The Seven (Fist of Light Series) (28 page)

“What happened?” My hand began to inscribe invisible sigils on the wood methodically.

“Ten reported missing and presumed dead in the last couple of days,” Jas shivered. “All from the city. Two of the guards on the island were killed when the thing returned to the fold. The news is trying to claim it’s some genetic or bio-warfare experiment gone wrong.”

“It’sss a bloodbath,” the ghoul hissed in agreement, though it was difficult to discern whether the ghoul was a proponent of the slaughter.

Silence enveloped the room. It seemed that the whole table had been informed of my shared bond with Jas, and they just gained confirmation of that statement. I cursed myself inwardly for so openly providing information to people I had just met, although they seemed an agreeable bunch. Although finding myself wondering just how informed they were, I locked down my acquisitions and relinquished thoughts of inquisitions. That would only drive a gap between myself and the group before I even got to know them.

I was equally shocked as everyone else when Zack spoke up. “So you’re the guy we went to all the trouble in saving? We thought you’d be—”

“Taller,” Henry provided helpfully.

“Dirtier,” Simon added.

“Uglier,” Sandra giggled playfully.

Zack shot a venomous look at those who interrupted. “Recovering, from your wounds.”

I took it all in stride. The rest didn’t care to share their input, thankfully. “What kind of information have you been feeding them about me, Jas?”

“The usual propaganda and slander, of course, Caleb,” he said.

The food arrived and everyone was spared further conversation by the distraction the meal provided. It was yet to be confirmed whether or not my new companions were long-standing friends, or acquaintances of a sort. For me, my stomach was allowed the reins, which urged me to eat everything on my plate, then return for seconds. No one ever told me that ham was so good. Quite possibly, my once-vacuous stomach influenced my assertion, but the food was amazing nonetheless. When I came up for air from my quest to drain the kitchens of its stores, all eyes were on me.

“What? Haven’t you ever witnessed a starving teenager eat?” I demanded.

“You have to eat for two, I suppose,” Simon said.

The discussion turned once again to my kidnapping and Em. They were all given profuse thanks for their timely assistance when I was able to get a word in edgewise. Bringing up the topic was like picking at a badly healed scab; you’re just going to create a bigger scar. Thing is, I always pick at my scabs, a bad habit that now had come back to bite me in the ass. For a short period, I was able to remain reticent, but eventually my personality kept me from sitting on the sidelines throughout the discussion.

“I always knew that chick was bad news,” Henry said

“You always said she had a nice—” Xavier said.

“Who cares about that Emily?” Mary interrupted. “She was always a rotten egg. You boys were just too captivated by the merchandise to pay proper attention.” She sniffed disdainfully.

“I thought she was nice,” Simon said tentatively while adjusting his glasses.

“And look where it got Caleb,” Zack said.

“Here?” I asked.

“On a one-way train to an untimely demise,” Jas said.

“Obviously it wasn’t as unidirectional as you once believed it to be,” I replied smugly.

“Thanks to yours truly,” Henry said.

“Thanks to all of us,” Monique interjected.

“Yeah, sorry, that’s what I meant,” Henry said.

“So, where did you learn to pull lightning from thin air?” Zack asked me, curious.

All eyes returned to me, and I shifted my position under the intense scrutiny. “I didn’t learn,” I told them. “It’s a part of me.”

“Like that amulet?” Xavier questioned.

“Yeah, exactly,” I offered, putting a hand protectively over my chest where the amulet rested against my chest.

“A very unique piece,” Simon repositioned his glasses to a less precarious position, in order to acquire a better look.

“It’s
pretty
,” Sandra said, after I took my hand away from it.

“Don’t encourage him,” Jas pleaded.

Too late, I thought, as I sensed Jeeves appear behind me. He took in the table’s occupants, though no doubt he had already been peeking before. Jas sighed, bringing his hands up to his face in a gesture of woe. Deciding the best plan of action was to ignore Jeeves with all the willpower at our demand, Jas and I nodded resolutely at each other from across the table.

“This is the band of misfits that you employed to rescue Caleb? They are hardly off the teat of their mothers!” Jeeves chuckled at his own wit.

“Children, please!” Noah exclaimed, rather amusedly. “Clearly Caleb is exhausted from the trials of his day. Let us pick up on this at another, more appropriate time.”

Noah with the save, and the crowd goes wild! The “band of misfits,” as Jeeves dubbed them, all offered thanks for the meal and bade the room goodnight without further adieu. It appeared, though, that blood had been scented in the water and the group wouldn’t be satisfied until they got more information. It seemed there was a lot to learn from Noah, and I looked speculatively at him out of the corner of my eye, appraising. Then Jas and I excused ourselves, with Jeeves trailing after us.

“So, those are your friends, then?” I rubbed one eye tiredly.

“They are. We started off more as a group of disparate allies, and none of us wanted anything to do with each other. But we banded together against the rest of the flock, and over time became close, in our own deranged way.” He smiled.

“Are they to be trusted?” Jeeves asked in all seriousness.

Jas glanced his way. “They are my friends. Why wouldn’t they be trusted?” He appeared mystified by the question.

Jeeves shook his head sadly, and even I shared his opinion, for the most part. “You are not nearly suspicious enough. They come from different sects within this Clan of yours. Have you never considered that they would uphold their own loyalties before friendship?”

I shook my head. “Give him some time, Jeeves. He just hasn’t had enough time to reach an appropriate level of paranoid.”

