Call of the Raven (6 page)

“There’s outcast in the hollows!” the old man
exclaimed. Everyone, including Asher looked. Yet, within his vacant
stare and the humming softly to himself, slowly those who did look
the old man’s way turned away with a better awareness of his
current mental health.

“Whether the old man is right or not, you
must appreciate the gravity of the situation Keeper,” said Clive
Rivers, a feline that possessed an instinctual fear of wolves, and
the thickness of that fright on the air sickened Asher. The other
Watch was some sort of amphibian whose scent reminded him of
rotting vegetation.

He snarled at Clive, “Do you question my
sincerity?”

Just as he had questioned the old man’s
mental instability, the eyes that looked upon him now questioned
his. Only Vince Donavan had the audacity to laugh.

“Do we question your sincerity? He asked.
“That is an odd question to ask Keeper when we sit here explaining
our concern for the welfare of our people, and yet you can’t even
spare us a speck of interest. There is a plague spreading
throughout the Union and whether or not you acknowledge this
disease, it does concern you.”

Casin was growing fidgety and Asher had
little fortitude for children. Simply he had no idea what to do
with them, especially little girls. Possibly if he continued to
ignore her then maybe she would eventually give up hope of gaining
his attention, and sit like all children should, quiet and
unnoticed.

“There are members of the Union that are
assembling together and experimenting with magic,” Asher said. “I
hardly see that as a plague and nothing you have told me proves
that its death magic, when learning such magic is impossible.”

“Learning death magic may not be as
impossible as you believe Keeper,” Vince argued. “Either way, magic
in all forms is forbidden to the Union, except for the Keeper.”

Asher considered Vince’s bulkiness. In the
end he decided that his size didn’t matter a whole lot to him. “The
matter doesn’t concern me—”

“What kind of Keeper are you!” Vince
exclaimed coming to an abrupt stand, knocking over Asher’s empty
coffee cup in the process. The china bounced on the antique Persian
rug and shattered on a chair leg, while the remaining two Watches
started to grumble between themselves.

Linn slapped her hands on the tabletop in
complete frustration, while the old man began to laugh crazily for
no apparent reason. And through it all, other than a slight twitch
of acknowledgement the girl continued her annoying squirming,
oblivious to them all.

“Asher this meeting must go on!” Linn
demanded. “We have far too much to discuss, and regardless of your
brothers appointed office,
you
are the Keeper!”

“Yes, I am the Keeper but the information you
seek is with Ari and I—”

Cutting him off again, Linn added, “Are what?
Disinclined to discuss matters you know nothing about?” Gus and the
old man looked at him for direction and Asher’s irritation grew. He
just wanted to be rid of the entire lot of them.

Slowly, he turned to the little girl. She was
small for her age with dark brown mousy colored hair, cut in an
unattractive bob. She often appeared dirty whenever she showed up
to the dinner table, and more often than not, late. As Keeper it
had been his duty to provide for her along with her twin brother
but other than hiring an occasional nanny to watch over them, Linn
was right. He knew very little about them.

“Can't you sit still?” he said heatedly. “Is it too
much to ask? I know as a child you have a short attention span and
certain matters such as business bore you, but if you are to ever
take over in your uncle's place, then you could at least give me
the satisfaction of
pretending
to listen!"

“Asher,” Linn gasped. “Don’t take your frustration
out on her. She's just a child.”

“I'll take no rebukes from you!” Asher's eyes darted
toward her. “Why shouldn't she listen? Why shouldn't she obey? I
had to. You want me to instruct them then I will. What does it
matter that she's a
child
!”

Asher was throwing what his brother often labeled as
an Assher-fit. He hated losing control and yet he couldn’t stop the
process once it started. “That didn't matter to the Council when I
was a
child!
When I was a child I was forced to think like a
man!
Do you think it mattered to them that I wasn’t?”

“But it mattered to Grant,” Linn boldly said, with a
slight point of her determined chin. Asher stared deeply into her
eyes, his breaths coming in long heated puffs, before he inclined
his head and allowed his hair to fall forward to conceal his
face.

