Spiral (Spiral Series) (17 page)

My senior year might be crazy, but I could still enjoy a lazy afternoon with my friends. At least for now.

After what happened at the lake, I realized that the Visioners had moved past just torment and come out of hiding to try and kill Natalie. How was I supposed to protect her if everyone was trying to kill her? It had always been assumed that she’d be safe until graduation, but she obviously wasn’t.

I had known that she was in danger, but hearing it and seeing it were two different things. I hated that I couldn’t be with her all the time to protect her, but that would change soon. I had been there today, and that was the important thing.

One day at a time, I told myself. That was all I could do.

Maxie had given me an unexpected gift in inviting me to the birthday party. Meanwhile, I paced around our rented farmhouse after school the next day, trying to get the image of Natalie plunging into the water out of my head. I had been watching from a distance, and it had been all I could do not to chase Casey down and kill him. It’s what I would have done in the past. The fear that had engulfed me at that moment had been almost unbearable, and I slammed my fist into the wall of my room as I thought about it. She needed to be better protected.

I had the whole afternoon to wait until the party, so to take out some of my frustration I decided to train. Training was difficult for unicorns. My primary ability was with “hele,” the unicorns’ healing power, and to heal required someone to be injured, a situation that wasn’t available on demand.

Finally I sat down at the kitchen table and started in on the after-school snack of reheated casserole that Eric had left me, brooding about what to do instead of healing. I wanted to hit something hard, preferably a Visioner, but anything would do.

“What are you doing for the rest of the day?” Eric asked, coming into the room and pulling me out of my angry thoughts. I was just finishing my meal, which Eric had made and even reheated, since I couldn’t cook to save my life. I probably couldn’t even have cooked to save Natalie’s life. After handing me a plate, Eric had disappeared outside. Now he was back and his overalls were covered in dirt. He had been outside working for most of the day.

I shrugged. “I thought I would train, then there’s the party tonight.”

Eric’s eyes sparked. I knew he hated that we were here, and even more that we were risking our own safety for a Spiral. When I had told him I had scored an invite to Natalie’s birthday party he had looked less than thrilled. He wouldn’t say it, but he would have been happy if we had left Natalie out here to die at the hands of the Visioners. I hated Eric for that, and deep down he knew it.

“Want me to train with you?” he offered, a warm fever filling his eyes. He knew he couldn’t argue with me about Natalie, but I knew that look. Eric loved a good fight and I was one of the best.

I shrugged. “I usually train with Jar,” I said, as if to imply that Jar was the only one who could keep up with me. In fact, to date, he was.

Eric grinned and cracked his knuckles as if he thought that would intimidate me. “I’m not saying I can beat you, just that I can give it a good old try.” His tone said that he wanted to beat me to a pulp and spit on what was left.

Thinking it over while he waited, I finally agreed to spar with him. I knew he was a good fighter, and the Watchfuls liked to spar with the Silves. It kept them sharp.

I felt a hum in my body at the thought of combat. It was something I truly enjoyed and one of my few outlets for the frustration of the past years. Besides, I wanted to be at my best for what was coming, and some practice against a good opponent would help with that.

I could hear my aunt’s voice whispering in my head: “You have until graduation to protect her,” she had said.

I shoved the kitchen chair back, scraping the legs against the floor. “Give me five minutes,” I asked, rolling my shoulders to loosen up.

Eric nodded. “I should change, too.” He glanced down at his overalls and grinned, then disappeared upstairs.

I had taken a room on the first floor. It was small, but I didn’t care. Creature comforts were irrelevant to me, as they had been ever since Natalie and I had come home to see our world engulfed in yellow flames. I had concluded then that material possessions were useless if they could just be burned. I had trouble not applying that same philosophy to relationships as well. If people could just die, what was the point? Jar had broken through my haze of anger, but that was about it.

A few quick steps brought me to my room. Even with the worry of protecting Natalie on my shoulders I was excited to have a chance to practice.

Practice usually went something like this: Unicorns could “heal” air, and that power extended to air being attacked, which meant that Eric would do something, like try to hit me, and I would use the power of my unicorn “hele” to block his attack. We unicorns could do that with anything, but since that wasn’t a very powerful weapon on its own, I had spent years developing fighting skills to go along with the hele skills. Most unicorns didn’t bother to spend much time on that, preferring to buy weapons from the Visioners or the Watchfuls, but I had spent years training. It had made me deadly.

Watchfuls, on the other hand, had magic that tended towards protection, including sensors that helped them keep track of the unicorns they protected. Basically, they were a type of witch, as were the Visioners, both magic and witch type made more specific by their occupations. Watchfuls, since their primary job was keeping someone alive, developed their physical abilities as much as possible. They also had bits of magic that helped them fight off Visioners and anything else that might attack their charges. Their magics made their movements stronger and faster than those of normal humans, and if they were very good they could also block certain attacks with magic, kind of like unicorns could using hele.

Watchfuls protected unicorns because unicorns protected Watchfuls. They had sacred ground that the ancient unicorns had healed and had continued to heal long after they could have stopped. In return, the Watchfuls were unquestioningly loyal to the unicorns.

