There was no one, but he suspected that was because everyone would be in the cafeteria. His stomach was telling him it was mealtime.

  Matthias had let him know they were just going to stay here through the weekend. Erik had called his mother so she wouldn’t worry and she’d let him know that Robert was definitely gone. His bag and some of his clothes were missing from his room. In their place was a note saying he needed time alone to think and talk to his family but he’d be back in a few days.

  He still didn’t know what his mom saw in Robert, other than using him as a waste-gate for her own power. If he was being charitable, they had had some good times when he was a kid, before Daniel and the trial, but that was long ago and a different man. Erik was feeling more sympathetic toward the man since his conversation with his mom and Robert’s attempted apology. Even if Robert had completely fucked up the conversation when they’d had it, there was a part of Erik that appreciated him trying.

  He moved down the hall at a smooth pace, careful not to show his discomfort even as every move tugged on the new pink puckering skin that took up a good portion of his back and stomach on his lower left side. He heard the chatter before he reached them and smiled. He needed human, or in this case Blooded, company before he lost his damn mind. He entered the dining room and the conversation around him stopped.

  “Erik! Come sit by me.”

  He smiled at Melinda and moved around the table to take her up on the offer and sit between her and Maestra Luka, who turned to him.

  “How are you feeling, Erik?”

  He smiled too brightly and brought it down a notch. “Fine, good as new.”

  “Remarkable.”

  Erik began to dig into the food that appeared in front of him. A hearty soup of lamb, potato, and greens. He reached the bottom of the bowl in no time.

  “At least your appetite wasn’t affected.” Even though the words were joking, when Erik looked up Matthias’s face was creased in worry. He scowled at his Counselor. If the man cared so much, why had he avoided Erik for most of the past day?

  “If you are healed, perhaps you would be willing to spar with Tae, as he requested last week?” Hu’s voice held a smirk,
though Luka didn’t look displeased with the suggestion at all.

  “I don’t think—”

  Erik interrupted Matthias. “Sure, sounds like fun.” He refused to meet Matthias’s hot gaze of disapproval.

  “Excellent.”

  “But is there somewhere outside we can do it? Being cooped up inside is driving me a little crazy.” Erik looked over at Matthias as he said this.

  Elliott spoke up. “There’s a rooftop bowl.”

  Erik nodded and followed them from the room, bringing his second bowl of stew and draining it on the way.

  They all crowded into small metal elevator and jerked as it sped faster and faster. It finally slowed and Erik lost his footing as it came to a stop. Matthias reached out to steady him and he could feel the unnatural warmth of Matthias’s hands through his shirt. Erik let them rest there for only a second before shrugging them off.

  The doors opened and they were welcomed by cool night air. Stepping out onto the cement roof, Erik looked around. They were in one of the almost identical industrial subdivisions that littered Brisbane. There were buildings off in the distance, but the curving roads and rising hills meant almost no one would have a direct view. Three lamps sat on the roof, all glowing a soft white that made the whole rooftop visible.

  Erik walked over to the edge of the roof and looked down. Matthias joined him and leaned close. The warehouse was only two stories off the ground, not nearly enough to account for the length of their elevator ride. Simply being outside was calming Erik. He was still mad, but cutting off his Counselor would be the height of stupidity. He trusted Matthias more than the rest of these people, which granted wasn’t much, but it would be foolish to alienate him.

  “There must be more floors than the one we are on. Why waste all that space?” Erik said, eye trained on the street below them.

  Matthias snapped his head around and caught the small blush coloring the brown cheeks. He recognized the comment as the olive branch it was and smiled in return.

  “I was just thinking the same thing.”

  “So maybe we should have a look around?”

  “You know the whole place is under surveillance, including your room, right?”

  Erik rolled his eyes. He was still angry at Matthias for ignoring him, but the more fresh sunset air he took in, the more forgiving he felt. Until they were alone and he had a chance to grill the older man for answers, it seemed prudent to just let it go.

  “No. I’m a complete idiot.”

  “Are you ready, Erik?”

  Erik turned to face Tae. He had no great expectations of winning this fight. Tae’s intervention the other night had caused Erik to firmly move the young man to the friend column. Even if he still didn’t completely trust Tae, there was little chance of slipping into his power accidentally and he had no intention of doing it on purpose. He knew Tae had come here to train more physically, which meant he wasn’t great, but he was still probably better than Erik, who had zero conscious training in anything but street flail fighting, no matter what the others said.

  Without his power, he was no great fighter. The lessons his mom had given him were automatic, even easy to remember, but they weren’t instinct for him when unpowered.

  “So what are the rules?” Erik widened his stance so he couldn’t be knocked over immediately and faced Tae within the loose circle of everyone’s bodies.

  “Since we’re not doing edged weapons, I would say two touches out of three?” Tae smiled.

  “Any kind of touch?”

  “No. Just the landing of a blow or a hold you can’t get out of.”

  Erik nodded.

  “Begin!”

  Hu’s voice rang out and Tae came at him right away. Erik could see where he was a little clumsy, but he was fast. Erik ducked low as arms came toward his torso, so he was almost caught by the unexpected kick that came toward his face. He managed to get an arm up to block it but it unbalanced him enough that he fell backward and scrambled out of reach. Before he could get to his feet, Tae barreled into him and locked his arms against Erik’s chest with a surprisingly strong embrace. Erik tried to wriggle free but that simply brought their heads closer together. Tae turned his head and Erik could feel the warmth of his breath as he whispered.

