House of Slide Hybrid (21 page)

“Billiards,” Satan said, nodding like that made sense. “Quick game, the boy knows how to minimize extraneous movement.”

I looked up at Lewis in time to see his mouth twitch slightly.

“What will he do with you?” my mother asked, leaning her chin on her hand, looking at Satan with concerned dark eyes.

“Already done since Slide’s willing to count the other night, the one when he burned my face off.” He nodded easily settling back, one hand raised. “Shelley and iambic pentameter,” he said, ticking off one of his fingers. “Saul and running,” he said ticking off another finger, only two remaining. “Your dad has gone to get painting supplies, a paint-off between the immortal Axel and Alex of the Woods should be exciting,” he said with an exaggerated eye roll.

“Wait a minute,” I said, staring at Lewis’ back, really tense for someone who was mixing something in a bowl. “Why would the Head of the House agree to a poetry contest instead of a violent fight? Not that I’m complaining, but Slide seems kind of serious to have a cooking competition.”

“Slide’s sense of humor,” my mother said with a cool voice, disapproval coloring her words.

“Hey, I’ll take humor over violence any day, it’s just unexpected,” I said, watching my mother’s cold mask, wondering why she would rather they fight than do something productive. I loved it, it actually made me wonder what else my mother would find distasteful that made sense to me. Maybe it was my Cool blood that made chopping veggies way better than chopping each other.

I relaxed as I watched Lewis, noticing that he was as tense as my mother where she sat watching them. Maybe they didn’t know how to relax.

“This might get dull at some point,” Lewis said as he pulled out a rolling pin, offering me an apologetic smile.

“No kidding,” Satan said, but then Lewis looked at Satan, then glanced at me, then back at Satan. “Right,” Satan said standing up. “Dari, come help with the clean-up. There’s bound to be a mess somewhere that can use straightening.”

“The billiard room,” Stanley said, jaw clenched as he sliced peaches.

“Um, okay?” I said, slowly standing, looking at Lewis’ back. My arm hurt and I felt dizzy when I stood up, but I didn’t want them to be uncomfortable. Stanley clearly hated cooking against Lewis

“I’ll see you at lunch,” Lewis said, flashing a smile at me that made my knees wobble. He didn’t usually smile like that, warm instead of hot, with crinkled eyes where he’d have laugh lines if he ever aged. I found myself unable to move as I gazed at the most beautiful creature in the world.

“Come on,” Satan said, prodding me forward, gently for him.

“Yes. I’m coming,” I said, watching Lewis until the kitchen door swung closed behind me, leaving me in the wide hall with Satan who gave me a long stare before shaking his head.

“You’re not very subtle,” he growled.

I sighed as I followed him down the immaculate hall with pristine marble floors and dark coffered ceiling, feeling out of place in my pastel outfit, except for the dagger I still held in my hand.

“How long will you keep him here? Why didn’t Grim use some kind of anesthetic when he stitched up my arm? Is my dad really out getting painting supplies? I would like to watch that one. I’d like to watch them all, actually. He’s so…”

He growled a short laugh that made my spine tingle in an uncomfortable way. “That cut on your arm that Grim didn’t numb should not have happened. That cut makes Slide nervous. That cut shows that Lewis is not in control of this situation, of himself and therefore you. We should be eating dinner instead of cleaning up billiards. Grim didn’t use antiseptic because you’re in training. Trainees do not get coddled.”

“You mean the candidate doesn’t usually have to prove his abilities?”

He snorted. “The candidate does not get this far without already being tested by the House.”

“It wasn’t his fault. I had a flashback. I didn’t know where I was or what was going on. I didn’t mean to cut myself.”

“If he can’t protect you from yourself, who can he protect you from?” he growled as he pushed a door open with one large meaty paw before gesturing me through with a half bow.

I gasped as I stepped into the room that might have once been more than wreckage. Wood shards, dark green fabric, splintered wood, the smell of blood mixed with lemons that might have been wood polish. The table, what was left of it, was broken in the middle, balls rolling around on the floor when I accidentally kicked one with my foot.

I put a hand over my eyes, feeling dizzy, the smell, the meaningless violence carrying me back to the fury and carnage. I dropped my hand, forcing myself to stay there, in that room with my uncle and take in the wreckage, the blatant signs of a Hotblood in residence. I bent to pick up a broken pool cue, the sharp jagged edge lethal looking, standing in contrast to the rest of the polished wood, smooth in my hand like any well-used tool before I spun on my heel, passing Satan on my way out.

I made my way back to the kitchen, unsurprised when I heard the clatter of pans and even less surprised when I threw open the door and saw Stanley and Lewis armed with iron pans and butcher knives, circling each other while the torte, or what had been the torte, was left a heap of ashes on one charred counter.

