audio test jdv

by Hankton

narration test

3. He

The man in the handsome silver shirt lifted his pistol until the end of the barrel seemed as large as a cannon. His voice was gruff, that of a man who had killed many times before and had no intention of stopping any time soon. "When you get to hell," he said grimly, "tell your brother I said hi."

He pulled the trigger, and as the deafening boom filled the room, everything went dark. Half a second passed, and then the screen lit up once more as the names of people who had contributed to this latest Lou Devereux action flick began to scroll upwards, accompanied by pounding rock music.

There were a few spots of scattered applause before the house lights came back on, allowing the audience to begin filing out of the movie theater and back to their average, ordinary, dull lives.

I, on the other hand, stood at the doorway, a smile plastered onto my face as I nodded to each person on their way out. "Hope you enjoyed the movie. Good night. Hope you enjoyed the movie. Thank you for coming. Hope you had fun. Good night." Variations of the same meaningless platitudes rolled off my lips without conscious thought after the three months that I had held this summer job. Not that anyone was really paying that much attention to the words of some skinny little almost-seventeen year old girl with dirty blonde hair that was kept in a loose ponytail.

Yup, unlike the ruggedly handsome star that had just closed out his latest summer blockbuster, I wasn't an action hero. Or any hero at all, unless there was someone out there who had a deadly allergy to chewing gum. I'd scraped enough of that off the back of seats this summer to be that person's messiah.

An elbow nudged me, and I realized that I'd zoned out while the last of the audience had been leaving. The boy beside me, a year older and with two summers of this job under his belt to my one, gestured with his own broom. "Hey, Flick, you wanna start down at that end and I'll meet you in the middle?"

Flick. That was me. Well, technically it was Felicity, Felicity Chambers. But no one ever called me that. Not since my mother, who had loved the name Felicity, had run out on my dad and me back when I was seven. Old enough to believe her when she said she'd be right back, but too young to understand what it had meant when she'd said that while shoving half a dozen suitcases into a stranger's car.

She had disappeared entirely, and with her had gone any chance of me ever liking the name Felicity. She'd loved the name, and I didn't want anything to ever remind me of the bitch who had made my father cry when he didn't know I was watching. So, I'd gone by Flick since the day I went back to school after that. By this point, I was pretty sure most of my classmates thought that was my legal name.

"Sure, Pete," I finally replied to my coworker while grabbing the nearby dustpan with my free hand. On my way down to the front of the theater, I checked the watch on my wrist. Ten minutes until nine, which meant I had that much time to finish up here before the things started getting interesting.

Not that interesting, obviously. Laramie Falls, Wyoming was, after all, one of the most boring towns on the face of the planet. Actually, the fact that my mother running out on my dad and me a decade previously was still one of the most news-worthy things that had happened in this place said a lot.

The fact that she had been the county sheriff before pulling her disappearing act, and had run off with some out-of-town guy she'd pulled over for speeding probably had something to do with that, but still.

I swept up the trash dropped by the last audience, preparing the room for the next herd of popcorn shovelers. Someone would have to do a more thorough clean later on, after the last showing, but it wouldn't be me. This was my last shift, and I had to get out early since school started tomorrow.

That and well, to be honest, I didn't exactly expect to keep this job beyond the next twenty minutes anyway. Not with what I had planned. Still, I did the best job I could while keeping an eye on the time.

At two minutes to nine, I dumped the last load of my dustpan and waved to Pete before stepping out of the room. Looking left and then right down the crowded theater lobby, I finally spotted what I was looking for: the tall man with the shock of bushy red hair sticking out in every direction. Almost a dozen people were gathered around, hanging on his every word as he regaled them with a story that made everyone laugh so loudly that people passing by kept turning to see what was going on.

"Cal?" I spoke up after getting close enough.

At the sound of my voice, Calvin Witson, the owner and manager of the theater, turned away from his gathered audience. His smile widened, while his gaze gave me an appraising look up and down that was just a hair too long to be comfortable. "Flick!" he boomed, still smiling. His arm gestured from the group of people he'd been amusing and then to me. "Everyone, this here is Flick's last night with us. She's heading back to school tomorrow. What are you, a senior this year?"

"Junior," I replied absently, still thinking about what I was doing. I was nervous, but I tried not to let that show. I'd planned this out well enough, and the timing was just right. There was nothing to worry about. Everything was going to be just fine, as long as Scott wasn't late.

"Eh, you could pass as a senior," Calvin informed me with a wide grin that was probably meant to be charismatic. It certainly worked on his audience, who laughed along with him while agreeing.

Somehow, my stomach found the fortitude to avoid turning itself inside out. Forcing myself to smile, I lowered my voice to illustrate the need for privacy. "Listen, can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Oh sure, sure." The man's head bobbed in agreement. "Let's chat in my office." He excused himself from the group and strolled toward the door behind the snack bar that led to his private domain.

I trailed after him, and the two of us walked into his dingy little office that smelled like smoke and alcohol. Most of the space was taken up by an enormous desk, while an obnoxious painting of poker-playing dogs hung off of the far wall.

"So, did you decide to take me up on that offer to work weekends?" Cal asked curiously while nudging the door shut with one foot. He glanced to me as he tugged a couple of hard candies from his pocket, offering me one. When I shook him off, he popped both of them into his mouth. "We need you here."

I'd thought about my next words carefully over the past several days. When I finally spoke, they came easily enough. "Well sure, but if I stay too much longer, you're gonna have to tell me about the drugs."

Pausing, Cal gave me a funny sort of look with his head cocked to the side. Voice muffled by the candy he was sucking on, he asked, "I'm sorry? What's that about drugs?"

"You know," I went on casually in spite of my hammering heart. "The pills you've been selling through the snack bar." I forced myself to smile, though his had dropped entirely. "Took me a few weeks to work it out, but I think I've got it now. Someone comes in and asks for a diet root beer. When whoever's working says we don't have that, they ask to talk to the manager. That's you. Then they tell you they want a diet root beer, 'or the next best thing.' That's your cue to grab one of the cups, fill it up with whatever you want to give them, and drop one of those water-proof packets of pills into it. They pay you the cost of the drink and the drugs, and you pocket the extra. Smooth set-up, though pretty convoluted. You probably should've stuck with passing them out in the park. Or did the gross pervert society all band together and kick you out of the park for making them look bad?"

Cal's voice had gone from welcoming to cold. "You think you're pretty smart, don't you?"

"Eh," I shrugged. "I have my moments. This time? Nah, it wasn't hard to figure out. You made it way too complicated. It was bound to blow up on you sometime."

"Fuck you," he shot back bluntly. "Who the fuck do you think you are, some kind of junior detective?"

"Reporter, actually," I corrected him automatically. "For the school newspaper."

"School hasn't started yet!" he roared in disbelief, as if that was the biggest thing he had to worry about.

"A good reporter never passes up a chance for a story." I gestured absently. "Even if she is the only one in the school that cares about the paper. But this was a little bit bigger than some school news story anyway. You sell nasty shit to teenagers, Cal. You belong in prison, and that's where you're going."

"My word versus yours," he insisted with a dirty look. "Who do you think the cops are gonna believe?"

"Probably you," I admitted. "I mean, respected businessman, one of the richest guys in town, people love you. So yeah, they'll probably take your word for it. If, you know, I hadn't taken all your drugs for evidence already."

The man shook his head with a disbelieving laugh. "Bullshit, they're in the safe."

"You mean the safe behind your ugly dog painting?" I nodded behind him. "The one this extra key goes to?" I dug in my pocket before waving the aforementioned key at him.

His eyes widened, and the tall man spun around. He yanked the painting aside, jammed his key into the lock, and yanked it open. Inside were stacks and stacks of both money and the little clear packets full of pills that I had mentioned. He looked long enough to see that the drugs and cash were there, then spun back to me with a snarl. "You didn't get in here!"

"Whoops," I replied lazily, shrugging. "Guess this is just the key to my dad's shed. My bad. Seriously though, extra key? Does that thing even have one of those, or are you like, just that stupid?"

He stood there with his hand on the safe door, twisting in rage. Before he could speak, however, the door swung open and a uniformed man stepped inside. "Okay, I think we've heard enough."

"Hi, Scott," I waved cheerfully from where I was standing while he moved beside me. Seeing Scott Utell come in unexpectedly, Cal started to shut the safe, only for the uniformed man to bark, "Don't move!" The hand on his holstered gun made the other man freeze, and Scott gazed right at the bags of pills and cash. "Well," he drawled slowly, "I don't suppose you'll tell me what those are?"

Cal froze for a moment. His face contorted a little, reddening from anger before he shook his head rapidly while replying those few simple words, "I want my lawyer."

"Yeah," Scott replied. "I kind of figured that's what you were gonna say. Turn around." To me, while handcuffing the man, he complained, "You know, it wouldn't kill you to call me Deputy Utell instead of Scott while I'm on duty."

I shrugged at him. "You were my babysitter for a long time before you were a deputy, Scott."

"Damn right I was," he replied. "So don't start thinking you're hot shit now just because you helped bust this little drug scheme. I changed your diapers, little missy."

"Yeah," I shot back. "You were thirteen, you sucked at it. Dad's still cleaning crap off the walls."

"Oh my god." That was Cal, who suddenly wasn't in the mood for chit chat. "Would both of you just shut the fuck up and take me to the station so I can call my lawyer and get this asshole shit-canned?" To me, he added, "And speaking of which, you're fucking–"

"Fired, yeah, I know," I replied while looking at my watch. "But my last shift ended already. Sooo should I bring my uniform into Theodore tomorrow when I pick up my check or…"

The answer that came was a long series of curses, and I nodded. "Got it, not a good time."

Strolling out of the sheriff's office with my dad about an hour later once they had all the information they wanted from me, I stretched my arms up over my head and yawned. "I think this calls for ice cream, don't you?"

"You know," Dad started in that tone that promised all sorts of lectures, "it's funny, but I don't really like rewarding my only child for putting herself in danger by pissing off a drug dealer. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned."

Sneaking a glance sideways at him before lowering my arms, I took in the sight of my father. He was a big guy, like a mountain man from the old days of the American frontier, complete with thick bushy beard and long hair. Usually his eyes were full of life and cheer (except when he was obviously thinking about my stupid coward of a mother), but today he was squinting at me.

"Scott was there," I protested. "Nothing would've happened. I just had to make sure that he opened–"

"Opened the safe," Dad finished for me. "Yeah, I know. I still don't like it. Scott could've gotten someone else in there. You're a kid. More importantly," he added while reaching out to tug me by the arm into a hug, "you're my kid." Pressing me tight against his chest, my father murmured a little. "Besides, you should be doing ordinary teenager things like going on dates or screwing around with your friends."

Yeah, that would involve hanging out with people my own age. Which I didn't really tend to do anymore. I'd had one real close friend since Mom left, a girl named Miranda. But she moved away a few years earlier, around seventh grade. And after that, I just… getting close to people that were just going to leave felt like a losing proposition. Sure, I still talked to people at school and had people I joked around with, sat with at lunch, or did projects with. But those were just school friends. It wouldn't matter if they left and I never saw them again.

But I didn't want Dad to worry even more about me, so I just shrugged while returning the hug. "I like what I'm doing. Besides, it's Wyoming, remember? Who am I gonna hang out with, some cows?"

Unfortunately, Dad knew me too well to be so easily dissuaded from the topic. "Hah," he retorted flatly. "You and I both know there's more to do than that. And plenty of people your own age to do it with."

Raising an eyebrow at that, I mimed writing on my hand. "Dad says I should 'do it' with a bunch of people my own age, got it."

That earned a simultaneous snort and swat to my shoulder. "You know what I meant." He squinted at me for a second then before his face softened. "I love you, kid. And I'm proud as hell of you. Stopping that asshole from giving any more drugs to kids, the reporter in me wants to congratulate you. But the father in me… I just want you to be a teenager. Don't grow up too fast. Hang out with people your own age, have fun, make mistakes. Go to those wild parties, just be smart about it. I just… I don't want you to wake up someday in ten or twenty years and regret any of this."

Biting my lip, I met his gaze for a few seconds before responding. "I'll be okay, Dad, I promise." And just to make him stop worrying so much, I added, "Besides, maybe someone else'll pay attention to the school paper this year. Lots of new freshmen, you never know. I might get a partner. Or a protege. Oooh, I could do lots of stuff with a protege."

Chuckling a little, Dad took a moment to stroke his hand over my hair. "Just think about spending more time with people under twenty, and I'll be happy."

Smiling up at him, I put on my most innocent face and voice. "Does that mean ice cream's back on the table?"

Giving me a long look, Dad finally laughed under his breath. "Tell you what, you can have ice cream after I finish lecturing you about how dangerous that stunt was."

"What, you're not done?" I teased in spite of myself. "I thought we already had the lecture."

"Ohhh no." Dad shook his head. "Trust me, kid, we haven't even started yet. Now come on, you know how I like to warm up into my lectures."

So we walked to the car, and I listened as my father did his fatherly thing. Through it all, I smiled and made the right words at the right times.

It was okay. I knew he worried about me, even more than some might have after Mom left. But really, it was Wyoming. What danger could I possibly run into?

"You awake, sleepyhead?"

It was the next morning, and I was trying as hard as I could not to collapse into my bowl of cereal. Dad was sitting across from me, already dressed for his day at the paper. Like me, Dad was a reporter. Unlike me, he was a real one that worked for a real newspaper, instead of the dinky little school one that no one paid attention to. He'd worked at the Los Angeles paper for a long time, until he met Mom and they settled down here to have a quieter life.

Yeah, that had lasted a long time. Right up until Mom got a better offer.

"I'm good," I replied before yawning wide. "I'll be fine." Smiling at him, I added, "Can't call off sick on the first day, after all."

Nodding, Dad straightened from the table. "You've got that right. Now go on. Hurry up or you'll miss the bus."

After glancing at my watch to see that he was right, I jumped up from the table. "Crap, crap, crap." Ignoring the half-eaten bowl of cereal, I grabbed my jacket and bag off of the nearby chair, then checked to make sure my phone was in my pocket before rushing toward the door.

"Hey!" Dad called, and I about-faced to give him his hug. "That's better," he remarked before kissing the top of my head. "Go learn. And stay away from drug dealers!"

I flinched. "I guess we're not done talking about that?" The lecture last night had actually gone on through ice cream and on a bit after we'd gotten home, which was part of the reason I was so tired. I was pretty sure he wasn't going to let me take another job for awhile. At least not one that he didn't check over to make sure it was as safe and boring as the rest of our small town.

His gaze was serious. "Not nearly done, no. But go on now. Later we can talk about the things you're supposed to do in those situations. Spoiler alert, they do not involve going alone into a room with the bad guy and provoking him."

Shrugging as innocently as I could, I headed for the door while calling back, "Can't wait for that conversation!" Then I was out the door and running to meet the bus at the corner.

I did feel bad about upsetting my father. He was pretty much my hero, and the reason I wanted to be an investigative reporter. But the fact was, he'd already lost his wife back when she ran out on him with no explanation beyond a hastily scribbled note about how sorry she was. So when it came to me, he was a lot more cautious. Too cautious, sometimes, but I still loved him.

I made it to the corner just in time, and climbed onto the crowded bus. Nodding to the few other students that greeted me, I made my way down the aisle until I found an empty seat and then collapsed into it. The bus pulled away from the corner, and I closed my eyes. I wouldn't be able to sleep for long, I knew. The ride to the school was only about thirty minutes. Still, a cat nap was better than nothing, so I let the motion of the bus lull me to a light sleep.

Just for a few minutes…

With a sudden gasp, I jerked awake and sat up. The motion had stopped, and the bus sat still and motionless, the engine completely silent.

"What…" Pushing myself off the seat, I looked around. Every other seat was empty. I was the only one on the bus. Even the driver was gone. Did they just leave me here? Didn't anyone notice that I didn't get off?

Grumbling to myself about being late, I rushed to the front of the bus. The door was standing open, and I stepped down to the curb before spinning to orient myself. My first class was…

Nowhere near here. There was no school building here. Actually, there wasn't really a building at all.

There was a door. A single, solitary pure white door that stood alone in the middle of an otherwise completely empty field. There was nothing else around for as far as I could look in every direction. Nothing except grass, weeds, the empty bus, and this door. There were no buildings, no people, and I couldn't even see any actual road or tracks that the bus could have used to get out here. Nor were there any tracks that showed where it had come from. It was just there, as silent and still as that single door.

"Where…" I spoke aloud while turning in a slow circle to take in everything one more time. Yup, bus, field, door, me. Nothing else.

"… the hell am I?"

BREAK

BREAK

The first thing I did, once it was obvious that there was no one around to answer my question, was dig the phone out of my pocket. Right. I had no idea where I was or how I had gotten here, but hopefully I could just call and—no signal. The phone had no connection, which meant that unless I could solve this mystery by playing a virus simulation or word scramble game at it, the thing was completely useless.

Well, not completely. Bringing up the camera app on the device, I took a picture of the bus. Stepping slowly around the thing, I took a series of shots of it from all sides, making sure to show the untouched ground around the bus where there were no tire marks. Then I stood right in front of the door and turned, taking pictures of each part of the massive empty field from where I was.

Finally, I turned and took a few pictures of the door itself from both sides. I made sure to get decent photos of it from every possible angle, even leaning in to get a close shot of the knob.

Honestly, I had no idea how any of this was going to help me figure out what was going on. But just because I didn't know how any of this would be relevant or helpful right now didn't mean it never would be. Somehow, I had been brought to this empty field on a bus with no one else around, and no sign of how the bus had gotten out here. Every bit of this was relevant, and I was going to figure it out.

Part of me knew that I should probably be terrified by this whole situation. And I was a little bit. But mostly I was just incredibly curious. What the hell was going on? How had I gotten out here? Why was this door standing in the middle of nowhere? The fear was one lone voice drowned out by the chorus of demands for answers. I didn't have time to be afraid, there were just too many questions.

Lifting my free hand, I set it against the white door. It felt like wood, and it was warm to the touch. Not painfully so, but enough to make me not want to leave my hand on it for very long. Testing the alabaster doorknob gingerly, I found that, by contrast, was cool to the touch. Frowning, I touched the door again. Hot. I touched the knob. Cold. Huh.

Thinking that the answer might be inside the door itself, I decided to try opening it. Grabbing the cool knob, I tried pushing to no effect. When I pulled, however, the door promptly swung open. My eyes followed it while I stepped out of the way, then I returned my attention to the door frame.

People! There were people on the other side of the door frame now! I jerked in surprise, literally stumbling backwards before landing on my backside as a loud yelp escaped me. Then I sat there in the grass, staring with wide eyes at the impossible scene before me.

There were definitely people. Through the open door, I could plainly see dozens of teenagers, most of them around my age or a little older, rushing back and forth. They all wore those formal uniforms that were so popular in private schools and the parts of the internet Dad thought I didn't know about, with ties, blazers, the works. All of them were rushing past the doorway as if they were late for class.

My brain was registering so many problems with this scene that I had to make it shut up and report one thing at a time or I would have sat there for hours just staring like an idiot. So, from the top, I went through everything that was wrong with what I was seeing.

First, I couldn't hear anything from them. These people were rushing back and forth, but there was no sound. I could see their lips moving as they called to one another, yet none of their words reached me. I couldn't hear their footsteps, or anything else as they hurried about their business.

Second, they weren't anywhere except in the doorway. The space to the left of that solitary door standing in the middle of nowhere was completely empty, as was the space to the right. These people were walking on from one side of the doorway, passing through my sight, then moving on to the other side of the doorway. Yet as soon as they passed the frame, they vanished entirely.

That, of course, led to the next problem with what I was seeing. The space that I could see beyond the door, the area these people were walking through, was not the space that had been on the other side of the door. I knew that, because I'd walked all the way around the door while I was examining it. I should have been looking at the same empty field that was on this side of the thing.

Instead, I could see a wide corridor that the students were bustling their way through. The hall looked wide enough to drive the bus that was behind me through it and still have room for another one to drive next to it. The floor was some kind of silver and black marble that was so clean it shone, while the walls looked like polished wood that was as white as the door itself. On the far side of the hall, past all the students rushing by, I could see a massive floor-to-ceiling mirror with a gold border all around it.

After taking all of that in, I worked my mouth to say something, but no sound came out. I was so shocked that I couldn't speak. It took me another couple of tries before I managed to make a sound vaguely reminiscent of a crashing airplane. Several long seconds of that eventually segued into actual words. "Heeeeeey! Hello?" I called toward the open door, yet there was no reaction from the crowd. Clearly, they couldn't hear me any more than I could hear them. But could they see me? If they looked my way, would they see a scrawny little blonde sitting in a grassy field?

Scrambling to my feet, I rushed to the door, but stopped in front of it rather than going through. Standing there, I leaned around to peer behind the doorway. Empty field. I leaned back again and looked through the doorway. Beautiful, ornate corridor full of bustling students in uniforms. Lean around, empty field. Lean back, dozens of people. I repeated that a few more times, my brain screaming its protest about the entire situation the whole time.

Taking in a long, deep breath before letting it out, I walked around to the opposite side of the doorway to look through it from that angle. Unfortunately, that didn't so much fix my confusion as compound it several times over. Looking through the doorway from here, I was seeing the same hallway, but from the opposite side. There was another mirror across the hall, this one surrounded by a black border rather than a gold one. It lay exactly where my view from the other side of the doorway would have been from, and I had no doubt that I was seeing this through the first mirror that I had noticed.

Closing my eyes, I shook my head rapidly to clear it. Then I positioned myself right on the edge of the door frame. Leaning around to the left, I stared through at the people in the corridor. One group in particular, a trio of girls that my brain immediately pegged as cheerleaders for no reason that I could outright describe, had stopped to face the doorway. Now I knew they were looking into the mirror that stood there, which made it easier to ignore the faces they were making.

Leaning back around to the right side of the doorway, I could see the same girls from the back, across the wide corridor as they examined themselves in the giant mirror. Lean to the left, see the girls from the front. Lean to the right, see them from the back. I was literally looking through an empty doorframe from one side and then the other, and seeing opposite sides of an enormous hallway.

A prank. That's what it had to be. It had to be a prank. As soon as I thought that, my brain came up with the perfect explanation. Obviously, there was some kind of very thin video screen inside the doorframe itself. It was projecting video image onto both sides of the screen to make it look like, well, what I was seeing. That made sense, right? Well, at least it made more sense than… than anything else I could come up with. And it made my brain stop screaming for a second.

My hand reached out to touch the screen and prove my theory, but something stopped me. I hesitated, biting my lip while my hand hovered a few inches away from the doorway. My eyes slowly moved to look at my fingers, which were trembling a little bit. I was breathing a little harder, and at first I couldn't understand why. I'd solved the mystery, hadn't I? This wasn't magic, it was just a trick. A complicated trick, but still. It was a video screen strung up in the doorway. It had to be.

And yet, as I stood there, staring at my shaking hand, I realized why I had stopped. I knew, in that moment, why I wasn't pushing my hand forward to find the screen and prove myself right.

I wanted it to be real.

It made no sense. What I was seeing was impossible. This whole situation was absurd and ridiculous and… kind of wonderful. It was interesting and… and I didn't want it to end. I didn't want to tear the curtain down and find the man fiddling with the machine. I wanted to believe in the giant floating head. I didn't want to tug on the fake beard and find my dad's old friend was the one in the bright red suit. I wanted to believe that one man could deliver gifts to every child in the world in one night.

I wanted to be wrong. I wanted, almost desperately in that moment, to reach through that open doorway and see my hand appear inside that beautiful corridor with all of those students.

But if I was right, moving my hand to touch the video screen that I thought was there would shatter the illusion. It would tear away the magic of what I was seeing and, for once in my life, I didn't want to do that. Something deep inside of me desperately wanted to go on believing that this could be real.

"Okay then," I finally spoke aloud to myself. "Let's do it this way." Turning away from the door, I searched the ground for a moment before prying up a dirt-covered rock about the size of a baseball.

I wasn't sure why, but somehow I thought that a bigger gesture would reduce the chance of this being a trick. It made no sense, but I'd decided that throwing the rock through the space where the screen should have been was better. If this… whatever it was really was what it looked like, the rock would go into that hallway. If it was a trick, the rock would break the screen.

So here went nothing. Turning back to the doorway, I saw that the corridor was pretty much empty by that point. The last few stragglers were running by, paying no attention to the mirrors on either side of them. I took a breath, held it, then underhand tossed the rock straight at the opening.

The rock hit the doorway… and kept going. It flew right into that corridor, fell to that pristine marble floor, and bounced a couple of times while trailing bits of dirt and grass after it.

My gasp turned into a yelp as a sharp voice abruptly spoke up from behind me. "Young lady, I do hope that you are prepared to clean that floor should you accept our invitation."

Whirling around so fast I nearly fell over again, I stared with wide eyes at the woman who had spoken. She stood only a few feet away in spite of the fact that there was no way she could have crossed all that open field in the time that my back had been to the space she was now occupying. I guessed her age at her mid-thirties, and her features were sharply aristocratic, with high cheekbones, blonde hair tied into a tight braid, and piercing green eyes. She wore a pitch-black suit with an equally dark shirt beneath it, and a thin red tie. Her hands were covered by dark red gloves, and there was an actual sword in a sheath on her left hip.

"Wh-what?" I blurted out loud after taking all of that in. "Who are– what is—how are—what–" My gaze kept flicking back and forth between the woman and the open doorway as my confusion mounted.

"My apologies, Miss Chambers." The blonde woman dipped her head in acknowledgment. "I had intended to be here to greet you when you woke. Unfortunately, I was unavoidably detained. I hope that you are all right."

"All right?" I echoed in disbelief. "Where am I? Who are you? What the hell is that?!" I pointed to the door, realizing that my voice had risen nearly to the level of obvious hysteria but not really caring.

"Please try to calm yourself, Miss Chambers," the woman coaxed me in her calm yet regal voice. "I will answer your questions as well as I can. My name is Virginia Dare. I am the instructor of both fencing and American History in Crossroads Academy." She nodded past me toward the corridor that was still visible through the open doorway. "And it is also my privilege to retrieve the new students who come without a prior explanation or family history with our facility. Students such as yourself."

Something about the woman's name ticked at my memory, but I couldn't think about it right then. I just stared at her, mouth working a few times before I managed to find my voice. "Crossroads Academy?"

"Quite right," Virginia Dare gave a sharp nod. "The Academy is a school unlike any other you will find within your lifetime. And believe me, I have had quite the lifetime to prove that true."

"That– that doorway can't exist!" I blurted, pointing back at the door in question. "It doesn't make any sense!"

I thought I caught a hint of a smile on the woman's face. "You are correct, it does not. And yet, there it is." Her chin inclined slightly. "Miss Chambers, do not mistake my words. You are not being invited into Crossroads Academy merely to continue your mundane education of arithmetic, physics, and the like. You are being invited to witness and understand the truth that very few ever even glimpse from the corner of their eyes. Those people who catch the hint of movement within the darkness, who hear a sound behind them yet turn to find nothing, who spend their lives searching for answers for all of those things which simply do not add up, will never find what they are looking for. They will never learn the truth about this world and the things that live around it. Should you accept this invitation, you will see what they never will: the truth."

Before I could even think of responding to that, the woman continued. "Yet I wish to be very clear, Miss Chambers. This is no ordinary school, and the threats facing our students are far stronger than a poor report sent home. I will not understate the fact that the lives we lead are dangerous. Because knowing the truth will make you a target. And it will also make you incapable of not seeing the things that so many carrying on their ordinary lives pass by without ever noticing. You will see the evil that permeates this world, and you will not be able to pretend it does not exist. Because just as you will see and recognize it, it will see and recognize you."

She stepped to the door, standing to one side of it. "It is, then, your decision. You may step through this doorway and accept the danger, the answers, and the life that all of that entails. Or you may step back onto your bus. If you do that, you will find yourself at your ordinary school, within your ordinary life, and we will never trouble you again. This, all of it, must be your decision. No one else can make it for you."

My mouth worked a few times. "What… what about my dad?" I shook my head rapidly. "I can't just leave him. I can't abandon him. After my mother—I can't do that to him. I won't."

That slight smile returned for a fraction of a second. "Do not fear, your father will be quite all right." She gestured. "Should you join us, he will be made to remember and believe that you have been provided a full scholarship to a prestigious boarding school. You will be allowed to visit home during holidays and certain weekend events, and you may call or write to him whenever you wish. Though, he must be kept ignorant of your true education. As I said, knowing the truth will make you a target. And if he were to know the truth, he would become one as well. I doubt you want that."

Shaking my head silently, I turned to look back at the bus. I could get on it, go back to my normal life, and everything would be fine. Nothing would change, and I wouldn't be in danger.

And yet… was it ever really a question? The doorway was real. The magic that I'd been so desperate to believe in was right in front of me. All of my life, I'd been looking for the truth of everything. I'd been looking for answers, for excitement. I'd wanted so badly to find something amazing. Now that a literal doorway to the extraordinary was standing in front of me, I was just going to get back on that bus and go back to my old life?

No. Way.

Turning on my heel, I let out a long breath once more. "Miss-err…"

"Professor," she provided with a faint smile.

"Professor Dare," I continued. "I… I accept your invitation."

Her head bowed slightly in acknowledgment of that, and the well-dressed woman lifted an arm to indicate the door. "Once you pass through," she warned, "you cannot change your mind."

I took a step that way and then stopped, biting my lip as I stood right on the edge of the doorway. Turning slightly, I looked toward the school bus once more. An ordinary life, one of no real danger, or one with real answers, real mysteries, and real excitement.

Making my final choice, I closed my eyes, turned… and stepped through the doorway.

BREAK

BREAK

I expected to feel disoriented or nauseous after passing through the doorway. There should have been some physical indication of what had just happened. Yet, in spite of taking the time to brace myself, I felt absolutely no different aside from now being inside rather than outside. I might as well have stepped through a normal doorway for all that my body seemed to notice.

Once it became clear that my stomach wasn't going to flip over and turn inside out (metaphorically or literally), I let one eye slowly creak open, then the other before looking around. As I did, my mouth fell open, and I made a small noise that probably sounded a bit like a constipated squirrel.

That giant floor-to-ceiling mirror with the gold border lay in front of me, and when I looked over my shoulder, I found the black-bordered one that I had apparently just emerged from. Which meant that it was real. The impossible doorway had… had actually worked. I was in that beautiful corridor.

Somehow, up to that point, I guess I hadn't really thought about it as being real. It was one thing to say that I believed the doorway was really going to take me somewhere, or even to believe that I believed it. But actually experiencing it was very different. Two seconds earlier, I had been in a big, mostly empty field. Now, just by taking a single step, I'd traveled… God knew how far.

The corridor was empty by that point, which was just as well considering that my next course of action probably would have forever branded me the most ridiculously enormous dork in the entire school.

"Yes!" Hands thrust into the air with my fists clenched, I blurted that single word, my voice echoing up and down the hall. Then the words came pouring out of me in a squeal. "Holy shit! Oh my God, that is so fucking awesome!" I was literally jumping up and down, hands held high while simultaneously spinning in a circle in the middle of that long corridor. "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!"

"Miss Chambers," the calm voice of Professor Dare spoke firmly as she stepped through the mirror.

Stooping, I grabbed the rock that I had thrown off the floor, staring at it in my hand for a second before blurting, "My rock! This is my rock! Holy shit, this is my rock! I threw it, and it's here, and now I'm here!" I waved the rock at her as if she'd never experienced this before. "How cool is this rock?!"

That time, I was sure I saw a brief smile before the older woman composed herself. Shaking her head, she replied in what was probably the same kind of tone I might use with someone from fifty years ago raving over my cellphone. "It is still only a rock, Miss Chambers."

"It's a rock that was in that field!" I corrected her, my voice growing louder from my excitement. "And now it's here! It was there and now it's here and it only went that far. It's a rock that went through a magic portal! Wait, is that a magic portal? Wait, where are we? Wait, is the rock radioactive now? Am I radio—no that's stupid, you wouldn't have us go through a portal that made things radioactive, duh, wake up, Flick. But seriously, do you have the slightest idea how freaking amazing this is?!"

Professor Dare shook her head slowly before clearing her throat. "I am very pleased that you seem to be enjoying your arrival here, and that you appreciate the magnitude of what has happened. Only a small percentage of our Heretics come from outside of the Knowledge, and so for most of our students this is nothing to be excited by. It is always refreshing and humbling to see an outsider's reaction."

Clutching the rock in my hand, I stared at the woman while trying to think of where to start with all of the questions flooding my head. "What do you mean, Heretics? What's this Knowledge you're talking about? How many students go here? Where exactly are we? How far are we from Laramie Falls?"

I probably would have kept going, but Professor Dare raised a single red-gloved hand. "Be at ease, Miss Chambers. All of your questions will be answered, alongside the other Bystander-kin."

I paused, considering that. "Let me guess, Bystander is someone who doesn't know about any of this stuff, and Bystander-kin is someone like me, someone whose family doesn't know about it."

"Yes," Professor Dare nodded once. "Those who are outside of the Knowledge are Bystanders. You are on the cusp of being within the Knowledge, but you were raised among Bystanders. If you come with me, I will take you to the Bystander-kin orientation. All your questions should be answered there."

I glanced toward the mirror that I'd somehow come through before nodding. Somehow, I managed to restrain the urge to jump up and down some more. "Okay, sure. Let's go to this orientation then."

Pivoting smartly on her heel, the woman strode away from me. I followed, trying to remember where I knew the name Virginia Dare from. It was definitely familiar, but I couldn't figure out why.

We passed half a dozen closed doors on our way, and behind each of them I could hear the muffled voices that were immediately reminiscent of every other school I'd ever walked through. Classes were going on behind those doors. I was curious, but Professor Dare never slowed.

I also took the time to look up, seeing the series of elaborate chandeliers that were lighting the corridor. They looked roughly about as expensive as my whole house, so I resolved not to throw any more rocks.

At the end of the hall, we came to a T junction. To the right, I saw another door-lined hallway. To the left, the way that Professor Dare was turning, the corridor opened up into a larger entryway. A dozen expensive-looking leather couches ran along both walls, divided by gold-plated suits of armor that stood at attention with alternating swords and spears. On the opposite side of the room, past all the couches and statues, there was a pair of enormous oak doors that had to be at least twenty feet tall.

I was busy gaping up at the gigantic doors as we walked, until one of the statues abruptly leapt off the small marble pedestal it had been standing on, finger raised accusingly as it shouted, "Tardy!"

The statue stormed right up to me while I yelped in surprise. "I knew it!" The knight-figure blurted, sword waving in his arm. "I knew I'd catch you slackers cutting class! Call me obsessed, will they? Well who's obsessed now, huh?! I've got you, yes I do. Cutting class, not being in uniform, attempting to leave the building during proper educational time, you're going down, Missy. Name and track!"

A long, clearly put upon sigh escaped Professor Dare. "Wyatt," she spoke the name firmly.

The statue jumped, seeming to notice her for the first time. "Oh, Professor! I didn't see you there." Wyatt, assuming that was his name, gave a clumsy salute, the metal gauntlet glancing off the helmet.

"Wyatt," Professor Dare raised a finger before pausing as though she couldn't decide where to start. Finally, she settled on, "Please take off that helmet while we are talking."

"Right away, Professor!" Wyatt clanged his gauntlet off of the helmet with another clumsy salute before reaching up to grab the helmet itself. He tugged it off, revealing a man with a scrawny, narrow face and long, stringy brown hair. I guessed his age at around forty or so, and he was smiling broadly, showing off a pair of big buck teeth as he pointed at me. He almost looked like the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz poking his head out of the Tin Man's body. "See? I told you I'd catch those slackers!"

"Wyatt Rendell," Professor Dare intoned. "Meet Felicity Chambers, our final Bystander-kin student for the semester. I'm taking her to orientation now. That's why she isn't in uniform or attending class." To me, she added, "Miss Chambers, meet Wyatt Rendell, our newest school security guard."

Looking disappointed that he hadn't managed to catch a student playing hooky after all, Wyatt mumbled a greeting to me before addressing the professor. "Kinda late getting here though, isn't she? I thought you picked up all the Silverstones yesterday."

"Uh, Silverstones?" I interrupted with a confused frown while waving my hand. "What's that?"

"You know," Wyatt waved a golden gauntlet at me. "First name Alicia? The actress. Clueless. You were raised as a Bystander, so you're clueless. That makes you a Silverstone. That's how it works."

After considering that for a second, I shrugged. "Eh, I've been called worse."

Excusing herself and beckoning for me to follow, Professor Dare walked on to those gigantic doors. At her approach, they began to grind their way open automatically, admitting blinding sunlight into the lobby along with some kind of exotic smell that I couldn't place. Then she stood aside to wait for me.

I stepped through, finally getting my first real look at where that magic doorway had brought me.

My first impression was that we were in some kind of utopia. The building we had just stepped out of was perched at the very top of a grass-covered mountain that overlooked an absolutely breathtaking beach. Seriously, it was the kind of place that only existed when people took pictures of the most beautiful beaches in the world and then photoshopped them to take out all those little imperfections. The way the perfect blue water lapped up against that white sand, the idyllic palm trees: it was paradise.

The beach itself was a pretty long ways away, considering the size of the mountain that we were on. There was a wide cobblestone path set against the bright green grass of the school grounds that led from this building toward a gate set into a red brick wall. Beyond the wall was a thick jungle, and I could see brightly-colored birds flying just over the treetops in the distance. Their calls, and that of other inhabitants of the jungle, barely reached my ears in spite of what should have been a relatively short distance as far as screaming jungle noises went. They seemed muted somehow.

The jungle stretched on out of sight beyond the far side of this building, and from what I could see, stretched on for miles off into the distance.

"Welcome, Miss Chambers, to the island that we call home," Professor Dare intoned with a smile at my reaction.

"Island…" I echoed slowly, surprised by the revelation. We weren't in the mountains or in some hidden forest. We were on a tropical island. I couldn't see the edge of it either to the left or right, though I could see the way it curved inward. Whatever island we were on, it was a pretty damn big one.

The cobblestone path meandered its way past a half dozen other scattered wood and brick buildings of varying sizes that lined the side of this hill, including a big one that looked like a lower case t. I also saw several smaller pathways between the buildings, and in the distance when I looked to the left, I caught a glimpse of what looked like a tennis court.

Seeing where I was looking, Professor Dare confirmed, "Athletic facilities to the west." She went on, pointing each way. "Think of the school grounds as a clock. The building right here that we just came out of is at twelve. This is primary academics. You will have your basic math, science, and other such lessons here. It is also where the faculty offices are if you find the need to speak to any of the staff outside of regular lesson time.

"To the left there at two o'clock is athletics. The buildings at four and five are the male and female dorms. Between them is a cafeteria and common area building that you cannot see from here. That is where you will spend most of your non-class or training-related time with your peers. The gate is at six o'clock, straight down from here. At seven and eight we have the armory and faculty housing, respectively." Finally, she indicated the big T-shaped building. "And that is the Pathmaker." Before I could ask, the woman added, "You will find out what that is later. Right now, we are going this way. You'll have plenty of time to explore the island later." Strolling off the path, she headed east across the perfectly maintained grass.

It took me a few seconds to follow, distracted as I was by gazing open-mouthed all around me. Finally, I jerked into motion and jogged to catch up, blurting, "Island. You said island. We're on an island!"

There was a somewhat teasing quality to the blonde woman's reply. "You are certainly earning that reputation for being a truly gifted investigator, Miss Chambers."

First I blushed, then I blinked at her. "How'd you know I want to be an investigative reporter?"

"We know a lot about you, Miss Chambers," she replied easily. "We do a great bit of research before extending an invitation to those who are outside of the Knowledge. As I told you before you stepped through the doorway, once we bring you in, you can never go back to the way you were. This is not a decision that we simply foist onto the first person we happen to lay eyes on. You were not chosen at birth, your name was not magically drawn out of a hat, and no seer spoke of your identity. We generally make our selections the long and hard way, through years of observation and carefully narrowing down lists of possible candidates. Each year, we look at every candidate who will reach the age of seventeen before November, and make our final choices. Most of the time, that candidate is washed out for one reason or another. We are extremely selective, because this life requires extreme dedication."

I thought about that for a moment while we walked along the grass. Looking over my shoulder, I got a better look at the main academic building we had left. From here, the place looked like a literal modern day palace. It was six stories high, and the walls themselves were some kind of white marble, unlike the brick and wood of the other buildings. I could even see stone gargoyle statues perched up on the roof.

Something occurred to me, and I quickly looked back to the woman that was leading me. "Two questions. First, why are people in classes already if we haven't started yet?"

"Those who are attending classes today are the second, third, and fourth year students," she explained. "They began last week. First year students such as yourself will begin tomorrow. Those raised outside of the Knowledge such as yourself will be given orientation today, while those who were raised within the Knowledge have their own, slightly different orientation. After all, they only need to learn about our specific school rules and requirements, rather than… well, everything else that you must learn. Tonight at dinner there will be an official welcoming speech by the headmistress for all those who are new to this school. There you will also meet the rest of the faculty and be given your class schedule."

I nodded slowly at that. "Okay, and second, why did that Wyatt guy back there say that I was late? Are all the other, ahh, 'Bystander-kin' already here?"

"Yes," Professor Dare confirmed. "You are the last one to arrive. There was a last minute debate over whether you should be included or not. The headmistress was required to break the tie."

Frowning, I asked, "Who's the headmistress?"

"Baroness Gaia Sinclaire," the woman answered. "She has been the voice of reason and leadership within this school for nearly sixty-seven years now."

"Sixty-seven years?" I whistled. "Guess she's kind of getting up there by now, huh?"

Rather than answer, Professor Dare just smiled sidelong at me before lifting a hand. "There, that is where we are going."

I looked, and saw a tall white lighthouse sitting on the edge of the mountain, right over a nearby part of the beach. "There? That's where they're doing this orientation thing?"

"Indeed, and we should hurry," Professor Dare advised. "They've been waiting for us."

With that in mind, still trying to cope with everything that was happening, I started to hurry that way before stopping to look at the woman. "What about my dad? And all my stuff? I can't just live like this." I indicated the clothes I was wearing before realizing, "And hey, what about my bag? It wasn't on the bus when I woke up."

"All of your things will be delivered to your dorm room," Professor Dare assured me. "And as far as your father remembers, you left on the bus this morning for your new school. Believe me, Miss Chambers, we do know what we are doing."

I hesitated, a million questions still swirling in my mind. In the end, however, I finally continued on on to the lighthouse alongside the professor. It was probably a good idea to actually go to this orientation thing, where they might answer some of my billions of questions instead of just flinging them one at a time at this poor woman.

An island school, a portal that came out through mirrors, memory alteration for my dad? That last one seemed… wrong somehow, but I supposed if it was that or leave him in harm's way from knowing too much, I'd take the former. I'd prefer to feel a little skeevy than put my father in actual danger. But all of it, all of this, was almost too much. I was reeling, trying desperately to keep my head on straight.

The other woman led me into the lighthouse and up the stairs. As we rose, I heard voices until we finally came out into the top platform. The big light fixture was right in the middle, and there was a surprisingly large balcony surrounding it. I could see the ocean, blue and perfect, off in the distance in one direction. Looking the other way revealed miles upon miles of lush jungle.

Standing around the platform were fifteen other teenagers that looked like they could have come right from my own school. Well, if my school hadn't been something like ninety-eight point three percent Caucasian, anyway. I saw seven boys and eight girls. Out of those, two of the boys were black while one was Hispanic, and of the girls, one was Asian, one was black, a third looked Native American, and yet another was clearly of Middle-Eastern descent.

There had been a rather heated conversation going on, but all eyes turned to us as Professor Dare and I stepped into view. The woman behind me paused before asking, "Where is Mr. Adams?"

"Deveron bailed, Professor," a girl spoke up while coming into view from where the big light fixture in the middle of the platform had hidden her. She looked to be about my age, a pretty brunette with long straight hair and the same kind of brown eyes as me. She stood about four inches smaller than I did, putting her at an even five feet. Unlike the rest of the people up here, my fellow Silverstones, I supposed, she wore the same sort of uniform that I'd seen the other students wearing through the doorway/mirror.

From up close, I had a better look at it. The uniform consisted of a white shirt, a black blazer with the letters CRA on the left front in elaborate lettering, a tie, and either pants or a skirt. This particular girl had gone with the pants. I had noticed that the trim of the blazer at the waist and along the lapels, along with the tie itself, were generally one of several different colors. In the girl's case, they were purple.

She was joined almost immediately by another girl who looked completely identical to her in almost every way, aside from the fact that this new girl was wearing the skirt version of the uniform rather than pants. She also was pointedly not looking at anyone. Her gaze seemed rooted to the floor, hair partially covering her face, and she stepped into view only far enough to put herself right beside her obvious twin.

Beside me, Professor Dare raised an eyebrow. "Bailed, Sandoval? I deliberately asked that he wait here with the rest of the new students until I returned. And why are you and Sarah not in your own orientation? You don't belong here with the Bystander-kin."

The girl flinched. "Professor, please, please just call me Sands like everyone else. Please? Sandoval is a stupid name for a girl. And she's Scout. She doesn't like Sarah." Beside her, the silent twin leaned in to whisper something into her sister's ear, before Sands nodded and added, "She says please too."

"Very well, Sands." Professor Dare dipped her head in acknowledgment. "Will you please answer the rest of my questions then? Where did Deveron go, and why are you and Sar—Scout here?"

"Professor Nimbles let class out early," Sands replied. "Scout and me were just taking a walk–"

"Scout and I," Professor Dare corrected, seemingly by reflex.

"Sure, that too," Sands nodded. "Scout and I were just going for a walk down there, and Deveron shouted that he needed us. When we got up here, he said they were our problem now and took off."

Again the silent twin, Scout apparently, leaned close and whispered to Sands. After listening for a moment, the other girl coughed. "Scout says it was either stay here and keep your newbies company, or leave them all by themselves."

Putting her hand to her forehead, Professor Dare sighed. "You may have been raised within the Knowledge, but you are still first-year students. Deveron is in his second year and is well aware of his new responsibilities."

Sighing, she shook that off and focused on the rest of us. "I will speak to him later. For now, welcome to all of you. There will be time for more introductions later. For now, we are already starting late. I apologize for our delay, and I am certain that you all have many questions. Please, wait until after I finish, because many of those questions will likely be answered by then."

There was a general murmur of agreement before one of the African-American boys waved a hand. "Hey, does one of those answers include why we're standing up in this lighthouse?"

"It does indeed, Mr. Porter," Professor Dare confirmed. She stepped to the big light then, putting a hand on it before she continued. "Who here knows what the word heretic means?"

The Asian girl raised her hand before speaking when Professor Dare nodded to her. "It's like, someone who goes against a religious belief, isn't it?"

Dipping her head at that, Professor Dare smiled faintly. "That is, generally speaking, the definition that modern society has ascribed to it. Yet the term heresy itself was originally derived from a Greek word meaning simply 'choice.'"

After running her hand along the side of the light with a thoughtful look for a moment, the woman continued. "We call ourselves Heretics for both reasons. We have been considered such because the truths that I am about to explain to you have been considered heretical teachings since before that word existed. The truth of this world and the creatures which dwell within and around it are impossible for most to accept. Thus, any teaching of those truths is automatically considered heresy.

"And the original definition, that of simply 'choice' is apt as well. Because we choose to live this way. We choose to go through this training, choose to live away from the rest of society, and choose to put ourselves between those who would see us burn for our words, and the monsters who would devour the very world they stand upon. This life is our choice. All of that makes us Heretics. We are Heretics because we refuse to accept that our world is doomed. We are Heretics because we choose to think for ourselves, and in that thinking, we choose to fight against what some see as inevitable."

The woman passed her gaze over everyone there, meeting each of our gazes briefly before she went on. "I am going to tell you the truth about the monsters who have been attempting to devour this world and its inhabitants for countless generations. They have gone by many names, and appear in many forms. Collectively, we call them Strangers. To most, they do not exist. They are creatures that dwell in the shadows of every person's memory. They create an effect which prevents humans from noticing their existence. An ordinary human being will look directly at one of these creatures and see nothing out of the ordinary. Their minds will not comprehend it. The sight is either erased from their memory before they can consciously acknowledge it, or simply rewritten to be something mundane and explainable.

"That is one of the greatest strengths of these invaders, to remove all true memory of their existence from the minds of their victims."

She paused then, considering her words before amending, "Well no, not all. Some retain ghost-memories, fragments that give them the ideas for their stories. Vampires, aliens, demons, all of these and more come from the fragmented hints of memory within the human consciousness of these Strangers. And yet, even after all these centuries, most human beings still see them as nothing more than stories to tell. Their power ensures that the truth of their existence remains hidden.

"These Strangers would have devoured this world centuries ago, were it not for the work of one man. The founder of our school, Hieronymus, who created the building we are standing in right now. Hieronymus discovered the way to grant immunity to the Stranger memory alteration to a relative few. Those few blessed with this immunity and the other gifts that Hieronymus's creation instills would be capable of protecting the rest of civilization from these invaders."

Professor Dare went silent for a few seconds. Her eyes looked us over briefly before she let out a breath. "That is why we are up here. Because to truly understand what these creatures are, and to become immune to their memory alteration, you must see the light."

With that, she shoved up on a lever attached to the light in the middle of the room. Suddenly, I was blinded as the thing grew painfully bright. All around me, I heard the others crying out as well.

"Look into the light!" Professor Dare called. "Do not close your eyes, and do not look away. Look into it and receive the gift of truth! This is what gives us our power, our skill, our ability to fight these invaders and stop them from taking our world. The light illuminates the truth and will ensure that you are never again blind to the invaders. This is how we survive. This is how we choose. This is how we retain our memory of these monsters, and see them for what they truly are."

"This… is the Heretical Edge."

BREAK

BREAK

Professor Dare's voice faded into the background, transitioning into a distant rumble of thunder. The blinding light gradually lessened, leaving spots on my vision for a few more seconds until I could finally see again. Which was good, except that what I was seeing wasn't at all what I should have been.

I wasn't standing at the top of that lighthouse anymore. Instead, my feet were planted firmly on a rocky, volcanic landscape. The ground beneath me was as black as obsidian, and hot enough that I could feel the warmth through my shoes. The area was lit by various fires throughout the rocky, uneven terrain, and I could see a river of lava in the distance that emerged from a dark and utterly forbidding cave.

Spinning in a circle, eyes wide, I searched for anything that might tell me what the hell was going on. Nothing. No one. "What…" I trailed off, then took a breath to call out for anyone that might be within shouting distance. At the last second, I clasped a hand over my own mouth, cutting off my own cry.

Stupid. I didn't know where I was or who was around. After every warning about evil and monsters that Professor Dare had just given, was shouting out loud to get attention really a good idea? I didn't know what might hear me, and I had absolutely no reason to believe that they'd be in a helpful mood.

No, if I was going to figure this out, I had to do it without being an idiot. Think, Flick. Standing in the middle of volcano world with nobody in sight, how do you figure out what the hell is going on?

Okay, let's go with the options and narrow it down one piece at a time. First question, was this intentional or unintentional? In other words, did Professor Dare know that this was going to happen, or was this something new? A point to the former was that they'd apparently been doing this sort of thing for a long time, so it seemed like they would know what they were doing. Point to the latter was that she hadn't warned us about anything like this. On the other hand, maybe this was a test or something.

Right, so it could be either. I was leaning toward them knowing about it and just not warning us for whatever reason, but whichever it was, knowing for sure wouldn't help me in the moment aside from telling me if this was something dangerous or planned. Whichever happened to be the truth, the fact was that I wasn't planning on being reckless anyway. I needed to take my time and think this through.

Just as I came to that conclusion, the thunder returned, bringing Professor Dare's voice along with it.

"Wherever you see yourself now, it is an echo, a memory passed along through your family line of a time one of your ancestors saw one of the Strangers. Some of you may find yourselves standing in a prehistoric world, while others may only be a few generations back from your own, or even less. Wherever you find yourself, know that you cannot be harmed. You are a ghost within a memory, and your only duty is to observe what your ancestor witnessed. Watch, listen, and know the truth. The vision will translate the language spoken to one that you are capable of understanding."

The words seemed to come from every direction before being swept along with the fading of the noise in the sky. I blinked, turning around while trying to understand. I was seeing a memory of my ancestor? Then where were they? Because all I could see was more volcanic nastiness everywhere I looked.

Abruptly, my attention was drawn toward movement. Twisting that way, I stared as a group of figures crested the hill across from me. There were six of them, and they were massive, powerful-looking beings that stood a solid eight feet tall, or very nearly three feet over my paltry five foot four. Their skin was yellow-green, and their muscles made most body builders I knew of look like weaklings. They wore armor made of furs, and their faces were like warthogs, with long tusks.

Four of the six walked in front, their beady eyes scanning every part of the black rocks ahead of them. Their gazes passed over me, never slowing. I was, as Professor Dare had put it, a ghost in a memory.

The remaining two were slightly further back. For a moment, I thought it looked like they were carrying the poles of a litter, one in front and one in back. Then I realized that the box attached to the poles they held wasn't a luxurious, antiquated method of travel for royalty. It was a cage. The massive, ugly beasts were carrying poles that held up a large cage, where three huddled figures cowered.

I stood still, staring as the enormous figures hiked closer to me, grunting back and forth at each other. They were obviously communicating, but I couldn't understand the words. So much for what Professor Dare had said about the vision translating for us. Unless that only applied to human languages.

Just as they reached the same hill I was standing on, one of them made a loud barking noise and held up his fist. With a grunt, the two carrying the cage set it down, and the warthog things stepped away. One of them kicked the cage, giving an obvious laugh when the huddled humans cried out. He kicked it again, then said something to his companions, who chortled as well.

From here, I could see that the people in the cage were dressed in what looked like medieval clothing. Two were male, one in peasant garb while the other clearly wore noble clothes. The third imprisoned figure was a female in clothes that were just as shabby as the peasant man. All looked terrified.

While I stood there, unsure of what I was supposed to do next or what I was supposed to be learning from this (if anything), the nobly-dressed prisoner stuck his hand partway out of the cage. His voice cracked a little bit. "Please, please." He cupped his hand. "Just a little water, just a swallow."

Sneering, the nearest of the warthogs stomped closer and leaned in. He spat into the cage, then started to belly laugh while bringing his foot down hard to stomp on the man's outstretched hand.

Except the hand wasn't there anymore. The second that foot came down, the imprisoned noble withdrew it. Then, as the foot hit the ground and the warthog was thrown off balance, the man's hand snapped back out of the cage like a striking snake. He caught hold of the stumbling creature and yanked hard. The warthog was hauled off balance, falling onto his backside with a heavy crash.

The other five hogs didn't seem to know what was happening, it was going by too quickly for them to react. Before the one that had fallen could collect himself, the nobleman yanked hard. That big leg was forced into the cage far enough that the man was able to reach up and grab the dagger out of its sheath.

Newly armed, the nobleman lashed out with three quick strikes as high as he could reach, practically laying on top of the fallen monster to stab into his stomach. The creature howled out in deafening agony, which finally got the remaining five to realize something was horribly wrong (or right, depending on your point of view toward human beings imprisoned by monsters). Unfortunately for them, the reaction was coming too late. The nobleman had already snaked his free hand out of the bars, snatching a single large key on a ring off of the warthog's belt. He jerked back and quickly unlocked the cage, springing out of it with the nimbleness of a cat. His voice called out a challenge as the five warthogs came running. "Approach in turns or as one, beasts. For all that the order of your attacks shall change is the picture your blood will paint upon the ground."

