Paradox - Progeny Of Innocence (bk2) (Paradox series) (11 page)

He ignored her for a moment and just shook his head as he tried to comprehend his feelings. He realized that he had regretted telling Lyssa about the girl. He would have preferred to keep her to himself for a while. Just until the newness of her had worn off. "Nothing," he lied, grateful for the first time that Lyssa did not possess the ability to hear his thoughts.

Theria let a low growl escape through her clenched teeth. "I’m warning you, Caleb. You keep making these bloody messes and there will be hell to pay. You have made way too many sloppy mistakes lately, you risk exposing us all."

A classroom door thrust open and slammed hard against the wall. "Jesus Christ," Mr Bowen bellowed as he came staggering out of the classroom clawing at his ears like a madman.

Caleb opened his mouth, about to speak.

Theria snapped around in a blur and grabbed his throat, her long black nails puncturing his pallid skin. "I’m warning you Caleb, don’t push me," she snarled. "Because I promise you, you will not like how this will end."

Mr Bowen came to a halt and continued to rub his ears. The classroom behind him erupted into howls of laughter.

"Jesus, crap, mother of God. What is wrong with these frigging things?" he growled, digging a hearing aid out of his ear, then abruptly stopped and looked at Theria and her pack. "What’s going on here?" he demanded. "Get yourselves to class, or I’ll send you all to the principal's office!"

Theria cocked her head and stared at the new teacher in front of her almost apologetically. And then, without a sound and with only her lips moving, she said in her high pitched frequency,
'why of course, sir
.'

"Christ, shit, crap!" the man screeched again, scraping the second hearing aid from his burning ear. Then he threw them on the ground, cursing and stomping on them.

He looked up seconds later to find himself standing in the deserted corridor. He turned around and looked down to the other end of the corridor, but Theria and her followers were long gone. He sighed and looked down to the ground at his feet. His hearing aids were smashed into a hundred tiny pieces on the floor. "Shit."

"You need to feed, Theria," Caleb said to her back as they followed her out of the air-conditioned school building and into the stark sunlight. "You’re starting to turn into a real pain in the arse, and you used to be fun. And if you don’t keep your energy levels up, you won’t be any use to any of us, let alone yourself."

Lyssa joined in. "Caleb is right, Theria, what’s going on with you? When was the last time you fed? You can’t keep fasting like this, it’s not natural."

"I know what I’m doing," Theria snarled angrily. Then she cocked her head and listened, but not to them. Her thoughts were now elsewhere. She could hear a voice coming from the beach below. A drunk, she surmised by his stumbling uncoordinated movements. Someone safe, she thought. Someone who would not be missed. It was the sight of the new boy, Zach, that had her thinking about the urges she had successfully learnt to suppress. Maybe just one wouldn’t hurt, she told herself. It had been a while, after all. And the others were right; she did need to keep her strength up. Even Abaddon had noticed her weakness on her last visit home.

Theria continued to lead them through the school car parking lot and toward the sheer cliff face overlooking the ocean. She noticed an eagle soaring high overhead, peering down at her. The majestic wedge-tail eagle, the Aquila audax, was gracefully riding the rise and fall of the air currents above the vast stretch of white sand, rocky outcrops and ocean. Your size is no threat to me here, eagle, Theria thought to herself smugly. At seeing Theria from his lofty vantage point, the eagle let out a lone squawk that was quickly carried away by a sultry current of air.

Lyssa continued. "Look, I get that you didn’t want to be 13 forever, but you’re what, 17 now in human years? So what’s stopping you, don’t you miss it? God, I would be starving now if I were you."

"Why aren’t you four in class?" Mr Munroe, the gym teacher, demanded as he climbed out of his car. He threw a half-finished cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it out with the heel of his shoe. He exhaled a stream of caustic smoke into the air and moved toward them. He reached out and seized Lyssa’s arm when the group made no signs of stopping or responding to his question.

Three bodies spun around in unison.

"Why aren’t
you
in class?" Caleb growled in a deep guttural voice that reverberated from his throat as he prepared to lunge at Lyssa’s assailant.

"No!" Theria snapped as she darted in between Caleb and the teacher.

Damon grabbed Caleb’s arms and restrained him.

Caleb shook him off. "Okay, back off... I won’t hurt him. Not yet, anyway."

