Fated (6 page)

Joshua shrugged and then started glugging back what was inside. Thick, red liquid started pouring down his chin and dripping onto his chest.

Lucas watched in horrified fascination. The smell alone was enough to turn his stomach, even without the added visual of a Thirster with no table manners wiping his hand across his chest and licking it clean. The fascination was with the process which saw the flesh on Joshua's arm and shoulder knitting back together even as he shook the last drips from the bottom of the Thermos and ran his tongue around the lid. It happened as quickly as a skin forming on a pan of simmering milk. The others were watching too, even Grace.

'Lucas, where were you in all this?'

Lucas tore his eyes off Joshua and looked over at Tristan. Here it came.

'Half-and-half couldn't make it across the lot without being seen,' Joshua said with his mouth full, wiping a trail of bloody spittle off his lips with the back of his arm. He paused to lick it up.

Lucas ignored him. 'Like Shula said, the Hunter turned up. Joshua was down, Shula got shot. Caleb was blinded. I figured the only option was to get out before one of us got killed. I didn't know if there were other Hunters nearby.'

'How very collegiate of you. Putting your brothers ahead of the kill.'

Lucas stayed silent. Wasn't that what the Brotherhood's oath said they should do? He bit his lip to stop himself from reminding Tristan of the fact. Tristan didn't like being spoken back to.

'What do we do now?' Tristan asked.

It was a rhetorical question but Shula answered him anyway. 'Let's go back and kick their asses,' she said, clapping her hands together.

'Tonight?' Neena asked. She had dark circles under her eyes and clearly wasn't up for a repeat session of the night's hash-up.

'Let's go back tomorrow night. Without Caleb. Even a girl - a pathetic little human girl - could take him,' Shula said.

'She wasn't
that
pathetic,' Joshua answered, discarding the Thermos with a belch. 'She kicked your ass, Shula. Hmmm,' he said, leaning in close to her and sniffing loudly. 'Mmmmm, Colombian, I think. Fresh roasted.'

Shula scowled at him. He laughed at her and started flexing his arm, admiring the pale new skin that had formed.

'I'm coming too. I'm finishing this,' Caleb said, stepping forward.

The others stared at him. No one argued, though - you couldn't argue with him when his tail was arching over his head like that.

Tristan interrupted them, his voice cutting a silent swathe through the middle of them. 'You think you get second chances in this game? The Hunters will have strengthened their protection. She's too important to them. She'll likely be untouchable now until she's trained.'

'We still have a chance. We could get her,' Shula tried again.

'No,' Tristan answered. 'We had our chance. You failed. No one's going anywhere. It's too dangerous - if she manages to kill one of you, which frankly wouldn't surprise me, we'd be in even more trouble than we are now.' He paused, looking grim. 'I need to speak to the Elders. Clean yourself up,' he said, looking at Joshua, his lip curling in distaste, 'it's nearly sunrise. I'll see you all tomorrow night.'

They glanced at each other and then one by one moved towards the door. Lucas hung back, letting the others go ahead. He wanted the chance to speak to Tristan alone.

Grace was ahead of Lucas. He noticed the expression in her cloudy blue eyes. She was somewhere a million miles away. He reached to hold the door open for her. She smiled absently and walked on through, her arm brushing his hand as she went.

He heard her gasp and for a moment thought she'd stubbed her toe on the door jamb. Then he saw her eyes. They'd widened into two big blue pools and were fixed on him in abject horror. Her lips parted and a question formed but then she seemed to come to, her gaze dropping to the floor. She frowned and was gone in the next second, racing down the corridor.

Lucas stood watching her. Halfway to the stairs she paused and looked back at him over her shoulder, still frowning, and with fear in her eyes.

Lucas stared after her. What had she seen? She had seen something, he knew that - but what? Grace never usually reacted to the flashes she saw - of the future or the past. She never even bought lottery tickets.

He wondered vaguely if it was bad, if she'd seen his death, and noted with detachment that he felt nothing about that except maybe a fleeting curiosity about who would kill him. Not how, or where, or when, but
who.
He didn't feel scared, though, he thought with some satisfaction.

'Lucas?'

Lucas started. Tristan was talking to him.