He then proceeded to actually follow up his boast with action. The man moved with almost impossible speed and skill, evading the rather clumsy attacks from the warthogs before striking with deadly precision. One by one, they fell to that simple dagger, until only the final warthog was left. This one was both warier and more skilled than his companions. It looked like he and the nobleman were fairly evenly matched. The human couldn't get a decent lethal strike without leaving himself too open to a devastating counter-attack, and he was too quick for the monster himself to land a good blow on.

In the meantime, both terrified peasants had crawled free from the cage. The man stood, looking around wildly while the woman hauled herself up with one hand on the cage. She was keeping her weight off her left foot, wincing in pain each time she had to use it at all. Yet she was standing, and pointed past the dueling combatants. "More of the creatures!" Sure enough, a good dozen were rushing across the ruined landscape to join the fight. Several rode large armored horses.

Still circling his opponent, the nobleman called out, "Good man, escort the lady away from here. Tis no place for such a lovely form, and no sight for eyes so pretty. Take her swiftly now, and escape."

Instead, the male peasant just looked at the injured woman. I could read the hesitation and thoughts in his eyes. She would slow him down. Helping or carrying her meant that there was a chance those monsters could catch up, particularly the ones on horseback, with no guarantee that the nobleman would stop all of them.

He bolted, racing away while leaving the woman behind. She shouted in dismay, calling him a coward. Her words seemed to have no affect, and the man simply continued to run, abandoning her.

Standing away from his skilled opponent, the nobleman cast one look toward the incoming horde, then looked to the abandoned woman. "Fear not," he assured her. "For one such as you shall not fall to these beasts. I will see you away. Of that, you have my word."

Suiting action to word, the man launched a flurry of attacks designed to drive his opponent back. Given a wide enough bit of room to work with, he turned and kicked one of the fallen warthog's swords up into his hand, then threw it at the nearest of the incoming horse-mounted monsters. The horse screamed and pitched forward while the man rushed straight at it. He leapt, kicking off of the falling horse to use its body as a platform, launching himself straight at the next horse. His feet planted themselves in the rider's chest, knocking him off his mount and to the ground. Meanwhile, the man himself landed hard on the saddle. In one motion, he kicked the horse's sides to get it moving faster, while throwing his stolen dagger across to the third and final remaining horse.

A collective scream of outrage and war bellows went up from the remaining hogs, even as the nobleman kicked his stolen steed into a faster sprint. Reaching the injured woman, he stopped the horse and put his arm down to haul her up onto the horse with him.

"Ride, my lady," the nobleman urged her even as he himself slipped off and landed lightly on the hard ground. "The steed slows too much for two to escape upon it. Escape to the north. Flee until the grass returns. I shall slow their pursuit as much as I am able, but you must make haste." When the woman opened her mouth to object, he interrupted. "Please, the knowledge that you have escaped these creatures shall be eternal life to my soul. I could do nothing to endanger that. Flee now. Go."

"If that coward had only…" The woman clutched the reins of the horse, head shaking rapidly. "If I see his face again, I will kill him myself." With that vow, she gave the reins a shake and held on tight as the horse leapt into a gallop once more, racing away from the scene.

With her departure, the nobleman turned to face the incoming monsters, unarmed and outnumbered. Still, he raised both hands and beckoned them onward. "Come then. I have not yet seen enough of what lies inside of you creatures to know how far you differ from humanity, and it shall be interesting to see what spills out when you are thoroughly cut." He cracked the knuckles of one hand, then the other. "Bring me your weapons. I shall return them to you hastily, and with great enthusiasm."

Okay, seriously, if this guy was supposed to be my ancestor, I had a lot to live up to. God, he was even handsome. Which was weird to say about someone I was apparently related to, but still.

Then… as the armed monsters came charging in, my view grew faded. The area around the fighting man was covered in fog, and I stumbled backwards as something pulled at me. What the hell?

Turning, I found myself pulled along as a figure crawled out from under a distant outcropping of rock. He stood, and I recognized him. The other peasant, the one that had fled. He'd circled around and hid, watching what had happened from a safe place. Now, he had crawled out of his hiding place, dusted himself off and… he was leaving. The coward was quickly walking in a different direction, leaving the nobleman behind in his haste. He never looked back, never so much as hesitated in his rush to escape.

And with every step he took, I was dragged along with him. I couldn't see how the nobleman's fight went, because what I had been witnessing wasn't his memory. It was this man's, the coward's. This was my ancestor. He was the one I was related to.

With that realization, the bright light returned. I reeled backwards, hissing as the blinding glow enveloped all of my vision for several seconds before finally fading.

I was back in that lighthouse, back with the rest of the group. The others, aside from Professor Dare and the twins, Sands and Scout, were all rubbing our eyes and blinking. Conversation rose quickly as people talked about what and who they had seen, the excitement from their visions obvious.

It didn't seem like any of them had witnessed an ancestor who had been as much of a coward as mine.

Over those excited voices, Professor Dare spoke up. "The Light of the Heretical Edge has touched you." The conversations quieted, and she continued. "You have all seen a significant event within the lives of your ancestors, related to the Strangers. You have been welcomed into the Knowledge, and even as the Light has burned your eyes, it has also opened them. You will see the creatures for what they are now, and none of their disguises shall fool you ever again. Be warned, however. They will know that you can see them. They know you as you know them, and they will strike without mercy."

Her gaze swept over the room, lingering on each person for a moment before she went on. "But sight and understanding are not our only weapons. Part of the Light of the Heretical Edge remains within each of you. When you destroy one of these Strangers, that light draws in part of their strength, transferring it to you. With each of the monsters you destroy, you will become stronger, faster, more powerful. Their abilities shall, over time and effort, become yours. A sufficiently successful and long-lived Heretic becomes a force to be reckoned with. The abilities they use to hunt humanity are turned against their kind by the Heretic who kills them. But rest assured, you are still but children. In time, your strength will grow. For now, you must learn from your instructors, and grow into the warriors that I know you are all capable of becoming."

With that said, the woman let out a breath. "Now, normally I would have your second-year adviser escort you to your rooms so that you may have some time to explore before lunch. But as Mr. Adams has chosen to abandon his duty…"

"We can show them where to go, Professor." Sands waved a hand. "I mean, sure we're little firsties too, but we have been here before, you know. It's just the dorms, we can do that much." Scout, hair still hiding part of her face, leaned in and whispered to her. Sands listened before adding, "Scout says we can show them around too, since, you know, we've been exploring this place for a long time."

Professor Dare seemed to consider that for a moment before bowing her head. "Very well. I have other duties to attend to. You may show them where their rooms are located." She extended a hand, and a piece of paper seemed to materialize directly in it. The abruptness of the paper appearing in her hand made me jump, staring as she simply handed the paper to the girl. "Their dorm assignments are here. I trust you will be able to handle this without any… incidents?"

"We promise to be good," Sands grabbed her sister's hand and held it up. "Scout's honor." Then she giggled.

Sighing, her expression showing that she thought she was going to regret the decision, Professor Dare nodded. "Go then." To us, she added, "Stay with Sandova—Sands and Scout. They will show you to your rooms and then give you a tour of the island before lunch. In your rooms, you will find your belongings. This afternoon we will take your sizes and determine your current specialization track for the semester. The specialization track will determine what classes and skills you focus on as Heretics."

"Yeah," Sands spoke up. "See, purple." She waved a hand over her own tie and her twin's. "That means we chose the investigation track. You know that whole Men in Black thing where they work with the cops while pretending to be FBI or whatever so they can look into mysterious things to find out if it was something not normal? Yeah, that's basically what we're getting into. Then there's like, the people that build stuff, the straight up combat people, and some others."

"Thank you, Miss Mason." Professor Dare gave a short nod once more. "There will, of course, be much more information on that soon, but for now just know that you should not fear making such a decision when the time comes. You will have one week at the beginning of every semester to change it if you so choose. Go now, see to your rooms and your exploration. Talk with each other. You will meet your fellow students, the rest of those who, like Sands and Scout, were raised within the Knowledge before too much longer."

People started filing out then. I moved as well after hesitating briefly, but as I started for the exit from the lighthouse, my gaze found a painting hung over the stairway and I stopped short.

"Who… who is that?" I asked, looking back at Professor Dare.

She followed my gaze before smiling faintly. "Our headmistress, Baroness Gaia Sinclaire."

I looked back to the painting, swallowing as I stared at it. Because I knew the face in the picture. Not well, but I'd seen her very recently, and it was too perfect of a resemblance to be a coincidence.

The headmistress of Crossroads Academy was the woman I'd seen in my vision, the one who had sworn to kill my cowardly ancestor.

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Moments later, Sands and Scout were leading our little group of Bystander-kin out of the lighthouse and back along the trail toward the dorm buildings Professor Dare had pointed out to me. The others were chatting about the things they'd seen, but my mind was stuck on that little revelation.

Right, so the headmistress of this super secret magic school happened to be the woman who had sworn to kill my ancestor however many centuries ago. That in itself raised about a bazillion questions, starting with: how old was she? Was I wrong about how long ago it had been? Their clothing, mannerisms, and everything else said that they were from the medieval era, but she was still alive.

Magic. As soon as I thought the question, the answer came to me. Of course it was magic. Why was I questioning it? I'd just stepped through an empty doorway to be instantly transported literally thousands of miles to a paradise island where I looked into a bright light and experienced a flashback memory from one of my ancestors. Why the hell should freaking longevity trip me up so much?

Hell, humanity's average life expectancy was getting longer all the time, with just normal technology and medicine. Add magic into the mix, and it really shouldn't have been surprising at all.

At least I now understood why Professor Dare had just smiled at me when I'd made that comment about how the headmistress must be getting older if she took over the school sixty-seven years ago. With a lifespan like she had, less than seventy years was practically a summer job.

I wondered, briefly, if the woman knew who I was and where I had descended from. It would make sense, considering everything else they knew. Was that, my ancestor's cowardice, the reason they had taken so long to approve me? But if it was, why would the headmistress have been the one to break that tie in my favor? It was possible that she didn't hold the coward's actions against me and wanted to give me a chance. But it was also possible that she wanted me here for another reason.

Stop, Flick. Just stop. You're being paranoid. Even if Baroness Gaia Sinclaire did know who my ancestor was, she had absolutely no reason to associate me with him. Only a truly pathetic nutjob would treat someone like shit just because of who they were related to. The woman's been around for centuries. Obviously she was more mature and level-headed than that. I had no reason other than utter batshit paranoia to think she was out to get me. So leave it alone unless something else happens.

"Hey, uhh, what's your name?" The voice, addressing me apparently, came from the black guy who had spoken up to ask if we were going to find out why we were in that lighthouse. Mr. Porter, the professor had called him. He was fairly tall, just a hair under six feet. His build was athletic, but in a narrow sort of way, more like a runner or a swimmer than a bodybuilder. He was looking back at me curiously.

"Flick," I tore my attention away from my introspection to speak up. "Flick Chambers." I extended a hand to the boy. "Sorry for holding everything up and making you guys wait so long."

"Eh," he waved one hand dismissively while taking mine with his other to shake once. His grip was firm, his hands strong and calloused. "Don't worry about it. Sounds like you just found out about all this today, right?" There was a look of sympathy in his gaze. "Trust me, we know where you're at right now. Me, I met Professor Dare… what… a month ago? What about everyone else?"

There was a general murmur of agreement. Most people had met the professor weeks ago. I was the only one that had been first contacted mere minutes before orientation. Obviously Professor Dare hadn't been kidding about how things had come right down to the wire on whether to approve me or not.

"I'm Columbus," the boy informed me. "Columbus Porter." He lifted his hand to point to the Asian girl. "That right there is Shiori, my foster sister. Yeah, we both ended up here, go figure, huh?"

I waved to Shiori, listening as some of the other students discussed the things they'd seen. I heard the other black guy, whose name was Travis, apparently, talk about how his ancestor had been one of the Tuskegee Airmen, and that his vision had been of the man shooting down flying zombie whale monsters in his biplane. This, of course, was met with a boast from one of the Caucasian boys that his ancestor had apparently fought immortal vampire redcoats during the American Revolution. Travis referred to the other boy as Malcolm while scoffing at the idea that something like that was more impressive than his own vision. The two were obviously friends, and they continued talking over one another trying to brag the loudest about their ancestor's achievements and how amazing they had been.

That little discussion was curtailed as Columbus called up toward the front. "Hey, uhh, Sands was it?"

The girl pivoted, walking backwards beside her silent twin while nodding toward him. "Sup?"

"You guys already had your orientation, right?" Columbus asked. "Did you have to go into the lighthouse and see visions or whatever to unlock your ability to see these monsters and all that?"

Sands shook her head. "Yes and no. See, we do have to look into it and see those visions. But not like you guys just did. When you grow up with this stuff, the ones born in the Knowledge, you go into the lighthouse over the summer before this first school year starts. And you don't go in with a big group or with Professor Dare. You go with your family, and your parents or guardian or whatever starts it up. Then you talk together about everything you saw. It's like a… a big family outing." She swallowed at the end of that, her gaze shooting briefly toward Scout and I saw a hint of a flinch before it went away.

Before anyone could say anything else, we reached the base of one of the two dorm buildings. They were four stories high, and shaped long rather than tall, with the end opposite us pointed toward the beach in the distance. They were placed parallel to one another, with a wide courtyard between them that had several benches and a fountain in the middle, and there was a glass-enclosed bridge connecting the top floor of each. I also saw a couple more of those gargoyles perched at the top of the buildings. In front of the doors we were standing at, there was a gold statue of a knight holding a sword at the ready.

"This is the boy's dorm," Sands informed us. "You can tell because of the statue. See, look over there." We looked the way she was indicating, and found a gold statue of a woman holding a bow and arrow standing beside the door of the opposite building.

"Here, Vanessa was it?" Sands looked to a blonde girl clutching a thick leather-bound book to her chest. When the girl nodded, Sands gestured. "Why don't you open the door for us?" There was a mischievous glint to the girl's expression, and she stepped aside.

"I'll do it," I said quickly, taking a step that way. I put my hand out toward the door, only to yelp out loud as my wrist was caught in an iron grip. Or possibly golden grip, considering it was the statue that had caught me. The thing had moved suddenly, and I had the feeling that there wasn't a goofy security guard inside the armor this time. This was something else. I stood still while the thing held my arm, and after a moment, it released me, but continued to stand warily with its head pointed my direction.

"First year boys aren't allowed in the girl's dorms or vice versa," Sands explained. "Sorry, but it's kinda funny to see the first time it happens. The door statues here will stop you from going in if you're under age and don't belong in that particular dorm. Don't ask me how they know how old we are. Once you're over eighteen, you can go into the other dorm as much as you want. And trust me, people do. Plus, boyfriends and girlfriends can room together if they make a special request."

The blonde girl with the book, Vanessa apparently, shot me a grateful look. I shrugged and smiled back at her before turning my attention toward the twins. "Let me guess, four floors, four years of school."

"Hey, nice catch," Sands replied with a grin, giving me a thumbs up. "Yeah, first years like us are on the first floor. Next year we move up to the second, and so on. Top floor dorms are completely co-ed. They've got a lot of couples living together up there, so the top floor of the dorms are connected by those bridges. They're also bigger. The rooms up there are more like apartments than dorms."

"I've got a question," Columbus raised his hand. "Aren't those uniforms hot?" He nodded toward the clothes that the twins were wearing. "We're on a tropical island. Actually…" As if it had just occurred to him, he looked around. "Why am I not hot? Hell, why aren't we all sweating our asses off?"

He was right. The temperature felt just about perfect. Not too hot, and not too cold. It was just right. I hadn't really noticed it too much before, which made me feel pretty damn stupid, but I'd forgive myself given everything else I was trying to cope with and understand. The weather not being hot enough for a tropical island like this, and the twins not roasting in those uniforms, was just one more thing.

Sands grinned back at the boy. "First, you not being hot is kind of a matter of opinion." She winked then before continuing. "And as for the rest of it, uhhh, you see those birds over there?" Pointing off in the distance, she indicated a flock of brightly colored parrots flying just above the trees beyond the school grounds. "If you listen really close, you can kind of hear them. But they should be a lot louder. Hell, this whole place should be drowning in noise. That's a jungle out there, literally. There's tons of animals in that place, yet, we can't really hear them. Why? Same reason it's not as hot as it should be."

"Magic?" One of the other new students, the Native American girl, asked tentatively.

"Yup!" Sands nodded toward the girl, then hesitated. "Exactly, err, what's your name, again?"

"Aylen," the girl answered. "Aylen Tamaya."

"Aylen," Sands repeated. "Right, Aylen, it's magic. See, there's a big forcefield shield thing all around the grounds. It maintains the temperature in here, and muffles the sound from outside. It also does a few other things, like keep track of when anyone leaves so the faculty always know when someone's off the grounds. Which sounds like a pain in the ass, but I guess it's necessary to keep everyone safe and whatever else. Point is, as long as you stay on the school grounds, the temperature will adjust itself to whatever you're wearing to make you perfectly comfortable. So I could wear a tee-shirt and shorts while Scout wore a snowsuit, and we'd both be comfortable even standing next to each other."

That… sounded pretty damn useful, actually. I whistled low. "So I guess beyond the shield it's hot?"

"Hell yeah," Sands bobbed her head rapidly. "It's like ninety degrees out there by the beach today. Step outside the shield and you'll see how hot it can get here during the day. I think that's part of why they make us wear these uniforms, to make us not want to go down there while we're in class."

There was a little more back-and-forth discussion about the shield and how well it maintained the temperature and sound before Sands pointed toward the boy's dorm entrance. "Guys, if you go in here and past the stairs, you'll find the first year dorms. The doors all have the names of who belongs there written beside them. Oh, and you'll have a roommate. I think they try to pair Silverstones like you guys with a roommate that grew up in the Knowledge like Scout and me so that we can answer any questions you have. Your clothes and everything else you brought should be on your bed in there. And… what else… "

She trailed off, frowning as if trying to remember what she had forgotten. After a second or two of that, her twin leaned up and whispered in her ear. Sands snapped her fingers then. "Oh, right. Thanks, Scout. Yeah, there should be a key next to where your name is written in there." She dug into her pocket and came out with what looked like one of those old, big cast iron keys, except that it was ruby-colored. "The dorm rooms will be locked unless you're carrying that key with you. You don't have to actually stick it in anything, you just have to have it and the door it matches will unlock when the key gets close enough to it. It's cool, plus it saves you from having to take the time to use them."

It did sound cool, and it reminded me a bit of those electronic security badges that people wore, the ones that didn't have to be inserted anywhere, but just worked by getting near the door scanner.

"All right!" Sands stepped back from the dorm. "You guys go in, find your rooms and get sorted. We'll head over to the girl dorms and then everyone meet back out here by the fountain in… ten minutes?"

There was a general agreement, and the boys headed in to find their rooms while Sands and Scout led the rest of us across to the other building. This time, the golden statue outside remained motionless as we approached and went through the door into the dorm itself.

The floor and walls here were dark hardwood. There was a set of stairs to the right, while an open doorway to the left led into the hallway itself. Doors lined both sides of the hall, with wall-mounted lamps between each pair of them. There were also several paintings of various mythological creatures and warriors adorning the hallway, along with the plaques besides each door with the names listed on them that Sands had already mentioned. Small manila envelopes were attached to the plaques that obviously held those keys.

Everyone spread out to find their rooms, and I did the same. Walking down the hall, I passed the others until I reached the very end, just before a window that overlooked the grounds that led down to the beach. Finally, I found the plaque that had my name written on it. Felicity Chambers. Below that, there was another plaque with the name Avalon Sinclaire.

Wait. Sinclaire? As in Headmistress Gaia Sinclaire? That… couldn't be a coincidence. Why was I being bunked alongside someone that was obviously related to the headmistress?

Shaking off my confusion, I took the envelope down and slipped the large red key out. Turning it over in my hand, I examined the key but couldn't see anything overtly magical about it. Not that I knew what to look for. Finally, I held the key in one hand while reaching out to try the doorknob.

It opened easily, and I stepped into the room that I would be living in for the rest of the school year.

The room was pretty damn nice, actually. I'd seen college dorms that were a hell of a lot worse than this one. It was fairly large, about twice the size of my bedroom back home. The floor was a pretty white carpet that felt soft under my feet. There were two queen-sized beds on the opposite side of the room, their headboards each resting on either side of a large window. To the other side of each bed there was a small dresser with a pair of drawers with a lamp and one of those old-fashioned wind-up alarm clocks sitting on top. On the left and right sides of the room there were closets, and on this side of the room on opposite sides of the doorway I was standing in there were a pair of desks with comfortable swivel chairs and actual computers that almost looked out of place compared to everything else I had seen so far.

One of the beds had my bag and a bunch of my clothes laid out on it. The other was occupied by a figure who sat with her back to me, fingers flying over the phone that she was holding. When I cleared my throat, she jumped up and turned to face me.

Okay, wow. The girl standing in front of me, my roommate apparently, was drop-dead gorgeous. Seriously, she looked like she belonged in some kind of super model magazine or something, not attending some magic school. She stood several inches taller than me, her hair was long and pitch black, her skin flawless. Plus there was the fact that, well, to put it bluntly, she was stacked. Unless she was smuggling some actual cantaloupes under the school uniform she was wearing, I had to wonder how she was going to avoid having back problems while we did any of this fight training stuff.

"Who're–" The girl started to say. "Wait, right. My roommate." She managed to say the word in the same tone of voice that most people would use to describe something they scraped off their shoe.

"Yup," I nodded, extending a hand to her while looking the girl up and down. She wore the same sort of uniform as the others I'd seen. Hers was the skirt version, similar to Scout's, though her tie and the lapel was colored light blue rather than purple. "Flick. You must be Avalon."

The girl regarded my hand briefly, then ignored it and stepped around me. On her way out of the room, she called airily, "Try to keep your stuff on your side of the room, Chambers. Anything I find on my side, you won't get back."

Then she was gone, and I let out a long, low breath. Well, clearly I had the best roommate ever. I couldn't wait to stay up late at night and tell stories while we giggled and shared s'mores.

"Right," I said to the empty room. "Good talk."

Shaking that off, I moved to check my bag and all my clothes. Who cared if my roommate wasn't exactly the friendliest person on the planet? There was an entire island to explore, magic to learn about, and plenty of much more interesting and open people to chat with.

Besides, I had a feeling that a hostile roommate wouldn't be the most dangerous thing I ran into this year.

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"And this is what they call the Pathmaker," Sands announced toward the end of a brief tour of the school grounds some time later. She held a hand up to stop us a few feet away from the entrance of the place, then pivoted around to face us. "Anyone wanna guess what that means?"

Most of what the twins had shown us had been covered earlier by Professor Dare when she had pointed out each of the main buildings. There were also a couple sport fields behind the athletic facilities that I hadn't noticed, and more gardens than seemed normal for a school to have. But for the most part, everything seemed to be pretty standard facilities. Except for this particular building.

Up close, the lowercase t shape was more pronounced. It was a good eight stories tall, with the horizontal part of the t consisting of the sixth floor, which stuck out several rooms wider to the west and east than the rest of the building. From this close, we could hear a loud, continual humming.

"Uh," Vanessa, the blonde girl that Sands had almost tricked into being grabbed by the statue at the boy's dorm, raised a hand tentatively, waiting for the other girl to look at her. She was still clutching that book like it was a lifeline. "Does it make those portals like the ones that brought us here?"

"Yup!" Sands chirped, head bobbing. "Plus it does some other stuff that uhh, I don't really know about. Trust me, Scout and me, we've tried for years to get someone to tell us about it, but they won't."

"Wait a second." I held up a hand. "Aren't you guys first years too? I mean, I know you grew up knowing about all this stuff, but isn't this your first year actually being here?"

Grinning back at me, Sands pointed once, then twice. "Yes, we're first years. No, it's not our first year being here. See, Scout and me, we grew up here. Our dad's one of the teachers, so this is our home." She continued to smile, shrugging. "You have no idea how long we've been waiting for this year."

Beside her, Scout, whose gaze had been locked on the ground this whole time, gave a slight nod. She peeked up through the hair that obscured her face and I saw a faint smile of agreement before she looked down again. For the quiet girl who never seemed to talk to anyone but her sister, that seemed to pretty much be the equivalent of jumping up and down while screaming with excitement.

"So what's that humming noise?" Columbus put in after tapping a hand against his ear a few times. "And why does it get louder the closer we get to this thing?" He took a step forward, then stopped.

Sands gestured, and I noticed she was careful not to extend her arm past the point that she had told us to stop at. "That noise? That's the warning." She gave a little shudder that made me blink. "If you're close enough to hear it, you're getting near the line. Here, guys, look at this, but don't touch."

She stepped aside and pointed to the ground. There was a metallic silver line, about three inches wide encircling the building. It ran over both the pathway and the grass. As far as I could see, it continued all the way around, leaving the tall building entirely enclosed within the circle.

Once everyone had noticed the line, Sands explained, "See, that line? That's a magic circle."

"A magic circle?" one of the other boys replied flatly, his doubt obvious. "Magic. Circle."

"It's a long story," Sands replied. "You'll find out all about them later. The point is, this magic circle does a lot of things. Like, in this case, keep all of us out of the building. We're not allowed to go in without an escort and permission, and this line makes sure we stay away from it."

One of the other girls, pale with long brown hair drawn into a braid, snickered. "We're not? What happens if we cross it? Do we get in trouble?" Her hand caught hold of Vanessa's shoulder and arm and she made a motion as though to shove the suddenly protesting blonde over the line. "Let's find out."

I started to move, but before I could take more than a single step, a figure shoved past me. My gaze went up and I barely had time to recognize my brand new roommate before she caught the other girl by the wrist. In one motion, Avalon twisted until the girl released Vanessa with a yelp, then yanked the girl backwards, using a foot to trip her so that she sprawled back on the grass. The would-be tormentor landed hard on her backside, yelping in surprise.

"Are you really that fucking stupid?" Avalon stood over the fallen girl. In the background, I actually heard a couple of the boys make appreciative noises. Which, I suppose I couldn't blame them for. In the sunlight the dark-haired girl looked objectively even more attractive than she had in the dorm room. And right now, standing between the fallen girl and the still-surprised Vanessa, she looked as fierce as a lioness. Righteous fury seemed to envelop her as she stood glaring down at the other girl.

Eyes widening angrily, the girl who had been tossed to the ground cursed while sitting up. "The fuck?"

"No." Avalon stated the word before using a foot to shove the girl back down. "Are you dumb, or have you just had zero social interaction in your entire life? Did the school create a brand new class catering to morons who can't stop to consider consequences for two seconds and I just happened to miss it? Because I'm pretty sure that's something that would make its rounds through the rumor mill. 'School accepts student with IQ equivalent to jar of mayonnaise, and slightly less common sense.' Yup, pretty damn sure I would have heard about that at some point."

Face growing redder by the second while everyone in the group stared, the girl on the ground sputtered, "Get the fuck off me. Who the hell do you think you are? I wasn't doing anything wrong."

"Not doing anything wrong?" Avalon echoed. Her gaze moved briefly to me before she rolled her eyes and spoke through gritted teeth. "Sands, would you like to take this time to explain what happens when someone crosses that line? You know, the thing you were about to do anyway before Mayonnaise here thought it might be funny to throw someone over it? And for the record, talk faster next time."

Clearing her throat once, Sands explained, "If you cross the line, you'll get really sick. Like, face on the ground, expelling everything you've eaten for the past two days out both ends. Headache, nausea, dizziness, the works. I've seen it happen. It's really awful. Plus it sets off an alarm, everything closes down, it's horrible. You don't want it to happen. Just stay away from the line. It's bad news."

"So, Mayonnaise," Avalon spoke firmly while finally taking her foot off of the girl to let her up. "How about next time someone tells you not to do something around here, you wait and hear why you shouldn't do it before you decide to test it with someone who didn't do anything to you? Just sort of seems like the smart way of doing things after you've been told that there's magic and demons and all sorts of nasty stuff out there. But then, I'm not coming at this whole thing with the common sense of a bag of hammers tossed into the dryer."

Scowling as she pushed herself to her feet, the girl muttered, "My name is Koren, not Mayonnaise."

"Great, maybe someday you'll act like a person instead of a jar of condiments," Avalon replied evenly. "But for now, just shut up and stand in your group where you belong. And the next time you think it might be funny to push someone else around or mess with them for no reason, remember that there's always someone else that can push you around right back."

Without missing a beat, she turned her head slightly to the group of guys who had been ogling her throughout this. "And yes, boys, those are my tits. Be careful, if you keep straining your necks like that, you're gonna pull something."

We had a brief lunch out on the grounds that consisted mainly of sandwiches and apples provided in little brown bags. Then we had our measurements taken for the school uniforms before getting time to ourselves. I looked around a little, found the large library inside the main academic building, and texted my father to let him know that I'd arrived at my new school just fine. I'd held my breath, expecting an explosion of confusion from him until he'd sent back a message telling me to have fun and to e-mail him every day. He really did think this was all planned.

Before long, it was time for the welcoming dinner. Following the instructions that Sands had left with us, I met up with the rest of the Silverstone group down by the cafeteria and common area building. As Professor Dare had said, this particular building was located between the two dorms. Not directly between, of course. That's where the courtyard was. Instead, it was sort of slightly above that middle spot, so that each dorm building and this one formed the three points of a triangle.

The professor herself was waiting for us. She greeted each of us by name, and once we had all arrived, cleared her throat. "We're going inside now. I would like all of you to be quiet and conduct yourselves appropriately. You will sit at the front table until you are divided into your individual teams."

Blinking, I raised my hand. "Uh, teams, Professor? I don't understand, what teams?"

She bowed her head to me. "Thank you for reminding me, Miss Chambers. Yes, after the Headmistress has greeted and welcomed everyone, you will be divided into teams. Each team will consist of three pairs of roommates and one older student as a mentor. This team will be the same throughout the school year. You will attend classes together, aside from your mentor of course, who will have his own classes. You will also be assigned projects and other training exercises to be completed as a group."

Right. Which meant that Avalon was one of my teammates. I still didn't know what to think about the girl. She hadn't talked to me at all that afternoon, though we'd passed each other in the hall. She clearly had an attitude that wasn't limited just to me, yet she had stood up for Vanessa. Which, as far as I could tell, wasn't an isolated incident. My roommate acted like a complete bitch, but she stood up for people.

Before I could think too much more about that, Professor Dare had opened the doors and we filed in after her. The building was divided into two halves by a long corridor. To the left, there were four doors. Three of them led into the same large room, the cafeteria, while the fourth led into the kitchen. And to the right, there was a pair of doors near both ends. Those led into the common areas for students to interact, chat, play games, and whatever else we wanted to do outside of schoolwork.

Turning left, Professor Dare opened the nearest cafeteria door, and led us inside.

The cafeteria was a long, rectangular shaped room. We were at the back end of it. All along three quarters of the room were circular tables surrounded by chairs, clearly designed for a handful of occupants each. Toward the front there were several longer tables that took up most of the width of the room, with a final slightly smaller table at the very end that was set apart from the rest. Beyond that was a door that clearly led into the kitchen from this side.

Looking around the room, I estimated about four hundred students in this place. So roughly a hundred per year. That seemed like a lot for a secret school, but what did I know? Clearly they knew what they were doing.

The separate table at the far end was clearly where the faculty sat. I could see them there, a dozen or so adults watching along with every other eye in the room as we entered. In the very middle sat the woman I recognized from both the picture in the lighthouse and my ancestor's memory. The headmistress. She gazed impassively from where she was seated, observing as Professor Dare led us through the room all the way to the front.

At the front of the room, Professor Dare gestured for us to take a seat at the end of one of the long tables. There were a bunch of other students our age up here too, including Sands and Scout, who waved at us from where they were sitting. Clearly, this was where the first year students were all waiting for our assigned teams. Once we were at the table, the professor pressed a finger to her lips before moving to join the other teachers.

I'd barely sat down before Headmistress Sinclaire rose to her feet. When she spoke, her voice filled the room. She wasn't shouting. Actually, she appeared to be speaking in a normal tone of voice. Yet it seemed to come from everywhere in the room at once. It was as if she was right beside me.

"Thank you, Professor Dare." The tall, red-haired woman looked out over the crowd. She held the stoic look for a brief moment, then smiled broadly. It was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, the kind of smile that made everyone else want to smile back. "My name is Headmistress Sinclaire. And welcome, all of you, to Crossroads Academy. Some of you are joining us for the first time, while others we have been privileged to know before now. All of you, in every grade, are very welcome here. We are pleased to have you.

"Now, I know everyone is very hungry. And Chef Escalan has truly outdone himself this time. So let's get through this quickly, shall we? First, to divide our first years into their teams." Looking up toward the back, she lifted a hand. "New mentors, please stand up." Throughout that collection of circular tables, about fifteen or sixteen slightly older students stood up. Most looked confident, though a few were clearly nervous.

Once they had stood, the headmistress nodded. "Let's do this as easily as possible, shall we? Start on this end, Mister Travers." She indicated one of the standing students. "Read off the names on your list, would you please?" To us, she explained, "When you hear your name, go and join your team mentor."

The boy started to speak, but it was a mumble and no one could hear him. Still smiling, the headmistress touched something inside her jacket pocket. When the boy spoke again, his voice spread through the room the same way hers had. "Uhh, Dastin, Roy and Scofield, Preston?" Two boys that I didn't know went that way, soon followed by four other students to make a team of six.

After that, Vanessa Moon and a girl named Erin Redcliffe were the first pair to be called by a black girl named Cameron who was standing there the whole time with some kind of lizard perched on her shoulder. That continued on through more mentor students. One by one, our table of first years dwindled. It looked like each team only had one or two of those of us who had grown up without knowing any of this stuff, and I figured that was probably intentional.

A few teams later, Headmistress Sinclaire announced the next mentor's name. "Deveron Adams?"

I remembered the name. That was the guy that was supposed to be keeping an eye on the other Bystander-kin while Professor Dare retrieved me, and later give us the tour that Sands and Scout had ended up giving.

Turning in my seat, I watched as the boy in question stood, stretching lazily as he did so. He was tall, maybe an inch over six feet, and well built. Even from here, I could tell that the boy personified tall, dark, and handsome. His black hair was styled into a crew cut, and it looked like there was a vague hint of Asian genes in his otherwise Caucasian features. The tie and lapels of his school uniform were red.

"Ahh, let's see who the talent is this year." Deveron glanced at the paper in his hand. Unlike the others, he read all the names off at once without waiting. "Columbus Porter, Sean Gerardo, Felicity Chambers, Avalon Sinclaire, Sandoval Mason, and Sarah Mason. Let's go, chop chop, people. Some of us want to eat sometime today."

Yay. Clearly this guy was going to be a fantastic mentor. Rolling my eyes, I stood with the others and walked to the table where Deveron had already sat back down and resumed his casual, lounging position with his feet up on the opposite chair.

Pointedly, I ignored the other seats, shoving those feet off the chair so I could sit in it. Sands took the seat to my right with her sister beside her, while Columbus took the seat to my left. His own roommate sat beside him, leaving the last chair for Avalon to take.

Linking his arms behind his head, Deveron smirked at me. "Something ruffle your feathers, birdie?"

"Yeah," I whispered. "Weren't you the one that was supposed to give us a tour earlier?"

"Was I?" He shrugged, clearly not caring. "Sorry, guess I had something better to do. Didn't my substitutes do a good job?" The boy glanced toward the twins. "I left you two of them and everything, just to make up for missing me."

Before I could retort to that, the next mentor finished listing his students, which meant that all the final one had to do was wave for the few students that remained to join him at the last table.

"Wonderful," Headmistress Sinclaire smiled broadly once more. "Now remember, these are the teams that you will have throughout the rest of this year. You will go to every class together, you will do all projects together, and you will train together. You will learn to rely on one another, just as the rest of our student teams have. Look at the people around you. These are the students who you will learn to count on to have your back, to protect and learn from each other."

All throughout the room, at every first-year table, there was an exchange of glances and a murmur of uncertainty. Before it could grow too loud, the headmistress continued. "But that's for later. Right now, you've all waited quite long enough. Let's eat, shall we?"

With that, she clapped her hands twice. As soon as she did, a plastic menu appeared out of thin air, landing on the table right in front of me. Everyone else had their own menu appear, and there were gasps all around the room from those of us who were new here.

Beside me, Sands leaned closer, speaking so that Columbus and I could hear. "See, just pick up the menu." She plucked hers off the table and showed it to us. There were four or five main dishes listed, along with a handful of side options, a few different drinks, and so on. "Use your finger like this to circle what you want." With her index finger, Sands circled the word 'meatloaf.' As she did so, a glowing blue line appeared around it. She followed that up with corn on the cob, french fries, and chocolate milk. Then she moved her finger down to the lower right corner where the word 'finished' was written and circled that with her finger so that the line appeared there as well. Then she set the menu down.

About six seconds after she'd set the menu on the table, it vanished and was replaced by a plate laden with all the food she had ordered, and her chosen drink.

"Cool!" I grabbed my menu and stared at it, carefully circling what looked good with my finger. "How does it work?" I asked quickly. "I mean, how do they, how does it… you know, how does it do that?"

Looking right back at me, Sands grinned. "It is pretty cool, huh?" Then she shrugged. "I dunno how it works exactly. That's the sort of thing we're supposed to learn this year. Magic."

Magic. The word hit me, and I had to sit there holding the menu for a few seconds. Magic. We were learning magic. All of this, everything that was happening, it was all coming so fast. I felt overwhelmed, almost sick, but in sort of a good way. It was like the feeling I'd gotten as a kid before a big vacation or an important holiday. Overwhelming, in every sense of the word.

Swallowing, I reached into my pocket absently and took out the stone that I had thrown through the portal earlier. After playing with it in my hand while I thought for a second, I set it down on the table.

"Why do you have a dirty rock?" Avalon spoke to me for the first time that evening, her gaze riveted to it as if I'd thrown a corpse down on the table or something. "Please tell me you don't think it's magic."

"Magic?" I grinned back at the other girl in spite of her scowl. "Nah, it's just my pet rock." I announced that while circling 'finished' on the menu, then set it down.

"Your… pet… rock…" Avalon spoke slowly, staring at me like I'd just said the stupidest thing she'd ever heard.

"Yup!" I chirped just as my plate of food appeared in front of me. Magic. It appeared like magic. I grabbed the fork off the table. "Don't worry though, he doesn't eat much and he's really quiet. I think I've got him potty-trained."

On either side of me, Columbus and Sands snickered. I even caught a glimpse of a smile from Scout.

But Avalon just shook her head and looked away, muttering about having a dumbass for a roommate.

Ignoring that, I dug the fork into the food and took a bite. Then I closed my eyes and murmured appreciatively before intoning in a low voice, "Don't be jealous, I'll share Herbie with you."

"Herbie?" Avalon echoed the word flatly.

"Yup," I nodded. "Herbie. My rock. I'll let you play with him sometime if you want. You know, fetch, roll over, sit up, play dead. He's better at those last two, but we're working on it."

"Oh my God," Avalon's voice was droll. "My roommate is a fucking crazy person."

Leaning closer to the rock on the table, I spoke in a stage-whisper. "Don't worry, Herbie. She'll warm up to you. Just be yourself. And remember, no peeing in the bed."

BREAK

BREAK

For a meal that had been both quicker and more convenient than anything my good old friend, Mr. Microwave could have whipped up, the food here was pretty damn good. Scratch that, it was good regardless of how quickly it had come out. Dad and I had gotten to be decent at putting meals together, but we were still dependent on boxes with things like 'ready in fifteen minutes' written on the label.

I scraped the plate clean entirely and was just putting the fork down when the collective scraping of chairs drew my attention back toward the front. The Headmistress was standing again, though she seemed fairly content to wait until everyone looked at her before she began speaking. She drew attention not by demanding it, but simply by expecting it to be given. Force of personality, rather than loud words eventually drew the eyes of every student until the whole school was once again watching.

"Another wonderful meal provided by our dear Chef Escalan," Headmistress Sinclaire announced with a graceful smile and nod toward a man standing near the doorway that led into the kitchen. I couldn't see him that well, but from here he looked like a squat, portly man in a red and white striped apron. Stray bits of straw-yellow hair stuck out from under his flattened chef's hat. Unlike the headmistress, he wasn't smiling. In fact, it pretty much looked like he'd rather be anywhere in the world but here.

Either ignoring or not noticing the man's ugly scowl, Headmistress Sinclaire pressed on. "I know that he enjoys feeding you students almost as much as you enjoy his concoctions. But alas, we must press on if we are going to meet our deadline for the evening." Clearing her throat then, she clarified, "Not a literal dead line, mind you. The team that was sent to clean up the last of those Thanatosis Marks from last year has assured us that the top floor of the academics building is now perfectly safe."

Well my attention was caught in a stranglehold by those words, but the headmistress continued by listing several rules that seemed pretty common sense. No going into the beach or the jungle while you were supposed to be in class (with a reminder that the environmental seal, as she called it, would detect if anyone passed it), no fighting between classes, no food in the classroom (though drinks were allowed), the Pathmaker was off limits on threat of horrible things happening to your stomach until the staff arrived to cure you and assign detention, curfew was eleven on school nights, at which point we were expected to be in our dorms, and so on. She also mentioned that there was to be no truth about where we were or what we were doing in messages sent to those 'outside of the Knowledge.'

Finally, the headmistress smiled. "But enough of our rules. I assure you, we spend less time obsessing upon such things than some would assume given their placement at the start of each semester. For now, it is my pleasure to introduce three new faculty members this year. Professor Inisclic will be taking over for the unfortunately deceased Professor Memon in the general histories courses." She indicated a thin man in a tweed suit that seemed to be paying more attention to his empty plate than the students.

"Next," the woman continued, "we have Professor Armstrong, who will be heading up our languages department for the time being, and Professor Carfried, who is filling in for poor Professor Tangle while she recovers from her recent ordeal." In turn, an older woman with a severe overbite, and a jolly looking younger guy in his twenties that looked too young to be a teacher both stood. I had to both sit on my hand and bite my lip to stop myself from calling out questions. One former teacher that was unfortunately deceased, and another who was 'recovering from her recent ordeal?' Was that normal?

Whether it was or not, the headmistress wasn't saying. She simply made those introductions and then pressed on. "Also, while we happen to be on the subject of introductions, allow me to introduce your specialization instructors for this semester." Lifting her arm, the woman indicated several of the faculty who stood briefly to be counted, including Professor Dare. "If you have any questions regarding your chosen track, feel free to speak with one of them after we finish here, or at any other time. Their job is to ensure that you are in the correct track for your skills and interests."

That started a flurry of whispered discussion, and the headmistress chuckled slightly. "As I said, such questions should come when we are done. Be careful, the question you whisper to a neighbor may be one that is answered while you are so distracted." With that minor bit of chiding done, she continued.

"But I believe that means we have come to the end of what is relevant to our returning students. Class schedules will be delivered during breakfast in the morning, which will be provided, as always, between six am and eight am. Other than that, second years and above, if there are no questions, you are excused. Except, of course, for our team mentors."

Deveron, who had started to stand with three quarters of the students, sighed and dropped back into his seat. The look he shot toward me made it clear that he somehow blamed us for not being able to leave.

Annoyed, I whispered, "So tell the truth. Which was more important for getting this mentor gig. Was it your stunning and helpful personality, or was it your devotion and strict work ethic?"

He answered me with a fairly infuriating smirk and shrug. "If you must know, I pulled a sword out of a stone. Some people get to be king, I get to babysit a bunch of lemmings." Patting the table, he added, "At least my round table's loaded with babes instead of dudes though." Pausing, he waved a hand toward Columbus and his roommate Sean while adding, "No offense, dudes. Sure you're quite the conversationalists."

Rolling my eyes, I leaned over to Herbie, who was still sitting on the table. "Sic him, boy. Bite him." Herbie, sadly, was far too well behaved to take the suggestion. He did, however, glare menacingly.

By that point, the second, third, and fourth years had all filed out. Left with the smaller audience, Headmistress Sinclaire continued. "Ahh, yes. Our first year students. Another welcome to each of you, whether you have grown up within the Knowledge, or are Bystander-kin. I'm sure many of you have a lot of questions, but let's see how fast we can get through this first and save those inquiries for afterward, shall we?" She waited for any objections, then continued.

"Good. Now, many of you have already chosen your track for the semester either by attending early orientation last week or by sending your request forms in over the summer. For those who haven't and do not know what we are talking about, allow me to explain. There are five types of what we call specialization tracks in this school. Those are: Development, Investigation, Security, Hunters, and Explorers. These are indicated by the color provided on your school uniform: blue, purple, white, green, and red, respectively. Those same colors may be found outside of specialization rooms, to indicate that you are in the correct location when you attend those classes."

That matched up with what the twins had said earlier. They were in the investigation track, which was purple. A glance toward Avalon confirmed that she wore the light blue of the so-called 'development' track, while Deveron's uniform trim was red for the 'explorer', whatever that was. Frankly, as lazily as he was coming off, I had my doubts about whether that sounded like the right specialization for him. On the other hand, none of what had been listed sounded like a 'sit around and eat Cheetos' career track.

Headmistress Sinclaire went on. "I'll let our track advisers explain a bit about each specialization while they introduce themselves. Afterward, a sheet will appear in front of you if you have not yet chosen a specialty. Circle the track you are most interested in beginning. This choice may be changed for one week at the beginning of each semester while you attend this school. Indeed, some careers require a certain number of semesters spent under more than one specialty track. All of this information will be available to you at any point as you continue your education here. Professor Pericles, would you mind starting us off?"

A man who looked so old I was surprised he hadn't been declared legally deceased stood up from the table. In spite of looking positively ancient, he moved without apparent effort. "Good evening!" His voice boomed loudly, another contrast with his deceptively decrepit appearance. "So glad to meet new students every year. I've been around for quite awhile, let me tell you, and every year I think I'll get tired of meeting you young newcomers. But don't you know, it never happens. I'd tell you how absolutely wonderful it is to see each and every one of you, but we'd be here all night and while I may be old, I am vaguely aware that there are other activities you whippersnappers would rather focus on that don't include listening to some old coot ramble on. So let me just inform you of the very basics.

"My name is Zedekiah Pericles, and I teach mechanical engineering and a bit of science within what we call the general education courses, and on the other side of things, I'll be instructing you in how these Stranger sons of bitches are put together and what kinda stuff they can do, as well as a bit about the old magic doodads we've whipped up in the time since our ancestors started poking at the creeps with their sharp sticks. Specialization wise, I'm the man that runs the Development track. In layman's terms, that means we work on making up new toys, new magic, new everything to either kill these things, or just clean up the messes they leave behind. Any of you ever seen those old Bond flicks, we're Q. 'Cept we use magic as much as tech to make our little gadgets and doodads. Those of you wearing or soon-to-wear the blue uniforms, you're all mine."

I glanced toward Avalon, who was busy watching the man intently with an unreadable expression. She had joined his track, which clearly meant she was interested in the research side of things. Or maybe she really liked building things and putting stuff together? Maybe that was how she'd known so much about that circle surrounding the Pathmaker building. Assuming, of course, it wasn't just something she'd learned from whatever Headmistress Sinclaire was to her. I still needed to find that out.

After Professor Pericles sat down, it was Professor Dare's turn. She introduced herself again, stating that most there already knew her. Then she added that she taught fencing and American History, and that she ran the Investigation specialization track, which focused on interacting with those 'outside of the knowledge' to determine whether unexplained events in the mundane world were supernatural in nature or not. Usually those investigations were conducted under some false authority, the Heretic posing as a member of a legitimate law enforcement body. In other words, they lied a lot and used those lies to find out whether any random strange or outlandish event was a Stranger or not, and attempted to deal with it if possible. They were also the ones most responsible for keeping 'bystanders' out of the way, concocting the lies that prevented ordinary law enforcement (or say, random snoopy reporters like I aspired to be) from learning too much about this shadow world full of monsters. They were, of course, purple. The same color that Sands and Scout both wore.

Next there was the previously mentioned Professor Carfried, the young-looking teacher who had apparently taken over for Professor Tangle while she 'recovered,' from whatever she was recovering from. He was clearly nervous, stammering a fair bit but cheerful enough as he explained that he would be heading up the red-trimmed Explorer track. Their job, apparently, was to actually go into breaches between our world and the ones that these Strangers came from, documenting various information about their origins, the lands and homes they built, and more.

Professor Katarin, a male professor with very dark skin and the sort of bodybuilder look I associated with professional football linebackers, stood briefly to say that his classes were gym, general self defense, and that he was the specialization adviser for those in the Hunter track, those with green-lined uniforms. They were, to put it simply, those that actively fought against the Strangers. Unlike the Investigators, Hunters focused on areas where we knew for a fact the Strangers were coming through. They dealt with known and established threats, and were basically the straight up combat troops.

Finally, an Asian woman who appeared to be either in her late twenties or very early thirties stood up and introduced herself as Professor Kohaku. She spoke in carefully measured tones, her voice never rising above what felt like a whisper even though we could hear her just fine. She taught art classes and was responsible for the security of the school. Conveniently, she was also the adviser for those that were a part of the Security track itself, those with the white-lined uniforms. They were essentially responsible for keeping various places safe from Stranger infiltration. Hunters openly attacked, while Security protected.

And that was it. Development, Investigation, Explorers, Hunters, and Security. Once the advisers were done introducing themselves, a bit of plastic not-unlike the menu that had appeared previously popped up out of thin air in front of me. Columbus and his roommate received their own, and the three of us looked at one another while the rest of the table's occupants either watched curiously (Sands and Scout) or ignored us completely (Deveron and Avalon).

"Hey," Columbus whispered across the table toward my roommate. "Can I ask you a question?"

Slowly, the beautiful brunette turned her attention to him. She remained silent for a couple of seconds while obviously gathering herself before she spoke. "If it's about the specializations, yes. Otherwise, you are seriously barking up the wrong tree."

"Right, it's about this." The boy waved his sheet. "The Development track, is that, you know, interesting?"

Again, Avalon was silent. I had a feeling she was trying to determine how serious Columbus was. Finally, she breathed out a long, low sigh. "If you are told about a career that is focused on creating weapons and researching the weaknesses of monsters and have to ask if it's interesting, either you weren't listening to begin with or your line for what is interesting sits far beyond what humanity can measure."

"Gotcha," Columbus just grinned while circling that with his finger. "Just making sure."

"What are you going for, Flick?" Sands asked, leaning a bit over the table to watch me as I tapped the sheet a few times.

"Well," I answered. "Honestly, Explorer sounds pretty interesting. Seeing all those new worlds and stuff? Really cool. And Avalon's right, so does Development. But I've wanted to be a reporter my whole life, one of those people that goes out and finds out the truth. So I think Investigation is pretty much the only real choice for me." I used my finger to circle that, and my sheet disappeared a second later.

"Hell yeah," Sands held her hand up, and I gave her five. "Though I guess this makes us kind of Investigator heavy. You, me, Scout. Plus we've got two Developers and one Explorer." Glancing toward Deveron, who appeared to be daydreaming, she rolled her eyes. "Sort of." To Sean, she asked, "What about you?"

Columbus's roommate was a Hispanic boy with shaggy hair. He stared at the sheet for another fifteen seconds or so in silence before running his finger around one of the options. "Security."

"Cool, guess all we're missing is a Hunter then," I frowned. "I hope that's not a problem."

"Should be okay," Columbus pointed out. "They said we could change every semester if we want to, right? So we'll probably go back and forth. I don't know about you guys, but I wanna check out each track at least once."

There was a little more conversation, and the headmistress spoke again. But eventually, we were dismissed. As everyone started to file out, I grabbed my rock off the table and stood up. "C'mon, Herbie, time to give you a bath."

A couple hours later, I was exhausted. I'd spent the time using the computer in the dorm room to write an extensive e-mail to my father. Honestly, I felt really bad about the lies I had to tell him. Part of me wanted to put it off because of how… icky the idea of deceiving my own dad felt. Especially since I was apparently going to have to continue doing it not only for the next four years, but forever.

On the other hand, I couldn't tell him the truth and end up putting him in danger. And I couldn't just ignore him either. My mother had abandoned the man. The last thing I was going to do was avoid writing to him. It was bad enough that I wasn't living there and couldn't see him every night.

So no, there would be no delaying. I was going to write my father a message every day. Sure I'd have to rephrase things or tone them down, and leave out a lot of details. But I told him about Avalon and the rest of my new teammates (I called them an assigned study group), and about some of the school. I did, of course, leave out the part about being on a tropical island. That probably would have earned me a few questions.

After sending the e-mail, I stood up and turned at the sound of the door opening. Avalon was coming in with a damp towel over her shoulders. When I'd asked where she was going earlier, she'd simply said that her body didn't just magically appear and that she had to work for it.

"Did you have a good work-out?" I asked.

"No," she retorted flatly. "Too many people. Hey, what the hell is that stupid rock doing up there?"

Adopting a surprised expression, I turned to see where she was looking. The rock in question was resting up on top of large window, balanced on the rim. Gasping out loud, I moved past the scowling girl. "Herbie!" Jumping up, I caught the rock with one hand. "Be careful, buddy, I know you like to see what's going on, but you could fall. Here, see anything interesting?" Holding the rock in my palm, I aimed it at out the window toward the grounds outside before speaking over my shoulder. "Don't worry, he's just feeling adventurous after his bath. See?" Turning, I showed the other girl that the stone had been scrubbed clean in the restroom sink.

My roommate just stood there for a moment, then sighed before crossing over to her side of the room. She disappeared into the closet before returning with a nightshirt, which she quietly changed into. "Hey, Chambers, put down the fucking rock and pay attention."

I set Herbie on the windowsill and looked toward the girl as she moved to a spot on her desk. "See this button? Look at the one on your side."

Interested, I leaned over to look at side of my desk. Sure enough, there was a small red button there that I hadn't noticed. "Got it."

"Great," her tone was even. "Now watch. You push it and…" A second later, that side of the room was plunged into pitch-black darkness. I couldn't see any sign of the girl or any of her furniture. It was as if a solid wall had appeared to block it off.

The darkness went away then, and I asked, "So it's a light switch?"

Avalon snorted. "No, that's a light switch." She pointed to the wall. "This is a privacy switch. Press it once, wait, then press it again."

I shrugged and followed her instructions, pressing my finger against the button. As soon as I did, the same blackness seemed to appear. This time, however, it appeared right on the edge of my own space. It was a wall, I realized. A non-solid wall made out of darkness that prevented anyone outside from seeing in and anyone inside from seeing out.

Flipping the switch off again, I coughed. "That's cool. Privacy switch."

"You can't see through it, you can't hear through it, and you can't walk through it unless you're a faculty member or you have permission," she explained. "Otherwise, they can't hear you at all. Understand?"

"Sure," I nodded. "I get it. Do you think–"

"Good," she interrupted. "Because I wanted you to know exactly what this means." A second later, her side of the room was plunged into darkness again as she activated the privacy screen. I had a feeling she wouldn't be taking it down for the rest of the evening.

So much for asking Avalon what her relation to the headmistress was. Sighing, I crossed to my own bed, picked up my rock, and set him on the dresser next to me while laying down. "Guess it's you and me tonight, Herbie."

I lay on the bed, looking at the ceiling for a few minutes while letting my mind wander. So much had happened today. So much was still incredibly confusing and more than a little frightening. Yet even with that uncertainty, I knew I'd made the right decision to go through that mirror when Professor Dare had offered me the choice. It… felt like I was where I belonged.

In the morning, classes would begin. Classes that would tell me more about this world I had suddenly become a part of, that would explain what these 'Strangers' were and how we were expected to combat them.

I'd never been more excited for school in my life.

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A NOTE

Okay, this is the last chapter for today! I just wanted to let you guys get the full first arc to start out. After today, there will be two chapters each day at the usual time, three on days that have interludes. Edit: Never mind the full second arc will be posted tomorrow! Thanks so much for reading!