  “Trust no one.”

  Erik jerked and Tae said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Do you concede?”

  “Yes.”

  All of a sudden Erik was free. He groped for his balance, fell, and his palm slammed into Tae’s hip. The other boy hissed but it quickly cut off.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, just my injection site, I thought it wouldn’t hurt since it’s all healed up, but it’s still sensitive.”

  “Injection site?”

  “Testosterone.”

  “Oh, got it.” Erik smiled and nodded.

  Tae reached back and fiddled with the loose bun his hair was pulled into as he stood.

  This time as Tae came at him, Erik watched his face, trying to predict where the attack would come from. Tae’s eyes flicked to the right and he moved to the right himself, moving closer to Tae rather than farther away. He moved inside the swing of the other man’s arm and slammed into his chest, wrapping his own arms around Tae’s upper arms to try and keep them still. Erik’s heavier body tipped them both over like a huge redwood and Tae twisted so the fall didn’t break his tailbone. They went down face to face. Tae’s longer hair pulled loose and shielded them from the eyes of their audience. As they struggled and writhed they held a whispered conversation.

  “What do you mean?”

  “There is more going on.”

  Tae’s right arm broke free before point could be called and he grabbed at Erik’s ear, pulling him up and back. Erik yelled and twisted his body to the side, going with the pull but also slamming his whole weight into the arm and between himself and the rooftop. Tae yelled and Erik kept rolling off the limb and to his feet.

  “Point for Erik.”

  Tae was favoring the arm as they circled for the third time. Erik rushed Tae and only had a second of realization to throw himself to the side as Tae dropped to the ground. The blow that would have knocked his legs out from under him instead just clipped his shins as they passed each other. Erik landed hard on his side and felt his breath leave him in a whoosh. Instead of panicking and struggling to breathe, he imagined he was underwater and allowed his breath to be gone while he crawled to his knees. A weight took him down and surprised him into breathing and choking, but he still folded forward and tried to throw over his shoulder.

  It didn’t work. Tae clung like a limpet and they fell forward. Tae’s breath fluttered against Erik’s ear, sending a shiver through him.

  “Everyone has an investment in our origins, and who is right or can make everyone believe they are right will lead us. The dark is coming.”

  Something in those last four words triggered something in his chest and Erik felt a rattle inside of him, almost as if something were shaking loose. He shuddered and his whole body went limp.

  MELINDA

  “Go Erik!” She felt bad as soon as it was out of her mouth, so she yelled, just a little bit quieter, “Go Tae!” She didn’t want Tae to lose; she just wanted Erik to win more. Patrah was whispering things under her breath as she watched, and Melinda went quiet to listen.

  It was fighting advice. As she looked around, she realized most of the adults were doing the same. Erik wasn’t using his powers. Melinda could tell because he wasn’t winning. She’d seen Erik in action and when he was fighting no one could take him down. The others looked scared sometimes but Melinda didn’t understand why—it was like being scared of thunder or rain. Being afraid didn’t help, you had to understand it. At least that’s what Mom and Mama had said.

  She missed them, but knew she’d see them again on Sunday night and they would all sit around at dinner and Mom would ask her what she learned this weekend and Mama would tell them all a story about someone in her family history who’d be
en Blooded.

  Melinda turned back to the fight. They were both quick and smart. It looked like Tae had Erik held pretty good when he gasped loudly and his eyes rolled back in his head. Erik went boneless, every part of him limp. Tae immediately scrambled to his feet and turned him over.

  Everyone crowded around and because of how small she was Melinda was able to wriggle through the gaps between bodies and legs until she was kneeling by Erik. As soon as she touched him, she knew it was a mistake—she didn’t even have to hear the faint “no” from Patrah as the whole world faded away.

  MELINDA/ERIK/MELINDAERIK/MERIKDA/ERINDA

  It’s dark everywhere.everywhere.everywhere.

  NONono, light, over there, over there, just a little light.

  The lastLASTLAsT light?

  Maybe.

  Closer it is a small city, no not a city, it does not deserve that title, not even a town, a village—maybe. The houses are trash, literally garbage stuck together however they can manage. The people look dirty and angry, they circle one another like animals, rip into each other for meat, warmth, pleasure.

  They shiver as they watch the display, time moves oddly, fast forward, then backward, then slow like molasses, then from different angles. One tries to comfort the other but it doesn’t work they aren’t two anymore, they are one and their one is horrified and scared. But if they were one how could they speak to one another.

  They would not be the first being to speak to itself and receive an answer.

  LooklOOkLOOK!

  The darkness—

  it MOVES.

  it attacks!

  it laps at the humans like a tide

  They zoom out and look at the light from farther away, as they pull back and back and back it turns from village to hamlet to farmstead to a tiny pinprick of light, no bigger than a pore on their pinky. The rest of the globe is a roiling mass of black, always hungry, always feeding on anything that tries to live and break through it.

  There’s another darkness, though, hovering above the devouring one, different than the one that frightened them. This one was the sheltering dark of home, the warm dark of a lover’s arm in the middle of the night. This darkness was the reason the one spot of light was still alive, still fighting back. It was shattered and reformed, shattered and reformed until more of it was cracks than substance and still it fought on. It spoke to them.