Linn didn’t deserve to notice his reaction. She
didn't deserve to know just how furious he was at Grant. She had no
business even speaking his name.

She didn’t know him.

Out of the corner of his eye, Asher noticed little
Casin's face, that wide-eyed expression when one was completely
terrified. She was afraid of him, deathly afraid. He had noticed it
before whenever she accompanied Ari. He had been a frightened young
protégé once and that revelation was enough to convict him. He took
a deep breath and let it out slowly, and then directed his eyes on
the child. Linn was right, she didn’t deserve his frustration.

“I apologize you may go, all of you go,” he murmured.
With a wave of his hand, he dismissed them. Casin was the first to
move, racing toward the door in a scared fury. When she passed,
Asher caught the distinct smell of urine. Snarling, he looked at
her chair and found a puddle on the leather seat that was slowly
dripping down to the antique rug. At least now he knew the reason
behind her squirming.

“I guess you scared the piss right out of
her,” the old man chuckled, bones cracking as he passed. Asher
hated him and he didn’t even know why. The feeling went deep though
like a long lost memory he just couldn’t place. Linn remained put,
firmly holding her ground, and only once everyone had gone did she
clear her throat drawing Asher’s thoughts back to her.

“You cannot dismiss or ignore this as easily
as you did that child,” she said eyes holding his. “Eventually you
will have no choice but to acknowledge these matters as well as
your responsibilities to the Union, or risk something far greater
than urine on the floor.”

“I didn’t wish for this…for people to hate
me. I never wanted to be Keeper,” Asher quietly said. In Linn’s
silence he suspected her surprise. Getting up she moved closer and
took the seat next to him.

“But you are Asher.” Reaching out she touched
his hand. The warmth of her fingers was foreign to him, unwanted.
Recoiling, he moved his hands under the table where she would have
little chance to touch him again. She lowered her eyes from
his.

Was he mistaken?

Was she feeling sorry for him?

Clearing her throat once more, as though
encouraging herself to speak, she proceeded. “You not only were
marked at birth as a Keeper Asher, you were marked as a spirit
twin. Don’t you realize you’re marked for greatness?”

“No, I feel that I was marked to die.”

“Asher, a young death is part of the Raven’s
curse. You can’t change it nor can you stop from falling in love.
Eventually, you will have no choice and your fate will be
fulfilled. To ignore the plans that were put in motion long before
your birth is to accept madness.”

“Then I’m in luck since some say I’m already
there.”

Standing up, Linn looked down at him. “Rise
up Asher and accept your purpose. Only then will you make your life
mean something.”

Asher instantly looked away in the direction
of the fire, stubbornly refusing to allow her to see just how great
her words affected him. “When Ari gets home I will look at the
information he has acquired in regard to this rebellion, and then I
will handle it accordingly.”

“Your brother has been your go between long
enough Asher, it’s time you give notice to the grave circumstances
that surround you. You are in the presence of an uprising, and you
don’t even know its magnitude.”

Asher felt it again, that anger that just
seemed to join with his nature, his very essence. Using the rings
in his eyes to express his rage, he altered them a hot fiery red
until he could see the glowing reflection in the silver butter dish
before him.

Lifting his gaze slowly, he met Linn’s gaze.
Jaw dropping, clearly shaken, she slowly sat back down, and not
once did her eyes leave his face.

“Then I say,” he stated evenly, “let it
rise.”

Before Linn could utter one word of response,
footsteps sounded hard on the tiled hall. Linn twisted to look and
Asher noticed her tight frightened mouth change into an approving,
yet awkward smile. Kennedy, her pet student, approached.

“Yes child?” she asked.

“Asher wanted me to let him know when Nixon
got home. He’s in his room now.”

“Very well then, I guess this meeting is
adjourned.” Asher mockingly winked at Linn. “Madam, as always, it’s
been a pleasure.”

Chapter Four

Unwanted Seed

Leaving his shoes
by the back door,
Nixon snuck through the house in just his socks, paying special
attention not to bump into anything, or give his presence away.
They had lived in the house less than a month, but already Nixon
had memorized the places to avoid. The squeak in the swinging door
that separated the kitchen from the dining area was a dead giveaway
that he was home, along with the loose floorboards on the
stairs.