Mr Munroe’s tall muscular frame suddenly stood frozen to the spot. Only his unblinking eyes shot back and forth between with absolute horror. Then panic gripped him when he realized he was unable to move at all. He tried to part his lips, to scream. But his voice was nothing more than a pathetic whimpering sound.

Lyssa looked down at his long fingers circling her arm as if she was examining something repulsive. "You are going to be so sorry you did that, Adam," she said, smiling up at him. She uncurled his fingers one by one from her arm. Then she ran her fingers tantalizingly through his lank brown hair. "I’m going to break every finger on your freaking hand, Adam, and then I’m going to break your frigging neck and rip your beating heart out. What do you think about that? Oh, and Adam, I’m going to enjoy every single second of it."

"No," Theria said. "Too dangerous..."

"Oh come on, Theria," Lyssa moaned, "he started it. You started it didn’t you, Adam, you tell her you did." She reached up then and kissed him firmly on his trembling lips before biting into them. A trickle of blood ran down his chin.

"No!" Theria repeated, angry this time.

"For god’s sake, Theria, what is wrong with you? This is what we do!" Lyssa shouted.

"Theria is right," Damon said. "Too risky, we’re out in the open here. It would draw too much attention."

"As much as I don’t like to say it, Lyssa," Caleb said. "Theria is right. You know the rules, not on school grounds-"

"He wouldn’t be on school grounds if I threw him over the cliff, finished him off down there," Lyssa said, pointing toward the edge of the cliff face.

"Hmm," she does have a very valid point, Theria," Caleb said, considering Lyssa’s proposal. "I like it. And this part of the beach is so secluded. No one would see anything from up here. Actually, I’m surprised we haven’t considered this section of the beach before."

Theria still had the man paralyzed when he started to convulse. She glared at the teacher and tried to ignore the distracting sounds coming from his throat as he gasped for air. She looked away and continued to contemplate his fate, then glanced up toward the school buildings, scanning the rows of classroom windows for any sign of witnesses.

The man started to heave, but did not have the necessary strength to vomit. Blood streaked down his cheek from his left eye. That was Lyssa’s doing. She smiled, pleased with her handiwork. She liked the way blood pulsated, then oozed from the eye sockets of her victims. She found it captivating, artistic even. She traced her finger through his blood and drew curling patterns on his face.

"Do you hear anything, Caleb?" Theria asked.

"Nothing out of the ordinary, no one has seen," Caleb said, glaring at the man.

The teacher let out a loud squealing sound like a cornered pig.

Caleb glared at him. "I swear to god, if you don’t shut the hell up I’ll -"

"You can release him now, Theria, I can take it from here," came the smooth velvety voice of the school’s student councilor. Siena seized the man’s chin in her hand. Long yellow talons grew and curled around his chin. Her brown eyes changed into yellow slits as she appraised him. She pushed Lyssa’s fingers away and dabbed the man’s cheek with a tissue, wiping away his blood. Her talons slowly withdrew and her eyes returned to brown.

Siena continued. "The four of you really should be more careful. You know the rules. They are in place for our own protection. What would you have done if there had been others around to witness this, kill them all?"

Siena eyes burned deep into the teacher’s frantic ones. "Breathe, idiot. Or do you want to die?"

He bent down and put his hands on his knees to steady himself then gasped for air in long, tortured gulps.

"If need be," Lyssa answered with the tone of a spoilt child. "I would kill them all if I had to. And I’d enjoy it!"

"Don’t be absurd, we have these rules for a reason, Lyssa." Siena scolded. "So no one has seen, then?" She turned and looked at Caleb.

"If anyone has, they aren’t thinking about it," he drawled. His mind shifted to focus on the blonde girl, Cindy, again. She was still thinking about him as she doodled on the front cover of her exercise book. He liked that. That she was still thinking about him and not paying attention to the ancient history book Miss Raphael was reading out loud from.

"Okay, if you are sure, then, I will take care of him," Siena said, wiping away the last traces of blood from Adam's face. She ushered him quickly out of the car park and back toward the school's administration block.

"Adam," Siena purred, "I am having trouble moving some furniture in my office. I wonder if you would be kind enough to give me a hand."

"They…what, she…did you see…I couldn’t…you?" he blabbed incoherently in between labored breaths.

