The Paladins (4 page)

Two years ago, he was the new kid at school. Quiet, brooding, but one day he complimented my clothes. I said I liked his hair. He told me I could dance—for a white girl. Another smile breaks free at the memory of us debating everything from movies to whether or not rappers are poets. Boom. A friendship was born. Always there for me, Dane protected me those nights when I used to hunt the bars for Ben, and I stitched him up whenever he’d come over after a fight with his dad and needed a place to crash.

He stops in front of my window and speaks to his shoes. “Hey, little Rae.”

“Hey, yourself.” He tends to use my nickname when he’s worried—about me, or himself. Based on this afternoon’s activities, I’m betting on the latter.

“Will you walk in with me?”

“Chicken?”

He nods. “I ain’t even gonna lie.”

I sympathize. When I introduced him to Maggie, lightning struck. His feelings were instant and obvious, at least to me, and he carried that torch in silence for a long time. In Dane’s mind, his poverty and past next to her middle class status made her as unreachable as a star. That is, until we knocked some sense into his hard head a few months ago. He still gets nervous around Maggie’s parents—especially her dad.

As for Gideon, his parents passed away when he was young. I never had to face them, but since Dane and I are from the same (wrong) side of the tracks, I can imagine quite a scene if I had.

“No worries, bro. Meet me at the door, I got your back.”

I grab my sketchpad, and bounce off the bed. When I get to the front door and swing it open, Dane’s face is riddled with anxiety. I pull him inside and loop his arm through mine with a gentle squeeze to bolster him. Arm in arm, we make our way down the hall, through the living room, and head for the back door. I’m grinning because pretzel-walking in tight spaces with someone is awkward, yet my friend grips me like a life preserver. His skin grows clammy, and his complexion exchanges color—cinnamon for green. He’s stiff as a ruler.

“Try and relax,” I say. “They’re good people and so are you. Just be yourself.”

Dane snorts as we push past the screen door and step onto a rambling two-tiered deck.

The Wilson’s backyard is a fenced quarter-acre of suburban normalcy. Dogs bark, birds sing, and neighbors swear at their burning bratwurst while little kids squeal and play on their swing sets.

Mags’s father stands in one corner, grilling burgers. He waves his spatula, and I lift my chin in greeting. I’m sorry to say he wears a white chef’s hat and a chartreuse “Kiss the Cook” apron that I plan to burn later. Maggie’s mother sets the picnic table for five. It’s like Norman Rockwell threw up out here, and I love it.

Dane takes an unsteady step forward. “Sup, Mr. Wilson?”

Poor guy.

I wink at Mags as I head for the big maple tree in the center of the yard. Sketching until dinner’s ready will give Dane some time alone with the fam, and Maggie can more than handle his frayed nerves.

Easing my back against the tree, I sketch a new design for my steampunk timepiece line. The breeze is warm for early June, and I predict a blistering summer. Dandelions dot the yard in need of mowing. Cirrocumulus clouds cover the hazy blue sky. I’m proud I remember that handy tidbit from science class, they are also nicknamed Mackerel because the clouds look like fish scales. So, why can’t we just call them that? Why do scientists always have to name everything such long, stupid names that no one can ever remember for a test?

Except that I just did. Gah! Shut up, Raven! Sometimes I can’t turn my rambling brain off.

Maggie giggles, and I watch the foursome on the deck, enjoying the day. Simple gratitude wells up inside me until the feeling spills over. Thankful for the sun, the shade that a faithful, old tree provides in summer, for the strength of its support, the music of fluttering leaves in the breeze.

The ground jumps and rumbles beneath me.

Startled, I glance around, but there’s nothing to see.

Another rumble and energy infuses my nerves, sending a shock through my body.

I drop my pad and pencil. My palms press the grass on either side of me, fingers digging into the soft soil for balance.

Then the shaking stops.

On the deck, Maggie tosses her head back and laughs as her father points the nozzle of the ketchup bottle her direction. She begs Dane for help, but he puts his hands in the air, as if to say this is between her and her dad. Mrs. Wilson frowns, warning her husband to stop his teasing.

No one seems alarmed by the fact a small earthquake has just taken place. No one seems to notice at all.

Does a power line run under this tree? Maybe a neighbor dug in the wrong place. Lawn mower run amok? Sink hole? I wait, rooted to the spot, but nothing else happens.

My muscles relax as another soft breeze floats by. I shake my head at my overactive imagination, and settle against the tree. Slowly, I’m eased forward and back again. As a child, I often fell asleep on Ben’s solid chest. Gentle swells and contractions of his ribcage forced me up and down in a steady rhythm like a lullaby with each breath. The tree trunk
breathes
the same way—like a giant lung. Shivers wrack my body. I force myself to sit still as several limbs bow low. Leaves gently caress my face and neck sending little jolts of energy skittering under my flesh. As the maple rolls me forward again, a warm sensation fills my mind with a sense of awe and wonder. And power. Light floods my eyes in a brilliant flash. I scramble to my feet with a shriek, and, too fast to track, the tree limbs retreat to the canopy above.

“What’s wrong?” Maggie yells over her father’s shoulder. “Ew, is there a bug?”

“Uh … ” How do I explain? I stare at my friend, unable to answer with a single intelligent word.

Worry, fear, and doubt weight the air easing from my chest. When Gideon and I broke the curse last year, I thought the ritual would end our troubles—the supernatural ones, anyway. Suddenly, I’m not so sure. And if the magic’s retuning, how in the world do I tell my beautiful, strong-willed, and overly protective boyfriend?

