by Lan Chan
The ripple of pleasure and pain had me gasping momentarily. We landed at a truck rest stop behind the cover of some pine trees. Kai pulled my wheeled suitcase along the dirt path until it hit bitumen. A black sedan with a tint job that was surely illegal was parked in the bays. The two front doors opened.
I didn’t imagine the way Kai’s muscles tightened when Sean stepped out of the driver’s side. An older girl came out of the passenger seat. She wore black jeans and a blue halter neck top that showed off the sinewy muscles on her arms. Her boots crunched on the gravel. She had sunglasses on that covered her eyes. Even without seeing them, the grim line of her mouth told me she wasn’t the friendly type.
“Made it at last,” Sean said, indicating his watch.
I wasn’t sure who he was directing that to, but neither Kai nor I answered. The dingo bounded up beside me. “Ahhh,” I said. “I’m hoping you don’t have a no-pets policy at Terran.”
The girl lifted her sunglasses to reveal wide brown eyes and a soft face that was at odds with her hardened physique. I was hit with a sudden inkling of familiarity even though I was sure I’d never met her before. What really took me aback was when she dropped to the ground and held her hand out to the dingo. The animal promptly pulled his lips back and growled. She didn’t seem offended by this behaviour. In fact, a small smile pulled at her mouth. It made all the difference in the friendliness of her face. That friendliness disappeared as she regarded Kai and then me.
“The dingo can come,” Sean said. “We’ve got a kennel for canines.”
I was suddenly suspicious. “You don’t use them for rituals, do you?” If he said yes, we were outta here.
“We’re not into black magic,” he said. “Gaia’s creatures are sacred to us.”
“Even rats?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Even rats.” Damn.
Sean tapped on the boot of the car and it swung up. When I tried to take my suitcase from Kai, his fingers wouldn’t budge. His eyes were like two shards of glittering emeralds. At the moment, they looked like they could cut through metal.
“I have to go,” I pressed. His fingers latched on to mine.
“No you don’t.”
I rounded on him, keeping my back to the two humans. “You can’t have it both ways, Kai. I can’t be the hedge witch nobody trusts and also stay cloistered inside Bloodline. I made a deal. I have to go.”
He blinked in a slow, pained way. “We’re not locking you out of things because we want to.”
I tried to pry his fingers away. “You might not want to, but you’re still going to do it. One way or another, I don’t completely fit in at Bloodline.”
His expression became stricken. “Blue –”
“It’s okay. Whatever happens, I’ll deal with it. I always have.”
Yanking the suitcase away wasn’t an option. His strength was infinite compared to mine. If he didn’t want to let go, he wouldn’t. I would have to go for the low blow.
“I want to go. There are things about what I am that I won’t be able to find out at Bloodline. I need to know the truth. If they can give me a way to free Nanna, I have to take it.”
As soon as he let go of the suitcase, I dragged it towards the car. Sean lifted it into the boot. When I opened the back passenger seat and waved for the dingo to get inside, his ears flattened against his head. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up sharply. I wouldn’t want to get into a small cramped space made of metal either if I were him. But the only other alternative would be to run alongside the car.
I patted the seat. “Come on,” I said. “We haven’t got all day.”
The dingo wouldn’t move. Kai came up beside him. Without knowing it, Kai dropped his hand to the back of the dingo’s neck. The animal butted his palm. “Get inside first,” Kai said. There was a husky catch in his voice. I had to wonder how much it cost him not to just drag me out of here.
I did as he suggested. The dingo whined once, but when he saw that I wasn’t going to get out, he leaped onto the seat. Sean and the other girl got in the car. In the reflection of the rear view mirror, I saw Sean flinch when the dingo padded around on the leather. The dingo’s claws weren’t all that sharp. At least not compared to the kinds of claws I was used to.
Kai shut the door and came around to my side of the car. He stood for a second. “Tell Sophie I said bye,” I said. “I didn’t get a chance to see her before I left.”
