ARC: Cracked (13 page)

Not my finest hour, but I was punished.

The banister pulled free and I dropped into a free-fall, followed by the red-black smack of my head on the cement. I lay there gasping and confused.

Mom threw aside her groceries (the crash somewhat less satisfying this time), then raced down the stairs, terrified that I was seriously injured or dead.

Then just as horrified that I was not.

That’s how I feel now. Like the ground was snatched out from under me. Like concrete cracked against my skull. Like the air was stolen from my lungs. But this time, I’m the one horrified by
her
true nature.

“Meda?” Chi’s concerned voice creeps through my fog.

I borrow his line. “Gah…”

“Meda, what is it?”

I point, the truth finally seeping into my brain and trickling out of my mouth. “My mom.”

Chi looks at the picture, then back at me. I don’t look away from my mom’s smiling eyes, but I don’t need to to know he’s equally surprised. Well, maybe not equally – no one could be
that
surprised.

He doesn’t say anything right away. He might not be especially clever, but he’s pretty good at reading social cues. He realizes my world has just been rocked. My mom is a Templar. No, a
Crusader
.

And my father’s a demon? The world careens out of control. I hold perfectly still waiting for it to settle. Right now it doesn’t make any sense.

I check out her mementos even though that squirmy bit twists and twangs in my chest as my eyes rove over them. A whole life that I didn’t share, that I never knew even existed. The only person I thought I knew is an utter stranger. A laughing, happy, smiling stranger. I’ve never seen any childhood photos of my mom. Not being particularly sentimental, I hadn’t even noticed until now. Reddish-brown curls, brown eyes, a wide mouth, slightly crooked bottom teeth. So strange to see these familiar features in a young, fresh face. In her youth, I can pick out pieces of me. Not a lot, but some. High, rounded cheekbones, the almond-shaped eyes, but hers are golden brown, sunshiny warm. Mine are as black as my soul.

Piles of pictures of her with friends, a ribbon for first place in a science fair. That doesn’t surprise me, she was always dragging me towards science and I would flee towards art. Even my name, Andromeda, is a testament to her geekiness. A ring with an oval blue star sapphire sits on her shelf. I reach a trembling hand, but stop short of touching it.

She said she grew up in the country and I guess that’s true, it doesn’t get more country than out here. She said my grandparents were dead. Car crash. Ha – knowing they were badass demon hunters, I now find that unlikely.

“Meda, when were you born?” Chi asks and even this question is too complicated in my current state. It takes me a minute. A minute of looking into those laughing brown eyes shaped like my own. My brain translates them from laughing to glaring in accusation. I look away.

“1994,” I finally manage, then wonder why he asked. I look back at the plaque, avoiding those eyes. Mary Porter 1974–1993, it states. Not Mary Melange, as I knew her. She died the year before I was born, or so they think. I have pretty conclusive evidence they’re wrong. In reality, she was murdered only two years ago. It doesn’t even feel like it was that long ago. I can paint the gruesome scene in perfect, vivid detail on the back of my eyelids, as clearly as if it happened yesterday. I can recreate the feel of her lifeless hand cradled in mine.

But I don’t. I can’t bear to remember what some heartless monster did to her.

One face pops up in the pictures over and over again, a boy with sandy, stick-up hair. Their arms around each other, filthy, missing teeth, about seven, grinning into the camera. In a group picture, her eyes on the camera, his on her. As a couple in hideously Eighties prom outfits (puffed sleeves – eek). Again, in swimsuits as teens. Again, again, again.

One where she’s got her head thrown back, laughing, almost unrecognizable in her happiness. The world’s tiniest diamond is on her hand and he’s kneeling, hand over his heart. A ridiculous restaging of a recent proposal. I touch a trembling finger to it.

“Who’s this?” Whose voice is that? It is so croaky, it can’t be mine.

Chi squints at the photo. “Luke Bergeron,” he answers carefully, as if afraid I will break. And I might. The wrong note and I will shatter.

“Is he still alive?”

“Yes, he’s out though, on assignment.” He pauses, then excitement creeps into his voice. “Meda, do you know what this means?”

I look at him blankly. That my mom lied? That I have no idea who she is?

“You’re a Templar.”

