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Moira, one of the most organized people he knows, dumps a pile of files and a binder on her desk. She doesn't notice when the top file slips onto the floor. Charles watches her with concern.
"Hey," he picks up his satchel. "Would you like to grab a coffee before going home?"
She shrugs.
"Only if it's as black as his heart," she nods at the closed door of their academic advisor's office.
Charles offers her a supportive smile. That must have been quite an argument.
Today, the sky has been moody. The setting sun is splattering its last light as they slowly cross a square.
They are passing an old campus building, carrying on small talk. Charles glances at dark windowless holes. Planks are there to keep intruders out. The first floor has ivy crawling all over red bricks. Those renovation signs look like jokes.
"I know it sounds juvenile, but I think he hates me," Moira speaks. "Sorry you have to listen to this."
"You could probably write a poem about my struggles with Raven at this point," laughs Charles. "We help each other out."
She chuckles. It's good, thinks Charles. She is not an easily amused woman.
A shadow over her shoulder grabs his attention and Charles follows it with his eyes back to the old building. He sees it peeking from under a hedge. Oh, my, he thinks and feels his heart drop.
A head: flat and grey. A mouth: open wide, like a trap with a dozen sharp teeth. Pale skin taut over rolling ropes of flesh. A furless mutated dog with unnaturally wide jaw opening capacity?
"What is it?"
I wish I knew, he laments.
"Nothing of the ordinary," he blurts instead. "You go ahead. I need to go back."
"You look white. Are you alright?" she is worried.
This pale something snaps its jaw, backing farther under the bush.
"Fine," he gulps, "just forgot my… scarf."
"You do care about your scarf a lot," she says, puzzled.
After she leaves Charles waits a little. He honestly admits that a cold prickling on his nape is not only from excitement. Meanwhile, the sun has almost disappeared. He looks around one last time before slowly approaching the hedge. No rustling that he can hear. Good. He finds a gap to squeeze through.
When he emerges on the other side, he immediately knows that he was right. The pale beast is nowhere in sight, thank god. He is looking at something even stranger. It blinks first.
"You don't belong in this world, do you?" he asks it weakly.
'It' is a thumb-thick worm, with a large round eye on one end. It is peeking from the dent in the wall. Eerily, Charles feels like not one, but hundreds of eyes are on him.
He snaps a picture and a worm-like creature shies from a flash. Obviously uncomfortable. Charles' ears catch distinct growling and he's quickly becoming uncomfortable too.
With his car still under repair, he has to take the bus.
He opens the door of their house, heart pounding fast.
"Erik!" he calls into the dark. "Raven!"
Charles runs into a living room. It's empty. He turns to a kitchen and finds a basement door open. Taking a breath, he puts his foot through the door, blindly feeling about for a switcher.
As light floods the basement, he hears some sound. Charles dares come down a bit and finds Erik seated in the middle, on the rug left by previous owners.
Erik seems frustrated when he lifts his eyes.
"Sorry I interrupted your settling into the darkness," Charles says breathlessly. "I'm so glad you didn't leave you have no idea."
"You gave me supplies for surviving in your world, but I still can't control Lightblade," Erik shares. "I find that an underground part of your house is especially good for exercising focus."
"Really?" Charles dubiously looks at boxes, dusty piles of planks and old furniture. "Okay. Whatever floats your boat. Erik, can you look at this?"
Charles lures him back into the kitchen with his phone. It feels like baiting the man with a cat dancer. However, seeing how Erik's face morphs after he glances at the picture confirms Charles' worries.
"It's a keyling. We call them that because they crawl into spaces. And they usually flock around portals," Erik shakes his head. "This devious machine can make such nice pictures. Where is this?"
"It's not just the keyling, I'm afraid," Charles tells him about the other beast.
"That is a prowler cat. Vicious beings," Erik sets his jaw firmly. "Alright, Charles. It's time to hunt. Since I can't summon the sword," he sighs, "show me what you have. Where is your weapon stash?"
Here it comes.
"I don't have one."
Erik stares at him incredulously.
"You can grab some kitchenware," Charles nods to a knife set on the counter. "And we can do shopping on the way there. But, wait. Where are these creatures coming from? Your world? Or time?"
"Of course not," there's a hint on apology in his eyes. "There seems to be a portal to the dark realm in your world, Charles."