"Pull yourself together, Adam. Nothing happened here, you just saw four students putting some boxes in the car for me, do you understand?"

He nodded mutely in between gulps of the salty sea air.

She continued. "They are good kids, helping me out like that, wouldn’t you say?"

"Yes they are." He agreed. "Not too many kids these days happy to help out."

"That’s right. Now, how about you forget all about that and come with me. I don’t know about you but I could really use a cold drink, this humidity is murderous, don’t you think?"

"Yeah. Bloody hot, that’s for sure. It’s been one hell of a killer wet season." He pushed his finger into his left eye socket and rubbed it profusely. "Damn it. I think a bug must have flown in my eye… stings like shit, too."

"Really, let’s get you inside where it's cool and I’ll take a look at it for you," Siena said, guiding him along by his elbow. It looks like you’ve split your lip too. That happened during a game, didn’t it," she continued. "Squash, wasn’t it? I hear you play a pretty mean game."

"Yeah, split my lip during a game of squash. You play?" he asked.

"Oh, no. Not me. I’ve always been more of a spectator. I would love to watch you play sometime though."

"Would you really?" he asked, surprised that she had even noticed him. He had noticed her, of course. All the male teachers had. Siena was gorgeous.

"I would love to, Adam." Siena cooed.

Adam stumbled as he caught his foot on the step leading up into the school building.

"Whoops," Siena said, putting her arm around Adam to steady him. "Careful, can’t have you falling over and breaking your neck on school grounds, now can we."

He chuckled. "You know, I’ve always thought about asking you out to dinner sometime."

"Really? Well, that would be lovely. And you know… I just happen to be free this weekend," Siena said, tightening her grip around Adam. "But let’s keep it just between ourselves, okay? School politics and all that nonsense."

"Sure," he lied. He was going to brag like hell to all the other male teachers the first chance he got.

Siena, sensing his lie, grabbed him squarely by the shoulders and looked him in the eye. "You will not tell anyone about our arrangements, Adam."

He nodded. "Tell no one."

"Very good, Adam. Now let me take a look at that eye."

The four watched as Siena led Adam into the building, the glass door closing silently behind them.

Lyssa let out a groan. "I was looking forward to a midmorning snack. What a waste."

"Not a waste." Caleb replied. "Siena is making plans with him now to go out and have dinner with him this weekend." He chuckled and coiled his arm around Lyssa’s waist. "Little does he know that he’s on the menu."

"There is someone else." Theria interjected, glancing back toward the cliff.

"Oh," Caleb announced dryly. "Our little Theria has got her appetite back. Do lead the way," he said.

"Who, where, when?" Lyssa babbled excitedly.

"After you, Theria," Caleb said, gesturing with his hand.

The four of them stalked over to the edge of the cliff face and peered down, following the line of Theria’s outstretched finger. "See, down there," she said, smirking.

Amongst the rocks at the bottom of the high jagged cliff face, a homeless man sat propped up against a boulder, swigging on a bottle of bourbon in a torn brown paper bag.

Theria jumped down first, and landed gracefully on her feet beside the man. He looked up at her in shock, then grinned.

"Wazza purdy little thing like you doin down here, shouldn’t you be in class? Wanna join an old man in a drink, Princess?" He shuffled across his rock, making room for her beside him, and then brushed the sand away with his twisted, arthritic fingers.

Suddenly Lyssa landed effortlessly on her feet on the right of him.

"Hell, girl, where the blazes did you come from?" He looked from one girl to the other. "Not that I’m complaining. It must be my lucky day. Two beautiful angels fell from heaven to have a drink wid an old man. Woo Hoo!" Then he started singing. "Heaven must be missin an angel. Two angels," he chuckled, correcting himself. "Come on, get a load off, have a drink," he said, thrusting the bottle toward Theria. Lyssa had bent down and was sniffing him. She screwed up her nose. "Oh well, they all smell the same on the inside." She studied him then jabbed her finger into his chest. "You’re a tough old soldier aren’t you," she said, noticing the war medals pinned to his faded khaki jacket.

Caleb watched the interaction from the top of the cliff. "After you," he said to Damon.

Damon shook his head. "I’ll wait up here, keep an eye out. Maybe go check on Siena."

Caleb shrugged. "No worries, more for us." Then he held his arms out, leapt feet first off the cliff face and glided downward, landing between Theria and Lyssa.