He nodded. Sean started the car and backed it out of the rest stop parking lot. It wasn’t until we were back on the highway and I could no longer see Kai that I turned my attention to the other humans.
The girl sat with her head rested against the window. Sean glanced back at me in the rear view. “So that’s your boyfriend?”
I could feel my cheek twitching at the assessment. Boyfriend didn’t seem like the right way to classify whatever Malachi Pendragon was. It seemed almost...juvenile.
“That’s just Kai.”
“Are they all that broody?”
It was hard to tell whether he was just playing with me or if there was malice in his questions. I shrugged. “He’s no different than any human guys I’ve known.” Biggest lie ever.
The girl sensed as much. She snorted and shifted position.
“The monsters are all like that,” she snarled. “They come here and take over like they own the dimension and we’re all their little playthings.”
Sean snickered. “You’ll have to forgive Rachel. She’s not a fan of the monsters.”
Rachel turned her head slowly towards him. The look on her face was venomous. Something abrasive brushed against the skin of my cheek.
“Jeez, Rach,” Sean said. “The truth is the truth.”
“Just shut up,” Rachel said.
We lapsed into silence. I kept my attention decidedly to the right so I wouldn’t catch a glimpse of the great expanse of water we were driving beside. The dingo had at last decided this wasn’t as bad as he’d thought. He sat down on all fours and allowed me to pet him. I bit the inside of my cheek when my hands played along the scarred ridges where he had been cut. It spoke volumes that Kai wasn’t able to heal him completely.
“Where did you get the dingo?” Rachel asked. I had been contemplating how much I should tell them ever since the dingo decided he would stay with me. In the absence of supernaturals that could smell deception in the air, I lapsed back into old habits.
“I found him during a routine guard shift. He was stuck in the barbed-wire fencing.” A little bit of the truth mixed in with a lie made them harder to detect.
“His behaviour is odd.”
Mayday. “Really? I’ve never had a pet before.”
She thought on that for a second. I breathed a sigh of relief when she said no more. Not long after, the roof of Terran Academy came into view. I found myself swallowing. The palm that wasn’t petting the dingo was sweaty. Instead of passing through the front, Sean drove the car around a dirt track that led in a wide arch behind the back of the Academy. Here, big palm trees and other conifers grew to towering heights. Along the side of the ocean they acted as both a barrier and shade against the harsh sunlight.
We stopped in a space that held at least a dozen other cars. It was a head trip to see them all lined up when I’d barely seen a vehicle besides the Bloodline bus in so long.
“Come on,” Sean said. “We’ll get you settled into your room and then you can meet everybody.”
“Is everyone here a low-magic users?” I asked.
Rachel’s fists balled. “We don’t refer to ourselves as low-magic users. It’s a derogatory term.” I held my hands up. “Didn’t you ever get that impression?”
“Well yeah, but I just thought that’s the way it was.”
The sneer on her face didn’t lessen one bit. “That’s why you need to be here. No matter how much that Nephilim monster thinks otherwise.”
“Rach,” Sean warned again. He hefted my suitcase out of the boot and opened the back door of the building.
The scent of tuberoses and lilies from the other day had dissipated. In its place was a softer lavender scent that wasn’t such an affront. To my dismay, Rachel grabbed hold of my suitcase and wheeled it towards the staircase.
“I’ll show you our room,” she said.
“Our?”
“We share here. Most of the other bedrooms have been taken over for classes or ongoing projects.”
Sean must have seen the look on my face because he winked at me before I went to follow Rachel. “I’ll try and settle this guy into the kennels,” he said.
“I don’t want him stuck inside a cage,” I shot back. “He’s…not used to it.”
This raised some alarm bells for him. “You mean they allowed a dingo to run around free-range at Bloodline Academy?”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “Nah, I only just got him. But I assume he’s been inside a cage on account of those scars. Somebody mistreated him, and I don’t want him to be locked up any more than he has to be.”