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A carwash point called "Magic Wash", and how original is that, was behind the service station which has seen better days. But Raven didn't choose it for its luster. It was far from the school. Also, she could ride her bike here.
She takes in a white structure with a blue roof and thinks that she could be having a fun talk with Erik now. Then, she grimaces. Erik is busy reaching zen in their basement. So busy, that he didn't react when she switched off lights in revenge. At the moment she is ashamed she did that. A tiny bit.
She follows an echo of swearing, peeking through a half-open door. It's kind of shady there and it smells like gasoline. She sees two cars under a flickering overhead light. There is a messy black pile in the corner. Types, probably.
"Hello?" she cries out.
"What do you want, blondie?" says a voice, and then a person steps into the light.
This woman looks like she has just dropped weights. Her tee does nothing to hide her muscled arms. Her purple haircut makes Raven suddenly jealous.
"This," Raven shakes a half-torn ad, "says you're hiring. I'm looking for a part-time job."
The woman in the tee snarls.
"No."
"And why is that?"
"Just no."
Raven straightens up. She is getting worked up.
"Hey, don't turn away," she calls. "I need this job."
The woman laughs. She has a loud laugh.
"A DNB like you needs pocket money? Nah, look elsewhere."
Sometimes honesty opens the doors, says a voice inside her head. It sounds like Charles, damn it.
"Okay. It's not about the job or the money," Raven snorts. "Though I want to get paid. Clearly. This is exactly the least appropriate job for me. That's why I want it so much. Screw nannies and waitresses. I want to do something tough."
"Tough, eh?" she clicks her tongue, laughs again.
Raven grits her teeth.
"Alright," the woman says. "Name's Arclight."
"Raven," says Raven.
"Whatever. Don't care, blondie. So, here is the drill. I'm not repeating twice."
Raven nods, pulling her hair up into a bun.
Three hours later she leaves with a few banknotes in her purse and a pain in her back. It is totally worth it, she is telling herself, slowly working the pedals up the hill. God, she can smell that solvent still. Seems like it soaked in her skin.
She was so busy she didn't even stop to check her phone. So she fishes it out, swiping away notifications until a message from Charles pops up. Raven gasps. Damn it. She is missing a hunting mission.
She decides to take a loop road again, cycling furiously. It's already nighttime. An even line of forest on her left looks dark and dense. Until a shrill scream tears down a veil of silence. Raven stops immediately. With hands gripping the handles tightly, and heart in her mouth, she is peering into the dark. A flash of light is jumping there, among trees. It's closing in. Her thoughts are racing pretty fast. Is this another time-traveler? A wild boar with a flash-light on its head? An alien invasion? Oh my god, this town is so dope.
Never taking her foot off the pedal, she is waiting through the sounds of snapping branches and high-pitched shrieks until two guys run out of the forest. Heaving and wheezing, they come to a stop right when they see her.
The taller one bends forward, hands on his knees. His face is red and his eyes are jumping everywhere but Raven. The one with a flashlight on his ridiculous helmet hugs his midsection. He is gasping like a fish out of water, while he's trying to say something.
Both are dressed in black and wearing backpacks. She squints because she must have seen them somewhere. They are kind of familiar.
"Hi," gets out the taller one as he stops wheezing.
"Skip the intro. Just tell me what you saw there," urges him Raven. "The night's young. I have places to be. Come on. Were there monsters? What kind?"
"Wolves," rasps the one in the helmet. "A pack of wolves and a bat cloud!"
"And that's all?" she huffs. "Bye, then."
They are wheezing something at her back, but she doesn't care.
Losers, she thinks sourly, heading home. And somewhere out there Charles is hunting monsters from another dimension.
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"Let me tell you, you look much better, man. Some hangover, huh?" says a person, who Charles hired to take them to the portal.
Erik frowns and meets his eyes in a tiny mirror stuck to a ceiling of their vehicle.
"Do I know you?" he asks dryly.
"Armando," speaks Charles hurriedly. "How big is this forest, I wonder? It looks so old."
"Really old. My gran used to tell me it's cursed, like that suicide forest."
"Ah, that one got a historical reputation. Did you know that the nature of its phenomenon was debunked—"
Erik closes his eyes. He is comfortable. This moving vehicle has the best plush seats. The weight of the bag with Charles' supplies on his lap is comforting. This is a very new feeling for him.