The boy in the dark blue ski cap that failed to entirely contain the nest of wild blond hair stood in the candy aisle of the convenience store. Nail-chewed fingers ran carefully along the brightly colored wrappings as he hemmed and hawed over his choices. Occasionally, the boy consulted the crumpled dollar bills clutched tightly in his other hand as though checking to ensure that more had not spontaneously appeared to spare him from being forced to choose between his treasured treats.

Faced with the reality that magic money wasn't about to manifest itself, the boy finally chose a single candy bar. Turning on his heel, he walked to the cooler section where the sodas were kept. A man in a hooded raincoat turned away from his own intense perusal of beverages long enough to give the boy a long, penetrating stare. He said nothing, content to simply glower menacingly.

Paying him no attention, the boy took the time to collect a bottle of orange soda from the cooler in the back before proceeding to the counter where a girl barely out of her teens watched him curiously.

"Hey, it's kind of late. Do your parents know you're out here?" The girl, whose nametag read Denise, asked in the uncertain tone of those who aren't entirely sure that they're properly treading the line between paying just enough attention to something wrong and actively being busybodies.

"Yes, ma'am," the fresh-faced boy, who couldn't have looked older than eleven, answered promptly and politely. After setting his chosen purchases on the counter, he lifted a hand to point out into the parking lot, where an old sedan sat bathed in shadows. "They didn't want to come in. It's been a long drive."

Glancing toward the car, Denise paused before shrugging as she picked up the candy and soda. Running them past the scanner, she asked, "Family moving or something? That'll be two ninety-three."

Brightening at the question, the boy piped enthusiastically, "Gonna visit my sister!" Face shining with excitement at his own words, he laid the three dollar bills from his hand to the counter.

"She in college or something?" The girl asked him while casually slipping the three bills into the register. The machine spat out a receipt as she added, "You need a bag for these?"

Before the boy could answer either question, he was interrupted by a shout from behind him. "Hey, bitch!" The man in the raincoat stood there, hand clutching a small revolver. "How about you pay attention to a real customer, huh? Let's start with emptying that register into a bag and go from there."

Eyes wide with sudden terror, Denise immediately began to comply. "Okay, okay. Look, see? Money in the bag, no one's touching anything wrong, just hold on. We've got money right here, you can have it. Just don't hurt anyone? It's just you, me, and the kid here. No one's gonna stop you. Take the money and go." Voice shaking, the girl dropped all of the register's cash into the small sack and held it out.

"You get it, kid." The raincoat-man demanded, jerking the gun toward the boy briefly. "Bring it here."

Obediently, the boy accepted the bag of money from the petrified clerk and carried it over to where the man was waiting. It was snatched from his hand quickly, and perused briefly before the man smiled in satisfaction. "Pleasure doing business with you, bitch." He turned then and started for the door at a run.

Denise had just breathed out a sigh of relief as the man reached the exit. However, just before he would have passed out of their lives forever, the boy spoke up. "Hey, wait a second, Mister."

Spinning on his heel, the man with the gun stared back at the boy. "What the hell do you want?"

Smiling pleasantly, the boy replied simply, "My name is Ammon."

Both thief and clerk stared at the boy in joint disbelief. The man with the gun worked his mouth a couple times, taken so far aback that he forgot to be angry for a few seconds. "Good… for you?" Finally, his emotions caught up. "What the fuck, you wanna get shot, you stupid little shit?!"

"No," Ammon answered honestly. Then he turned to point. "You didn't take her money though. What if she has a lot of it? It's better if you take that money too."

"Wha—hey!" Denise blurted, her eyes wide. "What the hell—I don't have that much money."

"No… no, the kid's right." The man nodded slowly, abandoning the door to return to where the counter was. "Come on, empty your pockets. Empty 'em now, you little bitch. You holding out on me, huh?!"

"Here, here!" The girl scrambled to pull a wallet form her front pocket. "See? Two dollars and some change. That's it, that's all I've got, okay?" She quickly tossed the bills down. "Take it, just go, please."

Snatching the bills off the counter, the man shoved them into a pocket while sneering angrily. "Watch your mouth, bitch. I'll go when I'm good and ready, not when you fucking tell me to."

"Cunt," the boy piped up from where he was standing with a voice that would almost have sounded helpful if it wasn't for the actual words that he was speaking. "You should call her cunt, not bitch. Bitch isn't that bad. Cunt probably makes her feel worse. It's better if you use that one instead. That sounds more like what a real bad guy should say."

Eyes bulging a bit, the girl blurted, "What the hell do you think–"

"Shut it, cunt!" the man bellowed. "Shut your fucking face before I put a couple new holes in it."

Looking from the man to the confused and frightened clerk, Ammon spoke again. "You should hit her. It's more interesting if you hit her." After pausing briefly, he added, "With your fist, not the gun."

Denise tried to jerk away, but the man's fist caught her across the face. With a cry, she fell backwards into the wall behind her where the cigarette packs were stacked. Several fell as she jostled the shelves, bouncing off the counter and to the floor while the girl cried out. "Stop it, what're you doing?!"

"Maybe… maybe that's enough." The man decided, breathing out. "Just stay there, I'll leave and–"

"No," Ammon interrupted. "You should hit her again. No, kick her. Kick her in the stomach. Hard."

The poor girl barely had time to protest that time before the man had crossed behind the counter. Winding up his foot, he lashed out hard enough to knock the air from her lungs, the scream that tried to come fading into a sharp, pathetic little wheeze under the force of the harsh kick.

Smiling, the boy walked around the counter. He stood there, motionless for a second before squatting down onto one knee. Slowly, he reached out to brush a finger against the girl's cheek, catching a tear of confusion, pain, and fear that had fallen there. Gazing at the damp spot on his finger with a look of open wonder and curiosity, he nodded before straightening. "You should do it again."

"No, stop it, just sto–" The girl had gained enough air to protest weakly.

Whumph! The man's foot hit her hard once more, turning her words into a squeal once more.

"Again."

"N-no, plea–"

Whumph!

"Again."

"Plea–"

Whumph!

A short time later, the girl had been beaten so thoroughly that it would have been difficult for even close friends to recognize her. Her consciousness faded in and out, and she had long since stopped protesting. She simply laid there and cried, each harsh blow reminding her of her helplessness.

Advising the man who had been a simple robber to stand aside, Ammon knelt there and touched the girl's face. She flinched from the contact, a whine filling her ruined throat.

"Shhh," the boy consoled her. "See, we're done. That was interesting. I had fun, but I'm bored of that game now. So it's over." He brushed his fingers over the girl's bloodied and bruised cheeks, moving up to her swollen eyes. Under his touch, the flesh mended, the swelling went down, and the girl's face rapidly returned to normal. "It's time to play a new game. You get to win this one."

"Wha… what…" Recognizing that the pain was fading, Denise opened her eyes. Seeing the boy there, she flinched backward. A whine of fear, of terror at the very sight of the boy, rose from her.

Smiling pleasantly, the boy spoke as politely as ever. "My name is Ammon. You should stand up."

Truthfully, the boy had no idea what kind of thoughts went through the minds of his toys the moment he spoke those four words of introduction. In this case, as in all others, the outward effects were obvious. Upon hearing the statement of his name, the girl's whine halted instantly. She fell silent, then obeyed the rest of his words, slowly rising to her feet as though it had been her own idea. Her fear most likely remained, buried deep in the girl's mind. Yet the words Ammon spoke after deliberately introducing himself to her were as impossible for Denise to deny or resist as the physical laws of the universe.

He wondered if she was one of the ones who still held onto her own thoughts, her own personality. Some were like that. Their opinions, fears, thoughts, everything simply locked away inside their own mind, incapable of resisting or even affecting their own body, prisoners to his whim. Others were more like empty vessels once his power took hold of them. They gave no resistance, and seemed not to react at all to the things he made them do. It was a discrepancy that aroused his curiosity, and he would figure out what caused the difference someday. It would just take more experimenting.

After standing, the slightly glazed look left the clerk's eyes and she tried to throw herself at the door, scrambling in open desperation to escape the hell that the store had rapidly become.

"You should stop," Ammon spoke quickly, before the girl could get further than a few steps. Instantly, she halted, though a whine of confusion at her own actions crept out of her.

Turning to the man, Ammon held his hand out. "You should give me your gun." Without complaint, as though it had been his own idea, the man passed the weapon over. He was one of the empty ones, one who barely reacted to anything the boy told him to do.

Taking it, the boy walked over and extended the gun to her. "You should take this and shoot him in the back." he informed her while settling the weapon into her palm. "Use every bullet. See? I told you you get to win." To the man, who was already reacting, he said, "You should stop and turn around."

Both moved as though the boy's words had been their own choices, their own thoughts. The man turned to face the coolers, standing passively while the clerk raised the revolver. The gun shook slightly in her hand, but she took very careful aim. While the boy watched eagerly, curiosity painted on his face, the girl pulled the trigger. The gun bucked in her hand, and the man screamed as the first bullet hit him. The deafening sound returned as the second shot was fired, then another, and another. By the end, the man's ruined body lay in a pool of his own blood mixed with the various liquids pouring from the shattered drink coolers, and Denise held an empty revolver.

"There's no more bullets, you should drop the gun." The boy's calm voice instructed, and the weapon bounced off the floor a second later. Smiling, Ammon walked to where the dead man had fallen and reached down. His hands patted a bit until he found a wallet, from which the boy produced a credit card. With that in hand, he started for the exit while addressing Denise. "You should come with me. This part's gonna be really interesting." On his way out, the boy's hand snagged a package of duct tape.

Without looking back, he walked through the door. The girl trailed after him, mumbling to herself about how right he was and how very interesting all of this happened to be. Rather than sounding confident about that, however, the girl's voice was confused. She was clearly trying to convince herself, and remained uncertain about why she was following his instructions. Uncertain, yet incapable of true resistance. Her mind was clouded, overwhelmed by the power that broke down her own thoughts and opinion, supplanting them with his words of instruction.

Bypassing the waiting car, Ammon walked to the gas pumps in the middle of the lot. The girl followed after him, still trying to explain to herself why she was doing what he said. The logic went around in circles, and she hardly seemed to notice. Her mind fought and struggled against his control, that inner personality trying so hard to break free. Yet she continued, trailing after the boy right to the pumps themselves. "What… why am I… why are we…" She tried to get answers from him, but the words wouldn't come. She couldn't force a full question, let alone anything resembling a denial, past his control.

Humming to himself, the young, innocent-looking boy pushed the borrowed credit card into the slot. After taking the nozzle from its stand, he pressed the button to select the fuel grade, then turned to face the girl. "Okay, you should sit down right there. You like sitting right now." He pointed to the ground in front of the pump.

Slowly, the girl sat, eyes glazed over. "I like sitting right now," she echoed a bit mindlessly.

Humming to himself, the boy carefully pushed the gasoline nozzle close to the girl's face. "Now you should open," he instructed. Once her mouth was open, he inserted the gas nozzle. "Right, now hold it with both hands, okay?" He waited until she put both hands on the nozzle to hold it in place.

While Denise sat holding the gas nozzle, Ammon took a moment to extract the duct tape from the package. Whistling an off-key tune, the little boy proceeded to carefully and deliberately use the entire roll, duct taping the nozzle first to the girl's hands, then around the back of her head to keep it in place. Finally, he put even more tape around the nozzle itself, securing it carefully to the girl's mouth so that it couldn't be spat out. By the time he was done, the tape covered every part of her mouth that the nozzle itself didn't touch. She couldn't have escaped even without the strength of his 'suggestions.' She was trapped there, incapable of avoiding what was coming.

"Okay," Ammon announced. "You should sit right there and not try to go anywhere, but I'm done with you now."

Those words, the statement that he was done with her, made the girl blink twice. Her head rolled back, and then she straightened with a sudden look of terror. She screamed a denial, a plea, but the words didn't escape the tape that covered her mouth. She struggled, trying in vain to yank the nozzle free, but it wouldn't budge. The tape held fast against her efforts.

"Watch this," Ammon waited until the girl's frantic, horrified eyes were on him, then reached down to the nozzle. Grasping the handle, he found the trigger and pressed it. A muffled scream from the girl was interrupted by a violent choking sound as gasoline was pumped straight through the nozzle and down her throat.

Stepping back, the boy watched for a moment. The girl struggled, twisting and screaming in muffled, trapped terror while she continued to choke on the gasoline being pumped into her. Tears of shock and denial flooded her face as she sobbed brokenly, desperate for help that would never come.

He watched until she stopped struggling, until the still-pumping gasoline had done its job, drowning the girl. Then the boy turned on his heel and walked away. His dirty sneakers crossed the parking lot until he reached the station once more. Humming, he went inside long enough to retrieve his candy bar and the bottle of orange soda before returning to the lot. Barely sparing a glance toward the crumpled form in the middle of the gas pumps, he walked to the waiting car and opened the back door.

"Okay, I'm back!" The boy announced while hopping in.

In the front seat, the elderly woman, the latest in a long line of oh-so-helpful people who had agreed to give the boy a lift, shook as though forcing herself out of a horrible dream. "Y-you killed… they're dead…. they're dead…"

Sighing, the boy leaned forward and repeated his mantra. "My name is Ammon. We should go now. It's pretty late."

The woman's shaking stopped as the power of his introduction reaffirmed its hold. "We should go now," she repeated. "It's pretty late."

As the car pulled out of the lot, leaving both bodies behind, Ammon took a long swig of his orange soda. Then he relaxed, sagging back in the seat with a contented smile. "Coming to see you, sis," he said to himself. "We're gonna have so much fun."

He meant what he said. It would be fun. After all, it was a special occasion. It wasn't every day that someone found out that their mother had had another child with a different man. Meeting a long-lost sibling was clearly the kind of situation that called for a cross-country road trip. Even if that trip was to a place as boring as Wyoming. And even if it meant ignoring the specific orders of his father, a man he generally obeyed.

He just hoped that Felicity Chambers turned out to be as interesting as he hoped she was.

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A NOTE

As before with Summus Proelium, this story will be updated twice a day, at 7:00 am and 5:30 pm mountain time. In GMT that's 2 PM and 12:30 AM. But for today, the full second arc will be posted quite soon (within an hour or two of this post). Tomorrow we'll start the two chapters daily (sometimes three) thing.

I was awoken the next morning by the sound of a knock at the door. Fumbling my way out from under the twisted up blankets that I had somehow managed to tie in knots around myself as I slept, I fell out of the bed with a yelp. Flushing, I glanced to the other side of the room, only to find that the black wall that Avalon's privacy screen had erected was gone. Equally gone was my roommate herself. The bed was empty and neatly made to what looked like military specifications. Actually, I was kind of surprised that there wasn't a mint sitting on the pillow, to be perfectly honest.

Another knock reminded me of why I was awake, and I picked myself off the floor. Yawning, I glanced down at myself to make sure I looked vaguely presentable before heading over to open it a crack.

Sands stood on the other side, waving as the door opened. She wore a tee shirt with the name Crossroads Academy written in purple on the front and a pair of black shorts with identical violet trim going up the sides. She was also holding a clothing bag in one hand, offering it to me. "Heya, teammate. Ready for morning exercise? Oh, and here's your uniforms. They were sitting by your door."

Blinking, I opened the door the rest of the way and took the offered bag. "Morning exercise?"

The other girl's head bobbed once. "Sure. You know, that thing that Deveron was supposed to talk to us about, if he didn't, uhhh…"

"Suck ass as a mentor?" I offered.

"Yeah, that one." Sands gestured in agreement. "Anyway, we've got general exercise every weekday morning before shower and breakfast. You can really do it at any point between five and seven, but you have to get half an hour in. Scout and I figured you might want to go together, since your roommate's already done."

"Avalon did her exercise already?" I asked while stepping back into the room. "Come on in."

Sands came into the room, trailed after by her sister. Scout was munching on a banana, and waved to me without meeting my gaze. Her attention seemed firmly riveted to our apparently fascinating floor. Sands, on the other hand, groaned. "Yeah, Sean said she was in there when he showed up, and she was still there when Scout and I went past. Seriously, it's half an hour of required exercise and she's been there for at least an hour and a half. It's like she's trying to break a record or something."

"Maybe she just really likes to exercise?" I suggested while opening the bag that the other girl had brought. Digging through it, I found three different uniform sets (the pants version) with the purple trim, as well as two sets of the same workout clothes that the twins were wearing. "Or maybe she's really a supervillain and her dastardly plan is to make herself look so perfect that the universe itself collapses out of envy."

Snorting, Sands shook her head. "C'mon, you don't wanna miss breakfast on the first day."

My stomach growled at the very implication, and I quickly changed clothes before nodding. "Right, let's get this workout done then, before I start eating the weights instead of lifting them."

On my way out, I stopped to grab Herbie, tossing him up into the air before catching him. "Don't worry, buddy, I wouldn't leave you alone in the room all day. You'd get too lonely."

Before I reached the door, a hand caught my sleeve. Glancing over to find Scout standing there with her hand on me, I blinked. "Oh hey, what's up?"

In answer, the girl released my sleeve before reaching into her pocket to take out a small box. She presented it to me without ever saying anything, a hesitant smile touching her face.

I took the offered box and opened it, tilting my head at the contents. There were a pair of cute googly eyes and a bottle of super glue. It took me a second before I realized. "For Herbie?"

The other girl smiled faintly, half hidden behind her lowered head, and nodded shyly, still silent.

"Hey, thanks, Scout." I returned her smile. "I'll put the eyes on when we get down there. That way he can dry while we're doing the workout. Where'd you find this stuff anyway?"

Rather than answer, the girl visibly froze. She went completely still for a few seconds before shrugging.

"Yeah," Sands shook her head. "She wouldn't tell me either. I guess there's some secrets even I don't merit. All I know is that she had it when she came back with that banana."

Seeing the uncomfortable look on the shy girl's face, I relented. "Right, you go ahead and keep your secret crafting supplies store or whatever it is. Thanks anyway, Scout."

She nodded, clearly relieved to have the attention off herself, and the three of us headed down to the gym. We had just left the dorm and were making our way across the grass toward the other building when Sands looked toward me. "So how'd your first night go? Did you and Avalon have a fight or something? Is that why she's spent all morning in the gym?"

"A fight?" I shook my head. "We didn't talk enough to have a fight. She showed me the privacy screen and then never turned it off. I don't think she's interested in earning any awards for being a stunning conversationalist. But, you know, maybe I'll win her over with a midnight pillow fight."

"Now see?" Another voice spoke, and I turned to see Columbus and Sean stroll up. The latter was talking. "This is a conversation that I would like to be a part of. Tell me more about this pillow fight."

Rolling my eyes, I replied, "We're just talking about how I can get my roommate to open up." After hesitating for a second, I added, "She's got the same last name as the Headmistress, are they related?"

A collection of shrugs went around before Columbus offered, "Maybe she's her daughter?"

I shrugged back, then focused on the twins. "You guys grew up here, don't you know her?"

"Nope," Sands replied. "Never seen her before the last couple days. Sorry. I don't think she's Headmistress Sinclaire's kid though. Like I said, we grew up here and she never said anything about having a daughter. Which, we might miss some things, but I'm pretty sure we would've noticed that."

"Huh…" Columbus frowned thoughtfully. "Maybe the name thing is a coincidence?"

Beside me, Sean shook his head, sending his shaggy hair flying back and forth. "Dude, we're living at a damn magic school so we can learn how to fight monsters. I'm pretty sure thinking that anything is a coincidence at this point is just begging for a giant, 'you're wrong' shaped monster to come stomping through the campus, breathing fire on everyone who ever says things like 'how bad can it be?'"

"This is not a game. I want every last one of you to repeat that back to me. Say it loud."

It was a couple hours later. I'd finished the brief workout with the twins and Columbus (Sean had already finished his), then showered and changed into the school uniform before having breakfast. Now we had been joined by Avalon and the six of us were in our first class of the day: self defense.

Professor Katarin, the positively massive teacher that reminded me of the guy that had played the prisoner in The Green Mile, stood at the front of the room. It was a different gym from the one that we had exercised in that morning. This one was larger, with plenty of room for at least four different active sparring matches. Mirrors lined every wall, and the floor was padded to the point that it was kind of fun to bounce up and down on it. There were also a handful of what looked like training dummies spread throughout the room, along with six enormous trunks arrayed behind the man that he had wheeled in two at a time before calling everyone to line up in front of him.

There were about three full teams in this particular class, or eighteen students. I recognized some from orientation the day before, but most were new faces. All of us were clearly still adjusting to this place.

Katarin waited there while everyone dutifully repeated the words back to him. Then he shook his head. "Louder. I want you to say it and mean it! This is not a game! Say it again! This is not a game!"

Finally, after it was all but screamed back at him, the man nodded in satisfaction. "Good. Now that you've all said that, there won't be any excuses when I expel the first one of you that acts like this is a game. And I will, believe me. If I see any of you messing around with the stuff in here, or goofing off while we're trying to learn, or doing anything that could end with you or one of your classmates getting hurt, you're out of here. I don't mean out of this class, I mean out of this school. You will never be a part of this again. Do you understand me? Harkess, do you think I'm kidding?"

One of the other bystander-kin students, Malcolm, shook his head while speaking loudly. "No, sir."

"What about you, Porter?" Professor Katarin was focused not on Columbus, but his foster sister Shiori.

The Asian girl flushed at the attention before shaking her head quickly. "No, sir, you're not kidding."

"Damn straight I'm not." The big man let his gaze move over all of us. "You do not get three strikes in this class. You fuck around, you're out. I will not teach students who can't take this seriously. You'll be a danger to yourselves, to your fellow students, and to everyone we're trying to protect. Is that clear?"

After a chorus of agreement, Katarin nodded in satisfaction. "In that case, let's get started. When I call your name, come up here. The rest of you can talk among yourselves until we get all this sorted out."

He started with one of the male students from Shiori's team, calling the boy around to the other side of the large trunks. From the look of things, he was digging through the trunks while talking to the boy.

"What's all this about?" I turned to ask Sands in a quiet voice.

"Weapon selection," she replied, staring with wide eyes toward the front of the room. Her voice was hushed with awe. "You have no idea how long we've been waiting for our chance at this. Every year, over and over, we just watch everyone else get their weapons. Now it's our turn."

Blinking at the awe and anticipation in her voice, I looked toward Columbus and Sean. "Come again?"

"Weapon selection," Sean repeated Sands' words while grinning. He was clearly excited too, though he did a slightly better job of keeping cool about it. "See, a heretic's weapon is like… a big deal. "

"What they're trying to say," the voice of Avalon intoned coolly from behind me. "Is that a heretic's weapon is their life. We learn to do everything with it, and the weapon helps define who you are."

I coughed. "Oh, right, of course they're giving us weapons. Sorry, kind of still getting used to going from a school where making a finger gun at someone was grounds for suspension."

Avalon's eyes rolled. "Yeah, people are stupid. Big surprise. That's not exactly a new concept. Point is, this is a big deal. Whatever Katarin up there matches you with, that's it. Gun, blade, bow, whatever it ends up being, that's your weapon for life. It's bonded to you and only you. It gets stronger as you do. You'll learn to fight with it, and to channel the powers you gain through it. The weapon is your outlet, your implement to use a lot of the skills that you'll learn here. That's why he's stressing the safety so much. Because they can't just take it away at the end of classes. The whole point is that you carry it around with you everywhere. It never leaves your side, ever. It's a part of you for life. Understand?"

Columbus whistled low. "Did you say guns? They actually use guns here?"

Avalon gave him a dirty look for that one. "Of course we use guns. We use everything that can kill those monsters. They may not be the kind of guns you're used to, but that's because once humans got to the musket, Developer Heretics went off in their own direction for making it better. They're not mass produced, every Heretic weapon is hand-made, one at a time by Developers who put their heart and soul into what they're making. Then they're put into those crates and brought out to be matched against a new student. Once you're matched to a weapon, that's it. Unless something happens, and believe me, it's really hard to break a Heretic weapon, it's yours until you die. Then they bury you with it."

At that point, Katarin called for Sands. The other girl gave me a quick, eager smile before schooling her expression to look as calm as possible as she walked to the front. She could not, apparently, stop herself from skipping just a little bit.

"Guess this is a pretty big deal for you two, huh?" I asked Scout, nudging the girl a little bit. I knew she was shy and didn't talk much, but I was curious enough to prod her slightly. "Waited a long time?"

The quiet twin hesitated before nodding. Her gaze flicked up to me every so briefly before she looked away, back to the front of the room where her sister was. Even that brief eye contact made her blush. It made me wonder why she was so painfully shy and withdrawn. The curiosity bubbled up in me almost against my will. I wanted to talk to the girl, wanted to ask her about herself and get her to open up. But I wasn't sure how to do that. I wasn't sure exactly how much I should push or leave alone. There was probably a very good reason that she didn't do much talking, and curious as I was, I shouldn't pry.

But that didn't stop me from wanting to. I wanted to pry into that, into why Avalon was always in such a bad mood even though she didn't really seem to be that bad of a person, what her relationship with the Headmistress was, why Deveron was still our mentor even though he was a completely useless and lazy pain in the ass, what exactly had made the vote about my inclusion in the school so close that the Headmistress had been forced to break the tie, and everything else. I definitely wanted to know what the connection was between the Headmistress and the coward that had been my ancestor. I wanted to know all of those things and more, but I wasn't yet sure how to go about getting those answers.

If it came down to it, I supposed I could just find the woman and ask her about what I'd seen. I'd wait a few days before trying that though, and give things around here a chance to settle into a routine. Or at least as much of a routine as a school where we were handed deadly weapons on the first day could be.

Scout was called next, and I looked up to see Sands returning with what looked like a heavy-duty morning star held tight in one hand. The handle was black, the head of the weapon silver, and the assorted razor-sharp spikes on it were red. She was holding it like a treasured present, something she had waited most of her life to receive after watching year after year of older students get theirs.

"Construction Mace?" Sean asked, receiving a nod from the clearly proud Sands.

I looked back and forth between them, then focused on the weapon. "What's a Construction Mace?"

"It makes walls," Sands explained. "See, it just sort of makes walls, floors, whatever, flat surfaces in any orientation. Smash something while holding the trigger and it sort of, absorbs that type of material to make the walls out of."

My mouth opened and then shut. "Are you serious? How? Where does the material for the walls come from? What produces it? Where does this thing store the material? What–"

"Magic, Flick," she intoned with a wink. "It's magic."

Before long, Scout also returned with what looked like the biggest freaking sniper rifle I'd ever seen in my life. The thing was positively enormous, dwarfing Scout herself. As Avalon had said, it also looked a lot more… muskety than any modern rifle, though the scope on it was pretty impressive. The best way I could describe the whole thing was that it looked like a steampunk version of a sniper rifle, with all kinds of tubes, coils, and other doodads lining the thing. The scope part had multiple lenses all spaced out along the top of it that raised or lowered into place depending on how far she wanted the scope to reach.

"Wow," I blinked between Sands and Scout. "So you got a weapon that makes you get right up close to people and you got one that makes you stay far away from them."

"That's right," Sands nudged her sister. "I smack 'em in the face and Scout covers me."

I started to ask if Scout thought she could even fire that thing, but before I could, Katarin called my name. Under the curious gaze of the rest of the class, I made my way to the front where the man was waiting. "Uh, hi, sir. I just thought you should know, the deadliest weapon I've held in my hand up to this point was a steak knife. So, you know, I really don't know what I'm doing."

"Good," the big man rumbled. "You knowing that is the best first step. Keep that in mind and don't do anything stupid with this thing when I hand it to you. Now… let's see, do you think you'd be more comfortable with something that let you get close, or something that's more of a distance weapon? Don't overthink it, just go with your first instinct and we'll see what matches you."

I froze for a second. Go with my first instinct? Easy for him to say, after everything the others had said about how this was a choice that would stick with me for the rest of my life. "Umm, I think I'd feel better with something… close. That feels right." At least I hoped it did.

Nodding, Katarin turned to open the first three storage trunks. "Take a look. Take out a few, hold them in your hand, see what feels the most natural. Don't worry, if the weapon that's meant for you is something else, you'll know. You'll feel the connection when it's there, trust me. And trust yourself."

Emboldened a bit by his encouragement, I stepped up to the first chest and looked inside. Swords, axes, daggers, staves, and more all lined the interior. Slowly, I ran my hand along them. My fingers found a nice looking scimitar, but when I lifted it from the trunk, I knew it was wrong. It didn't feel right. I couldn't really explain it, but the weapon didn't fit me. It felt awkward in my grip and I put it down almost immediately.

I tried a few other weapons in the crate, but nothing really called out to me. Gradually, I moved on to the second one. More weapons, some of which I didn't even recognize. There was something that looked sort of like a nunchaku, except that there were three handles instead of two, all with cord between them. Beside that were a couple of weapons that were even stranger. Basically they looked like hand-held sickles with the curved blade, along with a straight blade extending in the opposite direction from the base of the curved one, and a smaller knife-like blade down near the handle.

"Hunga Munga," Katarin informed me. "African throwing weapon. How does it feel?"

I paused, letting my fingers close around the handle. There was something… almost there, and I let my eyes close to focus on it for a few seconds before shaking my head. "It's close, I think. I feel… something. But I don't think they fit me." I bit my lip and looked up then. "Am I just over thinking it?"

"Possibly," he allowed. "But let's see if something else suits you better."

Slowly, I moved my hands further, trying a couple of different weapons. Nothing in the second chest was perfect, or even felt as close to right as those blades had.

Finally, I moved on to the third chest. My gaze passed over several weapons before landing on a long staff set near the back. As my eyes landed on the weapon, I paused. Something, a feeling of familiarity that I couldn't explain, came to me. I lifted a hand to carefully pluck it out of the chest to examine more closely.

It was a five foot long staff. The body of it was red, with black ends that tapered into points. As I turned the thing over, I felt something… much more immediate than I had thought. There was no question about it. This wasn't something vague or uncertain. "It's this one," I said quietly, but firmly. "This is mine."

Katarin didn't ask if I was sure. Instead, he nodded and put his hand out. Somewhat reluctantly, I passed the weapon over and released it.

Taking the staff, the big man gave it a cursory once over. "Right, I don't want you actually using this thing until I teach you how to do it safely, but this is a kinetic-burst staff."

"Kinetic-burst staff?" I echoed, staring at the thing. I already wanted to be holding it again.

"Yeah, look here." He showed me one of the ends of the staff, then directed my attention to a small depression in the handle where his fingers were resting. "Press this here to charge." As he pressed it, the black ends of the staff began to glow blue.

"Release the button to stop charging." Katarin continued. He moved his finger off the button, but the blue glow remained at both ends. "Then you've got three choices. First, you smack someone with it and it'll add the concussive force that you've charged into it to your blow. Like this," he turned to the nearest training dummy and gave a whack of the staff against it. The concussive force that the staff unleashed freaking blew the dummy across the room to crash into the mirror on the far side with a terrible noise that made me along with a few other students yelp.

"Better get used to that kind of thing," Katarin advised before going on. "Second choice, just touch the thing you want to transfer the charge to. Has to be an inanimate object like a wall or floor or something. Like this." Again, he charged the staff before touching one of the ends to the floor between us. "Keep holding the button while you do it so it doesn't go off."

As he held the point of the staff to the ground, I saw a faint blue bubble of energy appear there, about the size of a football. It turned almost entirely translucent and difficult to notice even when I knew what I was looking for after he pulled the staff away.

"Concussive mine," he informed me. "You can set it off by pressing this other button here on the staff, or just wait for someone to touch it. Use it for traps or just to give yourself an edge in the middle of a fight by controlling where your opponent can safely step."

Once I found my voice again, I asked, "And the… the third way of using it?"

"Propulsion," he replied easily, smiling a bit at my resulting stare. "Once you get good enough with this thing, you can use the concussive force to propel yourself through the air. Make yourself jump higher or longer, move faster, escape when the enemy thinks they have you cornered, and anything else you can think of. Girl your size, an average charge ought to throw you a good fifteen, twenty feet when you do it right."

He was chuckling at my expression while handing the staff back to me. "Of course, you might want to wait until we get through a few lessons before you try anything like that."

"Uh huh…" I held the staff tight in both hands, staring at it before nodding to the man. "You know, if you don't mind, I think I might go for a whole four lessons before I try that whole 'using a controlled explosion as my own personal taxi' thing."

"Good girl," he replied before gesturing for me to go while he raised his voice. "All right, next we've got Avalon. Come on up, let's see what works for you."

And then he just let me walk away with a weapon that could probably put a hole in the wall if I set even a tenth of my mind to the effort. For all his warnings and threats, the man still let me take this weapon, just like he'd let the other students walk away with the weapons they were now holding.

It was then, in that moment that it really struck me, even more than seeing the vision of my ancestor had. This wasn't an ordinary school. Sure, it sounded fun and interesting and cool to see all this stuff. But these weapons were real. The danger was real, and they wanted to teach us to fight it.

The phrase that Katarin had made us repeat came to mind, and I truly, truly understood its significance for the first time as more than just words to repeat.

This… was not a game.

BREAK

BREAK

"I feel like Mary Poppins," I announced a few hours later while walking down the hall alongside the rest of my team. We were just leaving lunch and heading for the first afternoon class of the day.

There had been two more periods after that first class: Trigonometry and Chemistry. Nothing had happened in either one that stood out nearly as much as the act of literally choosing lethal weapons to bring around with us for the rest of our lives. Though, to be fair, that was a hard act to follow.

"Mary Poppins?" Sands, walking alongside me, asked with a tilt of her head. "You mean because of–"

"Yup." I reached down, brushing the jacket of the school uniform aside to reach what looked like a small canister about the size of a cell phone case that had been clipped onto my belt. Flipping the cap open with my thumb, I caught hold of the top couple inches of the object within and tugged it up a bit. Those inches were followed by several more, until the first foot or so of my new kinetic-burst staff was drawn into view. This, despite the fact that the canister on my belt was entirely too small to contain it. Somehow, the five foot long stick just… kept going when I slid it inside, until only enough stuck out to get hold of with my fingers. It was, to use the scientific term, completely fucking amazing. Seriously, just… seriously! How did it work? I had peered into the thing, only to see what looked like the bottom. I had stuck my finger into it and felt the bottom. But when I put my staff in it, somehow the thing fit. How?! I had spent a good portion of lunch pulling the staff in and out, trying to figure out what it did.

Giggling, Sands nudged me. "I guess that probably looks weird to someone who didn't grow up with it, huh?" Her own hand strayed toward her own hip, where she wore a somewhat wider version of what I had to contain her own spiked mace. "Don't worry, you'll get used to it eventually. Right, Scout?"

Her twin nodded without looking up from her close examination of the floor that we were walking over. Rather than anything on her belt, Scout was wearing what looked like a camera bag over one shoulder. The enormous rifle (seriously, the thing was as long as she was tall) was stored safely within.

"When Katarin said that we were gonna have to carry these things around, I was expecting it to be a bit harder than this," I admitted. Glancing over my shoulder then, I added, "And a lot harder than that."

Columbus just grinned back at me, his eyes hidden behind a large pair of goggles with dark green lenses. "You're just jealous," he replied, while the lenses shifted color to blue.

I just sniffed pointedly at him. "Nobody mentioned that goggles were considered weapons now."

"They are when those goggles can shoot out a beam of light that can punch through a brick wall," he retorted good-naturedly while taking a few steps ahead of us to open the door. "I mean yeah, all the extra stuff like seeing in the dark, seeing invisible things, seeing magic lines, that's all probably useful. But I'm pretty sure it's the bazooka eyes that kick these things over into the weapon category."

He stood there holding the door open while we passed through one at a time to enter the amphitheater that was our next classroom. Sean, the last one in, took the other boy by the shoulders and kissed him grandly on the cheek. "Muah! Chivalry is not dead! My dearest of roommates has proven it so!"

We were the last team to enter, which meant that the eighteen members of the other three teams that we were sharing this class with all stared at the shaggy-haired boy. Unbothered, he simply waved at them and snapped his fingers toward his leg. "Here Vulcan, c'mon, boy."

The dog that scurried through the door in response to his words might have looked like an ordinary doberman if it hadn't clearly been made out of metal. The robotic animal took a moment to seemingly 'sniff' at his master's hand before peering up excitedly, silver tongue lolling out of its mouth.

Grasping an almost completely hidden handle set near the dog's backside, Sean gave a tug. Immediately, there was the sound of grinding gears as the robot animal was lifted off the ground. Its paws and legs were drawn up into the body, disappearing within. Its head flipped over, the snout also disappearing into the main body while the back of its head, newly emerged, revealed six barrels spaced equally apart in a circle. By the time the 'dog' had been fully lifted up, the second handle appearing near the front once the head was locked into place so that Sean could hold it at both ends, its true nature as a fairly massive minigun was revealed.

"Man's best friend," Sean intoned with an easy smile before hefting the huge weapon with him up to the last set of seats that were still open. Setting it next to him, he let the gun revert to its dog-shape. "One more chance, boy. But if you can't keep quiet through the lecture, you'll have to stay in gun mode through the whole class again. You don't want a repeat of Trig, do you?" The dog whined, and Sean nodded pointedly. "That's what I thought. So shhhh. Got it?" The dog lay on its stomach and went still.

A mechanical dog that transformed into a minigun. Goggles that shot out concussive energy blasts. Seriously. This whole school was just… amazing. Also terrifying in a lot of respects, but still amazing.

Finally, the last member of our group (and the most antisocial one) brushed past me on her way to the seat. Like Columbus, Avalon wore her new weapon as an accessory to her uniform. In her case, however, it was a pair of sleek, silver-blue gauntlets rather than goggles. A small upraised slit in the back of each gauntlet would, at her command, project a solid-light energy construct of various blades and other melee weapons, as well as various tools that she would need in her work as a Developer.

And that was all of us. Kinetic staff, construction mace, sniper rifle, enhanced vision laser goggles, dog-minigun transformer, and gloves that projected solid light tools and weapons. A bit of a difference from my last school, where sharpening a key against a locker was almost enough to get you kicked out.

"Right, right, right!" The trio of repeated words came with the rapidity of automatic gunfire, and were punctuated by an equal number of loud hand claps that filled the air of the amphitheater. I spun to find the ancient-looking, yet super-energetic figure of Professor Pericles enter the room. "Let's have a seat and get started, shall we? So much to go over, so very much to do." He bustled past us toward the front stage, dropping a heavy briefcase on the desk there before whirling back around. "Are we all here?" His eyes, bright and lively against his heavily wrinkled face, scanned the room. "Yes! No one's late. Good news. Excellent news in fact. I hate giving lectures about tardiness. It's just dreadful for everyone involved, so let's try to avoid it for the whole year, shall we? So much to do, so little time to waste! Everyone's here, all twenty-four of you. Keep it up, keep it up indeed, congratulations all around."

Pausing only long enough to draw breath, the man then continued. "Without looking anywhere but straight at me, what is the name of this class, Mister… Kinder!" He pointed to a pale boy with red hair.

"Uhh, umm," the boy stammered briefly before managing a somewhat weak, "Stranger Truths 101?"

"Yes!" The instructor beamed as though the boy had given a brilliant response while grabbing a black marker off the desk. He crossed to the white board and wrote that in large letters. "Now, can anyone tell me what we're supposed to learn here? Anyone at all?" He looked over everyone. "Don't be shy."

Several hands went up, most of them from students that had obviously grown up 'in the knowledge.' One, however, I knew for a fact was a Silverstone like me. Vanessa Moon, the blonde girl that Koren had almost thrown over the magic circle line the day before, sat front and center with her arm raised.

"Miss Moon," Professor Pericles pointed to her. "What is the purpose of this class?"

When Vanessa spoke, it became obvious that she was reciting words from a book, though she wasn't actually reading anything at the moment. "To provide an introduction to the most common types of Strangers currently known, including their habitats, strengths and weaknesses, and how alike or dissimilar the truth of their nature is from how they are portrayed in common bystander media."

Professor Pericles chuckled. "Clearly someone has read the introduction of the text book already. Which is interesting considering I haven't actually handed that book out yet. Err, have I?" He sounded genuinely curious. "Oh gods, did I forget a day again? I knew I shouldn't have tried that cookie."

A blush touched the blonde girl's face and she spoke a little more quietly. "You didn't miss a day, Professor. I just found the book in the library and read some of it during lunch."

"A girl ahead of her time and well after my heart!" Pericles was smiling broadly once more. "Alas, you've chosen to pursue a career in Exploration rather than Development." Vanessa's uniform was highlighted with red. "Still, a good answer. Yes, this class is an introduction to the truth. Here, you will learn about the monsters that lurk under beds and within closets, the beasts that crawl from the swamps, the creatures hidden within shadows, whose eyes watch the world of unsuspecting humanity and see not peers in intelligent thought and potential companions, but a buffet of flesh and blood. You will learn the truth of what bystanders call vampires, zombies, werecreatures, and many more that haven't been served quite as popularly by the advent of television and film. You will learn how these creatures use their gifts to hunt, kill, and often but not always devour our unsuspecting fellow humans. Within this class, you will learn the bare essentials of what these creatures are, where they come from, and how they do the wicked and evil things that they do.

"I ask that you all pay attention through these lectures, because the content within them will quite literally become a matter of life and death for you and those you care about. Failure to pay attention, or any attempt to treat this subject with anything less than the seriousness that it deserves, will unfortunately be met with severe disciplinary action."

His smile returned after that bit of seriousness. "There! Now my warning is out of the way, so we can continue. And I trust that each of you will heed it. If there are any questions about that, or about anything I ever tell you, my office is right down the hall." He pointed out the door. "You'll find my name written beside it, just on top of a chalk board where I will list my schedule for that day so that you will always know where to find me at any given time. Please, do not let yourself fall behind. If you have questions, ask. If you're concerned about something, tell me. If you for any reason feel as though you should know something that I haven't covered, speak up. I will always be ready to chat."

After looking around the room to let that sink in, the man continued. "Now, if that's clear, let's start discussing our syllabus for the year. I thought we'd begin the semester proper tomorrow with an in depth look at the truth behind those most popular of mythological creatures, the zombie…"

A few hours later, I was lugging a bag full of books from the library on my way back to my dorm room. I'd scoured the shelves for forty-five minutes, looking for anything that seemed to mention the current headmistress or the history of the school in general. Maybe I could get some answers there about what relation my ancestor had had with the Baronness, and whether or not she was even aware of who I was. It meant doing extra reading on top of all the classes, but I had never been the kind of person who was content to sit and wait for answers to come to her. I had to drag them out myself.

Speaking of classes, this school was a bit odd in that respect. Rather than having a single schedule every day like most if not all high schools that I was aware of, the schedules here differed each day, more like a college. Some classes had only two periods per week, while others were a daily occurrence. As a result, I was technically taking about a dozen actual classes rather than six or seven.

Hauling the bag of books with me to the door, I reached for the knob, only to nearly get smacked in the face by the door as it was shoved open from within. Yelping, I stumbled backwards and nearly fell over.

Avalon's hands shot out, catching my wrist as well as the bag before it could fall. She yanked me back upright, her eyes a little wide. "Hey!" She blurted, seemingly reflexively. "Watch where you–" In mid-sentence, the other girl stopped talking. She went silent for a handful of seconds before breathing out noticeably. "No. That was my fault." Her voice was stiff and uncertain, clearly unaccustomed to speaking the words. "I'm sorry. Are you all right?"

I blinked once, then again. "Yeah, I'm… fine. Uhh, thanks? Hey, are you heading for the showers?" The girl was wearing a pair of drawstring pants and a tanktop, and she had a towel under one arm.

She paused once more before giving a single somewhat stiff nod. "I thought I'd try to be clean before dinner. Is that a problem?" There was that same challenging tone to her voice that I was used to by now, as if she was accustomed to defending every choice she made.

Shaking my head quickly, I replied, "Nope, not a problem. Just thought I'd go with you if you hold up a second. I—hey, is that a tattoo?" I squinted closer at her bicep. Sure enough, there was an image of a small red apple with a dagger cleaving it in two.

Instantly, Avalon's expression clouded once more and she brushed past me on her way into the hall. "Take your own damn shower, Chambers. And mind your own business."

Then she was gone, stalking off down the hall while leaving me utterly bewildered. To her retreating form, I asked, "Uhh, what did I say that time?"

"What'd you say to who?" Sands spoke up, and I turned the other way to see her approaching with Scout at her side. "Hey, we were just coming to see if you wanted to check out the beach before dinner. What's up?"

"Just making more mistakes with my roommate," I replied with a shrug. "Apparently I'm not supposed to ask about the apple and dagger tattoo."

Both of the twins froze at that. After looking to each other briefly, Sands asked with an obvious careful tone, "Was the dagger cutting the apple?"

"Umm, yeah?" I shook my head in confusion. "Why, what's the big deal?"

Sands whistled. "Okay, look." Glancing around as if to make sure we weren't being overheard, she lowered her voice. "This isn't something they like to get into so early, but this place? Crossroads Academy? It's not the only school for… for our kind. There's another one. Eden's Garden. Only they're… different."

"Different?" I echoed. "What do you mean, different?"

"Crossroads Heretics work to fight the Strangers, to drive them away from humanity," Sands answered, her voice even lower. "But Eden's Garden Heretics, they… they're sort of the other way around. They're humans who actually help the Strangers do the bad things they do. They're awful people, trust me. They just do really, really horrible stuff. Human experimentation, Stranger-Heretic breeding experiments, nasty things. They're evil. And all their students have a tattoo."

"Let me guess…" I bit my lip, looking over my shoulder.

"Yup," Sands confirmed. "A tattoo on their bicep of a dagger cutting an apple in half."

"Maybe it's a coincidence?" I offered a little lamely.

"No," Sands shook her head. "Trust me, Avalon wasn't a bystander. She grew up with this stuff. And no one who grew up with it would ever have a tattoo like that. Not unless…"

"Unless she was a part of that school," I finished, still looking back the way Avalon had gone. "Unless she was from Eden's Garden."

"Yeah…" Sands trailed off for a moment before breathing out. "Flick, I think your roommate was one of the bad guys."

BREAK

BREAK

"Not anymore."

The silence that had stretched on for several long, empty seconds in the wake of Sands' announcement had been interrupted by a new voice. It took me a second to orient myself, looking to the source of those two words. Scout stood there, looking up at me with her gaze only partially hidden by that long brown hair, face slightly flushed. This was the first time I'd actually heard her voice.

"Wha—oh. You mean she's not a bad guy anymore, if she ever was one." When the other girl nodded, I smiled faintly. "Yeah, you're right. I mean, it's not like she could sneak into this place without them knowing about her history, whatever it is. Hell, she's got the tattoo pretty much in plain sight."

"Plus there's her name," Sands pointed out. "It's too much of a coincidence. There's no way the headmistress doesn't know everything about her, even if they're not related."

"Even if who's not related?"

The unexpected voice, not Scout this time, made all three of us jump. Turning, we found the girl from the orientation tour, Koren. She was the one who had acted like she was going to throw Vanessa Moon over the magic line, the one that Avalon had thrown to the ground and chewed out. Now she stood there looking between the three of us with a suspicious squint, as if she was trying to read our minds.

"Oh, uhh, nothing." I shrugged. Knowing that wouldn't be enough to satisfy the girl, I added, "We were just trying to figure out if my roommate and the headmistress are related or not. You know, same last names." I figured that was common enough knowledge that I wasn't throwing Avalon under the bus.

"You mean Miss Stick In The Ass?" Koren's eyes rolled. "Of course she's the Headmistress's daughter."

I raised an eyebrow at that. "What do you mean, of course?"

"I mean," Koren replied with the tone that made it clear that she thought we were idiots. "Even if I hadn't heard them talking, it's obvious that she thinks she's better than everyone else. Why? Because she's totally the Headmistress's crotch spawn, so she thinks she can do anything she wants to."

Sands started to retort something nasty, but I stepped on her foot as subtly as I could manage. Yes, Koren could be a bitch. But on the off chance that she actually knew something, throwing away the chance to hear it was a bad idea. "You heard them talking? Avalon and the Headmistress?"

The other girl gave me a look before shrugging. "Uhh, yeah? That's what I said. You know, last night when I had to wash all the tables because that stupid shit with the Pathmaker building? I was getting a new rag from the kitchen. When I came out, those two were like, hugging and shit. It was gross. The Headmistress was all, 'I know this is hard on you, but you're my daughter and I know you can do this.'" Koren made a gagging sound while rolling her eyes dramatically again. "How lame is that?"

Without speaking, I looked at the twins. Both were looking at one another before turning their gazes to me. By mutual, silent agreement, we turned and walked into my room. Scout, a look of satisfaction on her face, closed the door on the bewildered Koren as the girl demanded to know where we were going.

"Beach, you said?" I asked while walking over to look through my clothes that had been delivered to find something appropriate. I'd never been to a real beach, but I had pool wear, and that would do.

Leaving the bag full of books on my bed, I changed into a bathing suit with a long tee shirt over it as well as a pair of sandals before heading out with the twins. They stopped by their own room to change as well, and then the three of us grabbed towels from the bathroom before continuing out of the dorm.

The subject of Avalon's parentage had faded until we were outside, walking along the path that led away from the school buildings. Finally, I spoke up. "Maybe she grew up with her dad? I mean, maybe Headmistress Sinclaire and whoever Avalon's father is are like, rivals or whatever. He's at that school, she's at this one, and Avalon grew up with him until the Baronness got her back?"

Sands nodded thoughtfully. Before she could speak however, a booming voice filled the air around us, demanding, "And where do you girls think you're going?!"

The man who stepped into our path was one of the teachers that I'd seen at the staff table the night before. He hadn't been introduced since he obviously wasn't new or a track adviser, but I was pretty sure that he taught English Literature. Which was kind of funny, considering how little he resembled what I thought of when 'English Lit Professor' came to mind. The man was tall and broad-shouldered, with long, shaggy hair that was such a dark blond it was almost brown. He wasn't as big as Professor Katarin, but the man still looked more like a football player than a teacher.

Gazing up at the man, Sands replied dryly, "Anywhere we want to, old man. You got a problem?"

The big guy squinted down at her, drawling, "You know what? You've got a big mouth, little girl. Your dad let you get away with talking to your elders like that?"

"Pffft," Sands made a dismissive noise and waved her hand. "He's old. Who cares what he thinks?"

Making a strangled noise, the man quickly stepped forward and snatched Sands right off the ground while demanding, "Who cares, huh? I'll show you who cares!" He was clearly playing up the outrage as he swung around in a rapid circle with Sands tossed over his shoulder. "You care now?"

"Ahhhhhh!" Sands squealed in reply. "Noooooope! Don't ahhhhh caaaaare! Aaaaaaaaahh I'm gonna be sick down the back of your shiiiirt, then you'll be aaaaaaaaahhh soooorrry! Leeeemme goooo aaaahhh!"

Instead, the man only slowed enough to catch hold of Scout with his other hand. There was an audible yelp from the other girl as she was hauled up onto his other shoulder. Then he spun even faster while they squealed out loud, limbs flailing helplessly. "You'll care, oh yeah you will!"

Finally, after several long moments of that rapid spinning, the man stumbled a bit to the grass before dumping both girls off his shoulders. He kept his grip on them just long enough for their feet to touch the ground before releasing them so that he could stumble backwards, sitting down hard on the grass with a grunt. The twins each immediately collapsed as well, yelping in unison.

Smirking a little in spite of myself, I cleared my throat. "So, this is your dad, huh?"

"Mmmhmm," Sands, eyes closed, waved her hand absently. "Da, this is Flick. Flick, that's Da."

The man, who had collapsed onto his back, gave me a thumbs up. "Nice to meet you, Flick." Lifting his head, he squinted at me blearily. "Could you tell your fifteen identical sisters to go home though?"

Snickering, I reached out a hand to help the man to his feet. "Nice to meet you too, Professor Mason."

The man took the help, climbing to his feet with a groan before moving to help Scout up while I went to do the same with Sands. "I take it you girls are heading down to the beach then, huh?"

"Yeah, Da, we're gonna show Flick how to have some fun." Sands shook her head sadly. "She grew up in Wyoming. So, you know, I'm not sure she knows how to spell it, let alone have it."

I scoffed at that. "Hey, Wyoming might not be a tropical island, but we have our own fun."

"I bet!" Grinning at me, Sands asked, "So when you're playing 'find your nearest neighbor', can you use the bullhorn right from your front porch, or do you have to drive around for a bit first?"

In spite of myself, I laughed, hiding it with a cough before retorting, "It's not that empty!"

"Dude, I looked it up," Sands informed me. "Your entire state is about a hundred thousand square miles, and it's got like five hundred thousand people in it. You know what that is? That's less than a quarter of the population of Brooklyn, which is about a hundred square miles. Your state is a thousand times the size of Brooklyn, and it has less than a quarter of the population!"

Sniffing, I shrugged. "We go for quality, not quantity."

Sands lifted an eyebrow at me curiously. "Are you sure it's not because the animals have become sentient and are secretly killing off all the humans?"

I coughed again. "Sapient."

Sands blinked at me. "Huh?"

"You mean sapient," I explained. "Sentient just means they feel things. Lots of animals are sentient. Sapient means they can reason and logic things out, plan things. You know, like homo sapiens?"

Professor Mason grinned. "I like this one. You girls stay friends with her, you might learn something."

"Meh," Sands snickered, grabbing my arm. "We'll corrupt her. Come on, time to hit the beach before it's too late. Trust me, you don't want to get caught out after curfew. It is not pretty."

"Damn straight it's not pretty," Professor Mason confirmed. "So don't push it. You girls are real students now, you've got an example to set. Make sure you're back in your rooms on time. You've all got me first thing after breakfast tomorrow, and I want you there bright tailed and bushy eyed."

I blinked at that. "Don't you mean–"

Sands was already pulling me away. "Never mind that, inside joke. C'mon, Scout!" She called to her sister, and the other girl quickly gave their father a hug before moving to join us.

At the edge of the school grounds, Sands slowed to point at a shimmer in the air. It was almost like looking through very clean water, a slight distortion that made it clear something was there. "This is the border. They could make it harder to notice, but they don't want to give any student the excuse of not knowing where they were if they cross it when they're not supposed to. See, come closer."

I did so, stepping right up to the edge of the barrier. As I came within a couple feet of it, the sound of gently ringing bells was audible. It was a pleasant sound, but definitely one that stood out.

"Same idea," Sands confirmed. "No one gets to cross the border and then say they didn't know. As soon as we go through here, reports get put out. I think they go to umm, our track adviser and the security office. If we're not back by the time curfew starts, they'll get a report about that too. They get a list of all students that are past the border after curfew, and trust me, you do not want to be one of those students. Scout and me saw what happened to the ones that tried to beat the system, and it is not fun."

"The security office," I echoed with a nod. "You mean like that guy I met earlier. Uhh, what was his name. He was really intense—oh, right, Rendell? Wyatt Rendell?"

Both girls giggled at that. Sands was nodding. "Yeah, Wyatt's really intense all right. I'm not sure what he did before this, but he showed up at the end of last year. The headmistress brought him in personally. He's… yeah, really into his job. But he's just one of the normal security guys. He reports to Professor Kohaku. She's the one that gets the reports about who's out when they shouldn't be."

"Who do we report the abysmal failure that is our team mentor to?" I asked a bit darkly.

Sands rolled her eyes. "Deveron? Yeah, he kinda sucks, doesn't he?"

"I don't get it," I spread my arms questioningly. "How did he really get to be a mentor? I know the sword in the stone thing is bullshit, but why would they take a guy that lazy and make him a mentor?"

Sands shrugged helplessly at that. "He didn't used to be that bad." In response to my doubtful look, she pressed on. "I mean it. Look, last year when he was a freshman here, Deveron was like… a star student. Seriously, believe it or not, he won pretty much every first year award there is. He was everywhere. He did everything. He was the school all-star. We're talking straight A's, community service, extra credit, advanced courses, all of it. The guy was on fire. Hell, in the fight tournament at the end of the year, he came in third. Third. That's out of the entire school. Do you know how impossible it is for a first year student to come in third out of the whole school?"