Sean nodded. When I turned back around, Rachel was at the top of the staircase. Her frown was less disgusted at the moment.
“You like animals?” she asked.
I nodded. At least I liked the shifters. But that wasn’t what she was asking. I didn’t clarify. She turned left when I reached the top of the staircase. Unlike Bloodline, there were no long corridors and warrens to get lost in. Rachel pushed open a door. Inside was a short hallway leading to an open area. There was a table beside the bay window that held a bud vase of yet more scented flowers. This one had honeysuckle and star jasmine.
Rachel was turning the knob to one of the six doors on either side of the hallway when the one on my right opened. Three girls a little older than me appeared in the doorway.
“This the new recruit?” the dark-skinned girl with the dreadlocks asked.
“What does it look like?” Rachel shot back. She swung our door open and disappeared inside with my suitcase. I was stuck in social limbo. Rachel showed no signs of re-emerging.
“I’m Harlow,” the other girl said. “This is Winnie.” She pointed to a redhead with freckles colonising her face. Winnie flashed pearly whites behind ruby lips that matched the fire engine red of her hair.
“I’m Alison,” the brunette with her hair cut into a slick bob said. All of them were taller than me. Not hard to achieve. “That guy you were with the other day. He’s one of the monsters?”
It figured that the first thing they would want to know about was Kai. How could I even answer that?
“He’s not a monster.” That was about as non-confrontational as I could get.
Harlow’s black eyes twinkled. “Hey,” she said. “Don’t stress. Unlike some people–” she rolled her eyes in the direction of Rachel’s open door, “– we get that there’s nothing wrong with integration.”
“Do they make them all like that at Bloodline?” Winnie asked. All I could imagine was Brigid tearing strips off Winnie if they ever got within slapping distance of each other.
“Alessia,” Rachel called my name. “I don’t have all day to wait around for you.”
Harlow sneered. “Bloody hedge witches.” She said it like it was a dirty word. My back straightened.
“I’m a hedge witch.”
Without missing a beat, Harlow waved her hand in the air at me. “Yeah, but you’re also Sisterhood.” With that, she hustled the others out of the room. They headed back the way we came.
“What the hell was that?” I asked Rachel. “There’s a difference between those who are Sisterhood and those who aren’t?”
Rachel had placed my suitcase at the base of the single bed beside the window. It wasn’t even a king single bed. Just a tiny narrow thing that I would probably fall off if I rolled over too fast. I missed my double bed inside Bloodline already.
She was rooting around under her own bed for something. I backed up when she appeared again with a set of throwing knives.
“As you can see there aren’t many of us,” Rachel said. “There are even fewer recruits who have the abilities of the Sisterhood.”
“So the rest of us are low-”
“Witches,” Rachel said. “We’re witches and wizards.”
I nodded. There was no need to class their magic here because there were no other species to distinguish themselves from.
“I can’t believe how small this place is.”
“Why?” She came towards me. While she moved, she unsheathed knives and stuck them in various places on her person. “Were there lots of us at Bloodline?”
“No, but I just thought –”
“You thought wrong. They’ve been stealing our recruits for decades. They brainwash them to think like a monster. Feel at home with the monsters. Like your friend.”
“Sophie isn’t brainwashed.”
“Oh really?” She dangled a dagger in front of her, flipped it into the air, and caught it by the handle. “She seemed very uncomfortable when she was here the other day.”
“How would you know, you weren’t even around.”
The haughty grin told me she might have been. “You’ve seen how the monsters are when we dare to challenge their power. The Nephilim you’re with won’t even let you out of his sight. He acts like he owns you. Let me guess, he saved you from a demon.”
She made air quotes when she said the word saved.
“Why do you hate them so much?”
Ironically, the same clouded, dark look she gave me was very close to the haunted rage that overcame Kai when anyone spoke of the demon attack that killed his family.