Three days in a row he's been sleeping in a soft bed, waking up to Charles' nutritious breakfast, taking unrestricted showers and exploring the Internet. A sacred source of this world's knowledge… It nearly sucked in his mind. He remembers Charles pulling that framed screen from his hands. His eyes were concerned. He was also saying something about setting a schedule on screen time. After Erik strongly disagreed with him, Charles smartly asked how much time he thought he spent sitting there like that.
Erik shakes his head as he recalls it. He sat down with the screen in the morning. When Charles broke through to him, it was already nighttime.
Charles turns and tells him that they are almost there. There's a glimpse of anxiety in his bright eyes. It pulls Erik back from his musings. He looks through the glass at a place Charles calls campus. There are quite a lot of people strolling outside after dark. He waits until Charles opens his side door and, mimicking him, repeats his movements.
"You're really helping us out," Charles is saying heatedly to the man in the vehicle.
"You're paying," the man answers cheerfully. "Want me to wait?"
Charles glances at Erik for directions.
"If we survive, we'll be coming back," nods Erik.
Charles is regarding him calmly, patiently. With an oddly misplaced half-smile and a worry crease between his eyebrows. Erik gets it in a moment. He was careless.
"That was an allegory, of course," Erik says then. "There is nothing dangerous out there. Nothing uncommon for your world."
"He's hilarious," Charles adds airily, tugging him along. "The best part—you can never tell when he's joking."
"He is just a laughriot, your friend," whistles the man. "Blow that party, man!"
After they put enough distance between themselves and the vehicle, Erik begins talking, deliberately hushed.
"Keylings are harmless and easy to crush. Step on it and that's all. Cats are fast and deadly. They usually attack in groups and, like everything that crawls out of portals, are afraid of daylight. You saw it yourself. Hence, they are active at and after the dusk."
"We've come bearing light," Charles huffs. "Although… I don't want to voice it, but," he stops, turns to Erik. "What other species could have slipped through?"
"I'm thinking only these. Because if their masters are here we're in a very big trouble."
"Um, thank you for this. I was afraid you'd tell me to back off."
"No need to thank me. Where I'm from the best way to protect someone is to teach them how to fight and survive. And everybody knows that the best way to learn that is under life-threatening pressure."
Charles makes a strange stifled sound, but doesn't say anything else.
They reach an old building without exchanging another word. Charles shows Erik the gap in the hedge and they squeeze through. Lamplight is reaching here. It's enough to illuminate Charles' white face and a part of the wall. Erik simply drops the bag, unzips it with a flick of his fingers. He levitates all household knives and a rod Charles calls 'crow bar' in the air.
"You're magnificent," whispers Charles.
Erik finds that when Charles is looking at him like that, it is oddly stimulating.
"We must find the postal fast. You didn't change your mind?"
"No," Charles grabs the crow bar for himself and swings the bag over his shoulder.
He has a new gleam in his eyes, which Erik chooses to interpret as confidence.
The first doorway they find is blocked with crossed planks. Erik tears nails out and away with a sharp gesture. He steps in first. Charles follows, lighting up their way. Erik expects to see floors or levels inside. There are none. They are standing next to a giant pile of debris. The building is just a carcass. Like a rotten fruit eaten out by worms. The skin is there, but the insides aren't.
"What happened here?" Charles lifts up his light screen.
A stream of light startles pale cats perched on a ledge above. They make a collective low growl and jump down, aiming for pray. Erik sends his knives flying. Two cats drop mid-jump. Others twist impossibly fast and land on the pile of rubble.
"God, they are nimble," he hears Charles and feels him draw closer.
Erik refocuses on the beasts. With a pull he draws back the knives: those stuck in the fallen and just fallen. A whoosh and a dull whack come from behind. Charles has stuck one down. Erik glances back briefly. He sees what he expected to see. Beasts are surrounding them. Their bodies are sliding through wreckage soundlessly. No growling this time.
The only thing Erik can hear very well is a panting Charles.
This is not the time, but Erik recalls that he never faced more than two cats at once. His duty doesn't, didn't lie with portals.
"Charles," he speaks. "It's time to unleash your flamethrower."
"Fireworks," Charles sighs. "Flamethrowers were sold out. I can't believe that store had them in the first place."
"Whatever. It's fire anyways, right?"
"Yeah, you can put it that way, I guess."
Erik hears Charles rummaging in his bag. Cats are moving with shadows. The light Charles is holding in one hand is getting unsteady.
