97 (Rise of the Battle Bred) (11 page)

Zarastrid’s Log

Five Years and Five Days Later

I called a council of the Coven.

I demanded a Warloch Fire Ceremony, and I demanded a Culling from Zeko.

The training of the boys must begin. We’ve coddled them long enough.

Our plans are underway, but if Zeko is preoccupied with a woman, then he is a boil that needs to be lanced.

“Class, I was so pleased with our discussion on Friday that I decided to up the ante. We’re going to divide into pairs and form debate teams. After studying the chapters on ancient warfare, we’ll debate the differences and similarities this Friday. I’d like to hear some different things than were brought up before,” Mr. McMillan announced.

The class groaned collectively.

“Furthermore, I really want to mix it up. So I’m pairing those who disagreed together. William and Jane, you’ll be the first pairing,” Mr. McMillan continued pairing off class members, and I stared at the blackboard rather than look at my new arch nemesis.

William cleared his throat. Still, I refused to look at him.

I heard desks all over the room scooting over the floor, and the next thing I knew, William’s scent flooded over me. His desk was inches from mine now, and he looked at me with serious brown eyes. I prayed the hurt I felt was not showing in my own.

I cleared my throat. “Well, let’s get to work. I believe we’re in these chapters…”

I kept the conversation all business and felt only minor relief when the bell rang, after all, William had managed to be in all of my classes after lunch, so it’s not like I was getting away from him anytime soon. Luckily, the rest of my teachers hadn’t come up with any forms of deranged torture. At the end of the last class I drew William aside. “Don’t worry about giving me a ride home. Crady’s taking me. You can drop my bike off after,” I gestured with my hand. “after, you know,” I couldn’t say it. I left abruptly then.

“Jane, wait,” He reached for me, but I was better at evading him now that I knew how fast he could be.

“It’s cool, William. It’s fine. I’ll see you later,” I scurried out of class, practically ran to my locker, and stuffed miscellaneous items into my bag. I don’t know what I was afraid of more, William trying to stop me, or William not trying to stop me. I didn’t wait around to find out.

I hustled it to Crady’s car, and thankfully, she was like-minded.

Now that she’d had time to digest what happened at lunch, she was in rare from. “Cheerleading
practice
with the
Ticks
after
school
while my best friend is practically in
tears
during lunch and he says
sure
oh I could just punch him!” She slammed the steering wheel for emphasis. “I am so torqued right now!”

Watching Crady express rage was enough to satisfy me. I got all my frustrations out earlier when I cried in the bathroom, which can I say, is sooo high school. How old am I, anyway?   Other than the World History homework, the rest of my school work would keep my mind off William for the night. Then there was the route in the morning. Maybe he would just skip that, since he was so
busy
, for Pete’s sake.

Crady dropped me off, and I immediately plowed into my homework. Nothing like challenging the intellect to take your mind off unpleasantness. But, my mom must have noticed a change in me, because she came tapping at my door.

“What’s up, Jane-Jane?”  She asked me in a tender mother voice.

My shoulders slumped. I would not, however, cry. “Oh Mom. I’m a total idiot.”

She came in and sat at my desk. This was a perk of her working from home; she was right there for me when I needed her. This only being one of a handful of times, now that I thought about it. “Talk to me,” She said.

“I don’t know anything. I kind of have feelings for William, but it’s only been, what?  Four days since we met?  How can I have feelings for somebody that quickly?”

Mom looked at me carefully. “You look nice. This is serious, then.”

I rolled my eyes at her. “Four days,” I repeated.

She cleared her throat. “Listen, hon. I know I don’t talk about your father much,” My ears perked up. Understatement of the CENTURY. “We kind of had a whirlwind relationship. So I know that things can happen fast, and those things can be every bit as serious as somebody caring about you for a long time. Maybe it’s not the best situation, but it certainly is possible,” She looked at me. “You are proof positive of that,” Then she blushed a little, and I couldn’t help it. I got a little misty-eyed.

“Tell me more,” I whispered.

“Your father is…was…the most handsome man I had ever laid eyes on. I didn’t think he’d look at me twice, you know?”

I studied my mom for a second. Looking through careful eyes, I could see the woman, not the mother. She was very pretty, I decided, with ash blonde hair, gray eyes, delicate bone structure, and a kind of glow that shone from within. “I can see why he’d look again,” I told her.

She smiled at me real big. “Yeah?  Thanks for that,” She got a wistful expression. “He asked me out one night after work. I worked at the Sip-A-Soda on Main,” I nodded, recalling her in the cute uniform in a photo. “We really fell into each other, and decided to get married. It was only a matter of days that we’d known each other, but it felt so right,” Her voice got quieter. “Without any parents to steer me different, I went in whole hog,”

I made a mental note to jot that down on paper later.