'Walk with me,' he said, striding past and out into the corridor. Lucas followed him, his curiosity piqued. They walked in silence until Tristan stopped outside the training room and held open the door. Lucas hid his frown and stepped ahead of him into the room. Weapons were piled on a table and hung on the walls - everything from blades and swords to crossbows and machine guns, though there were more of the former and less of the latter, there being a general suspicion of human, modern weaponry amongst the Elders.

Tristan shut the door, shrugged off his jacket and strode to the furthest wall, grabbing a slender, heavily hilted sword from the table as he went. He tossed it to Lucas, who caught it reflexively in his right hand and brought it up to an offensive position levelled straight at Tristan's chest. Tristan smiled and with a flourish unsheathed another sword which he'd slid from a casing on the wall. The metal gleamed blue under the lights.

Lucas bounced onto the balls of his feet and started circling. Tristan was a Shadow Warrior like him so there was no point in fading - he'd see him instantly. Already Lucas's heart rate was raised, his palms beginning to sweat, and he took a moment to straighten his grip on his sword. They were fairly evenly matched in terms of height and build, but Tristan was injured in one arm and twenty-five years older. Even so, Lucas wasn't about to underestimate the man.

'Whose fault was it tonight?' Tristan asked, lunging suddenly towards Lucas, his sword a blur in his left hand.

'No one's,' Lucas answered, parrying the blow easily.

Tristan took another step towards him. 'It's always
someone
's fault, Lucas. I know you're all young and,' he grimaced, 'inexperienced. I realise the situation is unusual. But if the Brotherhood can't even handle a seventeen-year-old girl without full power, who's not even been trained yet, then our situation is worse than the Elders would have us believe.' He swung at Lucas again.

Lucas swallowed his answer and spun out of the way as Tristan's blade cut the air in front of his face. Tristan's mention of the Elders had silenced him. The Brotherhood had been almost destroyed barely a year ago. Lucas and the others were young bloods, barely trained, there to replace the generation before who had all been hunted to death. All except for Tristan whose injury and age took him out of the fight.

As the sole survivor of the previous generation of the Brotherhood, Tristan's job was now to train the next generation - Lucas and the others. For a moment Lucas saw the situation from Tristan's perspective. He didn't envy him having to report back to the Elders on this one.

'Like I said,' Lucas said, feinting to the left and coming up behind Tristan, 'she wasn't exactly your average human. She fought back. She was quick. Faster than I've seen before in a human. As quick as a fully trained Hunter.' He paused, remembering how she'd surprised Caleb. 'And instinctive.' He thought of how fast she'd been when she hit Shula. None of them had seen it coming, not even Grace. 'She's a natural.'

'She would be,' Tristan said, frowning now as Lucas backed him into the corner towards one of the arched windows.

Lucas darted forwards, his blade striking Tristan's. 'I think you should send me back. Alone,' he said.

Tristan's sword dropped a few inches as he studied Lucas carefully. Lucas didn't make a move, though he could have used the opportunity to disarm Tristan with a low blow to the elbow. Instead he stood there, waiting, not breathing.

'Now's not the time for revenge, Lucas,' Tristan finally said. 'That will come later. The girl first. She's the priority.'

Lucas's own sword fell to his side. 'Let me go back,' he said quickly. 'Not for revenge. That's not what I'm talking about. I can wait for that. I don't just want Victor. I want them all.'

Tristan tipped his head to one side as though to listen better. 'What are you proposing?'

'What if one of us could get close to a Hunter?'

'You mean close as in forming a relationship with one?'

Lucas nodded. 'Yes. What if I could work my way close to her? To this girl, Evie.'

Tristan shook his head, then strode past him back towards the sword sheath he'd discarded on the floor. He bent to pick it up and carefully slid his sword into it. Finally he turned. 'You're getting better. Still, you could have disarmed me but you chose not to. Your weakness is your humanity, Lucas.'

Lucas frowned, thrown by the sudden change in the conversation. Had Tristan not heard his suggestion? But before he could ask again, Tristan spoke. 'Lucas,' he said, with something of a sigh, 'your power is unusual, you're almost as fast as your father and, despite the fact that you're diluted with human, it doesn't seem to have impaired your ability to disappear - but you're still young. You haven't been able to develop your powers of perception or judgement yet.'