"I have to confess this is my first time," Charles' voice reverberates louder with every passing instant. "I never thought I'd ever start any impromptu fireworks show. Under no such conditions, mind you."
Planting his feet firmly, Erik pins his knives in place and draws on metals scraps he can sense in the pile. Rustling stops. Charles inhales, sharply.
"Let's switch," Erik hears and swiftly swaps places with Charles, who is holding two hissing candles in both hands.
He feels how Charles darts forward. He couldn't see what he did, but a sudden sparkling fountain burst up.
At the same time Erik's projectiles struck petrified beasts. He twists out of the way when a wailing monster lurches for him. He stabs, hits, tears through with his gift alone. A haze of triumph falls when he realizes that Charles is not behind him anymore. He glances back and his heart plummets.
Erik leaps forward, helping himself with metal in his armor. To Charles, suddenly on the ground. To beasts pouncing on him from above. In that very moment Charles' sparkly fountain dies with a hiss.
Darkness falls and Erik falls in.
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Raven didn't even hear a snap. She was cycling so fast that she missed an instant pedals went loose.
Damn, she manages to think as she and her unruly bike are rolling down the hill. She was aiming for their garage. But now chances are—she is going to leave a Raven-shaped dent in a garage door. No way!
Her thoughts are running as fast as the wheels.
Screw this.
She then grins, abruptly mesmerized by the moment, and directs the bike right into their neighbor's hedge. Well, that was the plan. Because instead a shadow jumps out, right in the bike's way.
Unprepared, she curses out loud. Bike goes in, she goes down, sky goes up.
It doesn't hurt that much, she finds out. She did pull her leg back on instinct. Cool, she decides. Right before she realizes that she is lying on someone, who is wheezing terribly.
First things first: Raven pushes herself up, untangles herself from the bike and fishes her phone out of the back pocket. Her hand is shaking a little. Phew, the phone is good. Thank god.
Next she touches the wheezing body with a tip of her sneaker.
"Hey, do you need help?"
The body groans pitifully and curls up. Just like a child.
The rush of the ride is still circuiting under her skin, heating her cheeks. She peers down at the person, half cast in thick shadow, until it clicks. This is an umbrella kid. Didn't he drink Erik's forgetting potion? What is he doing here? She panics for a moment. Meanwhile, the kid sits up, hugging his midriff. No wonder she didn't see him earlier. He seems to be wearing bleak again.
"What the hell was that?" her panic naturally bleeds into anger. "Why did you jump out?"
The rasping kid lifts his eyes and in faint moonlight they flash yellow. Raven takes a step back.
"I wanted to help you," he stutters out.
Definitely yellow, Raven gulps. She doubts the kid is into cosplay eye contacts.
She quickly whirls around and retreats, clenching her keys tight, and pressing her phone to her ear. Charles is not picking up, damn him.
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After his poorly timed decision to step back on the chunk of panel which seemed so sturdy, he was mentally preparing himself to be torn apart. But when the blue flashes in the corner of his eye and then everywhere, he simply knows they have won.
Charles picks himself up on his elbows. Twists his neck to look back.
Erik is standing right at Charles' feet with a glowing blade in his hand. Charles is staring at him. It's more than a little awkward how much he is doing that, but he can't help himself.
He takes in Erik's rigid back, his arms spread wide, the quick rise and fall of his chest. Something clenches in Charles' throat. Oh, bother. He desperately thinks about all the dust he inhaled as he fell and sneezes. Very loudly. Embarrassingly loudly.
So of course Erik looks back. His eyes are hopeful, Charles believes. At the same time Charles feels his face burning.
"You're alive," Erik says sharply.
Charles uses standing up as an excuse not to meet his eyes.
"Where are these hell cats?" he wonders and the words get stuck when he sees halved beasts lying around the pile he and Erik are standing on the top of. Their weird black blood is steaming. Goodness.
"That last one was a joint effort," comments Erik proudly as his sword flares up. "Did not work for them as you can see."
Charles squeezes his eyes shut and covers his mouth. He feels sick. When he opens them he sees an eye blinking at him from the crack in the pile. He almost forgot about these poor things.
"I found it," comes Erik's voice and Charles straightens up.