I stared at her, mouth open. "We're talking about the same Deveron Adams, right? You didn't develop a concussion and start rambling about some other, actually useful guy? What the hell happened?"

Both of the twins shrugged. Scout leaned over to whisper something in Sands' ear, and the other girl nodded. "He changed. He was gone for the summer, and when he came back, he was… well, he was a jerk. A lazy jerk. It's like whatever reason he had to push himself before doesn't exist anymore and now he doesn't care about anything. Who knows. But that's why they made him a mentor. I think they're hoping that something will snap him out of this… dick phase and he'll actually contribute again."

I kicked at the ground a little and sighed. "Well I hope he snaps out of it soon. I'd like to have a mentor that I could actually talk to."

"You can talk to us!" Sands grinned, grabbing my hand. "We'll tell you everything you need to know. Like right now, what you need to know is that we are going down to the beach. So no more talking about Deveron or anything else depressing, okay?"

"Right," I smiled in spite of myself. "Let's go see this beach.

"But I'm telling you right now, the first one of you that makes the Jaws music is gonna get buried in the sand and left there."

"Mind if I go with you?"

It was the next morning, and I had woken up to the sound of Avalon getting ready to head out again. Just like the day before, she was up early. So early, in fact, that the sun wasn't quite up yet.

She stopped, pausing to look over at me before reaching out to turn the light on so she could squint at me. "What?"

I sat up, sliding out of bed. "I was just asking if you mind if I go work out with you. You know, keep you company?"

Her suspicious glare didn't relent. "Why?"

Shrugging, I started to get dressed while suppressing a yawn. "Seems like you have good habits. If I'm gonna make it around here, I should probably follow your lead."

Avalon was silent for a moment before letting out a sigh. "Whatever, just hurry up. And don't expect me to coddle you the whole time. I'm not your babysitter."

Giving the girl a thumbs up, I finished dressing in the exercise clothes before turning in a circle as though looking for something. "Now where is—Herbie? Herb, where are you buddy? Did you—ohhh." Pointing to the spot near the door, I walked over to pluck the rock off the floor where it had been sitting as though waiting to go out. "Hey there, need to go potty, huh?"

Avalon stared at me. "It has eyes now?"

Turning the rock for her to see, I shook it a bit to make the the googly eyes roll. "Yup, and he thinks you're cute too."

That time, I swore I saw the tiniest hint of a smile. It was barely a flicker before she schooled her expression back down while pivoted on her heel to stride out the door. "You're a freak, Chambers."

Snickering in spite of myself, I trailed after her. The two of us walked together down the stairs and outside.

"What the–" I blinked at the sight of what had to be two dozen people, half of them adults standing in our way. They were faced away from us, attention directed toward the ground.

Professor Mason, Sands' and Scout's father, turned to us. His face was pale as he took a step our way. "Inside, girls. You don't need to be out here right now."

"What happened?" Avalon demanded, not letting herself be herded away yet.

"It's not–" The big man hesitated, clearly reluctant to say anything. "I'm sorry, girls, this isn't a good time. Go back inside and wait. It's…" He paused before sighing. "It's Professor Pericles."

It was the wrong thing to say. Mentioning Avalon's track adviser made the girl's eyes widen and she stopped abruptly. "What about him?"

"I'm sorry, Avalon," Professor Mason's voice was as gentle as he could make it. "There's no better way of telling you this, but his body was found about ten minutes ago. It… doesn't look like an accident."

My own voice sounded empty to me, my head ringing almost painfully. "You mean he… he was…"

"Murdered," Avalon finished flatly, her voice actually shaking a little. "Someone murdered Professor Pericles."

BREAK

BREAK

"Flick? Hey, you okay?"

A hand gently shook my arm, and I jumped a bit in the heavily cushioned easy chair that I had been sitting in for the past two hours, ever since the announcement had come that morning classes had been canceled. I'd been so lost in thought that I'd missed Sean's arrival and subsequent attempts to get my attention until he had to physically touch me. Eyes wide, I blurted, "Huh?"

"Sorry," the boy raised both hands and took a step back. "Just thought I'd check on you. Everyone else is outside and you missed breakfast. So uh, here." He produced a plate with a couple of muffins on it. "It's not a lot, but you know, I wasn't sure what you liked, or if you were even hungry but… yeah." Trailing off awkwardly, Sean hesitated for a moment before setting the plate on the arm of the chair. Beside him, his mechanical dog whined a little until the boy laid his hand on its head, giving it a pat.

Straightening up in the chair, I put a hand on the plate. "Thanks, I was just… thinking." Yawning, I glanced around briefly around the lounge. There were two student lounges in the building. One for the first and second years, and the other for the third and fourth years. I wasn't sure what the one the upperclassmen used looked like, but if this one was anything to go by, then Crossroads Academy was getting something like seventeen bajillion times the amount of funding that my old school had gotten. I could go on for hours about opening the door to find the three pool tables, the arcade machine in the corner, the foosball table, the enormous aquarium full of tropical fish taking up most of one wall, the multiple televisions at either end of the room complete with headphones so students could pay attention to whichever set they wanted to, and on and on.

But honestly, that wasn't fair. My old school hadn't been that bad. They did what they could without the benefit of magic and thousands of years of history. And they weren't responsible for training a bunch of mostly teenagers to go out and protect humanity from literal supernatural monsters, so they deserved a little slack.

Plus, they definitely had the bonus that none of my teachers there had ever been murdered.

"Thinking about Professor Pericles?" Sean winced. "Sorry, that had to be hard. You uh, didn't, um…" He blanched a little, looking almost ill at what he was saying. "You didn't see the body, did you?"

Swallowing, I shook my head. "He wouldn't let us. Professor Mason, I mean. He um." My throat was dry, and I had to swallow a couple more times. "He made us go back inside. I tried to talk to Avalon about it, but she just… wanted to be alone." That was putting it mildly, Avalon had stormed off the moment that I had said another word, cursing under her breath and making it clear I wasn't wanted.

After that, I had just waited for everyone to get up. We were given the information about no morning classes and then directed here, to the common area and cafeteria, but I hadn't been hungry. I'd split off from the others and come in here to sit and think for a while. That little while had turned into hours.

"Yeah, apparently it was pretty bad." Sean sat down in the easy chair opposite mine, running his fingers back through his hair before resting his face in both hands. "Fuck, just… Heretics dying isn't new, you know? That's a fact of life. But it's usually the younger ones. Once you live long enough to be as old as Pericles was, that's… okay, he wasn't the strongest guy out there. Just being old doesn't make you strong by itself. But this guy was up there. Not the Baroness's level, but probably one of the top three or four Heretics here in the school. And to get taken out like that? It's scary, man. Real fucking scary."

Biting my lip thoughtfully, I nodded. "That environmental seal, that should have told them if there was anyone on the grounds that shouldn't be, right? Especially any mon-err Strangers."

Sean's head bobbed up and down. "Hell yeah. Not just the seal. Half the faculty and some of the students have so many detection spells between them that if a Stranger so much as got within eyesight of the whole island, there'd be alarms ringing all over the place. They've tried. And if the Strangers had a way to get on this island undetected?" He whistled. "They'd do more than kill one teacher."

I unwrapped the first muffin and took a bite, thinking while I ate quietly. After a few more seconds of that, I asked, "What about Eden's Garden? You know, the 'Dark Heretics' or whatever they're called."

"Heard about those guys, huh?" Sean took a moment to pat Vulcan's head, the mechanical dog apparently enjoying it judging from the sounds it was making. Finally, the boy sighed. "They'd be noticed too. Anyone not authorized to be here sets off an alarm. There's no way anyone that isn't faculty or a student could have been on these grounds last night without the teachers knowing about it."

I gave a long sigh. "I was afraid you'd say that. That means that whoever killed Professor Pericles…"

He nodded back at me, finishing the thought. "Had to be a teacher or a student. One of us. That's why everyone's freaked out. Like I said, Heretic dying in the line of duty is normal. Heretic dying here on the grounds of the school when everything else is fine? That's fucked up. Beyond fucked up."

I had finished the first muffin and was halfway through the second before I spoke again. "What about that professor that died last year, the umm, Memon? You know, the one that the headmistress said that Professor Insil… Inliss… Inslick was taking over for. And the other one, the one that's 'recovering'"

"Inisclic," Sean corrected me. "Professor Inisclic is taking over for Memon. My brother had him for a few years. Memon died on vacation over the summer. Heart attack while he was at some anniversary dinner."

"A heart attack," I echoed doubtfully. "What about the other one?" Snapping my fingers as the name came to me, I blurted, "Tangle. Professor Tangle, that was it. What happened to her?"

Brow furrowing a bit, Sean shrugged. "I'm not sure, sorry. I heard about Memon because my brother liked him. I remember hearing something about Tangle and some kind of big shark, but I dunno."

Before I could respond to that, the door to the lounge opened and Columbus entered, accompanied by Shiori and a couple of the students from her team. All four were deep in conversation, but Columbus broke off once he noticed the two of us. After saying something to his sister, he came over, lifting a hand in greeting before taking one of the nearby seats. "Hey." Sighing, the boy slumped in the chair. His uniform was so rumpled I would have guessed that he'd slept in it. "What're we talking about?"

"The rapidly rising teacher casualty rate," I replied a bit darkly. "One injured, two dead in the past few months? Wait, what about that third teacher that the headmistress mentioned? She said there were three new teachers. Inisclic replaced Memon because Memon died. Carfried is 'filling in for' Tangle while she recovers. But she never said why the other new teacher was here. Professor Armstrong, I mean."

Sean's head was shaking. "They just brought Armstrong in to replace Professor Pether after he retired last year. It was a whole big thing. They had a party, everyone signed a card, the works. Ian said they were all sad about it, cuz Pether was around for a long ass time. Then last year he just up and said he was retiring out of the blue. The headmistress tried to convince him to stay, but he said he was done."

Four teachers gone within the past year. One unexpectedly retired, one injured to the point of not being able to come back this year, one died of a heart attack, and the fourth was murdered right on school grounds in the middle of the night, and was left there for anyone to find. Call me paranoid, but I was detecting a certain trend.

Running a hand over his wrinkled blazer, Columbus frowned at me. "What're you thinking?"

Before answering, I pushed myself out of the seat, balling the muffin wrappers into my hand in the process. Then I glanced to the boys. "I think there's something really wrong going on in this school.

"And I'm going to figure out what the hell it is."

At any other school I could think of, the murder of a teacher right on the grounds would have meant that classes were canceled at least for that day. But here at Crossroads, they resumed right after lunch. I supposed that, as unusual as it apparently was for faculty to be killed right here, death was something Heretics lived with every day. It was still a tragedy, but it didn't stop them for long. It couldn't. In the mundane world, taking time off to cope with a loss didn't really affect that much in the long run. Here, it was literal life and death. Not just of the students, but of everyone they were being trained to protect.

I understood that. I got why it was that way. And yet even then, I couldn't help but feel a little sick to be sitting inside a classroom so soon. I had only known Professor Pericles for a couple days. I'd only had a single class with him, and my stomach still rolled at the thought that he was… gone. Dead, I reminded myself harshly. He was dead. There was no sense in beating around the bush about it.

Headmistress Sinclaire had announced during lunch that any student who felt that they were unable to continue classes that day because of the tragedy were excused, and that there would be people available to talk to. But as far as I could tell, no one had taken her up on it. None in my own grade level anyway. Things were probably different among the students who actually knew Professor Pericles better.

Either way, classes were still on, and this particular room looked pretty full. There were four other teams besides ours, leaving thirty students gathered in what looked an awful lot like smaller auditoriums at the zoo where the handler brings out little animals for the audience to either coo over or hiss and squirm at. The floor was cement rather than carpet or wood, with several drains located at strategic sections, and rather than normal desks, several long tables set in a square formation with an opening in one corner leading into the central stage area that the tables were surrounding.

Sitting on my right side, Sands nudged me while leaning in to whisper, "Did you hear about Deveron?"

I shook my head a little, frowning while whispering back to her. "No, what about him?"

Lowering her voice even further, Sands replied, "They said he was one of the last ones to see Professor Pericles." When I shot a look at her, she nodded rapidly. "Yeah, the professor took him aside last night while we were at the beach. He was trying to talk to Deveron about why he's been so… off lately. You know, trying to connect with him. But Deveron wasn't listening and they got into an argument. Deveron shoved him and then walked off. The Runner pulled him out of class to talk to him."

"Wait, Runner?" I echoed, frowning uncertainly. "What Runner?"

"You know, BSR?" Sands replied, looking back at me blankly, like I was the one being confusing.

On the other side of me, Avalon spoke up abruptly without looking at us. "Bow Street Runner. They don't exist in mundane land anymore. Not since they were recruited by the Heretics in the mid-eighteen hundreds." Finally looking toward me, she went on. "First official police force of London. They didn't call themselves Runners back then. That's what the public called them. The Runners thought it was rude or something. But now it's something to be proud of. Being a Runner is a big deal. Means you run down the worst of the worst. They sent a Runner here to find out what happened to Professor Pericles."

"Right…" I hesitated. "It's like being an FBI agent or something. And they sent a Runner here because someone like that being murdered on school grounds is a big deal."

"You think?" She retorted while looking away. Arms folded over her stomach, Avalon went silent just as the doors on the other side of the room opened, admitting the guy that I had thought looked too young to be a teacher. Professor Carfried, the one that was 'filling in' for Professor Tangle.

He came striding in the doors, carrying a thick walking stick over one shoulder and a heavy duffel bag in his other hand. When he spoke up, his voice was about as bright and chipper as I could remember any adult ever sounding, let alone right after a tragedy like the one that had happened that morning. "Good afternoon, class!" He chirped. Yeah, chirped. That was the best word for it. "I know this morning was… awful." Passing right by the tables to enter the central area, the man lowered his voice just a hair, his head dipping in acknowledgment. The bright perkiness was gone, replaced by sincerity. "And if any one of you feel the need to sit out, don't worry. You won't miss anything, because I will work with you later to get you caught up. Do not think that you need to stay for your grades, because you don't. I will make sure that anyone who needs to step out, for a few minutes or for the rest of the period, gets caught up with everything they need to know. Take your time, and if we're going too fast, or if you get overwhelmed, just leave. It's perfectly all right. There are people here to talk with any of you who would like to. They know what they're doing, and they're going to be here all day."

"That said," Straightening up, the young teacher gave a smile that showed his teeth. "We're going to move on. Not because the good professor didn't matter. Hell, he taught me when I went here. You know, a few months ago. We're moving on because that's what we do. We push on, we survive. And if you believe anything, believe this. The coward who murdered Professor Pericles will be found. They will be dealt with. They will brought to justice. Our justice."

Carfried's gaze moved around the room, seeming to take in everyone in turn before he breathed out. "But for now, until that happens, we have to continue our classes." His smile brightened once more. "So, let's learn about magic, shall we?" To punctuate his words, the man tossed the heavy walking stick behind him. It flew a few feet, then seemed to catch in midair, hovering there in the exact center of the room. Slowly, the stick began to turn in a circle, rotating around like the blade of a fan. It gradually spun faster, until the stick was nothing more than a whirling blur of motion that was impossible to track. Then it wasn't just a blur anymore. An image appeared, like a television screen. It showed an apple orchard, the fruit ripe and ready for plucking on the trees.

Cracking his neck to either side, Professor Carfried took a step that way. Rolling up his sleeves, he showed us his bare arms and empty hands before turning so that the whole class could see as he stuck his hand right into the image that had formed from the spinning stick. His arm appeared in the orchard, a part of the view. He plucked one of the apples from the nearest tree, withdrew his hand, and showed us the fruit sitting in his palm. Smiling at the reaction, he took a loud bite from it, chewing in satisfaction before reaching out with his other hand. The image was disrupted by his hand that time, as he snatched the spinning stick out of midair and held it up.

"This is what I will teach you," Carfried announced. "This is the magic of the Heretics. Our magic. It is not simple magic. It is not all fireballs and magic missiles. Heretical magic is not fast. Remember that. Learn it. Know it. Live it. Heretical magic is not fast. You could live for a thousand years and you will never learn magic that will let you point your hand, say a couple words, and throw a lightning bolt at your enemies." Coughing, he added, "Now, you might inherit that ability from a Stranger that you kill, but magic itself will not do it. Because magic is not what, Miss Tamaya?" He looked toward Aylen, the Native American girl that I remembered from Orientation.

"Fast?" She offered after realizing he genuinely wanted an answer.

"Yes," the man smiled and straightened. "It is not fast. Our magic is based around Enchantment. You will never wiggle your fingers, say a couple words, and throw lightning. You can learn to spend hours of time and energy enchanting a stick with a command word that will then produce lightning when that command word is spoken. But even then, it's not an unlimited thing. You put the energy into the object, you train it to perform the action that you want, and trigger it. After the effect takes place, the item can't do it again until you invest your energy and time back into it. The more often a single object is enchanted the exact same way, the easier it becomes for that object to 'learn' the effect that you're teaching it. But even then it still requires time. Minutes rather than hours, perhaps, but in the heat of battle, minutes do not exist."

"A-are you sure that everyone can do it?" Aylen asked, her voice a bit tentative.

Carfried nodded. "You've used the Heretical Edge. You have the connection to the same energy that the Strangers use to come to this world, and you can use that energy for this enchantment magic."

I raised my hand, and when he looked to me, I asked, "But what about magic things that do seem to last forever. Like umm…" Shifting, I pulled the holster for my staff off my belt and held it up, tugging the stick in and out a couple times. "I'm pretty sure no one's sneaking up to refresh this every time I pull it out. Or the shield over the school."

"A very good question, Miss Chambers," Carfried nodded easily. "Indeed, in the case of your weapon sheath, and others that I'm sure many of you have, those are what we call 'passive effects.' An object may be enchanted, by someone of sufficient skill, with a passive effect such as the extra-dimensional storage space that will be permanent. Doing so requires vast amounts of experience and skill. And you cannot make an active effect permanent. No fireballs that last forever, I'm afraid. Again, there are inherited Stranger traits that may mimic what you think of as magic, but true Heretical Magic is based only on Enchantment, and that requires time and energy to create. And as for the shield over the school, that is refreshed every morning and provided power by every faculty member in order to keep it going for another twenty-four hours."

"But doesn't that mean that someone could get through the shield while it was being recharged, if they knew when it was happening?" I asked, frowning in thought.

Carfried's head shook. "I know what you're thinking, Miss Chambers. But it wouldn't work that way. Even if someone somehow managed to time their entrance to the grounds for the split second when the shield went down, it would be up again within a bare handful of seconds. And when it is, the shield runs another scan over every being on the grounds, making sure that both the quantity and the identities of those present match what it was before the previous shield was dropped."

I was silent then, even though more questions about how the shield worked kept popping up in my head. Rather than voice them, I kept the questions to myself. There would be other, more private ways to get the answers I wanted other than blurting out a bunch of demands in the middle of class.

"Now," the young teacher pressed on. "Who's ready to learn how this magic works?" Gazing around the room, he smiled as pretty much every hand was raised. "Fantastic.

"Let's get started."

BREAK

BREAK

"It's not exploding. Are you sure we're doing this right?"

My response to Columbus's question was to lift the leather-bound text book, gesturing to the page that I had been reading from. "According to this thing, yeah. It should be blowing up as soon as we throw it."

Believe it or not, we were doing homework. Magic homework, specifically. It was late that night, about an hour before curfew, and the two of us were standing down on the beach, facing the ocean.

The ocean. The sight of it still made me want to stop and stare at it for hours. I'd never been far from Wyoming before, and now I was standing on the beach of a tropical island, my bare feet wiggling in the damp sand. Columbus had questioned if taking my shoes and socks off was strictly necessary, to which I had pointed to the beach and huffed that of course it was. I wasn't going to visit this pristine beach and not wiggle my toes in it, even if we were doing homework at the time. That would just be weird.

Honestly, I was a little bit surprised that we were allowed to go out onto the beach and away from the supposed safety of the environmental shield over the school grounds. When I'd raised that wonder with Sands earlier, however, she had pointed out that the shield hadn't been any protection for poor Professor Pericles, so forbidding us from leaving it probably wouldn't accomplish much. So, Columbus and I had been free to come down here and work on the assignment that Professor Carfried had given the class.

The goal of this particular homework was to follow the instructions in the book to invest power in a small object that would then explode like a firecracker when it was thrown. We were doing the best we could to do just that, throwing the sticks that we charged down the beach to some empty sand. Yet the sticks were just landing where they fell, with nothing particularly special happening.

"Maybe it's because we're using sticks," Columbus mused before looking at me pointedly. "The assignment said to use rocks. Maybe this spell only works with stone or something."

I shook my head. "I already told you, we are not blowing up Herbie's cousins right in front of him." Gesturing to my little buddy, who sat enjoying the evening air on a nearby bit of driftwood, I then added, "Besides, I asked Professor Carfried about it and he said the sticks would be just fine. It's the spell that matters, not the specific object. It just needs to be something hand-held that we can throw."

"Okay," Columbus stooped to pick up another stick from the pile that we had gathered. "You wanna just run it through for a third time, or try to work out what we're doing wrong?"

Before I could respond, another voice spoke up. "He's throwing it."

Jumping a bit, I turned along with Columbus to find the blonde girl, Vanessa, standing there. She held a book clutched against her chest, and looked uncomfortable to be down here on the beach. Which might have had something to do with the fact that she was still wearing her red-lined school uniform.

Blinking at the sight, I voiced my confusion to her statement with an extremely eloquent, "Huh?"

"You're charging it," she responded after a momentary hesitation. "He's throwing it. It doesn't work that way. The person that charges it has to throw it. It's your energy. He can't just use it himself. I mean, he could, but that's a whole different spell that we haven't learned yet."

"Are you sure?" Columbus asked with a slight frown. "It doesn't say anything about that in the book."

"Look in chapter nine, page eighty-four, third paragraph," Vanessa replied while hugging her own book tighter to her chest. She looked a little embarrassed, but still confident about what she was saying.

After glancing toward Columbus briefly, I shrugged and flipped the pages in the book. "Okay.. page eighty-four, paragraph three." Tracing my finger down the page, I found the spot and read aloud. "Within jointly created spells, objects empowered by each individual must be employed by that same individual. The energy is tied between Heretic and object, and cannot simply be used by another."

Columbus whistled. "How the hell did you know that? That's like, seventy pages away from where we are. You try to do a joint spell too or something and have to look it up? Or is this what happens when you have an actually competent team mentor." He looked to me. "I bet it's the mentor thing."

Clearly embarrassed, Vanessa shrugged uncomfortably. "No, I just… I just wanted to help."

"You did help, thanks," I assured her quickly. "We didn't even think about the whole sharing thing. But did you really read all the way through chapter nine already? We just got the books this morning."

No longer looking at me, the blonde girl just shrugged both shoulders again. "I read fast," she mumbled a little, face pink. "It's no big deal. I just like to read. And I have a good memory."

"You can say that again," Another new voice spoke up as a girl came came down the trail that led from the school to the beach. I belatedly recognized her as Erin Redcliffe, a tall girl with short hair that had been dyed a vivid blue. Unlike the other girl, Erin wore shorts and a crop top to visit the beach. "Do you know how hard it was to drag this girl away from the library? I practically had to threaten to burn the place down if she didn't come out and have some fun." Poking the girl beside her, she added pointedly, "You know I didn't mean come down to the beach and read some more, right?"

From the guilty look on Vanessa's face, it was clear that that was probably exactly what she'd been hoping. She held the book tighter against herself while mumbling, "You wouldn't burn the library."

"Hell no," Erin gave her another poke. "You just needed encouragement, genius girl. Get you out of the library and into some fun once in a while. We're living on an island full of magic! People like me are supposed to be used to it. I thought a Silverstone like you would want to get out and see new things, explore new places. Especially since you're in the Explorer track."

Looking even more guilty at that little reminder, Vanessa's head bobbed. "I know, I know. It's just that the library is familiar. It's comfortable. I like learning things there. It's like I'm learning all this new stuff about… about magic and monsters and everything, but it's still familiar because it's a library."

"I know, I get it." Erin's voice had softened somewhat. "I promise we don't have to stay out here long, okay? I won't even make you change clothes. We'll just go for a walk down the beach, throw some rocks into the ocean, look at some pretty stuff, and then you can come back. That okay, genius?"

While Vanessa nodded, I spoke up to ask, "Why do you keep calling her genius?"

"You mean besides the fact that she just helped you guys out with homework using information a hundred pages beyond where we're supposed to be?" Erin replied before gesturing. "Check it out. Vanessa, see the book she's holding?" She nodded toward my Introduction To Magical Theory And Practice textbook. "What's the first word on page… thirty two?"

Squirming on her feet, Vanessa was silent for about five seconds before she answered, "Desperate."

When Erin gestured to me, I quickly opened the book and scanned through to the page in question. My eyes widened then. "She's right," I said while showing the book to Columbus. "But how did you–"

"Pick two numbers," Erin told me, grinning a little. "Any numbers between one and nine."

"Okay," I thought briefly before answering. "Three and seven."

"Three and seven, got it. You next," Erin informed Columbus."Two numbers. Trust me, it's great."

Looking just as uncertain as I'm sure I did, Columbus provided the numbers of four and two. Erin repeated them, then looked to Vanessa. "Right, Flick there gave the first number of three, Columbus's first number was four. So page thirty-four. Flick's second number was seven. Columbus's was two. So seventy-two. What is the seventy-second word on page thirty-four?"

That time, there was no hesitation before Vanessa answered, "Rowing."

With Erin and Columbus both looking at me, I flipped the pages to the right spot, counting the words carefully to make sure I had the right one. When I saw the word, I stared at it. "She's right. How?"

"I told you, she's a genius," Erin replied. "She remembers like… everything. Everything. She reads it, she sees it, she hears it, she remembers it. She could tell you what she had for breakfast ten years ago."

Columbus whistled. "Damn, that sounds pretty damn useful. Why didn't we get you on our team?"

"Hey, forget about it, buddy." Erin pointed at the boy. "No poaching my awesome roommate."

The two of them moved on to their walk, leaving Columbus and me to continue our homework, the right way this time. The boy looked to me. "Can you imagine having a gift like that?"

I shook my head at that. "I'm not sure it is one…"

Blinking, he asked, "What do you mean, you're not sure."

"I mean, look at the kind of things we're going to see," I pointed out. "Think about the situations they want us to get into. These monsters, the Strangers, they do bad things. They're evil. They kill people in awful, horrible ways. They torture, maim, and… and do worse stuff to innocent people. There's cannibals, Columbus. The stuff they do is kind of soul-crushing just to think about. So, you tell me to look at a girl who might see any of that and never be able to forget it at all, who will always remember everything she sees perfectly, who will always know what it smells like, what the air around it tastes like, who will never, ever forget any of it? I look at her and… I'm not sure it's a gift."

The next morning, I was picking at my cereal absently toward the end of breakfast. I had been slow enough about eating that almost everyone else in the dining hall had already moved on, heading for their first classes. Even most of my team was gone, leaving me with the twins. Eventually, after a couple more swirls of my spoon, Sands gave me a slight poke, asking, "Are you okay?"

Flushing a little, embarrassed that my distraction had been noticed, I nodded. "I'm fine. It's dumb. I just… I miss my dad, that's all. I've never really been away from him for a long time. I guess I didn't really think about it at first because all of this is so new, but… my dad and I have always been really close. Now I can't even tell him where I really am or what I'm doing. I hate lying to him, and I miss talking to him." I swallowed hard, looking away. "I'm just homesick, I guess. Told you it was dumb."

"Hell no, it's not dumb." Sands laid a hand on my shoulder, squeezing firmly. "I don't know how I'd deal with having to spend so much time away from my dad. Ever since Mom disappeared, the three of us have been a team. Dad, Scout, and me. If they tried to separate any of us, I'd be pretty messed up."

I winced, looking at the girl. "Your mom disappeared too?"

"About seven years ago," she confirmed before glancing toward her sister. "Is this okay?" Waiting until Scout gave a very slight nod, she then asked, "Do you wanna take a walk?" That time, Scout hesitated before nodding. She stood up and walked out of the cafeteria, as quiet as ever.

Once her sister was gone, Sands sighed. "Scout was with Mom the day she disappeared. Only she wasn't Scout yet. She was just Sarah. Mom and Sarah took our boat out on the ocean to watch this whale pod that was passing by. That was early in the morning. They wanted me to go, but… uh, I was tired." There was a look of such guilt in Sands' face right then that it was almost painful to see. She looked away from me, paused, and then continued. "They were gone all day. The boat never came back. Eventually Dad and Aunt Virginia—err, Professor Dare went out to look for them. When they came back, Sarah was with them but Mom was gone. They said they found her on the empty boat."

Sands was quiet once more, and I noticed that we were the only ones in the cafeteria. Still, I didn't interrupt. Eventually, she spoke again. "Dad said they couldn't find her at first. They thought the boat was abandoned. He… he called their names, Mom's and Sarah's. There was no answer, but when he called again, he heard someone crying. He found Sarah under the cot, behind the fishing equipment. When he said her name, she started screaming at him. She wouldn't stop screaming. He tried to help her, tried to pull her out from under the cot to find out what was wrong, but she was just… screaming at him every time he said her name. He said 'Sarah, calm down. It's Daddy, it's Daddy, Sarah' and she just cried and screamed even more. Finally, he realized it was her name. Her name was what was upsetting her. So he called her his little scout. That was just a silly little sometimes nickname that he used once in awhile because Sarah was always getting into things, ever since we could walk. Exploring. She was his little scout. So he called her Scout, and she stopped screaming. But she didn't stop crying.

"We umm, we found out later that there was a… a Stranger out there. It took Mom. And it tried to take Sarah. She hid, and this… this monster was walking through the boat, calling her name. It kept saying things like, 'Saaaaraaah, mommy misses you. Come out, Sarah. Mommy wants you. Come out, or Mommy gets hurt.' Then he kept making her hear our mom being… hurt, tortured. Crying. Begging. That monster kept walking through the boat, but he wasn't saying her name anymore. Mom was. She kept calling for Sarah. I… I don't know if it was our real mom or a trick, but it was her voice. She kept calling for Sarah. Sarah, help me. Sarah, don't you love me anymore? Sarah, I'm scared. Sarah, please stop hiding. Sarah, I'm going to die. Sarah, he's going to kill me. Sarah, please, Sarah."

There were tears in Sands' eyes then, and she wiped them away before giving a shudder. "That's why she doesn't use the name Sarah anymore. That's why she's Scout now."

I swallowed hard, staring at her. "I… I'm sorry. I had no idea it was anything like that."

Her head shook. "It's been awhile. I don't usually talk about it. God, I'm not sure why I did this time. It just felt like something you might wanna know. You said your mom left you guys, right?"

"For some guy she pulled over for speeding," I confirmed with a sigh. "Guess all three of us were basically raised by our fathers, huh?"

"I guess so," Sands replied. Then the two of us were quiet, thinking until the bell rang to announce that we were going to be late for class if we didn't hurry. I quickly dumped the cereal bowl and we joined Scout in the corridor. Then the three of us raced to reach the self-defense classroom.

We made it just in time, sprinting into the room a second before the late bell went off. At the front of the room, Katarin gave us a long look before gesturing for us to join our teammates. Then he spoke up. "What are the three greatest strengths that we have as Heretics?"

One of the boys that had grown up around all this stuff raised his hand before answering, "Our collective knowledge gained by those who have come before us, our ability to see through the Strangers' disguises, and our ability to steal the strengths and powers from the ones that we kill."

"Yes," Katarin gave a nod of his head before folding his massive arms over his chest. "It's that last one that we're going to be working with today. If you're going to survive the kind of training that we have to get through this semester, you're all going to have to take a bit of punishment. But we can't have you getting beat up and bruised, then just send you onto the next class. You need a bit of an edge first. That's where this little guy comes in."

Reaching down behind himself, Katarin straightened up with something grasped in his hand. There were several yelps through the room, as well as one muttered, "Fuck, that's disgusting."

Whoever had said that was right. The thing that Katarin was holding looked a bit like a poodle crossed with a cockroach. It had six legs and was covered with a dark brown shell with blotches of fur showing here and there. It was probably only about as long as my forearm, but that's pretty damn big for something as ugly as it was.

"This," Katarin explained in his booming voice, "is a Peridle. Ugly little shit, huh? Don't worry, they're only dangerous in packs. Keep them separated and the things are too stupid to do anything but sit there. They don't attack, they barely move without a swarm leader, and they are almost entirely useless save for one thing. Anyone wanna try to tell me what that is?"

"They regenerate?" Someone else put in.

"Yup." Katarin gave the thing a shake, and it made this ugly little squelching noise that almost brought bile to my mouth. "As long as they're not dead, the damn things heal right up after you hurt them. So one of the first things we do with you new students is have you kill one of these things. That way you get to feel what it's like to absorb a Strangers' power, and we get to beat you up a little harder since you'll get better a lot faster than you would have otherwise. It's a win-win situation."

The other thing it did, I realized, was give us something to kill that didn't look the least bit human. For most of us, dealing with something like this would probably feel more like stomping on a bug than anything else.

"All right then," Katarin boomed. "Separate into your roommate pairs, and then line up. One pair at a time go through that way." He pointed to a door at the back of the room before reiterating. "One pair through at a time. You'll find two of these buggers waiting for you. Kill them, watch your partner kill theirs, then come back out here. Shouldn't take any of you longer than a minute."

Looking to Avalon, I smiled. "Guess we're squashing some bugs, huh?" Her response was a shrug.

We lined up, and one pair at a time passed through the doors. Professor Katarin stood right in the doorway, watching everything that happened. I heard a lot of screams of disgust every time one of the creatures was killed, and the awful stench that kept wafting back wasn't making me any more eager to go in there. After each session, Katarin went into the room and spoke with the students who had just finished before sending them out. Then he took the time to clean it up a bit and put two more of the creatures into place before sending the next pair of students in. That continued onward, with each student that came out afterward looking dazed but fairly happy, and extremely energetic. They all gathered on the opposite side of the room, comparing stories and generally chatting quite enthusiastically. Whatever else killing one of those things did, it also seemed to give a jolt of energy, making everyone that came out seem almost hyper.

Eventually, it was our team's turn, and Avalon and I were the first pair up out of the group. Without looking at me, my roommate strode past Katarin and into the room. I followed after her, tugging the cap off my belt sheathe before drawing the staff up and out, still a bit awkward with it.

Right, I could kill a little ugly poodle cockroach thing, couldn't I? It shouldn't be that big of a deal. Half the class had done so without any real problem so far.

The room smelled worse on the inside than it had on the outside. I gagged a little before taking in the sight. Sure enough, there were two of the damn things sitting a little bit apart from each other on a hard wooden floor. The walls were blank white, and there was bits of blood and bug-poodle body parts lying around that Katarin hadn't quite gotten to.

Killing bugs, killing bugs, it was just killing bugs. I could do this. Gripping my staff in my hand, I took a step forward.

Then I stopped. "Uh, wait, why are there three of them?" I was looking at the third Peridle, sitting a short distance away from the one that I had been heading for. "Professor, why is the–" Turning that way, I blinked at the sight of the closed door. "What the…"

There was a sudden pounding noise at the door. Professor Katarin's voice bellowed, "Open this door right now!"

I had just taken a step back that way when Avalon caught my shoulder. "Chambers!" Jerking me around, she pointed. "Look." Her voice was dark.

Turning my head the way she was staring, I saw the literal writing on the wall. Someone had spray painted a message over the far wall that I swore hadn't been there a few seconds ago. It read, 'Eden's Garden Whore Doesn't Belong Here. If Headmistress Mommy Won't Get Rid Of You, We Will.'

Avalon's jaw was clenched, and I could feel the anger radiating out from her. Before she could say anything, however, a noise drew my attention. Blinking up, I stared for a moment before what I was seeing made any sense. Then I gulped. "Ummm…. Avalon?" Tugging her arm, I pointed.

She looked up as well, and cursed. "That's a lot of bugs."

She was right. The ceiling was literally covered in those damn Peridles. The ones that were harmless as long as they weren't in a swarm. Yeah, a swarm like the one crawling around on the ceiling right above us.

A whimper escaped me before I whispered, "Okay, okay. We just go to the door, and–"

That was as far as I got before every head of those ugly bugs turned our way. With a collective screech, the ceiling itself seemed to collapse as they launched themselves straight for us.

BREAK

BREAK

If I had been alone in that moment, I probably would have been killed immediately. Standing there flatfooted and with next to zero actual combat experience, all I could do was start to shriek in terror as those dark, evil shapes dropped from the ceiling and plummeted toward me.

But I wasn't alone. In mid-scream, I felt a hand grab my arm. Avalon's voice blurted, "Move, idiot!" Then she hauled me away from that spot with a yank that sent me stumbling backwards. An instant later, one of the cockroach-poodles hit the floor where I had been, making a screeing noise of anger.

That single peridle was joined almost immediately by several others, all crawling over each other to get at us. One crawled on top of another and launched itself off of its body, shell opening up to reveal pitiful little wings that it used to propel itself up and forward, its pincer-like mouth opening as it came.

The awful thing was met in mid-air by a glowing, humming blade of energy that neatly bisected the ugly monster, sending bits of foul-smelling goo splattering everywhere. Avalon stood there, arm raised with the lightsaber-like blade extended outward from one of her gauntlets. She'd barely moved.

As I watched, the other girl's skin began to glow with a pale green light. The glow surrounded her for a brief second before fading, and I saw her give a visible shudder as a murmur of what sounded suspiciously like genuine pleasure escaped her. A second later, she regained focus and remarked to the monstrous bugs who were currently reevaluating their options. "Yeah, this prey has teeth, fuckers."

While the peridles were busy regrouping, she spoke to me without taking her eyes off of them or lowering her guard. "You have a weapon. Use it. I'll keep as many as I can off you, but you're going to have to do some of it yourself. Don't fucking panic and don't let them draw you out. Your staff has range to it. Use the power it has to knock them away when they start crowding you too much, but don't waste it on a single one. Wait for a group. If you need to, use it to get away. Keep your head up, keep turning so they can't hit you from behind, and for the love of Gabriel, don't fucking panic."

I swallowed, tightening my grip on the staff that I actually had forgotten. "You said don't panic twice."

"It bears repeating," she retorted sharply. "Don't fucking panic. I will help you when I can, but some of it you're going to have to deal with yourself. Try to kill one right away to get its regeneration."

By that point, the peridles had decided that waiting was no longer in their best interests. Spread out as they were, they came charging straight in, mandibles clacking in an almost deafening cacophony.

This time, rather than stand there and wait, Avalon rushed forward to meet them. Three steps and she leapt upward. Her arms pointed toward the floor, and a pair of solid-light hammer shapes slammed into the ground, smashing two of the bug-things beneath them before shoving upward to propel her higher.

She flew in an extended leap, spinning in the air. The hammers disappeared, replaced immediately by a long blade from her right hand and some kind of grasping claw-shape from her left. As she twisted, the blade cut through two more of the creatures, and the claw caught a third one in mid-leap toward me. She yanked it backwards, crushing the thing in the grip of the claw before tossing the remains.

Landing on one knee in the middle of the crowd of monster bugs. One leapt at her, but the energy claw instantly reshaped itself into a sturdy shield. Catching the bug on the shield while she remained crouching, I saw Avalon smirk briefly just before a half dozen energy spikes sprouted from the shield, impaling the creature before it could abandon its perch. Immediately afterward, before I had even registered the next bug's movement, she flipped herself up and around in a weird little sideways twist, planting one of her feet solidly in the face of another creature's attempt to jump at her. The thing fell onto its back, screeing in panic for a moment just before Avalon landed on her feet and dispatched it with a contemptuous swipe of a blade from one hand. Its screams died with it.

That glow came back then, brighter and more noticeable this time as my roommate was rewarded with the power from all the peridles she had just destroyed. Barely a handful of seconds had passed.

Without seeming to even glance in my direction (which would have provided her with a good look at my expression of utter amazement), the other girl blurted, "Behind you, damn it, pay attention!"

Remembering belatedly that this was not some badass TV show, I spun around in time to see a solitary bug-monster scrambling toward me. Clearly it had decided to seek easier prey. Much easier in my case.

Right, I could do this. With what was supposed to be a powerful bellow but clearly sounded more like the yipping of a puppy, I held the staff at one end and brought the other end down as hard as I could like a hammer, straight toward the charging thing. To my credit, I managed to keep my eyes open.

Unfortunately, keeping my eyes open just meant that I could see the thing neatly sidestep my utterly amateurish blow. It kept coming, barely dignifying my effort with a single (probably mocking) screech.

At the last second, I managed to lash out with one hand. My fist made contact with the side of the gross thing's mandibles, and I had a brief flashback to what the lobster had felt like the one time Dad and I had splurged on real sea food. Or as close as Wyoming ever got to the stuff, anyway. The bug was knocked very slightly aside so that its lunge missed me as it landed just to the side. Unfortunately, the pain in my hand made it pretty clear that I'd done more damage to myself than to the monster.

Worse, the thing was still coming. It spun sideways, lashing out at me with a scream of anger. It was met in turn with my own scream of terror as I threw myself backwards away from its lunge, swiping down at the thing with my staff as if it was a rat that I was trying to shoo away with a broom.

Meanwhile, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of Avalon as the other girl flipped over one of the charging bugs, landed on its shell to bring it to the floor with a solid crunch, then spun into a kick that knocked another of the things aside before simultaneously stabbing downward and sideways with both hands to impale both of them on her energy blades. Retracting both, she hopped off the dead bug, tossed her hair a bit to get it out of her eyes, and regarded the remainder for a brief moment while her body glowed once more with the influx of power that she was absorbing from their dead bodies. Once it was done, she raised one hand, turned her palm up, and beckoned for them to come at her again.

I, on the other hand, was barely managing to keep this single peridle away from me. It snapped at my staff a couple times, but couldn't actually damage it. I was afraid, however, that if it got a decent grip on the thing, it would be able to tear the weapon out of my grasp. So I kept swatting at the ugly monster from either side, doing my best to hurt it while feeling like the complete amateur that I was.

I'm not sure what made me glance behind myself just then, whether simple luck, some kind of sixth sense, or remembering Avalon's warning not to let myself get too distracted. Whatever it was, my quick turn and glance revealed a second bug skittering along the wall that I was rapidly backing myself up to. The two of them were working together to pin me in a trap between them, at which point I had no delusions about my ability to keep them both off of me. I had to do something beyond waving this staff like the panicked old woman with a broom in one of those old Tom and Jerry cartoons. I was supposed to be a fighter, a warrior, but so far I had done nothing but gape at my utter badass at a roommate. Which, to be fair, she kind of deserved because god damn. Still, I may have been new to all this, but damn it, I had to contribute. Or at least not die pathetically flailing at two of them while Avalon tore her way through dozens. I needed to stop panicking, think about what I could do, and defend myself.

With that thought, I pulled the staff back and twisted perpendicular to my previous position while taking a quick hop backwards to give myself some distance. The move put both of the bugs in front of me. They were on opposite sides, of course, but at least I could see both of them at the same time.

Rather than randomly lash out with the staff again, I held it close and adjusted my grip so that both of my hands were spread equally apart from the middle. With one finger, I pressed the part of the staff that made it begin to charge with kinetic energy. The black ends of the staff began to glow with that blue energy. Then I waited, warning myself to be patient while trying to ignore the pain in one hand that had come from punching the first creature previously. The pain and my own fear kept trying to overwhelm me, but I forced it back and kept my gaze centered.

The two bugs slowed their approach as it became clear that I wasn't flailing wildly anymore. I could almost hear their thought processes (if such existed) while they reevaluated the situation. The one on the wall made a loud, ugly scree noise once more, clearly trying to grab my attention. At the same time, the other one used its wings to propel itself up and forward in a violent charge to take me off guard.

This time, however, I was ready. Rather than panic, I stood my ground until the thing was well within range. Then I brought the staff up in as vicious a blow as I could manage, twisting my hips so that my weight was thrown into it. The ugly monster's face was snapped sideways as the staff slammed into it with enough force to send it flying sideways into the wall with a horrible scream.

Oh wait, that was me. I was the one screaming. Right, so maybe not totally professional and cool.

The peridle hit the wall and dropped to the floor, dazed briefly. Before it could recover, I used one foot to somewhat awkwardly kick it onto its back. Then I grasped the staff in both hands near the top and swung it down has hard as I could into the thing's exposed underside. It screamed (and this time it really was the monster instead of me), its legs kicking frantically. I repeated the motion again, hitting the thing even harder. That time, I felt something in that soft underbelly crack. A third blow, even stronger than the first two, silenced its terrible, nightmare-inducing screams. It was dead.

The exultation that I felt in that moment was a truly physical sensation. It swept over me, a tingle that blossomed into the kind of pleasure that felt almost embarrassingly wonderful. Hoooly crapcakes that felt incredible. A surprised gasp escaped me, and my skin gave off a similar glow to the one that I had seen on Avalon. Mine, however, was a rich gold color rather than green. It felt absolutely amazing, and for a second I almost forgot that there was another bug to deal with. Finally, at the last second I heard the warning shouted by my roommate from somewhere off in the distance. Realizing almost too late what it meant, I threw myself to the side to avoid the bug's leap. Still, its mandibles caught on my arm a bit, and I felt more pain shoot through my bicep, making me almost drop the staff as I stumbled.

The bug hit the floor and pivoted back toward me, but I was already reacting. Pointing the staff at the wall behind myself, I quickly triggered the button that would deposit a kinetic-mine there. Then I focused on the remaining bug. "You want me, asshole?" I blurted, hyping myself up. "Come on!"

With a loud screech, the thing took the bait. It leapt straight up and at me. Just before it would have connected, I dropped into a roll, throwing myself away from the thing. There was a loud explosion of air, accompanied by a disgusting splat as the bug hit the force bomb I had left behind. Pieces of it rained down around me, and I nearly retched at the smell. It was awful.

A second later, I was distracted from the scent as that same incredibly pleasurable feeling washed over me. God, was that going to happen every time we killed one of these things? It was a bit distracting.

And the hand that I had smacked against the first bug didn't hurt anymore, I realized. The pain there was gone, and there was no bruise or mark where it had been. When I looked at my arm where the second bug had cut me, the bleeding had stopped. It still ached a little bit, but was already improving.

I was alive. I was alive! Two of the bugs were dead because of me. I had killed them. For a second, I let myself feel the amazement at the thought of what I had accomplished. It felt… even better than getting Calvin, my old boss at the theater, arrested for his drug schemes had. Those things had been trying to kill and probably eat me. I had survived. I had killed them. I was… I was a…

"Dumbass!" A shout from Avalon interrupted just before the girl landed near me, stabbing downward to impale the bug that had been coming up on my side. Before she had even withdrawn the energy blade from its corpse, she gave me a smack with her other hand. "I told you to pay attention! Stop patting yourself on the back before you get yourself fucking–"

Yelping at the sight of yet another one of the damn peridles charging in while my roommate was berating me, I brought the staff up, triggering the last of the energy that I had stored up while swinging the weapon straight at the ugly little monster. The blow connected solidly with its body, and the release of the kinetic charge made the thing literally explode, spraying both of us with bits of poodle-roach. Our clothes, hair, and faces were completely drenched in this foul smelling stuff. It was like hitting a pinata full of toxic sewage while standing directly beneath it. It was all I could do not to throw up, which would have just added to the level of utterly disgusting.

Somehow, the fact that I was immediately filled with that sense of briefly blinding pleasure after killing the bug made the whole thing worse. "Ugggnn… sorry." I muttered, opening my eyes with a wince. I expected to see Avalon glaring hatefully at me for getting bug-innards all over her.

Instead, she just shook her head, knocking some of the gunk away. Then she spat twice. Her nose crinkled up in disgust, but instead of blaming me, she mumbled, "Not gonna chew you out for killing the fucking bug, Chambers. It was the right thing to do."

The two of us exchanged looks for a second, covered as we were. Then we turned to face the rest of the bugs. So far, between the two of us, we had managed to kill dozens of them (Avalon being responsible for roughly ninety-eight percent of that). However, the room still seemed to be just as filled as it was before, if not even more so.

"There," Avalon muttered, nodding toward some kind of circle that had been drawn on the ceiling. "That's a summoning circle. It's transporting them here. They'll just keep coming."

"How do we…" I panted a little. "… get rid of it?"

She grimaced, hesitating before admitting, "I… don't know."

By then, the swarm of ugly bugs had regrouped and were approaching a bit more cautiously, spreading out to avoid giving us any more openings. They had learned from the deaths of the others, and I had no doubt that they realized I was the weak link. For all that we (Avalon) had done, there was still too many of them. We were going to be overwhelmed.

In the next second, there was a loud crash from the opposite side of the room. The door was literally blown off its hinges, and I saw both Professor Katarin and Professor Dare practically fly into the room. Both acted quickly. Katarin focused on the summoning circle, producing a long chain that he whipped around once before throwing toward the spot on the ceiling. The tossed chain stuck itself into place over the lines of the circle, and then began to glow red while smoke billowed out of it.

At the same time, Professor Dare drew her sword. Standing there, she raised one gloved hand and swept it around the room. As she did so, I saw a bit of the floor or wall underneath each of the scattered peridles shimmer somewhat, almost like the surface of a lake.

That done, Professor Dare flipped her sword around and dropped to one knee while driving the blade into another of the shimmering spots directly in front of her. As she did so, the blade disappeared into that spot before simultaneously emerging from each and every other shimmer spot that she had created. All of the remaining bugs were killed instantly, and the summoning circle had been destroyed.

And just like that, in the span of a handful of seconds since they had entered the room, it was done. The fight was over, and I had survived my first true conflict with the Strangers.

I really hoped they didn't all smell this bad.

BREAK

BREAK

A couple of hours after what had ended up being my first actual fight, I was sitting in a small room in front of a simple wooden table. I had been escorted here by a stone-faced Wyatt Rendell (the overzealous security guard) after taking a shower to clean off the bug-poodle gunk. He told me not to leave the room, but wait for the investigating Runners to come chat with me about what had happened.

I was alive. I had survived that swarm of… of monsters. In spite of everything that had happened, I didn't feel tired at all. In fact, I kind of wanted to go out and run some laps. My legs wouldn't stop bouncing up and down, and my hands kept shaking. I needed to get up. I needed to move around.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a door opening, followed by a slight exhale of breath that sounded almost surprised. "Oh, you… you're really…"

Looking up from a close examination of my hands, I regarded the man who was talking. He was very tall and almost dangerously thin, an ill-fitting green suit loosely draped over his nearly skeletal figure. His eyes were covered by emerald-tinted sunglasses, and his rust colored hair was cut short. He was staring at me as though I was something fascinating to see. "Umm, am I in the right room?"

Seeming to recover from his initial reaction, the man gave a quick nod. "Yes, my apologies. It's just that–" he trailed off, then seemed to shake himself. "It's nothing. My mind is just elsewhere, I'm afraid. Memories that are best forgotten." Taking in a long breath, he let it out before giving me a nod. "Now then, good afternoon, Felicity. I trust you're feeling a little bit better now that you've cleaned up?"

"It's Flick," I informed the man automatically. "I don't… really go by Felicity anymore." Even as I spoke, I couldn't stop picturing his expression as he'd stood in that doorway before getting himself under control. That hadn't been the look of someone who was thinking about something else. It had been the look of someone who was reminded of something traumatic and painful because of what they were looking at. Or who they were looking at, in this case. But why? What did he mean by 'memories that were best forgotten'? And why would just looking at me make one of the Heretic super-detectives falter and stare like that? I was positive I'd never met the man, unless there were some memory shenanigans involved. Which, to be fair, I probably shouldn't rule out completely.

Was it possible? Did I have prior interaction with the Heretics that had been erased from my mind? It wasn't exactly impossible to believe, considering everything else that they were capable of. The look of instant familiarity on this guy's face when he had seen me was just too blatant to completely ignore.

"Flick then," he nodded in agreement, interrupting my thoughts. "My name is Runner Tribald Kine. Do you mind if I sit?" He indicated the chair across the table from me while arching one thin eyebrow.

I shrugged. "Sure, I mean, it's not my chair. I'm not even sure where in the school I am." Frowning slightly at a sudden thought of portals, I added, "I am still in the school, right?" The maze of corridors that Wyatt had practically dragged me through had been pretty confusing and disorienting even before magic was added into the equation. I really couldn't rule out the idea that I had been taken elsewhere.

Tribald tugged the chair out and settled himself into it while nodding. "Yes, you are definitely still in school. No need to worry. Not even the bravest Runner would risk taking one of the Baroness's students off school grounds without her express permission." He seemed to shudder at the very thought.

"Is Avalon okay?" I asked, watching the man's reaction. "Those things were after her, you know. You read the message that whoever did it left on the wall? What if they come after her again?"

The man's thin, hawkish face softened slightly as he nodded. "Don't you worry, Avalon is in good hands. She might not fully enjoy the experience, but she is perfectly safe, I promise."

In spite of his assurance, I frowned. "What do you mean she might not enjoy the experience?"

In answer, the man let out a long, low sigh, taking a moment to examine the cuff of his ugly lime colored suit jacket before responding. "Felic—Flick, how much do you know about your roommate?"

I froze briefly at the question, biting my lip as I considered my answer. Finally, I spoke carefully. "Probably more than she wants me to, but not enough to start making a bunch of judgments about it."

Tribald smiled a little thinly. "Good answer. It's not really my place to get into specifics. However, there are reasons that one might think that Avalon knows more than she's telling about this situation. My partner is discussing this possibility with her, and I am fairly certain that it's not going well."

My eyes widened, and I blurted, "What? You guys are going after her for this? But she was the–"

The man raised both hands placatingly. "Easy, easy. No. We don't think she's responsible for what happened. We do think that she might know more than she's telling us about who is responsible for it. Call it a… misplaced desire to take care of the situation herself. We think she has an enemy that is targeting her, and that she thinks it's something she has to deal with personally. My partner is trying to convince her to tell us everything she actually knows so that we can settle this situation."

Breathing out, I shook my head. "She's not going to react well to anything you say to her." I'd only known her for a couple days and even I realized that much. "Your partner is wasting his time."

"Her time," the man corrected. "And I wouldn't be that surprised. Still, we do have procedures to follow." For a moment, he just looked at me as though considering something. When he finally spoke, his tone was curious. "Would you consider Avalon a friend at this point, someone you can trust?"

I paused, shifting in my seat while I considered his question. "That's two different questions, sir. Would I consider her a friend? She's not exactly friendly. I don't think she has any interest in making any 'friends' as far as that goes. And the other question, do I trust her? She saved my life in there. I'm here now because of her, because she helped me and kept me calm. So are we friends? I hope we can be someday, but we're not really friends the way you'd define it. Not yet. But yes, I do trust her."

For a few long seconds, Tribald said nothing. He simply watched me, seeming to memorize my expression before giving a final nod. "Understood. Now, why don't you walk me through exactly what happened, from the moment you walked into the room. Step by step, no detail is too small. You've wanted to be a reporter, right? Pretend I'm paying you by the word, and bury me in minutiae."

Blinking at that, I straightened in the seat while asking, "How did you know I wanted to be a reporter?"

The man simply smiled faintly at me. "You'll find that the Bow Street Runners do our homework, Flick. We rarely walk into an interview without finding out everything we can about the person involved. But in this case, it wasn't hard to find. It was one the primary notes in your school record."

Perfect. My minor attempt at fishing had yielded results. I hadn't been absolutely sure that this guy had seen my personal school file, but now that I knew he had, I might be able to use it.