“His mother couldn’t fly up for health reasons, or something, so we just went to the courthouse. You know, me growing up in foster care, and all that,” She paused. “We had three fantastic months together,” She smiled, remembering. “Then he left, and never came back. I never heard from him, either. I got a hold of his mom, hoping she would know something, but I guess he left her high and dry too. She’s been super to me all these years, and of course, you’re her favorite grandchild,” She pinched my cheek softly.

“Ha. I’m the
only
grandchild, Mom. Nice try,” I rocked away from her playfully. “So,” I didn’t know quite how to ask this next part. She’d told me the story before, but never with such longing in her eyes or with the admission of her love for my father. It changed my perspective a little. “Does it hurt you to look at me, since I’m kind of the souvenir from your marriage?”  I swallowed and looked at her, not wanting to miss anything, not a flash or twinge or any sign that would tell me.

Her face was unreadable but calm; she was staring out my window and a small smile bloomed on her face. Then she looked right at me. “You were all the proof I needed to know that at least for a time, your father truly loved me. When I look at you, I remember how happy I was then, and what a gift he gave me before he left. So no, it doesn’t hurt me to look at you. I
love
to look at you,” Tears brimmed in her eyes, and I felt my heart get all warm and mushy and the next thing I knew we were hugging each other really tight…like airport hugs.

Somehow, I felt so much better, knowing that for my mom at least, it really was better to have loved and lost, then to not have loved at all. It reminded me of something she used to tell me when I was a really little girl. “A single life lived well is better than 98 lives only half-lived,” Something niggled at the back of my mind, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then I got a text from Crady.

U okay?

Ya

Ima come get u

What abt homework

Screw homework. Put sweats on and sneakers

WTH?

Just do it.

I smiled. Mom looked at me. “Crady,” Was all I had to say.

“Of course. Have fun, be safe,” She said and went back to the office.

It was easy to forget certain things in the bright light of day. I popped my head in to my mom’s office and asked about Mick.

“Oh, he’s doing great. They’re discharging him tomorrow, but of course, he can’t do the route for several weeks,” She said, then put her headset back on.

I sighed with relief and tied my shoes. I had no idea what Crady had planned, but if it involved me in my yoga pants, then I probably would like it.

She pulled up as I was pulling my hoodie over my head. I pointedly did not look in the direction of William’s house; I didn’t want to see his car. I did want to see his car. Whatevs. I got in and we fist bumped. “What’s up?”  I asked her.

“We’re going running.”

“Okay,” I said, drawing out the vowels.

“At the high school,” We were already down the street, or I would have jumped out of the car.

“No we’re not,” I said.

“Trust me,” Was all she said.

I squirmed in my seat. What the heck was this about?  Did Crady think I was okay with going to see William ogling the Ticks while they shook their moneymakers at him?  I gave her a sidelong look. She had on her black yoga pants, purple sequined Converse low tops, a Yale sweatshirt and a fuzzy neon green head warmer. Bottom line was, I trusted her. So I grinned and waited to see what was going to happen in the next ten minutes.

Zarastrid’s Log

Five Years and Seven Days Later

The Fire Ceremony went thusly:

I asked
Zainel to lead us in the Pact. I stared at Zeko the entire time. His normally fierce demeanor was replaced by a calm never before seen. He refused to look at me, however.

Zyrich
, Master of Fire, built the flames into a wall fifteen feet high. The base glowed white.

Zimini beat the bone drum, it’s timbre thrumming the ground beneath our feet.

I loosed the hood from my robe, and walked through the fire. It burned, but not as brightly as the hatred within my breast. What liberties did Agnes give Zeko while I was away?   My cloak frayed on the edges from the fire, but it remained intact.

Each Warloch walked through the fire in turn. The Warloch Fire would harm no one save a Warloch. Zeko was last.

Because I demanded the Culling, I stood on the other side of the flaming wall. Zeko stood amidst the flames while I asked him three questions that he must answer or burn.

The first question: “Do you love the Vessel Agnes?”

He answered with another question: “Do we have hearts with which to love?”

Stupid fool. Of course we do not have hearts. The Fey Witch burned them out of us when she formed us in the black womb of the Loch. He was avoiding the question.

The second question: “Does the Vessel Agnes love you?”

His reply, calm while flames leapt around his head and burned it off his scalp: “She never said.”

Thoughts of the two of them speaking quietly at night before a hearth swirled behind my eyes. I imagined everything they might have said to one another, everything they might have done. My thoughts caused me to pause, allowing the burning of my brother to go on longer.

My third question: “Do you wish to remain Warloch?”