Standing in the hall, electing to go inside
his room, Nixon strained his ears. Opening up his senses for claws
on tile, the fast labored breaths he had come to associate with his
father’s animal form, he listened, but he heard nothing but the
ticking of the alarm clock on his nightstand.

Nixon looked at the handmade quilt on his bed
and shivered. It was the only thing he had left of his mother. She
had paid special attention to each patch, making sure it was colors
and patterns that reflected his personality. His favorite square
was the one with the baseball mitt and bat in the center, trimmed
in the same red thread she used to stitch his name in the upper
right hand corner. Each one of those stitches she had sewn with
love.

The walk home from school in the cold
drizzling rain had left him chilled to the bone, and he wanted
nothing more than to lie under the quilt in search of his mother’s
warmth. God, he missed her comforting arms after a long day at
school. Anger rumbled through him. She was gone. She had left him
to deal with his father’s abuse…alone.

Taking a deep breath, Nixon crossed the
threshold to his room. When nothing happened, he breathed a sigh of
relief, figuring his father had passed out on the couch.
Good,
he could sleep and regain his strength before he
reaped the consequences of Mrs. Jones’s phone call. The sad part
was Nixon actually liked science. He liked learning about different
rocks and minerals, plants and outer space. One of his most
favorite projects was the Styrofoam solar system that hung above
his bed.

What he didn’t like was dissecting things. It
was hard on an ani-shift child attending a public school when it
came to tearing apart a baby pig. His father didn’t understand,
because he didn’t listen. One of Nixon’s best friends was a pig,
but his father probably didn’t know that either. And then it came,
the expected blow to the shoulder. He should have known.

One of his father’s favorite places to hide
was behind the door. This time the beating was over the D in
science, but everyday his father found new reasons to punish him.
At one time his father had been a normal dad. But things had
changed. He was no longer the same man.

Nixon didn’t want to remember

Startled and disoriented he opened his eyes.
For a moment he was nine-years-old again lying in a dark room
listening for sounds of his father. Even now when he realized it
was just a dream he couldn’t stop the foreboding that his father
was close by. Closing his eyes, Nixon found no relief.

For Nixon, there was no escape.

Groaning, he turned over on his back and
draped his arm across his eyes. He remembered his father’s
smell—that musky animal scent mixed with fish and Old Spice
aftershave, and he hated it. He started to dream of him again and
this time when his father changed into the badger, he had red
glowing eyes. He looked like some kind of demon instead of the
father he remembered.

Swiftly sitting up, Nixon listened over his
fear induced breathing. There was a noise, he was positive of that.
There was someone else in the room with him. Well practiced in the
art of defensive posture, Nixon quickly rolled off the bed, dropped
down to the carpet, instinctively putting his hands in front of his
face. This way, he could either make a fist or allow his flattened
palms to act as a cushion between his face and his opponent’s
blow.

However, one quick glance through spread
fingers told him he wasn’t warding off his father’s fist nor was he
in the heart of a brawl; instead he was home in his room. Changing
his eyes to that of an owl, Nixon saw that it was only Asher. He
sat on the desk next to the bed, his lips curling upward in a
devilish smirk.

Leaning over, Asher switched on the
nightstand lamp. “Dreaming are we…Nixon?”

Nixon didn’t like the pause before his name,
as though there was a hidden meaning tucked neatly somewhere within
Asher’s words, but then again, when wasn’t there? He pulled himself
up onto the bed again and rotated the clock around so that he could
see the time.

“I guess I blew off the Pillar Council
meeting.”

“It’s not that I blame you since I despise
them myself.” Asher extended his arms and stretched. He was trying
to intimidate him, this much Nixon knew. The guy was one tall lean
fighting machine, and he typically wanted Nixon to take notice of
that. “But since you made me look like an idiot in front of Linn,”
he said, twisting from side to side until his back popped, “I
believe you and I need some time on the mat. I’m learning some new
Aikido moves and I could use a sparring partner, one that might
need a few lessons.”