Sure, part of me felt bad about manipulating the guy into revealing that much. But hey, these guys had apparently spent years vetting me and digging into my personal life before eventually making the decision to let me into the school. It was only fair that I get to do a little digging of my own into my situation to find out why it had taken a tie breaking vote from the Headmistress to actually admit me.

To that end, I looked up at the man. "Can I ask you a question then, Mister… err… detective… uh?"

Chuckling, he supplied, "Runner. Runner Kine, or just Tribald is good. And what sort of question?"

"You saw my file." Shifting in my seat, I watched his reaction while asking, "Was there anything in it that might explain why half the people who make the decisions didn't want to let me into the school, or why the headmistress had to break that particular tie? I know it's not a normal thing, because I was the only one that was so late. Everyone else, even the other, uh, Silverstones like me were here earlier."

For a few seconds, the man said nothing. He simply watched me in silence before shifting in his seat. His voice was careful. "If I decline to answer your question, are you going to decline to answer mine?"

I gaped at the very insinuation, blurting, "No! Hell no, of course not! Someone out there tried to kill me and my roommate. They're probably connected to the death of Professor Pericles too! I don't—I'm not—I'd never do that! I'd never obstruct your investigation. I just… I just wanted to know before we started talking about what happened. I just… I know there's something that people aren't telling me."

There was something he wasn't telling me too. That look of recognition that he'd given me combined with the knowledge that something had nearly convinced the school not to let me in made me entirely too curious to ignore. But rather than flat out ask the man about his earlier slip, I masked it with the question about my record as soon as he confirmed that he'd actually read it. Kind of manipulative to be perfectly fair, but I couldn't just let it go. I needed to understand what was going on.

Tribald looked uncertain, a troubled expression crossing his face briefly. "I'm afraid there isn't much that I can tell you right now, Feli—Flick. It's not something that I'm allowed to do." Before I could protest, he pressed on. "The one thing I can say is that you might find one of the answers that you're looking for in the Athletic Accolades hall on the second floor of this facility. But I wasn't the one who directed you there."

I wanted to ask more, but realized that pushing would be a bad idea. Instead, I bowed my head gratefully. "Thank you, sir."

"Don't thank me," the man insisted, his face even more troubled. "Like I said, I wasn't the one who told you to look there. Got it? If it comes down to it, you were just exploring. Is that understood?"

My head bobbed up and down quickly. "Yes, sir. Just exploring." What was it? What could be so important and dangerous for me to find on the second floor of the building that he didn't want anyone to know that he'd sent me that way?

With effort, I shook off the thought and focused. "You want to know what happened today? We waited in line for our turn like everyone else. None of the other groups had any kind of problem. It all seemed to be going fine. Avalon and I walked in, and I was going to uhh, you know, kill one of the bugs. But then I noticed there were three of them instead of two, and the door was shut…."

"Avalon, wait up!"

I jogged to catch up with the figure walking down the hall ahead of me. I'd come out of the interview with Runner Kine and spotted my roommate heading out. Obviously she had just finished as well.

The sigh that escaped the other girl was audible even from a dozen feet away. She turned as I approached, watching for a second before spreading her arms wide. "Go ahead. Take your best shot."

Blinking, I slowed down and shook my head. "What do you mean?"

Avalon kept her arms spread wide. "What do you wanna say, Chambers? Fuck me for almost getting you killed? You want a new roommate, one that isn't gonna get you in so much trouble, or might actually be nice to you? One you can giggle and tell stories with all night long? Here's your chance. Tell me what a fucking bitch I am and then go get yourself a new roommate. No one would blame you. No one could object to you switching rooms, not now. Not after all that. So do what you've gotta do."

"I don't want a new roommate," I replied carefully but firmly. "I like the one I've got just fine. What happened back there wasn't your fault. Someone tried to kill you. And why the hell would I want to get rid of you? You kicked ass. I would've been dead without you. You're the only reason I survived that.

"I'm the only reason that situation existed to begin with," she shot back. "And you know it."

"Maybe if we were training to be something simple and safe, like pharmaceutical reps, that might actually be relevant," I pointed out. "But we're not. We're training to do lots of very dangerous stuff. I'd rather have a roommate who gets into dangerous situations and knows how to survive them than one who doesn't and can't. You're a badass, Avalon. I don't want a new roommate. I want the one that I've got to teach me to be at least half as badass as she is."

Her laugh sounded incredulous. "You want me to what?" She demanded flatly.

"Teach me," I repeated. "Train me. You feel like you've got something to make up for just because I'm your roommate and they're targeting you? Then teach me how to take care of myself."

"You're already learning that from Katarin," Avalon pointed out, folding her arms over her stomach while regarding me with apparent disbelief that I would suggest such a thing.

"Yeah, we all are," I agreed. "But you're leagues ahead of the rest of us. I saw the things you were doing in there. Like I said, you're the only reason I'm alive right now. I want you to teach me some of that. Outside of classes. I want you to work with me in the mornings, help me learn to do the kind of stuff you can do. Kick my ass, whip me into shape. I need it. I want to learn. I want to earn it."

The dark-haired girl said nothing for a few long seconds. She just stood there, staring at me before shaking her head. "You're gonna change your mind. You have no idea what you're getting yourself into. I'll be too rough and you'll go crying to the nearest teacher."

"Maybe," I nodded rather than argue. "And then you can rub it in my face. But right now, I'm the one asking you to be rough with me, and you're the one backing down."

Again, she was quiet before heaving a long sigh. "I'm going to regret this. But fine, Chambers. If you're that desperate for someone to kick your ass, I'll wake you up in the morning. You better be ready, because I am not going to take it easy on you."

"Good," I replied. "Because I'm pretty sure whoever sent those bugs into the school isn't going to either."

With that settled, I then asked, "Do you know where the Athletic Accolades hall is? It's supposed to be on the second floor, but uhh, this building is pretty huge."

For a second, I wasn't sure she was going to answer. Then the girl just shrugged and turned on her heel. "Fine, I'll show you. Just come on."

I trailed after Avalon, and the two of us went down the stairs and through another confusing maze of corridors. We passed several classrooms full of students, all without talking at all. She seemed more comfortable with silence, and I didn't want to push any harder than I already had.

Finally, the girl stopped in a doorway and lifted her hand to indicate a long, curved corridor full of trophy cases. "You looking for anything in particular?"

Shaking my head, I walked past her and started turning in a circle. The cases were full of awards. There were the kind of trophies, medals, and ribbons that I was accustomed to, and there were also other kinds, mostly involving weapons. I saw a dagger with a bone handle resting on a plaque that read, 'Sanjay Rahaln: Serpopard Slayer' and a golden mace with the name Connor Paulson attached to it,along with what looked like the dates he attended the school. It was forty years earlier.

Everywhere I looked, there were more awards. "I'm not sure," I admitted. "I just need to look around and…" I stopped talking abruptly, looking past the girl.

"What?" She frowned, realized I wasn't looking at her, and turned around. "What the hell are you staring at?"

"That," I informed her, nodding to an ancient looking black and white photograph.

Focusing on it, Avalon shook her head. "So? It's just some old picture. Says…" She leaned closer to read the inscription. "Graduating class of 1922."

"1922?" I echoed, surprised I could actually find my voice. "That… that long ago?"

"Yeah," she replied, still squinting at me. "That's what it says. Why? What's the big deal?"

"The big deal," I answered while reaching past her to set my finger against one person in the old photograph in particular. "Is that I happen to know that student.

"That's my mother."

BREAK

BREAK

A NOTE

Okay, here's the last chapter for today! Tomorrow we start the normal schedule

July 2nd, 1803

"Higher, papa! I wanna go higher!"

The plea was followed by a loud squeal of happiness as Asenath's father gave the rope she was clinging to a mighty shove, sending the eight-year-old girl swinging nearly to the top of the tree that the sturdy line hung from. It took barely a fraction of the man's strength to propel her that far, while the tree's slight groan of protest at the force was masked beneath the exhilarated cry of pure childish glee.

"Again, again, again!" Joyfully, the girl pled for another swing, and was rewarded with one more solid shove that sent her even higher. This time, however, the branch made its objections to the force known in the most dramatic way possible. It snapped off the tall tree entirely with a near-deafening crack.

Asenath's happy cry turned into one of fear as she lost her grip on the rope and went flying through the air, her small body tumbling haphazardly end over end. She arced up and over several bushes before dropping toward the rocky ground that marked the very edge of her family's property.

Before she could crash down, however, there was a blur of motion so fast that it was almost impossible to follow. Her father appeared directly beneath the girl, catching her easily in his strong arms, absorbing the impact without harm by pulling his child to his chest and taking a single step back.

Upon realizing that she hadn't splattered against the rocks after all, Asenath brightened and wrapped her arms around her father's neck in a tight, clinging hug. "Papa! You're fast, Papa."

Smiling, the man called Tiras went down to one knee while setting his child on her feet. Then he leaned back to examine her. His daughter's features were a clear mix of races. Most prominent was her mother's Chinese heritage, though a bit of his own face could be seen as well.

His own face. Most would have said that the man who called himself Tiras hailed from the Cherokee tribes, whose lands were only a week or so ride away. That assumption, however, would have been utterly wrong. Tiras had been born much further away than most would ever come close to imagining.

Tiras was not human. His birthplace lay in another realm, another world entirely removed from this one. To those in this world, he would have been considered a monster. And perhaps he was, in a way. His strength, speed, and other gifts were far from ordinary to the inhabitants of this quaint society.

But by far his most monstrous feature was the man's incredible hunger, his undeniable need for one thing: the blood of the inhabitants of this world that he had found himself living among.

Upon the world that Tiras had been born, his people were a race of warriors known as the Akharu. One of four separate intelligent races that warred constantly for the meager scraps of resources that their world retained, the Akharu managed to claim the throne of the world, an act that granted them relative immortality. They would not die naturally, and an unnatural death could only be achieved through extremely rigorous actions, usually requiring the complete dismemberment and disintegration of their body. Most wounds would heal extremely quickly, and their other powers grew exponentially.

It should have meant the end to eons of battles as the Akharu established dominion over their rival races. Unfortunately, not all of those races were content to allow the Akharu to win so easily. Another race, the Vestil, pooled their impressive magic in one last desperate bid toward victory. Their efforts could not undo the power that Tiras's people had gained, but they could force a curse upon their hated rivals. This curse poisoned the blood of the Akharu. As killing them with such a curse was impossible, this poisoned blood simply paralyzed their bodies, leaving them awake and aware, but incapable of acting. They would be trapped that way, helpless to defend themselves.

As the curse spread like wildfire through their people, the Akharu had searched desperately for a cure. Eventually, they had found at least a stop-gap measure. Partaking of the blood from other creatures actually seemed to dilute their own poisoned blood, sparing them from being paralyzed and trapped. It was not a perfect solution, as the new blood would slowly become tainted by the poison, requiring them to take in a fresh batch on a regular basis in order to avoid falling victim to the Vestil's curse.

Many of the Akharu had left their world, searching for answers and a permanent cure. Tiras had been among those explorers. His search had brought him, like many of his fellow warriors, to this small world. There, they had discovered that they could create more of their own kind from the humans of this place by feeding them their cursed blood within a short period before they died.

There was, however, a weakness to these hybrids. Somehow, the act of becoming half-Akharu left their bodies incredibly sensitive to sunlight. While Tiras and his fellow full-Akharu were perfectly fine within its rays, the altered humans they created would burn very quickly if exposed to it.

Some saw this as a way to create enough reinforcements to storm their own world, defeat the Vestil, and force them to create a permanent cure for the curse. Others, like Tiras himself, saw it as a sign that they did not need to fight such a war any longer. Their world was broken and ugly, destroyed by millennia of war. This planet was pure, nearly untouched. And they were compatible with its inhabitants. They could live here in relative peace, retiring from their very long struggle.

Some of the Akharu, Tiras included, did just that. They attempted to live normal lives, feeding when necessary either from animals or those who were considered evil. Others sought to achieve their initial goal of turning enough of the humans to create an army, while still more simply tried to carve out their own kingdoms, terrifying and enslaving the local populace.

Sadly, the retirement and peaceful life that Tiras and those like him had chosen was not to be. The Heretics, humans of this world who could see the Akharu (and other creatures who had found this world) for what they truly were did not care to make distinctions between those who killed and those who lived peacefully. They hunted down all of what they called vampires, and a steady war had been fought for centuries, a war that Tiras had been avoiding as much as possible by moving constantly.

Twelve years earlier, Tiras's lonely journey across these lands had brought him to a hospital in what the humans called New York City. There, he had found himself drawn to a Chinese woman named Jiao who lay curled up in one of the beds. The illness she suffered from was beyond what the doctors of this place were capable of healing. They had done all they could by making the poor woman as comfortable as possible, and then simply waited for her to inevitably pass away.

Still, Jiao tried to speak with the man who stood in the doorway of her room. And Tiras had found himself sitting next to her. They spoke, and, over a very short time, he came to care for the human woman more than he had cared for anyone else in his very long life.

Unable to bear the thought of her death, Tiras shared his blood with the woman. When she passed, Jiao awoke stronger and more powerful than she had ever been in life. The two escaped the hospital in the dead of night, and began to journey together while Tiras told her the truth of his existence and origin.

Jiao stayed with Tiras, and the two of them had become inseparable, considering themselves married for all intents and purposes. For several years, the pair had traveled together, until Jiao eventually became pregnant with the daughter that they would eventually name Asenath.

With a daughter to take care of and educate, the two of them had settled on this large ranch not far from the tribe of people whom Tiras's features most closely resembled. There, they had raised their child for the past decade in peace, feeding upon the very livestock that they raised, as well as the occasional violent bandit who mistakenly believed that the peaceful ranch would be an easy target.

That peaceful life, unfortunately, had drawn to an end very recently. As Tiras embraced his daughter, he hugged her even more tightly than usual for a few long seconds before releasing her. "You understand why I must leave you here with your mother, Senny?"

The girl smiled just a little at the use of her nickname before nodding sadly. Her voice was small. "I know. You have to stop the bad guys from making the magic blood hurt everyone."

It was a true, though simplistic answer. Several of Tiras's old friends had tracked him down, explaining that the Vestil had not given up on their attempts to eradicate the Akharu. Over the centuries, they had apparently created another curse. This one would kill all who shared Akharu blood, including his wife and child. Unable to let that prospect stand, Tiras had agreed to go with his people to put a stop to it.

Jiao had wanted to come, but Tiras had convinced her that she had to stay with their child. The two had spent one last night together, and now Tiras had spent the morning with his daughter. Jiao, of course, could not leave the shelter of the cabin during the daytime.

"That's right, my little Sunny Senny," Tiras smiled, wanting his child to be happy. "I cannot say how long it will take, but you know that I will eventually come back to you. That I swear to you, my child. If it takes a millennia, I will return to you."

The girl made a face at him. "I'll be really old by then, Papa. You better come back sooner."

Chuckling, Tiras shook his head. "I have given your mother a bit of my blood, child. If the time comes and I have taken too long to return, she will give it to you. Then you will both live long enough for me to come back and find you. Do you understand? No matter how long it takes, I will find you both."

"I understand, Papa," Senny's head bobbed up and down in agreement, her dark hair flying from the motion. "Please don't take too long though, okay?"

Smiling once more, Tiras embraced his child. "I promise, my beautiful child. I will return as soon as possible. You have my vow. Nothing will keep me from my family."

Present Day

Deep in the bowels of an old warehouse in the middle of Detroit, dozens of men and women dressed in light blue jumpsuits and surgical masks worked diligently to measure and pack the illicit white substance that their employer distributed throughout the state. Here and there, armed guards in black uniforms patrolled through their ranks, ensuring that no one thought sticking some away for themselves or to sell on their own was a good idea. Not that any of them were that stupid. They knew, especially after today, what happened when someone tried to cheat Raul Frein out of what he considered rightfully his.

In the midst of this busy warehouse, the sound of shattering glass abruptly filled the air as a body plummeted through the skylight. The figure, belatedly recognizable as one of the armed guards that patrolled along the roof of the building, crashed hard into the concrete floor. Its sudden and loud arrival instantly drew the attention of every person in the massive room, worker and guard alike.

Conversations halted as two of the guards, automatic rifles held tight in their hands, came close to kick a couple times at the clearly thoroughly dead figure. His head had been turned almost a full one hundred and eighty degrees from where it should have been, even before impact.

"What–" The nearest of the guards, foot still poking his dead comrade, managed to get out. Before he could continue that sentence, unfortunately, the man was interrupted by the second figure who had dropped much more silently through the now-broken skylight. She landed smoothly and effortlessly directly in the middle of the gathered crowd, beside the dead man.

"Hiya!" Asenath, long-since grown into a young woman in her very late teens or early twenties, greeted the men with a wave of one hand. "Maybe you guys can help me. See, I'm looking for the nearest piece of shit drug dealing bastard who thinks it's okay to kidnap innocent kids. I asked your buddy there for directions, but you know…" With a small smirk, she indicated his thoroughly and fatally twisted head. "He just got all turned around."

To their credit, the men tried to act as quickly as they could. Unfortunately, they were still working off of human reaction times. As the nearest brought his rifle up, Asenath gracefully spun away from his line of fire. Her hand snapped out, catching the edge of the barrel and adjusting its aim just enough that the man's reflexive shot took one of his companions in the stomach.

Exercising a relatively small portion of her strength, the two-hundred year old vampire tore the rifle from the man's hands. In the same motion, she continued her spin and swung the weapon around and over to collide with the head of another man. She then used that as a brace just long enough, while the man was falling, to flip herself up and around sideways. Her legs wrapped around the neck of the man she had stolen the rifle from, and she gave a hard twist while her weight and force dragged his body sideways. The lifeless man collapsed to the floor, while Asenath herself landed in a crouch.

Three men down, two seconds had passed.

One of the men tried to back away while opening fire and shouting for help. Asenath threw the dented remains of the rifle into his legs, tripping him up long enough for her to spring back to her feet. The kick that she planted in the stumbling man's stomach drove the air from his lungs and dropped him to the floor, while a follow-up kick ensured that he stayed there.

Pivoting on her heel, Asenath regarded the three guards who remained with their weapons raised. She offered them a faint smile before asking, "Anyone? Anyone want to tell me where I can find the drug dealer of the house?"

The response from two of the men were a vitriolically spat, 'Go to hell!' and 'Chink slut!'

Their fingers tightened on the triggers, but Asenath was already moving. With a blur of motion, she abruptly put herself between the nearest of the two men. While the first bullets were expelling themselves from the chambers, aimed at the spot she had been standing in a bare second earlier, she reached down with both hands. Catching hold of the knife attached to each man's hip, she tugged them up and out, then stabbed in either direction.

The stream of bullets had barely started before ending. The two men who had opened fire stood with the girl directly in between them, their own knives held in her hands with the blades buried deep in their throats.

With a slight tug, Asenath pulled the knives from the men's necks. Their lifeless bodies collapsed, and she turned to face the sole remaining guard with a bloody weapon in each hand. Regarding him briefly, she slowly tilted her head with a questioning look.

The man promptly threw his rifle on the ground, took a deliberate step away, and raised his hand to point off through one of the doors. The same gesture was copied by the crowd of workers, all of them pointing to that single door.

"Good boy," Asenath praised before turning on her heel to walk toward the indicated door.

As she began to leave, the remaining guard let out a breath of relief and began to take a single step toward the exit, intent on getting the hell out of there before she changed her mind. Before he could finish that step, however, Asenath called back to him, "If you're not standing in that exact spot when I get back, I will track you down."

He put his foot back where it had been and didn't move again.

Reaching the heavily reinforced door, the relatively diminutive figure tilted her head while examining it. A single kick a moment later snapped it off its hinges and sent it crashing inward.

"Luuuucy!" She called out while stepping through the doorway. "You got some splainin' to do!"

The well-dressed man on the other side of the room from the entrance stood with his revolver pressed close to the head of a small, sandy-haired boy. The man's eyes were wild and frantic while he stared at the figure who had just literally kicked his door in. "Fuck you! Fuck you! Cunt! Back off! Back the fuck off you stupid piece of shit! I swear to god I'll kill the kid! I'll fucking end him, you ignorant little bitch! You back the fuck off, I don't know what the hell you are, but back the fuck off!"

Staying where she was, Asenath regarded the man. "You've been a bad boy, Raul." She made a disapproving clicking noise with her tongue. "Kidnapping an innocent kid?" Looking to the terrified child, she added, "Don't worry, Dominic, you'll be back with your mom in a few minutes."

Raul pressed the revolver barrel closer to the boy's head. "Hey, hey! No he won't. Not until Dominic's Uncle Patrick gets me my fucking money!"

In response, Asenath's hand snapped upward and out. One of the knives that she had appropriated flew through the air with so much speed and force that it had sliced completely through the man's wrist, severing his hand from his arm, before he even realized what was happening. His hand, with the gun still clasped in it, dropped to the ground.

His scream had hardly begun before Asenath was on him. She gave his head a hard shove into the wall while simultaneously snatching the young Dominic away from him. With a blur of motion, she gathered the boy into her arms and ran from the building. Before the dazed child registered that they were moving, she was setting him down in the middle of the parking lot. In the distance, flashing red and blue lights could be seen rapidly approaching.

"See those cars, Dominic?" She pointed until the boy's head bobbed up and down. "You run right to them and tell them who you are and that your mommy is looking for you. Understand?" Another nod, and she gave him a push. "Go."

The boy took off running, and Asenath turned in the opposite direction. Another blur of motion came, and she returned to the room where she had left Raul. The man lay on his side, half-unconscious from shock as he stared at his severed hand. "B-b-b…" He stammered upon seeing her.

"I know, I know," Asenath gave a single nod. "Bitch. I'm a bitch, right? Don't worry, I wouldn't leave you here to bleed out all alone on the floor. I'm not that harsh."

Staring up at her, Raul managed a hesitant, hopeful smile.

"After all," the woman returned the smile before slowly opening her mouth to reveal sharp fangs that slid into place.

"I'm hungry."

Walking away from the warehouse a short time later as the police descended upon it in force, Senny drew a hand along her mouth, wiping the last few traces of blood from her lips before letting out a sigh of contentment.

It had been over two hundred years since her father had left with promises to return as soon as he could. She still held out hope that he would come back one day, but her life had moved on. She and her mother had been forced to leave their ranch or risk attracting too much attention. Over the ensuing years, Asenath herself had grown up, eventually partaking of her father's blood and becoming a vampire alongside her mother. The two of them had experienced so many incredible things throughout the growth of this country into the force that it now was that Senny had lost track of all the things she wished to tell her father about.

She just wanted him back. Even now, two hundred years later, she yearned for her father's embrace.

The phone in her pocket rang, interrupting her inner musings. Tugging out the cell, Asenath accepted the call with a simple, "Yeah?"

"Umm…" The tentative female voice on the other side of the line ventured hesitantly. "H-hello? I'm not sure I have the right number. I don't even know if I should be calling. This is wrong. I just… I just…" The voice dissolved into obvious tears.

Asenath softened her own voice. "It's all right, you called the right number. Did something happen to you? Something you can't explain or talk to anyone else about?"

There was a moment of silence before the woman on the other end of the line whimpered slightly. "I, no, not me. My daughter. A friend said I should call this number, that you could help, but I don't know… the police say sh-she killed herself."

"You don't think she did?" Asenath replied as gently as possible.

"My Denise wouldn't do that!" The woman blurted. "And all the other things they said she did… th-they said she taped the gasoline nozzle to her own mouth, that she drowned herself on it! That she killed that poor man in the store and then killed herself, but how could she?! Sh-she couldn't, I swear she couldn't do that! She wouldn't! But th-they won't listen. They won't listen and no one will listen and my Denise is gone, she's gone and I can't help her, they won't help her!" The words turned into incoherent sobbing.

Waiting through that with long-practiced patience, Asenath eventually managed to extract enough details to understand what had happened at that gas station. Once the story was out, she glowered at the empty air. "Ma'am, it'll take me a few days to get down there, but I will make it as soon as I can."

"D-does this mean you'll find out what happened to my D-Denise?" The grieving woman's voice was a desperate, yearning plea.

"Yes," Asenath vowed firmly as she strode into the shadowy night. "I will find out what happened to your daughter. I will track down whoever did that to her.

"And I will make that person regret they were ever born."

BREAK

BREAK

I was halfway back down the hall before Avalon's hand caught my arm. She yanked me around and gave me a firm shove up against the nearby wall before planting her other hand on my shoulder to keep me there. Her voice was hard, but quiet. "Where do you think you're going now, Chambers?"

"To get answers," I practically spat back at her. For once, I wasn't in the mood to play. "They knew my mother. My mother went here and they never said a word. They never told me, and I want to know why. I want to know why she quit being a Heretic, why she moved to Wyoming, what they know about why she left, why they pretended they didn't know anything about her, all of it. I need answers."

"And you think they're just going to give them to you now because you're pissed off?" Avalon shot back, not releasing me. "You run in there and start flinging demands around and the only thing that is going to happen is that they'll know that you know at least some of it. Best case scenario, they tell you what you want to know, but you still won't know if they're telling you everything, so you'll keep looking anyway. Worst case, they refuse and because they know that you found out something, they'll start working harder to hide the evidence from you. Things like that picture in there can be hidden if whatever this is about happens to be something they really don't want you to know about."

I stared at her, the anger at finding out that something this important had been kept from me still pumping hard through my system. "You… are you trying to say I can't trust the people here, Avalon?"

"No, I'm not saying that." The other girl's voice was emphatic. "I'm saying that people in power tend to think they know what's best. They decided you not knowing about your mother is what's best for you. Do you think just throwing out accusations is one hundred percent likely to get past that decision? These are not people who make decisions lightly, Chambers. They obviously think it's better if you don't know the truth about your mother, at least not yet. I'm not saying you can't trust them, fuck. You can trust most of the adults here more than most people in the Bystander world. They've been through shit, they know what they're talking about. But as far as information goes, if you want more, don't rely on getting it from the same people who decided it was better if you didn't have it to begin with."

I breathed out, forcing myself not to snap out a retort, but to actually take the time to think about what she was saying. It was hard. I wanted to start slamming doors and stomping up and down stairs.

Honestly, I knew she was right. Logically, I knew everything she was saying. In any other situation, I'd be the one advising someone else to think before they start blowing up at someone. But this was different. It was about my mother, and quite possibly had something to do with why she had disappeared. It was impossible for me to think clearly when it came to my mom. I just… couldn't.

Which meant that the best thing I could do was let someone else think clearly for me. In this case, that meant listening to what Avalon said, no matter how much I wanted to storm into the Headmistress's office to demand answers. She was right, if I wanted to know the truth, I had to be smart about it.

"Right," I said quietly after another couple of seconds spent reiterating that to myself. "I'm okay now." The other girl's doubtful look made me cough. "Not okay, but calm enough. You can let me go, really."

She did so, releasing her hold before stepping back. Her eyes were wary, clearly ready for me to lose my mind and try to run off again. When I remained still, she relaxed just a little. Well, as much as Avalon ever seemed to relax, anyway. She was still squinting. "So what's the deal with your mother?"

My mouth opened to spit out my standard response about her abandoning my father and me, but I hesitated and bit it back before settling on a simple, "I thought I knew. Obviously I don't know anything about my mom. She used to be the town sheriff before taking off with some guy she pulled over when I was a kid. Now… now I'm not sure what the hell I should think. She was here, she used to go here. Then she stopped. She went to have a normal life. Why? And why did she leave it with some loser? Did that have something to do with… with this Heretic stuff, with the fact that she left it? Did she leave it? I don't even know if that's possible. Do people just retire from this stuff and have normal, quiet lives?"

"Not usually," Avalon replied quietly. "Most of the time if someone leaves, it's a punishment."

"A punishment?" I echoed, staring at her for a second. "What kind of punishment is that?"

"A bad one," she snapped back at me. "It's called Banishment. They send you back through the Heretical Edge. It removes all your memories of this stuff, of the Strangers, magic, your abilities, everything. You go back to being a boring, baseline normal human who could sit right next to one of those monsters and have absolutely no idea what they really are. You go back to being a victim."

I was quiet for a few moments, collecting myself before asking as calmly as I could, "Do you think that's what happened to my mother? Do you think she was… banished and that's how she ended up with my dad?" If that was true, was her disappearance really something mundane, or the result of something coming after her that she would have known about if her memory hadn't been erased? The very thought that I might have to reconsider everything that I knew about my mother's disappearance was so thoroughly shattering that I staggered a little, putting a hand out to catch myself against the wall.

Avalon's response was a simple shrug. "Dunno. But there's other ways to find out the truth that don't involve tipping off the people who tried to keep that information away from you to begin with."

In spite of the whole situation, and my tumultuous thoughts, I had to smile. "You offering to help?"

She rolled her eyes at me and pivoted on her heel to start walking away. "Don't start thinking that we're suddenly BFF's now, Chambers. Because we're not." Her stride carried her to the end of the hall before she stopped. Pausing there, I saw her shoulders roll a couple of times as if she was gearing herself up for what she was about to say, steadying herself. Finally, she turned just a little to look over her shoulder at me. "But, umm, I know a little bit about the whole family thing. That I… I sort of get. So if you keep it together and try not to be too annoying, I'll see what I can do about helping you find out about your mom and what happened with her. But I swear on my own mother's grave, if you piss me off, I will walk away and you can figure it all out on your own. You got it?"

"Uh, yeah." I nodded and walked down the hall to join her so that we weren't practically shouting back and forth before raising a hand. "But how are you swearing on your mother's grave? She's sort of… still alive, isn't she? I mean, the Headmistress didn't die in between classes or something."

Avalon's response was a clearly reflexive glare, her expression storming up briefly. Her mouth opened to spit out what was obviously going to be a harsh rebuke about staying the hell out of her business. But she stopped, looked away, and visibly forced herself to calm down before returning her gaze to me. Her voice was still cold, but clearly less than it might have been. "The Headmistress is not my mother."

I blinked at that. "I—oh. I'm sorry, I thought she was because of your name. And someone else said–"

Avalon interrupted. "She adopted me, but she's not my real mother. My real mother's dead and buried."

Flinching in spite of myself, I told my mouth to shut up. Unfortunately, my mouth was wasn't paying attention to anything my brain tried to tell it. Instead, I found myself asking, "What about your father?"

"Oh, he's still alive." Avalon's mouth turned up into a dangerous smile. "At least he better be. I'm going to be really fucking pissed off if anyone kills that evil piece of shit before I get a chance to."

The headmistress was her adopted mother, her real mother was dead, and she loathed her father. My level of confusion kept going up and down so fast I was getting whiplash. "You want to kill your dad?"

"It's only fair," she replied flatly, not looking away from my stare. "He tried to kill me first."

My mouth opened, then shut, and I took a second before managing to respond, "Why would–"

Avalon interrupted before I could continue. "Unless you want me to walk away right now and never give you the time of day again, don't finish that question. Just shut up and leave it alone."

I obliged in spite of my curiosity. Instead, I offered a weak little smile that I didn't fully feel. "So what now?" What I wanted to do, still, was start demanding that every staff member I laid eyes on tell me the truth about my mother. Hell, with the weird way that ages worked around here, there was a fairly good chance that most of the people that were my teachers had actually known my mom.

"Now you keep it together while we go to lunch," the brunette replied. "You want to have a chance to figure out why your mom went back to being a Plain Jane Mundane? Then act normal."

"Normal, right." I started to nod before hesitating. "Wait, normal normal or this place normal? Because I'm starting to think that the two are very different things."

Clearly unable to deny that, Avalon simply turned to start walking away. "Just shut up and come on."

My smile returned as I hurried to catch up with the other girl. "So are we friends now?"

Her voice was a flat retort. "No."

"That's okay," I replied, strolling easily alongside her. "I'll check again in a few minutes."

The two classes that Avalon and I had missed while we were having our chats with the Runners were Trig and Bystander History. That was the class where they taught what the mundane world thought had happened. Apparently they didn't want to end up in a situation where a Heretic knew the true Stranger-influenced event, but was completely clueless about what the rest of humanity believed.

Lunch had been about half over by the time we got down there, and then it was time for the first of two afternoon classes, and the one I had been the most curious about all day: Stranger Truths 101. It was the class that Professor Pericles had taught before… yeah. I wondered who was filling in for him.

My answer came the second I crossed through the doorway just ahead of Sands and Scout. The figure on the stage at the base of the amphitheater turned as we entered, revealing what I was pretty sure had to be Patient Zero for the epidemic of ditzy blonde cheerleader types in pretty much every movie ever. She looked more like a student than a teacher, especially considering the bright yellow smiley face that adorned her white shirt. It was a smile that was matched by the wearer of the shirt as she positively beamed upon our entrance. "Yay, students!" The girl called excitedly before gesturing with both hands. "Go on, go on. Sit. Everybody sit so we can have some fun and learn stuff, right? Right. Right."

"I swear, if she tells us to give her an R," Avalon muttered under her breath from beside me while we started for our seats, "I will not be held responsible for what I do to her."

"Going for a twofer on killing teachers, huh?"

My head snapped around at the sound of the quiet voice, but it had come from somewhere within a group of students that were pushing past us and I couldn't tell who exactly had said it. None of them were looking our way, and whoever had spoken up didn't repeat themselves.

For Avalon's part, she either hadn't heard or (far more likely) was flat out ignoring the comment. She simply moved to the same seat she'd used the last time we had this class and continued to stare straight down at the stage without acknowledging anyone else's existence.

"Okay!" On stage, the perky young woman clapped twice. She was literally bouncing with excitement. "First, I wanna say umm… oh well, first I should say that my name is Nevada."

Vanessa's hand went up, and when the woman looked to her, she asked hesitantly, "Umm, is that Professor Nevada or umm, Nevada Something Else That We Should Put Professor In Front Of?"

"Ooh! Good question!" The woman's head bobbed up and down rapidly. "I don't like titles and I don't use any other name. So it's just Nevada. Not Professor Nevada, not Miss Nevada, nothing like that. Just Nevada. Okay? Okay, we've got it, we've got this. I'm going to be your teacher for this class."

"You're kidding, right? Are you old enough to be our teacher?" One of the other girls asked from the other side of the room. "Because you don't look like you're old enough to vote, let alone teach. You look like you're our age."

"Yeah," one of the boys added. "We're trying to learn here. Isn't this supposed to be an important class? Why would they throw some bimbo at us?"

"Right, right." Nevada's head bobbed easily. "See, here's the thing, making assumptions like that is sort of like, how a lot of people in your position kind of… die. Things aren't always what they look like. And that's part of what this class is supposed to teach you. You have to stop making assumptions just based on what you see? This is how I look. Does that mean that I don't know what I'm talking about or that I can't teach you anything? Before you decide that, remember that it's not me that you're calling incompetent. It's Headmistress Sinclaire. After all, she's the one that hired me. So, if you think that, based on a thirty-second once-over of what I look like that you know better than she does, feel free to head on over to her office to tell her so. I'll even write you a pass to get there if you like."

The boy who had called her a bimbo mumbled something that wasn't entirely audible and slumped down some in his seat, clearly embarrassed.

Rather than dwell on it or force the boy to repeat himself, Nevada simply moved on. "In the mean time, until someone wants one of those headmistress passes, let's continue. As I was saying, first I wanted to say that I'm sorry about what happened to Professor Pericles. I really am. I had him when I went here and… and losing him sucks." Something in her voice caught a little, and it took the almost-disturbingly young looking teacher a few seconds before she was able to continue. "It just sucks. I want you to know that I'm going to teach you everything I can, but it's not going to be as good as he could have taught it. I'll do my best, I really will. But you guys are missing… " Again, she fell silent, clearly barely holding herself together. "You're missing out. And if any of you want to talk about him or ask about the kind of classes he used to teach, stop by any time that you're not supposed to be somewhere else. He was my teacher for a long time and I can tell you… well, a lot of stories."

Taking in a long breath then before letting it out, Nevada visibly switched gears. That bright, seemingly clueless and overly perky smile returned. "But hey, time for actual learning now, huh? You guys started zombies last time, didn't you? Perfect. Who remembers the three categories of zombie that you read about?"

I raised my hand about a half second slower than Vanessa, but Nevada focused on me first. "You, umm, umm, hold on. Hold on, I know this. Feeeeeeelicity?"

"Flick," I informed her. "I mean, you got the name right, but I go by Flick."

"Flick! Right, go ahead," she prompted with an eager nod.

Holding up my hand to count off the types, I began. "The first type of zombie is the kind that's brought back by magic or some Stranger abilities that were used after they died. Those are the slow, clumsy ones. The second type are the ones that are prepared ahead of time, before they die. Sometimes it's purposeful, and other times it's some kind of side effect. Either way, they get infected and it stays in them. After they die, they come back as zombies. Those are the fast ones that are better at hunting. The first kind are just mindless drones that shamble toward the nearest food source. The second kind are more like predators. They hunt in packs and work together like… like wolves."

"Yup!" Nevada's smile was bright. "And the third kind?"

"The third kind of zombie is a dead body that's possessed by a specific type of Stranger called a Revenant. They inhabit the corpse. As long as they're in it, they're pretty much impossible to kill. They're immune to pain, they ignore almost all damage, and most magic effects just bounce off them. But the bodies they're in don't last very long. They can only possess it for a couple hours before it disintegrates, and when they're not in someone else's body, they're vulnerable."

"Perfect, yes. Revenant-Zombies are an absolute pain in the ass." Nevada rolled her eyes thoroughly. "Luckily, they're really rare. And the ones that are left don't tend to make a lot of waves because we've gotten really good at tracking them until they're vulnerable and then hitting them before they find a new body. They stay quiet and out of the way."

After shuffling a few papers on the nearby desk, she looked up to address us again. "Soooo, we'll come back to zombies in a little bit. I want to show you guys what kind of side effects can lead to the second category, and how you can identify them before trouble starts. But first, I'd like to switch tracks just a little to a different kind of undead creature. Specifically, vampires."

As she launched into that lesson, I looked away and tried to put aside all the thoughts about my mom that kept trying to crowd their way into my head. Had she sat in this classroom? What did she think about the vampire thing? What had her weapon been? Did she like her team? Was her roommate nice?

But more than any other question, one stood out and would not be ignored no matter how much I tried.

Why had she stopped being a Heretic? Did she really do something so bad that they wiped her memory and kicked her out? And if she did, was that related to why she had disappeared?

For the first time in my life, as far back as I could remember, I actually wanted to know more about my mother.

I just hoped that what I found didn't make me hate her even more than I already did.

BREAK

BREAK

"Trust me, Dad, I'm probably eating better here than at the old school. Yes, I know the rules about staying away from anyone suspicious. I'm almost seventeen, not four. Yeah, I'm sure the school runs enough background checks. No, I don't need help and you don't need to run any names past 'your guy in the department'. Trust me, everything's fine. I'm okay, I just wanted to hear your voice. I miss you."

Leaning against the side of the athletics building a little bit after dinner the next day, I smiled while listening to my father's response. I really had missed the sound of his voice, just like I missed spending every evening listening to his stories. Sometimes they were about what he'd done that day, the people he'd talked to or leads he'd followed, while other times they were about his past. Dad had spent a lot of time working for one of the big newspapers in Los Angeles back before I was born, and he had a ton of stories about the people he'd encountered back then. I was pretty sure he exaggerated a lot of it, but it was still fun to listen to. And hearing my dad reminisce had been one of our traditions for a long time.

While listening as he started in about something one of his friends had said about the governor, I glanced down at my free hand and examined the smooth skin. Leaning a bit closer to see my index finger in the light from one of the nearby windows, I noticed that the tiny scar that I'd had there ever since cutting it badly on a nail when I was a little kid had smoothed over, leaving unblemished skin.

Huh. Still listening to Dad talk, the sound of his voice comforting in a way that I couldn't explain, I switched the phone to my other hand so I could look at my arm. Sure enough, the other scar that I'd gotten as a kid, a long, thin one about two inches down from my wrist had disappeared as well.

Apparently the healing ability granted by killing those few peridles had extended as far as removing old scars. That was going to make things a little awkward if Dad ever happened to notice. Not that he paid close attention to my hands all the time, but still. He was my father and he knew every mark I had.

Shaking that off, I waited for a lull in his stories. "Hey, Dad, I wanted to ask you something else."

"Sure, kid, what's up? You need more snack machine money or something? Care package to bribe the RA's with? Wait, do they have resident assistants there? I'm not sure how private high school works."

"We've got a mentor. Sort of." I replied with a roll of my eyes. "But he's worthless. He's just lazy and doesn't actually do anything. I don't think any of us have even seen him since that first night."

"What?" Dad sounded annoyed. "What kind of adviser is he then? If he won't do his job, they need to replace him. Do you know who to talk to about that, or do you want me to give them a call?"

"I definitely do not want you to call anyone." I shuddered at the thought. "I've got it, Dad. It's fine."

"Are you sure?" Dad was clearly reluctant to let that go. "This school is a big deal, Flicker. I don't want you getting screwed out of getting everything you can out of it because this kid won't do his job."

Smiling a little in spite of myself at his protective instincts, I shook my head. "I promise, it's okay. I'll deal with it, Dad. Just let me take care of things, okay? It'll just be better that way, trust me."

"Yeah, I guess you don't really need your old man anymore," Dad teased. "Just promise you'll give a good eulogy at my funeral in thirty years or so. You can start with, 'This guy was my dad, I sort of paid attention to him once in awhile until I turned seventeen. Then I ignored the old fart for the rest of his life. I wonder if he ever bought that cat he was talking about.'"

I laughed out loud in spite of myself. It felt good. "I'm not going to ignore you for the rest of your life!"

"That's what they all say." Dad teased, though there was a note of sadness not fully hidden behind it.

Swallowing slightly as I realized what he was thinking about, I closed my eyes. He was still hurting so much from Mom abandoning us. Even now, a decade later, I could hear the hurt in his voice when he thought about it. He and Mom had been very much in love, and the next thing he knew, she was gone.

I had to find out the truth. If there really was anything unnatural about Mom's disappearance, or if it had anything at all to do with Strangers or Heretics, I was going to find out. And then… well then I'd find a way to give Dad closure. I wasn't sure how, but I would figure it out when the time came.

"I'm serious, Dad. I'll visit, you know I will. And we can talk any time you want. I love you."

Dad's voice was softer then, the emotion in it making him almost whisper. "I love you too, Flicker."

We were quiet for a few seconds, and I used the time to wipe a damp spot under one of my eyes. As I rubbed it away, my father was the first to break the silence. "So, what was it you wanted to ask about?"

Well now this was even more awkward than it was always going to be. I flinched and took in a long breath before letting it out, steadying myself as much as possible. "It's about Mom. Is that okay?"

There was silence for a second before my father responded. "Flick, have I made you think that it's not okay to talk about your mother? Because if I did, I am very, very sorry. Of course you can ask me about her. I'll tell you anything you want to know. Anything I can. I know we don't… I know it's hard sometimes, but I don't want you to ever feel like you can't bring her up, okay? She's your mother."

"No, I just—you didn't do anything." I flushed a little. "I just didn't want to make you upset or sad."

"Listen to me, Flick," Dad's voice was firm. "It's all right. I will always answer any questions you have that I can answer, okay? I will never hide things about your mother from you, and you can ask me anything you want, any time. Never, ever feel like you have to avoid that subject, is that understood?"

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I quickly spoke up. "Y-yes, Dad. I was just… it's probably wrong, but I umm…" This was the tricky part. I kind of wanted to just tell my father that I'd found a picture of Mom here, but I was afraid that doing so would make him want to visit. While the Heretics would probably find a way to fix his memory of that if it came down to it, I really wanted to avoid that entire situation if at all possible. Especially since I didn't want them to know that I was looking into my mother at all. Which meant that I had to lie to my father. Again, after everything he'd just said.

Sighing at the thought, I pressed on anyway. This was too important. "I sort of think I remember something about her. But I can't figure out if I'm just making it up in my head or if it's a real memory." For a second, I bit my lip and hesitated before pushing through the lie. "I keep thinking that I remember hearing Mom talk about being at a private school. You know, one like this, with uniforms and everything. I just have this sort-of memory of her talking about it, and I can't figure out if it's real or something I just invented in my head because I'm here now. Do you remember anything about that?"

"About your mother going to a private school?" He echoed before considering for a moment. "Well, I met Joselyn when she was twenty-four. She'd been out of college for a couple years by then, but you know she just went to the University of Wyoming. Before that, ahhh, I don't think I can remember all the high schools, but I don't remember her mentioning any private ones. They were all public."

I blinked at that. "Wait, Mom went to a lot of schools? Why?"

"You know about that, don't you?" Dad sounded surprised, and a little guilty. "Your mom moved around a lot as a kid because of your grandfather's work. He was in the military or something, I never really had a clear idea of what it was. They weren't really talking by the time we met, but it was something to do with the government. That's part of why Joselyn wanted to settle down here in Laramie Falls, because it was quiet and stable." There was a pause then before Dad let out a long sigh. He didn't say anything, but I knew what he was thinking. Mom had wanted stable, and then she'd abandoned us.

Still, I had to focus on something else he had said. "My grandfather? Mom's dad? Do you… still have any contact with him?" It was a long shot, I knew, but if there was any chance of getting more information, where better than from my mother's father? Even just a name would be nice, since looking for every person with the last name of Atherby (mom's maiden name) would take way too long.

"Sorry," Dad replied, obviously wincing. "Like I said, he and your mom weren't on speaking terms. She never told me what happened there, but that was why none of your mother's family came to the wedding. I had the impression that it was some kind of major disagreement."

I heard his fingers snap. "Oh, hang on, I almost forgot. We still have the birth certificate. One second." There was the sound of the filing cabinet in Dad's office being opened and ruffled through until he found the paper that he was looking for. "Here we go. Your mom's parents were Dustin and Fiona Atherby. Born at that University of Utah Hospital. Hey, that's funny." He went silent for a few seconds.

"Dad?" I frowned, pushing off the wall again before looking around. "What's funny?"

He coughed. "Sorry, just the name of the doctor that delivered your mother is kind of amusing."

"What is it?"

"Pericles," he answered. "Zedekiah Pericles."

Talk about ending up with more questions than you started with. Poor Professor Pericles had been the one who delivered my mother at the hospital where she was born? Was that real, or just part of the Heretic cover they'd given her later? How much of my mother's history was real and how much was an invention after she'd either left or been kicked out of the Heretics? If it was just a cover history, why would Professor Pericles have his name on the birth certificate at all? What the hell was going on?

Unfortunately, I couldn't dwell on those questions at the moment. Since it was Friday evening, I had to get to my Investigation track meeting. Unlike every other class, track meetings were only attended by students in that particular track rather than everyone on the same team. Apparently each grade level had their own meeting nights and times with their track adviser. For first years, they were held twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays in the evening. We had still been in the middle of orientation on Monday, so tonight was my very first one. I had no idea what to expect, but I was crossing my fingers that it wouldn't end with me having even more questions about my family's history for once.

Sands, Scout, and I were walking together. Apparently the meeting was taking place on the grounds in front of the Pathmaker building, which was intriguing enough to sort of distract me away from the riotous cacophony of thoughts that had been flooding my mind ever since Dad said that name.

There were already other students there when the three of us arrived, including the other black guy from my orientation group that wasn't Columbus. Travis, that was it. He was standing with another boy that I'd seen him around with, a shorter, still kind of chubby guy with pale skin and even paler blonde hair. I thought his name was Rudolph or Randy or something. There was also (sigh) Koren.

I would have made a point of trying to ignore the other girl, but she already seemed to be pretty busy focusing on her chat with a couple of the guys who had grown up 'in the knowledge.' She kept bending slightly to 'accidentally' give them a good look down the front of her shirt while they chatted, and they were taking thorough advantage of the opportunity, flirting back and forth.

I rolled my eyes, but whatever. Her life. I was just glad she was leaving the rest of us alone for the moment. Instead, I looked toward Sands and Scout. "You guys excited?"

"Hell yes," Sands blurted, head bobbing up and down. "Do you have any idea how long we've been waiting for this? Classes were one thing, but track training? Scout and I decided what we wanted to be when we were four. Then we changed it when we were six. Then we changed it again when we were seven. And then… well, you get the idea. But we've wanted to be in the Investigation track at least half of all those times, and for the longest. It's gonna be so awesome."

Even Scout was smiling in agreement by that point, and I couldn't help but return it. "Well, here's hoping it's as interesting as you think."

"Indeed," the voice of Professor Dare spoke up from behind us. "I shall do my best to meet expectations."

Turning to look at the woman with a slight flush, I wondered how much she knew about the situation with my mother. Probably all of it. The urge to blurt out a demand for the truth was almost impossible for me to resist, but I managed it. Barely. "Sorry, Professor."

"You have nothing to apologize for," the blonde woman informed me before looking to the rest of the group. "Good evening. You all know me, so I shall skip the introduction. It is now seven o'clock, the time that you will be expected to be in the location that I give you for this meeting every Monday and Friday from now on. I will not say that excuses for being late will not be accepted. However, I will say that if you give no excuse, the punishment for your tardiness will be less severe than if you attempt to give one and I find it lacking. For those who find that confusing, allow me to simplify. If your excuse for tardiness is a valid and reasonable one, I will accept it. If it is not and you attempt to use it anyway, your punishment will be worse than if you had said nothing. Is all of that understood?"

We agreed, and Professor Dare nodded in acceptance. "As you all know, this is the Investigation track. Here, you will learn to investigate possible Stranger incursions and other situations, identify both new and established threats, and deal directly with the Bystander law enforcement. We have multiple ways of doing this, but one of our most important tools is lying. You will lie a lot. You should not feel ashamed of this. Lying keeps these people safe, and prevents them from making our jobs far more difficult."

She looked around at all of us, eyes lingering slightly on Koren before moving on. "Tonight, you will be given an opportunity to witness one of several ways that the Pathmaker building is used to aid us in these investigations. You will stay with me, you will touch nothing that you are not told to touch, and you will not disturb the people who are working. Is that understood as well?"

Once we again chorused our agreement, she turned on her heel and walked right up to the edge of the circle. Giving us all a careful look, she put her hand out and spoke a quick series of words that were impossible to follow. The air seemed to shimmer a little, and she gestured. "Come through, all of you."

After the warnings that Sands and Avalon had given, I was a little afraid of getting too close, even if it was obviously okay now. I slowly walked over the line with the rest of the group, shaking my head in a failed attempt to stop the warning hum.

Thankfully, the sound faded once we were a few feet past the line, and Professor Dare walked up to the door, tugging it open before lifting a hand to indicate that we should precede her.

As a group, we filed into the building. This first room was fairly small and circular, obviously a lobby of some kind. There was a desk with a woman sitting behind it in one corner, and she smiled as we entered. "Good evening, Virginia. This is the new class?"

Before Professor Dare could respond, a group of men came right through the same doors we had just entered from, bustling straight past us in a rush. They barely slowed long enough to nod an acknowledgment to the secretary before moving on to one of a handful of doors that lined the circular wall.

"Hey, where the hell did those guys come from?" Koren spoke up. "Seriously, we were just out there."

The woman behind the desk glanced down at something before responding, "They came from Indiana, actually."

Professor Dare explained. "The Pathmaker building exists within multiple locations at the same time. Its existence on the island is only one of a dozen or so locations across the world that it simultaneously occupies."

My mouth fell open and I made a slightly strangled noise. "Wha-how—huh?"

It was the receptionist who spoke up, her tone simultaneously amused and gentle. "Magic, sweetie. You'll get used to it. Basically it means that if you enter the building you see in Crossroads, the place in Indiana that those gentlemen came from, our location in Tokyo, London, Calgary, or any other place it exists, you will enter there and appear here. One building, one interior, a dozen exterior locations. Magic."

I was still staring, trying to wrap my mind around that as Professor Dare started walking to one of the doors. "Come, I will show you one of the reasons that the Pathmaker building is so important to our work."

Together, we trailed after the professor, following her through a series of hallways and up two flights of stairs. We passed about another dozen people that were hard at work doing… whatever they were doing before we finally reached a short, out of the way hall with a single door.

"This," Professor Dare announced, "Is one of several projection rooms in this facility."

"Projection rooms?" I asked with a frown.

She nodded. "In situations where it may be impossible to retain an untouched crime scene, where Bystander authorities make it impossible for us to effectively take over the situation and ensure that the view remains exactly as it was when we arrived, the Heretic may deploy one of these."

From her pocket, the woman produced a small silver and violet orb, about the size of a golf ball. "This is called a Panoptic Analysis Window System, or PAWS. The PAWS, when deployed, will cloak and take a full scan of the entire designated area. Later, it can be connected to one of these rooms, which will allow the room within to project a three dimensional holographic view of the crime scene, untouched so that our own investigators may see what occurred. But the PAWS does more than take pictures. Its scan runs deep enough that objects within the room may be manipulated and moved around. If, for example, the view is of a motel room and the end table drawer is shut, the investigator may open the drawer within the hologram and see what was inside at the time that the PAWS was deployed. This allows a full investigation of the crime scene to take place, even if the authorities shut off the area and tromp all over the evidence."

We were still staring at the little orb in her hand for a few seconds after she finished. For my part, I couldn't help but think of how useful something like that would be to the legitimate law enforcement agencies.

"Now, as a group, we are going to investigate one of these recorded crime scenes." Professor Dare gazed at us briefly before continuing. "Together, we will see what we can determine as a group before reviewing what conclusions the assigned investigators have come to."

"What kind of crime scene is it, Professor Dare?" I asked with a raised hand.

She paused, glancing to me before responding. "An incident that occurred at a gas station. A man, who was believed to have attempted to rob the store was found shot in the back multiple times, presumably by the clerk. The clerk herself then exited the store, duct taped the gasoline nozzle into her own mouth, and proceeded to kill herself by choking on the gas."

Collectively, we stared. I felt sick inside, and somewhere nearby, one of the boys muttered a curse under his breath. Beside me, Scout gave a soft whimper.

"These are the situations we will be dealing with. I will not coddle you from them because to do so would be a disservice to your education and training. If you do not wish to continue, you may at any point speak up and be excused to re-evaluate your track." Professor Dare spoke seriously, then put her hand on the doorknob. "Now, come. Let us see how much information you can find as a group."

She opened the door, allowing us to enter the horrific scene. I took a breath, steeled myself, and then stepped through.

BREAK

BREAK

Before he moved with my mother to the much smaller and quieter Laramie Falls, my father's work in Los Angeles had sent him to a lot of disturbing scenes. He wasn't a cop, but in some ways, his job had been almost as dangerous. He had investigated serial killers, arsonists, child abductors, and worse, all without the benefit of a badge. He'd carried a small gun for protection after an incident where a man followed him home, but for the most part, it had been up to him to keep himself out of too much trouble.

Of course, he'd gone right into trouble, because that was where the story happened to be. Dad's primary purpose and goal had been to expose those monsters, to drag them into the light of day and tear away the shadows of mystery that kept people terrified of them. He used his writing to shine a spotlight directly on the sick pieces of shit, not to simply scare his audience but to educate them.

After changing cities and mostly settling down, he had kept boxes full of all his old work hidden under camping equipment in the attic. To this day, he had no idea that I had found those boxes back when I was twelve. I'd pored through them, seeing all the stories he'd written, all the pictures that had been taken of those awful scenes, even the reports filed in such dry and concise language by the police.

Most of it had made me physically sick, but I had gone through it anyway. I'd looked at the pictures of violent, soul-crushing death and human misery, not for the thrill, but to inoculate myself against the horror of it. My thought, as a child, had been that if I saw those things through the pictures, it wouldn't be as hard to see it when I grew up. Because even back then I had known that I wanted to do the same job that my father had. I wanted to help people by exposing the monsters as the humans they were.