He picks up his phone with a screen miraculously intact and circles the pile. He finds Erik in the far corner of the building. He is standing next to the blue swirling vortex in the cracked sink. This used to be a washroom, Charles notes, stepping over a fallen door. There are keylings stuck to a cracked mirror above the sink. Erik taps the mirror with a tip of his sword. It shatters. The pieces and the keylings clinging to them fall into the portal. It swallows their lot with a crackle and a splash of energy. Charles watches in awe, his bout of nausea forgotten.
"We are lucky. It's a small one," points out Erik with a satisfied smile.
Charles can tell that he's very excited. Probably, because he finally summoned this illusive sword of his.
"Splendid. Well, here we are. What's the designated procedure?" he is getting excited too. "How do you close this portal?"
Erik's smile dims.
"I don't know," says Erik tightly. "It was never common knowledge. It was always up for wizards and their Champion. All I know, I must guard it until a ripple restores itself. So I think."
"Aren't you a wizard? You do have powers. This discrepancy baffled me from the very beginning."
"I don't do magic, Charles," Erik sounds ruffled.
"We must agree on the definition of magic, because we're not getting anywhere," he stops. An inner voice is telling him to drop it. Right in time, because Erik's expression doesn't promise any explanations.
Charles feels guilty. The man has been through a lot, after all. Also, he is very, very private.
"I'm sorry, Erik. Asking uncomfortable questions is my superpower as Raven claims."
"She might be right," speaks Erik, hiding a smirk.
"You shouldn't have agreed," groans Charles half-heartedly.
Then his eyes fall on a lonely keyling peeking out of the pipe below the sink. Charles pulls down his sleeve to his fingertips and cautiously scoops one up. It curls up in his palm, a single eye gawking wide. He lets it fall into a sink-vortex and an idea appears all of the sudden.
"Erik, wait here, will you?"
"I'm not going anywhere."
Charles swipes away all missing calls and shoots a quick text to reassure Raven. After that he goes back to the spot where he dropped his duffel bag. When he returns with his cargo, he is prepared to stand his ground.
"I'm sending these guys back," Charles hugs the bag with whirling keylings protectively. "You said it yourself—they are harmless. I collected everyone I could find. I even think they are intelligent. In a rudimentary way."
Erik nods mutely, gaze slightly unfocused. While Charles is emptying his bag over the sink, he doesn't make a sound. There is something on his mind. Charles is not sure he likes it.
"Whatever you've been planning, let's try one thing first," Charles waits for a nod. He gets one and smiles encouragingly. "Alright. Because I don't want you camping here and foraging the campus for scraps."
"How did you know?" asks Erik suspiciously.
"Let me be painfully clear," Charles scowls a bit. "It's safe to say I can understand your perspective better now. You can't stay here and live like a bum."
"Why not?" Erik asks flatly. "What is a 'bum'?"
Charles' exasperation makes him ruffle his hair. He swallows back a smart response just waiting on the tip of his tongue.
Erik's eyes are flickering to Charles and back to the glowing sword in his hand.
"What do you suggest we do?" he says then.
"How about using your powers to drop everything that emerged from the passage back there? We even it out and see what happens."
It takes Erik a good few minutes to levitate all corpses to the portal. Charles observes its swirling from the sidelines. Is it him or is it getting faster? To be frank, he is itching to take a peek inside. He is barely restraining himself from tying his phone to a cord and filming what's on the other side.
"Is that all?" he speaks when Erik dumps in another head impaled on the steel rod.
"Yes."
"Thank you. Now, do you see it too?"
Erik steps up to him and they evaluate the blue vortex together.
"It is getting unsteady," Erik turns to him.
Understanding is dawning on his face.
"We can try overloading it with massive quantity of matter," Charles is thinking out loud. "Or we can use your sword as an equalizer. Because it certainly stores lots of energy. Which, let me finish, I think you can do just right. I know you didn't train for this. Yet, it chose you for a reason. All the things this sword can do you can do too. You saved me today."
"I wasn't thinking then," Erik looks away. "I am not good at—"
"Discovering a right headspace?" continues for him Charles. "But the truth is you are really great at it. People struggle for years. It took you a few days."
Charles breathes in deep. He sees it now. He is suddenly overcome with thick, cloying emotion. There's just so much strength in every vulnerability.
"It's a part of you. Part of every memory, every emotion you have," Charles dares put his hand on Erik's shoulder. "So much so that your only chance to master it is to find the answer within."