“You can unpack later,” Rachel said, ignoring my question. “Lunch will be ready soon. We should get downstairs.”
She didn’t give me room to decide if that was what I wanted. Instead, she pretty much shoved me out the door. As if closing it would bury the memory that my question had dredged up.
I followed her back out to the mezzanine floor. There were a few others milling about. “Where are all the kids?” I asked.
Rachel stopped short. “What kids?”
I scratched my cheek. “You know, the little kids who are part of the Sisterhood.”
She searched my face like she wasn’t sure if I was being dense or not. “You don’t know,” she said finally. I shook my head. “Take a good look in the mirror, Alessia. You’re the last member of the Sisterhood in existence.”
This was just perfect.
13
I pressed my hand to my forehead and massaged it. “How is that possible?”
“Our powers are gifted to us by Gaia. She’s been missing for almost two decades. There are no more of us. Now you know why Samantha is so desperate to have you.”
As a recruitment policy, it seemed very short-sighted. Rachel started down the staircase and I followed her.
Sean was amongst those gathered on the lower level. “The dingo is being settled in for now,” he said. “You can see him whenever you want. We’ve got him in a small run of his own. I don’t know how he’ll do with other animals.”
“You have other animals here?”
“Did you see the stables?”
“I thought that was just part of another field owned by somebody else.”
He chuckled. “We own most of this side of the coast.” He said it like it was a matter of fact.
“Ah, Alessia,” Samantha’s voice called. “I hope you’ve settled in. Let’s eat.” She breezed into the room from outside. Today she wore a one-piece turquoise jumpsuit with fuchsia ankle boots. Her fingers waved glittering jewels in the air.
Everybody trudged into the kitchen that was warmer than it had been outside. To offset the heat, all of the windows had been flung open. There was no screening on the windows, and yet there wasn’t a single fly buzzing around. I suspected magic. It would be the only sign I’d had of anything magical since I’d gotten here. It really hit home just how artificial Bloodline had been. And how different high-magic users lived their lives.
Everybody pitched in to help set up lun
ch. There were a few dozen people in the kitchen at once, but they all moved in a fluid rhythm that I envied. By contrast, I flattened myself against the wall beside the door and watched them.
“Here, love,” Melissa said. “Get these on the table.” She handed me two woven baskets full of little bread rolls. The scent wafting off them had my knees going weak. I’d been too nervous this morning to eat. Now my appetite was back with a vengeance. I did as I was asked and then took a seat when everyone else did so. As I sat beside Rachel and glanced around the table, I saw that she had been right. Everyone else was older than me. I caught Samantha’s eye.
She raised a glass of red wine. The others did the same. There was one sitting in front of my table setting as well.
Just to fit in, I lifted the glass. “To new friends,” Samantha said.
“To new friends,” everyone chorused. I took a sip of the wine. Maybe it was my taste buds, but it tasted like feet. I set the glass back down and concentrated on not making a face as I quickly washed it down with water. They didn’t stand on ceremony but started to tuck in. The roast chicken meal was delicious. Not any better or worse than what I’d had at Bloodline, but there was something nice about sitting around a table. Even if it was a table of strangers.
Samantha tapped the table in front of her. “We understand you brought a pet with you,” she said. “A dingo is an unusual companion.”
“I didn’t have any other choice.” I set down my knife so that I didn’t feel the need to roll it around in my hand.
“They don’t allow Earth animals in Bloodline Academy, do they?”
I shook my head. “Apparently animals are more sensitive to supernatural energy.”
“But don’t they have a million other weird monsters there?” Harlow asked.
“There are lots of supernatural species,” I corrected. She grinned, and I knew she had done it on purpose.
Since we were all here, I decided this was the best time to bring up the treaty negotiations. The way Jessica glowered said it all.
“Seems like a pointless exercise,” Sean said.
“What’s the alternative?” I countered. “Also, what’s the harm?”