We came to our exit, and Jas gave nodded to himself at the branch in the corridor. “I’m sure if I hung around you two any longer, I would soon be a paranoid mess, gibbering on the floor in the fetal position. No, thanks, I’ve no desire to end up that way.” He laughed.

“Night, Jas,” I said, smiling.

Jas was in hysterics. “Sweet dreams, boys.”

“He says he doesn’t want to end up like
us
,” I chuckled.

“Allow him the comfort of naivety, for now,” Jeeves said.

“We cannot spend another day on Earth. You must put forth every effort,” Jeeves reminded me for the fiftieth time.

I threw my arms up in exasperation. “All right, all right! I’ve got it. Can’t you see I’m trying my best?”

“I see that you have much room for improvement, and am merely assisting you in realizing that,” Jeeves said, in his oh-so-reasonable voice.

I released a disgusted noise. “Fine. Just let me concentrate here. I won’t accomplish anything with your wailing voice in the background.”

He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, and I went back to failing miserably. Even with Fire, there wasn’t an overpowering sensation of complete ineptness. In this, my failings appeared in stark contrast to previous successes of moving mountains, metaphorically. Maybe there should have been a sub clause written that stated, “only if they are really,
really
small.” Accessing Earth was no longer an irritating process of waiting for three thousand hours. This time, I merely had to maintain the usual disposition, with my emotions clamoring for attention in the background.

Bringing my hand out beside me, I shaped the Earth my mind and forced power into the design. Thinking seriously upon it, it became evident that my foremost obstacle lay with my blundering, novice approach. My skills were more suited to smashing and exploding than employing the extraordinary finesse Earth seemed to demand. My creation was rough and ragged, no doubt paralleling the kind of person I represented. It was supposed to be a circular ball of hard-packed mud, but it came out more as a deranged oval. The point of the exercise was to slowly add on to the ball, until it was no longer possible to hold together as a cohesive whole.

During the first attempt, I didn’t get far before a mid-sized ball of Earth plowed into me. Jeeves was exerting pressure on my construct, forcing me to keep him from exploding my creation. Simultaneously, my task was to increase the size of the ball, which effectively split my concentration in two, a task that became far more difficult when utilizing an element that I possessed no affinity for. The mass of soil and minerals was slowly augmented as more of my power was committed to the effort. Though having found the efforts only served to increase my fatigue, I pushed on. Then I was hit forcefully on the head and chest as the ball of Earth exploded outward. The clumps that collided with my body hit with the force of a well-thrown punch.

“Hah!” I exclaimed triumphantly. “Found you out! I’m not supposed to expend all my power uselessly, I thought?!”

Jeeves sighed in relief. “Thank all that is holy. It only took you most of the day to come to this realization. Directing your concentration, fracturing it into various parts, is an essential skill. Developing this ability in an element you have little affinity for is a prudent exercise that will expound upon all powers across the board.”

I grinned. I might be no master of Earth, but at least I was making progress.

I
t was the second day my training had been focused on Metal, and I was exhausted. My defenses had been lessened further by the camaraderie of the evening. Jas had insisted that we have a sword competition. No doubt, this was because he was by far the most accomplished swordsmen of the group and I had no knowledge whatsoever of the art. Ironic that a sword was bound to my soul, but I was incapable of utilizing its full potential. It was rather embarrassing, even using wooden swords, to see how quickly the others bested me. Jas had picked up the sword while he was still swaddled in diapers, and I had been an innocent infant who knew nothing of my dark future.

It was remarkable enough that we were employing swords in an age of guns, bigger guns, and nuclear bombs. The sword kind of paled in comparison to a chemical weapon that could take you out of commission by entering your lungs and frying you from the inside out. I told Jas as much, but he had responded by saying that the supernatural community hardly used any weaponry at all. When you were born a weapon, it was rather redundant to bring something else to the fight. You don’t bring a gun to a magic fight. That all made good sense, if you looked at it with your eyes kind of squinted and your face turned
just
right.

Personally, as I was someone who didn’t like to be bested in a confrontation likely to end in death, it was an obvious conclusion to assume that people would exploit every advantage at their disposal. The sword, if it was popularly used in the supernatural community, would be one. A gun would be another, and I promised myself right then and there that I would gift myself one such weapon at the earliest convenience. At the moment, however, I was rather occupied with getting my ass handed to me.

Shaking my bruised fingers out in front of my face, I affected a British accent. “Ouch, Char-leeh! That really hurt!”

“Come on, then,” Jas grinned, imitating a British inflection masterfully. “Let’s have another go!”

“Are you out of your ever loving mind? Pick on someone two sizes bigger than you, please and thanks. I’m just going to sit this one out.”

“All right then, sourpuss! We can pick up on this next time you feel like having a little fun.”

“Keep your head up, man. He beats everyone.” Simon patted me on the back sympathetically.

Over the past couple days, I had been adopted into the ragtag group of misfits that Jeeves shook his head at so frequently. My guard had stayed up thus far, mostly because little trust was spared for anyone until they were deserving of it. But the night was young, and my new friends were actually enjoyable to be around. There weren’t any depressing conversations about past lives to be had here, besides mine, and Zack’s. I had my suspicions that he was beaten often, the first clue being the scar above his right eye. Most likely, it was his old man who walloped on him, as it isn’t usually expected of a mother. It would puzzle together perfectly, with his aloof demeanor. Shaking such thoughts from my head, I plastered a weary smile to my face. “You know it. At least some of you last past a few seconds. Plus, he’s going easy on me.”