And now I had found out the truth. Many of those monsters weren't human at all. They were things that no amount of light would bring answers to, not for the vast majority of humanity. There were creatures, foul, evil monsters who could not be held by any human prison. Their crimes would go forever unsolved by human authority, the families of their victims left without any real closure. They would escape any and all justice and be left to freely prey upon the innocent, treating humanity as toys.

Except for one thing. The Heretics. These were the people who could bring those monsters to justice, who could stop them from preying upon the innocent. That was why I had chosen so easily to join them, to set aside my desire to be a reporter. My goal all along had been to stop the monsters hiding in the shadows. I just hadn't realized how literal that term was. And now that I did? Now that I had some idea of what creatures were out there, I was going to learn everything I could about how to stop them.

All of that and more passed through my mind as I stared at the projection of the crime scene. The hologram, if that's what this could be called, was so realistic that I almost forgot we were in a room. From all appearances, we were standing on the edge of an actual gas station parking lot. It looked absolutely real, and I would have believed that we had teleported here. Even the sky above looked convincing. Behind us, the door we had come through appeared to be a simple doorway standing right in the middle of an empty street. When I put my hand out toward what looked like empty air beside the door, I found the wall. There was no indication of its existence until I touched it.

Turning back, my eyes found the poor girl on the ground with the gas nozzle duct taped into her mouth, and I felt that familiar taste of sick rising up in my throat. Even looking through my father's old files and pictures hadn't prepared me for seeing this sort of thing as up close and personal as this was.

Beside me, I heard a girl gasp the words, "Oh my god…." Then a hand caught my arm and squeezed. When I looked that way, I found Koren of all people. She was staring at the dead girl. Her eyes were wide with shock, and I saw a bit of dampness leak through the corners. She worked her mouth with a small, barely audible whine, and I could almost see the bile making its way up her throat.

Wincing, I turned to grab the girl's arm, turning her away from the scene and bending her over slightly even as her body started to heave. When she puked, it hit what looked like pavement beneath our feet.

Once she had finished, Koren spat at the ground a couple of times to clear her mouth, then gave a little shudder before straightening up. Her eyes found me and I saw a look of confusion and uncertainty touch her gaze for just a moment before she pulled away with a mumbled, "I'm fine." Her face was flushed with embarrassment, which stood out a lot against her naturally pale skin.

"Here," the voice of Professor Dare spoke up, and I saw her extending a glass of water to Koren, along with a napkin for her face. "If you need to take a break, you can go back through the door and sit down for a few minutes." Raising her voice then, she added, "That goes for everyone. Go back to the other side and give yourself a break if you need it. No one is going to shame you for it. The fact that seeing something like this makes you sick is a good thing, and is not to be mocked. Any person that I see doing something like that will be in my office every day after classes for the rest of the month."

Once that was acknowledged, the blonde woman gestured. "Look around, trust your instincts and see what you can find. You can touch things in here and move them around. The scene can be reset by the lead investigator, in this case that would be me, so do not worry about disturbing things. Look around as much as you like and then we will all discuss what we believe happened here."

"Um, Professor?" I raised my hand before pointing. "What about the cameras?" They were clearly covering not only the lot, but the inside of the store. The whole thing should have been recorded. "I mean, is there any way to make that work?" Not being able to view footage would have made any investigation a lot harder than it had to be, and I couldn't imagine that they didn't have a way around it.

Smiling faintly, Professor Dare gestured. "The PAWS system automatically copies any recordings within the area and will play them accordingly, yes. I suggest you look inside the office for that."

Most of the group spread out, the majority going to look either at the girl's body, or the one inside the store. I hesitated before looking toward the twins, who seemed to be waiting for me. "Video then?"

Sands nodded, and the three of us made our way inside, moving through the almost obnoxiously bright store. My eyes tracked the trail of blood to the back coolers, where the second body lay in a heap. Remnants of both the glass of the coolers, and their contents covered the body, mixing with the blood.

Swallowing, I forced myself to look away, returning my attention to the twins. "Are you guys okay?"

Sands actually seemed to be the more affected of the two. Her lower lip trembled slightly while she stared, clearly unable to look away. It was Scout, her expression sad but controlled, who moved in front of her sister to block her view. It was a subtle thing, the girl turning her body as though reacting to me, which maneuvered her directly into Sands' eye-line. Subtle, yet I had no doubt it was purposeful.

Scout looked at me, meeting my gaze before giving a slight nod. She was okay. She had seen worse.

Back under control, Sands breathed out before nodding as well. "L-let's go see this video."

We found our way to the manager's office, and it only took a few seconds to spot the computer in the corner. I shrugged at the others before reaching out to hit a key. For a hologram, it certainly felt real. The key brought up the computer screen, and it only took a minute to find the security footage.

Unfortunately, it was spectacularly useless. Though the cameras were clearly high quality, capturing both the interior of the store from several angles, and the parking lot including the pumps, none of it mattered, because the actual scene itself was completely missing. I was able to set the video to show the doomed clerk standing in her spot behind the counter, with the equally doomed man in the back of the store, glancing nervously around as though waiting to be sure the place was empty. Then, without warning or apparent reason, the view jumped instantly to show the scene we had just walked through. One second everything was fine, and then there were two dead bodies on camera.

"Whoa, whoa, what?" I clicked the button to send the footage back, then let it play. Again, the scene jumped. According to the video details in the corner, it had jumped almost twenty minutes.

Professor Dare spoke up from behind us. "Most Strangers project a field that inhibits being recorded by ordinary human technology. The strength of this field varies. Some are so weak that details of the event or creature can still be made out. Even the quality of those best videos, however, are rendered so poor so that almost any Bystanders dismisses it as a poorly made edit, a prank. Others, like vampires, simply don't appear on video at all while allowing it to continue recording other subjects. In this case, it would appear that the Stranger who was responsible for this… situation was sufficiently powerful that the entire recording was simply frozen from the moment they arrived, and did not resume until they left."

"But why?" I asked with a frown. "Why would creatures of magic have an effect so specialized as messing with technology like that? Cameras are a very new thing, I mean, as far as the Strangers go. How did they develop that kind of defense so quickly? And why? Would humans be a threat to them?"

"A united humanity, joined in power against the monsters that stalk the darkness?" Professor Dare gave a single nod. "Indeed. That would be a genuine threat. Unfortunately, that is not what would happen."

Frowning, I glanced to the security footage (or lack thereof), and thought for a second before responding as I turned back to the teacher. "Because humans don't tend to unite like that?"

"Precisely." Professor Dare met my gaze. "If humanity as a whole knew about the Strangers, they would fall on each other. Paranoia would run rampant. Every disagreement would be magnified to the point of absurdity. Ordinary disputes would be tainted by the fear that the person they were arguing with was a monster posing as a human being. You believe that humans have treated each other horribly throughout history simply due to a difference of belief, skin color, or economic status? Add in the fear of monsters posing as humans, and society would tear itself apart. Trust outside of close acquaintances would quickly fall apart, and even friendships and families themselves could be strained."

Biting my lip, I looked back to the useless computer monitor once more with a frown. So much for getting anything here. "I guess we should look around the rest of the scene," I said quietly.

"Do not feel bad," Professor Dare urged. "It is never a waste of time to examine such footage, even if it rarely pans out. Sometimes, as I said, enough of the video remains to identify the creature responsible. Or there may be clues and evidence before or after the event itself that can help. It is always a good idea to check, just to rule out an easy solution before moving on to the next possibility."

"Before and after…" I murmured under my breath before turning back to the computer. Sands had been about to close out of the footage. "Wait, send it back to right before the scene jumps and pause it."

With a shrug, the other girl complied. After two clicks, the ordinary scene returned, freezing in place.

Lifting my hand, I indicated the vehicles that were in the lot or on the nearby street, committing them to memory. "Remember all these cars that are in view. Okay, let it skip ahead, then pause again."

Sands did so, freezing the image as soon as the newly horrific scene returned. This time, rather than focus on the dead bodies, I scanned the scene for any of the same cars that had been there before.

It was Scout who raised her finger, pointing to a sedan on the road to the right of the station. Her finger touched the screen, and then she gestured to her sister. Getting the point, Sands rewound the footage once more. This time, Scout moved her finger down to one of the other camera views, which showed the left hand side of the station lot. In that view, the same car was just pulling in. Unfortunately, it was impossible to make out the occupant in either case. The angle was wrong.

I smiled in spite of myself. "Good eyes, Scout. Look, Professor. That car pulls in right before everything skips ahead. When the cameras come back, it just pulled out." Turning a bit, I asked, "The license plate is right there. Can you send it to the Heretics that are actually investigating this?"

Her head dipped in acknowledgment. "An excellent use of resources, Miss Chambers. And well-spotted, Miss Mason. You've done well so far. And… precisely what the investigators assigned to this case have already done." She gave a smile at our collective wince. "Do not feel bad. The fact that you've done precisely what the Runners on this case have done should not be a cause for embarrassment, but pride. Our investigators know their jobs. Of course they would think to do exactly what you just did. Be proud that you thought the way that they do, not ashamed that you have not single-handedly created a whole new avenue of investigation."

She was right. The Heretics that were looking into this were trained professionals. The best of the best. Of course they had already thought of something as simple as comparing the before and after footage. Just because we were being tutored using this crime scene didn't mean we were going to spot anything that the actual professionals missed. Not that easily, at least.

Sands was already straightening up, her voice as confident as ever. "Let's see what else we can spot out there. There's gotta be something the investigators missed."

Professor Dare stepped aside, saying only, "I am here to answer any questions that you have."

The three of us walked back out into the main part of the store, and the professor moved to help Travis and Rudolph over by the cash register. The two of them had apparently found the dead girl's purse.

"I don't think there's gonna be any answers there," I murmured under my breath to the twins. "I doubt she was a planned target."

"Why not?" Sands asked, glancing my way with a raised eyebrow.

Shrugging, I replied, "It just doesn't feel like that, I don't know. I can't explain it. But everything here says it was a crime of opportunity. Think about it. A twenty minute jump? Whoever or whatever did this was having fun. They took the time to enjoy themselves before… somehow forcing that girl to kill that man and then… I don't know, kill herself? Strangers can have mind control powers, right?"

Both girls nodded, and Sands spoke up. "Some of them, yeah."

"I think… someone was playing." After hesitating, I started to pace while thinking about it for another few seconds. "They didn't care about making a scene. There was no attempt to cover this up at all. Part of that was relying on the whole camera-futzing thing, but they didn't even try to make the scene look realistic. What kind of girl commits suicide like… like she supposedly did? Plus, look at the difference between the two deaths. That one there was sudden and simple. Shot in the back. The one out there was elaborate and nasty. This was powerful, but also… immature. Unplanned. It's almost like they were… I don't know, testing their power or playing with it?"

"You know that stuff isn't real, right?" Sands asked, gesturing. "Can't really take it with you."

Blinking down in confusion, I found myself looking at a candy bar and a bottle of orange soda. "Huh?"

Sands snickered. "You picked them up while you were talking. Need a snack when we get back?"

Shaking my head, I set both the soda and the candy down, squinting at them briefly. "I guess so. Sorry, I didn't know I was doing that."

Shrugging, Sands tapped the bottle. "Your subconscious makes good choices, anyway. But yeah, holograms probably don't taste that good."

Before I could say anything else, a voice spoke up from nearby. "Heh, guess you saw it too, huh?"

Looking back, I saw Koren standing there. She still looked a little flushed, but was clearly doing her best to hold it together. "Saw what?"

"The receipt?" She offered, the tone of her voice implying the unstated 'duh.'

I shook my head at that. "What receipt?"

"Oh for the love of…" Trailing off, the girl spun around, making her long brown braid fly as she stomped back toward the registers to where Travis and Rudolph still were. Without ceremony, she snatched away a paper that the two were examining and brought it back, thrusting the paper into my face. "This receipt. You know, the one you saw before you picked those things up, like they're gonna tell you anything."

It took me a second to focus on the words on the receipt, but when I did, my throat closed up. Orange soda and a candy bar. The same candy bar I had picked up. "What… where was… this?"

"Seriously?" Koren squinted at me. "Back there, on the counter. It was the last thing on the register, so it was obviously the last thing that dead girl out there sold before all this shit happened."

Her head tilted at me, her squint turning suspicious. "If you didn't know what was on the receipt, then how the fuck did you just happen to pick up exactly what was on it?"

That… was a very good question.

BREAK

BREAK

Wood cracked against my arm, drawing a sharp yelp from me that was swiftly followed by a curse.

"You're still too slow," Avalon informed me unnecessarily. The pain in my bicep was already doing a fine job of making that point for her. "Keep your guard up. The staff has two ends, and you can use either of them. Don't forget that. Make me watch both of them, not just the top half. Keep it moving, end over end, back and forth. Vary your speed, vary your rotation. Never let me see a pattern, or—"

Without further warning, the wooden staff that my roommate was holding lashed out to smack my other arm this time. While I yelped, she stated flatly, "Or, if you're lucky, you'll regret it."

"And if I'm not lucky?" I asked while taking a second to rub my arm. "Because this feels not lucky."

"If you're not lucky, you won't have a chance to regret it." Her stare was intense. "You'll be dead."

"Point taken." Grimacing at that particular thought, I nodded before holding my hand up for a break so that I could walk over a few feet across the beach to where we had dropped our stuff. Leaning down, I grabbed a bottle of water and took a long pull from it while catching my breath.

It was early evening, just a bit before dinner. Two whole weeks had passed since that first little field trip into the holographic crime scene. Two weeks of classes about monsters, magic, vampires, and the occasional alien. Or what looked like aliens anyway. Two weeks of learning how to fight and kill.

On the plus side, no more teachers had died and there hadn't been another attempt on Avalon's life. Unfortunately, the negative side was that none of us still had any idea who was responsible for either of those events, or if it was even related. Nor was I any closer to figuring out what had happened with my mother. Not being able to outright ask any of the adults about her was proving to be a pain in the ass. It limited us to looking through the library and other parts of the school for any crumb of information similar to the graduation picture that I'd found. Even with Avalon's help, it was very slow going.

I'd been tempted to talk to the rest of the team about it, but there was the problem of Sands and Scout. Not that I didn't trust them. I did. But their father was a teacher and the last thing I wanted was to make them lie to him just to keep what I was doing away from the faculty. I wasn't going to make my new friends choose between keeping my secret and maintaining their relationship with their father. So it was down to Avalon and me to find out as much as we could, which at the moment, was nothing.

Adding to the list of things I didn't know was the exact reason that I'd somehow picked out the same items that had been on the last receipt in that gas station. Professor Dare had theorized that there may have been some connection between me and one of the people who had been there, but hell if we knew what that connection actually was. According to her, I could be distantly related to one of the victims or one of my ancestors might have encountered the Stranger responsible for killing them and been left with a strong enough tie to the monster to leave me with a residual link after using the Heretical Edge.

I wondered if my mother was the one who had some kind of connection to the evil piece of shit.

Sighing inwardly at the thought, I took another drink of the water before turning to glance at my roommate. Avalon, as usual, looked perfect. I was a sweaty, ill-coordinated mess in gray shorts and a tee shirt that had seen better days. She, on the other hand, was as gorgeous as ever in black running shorts and a green tank top that had to have been magically enchanted. It was the only way to explain why the cantaloupes she was smuggling around didn't pop out of it. If she hadn't been helping me out so much, I probably would have been jealous. Okay, more jealous than I already obviously was.

"If you're so good with a staff," I asked curiously while nodding toward the wooden training weapon that she was using to help me, "then why do you use those gauntlets instead?"

For a second, Avalon didn't respond. She just squinted at me as though going over the question in her head to figure out if there was any way that I might be mocking her. Finally, the other girl shrugged. "Of the weapons I know how to use, the staff is the one I'm the worst with."

I choked a little on my water, squinting that way. "This has been you being bad with a weapon?"

"Out of the weapons I know how to use," she repeated pointedly while striding toward me. "There's plenty of weapons that I don't know how to use at all." Leaning down, she plucked up the other bottle of water and took a sip from it. "Now quit whining just because I've had more practice than you and get your head back in the game. Do you want to get better or not? Because if you're tired of this already, I've got better things to do than waste my time with someone who's just going to quit."

"I'm not quitting," I promised. By that point, the pain in both of my arms had vanished thanks to the healing gift that I had inherited from the ugly little poodle-roach things. "I said I want to learn to be a better fighter, and I meant it. Heck, I'm already improving. You haven't insulted me half as much today as you did when we first started. You're even using both hands now. So, you know, yay progress?"

Her response was a grunt before she dropped the bottle back on the ground. "Fifteen more minutes, then dinner. Think you can keep going that long, Chambers? How are your arms holding up?"

"Sore," I answered truthfully. "But all that weight lifting you keep making me do in the mornings seems to be helping. It's not nearly as bad as that first night." That had been near torture. I had been as close as I ever got to flat out quitting and walking away. My arms had felt like they were going to fall off. Still, I pushed on through it and forced myself to keep at the training. Avalon's stated certainty that I was going to quit helped with that, considering at the time all I'd wanted to do was prove her wrong.

Part of me wondered just how purposeful that attitude had been. Had she been so hard on me through that first bit, even harder and more insulting than the girl usually was (which was saying a lot), to drive me to stick with it through sheer contrariness? It was hard to tell through the girl's ordinary prickliness.

"Keep it up, then." Her voice was firm. "You make me think you're slacking off or being lazy about this shit one time, and I'm done with you. I'm not going to waste my time if you start fucking up."

"Yeah," I replied with a slight smile after translating her words from Avalon-speak into a language that was slightly less inherently angry at everything. "I'm glad we're training together too, roomie."

The next day was Saturday. After spending an hour in the morning with Avalon doing our by-then standard workout (not having school was apparently no excuse for not exercising), and having a bit of breakfast, I was leaving the cafeteria when my father's ringtone began to play. It took me a second to maneuver my cell out of my jeans (no uniforms needed on days off), and answer it. "Yo."

"Hey there, lil bit!" Dad's voice boomed loud enough that I winced. "How's my favorite daughter?"

"Oh yeah, that was a hard contest to win," I replied. "Favorite daughter? Who was my competition?"

He laughed before shooting back, "Hey, for all you know, I might've adopted already. I could replace you with an adorable little baby that doesn't talk back to her old man. Or the new kid next door might have a sister I could latch onto. How long have you been gone for now? Three years, four?"

"Weeks, dad." I shook my head with a smile. "I've been gone for three weeks, tops."

"Feels like decades." Dad's voice was light, but I heard the truth in it. The two of us had been so close since my mother left that I knew this was hard on him. It was hard on me, even as busy as I had been.

Swallowing, I asked, "So what's this about a new boy next door? Did the Euphrene's finally move?"

"Seems like it," my father replied. "Got a new woman in there now. No husband that I know of, but she's got a little boy. I think he's about ten or so, named Ammon. Lady keeps to herself, but the kid came over a few times last week. I'm gonna pay him to keep up the lawn and stuff. Poor kid, I don't think he gets out very much. Sure seemed interested in whether I had any children or not."

I smiled a little while making my way into the lounge. In the corner, I could see Columbus, Sean, Shiori, and one of the other boys playing Mario Kart on one of the massive televisions. I gave them a wave, then turned slightly to continue my conversation. "Why did he care if you have any kids?"

"Lonely, I think." I heard the shrug in Dad's voice. "Seemed interested in you. Hell, I think the poor kid might have a crush on you, Flickster, considering all the pictures he wanted to see."

I felt a blush creep over my face. "Damn it, Dad, how many pictures did you show this kid?"

He chuckled a little before replying, "Take it easy, I didn't show him the baby pictures. Just the ones we've got up on the walls, and that one of the two of us at the lake that I keep in my wallet. Trust me, we only said good things about you. The kid might want to meet you when you come home to visit. Think you can handle a ten-year-old with a bit of a crush without breaking his poor, innocent heart?"

I rolled my eyes. "He should meet my roommate. He'd forget me in a damn hurry."

We talked some more, but Dad eventually had to excuse himself to head into the office for a few hours. After disconnecting, I returned my attention to the others and headed over to hop onto the couch beside Columbus. "Who's winning?" I asked while reaching over to snag a chip out of the bowl nearby.

"Shiori," Columbus, Sean, and the boy whose name I didn't know replied flatly. All of them seemed hyper focused on the screen, sitting up straight and leaning forward with looks of intense concentration.

Meanwhile, Columbus's foster sister was literally laying upside down, hanging off the front of the couch with her head on the floor. Her arms were stretched out in front of her along the floor as she watched the screen from her inverted position. And she was still clearly winning without much effort.

"Wow," I remarked after watching the race for a few more seconds until the girl had finished lapping them yet again. "Either you guys are seriously bad at this game, or she's really good."

"It's the second one," Columbus informed me. He wasn't wearing his uniform, but the tee shirt and khakis he was wearing looked as disheveled and rumpled in as his uniform usually did. I wondered if he picked out his clothes the night before, and then slept in them so that he could jump out of bed and go in the morning. It was the only way I could understand how he managed to make his clothes look so messed up from the first thing in the morning. "Shiori's good at every video game. Seriously. Pick a game she's never played, any game at all. Give her a couple hours to practice, and she'll beat almost anyone at it. It's like some kind of freaky gift or something. I think she killed some kind of video game Stranger and absorbed his skill back when she was six."

"Did not," Shiori replied absently while remaining focused on the screen. I could see the slight blush on her cheeks from the attention before she mumbled, "I just like games. It's not hard once you see how they work. You hit the button, the character does the action. People over complicate them."

Taking another chip, I smiled. "Sounds like great hand-eye coordination to me."

"No kidding," the boy I didn't know agreed. He was a fairly short guy, stocky in a muscular way, with intense green eyes and a pale face that was dotted with freckles. His light blonde hair was worn long, and he had to shake it out of his eyes before focusing on me as he extended a hand. "Ah, sorry, I don't think we really met. I'm Andrew. Shiori's team mentor."

I did a double take, staring at him in surprise. "Wait, team mentor? As in an older student that's supposed to help us learn and guide us through first year? That mentor? I thought that was just a myth."

He chuckled slightly before grimacing. "Yeah, sounds like Deveron's not excelling this time, huh?"

"More like not even trying," Sean remarked from where he was sitting. Vulcan lay at his feet, occasionally rubbing up against his master's leg while looking for a head scratch. I had no idea how scratching helped a dog made of metal, but Vulcan sure seemed to like it.

I nodded while rolling my eyes. "He's pretty much the worst mentor ever. Has he even said anything to you guys since orientation?" I asked the boys, receiving head shakes from both Columbus and Sean.

Andrew shrugged. "Sorry, wish I knew what to tell you. Dev was a great student last year. Pretty much at the top of everything constantly."

"That's what Sands and Scout said," I muttered before shaking my head. "Why couldn't we have gotten that guy for a mentor instead of the impostor that's been wandering around in his skin?"

"You could ask him yourself if you wanted to," Andrew suggested while nodding toward the doorway. "Considering he just went past."

After looking that way briefly, I pushed myself up. "I think I will. Whatever his damn problem is, he needs to get the hell over it and start doing his job. We deserve better than this."

"You want some company?" Sean asked. "Tired of getting my butt kicked here anyway."

I considered it, but then shook my head. "Let me talk to him first. If I need backup, I'll let you know."

Both he and Columbus agreed, and I promised to return to let them know what happened before heading out of the room at a quick jog. I wanted to catch up with Deveron before he disappeared again.

Reaching the hall, I turned the way that Andrew had gestured and picked up the pace. Deveron had been heading out of the building, and if he got too far, I'd never figure out where he went.

Thankfully, the older boy was still in sight as I came through the doors. He was on his way past the staff housing building, walking fast as he turned the corner around the wall.

Wincing, I ran to catch up. No way was I going to miss this chance to give the jerk a piece of my mind.

Just as I reached the edge of the building, instinct made me slow down. Rather than storm around the side and start demanding that he stop and talk to me, the way I'd planned, I instead peeked carefully around the corner.

Deveron was there, crouching near the middle of the building. He had one of the bricks in his hand, and was shoving something into the hole there. Then he pushed the brick back into place and patted it to make sure it was as smooth as possible before straightening.

His head turned in my direction, and I quickly jerked back out of sight, my heart hammering. What the hell was he hiding? Did it have something to do with Avalon or Professor Pericles?

A moment later, I peeked back around and found the area behind the building empty. Deveron had moved on. Forgetting the reason that I'd started to follow him to begin with, I made my way to the same spot he'd been and crouched down to pry at the bricks until I found the right one. It took a bit of work, but I managed to tug the brick out and set it aside before reaching into the hole.

My questing fingers eventually found the thing that Deveron had hidden in there, and I tugged it out, finding a folded up photograph. With a frown, I turned to sit against the wall while unfolding it.

It… was the picture of my mother's graduating class. I recognized it immediately, considering how long I'd spent staring at it in the awards case. This one was a more worn copy, but it was clearly the same picture. Why did Deveron have it, and why was he hiding it?

Wait. I frowned a little while looking at the photograph. Something was different about it. I'd spent hours staring at the one in the trophy case, and something about this one was off. I just couldn't tell what it was.

Then I found it. My eyes scanned the picture until they zeroed in on a single figure in the picture that definitely wasn't there in the other copy. A figure standing directly next to my mother, where there was empty space in the picture that I had studied. A figure that was holding her hand as they cheered for their own graduation from this school. A figure that I had just seen walk away from this spot.

No wonder Deveron had been so good at everything in this place last year. According to this picture, he'd graduated with my mother in 1922.

BREAK

BREAK

A NOTE

Hey people, this is the end of this arc so there will be an interlude posted around noon mountain time/seven pm UTC. Thanks for reading!

My first temptation, to grab the picture and run after Deveron so I could shove it in his face and demand answers, was almost impossible to resist. I had to physically will myself not to, repeating in my head several times why it would be a bad idea to show my hand so easily. Even then, it almost wasn't enough. My muscles tensed up, and I stared down at that picture of Deveron beside my mother.

In the end, I carefully spread the photograph on the grass and took out my phone. Lining the screen up just right, I used the camera app to take a picture of it, checking afterward to make sure it looked right.

With that done, I folded the photograph up once more and put it back inside the hole before replacing the brick. After taking a second to make sure it looked like it had when I found it, I picked myself up and glanced around to make sure no one was watching before heading back the way I had come.

I needed answers, but blurting out demands to Deveron probably wasn't the way to get them. No, I needed to talk to someone else about this. The only person who knew as much as I did. My roommate.

Eventually, I found out from another student that Avalon was practicing the newest bit of magic that Professor Carfried had us working on. It was essentially a minor step-up from the whole turning a rock into a firecracker noisemaker thing that Columbus and I had been practicing a couple of weeks earlier. This one was supposed to supposed to work like a flashbang, with the added trick that the person using it could designate people to be immune and only the ones that weren't would be affected. Apparently many Heretics used it or spells like it to blind a room full of innocents while dealing with a Stranger. They may not be able to see magic or monsters for what they were, but people still tended to object to seeing someone stab, shoot, or abduct what they thought was a normal human being.

I'd asked about civilians recognizing Heretic magic, only to be told that our abilities fell under the same haze effect that stopped Bystanders from understanding it as Stranger's abilities did. That was… enough to raise some questions in my mind, but I hadn't yet sorted out exactly what those questions were.

The room that Avalon was in was one of several set aside for magic practice inside the physical training building. These rooms were each about sixteen feet by sixteen feet, with floors and walls that were reinforced metal of some kind that was resistant to most spells and damage that any of the students could manage. The doors were so heavy they were hard to move even when they weren't barred with the three different locks that were meant to make sure no one blundered into the path of spell practice, and they each had one of those small rectangular view ports at eye level that could be slid open or shut so that the person inside could look out and see who was trying to talk to them.

Stopping by the door, I reached up to press my thumb against the button next to the door. It looked like a doorbell, and essentially worked in a similar way. Instead of making a loud ringing noise, however, which could potentially be devastatingly distracting to someone working dangerous magic within the room, it simply made the ceiling glow in a way that was obvious but less potentially catastrophic.

Even then, it took Avalon a minute or two to answer. Knowing my roommate the way I did already, however, I didn't bother to press the button again. Instead, I simply waited, trying not to squirm too anxiously. As hard as it had been to avoid running after Deveron, it was even harder not to bang on the door and shout for Avalon's attention immediately. Patience was hard, especially in this situation.

Finally, the little viewing hatch slid open, and I saw Avalon's brown eyes staring at me in silence for a second before her irritated voice demanded, "What do you want, Chambers? We're done for the day."

"I found something," I informed her flatly, meeting her hard gaze. "You'll want to see it, I promise."

Still, she waited for a few seconds before heaving a sigh. The view window slid shut with a clang, and a moment later the door was hauled open. My roommate stood there, looking me up and down briefly before stepping aside as she gestured for me to enter. "I suppose you want privacy for this then?"

Nodding, I stepped into the training room and glanced around briefly. The walls were covered in scratches and various marks from previous spell training sessions. I knew that they tended to scour the training rooms completely clean every week, so most of these marks had to have been made recently. Obviously, these rooms ended up being used a lot, if the marks all over the place were any indication.

After shoving the door shut heavily and resetting each of the locks, Avalon simply folded her arms over her stomach and stood there, silently waiting for me to explain just what the hell I wanted.

Rather than try to find the words to explain, I took my phone, brought up the picture, and handed it to her. Avalon accepted the phone, glanced for half a second at the screen and then returned her attention to me. "What's your point? It's the same fucking picture we've looked at for the past two weeks."

"Keep looking," I instructed. I wanted to see her reaction when she finally noticed what was different, without warning her or guiding her attention toward it. "There's something new this time."

The other girl squinted at me briefly, then returned her gaze to the image. I saw her eyes move over it carefully, scanning the people in it. When she finally spotted what I had seen, it was obvious. Her eyes widened considerably, and her mouth actually dropped open before she let out a strangled curse.

"Yeah," I informed her as dryly as possible. "That's pretty much what I said."

"Where the hell did you get this?" Avalon demanded, returning her stare to me. "Does he know you have it? What happened? How did you find it? Who gave it to you? What the actual fuck?"

Holding up my hands to stem the tide of questions, I explained, "I was following Deveron to bitch him out for being such a useless mentor. I saw him go behind the staff building. When I got there, he was putting that photograph into a little hole in the wall hidden by a brick. I looked at it after he left and that's what it was. It was that picture. Same as the one in the trophy case except for that little… change."

After staring at the picture for another minute, Avalon shoved the phone back at me before spinning to start unlocking the door. She was cursing rapidly under her breath, clearly working herself up.

"Wait, wait." Catching the other girl by the arm, I flinched back a bit when she whirled on me. But I didn't let go. "We can't just go stomping up to him and demand he tell us the truth, Avalon. I know you're good at the whole 'tell me what I want to know or face damnation to hell' glare, but I'm pretty sure it won't work on Deveron. All it'll do is tip him off that we know something, and he'll be even more careful than he already is. We'll get nothing out of it except for appeasing your urge to yell."

Her eyes narrowed, and for a moment I thought that she might direct some of that aforementioned yelling at me instead of her original target. In the end, however, Avalon let out a long, low breath to take control of herself back. Then she carefully, but firmly yanked her arm free of my grasp. When she spoke, it was obvious that she was making an effort to control her tone. "Then what do you suggest?"

"We investigate him," I replied without breaking her gaze. "Before this, he was just an annoying, lazy jerk who wasn't worth the time. Now? Now I want to know everything about him. I want to know where he came from, everything he did here last year, all those awards he won and who his teachers and teammates were. I want to know where he went over the summer and why he's so different this year. I want to know what kind of fight he had with Professor Pericles, why he shoved the guy, and what else those Runners talked to him about. I want to know who his family is, who his friends are, and most importantly, why the hell he's standing in that picture with my mother from ninety years ago."

Swallowing hard, I continued. "He's the closest thing to an answer we've found so far about who my mother really was, or is, or whatever. I don't want to tip him off until we've found out everything we can. I want to know everything we can possibly know before we say anything directly to him. I want answers, but I want to do it the right way, the smart way. So no warning him until we're ready. Okay?"

She didn't answer at first, simply regarding me for a few seconds before nodding. Her tense body relaxed somewhat, and Avalon spoke in a quiet tone. "That's probably the smart move."

It was pretty much the closest the other girl had ever gotten to actually complimenting me, and I treated it as such. In spite of the situation, I made myself smile brightly at her. "Aww, thanks, roomie. You know, you're not so bad yourself. We make a good team after all." Holding my fist out to her, I grinned. "Magical roommate detective friendship power is go?"

Her voice as she responded was as dry as the Sahara. "You have got to be kidding."

With my free hand, I slapped my forehead. "Crap, sorry, you're right. What was I thinking?" Reaching into my pocket then, I produced Herbie and set him on top of my outstretched fist. "Can't forget our other roommate and team mascot! He'd never forgive me." Still grinning, I waggled my eyebrows at her teasingly. "Now magical roommate detective friendship power is go?"

"Oh my god, Chambers," Avalon was shaking her head rapidly, but not fast enough to hide the little smirk that had crept over her face in spite of herself. "You must have been born magical."

Blinking at that, I let my head tilt slightly, curious. "You really think so?"

"I know so," she informed me. "Because magic is the only conceivable way that anyone could fit that much dork into such a small package."

Snickering, I continued to hold my fist out. "Do it, do it, do it. You know you want to. Go ahead. Do it. You know you wanna. Fist bump, fist bump, fiiiiist bump! Please? Pretty please with cherries on top?"

Her eyes rolled heavily, but Avalon finally reached out to touch her fist against mine as lightly as possible before dropping her arm back to her side. "There," she replied. "Are you happy now?"

"Yaaaaaaaay!" I tossed Herbie in the air to celebrate, then caught him while bouncing up and down, smiling as brightly as I could manage. "Best. Roommates. Ever."

Turning on her heel, Avalon finished unlocking the room while muttering under her breath, "Biggest dork in the world. No, in the universe. What's bigger than the universe?"

"Multiverse," I informed her helpfully, still bouncing up and down with my pet rock. "Right, Herbie?"

She spared me a brief glance, then shoved the door open before stepping out into the hall. "Multiverse. Multi-multiverse. Omniverse. Biggest dork that has ever dorked. My roommate is the progenitor from which all dorks have spawned throughout any and all creation, reality, and time."

Laughing easily, I followed her into the hall. "At least you think I'm the best at something."

"Speaking of something you're supposed to be good at," Avalon changed the subject. "Where do you think we're going to start with this whole 'investigate the pile of excrement that is our mentor' thing?"

I paused to think about that briefly while the two of us stood there in the hall. "We need to find out everything we can without letting Deveron know that we've seen the picture or that we suspect anything about it. So whenever we actually talk to anyone about it, we need to make it look like we're just trying to figure out why he's such a useless mentor, why he's so lazy. We don't ask about ninety years ago, we don't show anyone the picture, we keep it subtle for as long as we can."

Nodding slightly, Avalon added, "Shouldn't be hard to get everything his roommate knows out of him."

"Really?" I blinked once. "Why, do you know him that well?"

"Nope," she replied. "I've never seen the guy before. Don't even know who he is."

Frowning a little, I asked, "Then how do you know it'll be so easy to get information out of him?"

It was Avalon's turn to smile knowingly, an expression that was more predatory than happy. "Just trust me, Chambers. We ask him some questions, he'll answer. You just have to ask in the right way."

Flushing slightly at the implication, I coughed. "Okay, we'll get answers then. So we've got the roommate, anyone of his team we can talk to, maybe his old adviser—wait, who's his adviser again?"

"He's in the Explorer track," Avalon replied. "So his adviser is Professor Carfried, which means-"

I cursed. "Which means he won't know anything about Deveron from last year, since he took over for Professor Tangle." Then I blinked. "Wait, do you think that shark attack had anything to do with this?"

"Would it really surprise you?" The other girl shot back. "Does any of this seem like a coincidence?"

"Point," I replied. "Do you think there's any way we could talk to Professor Tangle?"

"Maybe send her a message?" Avalon offered with a shrug. "I doubt any of the teachers here will give you her phone number, but maybe one of her old students has it."

"Like Deveron's roommate," I finished her thought. "Sounds like he's the first one we should talk to."

The two of us started to walk down the hall, and I spared a glance toward the other girl. This was pretty much the best we'd ever gotten along openly, and I took a chance by saying, "Thanks for helping me. You know, with this and with everything else."

"You're a teammate," she replied flatly. "Making sure you're good enough to pull your weight is in my own best interest. I'd rather not lose points because you're lagging behind."

"It's more than that," I insisted. "You're going above and beyond, even if you complain about it. So… thanks. And… and I wanted to ask you something. I'm sorry if it pisses you off, but I'm really not trying to. I'm just curious. If you don't want to answer, you don't have to. You don't even have to respond. You stay silent, and I won't ask again, I swear."

For a moment, I thought she might bite my head off. Her glare returned as she looked at me, before stopping herself. I saw a myriad of emotions pass through her gaze before she finally shook her head, voice flat and emotionless. "What do you want to ask, Chambers?"

Even as worked up as I was, as much as I had practiced this in my head, I still faltered. It took me a moment to find my voice. "Your tattoo," I finally managed quietly. "Is it really–"

"Eden's Garden." Avalon's voice was harder than before. "Yes, I was a student there. They start earlier than this place does. Yes, I did some bad things while I was there. No, I'm not spying for them. Yes, I'm here by my own choice."

"What… what was it like there?" I asked after a second of bracing myself. "Is it really that different from this place? Do they work with the Strangers? How is that possible? Did you ever talk to any of them? What are they like? What–"

Holding her hand up to stop me, Avalon pursed her lips. Her eyes were glaring at me, but the anger in them didn't seem to be directed my way. It took her a few seconds to find her voice. "You… look, you want me to answer your questions? I'll tell you my story once, just so you stop asking me, understand? I'll tell you where I came from and what happened to me one time. And if any of that story gets out, I'll know that you're the one who talked about it. If that happens, I'll come after you, got it?"

Bobbing my head up and down, I promised, "I won't tell anyone anything, I swear."

Still staring at me for another few seconds, Avalon finally let out her breath. "Fine." Cracking her neck to both sides, she started, "You want to know my story? You want to know why I was at Eden's Garden, and why I'm here now? You want to know the truth? Well shut up and listen then, because here it is."

BREAK

BREAK

Six Years Ago.

"I said Black Forest!" The sound of the shout filled the living room of the small apartment, echoing throughout the tight confines just before a glass bottle punctuated the bellow by shattering noisily against the far wall, "Not this fucking Asp's light shit! It's the green god damn bottle! The green one! Are you so stupid you don't even know what the hell the color green is, you retarded little fuckstain?"

Standing before her drunken, towering father, eleven-year-old Hannah Owens quivered a little, reflexively cowering from the man's glare. "I… I… I…" She was too frightened to force the words out.

"I, I, I." The man repeated mockingly before making a noise of disgust before his fist lashed out, striking the girl across the face with enough force to knock her to the floor. "Shut the fuck up, brat."

Hannah had seen the blow coming. Her father was too drunk for anything even approaching subtlety. The young girl, whose dark hair was drawn into a simple ponytail held by a scavenged rubber band, wanted to pull away from the incoming punch. Being hit by Daddy hurt, even when he was too drunk to put much thought into his blows. But she knew through plenty of personal experience that avoiding one blow, tempting as it was, would just infuriate the man and spur him on to much worse things. It was better to take the single hit and drop to the floor than risk giving him any reason to follow up the attack. It hurt to get hit. It hurt worse when Daddy was mad enough to get creative.

So she made herself stand still, taking the back-handed blow that knocked her to the floor with a cry. She had to yelp, had to make the physical sound or her father would think that he hadn't hit her hard enough. It was a tricky thing to judge. If she didn't make enough noise, Daddy would think that his first strike hadn't done the job and would follow it up. If she made too much noise, it would annoy him further and he'd make her shut up the only way he knew how. There was almost an art to making just enough of a scene that he would be satisfied that a single punch had gotten his point across sufficiently.

Luckily, in a manner of speaking, Hannah had plenty of practice at that sort of thing.

Reginald, Reggie to his friends at the bars and the bowling alley where he led the league in score, stood over the fallen girl. His face was twisted and ugly as he jabbed a finger down at her. "I told you to get me a fucking Black Forest out of the fridge, you waste of sperm. Not the Asp's Light. One of em's got the green bottle, the other's that piss-stain yellow one. I always knew the only thing you'd ever be good for was an example of why going bareback on some dumb bitch ain't worth the trouble, but I thought you at least knew the difference between green and yellow. Ain't that what you go to school for?!"

He waited half a second before raising his voice back into a bellow, "Answer the fucking question, you retarded little condom-tear! Don't you know the difference between green and yellow, huh?!"

"Y-y-yes, daddy," Hannah stammered, her eyes wide as she stared up at the furious man. "I… I kn-know. B-but, but… we-we-w-we're out of the green one. They're all gone a-a-and I didn't wanna give you no beer, a-a-and that one was still there f-from the other night when you had your p-poker night."

"Out?!" If anything, Reggie was even angrier at that point. He reared back his foot and kicked the girl. "What the fuck do you mean, we're out?! I had six left this morning! Six of 'em! I had one with lunch, one this afternoon, and three more this evening! One, one, three. That's fucking five, you worthless little shit! Where the–" He brought back his foot once more, sending it forward to kick the child with enough force to knock her several feet away. "–hell is my last beer! Where the fuck is it?! You steal it, huh? Where'd you fucking put it, shitstain?! Where'd you hide it?! You tell me where it is right now!"

Curling into a ball, tears falling freely from her clenched shut eyes, Hannah finally managed to answer the man when he paused to take a breath. "You drank it! You drank it, you drank it, you drank it!"

Letting out a snarl of anger, Reggie leaned down and grabbed the girl by her hair. Yanking the eleven-year old back to her feet, he gave her a hard, open-palm slap across the face. "You're a fucking liar, you know that? You're a moron and you're a liar. I just told you how many beers I had. Five, not six. You already killed your mommy when you were born, you stupid shit. Wasn't that enough for you?"

It was one of Hannah's father's favorite topics. Her mother had died due to complications while giving birth to the girl. In the eyes of Reginald Owens, that meant that Hannah had killed his wife. He had never gotten over the loss, and had never forgiven the girl, not for one minute. On his best days, he tolerated her presence and gave gruff orders to stay out of his way. On the worst, he made sure she knew just how worthless, unloved, unwanted, and pathetic she was. He made absolutely certain that the girl never forgot that she was a murderer, that she had killed her own mother while being born.

"You killed your mommy, you evil shit, and now you steal my beer?" The man spat the words hatefully.

Blinded by the tears that continued soaking her small face, Hannah had to fight for breath so that she could stammer a response. "Y-y-you had… had… the other one last n-night. You had it last night."

"Bullshit!" Reggie's anger boiled over, and he drew back his hand to smack her once again. In mid-swing, however, a noise from outside the apartment drew the attention of both father and daughter. It was the sound of shouting, running footsteps, and heavy crashes as something repeatedly crashed into the walls with so much force that they shook heavily from each impact.

"What… the…." Releasing his daughter, Reggie strode to the entrance of the apartment. Shoving the door open to step into the hall, he bellowed, "What the fuck is going on out here, you inconsiderate–"

His complaint was cut off as a larger man, pale and wild-eyed, slammed into Reggie and knocked him to the floor so hard the air was knocked out of him. The massive figure then continued to barrel into the newly revealed apartment, setting his eyes on Hannah herself, who was suddenly paralyzed with fear.

"Good." The big man announced, drooling on himself as he staggered toward the girl. "Fresh meat."

Hannah opened her mouth, a high-pitched scream barely escaping her before the enormous, ugly man was suddenly in front of her. He crossed the entire room so quickly she hadn't even seen him move before he was abruptly right there. Her scream was cut off as his hand closed around her throat, and Hannah found herself being lifted up from the floor. He brought her right up to his face, and when he spoke, the stench of rotted meat on his breath nearly make the girl throw up. "Wish I had time to take this slow and really enjoy my meal," he lamented with a sad shake of his head. "Especially when they look as tasty as you. But I need a recharge before those fucks catch up, and I think you'll do just fine."

He opened his mouth, revealing, to the girl's horror, several rows of teeth that were more akin to that of a shark than a human being. Her renewed shriek joined the monster's laugh as he began to lunge in.

An instant before those teeth would have torn into the child, a glowing red whip wrapped around the massive man's thick neck from behind, halting the lunge of his head toward her tender flesh.

For a second, Hannah continued to stare into those hungry eyes. Then the man was yanked backward by the whip around his neck. The force of it forced him to drop her, and Hannah rolled out of the way, bumping against the television before her wild gaze found the terrible man with all the teeth once more.

He was standing over her father, who hadn't managed to pick himself up yet. The monster's eyes weren't on the man that he'd casually knocked aside, but on the doorway of the apartment. When he spoke, the words were full of such vehemence that Hannah briefly thought it was her father's voice.

"Baroness," the monster spat the title like it was a curse. "To what do I owe this personal attention?"

In the doorway, holding onto the handle of the whip that had saved Hannah's life, stood the most beautiful woman that the small brunette had ever seen. Tall, regal, with red hair that was cut short, she was stunning in a way that the child had never thought possible outside of movies. The glowing crimson whip that she had used to haul the man away from Hannah hung loosely from one hand.

When the woman spoke, it was with utter confidence and power. Real power, not Reginald's tantrums. "You're not killing anyone else, Fahsteth," she announced flatly. "Not again."

"Really?" The big man asked while lifting both hands as if to show that they were empty and that he was surrendering. " Well, in that case, I suppose I'll just have to–"

Reacting to some sign that Hannah hadn't noticed, the so-called Baroness spun around suddenly, narrowly avoiding the lunge of the man that Fahsteth had been trying to distract her from.

A sword, the young girl realized belatedly while staring at what was happening in the doorway. The man who had attacked was swinging a sword around, taking chunks out of the wall. They struggled in a fight that was over so fast that the girl didn't have time to follow anything that had happened. There was just a flurry of swings and the sound of that blade cutting into the wall, and then his sword was on the ground and the man himself was caught in the woman's grip, her arms around his throat.

"Hey, Baroness!" the first man, Fahsteth, bellowed to get her attention. "You know that thing you said about me not killing anyone else?" His hands were still raised, but when he turned them the other way, there was a long-bladed knife in each of them that had appeared out of nowhere. "You might wanna think about throwing an asterisk onto that if you write this stuff down."

With that, as the beautiful woman let out a cry of warning and tried to release the man that she had been struggling with, Fahsteth threw a single blade to each side. One struck struck Hannah's father, who still hadn't managed to pick himself up from the floor where he'd been knocked.

The other struck Hannah herself, embedding itself into the girl's stomach with a suddenness that was almost as shocking as the utterly blinding pain that coursed through her.

"Got anymore predictions, Headmistress?" Fahsteth asked before spinning on his heel. With a shout of exuberance, he threw himself at the nearby window, crashing through the glass to escape.

In the next instant, the red-haired woman snapped the neck of the man that she had been struggling with, throwing the body aside before rushing forward. She dropped to one knee beside Hannah, freeing the blade from her stomach with a quick pull before pressing a hand over the wound. "No, no, no," she murmured rapidly, head shaking. "Damn it! Listen to me, child, do not close your eyes. Look at me. Look at me, Hannah. Don't close your eyes, okay? Keep them on me, keep looking at me."

"How—how do you know my… my name?" The little girl asked, her voice thick with pain.

"I know a lot of things about you, Hannah," the woman informed her. "In fact, I was just on my way to talk to you today when that… creature chose to make an appearance. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Hannah. I thought we'd have more time. I thought I could make your father stop, take you somewhere that people would care about you, and you could have a chance to be a little girl for a bit longer."

"I—I… d-don't… d-don't… wanna… d-die…" The little girl's tears flowed freely, almost blinding her as she stared up at the woman, terrified of what she was saying. "Please, please, I'll be good, I promise." Her sobs had taken on a ragged, pained quality as each word grew harder to speak. "Please…"

"Hannah, listen to me. Listen." The woman tilted her chin up with a finger. "You are not going to die, do you understand me? My name is Gaia Sinclaire, and I promise you that you will not die today. We just… have to do things a little different. I'm not sad because you might die, Hannah. I'm sad because I was looking forward to getting to know you, and now I'm not going to get that chance."

"But… but you said–" Hannah tried to protest, though the effort to speak even that much cost her.

"Shh," Gaia's head shook. "I said you weren't going to die, and you're not. Of that, you have my word."

From her pocket, the woman produced what looked like a small chicken bone. Taking it in both hands, she snapped the bone and tossed it aside while continuing to smile at the girl. "It's okay. It's all right."

No more than twenty seconds after the bone had been broken, another figure stepped through the doorway. This one was a man, tall and handsome, dressed in an emerald suit. The shirt beneath the suit jacket was black, and the sunglasses he wore were tinted so dark that they appeared opaque.

"You broke the bone," the newcomer announced, sounding vaguely surprised. "On purpose? I was half-expecting to find it discarded in a dumpster, with you back at your school laughing at the image of me rooting through the trash, trying to figure out what you wanted."

Turning on him, Gaia interrupted before the man could continue. "Shut up and pay attention, Seller. The girl's been poisoned. It was one of Fahsteth's blades."

Wincing noticeably, Seller's head shook. "Fuck, so why'd you call me in? I know some of those hardliners you run with think this is the sort of thing we Gardeners enjoy, but you fucking know better than that, Sinclaire. I don't wanna see this. Fahsteth's blade? You know we can't fix a Bystander that's been hit by one of those. It's impossible."

"She's a potential," Gaia informed him in a low voice. "One of our biggest, actually. If she was a Heretic, we could fix her in a second. This poison would mean nothing. But…"

Seller's voice was caustic. "But those stick in the ass old timers wouldn't stand for it. Can't break tradition, not even for a sick little girl that didn't do anything wrong."

The Baroness shook her head. "They believe that using the Edge on someone who is too young creates more problems."

"I know exactly what they think!" Seller's voice was raised. "That's the whole reason the Garden exists! Because those fucks can't get over themselves and their 'tradition.' And god forbid anyone fight against that. We all saw what happened to…" Pursing his lips then, clearly forcing himself to stop talking rather than launch into a much longer argument, the man finally finished with, "And what do you think?"

"I think I want you to take this girl," Gaia Sinclaire replied softly, "and save her life. Make her a Heretic. Give her the power she needs."

"You know if we take her," Seller's voice was equally quiet. "We don't give them back. She'll be one of us. You said she was one of your favorite potentials?"

"I would rather she go with you and live, than die." Gaia's voice was hard. "Take care of the girl, Seller. Heal her, keep her safe. Teach her how to fight. Teach her how to take care of herself. Teach her how to survive… and how to win."

Slowly, Seller reached up to push his sunglasses down so that his pale eyes could look into Hannah's weak, pain-filled gaze. "What about you, kid? What do you want?"

"I…." Hannah started. "… want… to… live."

"Good enough for me." The man crouched, pushing his hands under Hannah before lifting her off of the floor. "I'll take the kid back to the Garden, Baroness. We'll fix her up."

He started for the doorway, the small, weak figure clutched in his arms. Before he reached it, however, another voice spoke up. "Heeeeey. What about me?"

It was Hannah's father, Reggie. He was still lying in a pool of his blood, hand waving back and forth. "I ain't… I ain't dead either, you stupid fucks. What about me?"

Pushing herself up, Gaia Sinclaire stood over the man. "What about you? Well, as it happens, I was on my way here to tell you what I think of how you've treated your daughter, Mr. Owens, when that creature so rudely interrupted. And now? With that particular wound and the poison in the blade, you'll be dead within the hour." Taking the handle of the knife with one hand, she tore it from his body while straightening up. "Give or take."

"You shit!" The man blurted. "You can't just… can't just leave me here!"

Standing there regally, the Baroness gazed down at Reggie. "There are several things that I am capable of, Mr. Owens. I am capable of understanding what you've done to your daughter. I am capable of understanding that you are never likely to change. And, perhaps most importantly for you in this second, I am, in fact, fully capable of leaving you right where you are."

With that, she pivoted on her heel and left the man to scream useless insults and threats after her.

"All right, kid," Seller announced while walking deeper into the apartment, toward another door. "Let's get you fixed up, huh? You know where this door goes?"

Blearily, the poison working its way through her, Hannah lifted her gaze to look that way. "It's a…. closet…"

The man smiled. "Wanna bet?" Leaning close enough to twist the knob without dropping the girl, he pushed it open, revealing a whole new building on the other side.

Eyes widening in spite of the pain she was in, Hannah stared at the impossible sight. "H-how…?"

"You think that's cool, munchkin," Seller announced, "then the rest of this stuff is gonna blow your mind."

Four Months Ago

"They'll never take me back," the girl who had grown into a beautiful, powerful young woman over the past six years stood in the middle of the empty street. Rain poured down from above in great sheets, the raging storm making it all but impossible to either see or hear further than a few feet away. "Not after what I did," she finished.

Beside her, the woman who had saved her life by sending her away all those years ago lay a hand on her shoulder. With her other hand, she clicked the top of a pen. The second the pen was clicked, the water stopped falling on the two of them. It was still raining just as heavily as before, but a space had opened up where the water simply avoided, falling to either side. It was as if an invisible shield had surrounded them.

"It's going to be all right, Hannah," Gaia promised the girl.

"All right?" Turning on her, the brunette shook her head. "I killed my teammate. That's not all right. That's not something they'll ever forgive. I killed him. They'll want payback for that. I have to run."

"It was self-defense," Gaia reminded her. "He was trying to–"

"I know what he was trying to do, I was there!" Hannah shot back. "You think it matters? I killed him and everyone saw me with the body. They know I killed him, they know it was me. They don't know anything else. They don't know about the harassment. They don't know about the letters. They don't know how many times he said he didn't care that I like girls. Fuck, it was a turn-on for him! He said we could get one of the other babes in and make it a real party. But yesterday he just… he just… he tried to push the issue. I killed him. I just hit him and I hit him again, and then I couldn't stop hitting him. That's what they saw. That's what they walked in on. Me, sitting on his chest, hitting his dead body for so long that his face was just a… a mess. I know what they saw. I know what they were going to do. So I ran away. I would've been taken anyway if Seller hadn't gotten me out and given me your number. Now I… I don't know what to do."

"Listen to me, Hannah," Gaia's voice was firm. "You are going to be all right. First, the Garden wouldn't dare attack the daughter of one of Crossroads' senior staff. It would provoke a war."

"But I'm not related to anyone from your school," Hannah pointed out.

"You will be as soon as I finish adopting you," Gaia replied simply. "You'll be my daughter, my heir, and no one from that school will dare come after you. They'll have to go through me first."

Hannah's mouth fell open. "You want to adopt me? Don't you think I'm a little old for that?"

"Actually," Gaia shrugged. "You happen to be the perfect age to start attending Crossroads."

"Your school." Hannah's disbelief was palpable. "You want to adopt me and send me to your school."

The Baroness nodded once. "You've learned so much from Eden's Garden already, but I know they don't start teaching magic until this year, Hannah. The human body can't handle it until now. So you have a head-start on the physical parts, but you'll be right with the others when it comes to magic. You'll come to Crossroads. It will be hard for you to adjust, but I believe that you can manage it. I believe that you will excel, that you can excel at anything. I've been keeping an eye on you, Hannah, the whole time you were with the Garden Heretics. I know you. I know you can do this."

Pursing her lips for a few seconds, the girl finally shrugged. "What the hell, it's better than being on the run for the rest of my life."

"Good," Gaia smiled a bit. "We'll spend the summer together. And in the fall, Hannah Sinclaire can join Crossroads."

"No," the young woman shook her head firmly, turning a bit to face the Headmistress. "Not Hannah. I'm tired of that name. That's the name my father chose. I'm done with it. You want to adopt me? Fine, but change my whole name then."

"Very well," Gaia nodded once. "What shall we call you then, if not Hannah?"

