‘Not all psychopaths are serial killers, Luke.’
‘Well, that’s a relief. Because otherwise I’m a long way behind all the other psychopaths in my career so far.’
‘You’re still not taking this seriously,’ said Zac.
‘Well, you’re still speaking in tongues,’ said Luke.
Zac moved silently across the marble floor tiles and stopped in front of the little grey cat. He squatted. There was silence for a beat and suddenly the cat reared up on its hind legs, mouth open, teeth bared, hissing. Doubled now in size, the fur on its back and tail standing bolt upright, it made a lightning-fast vicious swipe for Zac’s face. Zac rocked backwards in a move that would have put anyone else on their arse. The cat missed. Zac hissed. And the little grey warrior limped painfully out of the kitchen.
‘I think these cats are spies,’ said Zac.
‘Spies,’ said Luke.
They stared at each other.
Zac looked away first.
Luke sighed deeply. ‘Are we gonna talk properly, Nguyen, or do you wanna tell me more about the 007 cats?’
Zac looked away from Luke for a moment, and then stood. ‘More than five thousand years ago,’ he said, ‘there was a very brief time in history when peace reigned between animals, mortals and immortals.’
Luke picked up an apple and began tossing it. ‘Were you there?’ he said.
Zac gave him a sour look.
‘What?’ said Luke. ‘Why is that so stupid? I mean, you’re the one who’s supposed to be a magic elf, and I’m supposed to just know that you’re not thousands of years old? Aren’t elves supposed to be immortal?’
‘Well, we’re not mortal,’ said Zac. ‘And we can live for thousands of years. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t die and that we can’t be killed.’
Luke’s scalp itched, as it always did when something didn’t make sense. He’d always figured it was his brain’s bullcrap detector, and right now it was in overdrive. But Zac really believed what he was saying, and he had thrown a knife and caught it before it hit the wall. Maybe Zac wasn’t actually an elf – Luke definitely wasn’t living life in the Disney channel – but he wasn’t the slightest bit ordinary, either.
‘Okay,’ he said, scratching his head. ‘So you weren’t there five thousand years ago in that peaceful hippy time, but how old are you?’ He braced himself. He didn’t know how he was going to speak to Zac again if he learned that he was ninety, or three hundred and eight.
‘I’m fifteen,’ said Zac.
‘For real?’ said Luke.
‘For real. I guess that’s why they assigned me to you. One, they thought we could relate; two, they wouldn’t have to tell me anything because I’m pretty much considered an infant.’
‘But why wouldn’t they want you to know what’s going on?’ said Luke.
‘They probably figured I’d freak out,’ said Zac.
Luke sighed. ‘Well, that’s very helpful. So, five thousand years ago there was this big love fest, and everything was happy families. Next.’
‘And then there was this terrible disturbance,’ said Zac. ‘This awful disruption that spread across the whole world.’
‘Like an earthquake?’ said Luke.
‘More a poisonous gas leak,’ said Zac. ‘But the poison was like a toxic emotion, a volcano of hate. All this rage and fear suddenly erupted into the atmosphere. The elves who were alive back then reckon they could see and smell it – rotten, grey-yellow filth oozing out from the soil, bubbling up from the oceans, bursting into the air as a putrid gas. Trees died. Climates changed. Wars began. People fought and killed so that they could own more than they could ever use. Some would watch their neighbours – even their family members – starve, just so that they could have more and more. Hoarding it, keeping it for themselves.
‘Some of the worst of these people rose to the highest ranks in governments around the world. Or to huge positions of power. Millions starved. Animals were slaughtered for the hell of it. For fun. And the most evil of all things happened. For the first time ever in history, people began to torture other creatures – making others suffer just to give themselves some kind of sick pleasure.’
Luke’s mind was filled with images of people who fitted that bill. Officer Holt, Zecko Sevic and Foster Daddy Dick led the parade. He gave a bitter smile.
Zac walked over to the window facing the ocean. White rain slashed down from the sky, hurling itself at the glass, each sliver sacrificing itself in its efforts to break through, to reclaim nature.
‘It was called Disharmony,’ Zac said. ‘But it wasn’t just a division between mortals and animals. The immortals were also affected. Many witches and warlocks became black overnight. Orcs – ordinarily dumb as rocks – chose the dark, as did goblins, the succubi…’
‘But not the elves,’ said Luke.
‘No, not the elves,’ agreed Zac. ‘Nor the vast majority of mortals. But the tiny number of the worst of the worst grew. This small group of mortals and immortals seemed to have no feelings at all for others, no empathy, no remorse; they made their way through life with one aim only: to please themselves, regardless of what it cost anyone else.’
‘Psychopaths,’ said Luke.
Zac nodded.
‘So, basically, I’m the bad guy,’ said Luke.
He wanted to feel something right now, but mostly he wanted to feel nothing, like usual. Unfortunately, he was somewhere in between. And what that felt like was uncomfortable, kind of itchy.
‘Well, sort of,’ said Zac. ‘But you see, you’re not just a psychopath.’
‘Oh, right,’ said Luke. ‘I’m the psychopath. Like the big daddy of all psychopaths.’
‘No, idiot,’ said Zac. ‘But you are part of the Telling.’
‘The Telling?’
‘It’s a prophecy. All immortals are taught the basics of it before they can even fly.’
‘You can fly?’ said Luke.
‘The Telling,’ Zac continued, ‘decrees that one day three siblings will be born who can rid the world of Disharmony forever.’
‘Make everything all happy-happy again?’
‘Yep. Well, there’s a little bit more to it than that, of course,’ said Zac.
‘Well, what else do I need to know?’
‘I don’t know the whole prophecy. There’s a saying that if you don’t know something about the Telling, then you’re not yet meant to know that part of it.’
‘That makes no sense at all,’ said Luke. ‘I’m finding this is a theme with you, Nguyen. Anyway, you said that one of the siblings is a psychopath?’
‘Yep.’
‘And my sister?’ Luke really wanted to know more about his sister, and…
‘Wait – did you say three siblings?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Zac. ‘You’re the psychopath. I’m betting that your twin sister is the empath. It’s a symmetry thing. It makes sense. Nature loves symmetry.’
‘What’s an empath?’ said Luke.
‘Um, someone, like, not you,’ said Zac.
Okaaay. ‘And what’s the third?’ said Luke, his mouth dry.
‘The third would be your brother,’ said Zac. ‘We know he’s a boy. He’s a year younger than you. And he’s a genius.’
Zac moved closer to Luke, reached a hand out towards him, then dropped it again.
‘And your mother died giving birth to him.’
‘And I thought girls were supposed to talk a lot.’
Luke raised an eyebrow and turned. Zac hissed quietly. Rich-punk-bad-girl Georgia stood in the kitchen doorway, leaning against the jamb, arms folded. This morning she was even more Goth than yesterday. A long-sleeved black fitted T-shirt, black micro-mini skirt, black leggings, bare feet, black toenails. It seemed she hadn’t gotten around to the black lipstick yet, but she’d definitely found the eyeliner.