I struck at his core. While the fire burned off his clothing and blackened his fingernails, he paused. He could not die in the Fire, but he could burn for eternity.

I forced him to choose between Agnes and his forever.

I could see him wavering for the first time in the evening.  Before his stance had been courageous. Defiant.  Now his knees bent.  His arms curled inward to his body. His head bowed.  The hair on his head disappeared in a flash of white.

“Yes,” He said, voice quavering while the fire caused his extremities to glow red and orange, life essence boiling under his skin, and causing the only pain Warlochs can feel. “My Loch!  Yes!”  He finally screamed in broken agony.

“Then you may exit the fire. You have been Culled. You know what to do,” I told him.

He walked slowly out, as weak as an old man. We knew he burned from within, the molten center of his black soul threatening to spill out of every orifice.

I thought the ceremony would calm my anger.

Instead, my anger unfurled in different directions. Why did Agnes turn to another?   Why did Zeko allow the Vessel into his graces?   How could he so easily exchange his life for hers?

If we wish to remain Warloch, we cannot form attachments to women. If we use them to sate our physical lusts, we must kill them. We cannot risk the consequences of bearing some dark seed.

Something inside me withered and disintegrated.  I could not tell if I was more disappointed in my Battle Loch, or in the vessel over whom I had obsessed for the past five years of my immortal life.

I believe the stone in place of my heart cracked in two.

William

Jane ran out of his car, and he felt like a jerk. Sure, he could blame his transient existence and taciturn father for his lame social skills, but the bottom line was, William was too chicken, too afraid of getting close to her. She was so beautiful, with or without the pink aura. He stared at the afterimage she left on his passenger seat, a glow suffused with rosiness; it brought to mind the way she blushed for him so easily. How he longed to caress her skin before, during and after one of those telltale signs of her embarrassment. Would it flame hotter when he kissed her?  Correction;
if
he kissed her.

Logically, practically, strategically…he was no good for her. Just look at what happened to Mick. What if she had been the one at the playground when the Lochspawn attacked?

Images flooded his mind of the innocents left behind in Toledo. What a mess that had been. Lochspawn were ruthless with the Warriors, tearing them limb from limb in any effort to make their resurrection nearly impossible. Innocents didn’t have a snowball’s chance. After every attack, if they had time, his dad and he would try to give any bodies a decent burial and leave no trace behind. It seemed the more merciful thing to do rather than have family members be forced to identify body parts. So the scads of missing persons that dotted the country were the Warriors’ strange brand of mercy, and the result of the Lochspawns’ viciousness. And neither race could afford detection by modern-day governments. William closed his eyes and shuddered, as the brief image of Jane being torn apart by Lochspawn overcame him. He would never let that happen.

She’d accepted everything he told her with such grace. Granted, her own brief sighting of the Lochspawn kind of greased the wheels for him to let her know about him. He wondered why she refused to ask him the question that hung in the air between them. Part of him wanted to tell her which life he was on, and part of him didn’t. He didn’t want her to worry about him; he didn’t want anything unpleasant to happen to her, ever. But he was living proof that that wasn’t realistic.

It was why he was escorting her on her route, why he would drive her to and from school if she didn’t already have a ride. Why he sat outside her house at night under cover of darkness. He couldn’t get too close; the Lochspawn could hunt him down, after all. But he couldn’t risk letting her wander around the town without someone who could take a Lochspawn down, at least long enough for her to get away.

He was torn in two. He had to be close in order to protect her; but his being near put her in danger. He could leave. His father would probably be okay with that too, since he didn’t want him fighting. But he would never forgive himself if something happened to her while he was gone. His hand still felt the pulse of hers. He looked at it and drew a breath. Rested in his palm was the small pink print of hers. She infused him. He leaned on the headrest with eyes closed. He could smell her in his car. See her image.

He had to go somewhere, clear his head. He peeled out of the parking lot, hang school, and drove to the city limits. Maybe if he could get away from every pink streak reminder of her, he could think more clearly. The further he got from the main part of town, the fewer streaks he could see. He found a dirt road turn-off, guessing it might be the one place in town he didn’t have a reminder of her. He imagined what it would be like if he and Dad had chosen a different place, like Forks, Washington for example, and he’d never met Jane. He wouldn’t have drawn the Lochspawn to her. He wouldn’t have seen her path, wouldn’t even know she existed. He felt dismal just thinking about it. Now that he’d seen her light, he didn’t want to imagine his life without it. The problem was the darkness he brought with him.