The girl was quiet for a few seconds before she spoke. "I liked being at Eden's Garden. You know, it's not as bad as you Crossroads people make it sound. Sure it's… different, and there's some nasty people there. Hell, I've done some bad things. Things your people would consider bad. But it's not all evil mustache twirling. They're not a bunch of monsters. They just think differently than you. Hell, they say a lot of things about you guys that's not true."

Gaia's head inclined into a simple nod. "I am aware of this. I would not have sent you with Seller if I didn't believe you could be safe there."

The girl continued, "I don't want to forget where I came from. I don't want to abandon it. Eden's Garden taught me a lot. They taught me how to fight, how to protect myself. I'll go to your school, I'll even take your name. But I miss the Garden. I want my new name to help me remember it."

"There is a possibility," Gaia informed her. "I have… heard that the apple has a special significance to Garden students."

"Apples, sure," Hannah bobbed her head. "Or just fruit in general. The whole bullshit with the apple on the tree? The forbidden fruit? Yeah, that's real for them. Sort of. That's how they awaken us. You guys use the lighthouse, Eden's Garden uses the fruit of knowledge. You eat the fruit, you become a Heretic."

The Crossroads Headmistress nodded at that. "Of course. If you wish to hold onto your connection to the Garden, there is a name whose source was derived from the Old Welsh word for apple, aball. Or afal, depending on who you speak with. Ynys Afallon, to be specific. The island of apples. Or, in more common terminology… Avalon."

"Avalon…" The girl considered for a moment before nodding slowly. "I like it."

"Very well," Gaia bowed her head in acknowledgment. "Then after today, you need never answer to the name of Hannah Owens again. This is your fresh start. From this point on, you are Avalon Sinclaire."

"I still think this is all going to blow up in our faces," the newly dubbed Avalon remarked quietly. "And Eden's Garden won't just let it go. They can't. But…. what the hell, I suppose your Crossroads Academy has a new student. Just one thing though, I don't do well with roommates. They never last."

The Headmistress smiled faintly at that. "Never fear. I happen to have the perfect roommate in mind for you."

"I'll break her inside of a week. She'll beg you to move her," Avalon replied flatly.

Gaia met her gaze, her smile broadening just a bit. "We shall see, my new daughter.

"We shall see."

BREAK

BREAK

"So, I know you're a Silverstone and all, but you do know that tonight is kind of a big deal, right?"

I blinked once at the boy who was talking. He was one of the other students in my year, a thin and aristocratic looking guy with hawkish features and a thin nose with a golden stud in it that was shaped like a heart. I hadn't interacted with him much over the last few weeks, but I knew his name was Zeke, and he was on a team with Vanessa and Erin. That team consisted of those three, Zeke's roommate Malcolm, as well as Travis and Rudolph, the two guys that Columbus and Sean hung out with.

"Yeah, sure," I replied to him after a second. "Some kind of once a month team exercise thing." Belatedly, after letting my eyes move over the crowded patch of grass near the Pathmaker building where all the first years had been gathered, I added, "Everyone seems pretty amped up."

That was an understatement. There was a current of anticipation running through the students who knew what was going on that reminded me of being a kid at school right before Christmas vacation. This was obviously something they'd really been waiting for and looking forward to for a long time.

Zeke nodded, eyes never leaving me. Or rather, never leaving a particular spot a few inches above my eyes. "Right, and the 'team exercise thing' is a big deal. Most of us, those of us who grew up waiting for our chance to be here, have been dreaming about how these events would go since we were toddlers."

I smiled at that, giving him a thumbs up while being careful not to move too much. "Hey, good to know. Hope it lives up to the hype. Good luck to your team and everything."

"Uh huh." His eyes hadn't moved. "So you know this is a big deal. Great. So I have to ask, why aren't you taking it seriously, exactly? Do you think it's funny to mock the things that we like?"

"Mock?" I echoed blankly. "How am I mocking it?"

His eyes dropped a bit to squint at me. "This is our first big Heretic fight, you know? The first time we get a chance to fight as teams and actually go after real bad guys. Sure, it's a fight with the training wheels on and the staff is right there to grab us if anything happens, but still. Big fight. Big chance to look like heroes, to be heroes. It's a big deal, Felicity. You could at least pretend to take it seriously."

"One, it's Flick." I reminded him. "And two, how am I not taking it seriously?"

By that point, Zeke was speaking through gritted teeth, unable to mask his annoyance any further. "If you're taking it seriously, then why is there a rock on your head with a plastic sword taped to it?"

It was Columbus who spoke up from beside me. "Hey, I'm working on the little guy's real weapon, but it took longer to get time in the metal shop than I thought, okay? The plastic's just a placeholder."

Grinning, I reached up to pat Herbie while remaining careful not to move my head too much so that he would remain perched a few inches in front of my ponytail. "Yeah, you just said everyone around here really looks forward to this. Can you blame the little guy for wanting to get in on the action too?"

To Sean, who was standing behind Columbus, I added, "Oh, thanks for the sword by the way. Herbie loves his new weapon, even if it is temporary. It really suits his debonair swashbuckler style."

The other boy returned my easy smile while rubbing the top of Vulcan's head. "No problem. I'm gonna need He-Man's weapon back once Columbo finishes up the metal one, but I don't mind sharing with Herbie for now. Least this way the little guy gets to feel like he's contributing."

"Contributing?" Zeke was looking at us like we were all certifiably insane. "It's a stupid rock with a couple googly eyes glued on and a plastic sword taped to it. It's not a–" He started while lashing out as if to smack Herbie right off the top of my head, his annoyance apparently getting the better of him.

It was a move he regretted, since his hand had barely gotten within a few inches of my little buddy before Avalon seemed to materialize out of nowhere. Her hand closed around the boy's wrist, and she gave a slight twist that made him abruptly turn sideways and drop to one knee with a yelp of pain.

"Funny," my roommate stated flatly, her voice cold. "I'm pretty sure you don't usually get a chance to make the whole 'don't touch a hair on my teammate's head' thing quite this literal. So I'm going to make this one count." Leaning in a bit closer, she made sure the boy was looking at her from his kneeling position before speaking again. "The rock wasn't bothering you. Neither was Chambers. You're nervous that you're going to fuck this up, so you're looking for something to pick a fight about. Stop it. Shut up, stand up, and walk away. Quit spending so much time and energy obsessing over why someone else is doing something you think is stupid and focus on your own shit. Got it?" When the boy gave a single nod, Avalon released him and watched as he picked himself up. He scowled briefly, but said nothing before turning to slip away, pointedly ignoring the people who were staring.

Briefly meeting my roommate's gaze, I gave her as much of a nod as possible. She ignored me and returned her attention to her gauntlets, obsessively going over them for any possible imperfection with the same meticulousness that I'd seen her use on her own face in the mirror.

I understood that urge a little bit more now that she'd told me her story. The need to be perfect, the drive to make herself look good extended through both her physical training and the time she spent on her appearance. Avalon had a drive to be as close to perfect as possible, all to prove her father wrong. She worked her ass off constantly to avoid being the helpless little girl that had been abused for so long. This image she'd made of herself, of this untouchable, beautiful badass was something she desperately needed so that she never had to think about the girl she'd been before. Avalon had basically created this almost mythological figure for herself and she worked almost constantly to maintain it.

Over the past week and a half, she and I had been investigating Deveron. We still hadn't had a chance to get his roommate alone yet, but Avalon said she had an idea for that. I just had to wait to see what it was. In the meantime, I had been going through the library looking for any mention of either him or my mother. It was slow going since I couldn't ask any of the staff about it, but so far nothing had turned up.

At least my father's old advice about this sort of work was proving true. Detective work was turning out to involve a lot of reading boring file after boring file until it felt like my eyes were going to bleed.

But it was worth it. I had to know what Deveron's connection to my mother was, what the hell his deal was in general, and what had happened to both of them. It was all just… insane, and I wanted answers.

Before I could say anything else, Sands and Scout moved up on either side of me, the former slipping right between Columbus so that she could pluck Herbie off my head, giving him a quick peck right above his eyes. "For luck," she said before grinning my way. "You guys ready to kick ass and take a whole lotta names? Or, you know, as many names as we can take while kicking literally all of the ass."

I took Herbie back from her, admiring the sword briefly before giving Sands a hip bump. "Actually, I'm kind of freaking out and trying not to show it. Guess that's why I need my buddy so close."

Sands met my gaze seriously. "Hey, it'll be fine. Yeah, I guess it's kind of scary. We go off as a team to deal with some Strangers and all that. But it's okay. They've got staff monitoring everything the whole time. If something goes wrong, they'll jump right in. This is just a way of getting our feet wet. After all, they can't really let us out in four years with just book knowledge and a few classroom battles."

Scout nodded, though I noticed that the girl was already holding her rifle in front of herself rather than leaving it inside the camera case where it usually was. She was obviously more nervous than her sister.

"Hey, Scout." I offered my hand to her with the rock in it. "You wanna hold onto Herbie for me? He likes you, and since you've got the long distance weapon, he'll probably be safer with you anyway."

Smiling, the other girl accepted the little guy, holding him carefully while nodding to me.

"Eyes front, first years!" A voice bellowed, drawing everyone's attention to where four teachers and the headmistress herself were standing. Professor Katarin was the one speaking, and he had Sands' and Scout's father Professor Mason on his left side, as well as Professor Kohaku the art teacher and security track head on his right. Headmistress Sinclaire and Nevada, the cheerleader-looking young woman who had taken over for poor Professor Pericles, were standing near the back, quietly conversing.

"Let's have some quiet here, huh?" Professor Katarin ordered, the big man's eyes moving over the crowd of excited (and obviously nervous) teenagers for a few more seconds before he spoke again. "Now here's the thing, I know this is a big deal for you guys. But it's a big deal for us too. This is your first hunt. It may be a training wheels hunt since we'll be setting you down where we know the bad guys are and you'll know exactly what you're looking for the whole time. Plus we'll be watching. But it's still a real hunt, and there are some real consequences if you fuck up too badly. So if any of you look like you're going to cause problems or not follow instructions, you'll sit this out. No warnings, no second chances. That includes anyone we see trying to talk while we're talking. You don't pay attention, you're done for the day. That's it. You will stay here and you will not participate in any further hunts until we are satisfied that you are ready to take this seriously. Is that understood?"

Katarin waited until there was a chorus of agreement before continuing. "Now, it should also go without saying that if any of you are not comfortable with this hunt and do not think that you are ready, you should absolutely say so. Speak up, and you will not be forced to participate. No one will give you a hard time about sitting it out and waiting until you're ready, or they'll answer to me. So, would any of you like to wait until next time to give this a shot? Anyone at all?"

There were no takers. A few people (mostly bystander-kin like me) looked tempted, but no hands went up. Katarin looked around, giving enough time for someone to work up the nerve to be the first to say they wanted to sit out, but when none came, he nodded. "All right then. Headmistress Sinclaire has some things she'd like to say to you. Remember what I said, you talk while she's talking, you're done."

Then it was the headmistress's turn to speak. She took a moment to look out at everyone, a smile touching her expression before she finally began. "Good evening, everyone. I'm glad to see all of you here, ready for your first live hunt." Briefly, the woman's eyes looked toward me while she added, "Each and every one of you was told before accepting your invitation to enroll within Crossroads Academy that this is not a normal school. Over the past month that you have been students here, I hope that fact has been sufficiently impressed upon you so that this evening's activities do not surprise you.

"We have identified and tracked a different target or small group of targets for each of your teams. These targets have been painstakingly cataloged to ensure that your team is ready to attempt a capture or kill. If you fail, do not be discouraged. Many fail their first attempt. That's why we do these things rather than simply make you read books on the subject and then expect you to know what to do in a live combat situation. While it is true that many of you will go on to duties that do not involve chase and eliminate, being capable of such live combat is a necessary skill for every Heretic. Make no mistake, even in the less directly violent professions that you may aim for, you will always be a target for the Strangers. You will know them and they will know you. Therefore, you must be prepared to fight, and to kill when it comes down to it. Because they will not hesitate to kill you."

Inwardly, I noted the second bird that stone happened to kill. Namely, that directing trainees to deal with the less powerful threats also allowed the full Heretics to focus on the more dangerous Strangers.

After letting her words sink in for a few seconds, the baroness spoke again. "Your teams will be sent through the Pathmaker one at a time to your destination, alongside your team mentor and a faculty aid. Both will remain close while you hunt, though the hunt itself will be up to you as much as possible. You will be told what creatures you are hunting, as well as as much information as you require to find them. Be warned, however. In future hunts, your faculty aid may choose to make you rely on what you actually know rather than provide answers, so you will want to be caught up on your studying."

I rolled my eyes while looking toward the empty spot where—wait, where Deveron was standing? Where the fuck had he come from? Blinking up at the boy, who had somehow managed to position himself right nearby without me noticing until just then, I was so surprised that I actually opened my mouth to say something. At the last instant, I caught myself and halted my voice in its tracks, swallowing back the words that had started to spring out. A glance toward Katarin showed the man eyeing me pointedly, nodding to show that he had been paying attention before making a gesturing motion with his head toward the headmistress to tell me where my own eyes should be.

I obliged, though it was hard not to immediately demand to know what Deveron was doing. Was he just pretending to be a mentor now because the staff were watching? That had to be it, right?

Meanwhile, the headmistress assured us a few more times that we would be safe and that there would always be several staff members watching everything that was going on. Finally, she nodded toward the security chief while finishing with, "Professor Kohaku will be taking each group one at a time into the Pathmaker building once it's their turn to start. Each of you will stay with her, and follow first her instructions and then that of your faculty guide when the time comes to start the hunt. Until Professor Kohaku takes your group, you may feel free to speak among yourselves, but do not leave this area."

With that, she and every other teacher aside from the small Japanese woman moved into the nearby building. Nevada briefly gave us a thumbs up before skipping to catch up with the other teachers.

As soon as they were gone, I whirled toward Deveron and hissed, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Lazily linking his arms behind his head, the boy arched an eyebrow at me. "Jeeze, Chambers, make up your mind. First you can't stop bitching because I'm not spending enough time with the team. And now you're bitching because I am?"

My eyes rolled. "Let me guess, not showing up here and at least pretending you give a damn is grounds for a lot more punishment than you want, so you're just gonna stand two feet away and be completely useless instead of standing as far away as possible and being useless."

"Ouch, she bites." In spite of his words, Deveron didn't sound bothered. As usual, he didn't really sound like he cared about much at all. That and his lazy smirk made me want to smack him.

"Is there a problem here?" Professor Kohaku had silently approached, her eyes moving between me and our team 'mentor.'

I opened my mouth to respond, but Sands stepped on my foot. "Nope," she replied firmly. "No problem. Right, Flick?" Looking my way, she made it clear with her expression that she really, really wanted me to go along with it and not complain about Deveron. Obviously, she was afraid that saying anything might end up getting us removed from the hunt. Her mouth moved silently to form the words, "We can do it without him."

Resisting the urge to sigh, I nodded. "We're all good."

"Good," Professor Kohaku replied quietly. "Because your team is up. Let's go."

Deveron winked at me, and then we were heading for the building. Heading to our first real hunt, our first real… kill. No matter how they dressed it up, that's what it was. We were supposed to be hunting and killing monsters, and now they were about to have us do that for the first time, in as controlled circumstances as possible.

God, I really hoped I wouldn't fuck this up.

BREAK

BREAK

"Let's contain the giggles and gossip for just a few seconds here so I can talk, all right?"

The moment that Deveron said those words, all while continuing to flash that cocky and uncaring smirk, I immediately caught Avalon by the arm before she could throw herself at him. The muscles in her bicep flexed against my grip, and she turned her death glare from the boy to me until I released her. Still, it was enough of a delay that she wasn't about to lose control completely and choke the prick.

And it gave Sean time to speak up, drawling a casual, "Well fine lil sweetness, if you insist. But only if you promise that we can do our hair up all nice and get some mani-pedis if we do a good job."

Beside him, the metal dog made a soft little ruff noise of agreement, and Sean added, "Right, and Vulcan wants treats for not biting your ass for being such an unbelievable dick. Personally, I'd go with something jerky based because, let's face it, your dick level is high enough to warrant the good stuff."

We were standing outside what was apparently one of the portal rooms of the Pathmaker building, waiting for our turn to go through while Professor Kohaku and the Headmistress spoke quietly with each other a short distance away. I couldn't hear their conversation, but the word 'committee' had been said multiple times, usually by the baroness and in a somewhat raised voice before she quieted.

The area we were in just looked like any ordinary office corridor to me. The floor was lightly carpeted and the walls were an off-white color. The door into the portal room was the only bit that stood out. It was a gleaming silver metallic color, and looked extremely durable. Beside it was was a black circle about half a foot in diameter that I couldn't figure out the use of.

And speaking of things whose reason for existence I couldn't fathom, Deveron was spinning his weapon around on one finger. It looked basically like a flintlock pistol, and as far as I could tell, that was his only weapon. Which, even setting aside his attitude, seemed kind of odd for someone whose track was based around exploration. Was a pistol really a good fit for the idea of going onto multiple unknown alien lands to face hostile creatures of any shape, size, and strength? Or did the annoying laziness of our team 'mentor' extend all the way into how little he took care of himself too?

Before he could respond to Sean, Deveron was interrupted by Professor Kohaku. She had approached silently before clearing her throat once she was right beside us. "Here are the rules that your team must follow throughout this hunt. First, the quarry that you are facing have been isolated away from bystanders. This will not always be the case, but for a first hunt, it's more important for you to get the basics down. Later hunts will require you protect civilians from the very creatures you are hunting, even as those very bystanders may mistakenly believe that you are the aggressors. In this case, your hunt will be limited to only these targets, so long as the battle remains within the confines of the safe area. Should any of your quarry escape that space and proceed into bystander occupied territory, you will be notified and full Heretics will step in to ensure the civilian populace remains safe. You will not lose points for such an event, but you will not gain them either. No penalty, no bonus."

She looked toward Sands, whose hand was up, and nodded. The other girl hesitated before asking, "You said targets, plural. So there's more than one? Do we get to ask how many or what they are?"

Professor Kohaku, proper as always, gave a very faint smile before responding. "Yes and no. I can tell you that there are five secondary targets and one primary target. You will receive twenty points for each of the secondary targets you dispatch and one hundred for the primary. Each other team has had their points divided accordingly to add up to two hundred total. You may earn both penalties and bonuses to alter that score further. You may at any time ask what creatures you are facing if you cannot identify them, but doing so will detract ten percent from your final score. However, should you fail to eliminate any of your targets specifically because you did not know what you were facing and did not ask after having the opportunity, then twenty percent will be removed from your final score on top of that failure."

Right. They were trying to encourage us to identify the monsters on our own (particularly on future hunts, thus pushing us to study a lot), but also penalizing the idea of taking that too far. It was worth some extra points to try to identify what the things were, but not worth waiting too long to ask for help.

Beside me, Sands whispered under her breath, "Vanessa's team probably adores her right now."

I coughed, realizing how right she was. Thanks to that absurd memory and her habit of reading ahead, the blonde girl could probably immediately identify any Stranger her team ran into.

The Security adviser went on. "You will have one hour from the moment you pass through the portal to eliminate all six targets. The area that you are being dispatched to is a forest surrounding a lake in southern Colorado. There are a half dozen cabins spaced randomly around the lake, along with various other camping and outdoors related buildings. Civilians have already been evacuated from the area, and the territory surrounding the lake will be empty save for wild animals and the Strangers themselves. If at any point you wish to stop, request the Stranger identification, or for any other reason wish to speak with a faculty member, you may simply start talking. We will hear you, as we are monitoring."

"What about him?" Columbus jerked a thumb toward Deveron. "Is he considered part of our team?"

"He may be a resource if you wish him to be," Professor Kohaku answered simply. "To start, he will simply accompany you and observe. You will receive no penalty for requesting that he attempt to identify the targets for you, and no penalty for requesting his aid in combat. However, should you not ask for his information, you will gain a five percent bonus upon elimination of the targets. Do not request his physical aid, and you will gain another five percent bonus. As before, should you fail specifically due to a refusal to accept such aid or information, those will become five percent penalties instead. If you are capable of completing this hunt without aid, you will gain more points. But if you need the aid and fail to accept it, you will lose more points than if you had simply asked for help."

There were no other questions (besides my own worry about whether my heart was going to literally pound its way out of my chest), so Professor Kohaku stepped around us and moved to the door. She pressed her fist against the black circle on the wall and held it there. After a couple of seconds, her hand sank into the black spot like it was tar. The woman allowed her arm to be taken all the way to the elbow before it stopped and held there. Then she explained, "This security system will identify me. If I am not allowed access to this room, it will not release my arm until building security can be dispatched to handle the situation. Most of the time, such an event is a result of either being in the wrong place, or a mix-up in the system, and nothing goes wrong. Occasionally, however, more strict action is required. In such cases, the system may inject my arm with a powerful sedative, remove it entirely, or extract blood to be deposited into a pre-built spell artifact which will allow me to be tracked if I escape this position. In certain cases, the extracted blood from these security devices may even be used as evidence at a trial. It is very difficult to properly claim that you were not the one who attempted to infiltrate the secure facility when your blood and its contained genetics is literally on display."

The black circle turned white then, and the professor withdrew her arm before reaching out to open the door. "Proceed inside. You may think of the portal room as an airlock. Step in and wait for this door to close and lock itself. Mr. Adams will then initiate the second door. Over the following sixty seconds, the air pressure and temperature within the room will shift to match the area that you will be arriving in. Once it's done, the second door will open and you may all proceed. When you arrive by the lake, your mission will begin and the timer will count down. After one hour, any remaining targets will be eliminated and your points will be tallied. Should you eliminate all six targets before the hour is up, you will be brought back here to wait for the rest of the teams to complete their missions."

When no one else asked anything, the professor withdrew a box from her pocket that looked entirely too large for where it had come from. Popping it open, she held the box out, allowing us to see the handful of small dark blue pins inside. They were about the size of my thumbnail, each perfectly circular with a small white dot in the middle of a blue background. "Each of you take one pin and secure it somewhere to your clothing. It will allow you to communicate with your team. Say 'team' and they will all hear what you say. Speak specific members names before your message, and only those members will hear it. The system will not update who you are sending your message to if you speak a name in the middle of a message. If Sands is speaking to Flick and asks 'where is Columbus', the message will continue to be sent to Flick. If Sands wishes to add Columbus to their conversation, she must stop speaking for a moment, then say 'Flick and Columbus' separately before continuing her message. The pins will allow only their wearer to hear what is sent. Another person may be standing directly beside you, and they will not hear the given message unless they are wearing their own pin and were included as a recipient."

She waited for each of us to take a pin, then gestured for us to head in with a simple, "Good luck."

After taking in a long, nervous breath, I accompanied the rest of my team through the doorway and into what looked an awful lot like a doctor's waiting room. There were a couple of couches and chairs, a table full of old magazines and a few paperback books, and soft classical music was playing in the background. Across the room, I could see the second door with its own black circle waiting.

"So the upshot here is that we have no idea what we're facing yet," Columbus spoke up while carefully attaching the pin to the underside of his rumpled uniform lapel. "But if we want to sacrifice points, we could just ask and start with the advantage of knowing what we're walking into. Wouldn't that be better than stumbling in blind, even if we do end up losing the chance at maximum points?"

"Not yet," Avalon replied in a firm voice. "We see if we can identify them first, then go from there."

Columbus blinked. "Really? I didn't take you for someone that cares about how many points we get."

"I don't. Fuck the points," she shot back. "The only way I could physically care less about the points is if they were being handed out by people whom I find so utterly pointless that I have erased all memory of their existence from my brain in order to spare myself from all the time I would have spent trying to understand why they were ever born to begin with." She finished with, "So no, I don't care about the points. But I do care about what the point of this exercise is, and that's to prepare us. We try to identify these Strangers on the fly. If we can't, I don't give a shit if we need to ask for help. Full Heretics do that all the time. But only after we give it a shot and attempt to identify them ourselves."

"As long as you princesses have that worked out," Deveron put in while stepping to the other door. "I'll just go ahead and…" He had raised his hand by that point and held it close to the black circle, but didn't move further. For several long seconds, the boy just stood there doing nothing but staring at it.

"You'll go ahead and… what?" Sands gestured for him to continue. "Stand there some more?"

It didn't seem like he'd heard her at first. He gave no response beyond the slightest lift of his chin. I saw his hand tremble just a bit, almost like he was afraid of what was going to happen when he touched that circle. But before I could say anything, Deveron gave a full-body shudder as if shaking it off before pushing his fist up against it. His tone was as uncaring as ever as he replied to Sands, "In a rush, babe?"

Before Sands could retort, her twin caught hold of her hand and tugged her away with a shake of her head. Apparently Scout had caught the brief look of fear before the boy could disguise it as well.

Over the next minute, no one said much. I don't know about everyone else on the team, but I was too nervous to do much chatting. I had no idea how this was going to go, but I'd never so much as hunted deer before, let alone actual monsters who could actually hunt us back. Yeah, the real Heretics would be watching to make sure nothing went wrong, but there were always accidents. And who could say that things wouldn't go wrong too quickly for the faculty to intervene? They were good, but I doubted they were perfect. This, as much as the danger was downplayed, was not something to take lightly.

Throughout the portal's cycling time, the air had grown a bit more chilly. By the time the second door opened, I was glad that we were going to be moving around a lot. A lakeside cabin in October wasn't exactly the warmest place in the world to take an evening stroll around, even with our uniform jackets.

I felt worse for Avalon and Scout, since they were both wearing the skirt version of the uniform. Neither complained though, and a minute later we had all passed through the open doorway and were standing on the edge of the lake that Professor Kohaku had mentioned. Behind us, the doorway we had just come through led into what looked like an outhouse, making my nose wrinkle.

"Your show now, ladies and less lady-like ladies." Deveron informed us while stepping aside. He was still spinning that simple-looking pistol on one finger. "Give a shout when you need me to save you from yourselves."

Avalon pointedly ignored him. Instead, she focused on the quiet twin. "Scout, can you get us a view from up high so we can see what the layout looks like?" For once, her voice was actually more gentle than I remembered her talking to anyone.

Scout nodded silently before hoisting her enormous sniper rifle into position. She held the gun to her shoulder and leaned back to aim up high over the lake, sighting in through the scope. Her left hand moved to flick a switch near the front of the weapon, and then moved to a dial a little further back, adjusting it by a few turns. Finally, she pulled the trigger.

I barely saw the puff of nearly-invisible energy leave the barrel, and I had been watching for it. In the distance, there was the slightest flicker of light in the air far above the middle of the lake that lasted for a split second. Then there was nothing to indicate that anything had happened.

I knew better by that point, however, and stepped back a few feet behind Scout along with the others. We watched for a second before the quiet girl pressed another switch on her weapon. The butt of the rifle began to glow faintly, and then a small screen was projected into the air behind it, like a hologram. The image showed a view of us from the point of view of that spot above the lake that had been shot, where that flicker of light had very briefly been.

Scout, who was seeing the same thing we were through her scope, slowly turned one of the weapon's dials. The view gradually rotated, moving away from where we were to give a birds-eye view of the surrounding area. We could see every cabin, all the grounds surrounding the cabins, the few boats that had been left on the water or tied up at various small docks, all of it.

Essentially, one of several things that Scout's rifle was able to do was create small portals in the air, exactly where it was targeted. Those portals could only be traveled through by the gun's own projectiles. They could also only be seen through the weapon's scope, or through the hologram the gun projected so that others besides the shooter could watch. For everyone else, the air looked as normal as ever beyond that initial slight flicker of light.

"Wait," I spoke up quickly as the view continued to rotate. "Go back to that last cabin, the one on the opposite side of the lake."

The other girl obliged, and the view was centered back on the building where I thought I'd seen a hint of movement through the curtains. Sure enough, something moved past again, just a hint of motion.

"Closer," Avalon ordered. "We need to see what that is."

Again, Scout did as she was instructed. Her fingers worked the controls of the rifle, and the view through the projected hologram moved a bit to show the area a few yards away from the window. I saw a small yellow dot appear as the girl touched the dial she had used earlier, and as she adjusted it, the dot moved on the screen without moving the scope view. She was sighting in exactly where she wanted the shot to go.

Then the quiet girl pulled the trigger once more. This time, the shot left the gun, traveled to the first spot in the air where she had created that small portal that was allowing us to see out over the lake, traveled through that portal, and ended up on the other side of the lake right where she had placed the yellow dot.

If she wanted to, Scout could lay on the roof of one building and aim through the window of another building across the street, creating a scope-portal inside the room there. Then she could aim through that first scope-portal, turn her view to face an open doorway within the room and shoot a second scope-portal into the attached corridor. From there, she could attach several more line-of-sight scope-portals until she reached a man in his office on a completely different floor. Once she had them all lined up, she could switch to lethal shots, aim through the various connected portals, and fire. As long as nothing happened to step into its path while it was traveling, her bullet would pass through each linked scope-portal before finally embedding itself in her target.

Yeah, the things that Heretics could do kind of scared me sometimes.

Through the second scope-portal, we were able to see the window a bit more clearly. This time, it was obvious that there were things inside. Hulking figures that moved back and forth, obviously agitated.

"That's… definitely not humanoid," Columbus put in, squinting as what looked like a wing smacked against the window. "A really big bird? But… I think there's a tail…"

"Zoom in a little more." Avalon instructed. Scout complied, and we all leaned closer, trying to make out what it was that we were seeing.

Abruptly, the figure that had been pushing its way back and forth leapt fully into view, lunging up against the glass of the window with such suddenness that Columbus, Sean, and I all yelped and flinched.

"What the fuck is that thing?" Columbus demanded. "It looks like a… dog with a bird head and really big wings."

It was Sands who answered. "The Persians called them Chamrosh. You know how the Greeks had their Griffin with the whole half-eagle, half-lion thing? Think of these things as like… their little cousins. They come in all different shapes, sizes, and temperaments. Like part chihuahua, part cockatoo. Or a doberman with the head and wings of an owl. Whatever works."

"They usually hunt in packs," Avalon added. "So these are probably the five that were mentioned. The sixth thing… I'm not sure."

"Well, let's deal with these ones since we know where they are, then go from there," Sean suggested. "One step at a time?"

"Right…" Avalon waited a moment, then straightened. "Mason, you stay here and cover your sister just in case. Let us know if anything happens."

Sands looked like she wanted to object to being left behind, but forced it down and gave a reluctant nod.

"Meanwhile," my raven-haired roommate continued, "the rest of us will circle around from both sides. Porter, you're with me. Gerardo, stay with Chambers. One melee focus alongside one ranged focus. Once we're close enough to cut off their escape or counter-attack, Scout will take the first good shot she gets. As soon as she does, we move in because they'll come tearing out of there to look for what's attacking them."

There was a general murmur of agreement, and we broke apart. Sean snapped his fingers, grinning down at his metallic companion. "Hey, boy, you ready to go show these wannabes what a real monster dog can do?" Vulcan gave a proud woof, and Sean patted his head. "That's what I thought. Let's do it."

He gestured to make sure I was ready, and then the two of us started to walk around the side of the lake. I moved alongside the boy, eyes moving constantly. Every shadow made me almost jump, and I couldn't help but wonder what other thing was here besides these bird-dog monsters.

Whatever it was, I just hoped we would see it before it saw us.

BREAK

BREAK

"So you grew up around all this stuff," I whispered to Sean as the two of us (plus Vulcan) picked our way around the lake. We were moving slowly and using the treeline as cover, hopefully avoiding the attention of the creatures inside the cabin in the distance. "Can I ask you something about how all this works?" While speaking, I pressed my finger into the slight depression in the staff where the small button was and held it. The black ends switched to a softly glowing blue as they began to charge up with kinetic energy.

The Hispanic boy turned his gaze away from Vulcan, who was busy sniffing ahead of us. His voice was equally quiet as he nodded to me. "Yeah, sure, what do you wanna know, Flickster?"

I waited another few seconds, scanning the shadows ahead of us before whispering again. "Let's say someone graduates from this place, does their job for awhile, then decides they want to settle down. Is being a teacher the only way they can do that, or is there like, a retirement type plan or a way to stop?"

His response was to raise an eyebrow at me. "Jeeze, are we that bad to be around?" He teased. "Been here for a month and you're already planning how you can retire and abandon us forever."

Rolling my eyes, I shoved my fist against his shoulder. "It's not like that. I'm just wondering how you guys deal with that kind of thing. I mean, there's gotta be people who just want to settle down, right?"

"Right," he agreed before shrugging. "And there's two kinds that fit that deal. There's the guys that want to forget about all of this, who want to be done with it completely. And there's the ones that are still willing to fight if something comes to them, who'll protect an area or whatever but don't wanna go actively looking for trouble. My uncle's one of those last ones. He settled down in Bogotá. That's–"

"Capital of Colombia," I replied easily. "See? Some of us paid attention in Freshman geography."

"Must've had a cute teacher," he shot back. "I can see it now, little fourteen-year old Flickster, sighing dreamily over the dreamboat professor while he meets her eager stare with a smoldering gaze." He deepened his voice as though speaking as the hypothetical teacher. "'Ms. Chambers, if you remember nothing else from this class, I pray that you retain this simple fact. The capital of Colombia is Bogotá.'"

Feeling a slight flush cross my face, I shoved him. "Jerk. What about the other type you mentioned? The ones that don't want to have anything to do with any of this. What exactly happens to them?"

Smirking at the shove, Sean nodded. "The other kind go through the process to be released from being a Heretic completely. They give everything up. All the power, all the weapons, even the ability to recognize Strangers. They surrender all of it and go back to being ordinary people. They run away."

Before I could respond to that choice of words, or ask him anything else, we reached the edge of the treeline before the open yard that surrounded the monster-infested cabin. Crouching down there, the two of us watched as dark shapes continued to move past the curtained windows in the distance. By that point, we were close enough that I could hear noises from inside. The chamrosh were communicating with a series of trills and whistles. If I didn't know better, I would have guessed that there was a flock of birds inside the cabin, except for the fact that the songs were way too deep to come from any avian species I'd ever heard of. They were bird whistles produced by canine lungs.

"Thanks," I said mostly under my breath. "Really needed that distraction so I wouldn't pee myself."

Sean's hand patted my shoulder briefly. "You'll be fine. Just try not to get too distracted daydreaming about that cute geography teacher and his soulful gaze. We need your head in the game."

"I do have this big stick," I reminded him while giving my staff a shake in his direction. "And thanks to Avalon, I've gotten a lot better at using it. You probably shouldn't give me any reason to think I should practice with it some more." Then I activated the communication pin that I had attached to my shirt under the jacket, broadcasting to the rest of the group. "Team. Sean and I are in position."

"Give us one minute," Avalon's reply came back a moment later. "We had a brief delay."

Eyes focused on the cabin, I spoke again. "Team. Delay? Is everything all right?"

It was Columbus who answered. "We're fine. Just ran into some deer and had to skirt around them so they wouldn't spook. Figured that might hurt this whole sneak attack thing we've got going on."

Sean and I continued to watch the cabin, listening to the too-deep bird noises while Avalon and Columbus maneuvered themselves into position. While we were waiting, I carefully extended the staff out of the treeline, touching the end of it against the ground while keeping my finger on the button. As I held the tip against the dirt, that faint blue energy bubble appeared before turning almost invisible.

I whispered to Sean. "Don't let Vulcan run off and hit that thing when this goes down."

He gave me an easy, charming smile in return. "No worries. When the shit hits the fan, my little buddy's gonna be right here." Rubbing the mechanical dog's back, he asked, "Ain't that right, pal?" Vulcan gave a soft woof of agreement, and Sean patted his head. "Damn straight."

Finally, I saw the figures of our two teammates carefully glide through the bushes across the yard from us. They settled into position before Avalon reported that they were ready.

Columbus gave a brief wave our way, then turned his attention toward the cabin itself. I saw his hand move to his face to adjust his special goggles. Then his voice came through. "Okay, I've got their heat signatures now. There's five of them all right. Two in the back near the door there, one up in some kind of loft area or something, one still up by the front window that Scout's locked onto, and another one below the cabin. It looks like it's in some kind of basement or cellar area."

"Team. Any other life signs at all?" I asked. Yeah, we'd been told that there were no civilians here, but it was a good idea to make sure for ourselves instead of just expecting the adults to be perfect.

"Nope, just those five," Columbus replied. "I can't see any civilians, or the sixth monst—err, Stranger."

That was worrying. I wondered where the last one was. According to Professor Kohaku, the last one was the primary target, which meant it was bigger, stronger, faster, and probably smarter than the others. And we still had no idea where or what it was. That was a bad way to start this thing, even if we did manage to take out these five. It still left the main threat both safe and aware of our presence.

From the silence, I guessed that Avalon was thinking along the same lines. I could barely make out her motionless form crouched in the bushes in the distance, head turned a little as she thought it through.

It felt like forever, but in truth, only about five seconds had passed before the other girl spoke through the comm. "We hit them anyway. Better to get rid of these five and then have one to focus on than risk it using them as a distraction or reinforcements. We put them down and whatever's left is on its own." After another moment, she continued laying out the specific plan. "Scout, as soon as you see a chance for a shot, take it. Everyone else, when the glass shatters, be ready to move. Porter and I cover this side of the cabin and the front door. Chambers and Gerardo cover that side and the back door."

It was kind of funny. No one had asked Avalon to be the leader, but no one really questioned it either.

Deveron, on the other hand, hadn't seemed interested in much of anything thus far. He'd stayed behind with the twins. Which I supposed was good if something came after them before we could get back there. On the other hand, I had my doubts that the jerk would be that much help if it came down to it.

One by one, we agreed with the plan. Sands, of course, spoke for both herself and her sister. I had yet to hear Scout say more than two or three words, save for the occasional whisper I managed to make out.

Then we waited, tense and ready, while the silent girl lined up her shot. The annoying, disconcertingly guttural bird songs from inside continued. It sounded like the creatures were arguing with each other, bitching back and forth across the cabin in their own language. Maybe they were looking for something? That was my best guess, though I had no idea what they could be searching the cabin for.

As ready as I thought I was, a soft yelp still escaped me as the window abruptly shattered under the impact of Scout's bullet. There was a heavy thud from inside that was almost instantly followed up by the kind of scream that couldn't be produced by human lungs. It was an awful wail, an evil sound that was quickly joined by more as each of the creatures took up the same cry. My teeth tried to grind reflexively under the horrible noise as it penetrated my brain and made it hard to think straight.

Avalon's warning came over the comm, louder now that stealth wasn't a concern. "Here they come!"

Sure enough, I saw one of the half-dog, half-bird figures lunge through the side window. It looked like a combination of a dalmatian and a raven, the last black spot on the neck rising up into the bird's feathered head. With a horrible screech, eyes locked right on our position, it charged.

Sean was ready. His hand grasped the hidden handle near his mechanical canine's rear, hauling the thing up while Vulcan's body shifted and transformed. The head flipped around and locked into position to reveal the six barrels before Sean took a single step out of the bushes, putting himself right on the edge of the kinetic mines that I had laid. Smirking, he pulled the trigger. Those half dozen barrels began to spin up even as the chamrosh ran straight for us, screeching its bloodlust.

That cry was overtaken an instant later as Vulcan roared to life. I had no idea how fast the thing fired, but dozens of shots tore into the approaching creature within seconds. The sheer noise and power of the gun in full firing mode was terrifying to witness. The monster, whose appearance had been so terrifying seconds earlier, was knocked to the ground by the force of the gunfire. Chunks of flesh were torn from the thing while it howled and rolled, bullets ripping into it unrelentingly.

And yet the thing kept coming. With a defiant, furious scream, it launched itself forward through the hail of gunfire. Unfortunately for the monster, that leap put it right on my nearest invisible mine. The force of the concussive explosion blew one of the thing's legs off while it was hurled backward, and Sean took advantage of the chance to lay waste to it some more, ensuring that it wouldn't get up again.

Belatedly, another sound reminded me that I was supposed to be an active participant in this fight, not just an onlooker. My head snapped up and over just in time to see another of the chamrosh racing toward us, focused on Sean as the boy continued to lay waste to the first creature. This one looked like a really big mastiff mixed with the head of a particularly nasty-looking vulture.

"Okay, Flick," I whispered to myself. "You can do this. You can do it. Now!" Raising my voice on the last word, I leapt forward and over the mines that I had laid. My staff came flipping around, the motion as reflexive as Avalon had promised it would be after the hours and hours of practice. As the big dog-bird lunged, I put myself in between it and Sean, lashing out with a blow that took the thing right in the side of its head. The force of the blow, aided by putting my body's motion behind it, staggered the monster very briefly. It had been so focused on getting at the boy with the gun that it hadn't even noticed me until my staff smacked right into its ugly face.

I expected to be afraid, and part of me was. But mostly I was hyper-focused on every little move that the creature made. There wasn't enough time to focus on the fear and anxiety. The thing recovered quickly, snapping out with that nasty beak in an attempt to grab the end of the weapon that had hurt it.

Snapping the staff back out of its way, I pivoted around on my foot, snapping the weapon around as I turned so that the full force of my motion was transferred to the staff just in time to smack down onto the top of the chamrosh's lunging head when my spin brought me back around to the front.

The blow knocked the monster down onto its forelegs a bit, and it made an ugly, whistling growl at me.

Honestly, the thought of what might happen if that monster tore into me was a very distant worry. Strangely, the worry that sprang to mind the most was what Avalon would say if she saw me do something wrong here and fuck up after all the work she'd put into helping me train. It was a weird, completely out of place thought considering the danger of the situation. I was in a fight, possibly for my life, and my brain was worried about impressing my roommate.

Shaking that off, I took a quick step back before faking a quick swing with the left end of my staff. The monster fell for the feint, snapping its beak that way even as I reversed course, lashing out with the other end while holding the trigger to charge up the kinetic force to get it ready for the next blow.

By that point, the monster was practically ignoring the strikes against it. Beyond its initial surprise, the simple fact was that my strength wasn't enough to do much damage to the same kind of thing that could even somewhat stand up to the kind of punishment that Vulcan was unleashing onto it. I had to do something more impressive if I was going to stop this thing.

With that in mind, I waggled the staff out to one side, teasing the monster shamelessly. "Here, Fido. Here you go, boy. You want the stick, you want the stick? Come get it, boy. Come get it!"

The creature took the bait, lunging at the offered weapon. As it moved, I snapped my staff out of its way before dropping into a roll that moved me out of its way and around to its backside. Once there, I whistled once, then gave a sharp thrust forward with the weapon.

Spinning around almost blindingly quickly, the chamrosh snapped its beak out, catching hold of the end of my staff before holding tightly with a menacing growl.

In response, I smiled. "Now that," I announced to the thing. "That you shouldn't have done." Then, before it could react, I triggered the energy that I'd been saving up in the staff.

The resulting blast, focused down into the monster since it had taken the end of the staff into its beak, blew through its internal organs. The concussive force was centered and directed into the chamrosh, and its body was thrown backwards a dozen feet before crashing to the ground. It didn't move again.

Immediately, I felt that same embarrassingly good feeling sweep over me that had come when I had killed the peridles. Staggering briefly, I barely contained the murmur of pleasure while shivering. God, was absorbing the power of Strangers always going to feel that good? And speaking of absorbing power, what had I just taken?

Before I could figure that much out, Sean's voice cried out a warning, "Flick, move!"

Two weeks ago, my reflex would have been to look that way to see what was going on. After the time I'd spent learning from both Avalon and Professor Katarin however, I threw myself as far to the side as possible, hurtling into a roll along the dirt.

It almost wasn't enough. Something… massive had come right up behind me, lunging down to the spot where I had been crouching. I felt fur and muscle as a leg the size of a tree trunk smacked into me. Pain erupted down my side and I was knocked sprawling to the dirt.

With a yelp, I rolled over to stare up at the thing that had nearly run me down. I looked up… and up… and up, until my eyes finally found the new monster's head, towering high above me.

It was a wolf. But not just any wolf. This thing was so pants-wettingly enormous that I could have stood upright in its open mouth. It was larger than the cabin the other monsters had been hiding in.

"Guys…" I managed to whimper from my prone position while the monster salivated above me.

"I'm gonna need a bigger stick."

BREAK

BREAK

"An amarok!?" Sean's voice blurted out, his voice filled with disbelief as he stared up at the enormous creature standing over us. "They want us to fight a fucking amarok?! Who okayed this shit?!"

"No way," Sands' voice came through the pin. "They wouldn't. They couldn't. Something's wrong."

The wolf, or amarok apparently, responded by lunging down with its massive mouth wide open. I yelped out a warning, but Sean was already reacting. He gave that huge gun of his a heave, and Vulcan transformed back into his dog form just in time to crash into the much larger beast's descending snout. In spite of the size difference, the mechanical canine was able to knock the monster's lunge off target. The amarok stumbled off to one side, the ground practically shaking beneath its staggering paws as it proceeded to knock over one of the nearby trees that happened to be in its path.

Grabbing my hand to haul me back to my feet, Sean shouted, "We could use some help over here!"

"Scout, covering fire. Buy them a few seconds." Avalon's voice was calm and collected, with just a hint of concentration. If I hadn't known any better, I would have said that she was sitting at home doing the crossword puzzle. Yet through the corner of my eyes, I could see the girl dealing with one of the chamrosh. The thing had knocked Columbus to the ground and had been about to take a bite out of his shoulder before Avalon got its attention, dancing back a bit while it lashed out at her. "Gerardo, Chambers, get into the woods and head back around the lake. Use the trees to slow it down, not the open ground. Mason, meet them halfway. We'll finish this and catch up."

By that point, the pants-wettingly huge wolf had recovered from its stumble. Spinning around, it focused on me, and in that second, I could have sworn that the thing smiled.

Then one of Scout's bullets hit it right in the snout, and the monster's head jerked a bit to the side. Before it could recover, I spun around the way that Avalon had directed. "Go, go, go!"

Sean whistled while we ran, and Vulcan caught up quickly. The three of us sprinted into the woods, while Scout kept up her shots against the massive wolf. Unfortunately, the thing seemed to have adjusted to the incoming fire, and it didn't seem to be having much of an effect aside from annoying it.

While running, I held the button to charge my staff. As the sound of trees collapsing under the charging monster drew closer with each passing step, I waited until the staff was as charged as it could be before touching it to the ground near one of the trees that the beast was going to have to crash through.

A handful of seconds later, the whoomph sound of the concussive mine detonating filled the forest, and the giant wolf gave a loud yelp that was followed by a howl of anger. Not enough to really put it down, but I had its attention at least. Somehow, I managed to contain my exultation at that thought.

Sean and I continued to run. I kept charging the staff and leaving various invisible traps for our pursuer, which had actually backed off just a little. The thing managed to avoid a good number of the mines that I was creating, but at least the fact that it was being more cautious meant that we had more of a lead.

Strangely, it was kind of easy to keep running full out. Though I'd been sprinting as hard as I could, through a forest no less, which involved a lot of weaving and jumping, it still felt like an easy jog. I was in better shape than I'd ever been in my life, but this was something different. This was new.

The chamrosh that I had killed. I'd taken regeneration from the poodle-roach back at the school, and this time, whatever I'd gained from this monster was letting me keep running as hard as I could much longer than I should have been capable of without even getting winded.

"Flick, Sean, turn right and jump through the hole in ten seconds." Sands' voice spoke in my ear.

I had no idea what hole she was talking about, but followed her instructions anyway. After counting down in my head, I pivoted alongside Sean. We hit a clearing right at that moment, and I saw a large metal wall directly ahead of us. There was a circular hole in the middle, like a big window.

The two of us leapt through the opening, landing on the other side together just before our pursuer reached the same clearing, bare seconds behind us. With a snarl, the bus-sized wolf lunged forward, teeth bared as it came for the same hole that we had gone through.

And then, just as the thing's head shoved through the hole with its sword-like teeth bared and snapping, Sands appeared at the corner. She pushed her mace against the wall she had created. At a touch from it, the hole closed up instantly, locking the wolf's head in place before it knew what was happening.

The amarok was trapped, snarling and twisting as it fought to free itself. Sands made a gesture with her construction mace, and a two metal posts rose out of the ground on either side of the thing. They twisted to form an arch together, then clamped down to hold the monster more firmly. "Down, puppy!"

Unfortunately, the wolf wasn't in the mood to listen to commands. It gave a mighty heave, and I saw the wall trapping it start to bend a little bit, the metal giving a sharp screech of protest.

"I'll try to hold it as much as I can," Sands called out while working to form another pillar to bend around the monster. "But you might wanna hit it with everything while you've got the chance!"

As if in response to her words, Two of Scout's shots hit the thing in rapid succession, both aimed for its eyes. Even that much damage wasn't enough to blind it fully, but did make it scream in pain.

Meanwhile, Sean hoisted Vulcan back into his gun form, opening up with a hail of fire on the monster's exposed side. The sound of the weapon's roar joined with that of the amarok itself, both terrifyingly deafening, a rolling explosion of noise that shook me to my core and left me briefly paralyzed.

Shaking it off at the sight of the first metal wall cracking apart while Sands struggled to form more walls around and over the monster, I gripped my staff and started charging it again before lunging forward. With a cry, I swung my weapon up and around as hard as I could. As the end smacked into the amarok's nose, I triggered the detonation. The concussive force snapped the monster's head sideways.

It still wasn't enough. With a snarl, the monster gave a massive heave. The metal that had been holding its shoulders down snapped apart, and the thing whirled, jaws opening wide as it went for Sands.

Sean and I both yelped out warnings, just before a blast of blueish-silver light slammed into the side of the monster's head, knocking it off course so that its open jaws crashed into the ground to the girl's left.

"Move!" Columbus called from the opening of the clearing. He was standing there, panting from running. A second later, another blast of concussive force shot from his goggles before slamming into the giant beast like a runaway truck, sending it staggering a couple steps to the side.

Taking advantage of the opening, Sands sprang backwards, giving a hard swipe with her mace. A metal pillar rose up with a sharp spike on the end, aimed for the monster's underbelly. The spike struck home, but failed to do much more than briefly annoy the thing. There was the sound of tearing, bending metal as it smacked into the beast, but the amarok's hide was too tough. The spike couldn't penetrate it.

"This is ridiculous!" Sean called out. "Get Deveron in here, or the staff! We need help with this thing!"

Even Sands, who had been so excited for this chance, seemed to agree. "We can't beat an amarok, it's impossible! This can't be right, they wouldn't throw us at one of these things!"

"Stop complaining about what you can't do," Avalon instructed while sprinting into the clearing. She leapt up, lashing out with her right gauntlet while creating an energy blade as long and wide as a massive sword. "And focus," she continued as the blade was driven into the monster's eye. "On what you can." The giant wolf reeled backwards, bellowing in pain before lashing out with a paw that smacked into Avalon and sent her to the ground hard enough to make me flinch in sympathy.

Yet she was back on her feet immediately, rolling backwards before coming up in a crouch with her arms raised defensively. "Mason, walls around it. Thick ones. Chambers, mine the inside of it. As many as you can. Stick them over every wall she makes. Gerardo, Porter, covering fire. Hit it with everything you've got, all of it. I don't care if you run out, just keep it occupied until they finish. Scout, keep punching that eye, the same one I hit. Focus your shots there until it breaks, then hit the other one."

Sands focused, standing with her feet apart while pointing with the mace, which she was gripping onto with both hands. Steadily, she made a heaving gesture as if lifting something heavy, grunting with effort as a wall several feet thick was steadily hauled up and into position to the monster's left side.

It took so much time and focus that Sands would have been torn apart by the beast long before finishing that single wall if she'd been by herself. But she wasn't. Even as the amarok tried to orient back toward her, Sean and Columbus both opened up on the thing. Their joint fire staggered it once more, and it tried to move back that way just as another shot from Scout's rifle slammed into its eye.

Sands had the first wall finished by that point, and I forced myself to ignore my terror and trust my team. Sprinting forward, I ran straight at the horrifying beast that could have eaten me in a single gulp.

It spotted me, and started to turn my way. But before it could lunge, Avalon leapt up and landed on its snout. Lashing out with both gauntlets, she drove the energy blades hard into its other eye.

With a terrible scream, the amarok tossed its head to the side, sending the other girl flying once more. But by that point, I had finished my run, laying as many mines as I could against the inside of the wall that Sands had created while the monster was still recovering. It gave a roar of displeasure, head snapping from side to side as though trying to clear its damaged vision just before yet another shot from Scout into the first eye made things worse for it, driving a pained yelp from the thing.

Once Avalon and I were both clear, Columbus and Sean opened up on it again. The hail of bullets and blasts of bright silver and blue energy tore into the damn thing, but it barely seemed to be acknowledging the damage by that point. The amarok roared and tried to lunge for Sands, only stopped at the last second by a particularly powerful shot from Columbus's goggles that snapped its head back.

"Almost out of shots here!" Sean called out in warning. "Vulcan packs a lot, but he's running low!"

"Put the second wall up," Avalon ordered. I saw the pain on her face briefly as she rolled over, but the other girl forced herself back to her feet without complaint. "Mine it. Then bend the walls down around the thing. Enclose the explosion, trap the force in there with the amarok. Everyone else, buy them time to finish the other wall. Hit it with everything you can, everything you have. Use it all."

Sands and I looked at each other, nodded, and then set to work. While the others put everything they had into maintaining the wolf's attention, keeping it pinned in place, we did our part. Sands heaved a second thick wall high and into position while I ran along it. Thrusting my staff against the wall while it was still lifting into place, I created as many mines as I could, positioning them all along the thing.

Just as I reached the end to position the last mine, the sound of Vulcan's ongoing fire faded, leaving with just a few sad sounding clicking noises. Sean shouted a warning, but the monster took instant advantage. It spun, lashing down with its jaws wide while I desperately hurled myself out of the way.

It wasn't quite enough. One of the monster's massive teeth clamped down into my arm, sending a blinding flash of pain through me even as an awful scream tore its way out of my throat. The agony was unbearable, and I had only a distant impression of something hard slamming into me from the opposite side with enough force to knock me away from the amarok's jaws.

I hit the ground with a weight on top of me, realizing belatedly that it was Vulcan. Sean had transformed his gun into its other form and sent it sprinting forward to knock me away from the wolf.

Blood was everywhere. The agony was fresh with every motion of my arm, and I stared down at what looked an awful lot like exposed bone and muscle through the haze of pained disbelief. It was already starting to close before my eyes, the muscle and skin gradually knitting itself together. But it still hurt.

It should have been worse, I realized. The damage to my arm, it should have left me incapable of functioning or even thinking straight. Instead, though it definitely sucked, I could still at least somewhat pay attention to what was going on. The pain was dulled somehow, probably another result of absorbing the power of that cockroach-poodle. Or possibly the bird-wolf. I wasn't sure which.

"Close it!" Avalon called across the clearing toward Sands. "Trap it now!"

Quickly following the other girl's instructions, Sands made a heaving gesture with her mace once more. The two thick walls on either side of the monster caved in and down, practically collapsing on it while the ends twisted around to meet one another. They linked, forming a dome over the giant wolf.

"Mines!" Avalon's focus was on me then. "Trigger the mines now, Chambers! Do it!"

Forcing myself to ignore the still very present pain in my mangled arm, I caught hold of my staff with my other hand and triggered the manual release of the concussive mines that I had planted.

The sound of the explosion, trapped under the thick metal walls, was deafening as it rang through the forest. Small bits of metal went flying, torn free from the force of the focused blast.

"Did it work?" Sands asked after a second of silence that followed the explosion. "Did we kill–"

She was interrupted. Not by the amarok, but by me. My body arched and I screamed again. This time, however, it wasn't agony but mind-blowing, indescribable pleasure. It felt so good that my brain literally shut down for a few seconds, leaving me a mumbling wreck on the ground.