That too. But to be honest, it hadn’t occurred to me. I’m half-demon, half-Templar. So Mom wasn’t lying when she said I’m one of a kind. The cross-bred offspring of born enemies, a mixed mutt of Good and Evil. But how did it even happen? I look back into her sunshine eyes, the eyes of the only person who had the answers.

Maybe not. I point back to Luke.

“Where is he?”

But Chi doesn’t get a chance to answer. A shrill siren slaughters the silence of the shrine. The room clicks red – the candlelight is supplemented by red, ankle-height emergency lights. Before we have time to react, a sonorous boom echoes from above and the building shudders under our feet. Instinctively, Chi and I both duck and look up. My wide eyes meet his, asking the obvious question. His eyes are just as wide as he answers.

“Meda – the school’s under attack.”

NINE

We stand frozen, our eyes wide, like the trapped deer we are. Then Chi shakes his head and I can almost see the shock scatter off him like water droplets off a dog. He pulls himself up and trades shock for courage, and maybe the teeniest bit of excitement. The boom vibrates again and we both instinctively duck. I look up at the ceiling, checking for cracks. How much abuse can the derelict building take before it collapses? Would the weight kill me? Or worse, would I survive, crushed, trapped and starving?

“Stay here,” Chi shouts over the siren. Without waiting for a response, he spins so fast his sneakers squeak and takes off running.

Like hell. I pause, snatching my mother’s ring and the picture of the ridiculous wedding proposal, jamming both in my pocket, then take off after him. I’m not the wait-for-death type. I’m more the find-him-first-and-kick-his-ass type. Another boom vibrates the building and bits of cement sprinkle down like rain. I instantly cower, wrapping my hands around my head.

OK, so maybe I’m more the slip-away-from-death-unnoticed type. Still, I’m not cowering in the dark waiting to be crushed.

I blast out of the Templar shrine and the doors smack the walls with a loud crack. There’s no sign of Chi and the door out of the museum is just closing. The door with the locked keypad. Shit. I make a running dive for it and it clicks closed just as my fingers curl around the handle.

Please don’t lock from the inside, please don’t lock from the inside
.

I jerk the handle. It’s locked.

Damn Chi! I kick the damn thing and slam my open palm into it, leaving marks. The damn thing is twelve inches of solid steel, even I won’t be able to tear through it. At least not right away. I look around for a weapon, something, anything, and my eyes come to rest on the PIN pad. It’s a good thing Chi already escaped, or I’d slaughter the idiot and drown the damn keypad in Templar blood.

Templar blood.

Oh
.

I bite down on my finger until I feel the pop and burn of torn skin, then press the welling spot of blood to the pad. The door opens with a click and hiss.

Sweet
.

I take off up the stairs just as another boom shakes the building and I rock into the wall of the stairwell, the handrail digging into my hip. Then I’m off again, taking as many stairs at a time as I dare. I feel a swell of power that can only mean one thing: demons.

There’s still no sign of Chi, but as I cut around the fourth bend, I run into a line of children heading down. I come to an abrupt halt. I hadn’t heard their feet over the screaming siren and they’re surprisingly quiet and calm, talking only in murmurs. Living here, no doubt they’ve trained for deadly situations their whole lives. They jump when they see me – despite their forced calm, they’re frightened. They hold hands and some older kids carry the littlest ones. They must be heading down into the basement to hide. They have no choice; they haven’t my abilities. The tomb I fled is their best option.

I meet the eyes of the oldest-looking one, a thirteen-ish girl with black-and-blue streaked hair. A toddler with blond curls buries its face in her shoulder. She strokes its pyjama-ed back and tells it everything’s going to be fine. Her eyes ask mine if that’s true.

I shrug. How would I know? I slide to the right so I can continue past them up the stairs.

The trickle of children becomes a flood as I turn the final corner. Another explosion rocks the building and an involuntary squeal of fright is snatched, unwilling, from their throats. I don’t hold it against them – one of the squeals is mine. I push through them, a salmon swimming upstream, until I fight my way out of the stairwell and into the lobby. It’s swarming with children being herded into lines by a grotesquely pregnant woman in her mid-thirties with short blonde hair. My eyes flit to every corner, but I don’t see any signs of destruction yet. I find Chi, at least two feet taller than everyone around him, wading through the children on the other side of the room.

“Chi,” the blonde woman calls. He twists back to look at her and I duck into the shadows, watching. His face is angry at the attack, but also… aglow. Lit with vicious anticipation.

