Humanity 03 - Marksman Law (3 page)

Mirage didn’t waste any time getting
out of the uncomfortably cold clothes. Her skin was wrinkled from
being so wet and she proceeded to dry the rest of her that had been
covered in the sopping cloth. Tina’s clothing didn’t fit perfectly,
but it did fit. The tank top was a little tight for her taste. She
preferred baggier, more comfortable clothing and the same thing
applied to the jeans. It had been difficult getting them buttoned.
They were the perfect length, barely covering the front of her
feet.

Mirage stepped in front of the mirror
that hung on the wall and criticized her reflection. Her wet hair
was a tattered mess, gnarled between the diminutive curved horns
that rested at the sides of her head. She combed her fingers
through it, using her sharp nails as a brush. It took longer than a
brush would have but she eventually got the tangles out and it lay
relatively flat against her head. Her dark eyes seemed to glint in
the lamp light and her skin tone was palled, showing she was tired.
After she ate maybe she would make herself sleep.

The room she stood in was calming, all
pale blue, with pastel flowers and ivy painted on the walls. There
were landscape paintings hung on the wall and a tall easel stood in
a corner of the room. An unfinished painting rested on the easel
and a painter’s frock hung on a nail beside it. Mirage took a
moment to look at it. It was a painting of a shore and a sunset.
She recognized the beach as the one close to her home that had been
destroyed. Mirage shook her head, not allowing her thoughts to
linger on the memories.

“
Your room is beautiful,”
Mirage said as she walked into the kitchen. It adjoined the living
room, and she could hear the words from the morning news
broadcast.

“
A police manhunt is on
the search for the rogue Paramortal, Mirage Shadowstart, who ran
after allegedly murdering six humans who had come to give their
well wishes to the new neighbors. The Marksman Law has been
initiated, on the indictment of six counts of murder and arson on
the home where her mother, an Illuminitican Altruist healer, was
grievously injured. Citizens are encouraged to not approach the
Paramortal whom is considered armed with power and dangerous. Any
information or the presentation of her body can be made to the
number that is scrolling at the bottom of the screen.”

“
The presentation of
my
body
,” Mirage
muttered, feeling sick to her stomach. “Does my life really mean
that little?”

“
Ignore it, Mirage,”
Kinely said softly. “We’re only watching it to see if there were
any sightings of you close to our house. We’ll need to know if we
have to move you or not.”

“
Thanks, Mirage. I painted
it myself,” Tina said. She gave her a smile, pretending like Mirage
hadn’t heard the news report. The smell of frying eggs and sausages
filled the home. She handed a plate to her father. “I’m making ours
next. Dad’s gotta leave.”

Mirage nodded and turned around at the
tugging of her shirt. She looked down at Nick. “Daddy wouldn’t let
me watch cartoons,” he pouted. “Are you famous?”

“
Famous?”

“
You’re on TV.”

“
Nick, go play in your
room, okay,” Kinely said. “I need to talk to my friend for a little
while. If you’re a good little boy, then maybe she’ll play with
you.”

The little boy grinned. “Wait until
Mitch learns I have a celebrity at my house!” He turned around and
walked down the hallway.

“
That,” Tina said with a
sigh, “is exactly why he’s missing school.”

“
I don’t want him to hear
what happened,” Kinely said as she sat down beside him at the
kitchen table. “We shelter our children until they’re old enough to
decide if they want to become an Altruist. Once they make the
decision, we respect the fact that they’re adult enough to handle
what’s happening.”

“
It’s dangerous,
sometimes,” Mirage said. “My Mom told me stories about the attacks
on Altruistics.”

“
It’s worth it,” Tina
said. “I’ve been an Altruistic for five years and I’ve gotten into
some scrapes myself. I’ve been a part of the marches and I’ve
helped other Children of Power. I’ve been threatened before, but it
doesn’t change anything.” Her expression was cold. “Not all humans
are monsters.”