As he lay in the field he’d found, he looked up at the blue sky across which white clouds whispered quickly. He listened to birdsong and the wind whistling in the trees. He might not know Jane as well as he’d like to, but he knew enough about her that he couldn’t stop his growing feelings about her. He wanted to know more; he wanted to see her smile, hear her laugh, taste her tears when she was sad. He wanted everything he might be allowed to enjoy in the time he had left. He couldn’t change the fact that the Lochspawn had found them here, or that his father was drawing a battle towards Deer Fjord that would change all of their lives, but he could make sure he was a part of hers. He had to stop waffling in his affections for her, and just lay it on the line.

Having made his decision, his heart felt light…the lightest it had felt in several lives’ worth of life. He stood and stretched, prepared to face her back at school. She was probably going to be mad at him.

He looked around at the verdant field, and spotted something shining in the waving grasses of the meadow. It couldn’t be…he stood stock still, awed and humbled. Approaching cautiously, he saw it was a confirmation of what he’d decided.

On his way back toward town, he patrolled the outskirts looking for any kind of Lochspawn sign. They didn’t leave much: blood and gore once they found a Warrior and dispatched him, but otherwise, scrapings from their talons, spooked animals or maybe downed branches. They never did grasp how much they weighed. So far, so good; he couldn’t see any sign showing they might be near.

He thought about Jane’s lips, the way she licked them the other day, never realizing the tantalizing invitation she made. What if his father’s plan worked?  What if the Warriors gathered for a full-on war, and took down the Lochspawn, and won?  What if the Warlochs finally lost the battle?  William could stay here, build a life. A life with Jane. He could put down roots. Make friends, get an education, have a career.

Thankfully, his father had managed some basic computer coding that kept them in money as they needed it, and he could work from anywhere there was an internet connection. Maybe William could choose a similar career or something different. Huh. Choice. It was the one thing none of the Warriors had been given, from the beginning. Their mothers hadn’t had a choice, and then they hadn’t as they were told which wars to fight. When they finally exercised their free will, they’d been hunted as prey.

He approached the hospital and decided to check in on Mick before he went back to the school.

He knocked softly on the door to Mick’s room. Mick looked up and grinned. “Dude!” He reached a hand out to shake William’s. It made his voice catch when he greeted him. He couldn’t remember getting such a warm greeting, ever.

Mick started chatting non-stop. “I am so
bored
,” He drew out the ‘o’. “They’re feeding me crap, and the TV gets horrible reception; I don’t think they switched to digital, man. It’s like the Dark Ages in here. But there is this one girl, she is hot! I think she likes me, too. She comes in all the time and fluffs my pillow and junk. Oh, and don’t even get me started on the fact that I can’t smoke. It’s killing me.”

William smiled a little, enjoying the irony of Mick’s statement. “When do you get out?”  he asked.

“Tomorrow, thank God. Man, first thing I do is get a pack and smoke the whole thing,” Mick said.

“What about that girl?  She knows you smoke?”  William asked him. That put a frown on Mick’s face.

“Crap. You make a really good point. What if she wanted to kiss me?”   That put him in a somber mood, and William figured his job was done.

“I got to take off, man,” William said.

“Hey, before you go. Um. Thanks,” Mick’s voice got quiet. He looked at William earnestly.

William shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah, of course,”

They shook hands again, and William left. He was going back to school. If he was going to stick around and put down roots, he needed to make amends with someone, and maybe make some friends too.

This was his frame of mind when he got back to school in time for lunch.

It was some kind of sign when Kris and Chris offered him their very generous welcome. They took his size in stride, didn’t make assumptions, and generally had offered a little kindness. He was feeling magnanimous when the girls, he couldn’t remember their names, invited him to do something. He wasn’t sure what, but agreed. The burgers were pretty good. And then that’s when the spinach hit the fan.

Jane was gone so fast, her pink blur was the only thing that remained. He didn’t know what he’d said, other than this morning. He knew this morning was a mistake, though. Crady was gone before he could ask what was going on, and the girls were fussing over the one with the white skirt. He shrugged at no one in particular and headed to class.

Jane was terse with him the rest of the day, as well she should be, he supposed. He didn’t know how he was going to make it up to her. He knew he’d been sending out all sorts of conflicting messages. Holding her hand one minute, telling her he ‘couldn’t’ the next. Whatever the heck that meant. Couldn’t what?  Like her?  It was too late for that. Couldn’t talk to her?  Impossible; he’d made it so when he convinced the school advisor to put him in practically every one of her classes. Couldn’t kiss her?  He watched her hustle out of last period after he’d reached for her. She was surprisingly fast.

Couldn’t he kiss her?  Shouldn’t he kiss her? 

He could.

He should.

And he would.

For a guy who didn’t smile, he broke into a wide one. Giving himself permission to feel what he so keenly desired was like unfurling the sails on a pirate ship. Lochspawn and Warlochs be damned. He wanted to kiss Jane Burrows, and he was going to find a way to do it. Soon.