Erik watches him with that expression again. Charles wishes he could read his mind. As much as he wants to, it is impossible. It catches Charles' attention how relaxed his face suddenly becomes. How easy his smile appears. As if an aggressive determination imprinted into his features suddenly wavered. Replaced by something else.
The world snaps back into color other than the light from the portal when Erik clasps the sword in both hands. Charles sees a flash. So intense that it almost seems white. His brain is empty of anything but a low-pitched sound and a light. Until it dies out and a shock rocketing through them both vanishes too.
As his eyes readjust to the darkness, Charles grins.
There used to be the portal to another realm there is just the ordinary broken sink.
"You did it," he hugs Erik and quickly lets go, not sure if his gesture is welcome. "Oh, goodness. This is so amazing!"
He wonders if Erik feels even a fraction of wholeness he does.
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Raven folds her arms. She is in the backseat of the car, watching how Charles is chattering up Erik. She can hear him even through her headphones. So she pumps up volume until a warning appears on a screen. She ignores it.
Jeez. A ride to school has never been so long.
Nature is a right bitch too. She grimly thinks that a nasty drizzle is perfectly reflecting a feeling building up in her chest.
She is demoted to the backseat today. What next? The basement? Oh, wait. It's already occupied.
The worst thing—you can't live with Charles and not learn a thing or two about his moods. And she sees, very plainly, that he is reveling.
Well, it was obvious he was delighted when they came back. But he didn't tell her everything. Okay, he did, because she was picking his brain for details till midnight. But at the same time he didn't.
Some of this must have passed across her face when Charles caught her eyes in a rearview mirror.
He turns to say something. Probably to ask her what's wrong. But Raven pointedly turns her head, pretending to watch the dullest scenery ever. Guilt loops around her heart.
It's pouring when Charles pulls up at the school gates.
"Do you have an umbrella?" he asks worriedly.
"Just open the door," snorts Raven, already jerking the handle.
"Raven," says Erik suddenly and she turns to look at him.
His eyebrows are screwed together and he looks stern.
"Be careful. If you notice anyone or anything strange, contact Charles immediately. I'll come as soon as possible."
"Wait a minute. Are you coming to work with Charles? Since when?"
"Erik wants to double check campus grounds again."
"Still looking for your lost ID?" she clicks her tongue disapprovingly. "Are you sure you didn't drop it in, you know, a portal to another dimension?"
"Let's not bring that up," groans Charles.
"No, I'll be checking for ripples and remaining beasts."
"Exactly. We discussed it at breakfast."
"You didn't tell me."
"I did. When you were looking at your phone."
She pushes the door open and the rest of Charles' words get swallowed by rain.
A mounting wave of frustration accompanies her through the gates. She registers cold raindrops hitting her face and sliding underneath the collar. Music dims those sensations. Drumbeat in her ears overpowers the rain. And Raven imagines she is walking through the storm. That she is a voyager, conquering wilderness. Challenging dark skies.
She breathes in cool air when suddenly the rain stops.
She blinks through water clinging to her eyelashes and looks up. There is an umbrella over her head. She tugs her headphones out.
"Hi," she hears a voice and as she turns she realizes that it belongs to the guy holding the umbrella.
It's a big umbrella and the guy is tall enough to hold it over both their heads.
"Hi," she gets out.
Where has she seen him before?
"I, um, I noticed you don't have an umbrella," he stammers and blushes like mad.
His visible discomfort affects her in an unexpected way. She realizes just now how confused and irritated she is. And, as she thinks it, the tide retreats, smoothing away some of the tension.
"Ah, Wednesday night. You're from the forest," she understands abruptly. "Jeez, is there a portal your weird kind is spilling from or what?"
"I? No," his hand goes up to push up his glasses. "We are in the same class, actually. I'm Hank. Hank McCoy. And I'm sorry if we scared you."
Is he for real? Yes, she decides, when she meets his earnest blue eyes.
"Please don't be. It was the highlight of my day."
They begin walking to the doors together, but Raven slows down at the bottom of the stairs.
She is all business again.
"So when will you tell me?"
"Tell you what?" stutters the guy.
"What you've been doing in the forest? And what was that about bats attacking you? I didn't see any."
The guy looks funny when he's caught. His eyes turn frantic and his glasses slide down his nose as though on cue.
"There are things in this town no one know about. Dangerous, strange things," he mutters quickly.