Cole

It’s two in the morning and Rosamond’s spirit still haunts my dreams. She’s appearing more often, making her pleas that much harder to ignore.

I’m supposed to be going through the stack of tutoring resumes my parents left behind. A year of catching up on my education, and I’m off to Uni. Carving out a worthy career path is a task expected of every
decent
Wynter.

Instead, I’m standing on the second floor balcony watching a fox dart across our moonlit garden. Trees, flowers, expensive wrought iron furniture—everything’s washed in an effluent glow.

Life is peaceful in this moment, or could be, if not for the mysterious blond whose image won’t fade. I tell myself the visions aren’t real, and then she appears again. The more I say she isn’t my problem, the heavier my soul feels. How do I live with myself if I walk away? Yet, the bigger question may be … how can I possibly help?

My hands grip the balcony railing. As far as I know, the camera hidden in the Maddox mansion was the only way into The Void. While our physical bodies were stored in coffins in the Maddox cellar, our spirits walked the grounds between worlds. Never in my years of banishment had I seen Rosamond.

Were there other coffins? More people that the Artisans punished whom I’d never met? Gideon never mentioned anyone else. In fact, when Raven convinced him to free us, all twenty-four souls were accounted for that night. So, where did Rosamond come from?

Even if I knew, would Gideon help me free her?

Memories can haunt a person as effectively as ghosts. And considering all I’d done to him, I highly doubted that he would …

At age fifteen, I remember waiting outside the headmaster’s office at Malcolm College, listening to my father rant. Mottled glass panes in the oak door gave me a decent, if blurry, view of the uncomfortable scene unfolding within.

Headmaster Stewart (Stewie or Stewmeat, as we liked to call him) Allen Gamble was about as tough as boiled noodles. Confrontation with my father was best handled as you would an attack dog. Speak with a clear and firm voice. Never show fear. Never run.

Who knows how Stewie achieved his high rank? It hardly mattered. If my father had much to say about it—and he did—poor Stewmeat wouldn’t have his job much longer.

As Father spoke, the volume grew. Cold and hard as the steely, blue barrel of a gun, old man Wynter leveled that voice at his victim and pulled the trigger. “This is absurd! No one expels a Wynter. It doesn’t happen. So, a few boys played an innocent prank that went awry. The burn was an accident. Hell, didn’t we all do a little hazing of the new chap when we were in school? Young master Maddox needs to toughen up anyway, I dare say.”

My father’s tone held a hint of pride mixed in with his superiority. As though my chosen method of torturing Gideon won me points for ingenuity. My stomach soured. Teeth ground to the point of shattering. I never meant to hurt the kid, not really. The plan was to embarrass, and maybe scare him a little.

Back then, Dr. Greene, my therapist, said I did shite like that as an outlet for my anger and for attention. Maybe that was true. Or maybe I was the biggest monster of all because I’d seen the hospital photos of Gideon’s burns collected by case investigators.

Scanning the photographs, I can still feel the way my eyes stung, and throat swelled shut. I wanted to shout, say I was sorry. But how could anyone apologize for something like that?

All Maddox wanted was to fit in.

My father might have disowned me if he knew how sick I felt. A Wynter is never wrong, never apologizes, or shows regret for his actions. That’s weakness.

But as I viewed the evidence of my crimes against Maddox, my hands trembled, and I knew I was the weakest boy on the planet, because I cried like a baby—but not until I got home and alone behind the closed door of my bedroom.

We weren’t so different, really, Maddox and me. I wondered if he’d seen that, too. Wealthy, overachieving, only sons with assholes for fathers. We were polished, clever, and fairly miserable, trying to be something we would never be. Acceptable. The difference was I’d learned to play the game and Gideon hadn’t. He still cared, and I hated him for it.

Students thought of me as popular, funny, and charismatic. Gideon wasn’t. Awkward and self-conscious, the boy drove me and my mates crazy with his wretched slide-stop gait—gimping down the hall on his crutches. Head always hung a little too low, back a smidge too bowed. He never looked anyone in the eye, excluding our professors, naturally. He ate by himself, studied alone in his room, yet there was something about him. A gleam in his eye at times that hinted at promise, winked at hope. That look made me want to knock him down.

That and the fact he wasn’t completely barking yet, either. Not like the rest of us. Time changed all that, of course. Eventually, Maddox surpassed my reputation, and that’s saying something.

“My dear, Mr. Wynter!” Stewmeat’s shocked tone drew my focus to the heated conversation in the other room. “The Maddox boy was seriously injured. The board is furious. Cole’s actions are without excuse and cannot be swept under the rug this time.”

Through the glass, I watched the headmaster’s shoulders hunch—probably withering under the glare of my father. I knew the feeling well.

The door swung open, Father hesitating just inside the room. His face an angry shade of purple—just a screaming, giant blue grape jutting out of his shirt collar where his head should’ve been. I’d have laughed if I wasn’t so close to vomiting.

“My son doesn’t need this third rate institution of incompetence. The board doesn’t scare me. If you people had done your job and given these spirited boys proper supervision, the accident wouldn’t have been possible. It’s your fault, Stewart. None but yours. No need to expel my son. I withdraw him. This isn’t over. Mark my words, you sniveling coward!”

As he left, my father slammed the door shut with a shuddering bang. How the glass didn’t break is still a mystery. He stalked to the leather chair in the hall where I’d sat perched like a goose awaiting beheading. Hands knotted at my sides, I couldn’t look up, and then I did. He’s not a large man, my father, yet the fury in his eyes made him seem eight feet tall. “You!” he growled, pointing an accusing finger my direction. “I’ll deal with at home.”