“
Enough, Tina,” Kinely
said as he turned to Mirage. “What happened, Mirage? I thought you
would have problems with the Humanitarians and I was going to warn
you in the next few days, but I didn’t think they would bother you
so quickly.”

“
It was
Michael.”

Kinely looked away. “I’m sorry. I knew
I should have said something, but all I had was rumors. I’d hoped I
was wrong.”

“
He led them to me,”
Mirage said, her voice choking. “He
betrayed
me.”

Kinely nodded. “To a Shadowstart,
that’s a big deal, isn’t it?”

The way he’d posed the
question told Mirage he already knew, but she answered him anyway.
“I gave him my trust, Mister Kinely. Yes, to the Children of the
Dusk, that is a
very
big deal.”

“
You’re going to seek
revenge?”

Mirage shrugged. “It’s my culture.
Don’t worry, I’m not going to drag your family into it. I’ll wait
and come back.”

“
Violence solves nothing,”
Tina said as she set eggs and sausages in front of
Mirage.

Mirage gave a small laugh before
taking a bite. She was hungry enough that it seemed like the best
eggs she’d ever eaten. “That’s a very Child of the Dawn attitude.
You spend a lot of time at the emissary hospital, don’t
you?”

Tina nodded. “I’m a volunteer nurse
after school.”

“
We think differently.
Violence can be a means to an end. We don’t like to act through
power, but we can and we will. We protect what is ours, we defend
what we love, and we retaliate when we are threatened.” She met
Tina with a steady gaze. “Michael is dead as far as I’m
concerned.”

Tina shivered and turned
around.

“
Can you explain what
happened?” Kinely asked in the tense silence. “The police aren’t
releasing a lot of information right now, and the Altruistics want
to know as much as they can. They hope there’s enough to salvage to
lift the Marksman Law from you.”

“
Some of it’s fuzzy. I
woke up in a palm tree, and I’m not exactly sure how I got there.”
Mirage shrugged. “They’d set fire to my house by then and I went
there to save my mother. I was attacked and I killed one. You’ll
know her—Ms Wanderson.”

“
Yeah.” Kinely swallowed.
“Did you try
not
to kill them?”

“
There was no choice,”
Mirage snapped. “I was trying to get to my mother. She was still in
the burning house and I could feel her dying. They attacked me when
I was trying to get back to her. I didn’t use my powers on them
purposefully. I just wanted to get to my dying mother.”

Kinely nodded. “I understand how the
Shadowstarts think.”

“
The next human was
Derrick, but I didn’t kill him. He’ll be in the hospital, but I
hope I broke his back.” Mirage grinned. “With luck, he won’t walk
again.”

“
Mirage…”

Kinely waved a hand to stop Tina’s
shocked voice. “Then what happened?”

Mirage cleared her voice. “I entered
the home. My mother had collapsed in a doorway. She’d been trying
to get out. When I picked her up I heard his…” She stuttered for a
moment and then went on. “Michael’s…voice. He wore a silver mask
with strange markings. It was carved like a face with a small
crown.”

“
The Monarch-to-be…”
Kinely’s face was pale.

She caught the surprised fear in his
voice. “What?”

Kinely shook his head. “What
else?”

“
I threatened him. I told
him to leave. I said that I would kill more if they didn’t leave. I
gave them a chance—even then they could have left. Five others came
into the home. I recognized one’s voice as Mister
Taylur.”

“
The principal is
dead?”

Mirage nodded.

“
How did you kill
them?”

Mirage shrugged, uncomfortable. “It
gets a little fuzzy now. I remember the Shades, but that should be
impossible. I’ve not been through the Transition. I shouldn’t be
able to call on my ancestors. Hell, I don’t even know the
incantations that would call them up.”

“
The Shades,” Mr. Kinely
said quietly.

She nodded. “They collapsed the
building around the Humanitarians, and only Michael was left alive.
I remember him grabbing a hold of me, of some sort of power that
surged between us, and something about his blood singing.” She
shook her head. “The Shades made things difficult to understand.
There was a new power that I hadn’t used before in the air. I
blacked out, and I don’t know what they did to him. He’s alive
though, I know that much.”