She cringes a little. She can barely hear his muttering.
He mumbles something like 'you won't believe me anyway', staring down at her shoes.
"You wanna bet?" Raven huffs and claps him on the shoulder.
Inside, she is celebrating.
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Charles' bedroom door is slightly ajar. When Erik passes it he glimpses Charles taking off his shirt in front of the mirror. Meanwhile, Raven's belt and bracelets and metal laden boots are escaping through her bedroom window. It baffles Erik, now and then, that they consider him a strange one.
"Erik, is that you?" calls out Charles.
Soon his ruffled head peeks through the gap in the door.
"Oh, great. Would you like to go out tonight? Have a drink?" Charles gives him a smile Erik labels as tentative.
"I'm going out right now. To check the perimeter," he says and then it clicks. "Or is there an underlying meaning to your offer?"
Charles laughs, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Maybe," he continues to smile. "I am asking whether you want to go somewhere with me. I just didn't have the easiest week. And neither did you. I think we deserve some measure of indulgence."
It's easy to says yes. So he does, unable to understand why he always succumbs so fast.
He is waiting downstairs, idly tracing Charles' presence through his wrist watch and a plain silver band he is wearing on his left hand. A week ago he couldn't sense anything out of his field of vision. He discovers, with surprise, that his gift is easier to control than ever. It must be it. The sword is becoming one with him. Truly. He thinks back to the moment Charles' words stirred something inside him, spurring him on, invoking a deep and ancient voice within him.
"I thought you went to change," interrupts his thoughts Charles as he comes down the stairs. "As in, you know… put on something else."
"I already did."
Charles gives him an incredulous look.
Erik spares a brief glance in the mirror. He doesn't understand what's wrong. Raven showed him how to order clothes 'online' and he did. For practical reasons he ordered three duplicates of each item. What should he say?
The place they end up in is crowded and noisy. There are just enough alcohol fumes and tipsy loudmouths to make it bearable. Erik can't say that he likes it, but Charles seems very enthusiastic.
He's leaning on the counter with his elbows, speaking to a scantily clad barmaid with tattoos all over her arms and back. Erik dubiously looks at a tall chair he's supposed to sit on. It looks like the one straight from a torture chamber minus a spike in the middle. He sighs, resigned.
"What are you having?" Charles leans to cry into his ear.
"You pick," he has to raise his voice in turn.
Charles grins. This one is mischievous.
He turns back to the barmaid as Erik registers a tingling sensation from his left. He catches the hand which was close to landing on his shoulder.
When he twists his head back he sees a man in a ridiculous hat. He is breathing hard and his face is red. Already drunk, notes Erik.
"Hey, man, this is my seat," he wheezes and Erik scrunches his nose.
He tugs the drunkard close by the hand, twisting his thumb out just a little. An instant between songs gives him an opening.
"I will cut your eyeballs out and make you watch it happening if you don't leave," he says steadily.
Then watches how the man's round eyes flood with refreshing panic.
The music attacks his ears again. Before turning back to Charles he resets his expression.
Charles is already thrusting a cool glass in his hand.
"To you," he raises his glass and Erik does the same.
Less than two hours pass and the appeal of this place is finally showing itself. Erik feels hot under the collar. The torture chair seems actually alright. Charles is, well, Erik thinks he's observing someone else.
There is some sort of drinking game taking place at the bar counter. If anyone asked Erik who started it he won't have a clue. But he knows who is winning, because the crowd of glistening-eyed people is cheering Charles. Who has lost his soft jacket somewhere. And his eyes are sparkling—the blue brought out by pink cheeks and the dark of his hair.
Erik is fine as he is, he is telling himself.
The crowd separates Charles from him and in that instant he catches her dark gaze. She quickly glances away, but her look stirs him up.
Erik taps the counter for a refill. While a smiling barmaid is screaming something over to him, he pretends to be dead-drunk. His posture gets loose. Every gesture is carefully wobbly. He tugs at his collar and slowly staggers towards the exit.
Outside, he passes a circle of smoke-puffers, then turns into an underground tunnel. As he leans on the wall, breathing heavily, footsteps are catching up with him.
"You alright, chap?" a false concern rings in her voice.
Erik bends over, mumbling some nonsense.
She whistles and suddenly grabs his hand. Erik staggers for real. Her touch is pulling from him. He can practically feel life-force leaving his body. Darkness closes in as he reaches within himself for Lightblade.
