She was tall and graceful, her long legs sheathed in black, tight-fitting leather trousers. She wore a bodice, 47 brocaded with intricate lightning patterns. Her long, pale blond hair flowed over her shoulders in a wintry cascade. Her face… oh her face!
“So beautiful…” he breathed.
“Ah, nephew!” She smiled. Brendan’s heart shuddered. The sensation was like being smiled at by a hurricane. “At last we meet. They tried to hide you but I’ve found you at last.”
Kim had fallen on the steps beside Ms. Abernathy. She staggered to her feet. “He’s not for you, Orcadia.”
“Ki-Mata,” the woman said, chuckling. “You’re the best they could come up with? How sad.”
Brendan, still dazed, was trying to figure out what was happening. “Who are you?”
The woman smiled her ferocious smile. “I am your aunt Orcadia, my dear child. I’ve come to take you away from these weaklings. Together we have work to do. Together we are destined to do great things.” She took a step closer, and Brendan smelt ozone burning in the air around her. “Together we shall destroy the Humans and take our world back.”
Brendan cringed away from her outstretched hand. She pouted prettily. “Don’t be afraid. I don’t bite.”
“See here.” Ms. Abernathy stepped into Orcadia’s path. “You have no business being on the grounds of Robertson Davies Academy! You must leave at once.”
Brendan couldn’t believe his eyes. Ms. Abernathy was crotchety, mean, and annoying but he had to admit, she had guts. He felt he should warn the vice-principal that she was out of her depth but he was having enough trouble trying to stand up.
Orcadia looked at the vice-principal with a disdainful smile on her perfect face. “I’m not going to leave the grounds. But I’m afraid you are.” She lazily pointed a finger at Ms. Abernathy, and a jagged string of blue energy lanced out from her pale fingertip to engulf the hapless VP. Then, with a negligent flick of the wrist, Orcadia sent Ms. Abernathy cart-wheeling through the air to disappear over the edge of the roof.
Satisfied, Orcadia turned her attention to Brendan and Kim on the steps. “That was fun but I’m losing my patience. Brendan, come along.”
^46 Astigmatism is a visual defect caused by the unequal curving of the refractive surfaces of the eye- usually the cornea, or lens of the eye. Astigmatism therefore makes wearing contact lenses impossible. Astigmatism is also difficult to spell. I like saying astigmatism. Astigmatism. Astigmatism. Astigmatism. Okay, I’m done… astigmatism.
^47 A bodice is a close-fitting, often laced-up top worn over a blouse. Very few people wear bodices any more: vampires, people who want to look like vampires, and the odd evil Faerie.
PURSUIT
Brendan looked into Orcadia’s face. Her eyes were icy blue. In fact, her skin had a tinge of azure underlying its pale chalk surface.
“I’m waiting,” Orcadia snapped.
“Orcadia, give it up,” Kim said. “You have no place here. Your actions threaten us all.”
“Shut up, you little fool,” Orcadia hissed. “You have no place here. He’s my nephew, son of my brother Briach Morn. Do not presume to tell me what to do, dung beetle!”
“Hey!” Brendan had suddenly found his tongue. “You tossed the vice-principal onto the roof!”
“Yes, I did.” Orcadia smiled. “Wasn’t it hilarious?”
“Hilarious?” Brendan was incredulous. “She might be dead!”
“Why should I care? Humans are like cockroaches, Breandan, they breed and breed. When you step on one, a hundred spring up to take its place,” Orcadia said. “Now, come with me. You needn’t live in this filthy world of Humans any more. There is a whole new world for you to explore.” She smiled again and held out an elegant hand to him.
In spite of his horror, Brendan found himself compelled to take that hand. There was something mesmerizing about her voice, something intoxicating about her beauty.
Still, something in his mind was repulsed by her.
“Cockroaches?” he said. “We aren’t cockroaches. Who do you think you are?” he managed to croak. “I don’t want to come with you. Why don’t you leave us alone?” He stepped away from her, taking his place beside Kim.
The woman laughed, a sound like the peal of bells in a dark cathedral. The sound pounded against Brendan’s skull, threatening to upset his precarious balance. He steeled himself not to act on the urge to fall to his knees. “It’s not polite to laugh at people,” he said, annoyed.
“Oh my.” The woman grinned, a fierce expression that held no mirth. Her teeth were a deep, startling blue. “That is so sweet! He thinks he has the right to comment on my manners. I, who was old with power at the quickening of the world, who was old when the People of Metal first cringed in their caves at the sound of the thunder. How dare you question my manners, whelp?” 48
“Whelp?” Brendan said angrily. “I don’t even know what a whelp is but it doesn’t sound good to me. If you’re going to insult me, use words I can understand.”
The woman narrowed her eyes. “Ignorant little child! You dare to question me?” she thundered. She gnashed her teeth and bright blue sparks flared between them. She seemed to expand, to tower above Brendan. Her pale face twisted with rage. Even as his heart shrivelled in fear, Brendan felt a yearning. She was cold and beautiful like the glaciers he’d seen in Alaska on a cruise with his parents. She was poised above him, ready to crush him, grind him underfoot. He raised his eyes to the chips of flaring ice that were hers and waited to be destroyed.
“Enough, Orcadia.” Kim’s voice shattered the moment. “He doesn’t want to join you.”
The woman’s head snapped up, releasing Brendan from the spell of surrender. He shivered and stepped back, tripping on the bottom step and falling hard on his bum.
Kim stepped out in front of Brendan and faced the woman. “Orcadia, the truce stands. He is not for you to take or destroy.”
“Fool,” Orcadia spat. “Step aside or perish.”
Kim looked so small in the face of the dark woman’s fury. In her RDA school uniform, short school kilt, grey cardigan, and knee socks, she was hardly a match for the force of nature seething on the pavement of the parking lot. On her back, Kim carried her green nylon knapsack with her trusty field hockey stick poking out of the top.
“You know the Law,” Kim said in a chiding tone as if Orcadia were an unruly child. “He cannot be touched.”
“Indeed, I know the Law. I don’t respect the Law but I know it: he may not be interfered with so long as he bears the Ward. The Ward is gone.”
Kim stiffened. “What?”
“It is gone. Removed by a Weaver. 49 See for yourself.”
Kim whirled and stared at Brendan. “Is it true?”
Brendan gaped. “Is what true? I don’t know what anybody’s talking about!”
Kim’s hand lashed out and tore open the front of Brendan’s school shirt. Buttons flew everywhere. She was impossibly strong for such a slender girl.
“Hey,” Brendan protested. “That was a new shirt!”
“Shut up, idiot!” Kim snapped.
“Don’t you call me an idiot! Idiot! Whelp! What’s with you people?” Brendan began but he stopped when he saw the stricken expression on Kim’s face. She stared at the spot where Brendan’s scar had been until just the night before. Now there was only a reddened patch of skin. The irritation was already fading.
“Where’s the Mark?” Kim demanded.
“I had a dream last night,” Brendan explained. “Deirdre D’Anaan came and her little… flying thingy ripped my scar away!”
“That interfering…”
Orcadia laughed. “He is ready to be initiated. I will do the honours.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you, nutcase!” Brendan shouted.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Kim snarled at Brendan.
“Tell you what?” Brendan snapped back. “That my scar’s gone? Why would I tell you about it? I have athlete’s foot! Should I alert the media?”
Kim rolled her eyes in disgust and whipped around to face Orcadia, taking a defensive stance. Brendan couldn’t believe it. She was actually going to fight this woman? “Are you nuts? Let’s run!”