“Upperclassmen to the gym for orders,” the blonde shouts. She turns to grab a tiny boy headed the wrong way, so Chi’s reply-nod is wasted. He shoves through the crowd, heading towards the gym.

Should I follow him? If he catches me, he might try to drag me back to the basement. On the other hand, I don’t really want to run out of the school blind and surely they’ll be getting some information on the situation in the gym. And, though survival is of the utmost importance, I don’t want to leave the Templars. Not now, not after what I just learnt. Not unless it’s absolutely necessary.

I weasel after him.

He breaks into a run once he reaches the hallway and I pick up my own pace. I should slow down, a mere human couldn’t keep up with Chi, but even though I’ve been to the gym twice now, the school is such a maze I’m not sure I’d be able to find it. I curse my stupidity in not paying closer attention to the route, and this time I do. I keep my eyes peeled for other students, but don’t see any. Coming all the way from the basement must make us the last ones to the gym.

The sirens stop abruptly and the sudden silence shocks me as much as the sudden noise had, and I stumble slightly. I’m glad to have my fifth sense back and even more grateful at the timing – I can now hear other feet coming to join my hallway from an offshoot to my left. I slow, hoping it’s not Jo or possibly Zebedee. I duck into an empty classroom, but it’s just two random fifteen-ish boys with the same excited fervor on their faces as I saw on Chi’s. I follow them, but slower. Now that I can hear, I don’t have to stay quite so close on their heels.

The gym is already packed with students when I arrive. The kids shift and bounce on the balls of their feet, but keep their talking to an excited murmur. I slip in the back, keeping my eyes peeled for Jo. I’m not worried about anyone else trying to force me into the basement – they’ve made it clear that Emma’s safety is low on their list of priorities. I see Chi moving towards the front of the gym, working his way between students. As they turn towards him, Chi gives them reassuring nods, claps them on the shoulders and grips hands. I watch them relax – Chi’s confidence is catching. Unfortunately, my brains render me immune.

On the far side of the room, a mutton-chopped man stands on the bleachers. Everyone faces him as he gives orders to a group of students distributing swords, daggers and knives from the metal cage. He’s younger than any of the other non-pregnant adults at the school, which is explained when I see the empty sleeve of his Templar jacket. Speaking of cripples, I roll up on to my tiptoes and again look for Jo. I’d feel safer if I knew where she was. I have no idea what my plan is yet, but I’m sure whatever it is, she’d do something to thwart it. Still nothing. I do spot Zebedee, her dark head rises above the crowd towards the front of the room.

I need more information. I hope Muttonchops will get around to explaining, but I’m not the patient sort. Windows line the wall to my immediate right and the far wall to my left. They’re boarded over, but the boards are on the inside – they can’t risk an outsider getting curious and pulling them back. There, one window rises from behind the fighting cage on the other side of the long room – the chain link would provide some, if not perfect, cover. With a quick look at Chi, I slither through the crowd, then around behind the cage. The wood covering the window is thin chipboard nailed into the frame and I slip my fingers under its edge. When the next boom sounds, I jerk it free then bend it back, snapping the corner off and creating a six-inch peephole. I glance around, but no one notices. I allow myself a satisfied smirk and peek out of the window. The smirk dies.

Sometimes, ignorance
is
bliss.

The school grounds have been transformed into Wall Street – black-suited, soulless men and women as far as the eye can see.

Demons. Hundreds of them.

They stand in half crouches, looking ready to pounce, hissing and snarling. It looks ridiculous really, with their forty-something bodies and conservative suits. But I don’t laugh. They pack the yard in front of the school and fill the spaces between the trailers. Their human faces flicker, overlaid briefly by those of grey-faced monsters – black pits for eyes, withered, twisted skin, sunken cheeks, lipless mouths filled with sharp teeth.

There’s no way I can sneak out past them. Not a chance. I should have stayed in the basement.

The only thing standing between the demons and us is a thin line of decrepit Crusaders hauled out of retirement. I recognize Mrs Lee in a Hawaiian-print muumuu (of all things), and three old people from the cafeteria, though not the headmaster or The Sarge. I can see a dozen or so others lined up with them, with several feet between each of them – spread thin so they can reach all the way around the school. Some of them I can barely see from this angle and realize they’re leaning on the school, using it for support.