It answers his call.
Through pain he thrusts his hand forward. Blue light flashes bright as she drops his hand and clasps the sword, buried in her stomach.
Erik falls on one knee.
He does his best not to let go of the sword. In the light it provides, he sees blackness spreading over her lower belly. When Erik pulls the sword out, it comes with a wet sound. She gasps, then gurgles painfully, head tilted back, and finally topples over.
"Erik!"
Despite blood pumping in his ears he hears Charles' calling his name. Where did he come from? There are sparks of pain in his temples. He lets his head fall back, his breaths shallow and body numb.
When Charles helps him up, bombarding him with questions, Erik finally looks around the tunnel.
A splash of blood on the ground is the only identification that she has ever been there.
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"What a story," drawls Raven, sipping her coffee with half-lidded eyes. "It sucks that your first night out ended like that."
Charles' throat feels dry no matter how much he drinks.
So he just settles down with coffee as well.
"The lights were dim. I didn't get a proper look at her face," Erik is saying.
"Classic. This is how you get a sexually transmitted disease in this world," snorts Raven and when Charles looks at her she huffs. "What? Am I wrong? I'm taking my sex ed very seriously."
"It's a big relief," he mutters under his breath.
"It is," she presses and sniffs innocently. "Oh, my pure innocent eyes! Is that a hickey, Charles?"
Charles' hand flies to his neck before he can stop himself.
He notices Erik smirking at him across the table. Sunlight is setting off reddish highlights in his hair and making his eyes seem light blue. He appears both thoughtful and strangely relaxed. He doesn't look like a person who has recently stabbed a random woman on the street.
Raven doesn't appear concerned too.
She has an amazing ability to brush off serious issues.
"Raven," Charles turns to her. "I'd rather know what this all is about. What upset you so much? You should know that if you need to talk, I'm always here for you."
It only earns him a silent look.
Charles sighs. He has been doing that a lot lately.
Erik finishes his coffee and stands up.
"Um, Erik. You're leaving?"
Erik nods.
"She is alive. I'm going to find her."
He sounds so sure.
"Good hunting. Go get her", cheers Raven. "Don't forget about protection. No skin contact."
Charles sighs again.
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She fights an urge to scratch at her stomach. The spot where a wound used to be is itching like crazy.
Unfortunately, all the curtains on the first floor are drawn. She can't see what is happening inside of the house. But she already doesn't need to.
She has seen that guy's memories of this house, of a blond girl and her smiling brother, of the amulet she is looking for. The amulet doesn't look like expected. It makes her incredibly angry. One should be warned that it's a damn glowing sword appearing out of nowhere.
As she is circling a garden, looking for a vantage point, she comes nose to nose with a pale boy in giant sunglasses.
Before he opens his mouth she silences him with a punch to a solar plexus.
"What a creep," she mutters, stepping over his fallen body. "That will teach you how to skulk around and spy on people."
Suddenly, the back door opens and she dives back into the shadows.
"Erik, wait," the girl is calling.
She darts a quick glance at the two and decides to stay.
The door shuts.
"So," the girl begins, "I met a guy. Well, two of them."
"Before you continue. Why do I have to listen to this?" speaks the man.
"Are you, maybe, interested in any dirt on Charles?"
"No, I prefer his ordinary tidy appearance."
She rolls her eyes. This guy is extremely strange. The glimpses she saw in his memories—those things were not normal. She had nightmares which made more sense than that weird shit.
"I meant stuff about him. Information," the girl exclaims, then lowers her voice. "If you're curious, of course. Because if you aren't, I'll just go mind my own business…"
Well played, she smirks.
"Go on," speaks the man after a pause.
"They have these afterschool meetings. Like a club, but just two of them. Kind of lame, I know. But the thing is—they are trying to find supernatural. Hank is collecting legends and stuff about this town. Sean is, well, around for support. But I thought it'd be nice to monitor their progress up close."
"Good."
"Good as in 'this is an amazing idea, Raven'?"
He doesn't say anything, so she tilts her head to take a peak.
Her borrowed reflexes save her from a decapitation. A large knife is vibrating barely an inch above her head. Its blade fully imbedded into the tree.
"What are you doing?!"
"I thought I heard rustling."
Damn this, she decides, making her way back in haste. Next time she is going to try a different approach.
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