Okay, that really had to fucking stop. Seriously, what the hell?

"I… uhh, I think that means it's dead." Columbus was standing over me, staring down through his goggles.

"You okay down there, Flick?" Sean piped up. "Or do you need a cigarette after that?"

"Oh shut up," I managed, flushing at his implication. My tone was light though. Mostly I was just glad we weren't dead.

Columbus crouched down, wincing a bit. "Seriously, are you all right? Your arm…"

I glanced that way, finding the wound about halfway closed. "It was… ugnn, worse a minute ago, believe me. Doesn't even hurt as much as it should. I mean it did at first, but then the pain kind of dulled after a couple seconds."

Sands was there then, head shaking. "You absorbed the amarok. That's gonna… whatever it gives you, it'll be a big boost."

"She'll need it," Avalon said flatly while stepping into view. "Something's wrong. None of the staff are answering calls. They should have stepped in."

"They never should've left us to fight a fucking amarok to begin with!" Sean blurted. "None of this makes sense."

"Let's ask our team mentor," I suggested with bright and obvious sarcasm before letting my expression darken. "Oh, right. Never mind."

"Scout, is Deveron with you?" Avalon addressed the last member of our team through the pin communicator. She paused at the resulting silence, then tried again. "Scout, is Deveron–"

"Oh, they were a little busy." A new voice spoke up from the edge of the clearing, and the five of us twisted around to see a handful of figures standing in the shadows. "But don't worry," the voice continued. "We brought them to you."

Scout and Deveron were shoved forward into view before collapsing to the ground. They were both unconscious and lay unmoving in the dirt.

"Scout!" Sands shouted, starting to scramble forward.

Before she could get there, Avalon caught her by the arm to stop her. "Trice," the other girl snarled the name, hate heavy in her voice.

The figure who had spoken stepped a bit more into the light. It was a slightly older boy, tall and muscular with dark green hair that was cut short and spiked up. He wore a brown trenchcoat and held a heavy looking pike in both hands. "That's right, you stupid cunt. Did you really think you could run away after you killed my fucking brother? You really think we'd just let you go?

"Time to put you down like the bitch you are."

BREAK

BREAK

"Does Seller know you guys are pulling this shit?" Avalon's voice was even as she stared down the guy with the heavy pike, Trice. "Do the Victors? You and I both know they wouldn't approve it."

"Fuck them!" Trice shouted back at her. Behind him, the handful of figures that were still in shadows muttered agreement. "You killed my brother. Torv is dead because of you. Because you're a cunt. Now you're gonna pay for it, and hiding behind your new bitch mommy isn't gonna save you. You're dead."

"What'd you do to Scout, you son of a–" Sands was trying to yank herself free from Avalon's grip, the mace in her hand raised threateningly as she glared at the boy who stood over her twin. "Let go!"

Trice glanced to the pair of crumpled figures on the ground before shaking his head. "The girl's fine. They both are. Or they will be. And they'll stay that way as long as they don't get in the way again. We've got no beef with them, or with anyone else here except her." He used two fingers to point at Avalon. "The rest of you little students can run right along home. In fact, you turn around and go back to that cabin where you found the chamrosh and you'll find the way back to your safe little island."

The green-haired boy's eyes were narrow slits as he continued to stare at my roommate, his voice dark. "Only one person needs to die here tonight. And trust me, she's had it coming for a long time."

"Fuck you," Sands shot back, finally wrestling herself free of Avalon's grip. "You think we're gonna abandon our teammate? Just because you Garden fuck-ups can't even spell loyal, let alone define it."

One of Trice's companions that was still obscured by shadows pointed a dark-skinned hand while snapping, "You watch your mouth, little girl. Least we've got an actual fucking garden. You spoiled little Crossroads Academy shits live on a gods damn island. There ain't no fucking roads to cross!"

"Shut it, Doxer." Trice ordered the boy. "We're not here for that, and we're not trying to start shit with untrained children. We're not here to fight or hurt anyone except for little Hannah Owens. That's it."

Somewhere behind me, Columbus blurted, "Wait a second, who the hell is Hannah Owens?"

Ignoring him, Trice kept his attention on Avalon. "Torv didn't deserve to go like that. Not from you. Christ, do you even remember how much shit he put up with for you? He stuck up for you. He went out of his way to get you food, to take care of you, teach you how to fight. If it wasn't for Torv, you'd still be that scared little runt that couldn't even raise her voice. He brought you up outta nothing. So what if he wanted a little something for it in the end? You fucking owed him, you selfish cunt. Just cuz you'd rather munch rug than polish the chrome doesn't mean you can't pay a guy back for everything he did."

Anger boiled up in me, but before either I or Avalon could say anything, Sean stepped in. "Okay, look, uhhh, Assface. Can I call you Assface? I'm gonna call you Assface. Mostly because every word that comes out of your mouth just reminds me of one massive flatulence problem. So here's the thing, Assface. Being nice is not a god damn currency exchange. You don't get to trade being a decent fucking person for future fun times. You earn one thing from being a relatively good person, just one. And that's help from other relatively good people when you need it. That's all you get. Anything else is just blind fucking stupidity, and if your brother thought treating a girl with a little respect meant she owed him anything more than friendship, then he was a piece of shit who got what he deserved."

"You watch your fucking mouth, you ignorant shit." Trice pointed the heavy pike toward the boy, while Vulcan growled from beside Sean. "We're doing you a favor by giving you a chance to walk away."

The partially-hidden figure on the opposite side of Trice, the one next to Doxer, spoke up for the first time, revealing a high, excited female voice. "Told ya they'd throw it back in our faces, Trice! C'mon, lemme play with 'em! You never let me play! C'mon!" The figure was all-but dancing with eagerness.

"One more chance," Trice informed us. "I'm gonna count to ten. Then I'm coming after Hannah. Anyone else that gets in the way, Doxer and Pace get to play with. And they tend to break their toys."

"Take the offer," Avalon instructed the rest of us, her gaze still not leaving the boy. "Like he said, they don't care about you. None of you are trained. You can't match any of them. You're not ready for this kind of fight, so take Scout and the prick and walk away. This doesn't involve any of you."

"Yeeeeaaah see, I could do that," I conceded with an absent wave of my hand. "But it would involve getting a whole new roommate and well, that's just not a hassle I need right now. So I think we'll probably just help you smack these pricks around a little instead and see how that goes." As I spoke, my eyes glanced down toward my formerly mangled arm. By that point, bare minutes after it had been practically torn to shreds, my arm was just fine again. It was like… well, it was like magic. Duh.

Trice counted slowly, in no apparent hurry to rush things. Each gradually drawled number was followed by a couple seconds of silence. His gaze was locked onto Avalon, the hate and desire for revenge clear in his murderous eyes. There was no nuance there, no sympathy, regret, or doubt about what he was doing. He didn't just want to kill the girl, he wanted her to suffer as much as possible.

Avalon, for her part, was glaring openly at me. "Chambers, leave. All of you, leave. This isn't about you. Take Scout. Take Adams. And get the fuck out of here, now. This is not a god damn game."

"See, you're right," I replied. "It's not a game. Which means we don't have to follow any rules."

With that, I shoved the staff that I had been charging ever since the trio had shown up and triggered the blast of kinetic energy. It shot out from the staff in an invisible wave, slamming into the three figures.

Or it should have. Unfortunately, two of the three were no longer there. Only Trice still stood in place, that pike of his twisted at an angle. As the wave of force came at him, he stepped toward it, catching the wave on his weapon somehow. A small tornado appeared around the blade of the pike as the force that I had sent at him was captured, before he gave it a flick. The force shot off of his weapon, slamming into the already-leaping Vulcan to send the mechanical dog flying off to crash into the dirt.

Sands was there, swinging her mace up and around with a two-handed blow. Trice gave a casual flick of his pike, catching the end of it on the handle of the mace to knock it off course before stepping out and around the girl. His weapon snapped back sharply, the long handle smacking into Sands' shoulder to knock her stumbling past him. A second later, he twisted a little to the side, a motion as casual as if he was simply cracking his neck. The blue-silver beam of concussive force that Columbus had shot from his goggles sailed past the spot where the boy's head had been an instant earlier.

Then he was in front of me. The blunt end of his pike lashed up and over, and I barely caught it on my own weapon, snapping it up into place just in time to avoid taking the blow to my throat. The force of his attack sent painful vibrations through my hands, nearly knocking the weapon from my grasp.

Before I could even start to recover from that, Trice had reversed the course of his pike, and the pointy end was abruptly coming straight up toward my eye, while my staff remained horribly out of position.

At the last instant, a glowing energy sword interposed itself between my face and the incoming pike. Avalon smacked the blade out of the way before lashing out with a kick that forced the boy to take a step back. Rather than give him a chance to recover, my roommate went after him fast and hard. She lashed out with the blade of energy from her right gauntlet, forcing him to deflect it with his pike. While he was still out of position and recoiling, Avalon lunged in on the other side, her left hand snapping out with a second blade of energy already forming as she lashed out at him.

He stepped in, evading the blade with a quick twist of his body before smacking the other girl in the face with his elbow. She reeled just enough to give him an opening, which he took advantage of by shoving the blade of his pike down toward the girl's knee. Avalon managed to twist away from it fast enough to deck him across the face with the flat of her fist, back-handing the boy hard.

In the same moment, however, Trice kicked Avalon's legs out from under her, sending my roommate down hard onto her back. He followed that up by trying to shove his weapon straight down into her briefly prone form. He might even have managed it within the extremely brief second before Avalon recovered, except that she wasn't alone. Lunging that way, I lashed out with my own weapon, colliding it with his just in time to knock the descending pike off-course so that it struck the ground beside the other girl.

Before he could yank the weapon out of the ground, Columbus shot another beam of force at him, careful to avoid hitting anyone else. But Trice dropped into a backwards roll, letting the blast of concussive energy fly past above him while his foot kicked out to knock his own pike up and over.

The weapon fell neatly into the boy's hand, and he twisted around while rolling to his knees, bringing it up just in time to catch Sands's descending mace. Shoving her out of the way with a quick motion of his arms, Trice flipped himself up into a kick that struck Sean across the face, knocking him sprawling right into Columbus's path before the other boy could fire another shot.

Avalon, back on her feet by that point, had read the incoming situation perfectly. She positioned herself where Trice would have to move, catching him with nowhere else to go and seemingly no time to react or change course. Her gauntlet swung, the energy sword cutting through the air to literally disarm him.

Trice disappeared. As Avalon's blade cut through the air where his arm had been, the boy completely and unexpectedly vanished for about half a second before reappearing directly behind the girl. The blade of his weapon was aimed straight for her back, and there was a twisted sneer on his face as he shoved it forward.

Then Vulcan was there. The mechanical dog leapt, jaws closing around the long shaft of the pike, tearing it out of Trice's grip half of an instant before the blade would have hit Avalon.

Sands took the chance to attack the boy from the left while he was left weaponless, while I hit him from the other side. She went high toward his face, and I swung my staff for his knee.

He leapt over my attack, twisting to avoid the swing of Sands' mace. In the end, he might have evaded both of our attacks entirely. Might have. Except Sands wasn't just swinging her mace. She also created a circular wall right beside the boy, just in time for my staff to smack into it as I triggered the button that deposited a mine against the magically constructed wall. Then both Sands and I smacked our weapons against the spot where the mine was before simultaneously throwing ourselves in opposite directions.

The mine exploded against the wall directly beside Trice before he could recoil. The boy was knocked to the ground with a cry, sprawling there for a moment before he rolled over.

Sands and I both started to move, knowing that we had to take the chance we had before Trice could recover. Unfortunately, before we could go more than a step, a new figure appeared directly in front of us. "Uh uh," the tall, dark-skinned guy that was obviously Doxer announced. "Time to let those two sort things out on their own. Trice gets to deal with Hannah. You girls can play with me."

Meanwhile, I caught a glimpse of the girl, Pace, interposing herself between Columbus and Sean. And a little bit ahead of us, Trice had gotten back to his feet to face Avalon.

Three of them. With Avalon's help, we had barely been holding against just Trice. Now we were split up. Avalon was left to face Trice on her own, while Sands and I had Doxer to deal with, and the boys had Pace. When it had been five-on-one, we had just barely managed to knock him down.

"Don't worry, little girls," the big guy informed us while cracking his neck to the side. "This won't take long. Unless I start having fun. Then we might be here awhile."

With that, his fist lashed out. I barely had the chance to notice the blur of motion before the blow took me in the face so hard I hit the ground before I knew what was happening. His punch was like a freight train. I was in the dirt, pain filling my face while Sands yelped my name. A second later, she went sprawling over me to hit the ground as well.

"Oh yeah," Doxer chuckled, cracking his knuckles as he stood over us.

"This is gonna be fun."

BREAK

BREAK

A NOTE

There will be an interlude chapter posted around noon mountain time today or seven pm UTC!

Using the staff to push myself up, I kept a wary eye on the far-too-casual Doxer. The older boy was simply popping the knuckles of one hand all in a line, then the other while watching me stand up. He wasn't concerned in the least. In the background, I saw Columbus and Sean having a pretty bad time trying to lay a finger on Pace, who evaded them with perfect ease. She was giggling like it was a game.

"It's funny," Doxer began, his tone calm and even. "They go on and on about how dangerous you Crossroads kiddies are and how we shouldn't underestimate you. Gotta say, right now? Not impressed."

"That's funny," I replied while moving to the left away from Sands. Hopefully we could make this guy focus on just one of us. Not that it was likely to make that big of a difference, but every little bit helped. "Because I was just thinking pretty much the same thing about you guys. The unimpressed part."

The big guy's response was a sneer. "We're kicking your asses pretty thoroughly, little girl."

Nodding, I took another step to the left, forcing him to turn slightly as his eyes continued following me. "Yeah, that's the part I'm talking about. Or was I supposed to be in awe of your stunning ability to win a fight against a few teenagers that've been training for all of a month? That's so unremarkable, they don't even make a trophy for it, and they have trophies for coin flip event participation. Fifty-fifty shot, lose, get a trophy anyway. Still a more genuine victory than you assholes throwing your weight around."

His chuckle was low, dangerous and without humor. "I like you. I think I'll make this one last."

At the last second, with a look straight into my eyes that was as mocking as any I had ever seen, the boy pivoted away from Sands's strike that would have nailed the back of his head. His hand lashed out, snatched the length of the mace, and then he yanked her forward off balance while bringing his knee up. A cry of pain escaped the other girl even as I leapt that way, the air driven out of her by the blow.

She hit the ground hard, mace falling beside her as Doxer dismissively dropped it. His foot lifted to kick at her, but he pulled back to avoid my staff as I lashed out at him. "You know what I really hate?" I asked while using a wide swing of the weapon to force the boy to step back quickly. "You know what really pisses me off? People who think they can do whatever they want to. People who think they have all the power, so they can get away with hurting others that don't have as much power as they do. Like you. You're not avenging anything. You're not protecting anyone. You're not a warrior. You're not a hero. You're no better than the Strangers they've been teaching us about. Only in this case, you don't have the excuse of the whole monster thing being part of your DNA. You're just a dick."

"Aww, your opinion makes me so sad," he retorted before pantomiming writing in his palm. "Mental note, be sure to reevaluate my life after I'm finished beating this bitch to within an inch of hers."

Flipping the staff around in my hand, I aimed it out and down toward at an angle toward the ground. "Start now," I suggested flatly while triggering the concussive blast. It shot out of the staff and into the ground, spraying a thick cloud of dirt and light debris into the air directly toward the boy's face.

Doxer reeled, grabbing at his eyes with a cry while I followed up with a quick strike toward his unguarded stomach, twisting my body into the swing to put more force behind it as I swung.

The blow took the boy hard in the gut, but it hardly seemed to matter. It was like hitting a boulder. I probably did more damage to my own hands than to him. Christ, what was this asshole made of?

Blinded but still quick, he grabbed for the staff. I reversed it, spinning away from his grasp just in time. Before he could recover from the lunge, I lashed out with a quick series of blows, running it the way that Avalon had taught me. Two quick jabs at his face with the right end of the staff, then a low strike on his left side toward the knee with the opposite end. Quick step back, reverse the staff, and bring it up in a rising blow toward his exposed wrist as hard as I could. Each move, by that point, was quick and effortless. They came without conscious thought, the way Avalon had insisted they would. That was why we had drilled through them over and over so many times, so that they would be instinctive. Two strikes at the face to distract and make them reel back, hit the knee to hopefully disable or at least make move their guard that way, then use that exposed guard to hit their wrist hard enough that they can't hit you back. One, two, three. The second that I stopped thinking and just acted, the motions were easy.

Except I was pretty sure that I'd gotten more of a reaction out of the training dummies that Avalon had made me practice with. At least the reinforced wood there had reacted as if my hitting it repeatedly actually did something. With this guy, I might as well have been attacking a chunk of granite.

I kept going anyway, hoping that I'd hit something weaker than a brick wall before he recovered. With a grunt, I twisted around into a spin to put the full weight and strength of my body behind the next blow.

The staff whiffed through empty air. Wait, no, not empty air. Water. Where the big guy had been before, water in the shape of his body remained. It stayed in place and retained that shape for a split second after my staff had passed through it, before collapsing into a puddle at my feet.

Abruptly, before I could finish looking around, a voice from nearby whispered urgently, "Drop!"

I didn't know why. Maybe it was the tone, similar to the way Avalon instructed me when we were training. Whatever it was, I listened to the voice, instantly dropping into a roll. As I did so, Doxer's hands swept by overhead, narrowly missing his grab for me. If I had waited a second longer, he would have had his arms around my throat. Given his size, I was positive that the fight would have been over.

Instead, I was able to escape, rolling back to my feet and lashing out with my staff before my brain had time to catch up with what had just happened. Whose voice was that? It didn't seem to belong to anyone that I could see. The whisper had just come from nowhere. Was this the Amarok's ability? Wait, did that even make sense? What kind of inherited super power was 'voice in my head?'

He might have followed up the attack before I could recover, but Sands was back up. Her mace swung out, colliding with his shoulder with enough force to finally draw a grunt from the boy. In retaliation, he grabbed for her with speed that seemed at odds with his size. Still, Sands managed (barely), to escape by conjuring a wall directly between them that slowed the big guy down for a couple seconds.

"Don't just sit there and gawk, get up and help her." That voice in my head, somehow familiar yet not at all, ordered. "Keep him turning back and forth. Don't let him deal with only one of you at a time."

I still had no idea where this voice was coming from, but it had the right idea. Before Doxer could corner Sands, I came in at his back, dropping low so I could plant the full weight and force of my staff in the back of his knees as hard as possible. At the last second, I triggered the staff's concussive blast.

That, finally, was enough to knock the son of a bitch down. He stumbled, grunting in pain. Before hitting the ground, however, flames erupted where he had been in the shape of the asshole himself.

Okay, it was fire instead of water this time. Still, I knew what was coming. Even as the voice in my head whispered an urgent warning, I was already throwing myself in a (still somewhat awkward and ungraceful, but hey) dive out of the way. I half-rolled and half-sprawled, rolling in the dirt to escape.

"Well now," Doxer announced while looking from Sands to me and then back again. "Looks like I might have to put a tiny bit of effort into this after all. Unless, you know, you girls just wanna call it quits." His grin widened. "I'm a fair guy, easy to please. Tell you what, we'll have a little contest. Each of you make me a sandwich. The babe that makes the best one, well, I won't hit her anymore. Sound good?"

It took everything I had not to throw myself at the son of a bitch in a blind rage, swinging wildly. That's what he wanted. He was trying to piss us off, make us stop thinking and just go at him in a rush. If we did that, I had no doubt that he'd knock us both on our asses in about two and a half seconds. He wanted us to fight on his terms, so he could end the fight on his terms. Quickly and decisively.

Instead, I glanced toward Sands, lifting my chin. "The boy wants a sandwich."

She nodded, breathing hard. "Yup. Think we should give it to him?"

"Oh yeah," I nodded. Unlike Sands, I was breathing easily. Mostly I just felt pissed off. "We should."

"Now girls," that infuriating smirk was back. "There's lots of things you could both give me that I wouldn't object to. Especially if you work together. But before you do anything rash right now, I–"

Before he could say anything else, I pointed my recharged staff back at the ground and triggered it. The force, as I had been warned, nearly tore the weapon out of my hand. Somehow, I managed to retain my grip on it as I was launched into the air, flying up a good ten feet and forward to pass over the big guy's head. Just beyond him, I dropped, spun in the process, and swung that staff at the back of his neck.

An outline of dirt appeared in the air where he had been, my staff whiffing through it even as I landed. Rather than remain standing, I continued my fall, dropping down while the large figure reappeared behind me. His foot was raised into a vicious kick. My quick roll meant that he only barely clipped my arm. Even that was enough to send spasms of pain down it. It felt like something had cracked.

Before he could follow that up, Sands was on him. His focus on me had taken his eyes off of her. She came in at him with another wide swing that made the boy jerk his head back away from the mace.

Unfortunately for him, he moved it directly into the path of my own swinging weapon. The staff collided with the dickface's recoiling head so hard I thought that one of them was going to break.

"Duck to your left, then jump right and swing at his leg the second you land. Wait for it… now."

Still failing to understand why, I instantly followed the voice's instructions. Ducking left, I saw Doxer's vicious backhanded swing narrowly miss me. He was turning defensively, but my quick jump put me right at his blindspot, and gave me a brief second of opening. I took advantage, lashing out with my staff at the side of his leg as hard as I could. I was gratified to hear the hard thunk of my weapon striking home, followed by a grunt of actual pain from the arrogant piece of shit himself.

Sands was already moving to take advantage of the very slight stumble even before I'd finished hitting him. Her mace came up and around, bashing into the side of the boy's shoulder so hard that she actually managed to draw some blood, as well as a genuinely surprised gasp. She'd hurt him. We had hurt him.

A sudden blast of air in my face replaced the boy. I saw him appear behind Sands, grabbing for her with a look of rage that had replaced his former cocky and dismissive expression. Before I could yelp a warning, she was already reacting somehow. Dropping into a side-roll, she barely escaped his grasp.

That voice returned. "Count to five, then swing as hard as you can six feet to the left of his head."

Shrugging inwardly, I did so. After reaching five in my head, I lunged up and forward, lashing out with my staff at what still looked like empty air to me. In the meantime, Sands had been lashing out with a quick series of strikes mixed with wall construction to slow his counter-attacks. She struck hard and fast, not letting up for a second to give him any chance to regroup. It didn't seem to do much damage, but she had been steadily driving him back a couple of steps through sheer ferocity.

Those few steps made all the difference. Just as I swung at what had been empty air, Doxer took that last step back that put himself directly in my path. The staff collided with the side of his head, and he bellowed in pain, staggering to the side while lashing out blindly and fruitlessly.

In retaliation, the big guy spun toward me while grasping with his hand. He caught my shoulder, squeezing so hard that I couldn't help the cry of pain that escaped me. It hurt. His fingers dug into my muscle, and I heard something else crack while he tried to jerk me toward him.

But Sands was there. She brought her mace down hard into Doxer's back, and he bellowed in pain once again. When she tried to follow up that blow, another statue of water briefly replaced him before collapsing with a splash, sending water everywhere.

That particular teleportation or… whatever he was doing carried Doxer behind Sands. But it was a trick he'd done too many times already, and I didn't need the voice in my head to warn me before I was already leaping forward. Sands dropped the instant she realized the guy had disappeared again, giving me a clear path over her. I was already swinging, the staff connecting solidly with Doxer as he reached for Sands.

We continued that way. Sands and I did our best to keep the son of a bitch between us. We'd manage to hit him and he would disappear, but because she and I were both facing each other, one of us always knew where he teleported to and would press the attack while the other evaded his counter. A couple of times, the voice in my head whispered advice, warning me when the guy was out of my line of sight. We never let up. We never gave him a chance to recover or press any kind of advantage.

Finally, Sands all but collapsed. She doubled over, gasping for air almost desperately. She was openly panting, glaring at the bloodied, bruised guy between us. "I'm gonna…" She breathed in and then out heavily between her words. "Shove this… mace… up your… urethra."

"Keep… wasting your breath… babe." Doxer retorted in between pants of his own. He spat a bit of blood onto the ground before sneering. "You two can wear yourselves out with this pointless shit all you want. But you can't keep going forever. You'll slow down. And when you do, you're mine."

The boy wasn't panting as heavily as Sands, but his breathing was clearly heavier than it had been. We were wearing him down. If we weren't, he would have pressed the advantage already rather than taunt Sands about being tired.

Taunt… Sands about being tired. That was my first thought even though he'd clearly meant both of us simply because I wasn't tired. At all. We had been at this for several intense minutes by that point, so much that Sands was almost dead on her feet, and even Doxer was panting. Both had slowed down over the course of this. I'd thought that avoiding his blows and countering was getting easier because I was getting the timing down. But the truth was that Doxer was getting tired…. and I wasn't.

I wasn't tired. I wasn't even breathing hard. I felt absolutely fine, as if I hadn't been exerting myself at all.

"Cover me," I murmured. "Try to keep him off my back if he teleports. I've got this."

With that, I pointed the staff at the ground and used it to launch myself forward without warning. My feet plowed into the boy's chest. As before, it was like hitting a wall. This one, however, felt more like wood than stone. There was give to it as the piece of shit staggered backwards with a reluctant yelp of pain.

I didn't wait. Dropping back to my feet, I lashed out as quickly as I could into a rapid series of blows with my staff. Right side low toward his leg, left side up at his wrist, left side higher at his face, reverse and flip the staff around, use the momentum to come all the way up on the opposite side to crack the weapon against his other bicep, jump back and jab inward with the staff to smack off his face.

It wasn't perfect. He countered, a mixture of flailing and pointed strikes that would have done much worse damage if they had been more patient and collected. Instead, two things were happening. The first was that he was getting more and more frustrated as I refused to fall down and stay there.

The second thing that was happening was that he was getting more tired with each passing moment. And I… wasn't. At all. The difference was becoming more and more profound. He was clearly stronger, faster, and more skilled than I was. But he was getting tired, and I wasn't. I wasn't tired at all. For all my body had reacted, I might as well have been taking a casual stroll to the fridge.

Even then it wouldn't have been enough without Sands. The boy could have teleported behind me and ended it completely with one quick blow. But the other girl was there, constantly jumping in whenever he tried to do that. And when she wasn't quite fast enough, the voice in my head warned me in time.

In the end, however, it wasn't my sudden inexhaustible energy that finished the fight. It was a gunshot, followed by a squeal of pain.

Heads snapped that way, and I saw the girl, Pace. She was on one knee, holding a hand against her shoulder where the bullet had gone through. In front of her, Columbus was on the ground, clearly unconscious, while Sean half-lay and half-crouched in front of him. Vulcan was between them and the bitch herself, growling menacingly in spite of half a dozen dents spread over his metallic body.

And behind them, Scout stood with her rifle raised. She waited another half-second, then pulled the trigger again.

Doxer vanished with a puff of fire, reappearing next to Pacer before both of them vanished, leaving twin clouds of dirt behind that time.

"Trice!" Doxer bellowed. "Time to get out of here!"

"Not… yet." Trice retorted. Blood covered the right half of his face from a deep cut, and he couldn't quite stand up straight. "We're not finished."

Avalon, meanwhile, wasn't doing so hot either. She was holding her arm at an odd angle, which considering how much I knew about the regeneration, and how many more of those peridles she had killed compared to me, said a lot about how much damage she'd taken.

"Sniper's up!" Doxer retorted, vanishing in another puff of air along with the injured girl. "And Pacer's in trouble! If the shooter's up, the blocking spells are gonna fail soon. You-know-who can't distract the staff for long." He looked back toward Sands and me. "I'll be back for that sandwich."

"Way I see it," I retorted, "You still haven't finished the one we were trying to give you."

Growling in anger, Trice pointed at Avalon. "This isn't over. I will kill you, cunt. I'll listen to you beg me to stop. Just like my brother did. But I won't. I'll listen to you die over and over again, just for the hell of it..

"Bring it," she spat the words, hands held up defensively while she glared.

"Later," Trice shot back. "Just know that you aren't safe. None of you. With a little help from our friend, we can get you any time, any place.

Then they were gone. With a rush of wind and fire together, the three figures vanished.

Sands collapsed. Sean let himself fall the rest of the way before turning to check on Columbus. Scout ran to check on her sister. Even Avalon slowly sank to one knee, then slipped onto her side with a grunt of pain, breathing hard and shuddering. Her arm hung useless and loose to one side, the bones in it broken almost beyond recognition. I could see it start to knit back together.

Embracing her sister tightly when Scout reached her, Sands looked to me. "Thanks. Good thing that Amarok had some kind of telepathic communication, huh? Couldn't have have gotten through that without your help. And how did you fight and keep giving instructions at the same time?"

I stared at her for a moment. "You heard a voice too?"

"Of course I—wait, it wasn't you?"

The two of us stared at one another for a second. Then I shook it off and moved to check on Avalon and the boys. As before, I wasn't tired at all. None of what had happened even made me yawn.

That was the power that the Amarok had given me. A seemingly endless amount of stamina. I could have kept fighting all night without a single break. That was the ability I'd inherited from the giant wolf.

… so where had that voice in not just my head, but Sands's too come from? Who had been helping us? Who had been directing us through that fight?

And most of all, which of my new teachers had helped those three make this whole thing happen?

BREAK

BREAK

"Stephen, get down!" Shiori Porter shouted the warning to her teammate while throwing her right arm forward. One of the two frisbee-like discs that served as her chosen Heretic weapons went flying through the corridor of the condemned motel that they had been fighting in for their first Stranger hunt.

The disc whistled as it sliced through the air, narrowly missing the red-haired boy when he dropped to one knee. The ugly green-furred monkey thing that had been leaping toward him was struck by the disc. As the weapon made contact with the creature (Andrew, their team mentor, had called them daesimalo), a shock of electricity was triggered, knocking the thing backwards with an awful screech.

The disc rebounded off of the monster, the enchantment magic within attracting it to the nearby wall where it stuck itself flat against the surface, like a magnet snapping into place against a refrigerator.

The daesimalo was blind with fury by that point. Picking its small (the thing was only about the size of a toddler) body off the floor, it took a quick bounding run forward before leaping up. No longer interested in the still kneeling boy that had been its first target, the primate-demon flung itself at Shiori.

In response, she held her now-empty right hand up and out. The gloves that she wore had a small blue crystal embedded in the palms, almost unnoticeable unless her hand was opened the way it was now.

The blue gem in her right palm began to glow as she opened her hand and held it out. In the distance, past the incoming monster, the disc that was stuck to the wall began to glow as well. In the next instant and with a crack almost like thunder, a jagged line of electricity shot from the disc to the gem in her raised hand as the current was established between them. It caught the daesimalo in mid-leap, the beam of electric death tearing right through the beast's chest while its scream of rage became one of agony for a brief second before stopping. The thing was dead, and it would never hurt anyone else again.

Remembering how killing the peridle had felt, Shiori tried to brace herself. It wasn't enough. The shock of pleasure that filled her in the next second made the girl yelp, back straightening while her skin glowed briefly with the same pale red light that had come the first time she had killed a Stranger.

Stephen, who had rolled out of the way, came up and pointed beyond her. "Sh-sh-shiori!" His voice was stammering so much that he didn't have time to get anything else out. She had the gist though. Turning her head, the Asian-American girl saw two more of the monkey-demons rushing toward her down the motel hallway. One ran against the right wall, while the other loped along the ceiling. Both had their nasty fangs bared and were making that obnoxiously awful wail that was their battle cry.

Snapping her other discus off its place on her hip with her free hand, Shiori turned slightly and gave it a hard toss toward the monster on the wall. This time, the arc of electricity between the gem in that hand and the weapon itself was there from the start. As she threw the disc, the electricity lengthened into a crackling line of power that linked her glove to the weapon while it spun through the air away from her.

The discus smacked off of the wall monkey's face, stunning it briefly. More to the point, it rebounded, the magic within the disc attracting it to the opposite wall. In the process, the line of electricity caught the daesimalo that had been running along the ceiling, cutting straight through the monster.

Shiori stood there, arms pointed in opposite directions down the corridor while the two lines of electricity connected her gloves to the discs that were flat against their respective walls.

Unfortunately, that third demon-monkey was still coming. And just before it leapt, the death of the second Stranger caught up with Shiori. The girl arched her back, giving a sharp gasp of pleasure while her red aura shot back to life. Throughout those precious seconds, she frantically told herself to ignore it. The monster was coming, the monster was still there, it was jumping at her! It was there!

Stephen's spear snapped across her vision, catching the daesimalo in mid-leap as the thing flung itself at her face. The monkey-demon shrieked in agony, sounding surprised as the blade of the spear cut through its stomach and out the other side. It hung there, suspended on the shaft while it beat its arms and legs, shrieking horribly for a few more seconds before collapsing, the body empty.

The nervous boy sagged in relief for a second before giving a sharp gasp of unmistakable pleasure. His own aura, a dark yellow color, flared up as the now-dead daesimalo's energy and power jumped to him.

While he was recovering, Shiori took a step back and made a sharp motion with both hands. The lines of electricity shut off, and both of her discs snapped themselves off of the walls they had been stuck to, flying back through the air to her. She caught them easily, sliding each disc back down to clip onto their proper spots on her belt, just under the jacket of her green-trimmed school uniform.

Stephen had recovered by that point, his murmur of pleasure turning into a yelp as the weight of the monkey-demon embedded on his spear dragged him forward and down. The body made a sick little squelching noise as it slid down the shaft, slipping off before hitting the floor with a wet thunk.

"A-are you okay?" Stephen managed to ask, eyes wide as he stared at her. His breath was coming in short little gasps, panting a bit as he obviously focused very hard on not looking at the body.

Bobbing her head quickly, Shiori felt her nerves start to take over again now that the fight was over. She looked away and flushed a little while murmuring, "I'm fine. Are… are you all right?"

"Thanks to you," the boy gushed, still staring in that uncomfortable way. "I mean jeeze, are you sure you're bystander-kin, Shiori? I'm Heretic-born, I grew up with this stuff. But you—you're amazing. You just killed both of those th-things like—like you'd been doing it your whole life! How-I mean, what kind of fighting did you do before this?" The amazement in his voice only grew with each word.

Blushing even more, Shiori shook her head quickly. "Nothing," she mumbled a little bit. "I just—it was just luck, I guess." Her blush was deepening, both from self-consciousness and from guilt.

Because she was lying. She had been ever since that moment a month earlier when Professor Dare had activated the Heretical Edge, giving all of them the visions that had turned them into Heretics. With every day, every hour that passed, Shiori felt the guilt at her own deception gradually becoming worse.

There was more to it, more to her aptitude in that fight, her skill throughout these weeks of training. Even the hand-eye coordination and reflexes that had allowed her to become an expert at every video game she had touched since she was six made more sense now the Edge had been used on her.

As far as she could tell, it had worked exactly as advertised for everyone else. The lighthouse was supposed to give them a vision of their nearest ancestor who had encountered a Stranger. That's what it had done for Columbus, for all of her teammates, and for everyone else she talked to. It worked.

Except for Shiori, things had been a little different. The vision she'd gotten had been… wrong. It hadn't gone the way that Professor Dare had said that it would, or the way that everyone else said theirs had.

What she had always previously dismissed as just a simple talent had become so much worse. And there was no one she could talk to about it. She was lying to her team, to her teachers, to her brother.

Because she was too terrified of what would happen if they found out the truth. Especially now. She had been working up the nerve to tell one of her teachers about what she'd seen, what her vision had shown her. The man had seemed reasonable and she thought she might be able to trust him.

Then he had been murdered. Professor Pericles had been killed on the same morning that Shiori had been planning to talk to him. That thought had kept her silent these past few weeks, even as her fear of being discovered continued to mount with each passing day. Every bit of praise from a teammate or teacher, every remark on how well she was progressing and how rapidly she had taken to the training made her feel worse. The paranoia was a physical thing, a beast growing within her stomach.

A voice called out to them, interrupting Shiori's internal contemplation. "Hey! You guys okay?" Andrew Bruhn, their team mentor, came jogging down the hallway. The rest of the team was with him, Gavin's nearly seven-foot tall, rail-thin figure towering over the others. His height and skinny frame reminded Shiori of Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Stephen was nodding rapidly. "We're good. Shiori killed two of them!" He still sounded both amazed, and incredibly proud of his teammate in a way that just made the girl feel worse for her deception.

"Two?" Koren, twin Hunga Munga held in her slightly shaking hands, sounded doubtful. "How?"

Stephen started to explain, but before he could say anything else, one of the nearby motel room doors opened. The whole team jerked that way reflexively, weapons raised. Rebecca Jameson, Shiori's diminutive Heretic-born roommate, spoke a single word. At her command, the sides of her backpack opened up with the sound of running gears. Two metal bars with various shapes of metal hanging off of them pushed out from the sides of the bottom half of the backpack, turned around to face forward, and then extended themselves in front of the tiny girl, parts whirring and dinging as the rose into position.

The twin bars extended fully, sticking a good four feet out in front of Rebecca on either side. Then each deployed three smaller bars along their inner side that extended toward each other before locking into place to hold the two larger bars in position, and provide a trio of braces along their length.

At the same time, the top half of the backpack slid up on small mechanical arms, passing over the girl's pixie-cut black hair before settling down onto the first of the three metal braces between the main poles. The shape of the so-called 'backpack' distorted and extended to cover the entire width between the two poles. Once that portion of the pack was locked in place, the front of it opened up, and a massive, unbelievably enormous gun barrel extended out along the length of the bars. Clamps latched onto the bracers as the cannon settled itself into place, nearly large enough to cut off its owner's vision.

This was Rebecca's weapon. Her backpack deployed itself into a literal cannon and attached system of bracers that were the only reason the tiny, less-than-five feet tall girl was capable of using it.

As unique and amazing as the weapons that Shiori and the rest of her classmates used were, most were at least hand-held. Rebecca used a literal weapons platform. A single shot from the absolutely cavernous barrel had evaporated all of the targets that Professor Katarin had them practice on. Shiori was pretty sure that it would have done the same to the wall behind it, and most of the rest of the building that it passed through if the training room's walls weren't heavily protected by enchantments.

The cannon, as well as every other weapon that the team held, were all pointed at the opening door.

"Stand down." A voice spoke firmly, before the familiar figure stepped into view. It wasn't one of monkey-demons that they had been sent to kill emerging from the room, but Professor Kohaku.

"Professor?" Andrew sounded as confused as Shiori felt. "Is something wrong? They haven't finished off the last of the daesimalo yet, but I thought they were doing pretty–"

"The lesson is canceled," the woman informed them. "The rest of the targets will be dealt with, but we are pulling everyone else in. There has been a…" She looked toward Shiori. "… situation."

Feeling her blood run cold, dread settled hard into the girl's stomach. They knew. They knew what her vision had showed her, the truth. Somehow, something had happened. Of course they had to have a way of figuring it out. She should have told someone. She should have run away. She should have–

"It is your adopted sibling, Miss Porter," Kohaku continued. "His team has met with difficulties."

Just like that, Shiori's panic about her own problems shifted to worry for the boy she had grown up with. They had each been adopted by the Porters in the same year, and had considered each other siblings for most of their lives. Shiori had only vague memories of other foster families that she had temporarily lived with in the years before being taken in by her new family, and none of her parents.

Until the Heretical Edge.

"What happened to Columbus?" She asked quickly, forgetting her fear. "Is he okay? Are they okay?"

"Your brother suffered a slight injury that rendered him unconscious, but he will recover." Professor Kohaku promised. "He is already being looked after, and we are halting the exercise until we understand exactly what happened. Everyone is being recalled to the school. Come." Stepping aside, she lifted a hand to gesture back to the doorway she had come through. Beyond, Shiori could see not the broken down, ruined motel room that the door should have led to, but the portal room within the Pathmaker building.

One by one, the rest of her team went through the door. Shiori proceeded last, except for Andrew. Their mentor gave her an encouraging smile. "Hey, if Professor Kohaku says Columbus'll be fine, he will be."

"But… but what happened?" Shiori directed the repeated question not to the boy, but to the security track adviser. "What do you mean they met with 'difficulties?' I don't understand. Where is he? Where's my brother? I thought you guys said this was safe, that this whole thing was just routine!" In spite of the fear that had remained just below the surface ever since her vision, Shiori felt her voice growing louder with each word. She was much more worried about her brother's safety than her own secrets at the moment.

"This situation was unforeseen, and unique." Professor Kohaku's voice was calm in the face of Shiori's rising tone. "And as I said, he is being looked after. His own peridle-fueled regeneration has already handled most of the injury, but Doctor Krisbee is examining him and the rest of his team just to be certain. I will take you to the medical wing so that you can see for yourself, Miss Porter."

Swallowing, telling herself to be quiet rather than succumbing to hysterics, Shiori nodded. Average. Normal. Be a normal student. Well, a normal Heretic student, whatever that meant. Don't stand out. Don't give them any reason to look closer at her. Blend in, until she figured out what to do, what else she could possibly do.

Biting her lip while hoping that the professor would see her nerves as simple concern for Columbus, Shiori quietly passed through the portal. Whatever had happened to her brother and his team, it couldn't have been as bad as the secret that she had been hiding, the secret that had made the past month a living nightmare.

With each passing moment over these long weeks, and every idle question from a teammate, a teacher, or even her own adopted brother, the girl had found herself feeling more alone, and more worried that her secret would somehow be exposed. She tried to behave as normally as possible, but her fear of being discovered was getting worse. And if that happened, if the truth about what she had seen in the vision provided by the Heretical Edge came to light, she was terrified of what would happen, of what the staff would do. What her own teammates would do.

From the very start of it, the vision had been different from anyone else's that she had subsequently heard of. Everyone else saw people several generations removed from them. Shiori had seen herself. Herself as a baby, but still definitely her.

But even that, even the fact that her Heretical-awakening vision had included her much younger self was at least understandable. Different from the rest she had heard of, but still explainable. That wasn't what terrified her, what left her a complete wreck whenever she thought of anyone, even Columbus, finding out about it.

No, her fear of discovery stemmed from the rest of the vision. Because it hadn't been focused on the baby Shiori herself, but her mother. Her real mother, the one she had no memory of.

Everyone else that she had talked to spoke of seeing their ancestor's either fighting or being hurt or killed in some way by Strangers. That connection to the Strangers was what allowed the Edge to do its job and turn their descendants into Heretics. That was the entire point.

But Shiori's mother hadn't been the victim.

She was the Stranger.

Shiori had watched through her vision as her mother had forced a human to take the baby Shiori and put her into the foster system, creating a fake identity for the infant.

Stranger. Monster. That was the secret she had been hiding. Her vision, provided by the Heretical Edge, had shown Shiori the truth. She wasn't a real Heretic. She couldn't be. Her birth mother was a Stranger. One of the monsters that the Heretics killed. Just like they would kill her if they ever found out the truth.

Still, she couldn't go on like this. Something was going to break. Her teachers were going to notice that something was different about her. Then they'd look into her past, and they'd figure it out.

Somehow, she had to beat them to it. She had to look into her own past without anyone finding out what she was doing. It would be difficult, considering she only knew one name. One name that her mother had spoken into the cell phone while leaving the building. The name of someone else that she had called her daughter after leaving the baby Shiori behind. One singular name that was all that the girl had to go on for clues to her true family.

Asenath.

BREAK

BREAK

Like a light snapping on, the darkness that had surrounded Avalon's side of the dorm room all night long vanished. The girl herself stood there, yawning as she squinted toward me with bleary eyes.

"Good, you're up. Come look at this." I beckoned the girl over to my desk, where a half dozen books from the library had been scattered, matching the equal number littering my bed. "I found something."

Avalon's yawn continued while she stepped toward the closet for a fresh set of clothes. When she spoke, it was a somewhat groggy mumble, her voice was thick from sleep, "Is it an emergency?"

Fully aware of how bad overstating it would go, no matter how much I wanted to show the girl what I had found, I was forced to shake my head. "No, it's important, but it's not an emergency."

Cracking her neck to one side, the busty brunette stepped back from the closet with her clothes in hand. "Good. Then don't talk to me until I get back. I need a shower before I can deal with any conspiracies."

With that, she stalked from the room on her way to the restroom, grumbling not-so-quietly under her breath the whole way about crazy roommates who never went to sleep anymore. Which totally wasn't fair. I still slept. Granted, it was only about an hour a night, but it was still sleeping!

Yeah, in the two weeks that had passed since our encounter with the Eden's Garden students, I had averaged an hour of sleep a night. I honestly didn't need any more than that. Even working myself hard throughout the day, doing all of my work, exercising twice as much as I had been, and doing all that training with Avalon still wasn't enough to make me all that tired. I had the feeling I could have gotten away with even less sleep, maybe an hour every couple of nights, if I had been less active.

Honestly, after two weeks of this… it was still absolutely amazing. Seriously, not needing to sleep gave me another third of the day to use. What the hell kind of crazy person would ever complain about that? Yeah, I was stuck in my room for the extra time, since I still had to follow the school rules, which meant staying in my room during curfew. No matter how awake and incapable of sleeping I happened to be, I was trapped inside these four walls. But so what? I could still get things done. It just meant that I could do all my schoolwork and other studying during that time, saving my hours outside the room for more active activities. It let me get a jump on all my classes while also spending an almost absurd amount of time scanning through those library books looking for any mention of my mother or Deveron, or anything related to either of them. I did all of that during the time I should have been sleeping, while doing my training and team bonding things during the day. I made it work.

According to Professor Dare, they had a system for dealing with things like this, where powers that were inherited by a student changed how the rules affected them. Obviously, curfew was meant to ensure that students received enough sleep. Yet I physically did not need as much any more. There were other students like me (though all of them were older), who for whatever reason required less sleep. They had different night schedules to follow, dependent on their specific needs. I just had to be added to that list, which meant sending the request through that school committee, which took time. Supposedly, it just took awhile because there were some on the council that wanted to forbid any exceptions to the rules, no matter how little sense they made. Each and every exception had to be debated about and voted on. Which reminded me that these were the same stubborn people who had needed the Headmistress to break the tie on whether I should even be allowed in the school or not, so maybe I shouldn't actually hold my breath for a ruling in my favor after all. I'd read way too many of my father's old articles to end up surprised if the people who didn't want me in the school to begin with held it against me by voting against bending the rules about when I had to stay in my room.

And speaking of things that weren't settled yet, we still hadn't heard anything about what they were going to do about the Eden's Garden students attacking us. Which, to be fair, didn't mean that they weren't doing anything about it, only that they weren't sharing those actions with us.

We did have some answers at least. Apparently, there had been some kind of sabotage against the Pathmaker. As soon as our group had gone through, its connection to that area was severed. Someone had entered the Pathmaker building at any of the locations it existed within and had left some kind of enchanted item that blocked the building from reestablishing that connection. The people inside, including our teachers, had had to locate that item and destroy it before they could make the building create a portal anywhere within a few hundred miles. Even then, a couple of the teachers had transported that far before using their own abilities to get to our location as quickly as possible. But it had been too late. By the time they arrived, the fight had been over for a couple of minutes.

I'd already waited almost two hours since finding the thing I wanted to show Avalon, so waiting another forty-five minutes shouldn't have been that big of a deal. Still, by the time the other girl finally returned, her worn and half-exhausted look turned into the goddess of perfection and cleavage that everyone else knew, I was practically bouncing up and down in my chair. Any longer and I swear I probably would have been scratching at the door, whining like a puppy for her to pay attention to me.

"Okay!" I stood up, unable to sit any longer once she was ready. "Look at this yearbook from 1918."

Avalon obliged, taking the book from me to flip through it. "Okay, what am I looking for?"

Scooting over beside her, I used my finger to point. "So this yearbook is so old, they do things a little different. Each page has just a few student pictures along the left page, with their names and a little paragraph about them on the right page. See, Julius Markin, Penselvi Kresh, and so on."

The other girl was nodding. "Right, seven students every two pages. What's your point?"

I shook my head. "That's the thing, it's not quite four students each. See, it goes seven students, seven students, six students. Every third set of pages has six instead of seven because of this floral design banner that comes up over that empty space. See how it goes over each page, low on two of them, then up higher on the third to reduce the number of student pictures that can be there? Weird design choice."

Avalon took a second, flipping through it for herself before nodding. "Right, what does it mean?"

"By itself? Nothing," I replied. "Except for the fact that the designer had a weird thing for flowers. But look at the first page of student pictures again, then the second page, then the third."

Flipping back to the front of the book, Avalon looked at them, changing the page over. "Six, six, six?"

I nodded. "They tried to cover it up by spacing those ones further apart so that it looks like there's the same amount as the pages that have seven pictures on them. You have to pay attention. But just look at the names that are left on that first page. The first name and then the name after it."

Running her finger down the page, Avalon read aloud. "Aaronson, Frederick and Bonwerth, David."

"Yup. Guess which two names fit right in those two spaces that should've been where the flowers are," I put my finger in that spot. "Adams, Deveron and Atherby, Joselyn. They should be right there. They took two people off the first page, and to make it fit they restructured the first two pages to have six each instead of the seven they should have had. They re-spaced these first couple of pages to try to make it look as normal as they could, but they couldn't just redo the whole book for some reason."

"Enchantment," Avalon replied. "The magic that it would have taken to redo each yearbook, even the ones that aren't here would be very taxing. The more pages that needed to be altered, the harder it would be, because they would have had to make the enchantment specifically to alter those pages. The more it had to alter, the harder it would be. So they just set it to take away those two pictures and set up the ones that were left to try to hide it by putting six on each of the first three pages."

"When you point it out like that, it seems obvious," Avalon frowned. "Why did it take so long to find?"

"Because they did a much better job of hiding it in the later yearbooks," I pointed out. "This was my mother's first year here. The other three books have more pictures per page, and are structured more like a normal yearbook like you and I would know. This is the only one that's that different."

"So what you need is an unaltered yearbook," the other girl frowned in consideration. "Or a way to undo the enchantment that's been put onto this one so you can see what was there before."

I nodded. "See how they list more than the student's name? Each student wrote something about themselves. Like this David Bonwerth guy said that his goal was to explore the bottom of the ocean. If we can get what my mother and the old Deveron wrote, it might tell us something about them."

Avalon was silent for a few seconds, letting out a long breath before looking toward me. "I may have someone that can help erase the enchantment on this. But he's not part of this school."

I opened my mouth, then hesitated. "You mean he's from your old school, don't you?"

Her head dipped into a slight nod. "Seller. He's, uh…" For once, the other girl actually looked a little nervous, bringing a hand up to brush through her own hair. "He's one of the teachers there. He's the only reason I survived, the reason I escaped after everything that went down. I trust him. If we give him the book and tell him it's important, he'll get the enchantment off. We just have to get it to him."

Realizing where she was going with that, I breathed out. "Just how far does this trust extend?"

She met my gaze, knowing what I was asking. "I would put my life in his hands. If he knows that it's important to me, he'll take care of it and keep the whole thing quiet. Even from Gaia."

I flinched. "Sorry. I… it's not fair for me to ask you to keep things from your mother. Even your adopted mother. It's asking too much, I know. I get it. I'm really sorry."

Looking away briefly, Avalon remained quiet. "I care about Gaia. She's just trying to protect us. But in this case, fuck that. We need to know. You deserve to know about your family, Chambers. So we'll do this, then talk to her about it. She'll understand… I hope." There was a slight dip in her voice at the end before she cleared her throat. "Whatever, I told you I'd help you figure this out, and you haven't pissed me off enough to take it back yet. So either be more annoying or shut up about how sorry you are."

Smiling faintly, I poked her. "See? I knew we were friends." Before she could object, I pressed on. "I'll take care of getting the book to Seller. As long as you think you can actually get a message to him."

"I will," she answered flatly. "There are ways of contacting him. Most of them involve dead birds. But I'll only do it if you're sure. You have to be absolutely positive that you're okay involving him in this."

Nodding emphatically, I stood up. "More than sure. I want to know the truth. This is the next step to that. If you say you trust him, that's good enough for me. As long as he's not going to drag his feet."

"He'll take care of it. Just give him the book. And try not to look so vulnerable, Chambers," she sighed.

"You are eventually going to use my first name," I declared, pointing at the other girl. "With Herbie as my witness," I declared while grabbing my aforementioned buddy from his spot on my desk to tuck him into my pocket, "You will call me Flick before this semester is over. You already use Scout's preferred name."

"Go get an identical twin with the same last name," Avalon replied dryly. "So that using your last name for both of you would just confuse everyone."

"Then you'd use my first name?"

She couldn't hide the slight smirk entirely as she shrugged at me. "No, I'd still call you Chambers. I'd just use your twin's first name instead."

Sighing dramatically, I put my hand against my forehead. "And lo, I am jealous of a sister I've never had." Straightening then, I added, "That reminds me. You told me about your whole umm, your life before." When the other girl stiffened, I pressed on quickly. "I know, I know, I know. Not pushing things, not trying to drag up bad memories or anything. I just have a serious question, and it's one you sort of already talked about so I hope it's okay to ask for clarification."

She was still stiff, but at she wasn't running away. "What is it?"

Speaking carefully, I asked, "You said that you hoped your father wasn't dead, because you want to kill him. But later you said that… well the story you told me left your father dying on the floor, alone."

Avalon was silent for a few seconds, looking away from me. When she spoke, her voice was as hard as I'd ever heard it. "He was found by a vampire, who turned him into one of them. That's what he is now. And he's tried to kill me a couple of times since then. It's kind of our idea of a family reunion. We try to kill each other every year or so. Eventually, I'll get it right." Turning toward me, she glared. "Happy now? Go away. I've got work to do."

Obliging her, I headed out to take my own shower rather than push things. By this point, I knew well enough when to leave the girl alone and stop pushing things. She was a lot more open with me than she had been when we first met, but sometimes I still had to back off. Especially after pushing her more than usual. But today was pretty much the best time for me to do that.

After cleaning up, I emerged from the restroom to find Sands and Scout waiting. Both embraced me quickly, hugging tightly while Sands lamented, "I can't believe you're leaving for a whole weekend."

"Pretty sure my dad would object if I missed spending my birthday with him," I pointed out to her, chuckling. "Besides, you guys'll be fine. Just don't let the boys slack off while I'm gone, okay? And try to get Avalon to spend time with the team. I know it's hard but… she really does need it."

"Don't worry," Sands promised. "Scout's got this. You just focus on having a good time."

"Yeah," I chuckled a little weakly. "Having a good time while lying constantly to my own father all weekend." The reality of it still hurt. I didn't want to lie to my dad. I hated the very idea of it so much it almost hurt. I kind of didn't want to go back if it meant having to lie to his face, but that would have made everything even worse. Mom had abandoned him. I wasn't going to do the same thing just to avoid feeling a little uncomfortable.

"Miss Chambers," the voice of Professor Dare spoke up from down the hall. "Are you ready to go? We should get you sent on your way before morning exercises begin." She nodded then to the twins. "Speaking of which, girls…"

"On our way!" Sands chirped, saluting quickly before starting off with her sister. "We'll just grab Avalon and head down there."

"I'm ready," I confirmed with a nod. "I just have to grab my bag, then uhh, we teleport, I guess?" I hoped that my obvious nervousness would look like it stemmed from the idea of using the portal again, rather than the fact that one of the things that I would be taking in my bag was the 1919 yearbook.

Yeah. Not only was I about to meet and talk to my father face to face for the first time since all of this had started, I was also going to take a yearbook from the school so I could meet one of the teachers from the school whose students had tried to kill us and ask him to please undo the magic enchantment that was covering up the history of my mother. Oh yeah, and I was still incapable of sleeping more than an hour a night. All of which I had to get through without my father the super-reporter realizing that anything weird was going on at all.

But at least I wouldn't have to deal with any Strangers while I was there.