“
How do you know
that?”

“
I’m not sure—I just
know.”

Kinely nodded before standing. “Thank
you for the breakfast, Tina.”

“
No problem, Daddy. Could
you pick up my school work for me? Tell Mrs. Melanie that I’ll turn
my painting in for the contest on Monday.”

“
Sure, sure,” Kinely
muttered. He stood to walk out and Mirage followed him into the
hallway. She stopped him by grabbing his forearm, careful to keep
her nails from scratching him.

“
What did I say that
spooked you?” she whispered. She had to look up at the aging man,
but despite that it seemed he was intimidated.

“
The Shades are no
trifling matter,” he answered. “I knew your father very well,
Mirage, and he trusted me. You understand that a Shadowstart’s
trust is hard to gain, but once it is, they don’t hide anything. I
was his human confidant and his link to the Altruistics. I know a
lot about your culture, so I know that only Darkcaster’s line can
call the Shades, and only someone powerful enough to control them
even considers it. You didn’t even mean to call them and they bowed
to your will.”

“
What, does that mean you
don’t trust me?” Mirage took a step back, letting him
go.

Kinely shook his head. “That’s not
what I said, Mirage. I may trust you, but that doesn’t stop me from
being creeped out. Your father told me you were powerful and you
would help the Altruistics when you’re ready, but somehow I don’t
think he realized how powerful you would be.”

“
Are you afraid of
me?”

Kinely’s expression
softened. “No, Mirage. Afraid
for
you? Yes. Afraid of what you could be capable of?
Hell yes. But if you are your father’s daughter, then I have
nothing to fear. He was a dear friend of mine, of my entire family,
and I trust you because of it. Don’t break my trust, Shadowstart.”
To her surprise, he bowed to her formally, twisting his hand and
nodding his head.

“
I won’t,” she whispered,
returning his bow.

“
I’ve got to get to the
school now,” he said. Mirage let him go and he walked out. A tense
moment existed before Mirage made her way to the table where Tina
had taken her father’s spot with a plate of food.

“
Nick thinks eating in his
room is an adventure,” Tina said with a smile. “He’s easily
impressed. When I was six, I was the same way.”

Mirage sat down in front of her food.
“Thanks, Tina.”

“
The clothes look good on
you.”

“
Thanks.”

“
You can have them. I’ll
get you some more from the Altruistics now that I know your size.
You’ll need some things.”

Mirage nodded, fighting against tears.
She’d lost everything in the fire—including her father’s book. At
the thought of this, the world dropped out from beneath her. God,
how could she have forgotten? She stood abruptly.

“
Mirage?”

“
My incantation book. I
have to go back and get it.” It wouldn’t have been burned as it was
fireproof. She’d set it on her nightstand before falling asleep; it
could have protected the things around it. There was probably some
of her stuff that was salvageable.

“
Mirage, you can’t leave.”
Tina grabbed her arm.

“
You don’t understand. I
have to. I have to have my incantation book. It’s the only thing
that’s left of my father.” It was even more than that. Now that she
was banished, the Script was the only tie she had to her culture.
It was her lifeline.

Tina’s expression softened at Mirage’s
frantic expression. “I understand.” She bit her lip. “Can you fade
from place to place like I’ve heard a Child of the Dusk
can?”

Mirage nodded. “If I know exactly
where I want to go.”

“
Can you take others with
you?”

Mirage nodded and Tina hurried through
the hallway. She stood, bewildered, until Tina came back a few
minutes later. She had a backpack thrown over her shoulder. “Okay,
I’m ready.”

“
Ready?”

“
I put a cartoon on my
laptop for Nick. He’ll be occupied for at least an hour. I do that
a lot if I’ve gotta sneak out and I don’t want him tattling to Dad.
Let’s go see if we can salvage anything out of your
house.”