I was grateful for their help, but not for their judgment. There was a growing faction of both Watchfuls and unicorns who thought that the Silves should retire from any sort of presence in the real world, to disappear and hide in the hills, because they were too afraid that the Visioners would find them.

I did not agree.

Now, for the first time since the fire, Natalie and I were talking. I talked to her at school whenever I could, and this weekend it had been like we were finally becoming friends. When she told the story about what Casey had done she had been confident and strong, if more than a little scared as well.

I had spent years imagining what talking to her would be like. I had bided my time and hoped that her seeing me might spark some flame of recognition, but to my disappointment it hadn’t. She remembered nothing of me or our shared childhood. Sometimes the Watchfuls were too good at what they did.

 In between thinking about Natalie and how best to protect her, I had thought about revenge. There was no proof that the Visioners had burned my home, but even though I had never found out anything for sure, I was certain that they had had something to do with it. And I still intended to make them pay. The Visioners had taken everything from me, literally everything that was dear. I had lost my family when I was just a child, and along with it I had lost a wonderful childhood.

I wanted my mother and sister back and I wanted my dad to be whole again instead of just a shell of his former self. Those things were not going to happen, but balancing the account would at least help me put the past behind me.

Sighing, I wandered over to my bed and slipped my hand underneath the pillow. Not that robbers were going to break into the tiny rented farmhouse and make off with anything, but I still didn’t want to leave my most precious possession out in the open.

I pulled out a tiny silver box. It was old, with wear around the edges and corners. From my earliest days I had been ordered to handle this box with care. Knowing how much my mom cared about it meant that whenever I went into her room I had looked at it reverently. She treated it like it was the holy grail, and I had learned to treat it similarly. The small container itself was almost as important as its contents, and I couldn’t wait to see them given to Natalie. My mother had always wanted that. When I had naively asked about marrying Natalie all those years ago, my mother had played along. She hadn’t wanted to encourage me too much, because, as she explained, people grew up and changed a lot over the years. But she had told me that the necklace and the box would be her gift to Natalie regardless.

My mom had said that the necklace had been a gift to her from someone very important, but that it had never truly belonged to her, and she would like Natalie to have it.

I wanted to do as my mother had wished. I was going to give Natalie the necklace and the box. If I was going to her birthday party I needed a present for her, and there was nothing I could get her that would be better than this.

Gently, I traced my fingertips along the worn edges, remembering.

A million images flooded my mind. I had seen my mother wear the necklace almost every day of my life until she was murdered. I could see it dangling around her neck as she bent down to pick up me or my sister, framed by the pale skin of her shoulders. I could see it set off by the neckline of the sweaters she wore in the winter months to keep away the cold, or resting against the skin at the base of her throat in the summer.

I had never seen anything more beautiful. It was a stunning display of craftsmanship, entirely silver with a spiraling pendant that spun into a tiny jeweled pinpoint, the mark of the Spiral unicorns, the tribe my mother had come from and the tribe that had only one remaining living member. The necklace truly belonged with Natalie, and I would see her wear it if it was the last thing I ever did.

My mother would have wanted that.

So would Natalie’s.

“Are you ready to get your butt kicked?” Eric’s voice yelled from outside.

I sighed and closed the silver box. I loved the feel of it in my hand, but it was time to practice. I replaced it under my pillow and grabbed a pair of black gloves that would soften the blows of Eric’s attack.

My Watchful was waiting for me outside. He hadn’t changed clothes, but he had added a belt that hung loosely around his hips. His hands were clenching and unclenching. He was just as excited to spar as I was.

I paced out in front of him. We were standing on the back yard lawn, where the grass was just trying to turn green from the crushing snow of winter. The unicorns had chosen the perfect place for us to live. The back of the house was bordered by trees, so we should be able to practice in peace. It wouldn’t do for prying eyes to see that the new neighbors were violent and not entirely human.

“What were you doing inside?” Eric asked, adjusting the straps of his belt. I knew what was in his belt,
mostly stuff to help him see clearly, especially to see threats coming so that he could cause those threats pain. He also had several small vials, including one the color of blood. When used alone or mixed together in the right combinations, the contents of the vials produced deadly gases or tiny explosions. As a Watchful his main goal was protection, and he would use anything to accomplish that goal.

Eric pulled his shoulders back and rolled his head around to loosen his neck. I could hear the cracking sound from where I stood, several feet away, and tried not to flinch. I might be a good fighter for the unicorns, but I hated the sound of crunching bones on bones.

“I was doing a whole lot of none of your business,” I muttered.

Eric gave a thin smile. He was used to his charge’s brusque ways, since I was like that with everyone except Jar. I knew Eric imagined that the loss of my family probably had something to do with my gruff behavior, and he also knew that it had almost ruined me when Natalie had been sent away and hidden. Sometimes Eric would rub salt in that wound.

“Fine,” said Eric, raking me with his eyes, “be that way, but secrecy isn’t going to help you win this fight.”