Lucas tried to wipe the scowl off his face, to keep it free of shadows. Who was Tristan to tell him about judgement or perception? He could judge and perceive just fine, better than any of the others. And since when was humanity a weakness?

Lucas took a step towards Tristan, his sword still clutched in his hand. 'Listen,' he said, 'the Elders are worried. We can't fight the Hunters right now. They almost destroyed us and, let's face it, we're not putting up much of a fight at the moment. The Brotherhood isn't exactly what it was. You're right - we're young and inexperienced but we're all you've got.' He paused, trying to rein in the eagerness in his voice. 'But what if you change the pattern of attack? The Brotherhood keeps fighting the same way. For a thousand years, our attack methods haven't changed. And we keep getting beaten as a result. But what if we could use the girl as a way to learn about them? Find out how they train Hunters - what they know about us. We could find a way to beat
them.
'

Lucas watched and waited for Tristan's response, his heart beating fast, a buzzing energy racing around his body that he finally recognised as excitement. He couldn't figure out what the excitement was about though - whether it was the thought of getting away from this place and the others with their petty fights and lethal body parts; or away from Tristan's incessant lessons and training schedule; or of getting close to a Hunter without the others nearby to mess things up.

What would it be like to sense revenge like a scent on the breeze and know that it was right there - obtainable - just in front of him?

'It's an interesting idea,' Tristan eventually said.

'I'm half human. I'm the only one who can get past the Hunters without them sensing me,' Lucas said, trying to read Tristan's expression. 'You've never had that before in the Brotherhood. Maybe it's not the curse the others think it is. Maybe it's actually your way in. It's worth a shot, isn't it?'

Tristan's mouth tightened in thought. Lucas tried to keep his face blank - to act like he didn't really care whether Tristan said yes or no, when really inside he was poised on the answer as though it was a sword he was about to fall forward onto.

'OK.' Tristan finally nodded. 'You have one month.'

He didn't say what would happen after that month but it was clear, hanging there in the air. After one month Evie would be dead. She was dead either way, though - despite what Tristan had said to the others about not going back for her, the Brotherhood would want to get her before she was fully trained. Whether she was surrounded by Hunters or not.

'OK. I'll leave tonight,' Lucas said, wanting to get going before Tristan changed his mind or decided to talk to the Elders about it. He marvelled at how easy it had been to convince him.

'Lucas?'

He stopped with his hand on the door.

'Victor is not stupid,' Tristan said. 'Don't get caught.'

'He doesn't know who I am,' Lucas replied. 'Besides, I'm good at blending in.' He turned once more to leave.

'One more thing, Lucas,' Tristan called after him. 'Don't make this personal.'

Lucas met Tristan's stare head on. Around the edges of Tristan's brown contact lenses he could make out the yellow of his actual eyes. Lucas nodded at the man in the suit, the only survivor of his father's generation of the Brotherhood, and then closed the door.

6

It was the phone that woke her, not fangs. There was no one standing over her in a black leather coat, with a razor-sharp tail poised to slash her to pieces, no girl in a too-tight pink minidress lunging for her - but nonetheless Evie found herself sitting bolt upright in bed, with a baseball bat clutched in her hands, ready to swing. It took a few seconds for her brain to process that the room was empty and for her heart to stop hammering against her ribs. She fell backwards on top of the bedcovers, letting the bat slide through her fingers and clunk to the floor.

Evie rolled her head to the side and stared at her surroundings. Nothing seemed to have changed. The room was as it always was, stacked under the eaves of the Victorian clapboard house, the sloping ceiling above the bed making it look as if she was sleeping in a tent. A pink tent, which she couldn't be bothered to redecorate, scattered with the hurricane debris of her life, which she couldn't be bothered to clear up, because she had no intention of sticking around.

Dolls she'd thrown on top of the wardrobe years ago were trying to free-dive to the floor, school books were stacked on the desk among a sea of paper. Clothes were alternatively toppling off a chair and slung over the door of her wardrobe. On the night table was a picture of her dad, propped next to a teddy bear clutching a heart, into which she'd stuck pins.