They both looked up at me when I entered before Stanley lunged for Lewis, managing to hit his shoulder with a cast iron pan. Lewis’ collarbone snapped with a crack that made my stomach roil. Lewis blinked, but kept most of his focus on me while he twisted, knocking the pan out of Stanley’s grip, stabbing his knife through Stanley’s forearm into the counter, even as he gave me that same nice smile, the nice boy smile.

My mother wasn’t there, or Grim, just Lewis and Stanley destroying a perfectly nice kitchen all because Slide had a sense of humor.

“Can we help you?” Lewis asked, politely—politely in spite of the fact that he’d just stabbed someone through the arm with his knife, someone who pulled a knife out of his coat and raised his arm to throw it into Lewis’s back.

“No!” I screamed as I took all the energy, all the force of will I had and bent it towards my uncle.

Stanley jerked, his knife slipping through his fingers to the floor while he convulsed, caught in the web of my inept leaning before Slide came down on me like a sledgehammer.

The pressure of the House filled my mind, my head, body and soul until I crumpled to the ground, unable to move, to think. I saw Lewis spin around, looking from Stanley to me.

“Release him, Dari,” he ordered, his voice full of heat, power, rationality. “He’s not going to hurt me,” he assured even as I saw his collarbone protruding from his chest. “This is the way we play the game. I should never have allowed you to get cut. The more you interfere, the worse it will be for me.”

His words hurt me more than seeing his broken bone. I closed my eyes and submitted, allowing the House to crush and shatter me into dust, relaxing my hold on my uncle and allowing him to do what damage he could.

The House lifted enough that I could breathe, filling my crushed lungs with sweet air as I held my eyes tightly closed until I could crawl to my knees. I looked up at Lewis, wincing when I saw his face, the anger, the heat, the fury before he spun roaring, knocking Stanley back a step.

I turned towards the door, trying not to hear the thud and hissing sound behind me. I couldn’t help him. I’d distracted him or Stanley wouldn’t have been able to hurt him. I leaned against the wall, wrapping my arms around myself while I tried to get a grip on myself after being handled by the unseen power of Slide. I had to go back, to keep him safe. I shook my head and forced myself to run away. We were all just puppets compared to that power.

Before I knew it, the handle to the front door was in my hand, turning obligingly under my grasp, letting me escape the heavy oppression of the House of Slide.

Cold air greeted me as I left the House, walking beneath the gray sky that for the moment had stopped sleeting. I shivered but couldn’t go back and find my coat, instead I walked faster, hating my impractical tulle skirt and sparkling tights.

I didn’t even know why I’d come. I’d wanted to do something to help Lewis, to get him away from Slide, but facing my grandfather had filled me with a perfect realization of how powerless I really was. What could I do?

I stumbled down the long driveway, ignoring the symmetrical shrubbery that lined the drive. I half expected someone to follow me, to keep me in the yard as I neared the gate, but instead the wrought iron opened as I neared it, allowing me to leave without having to so much as talk to the guard in the guardhouse.

I wrapped my arms around myself, the throbbing of my arm less terrible in the cold. I gritted my teeth as I remembered the snap of Lewis’s broken collarbone, how powerless we’d been in Slide’s domain.

I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t stop the violence that I was responsible for. I’d gone to his garage; I’d given him my blood and started this whole mess.

It took forever to walk the fence line along the edge of the House’s property until I finally reached a new design in the wrought iron from the next impressive estate whose roof I could see peeking above the bare limbs in the distance.

I stopped suddenly, staring at the grape colored mustang parked on the side of the road, the only car parked along this street.

I walked around the car, feeling a wave of emotion that had me gasping and clutching my racing heart until I opened the driver’s side door and slipped in. I leaned back and closed my eyes, smelling Lewis, the boy I’d fallen helplessly in love with before I found out that he didn’t exist. I shivered as I pulled up my knees, wrapping my arms around my scratchy skirt and cold tights. I was officially over the sparkly look. I needed jeans, sweaters and boots. And Lewis. I tried to draw a breath, but the ice in my chest that had formed when I’d seen him fall was melting, filling my throat until liquid trickled out of my eyes. They weren’t tears, I thought as I rubbed them away on my bandaged arm. They were only ice melt off my heart.

The passenger door opened and a man slid in, a face made blurry from my tears. For a moment I thought he was my dad, or Grim, but then he spoke and I stiffened in terror.

“Good afternoon. Are you prepared?”

His voice, drawling, scornful, echoed in the close confines of the car. My Trainer had taken this awful moment to find me.

“Prepared for what?” I whispered, trembling.

“Pain,” he said as he handed me a white piece of fabric.

I took it, turning the soft square over in my hands.

“It’s called a handkerchief. Your face is a mess.”

I sniffed, trying to glare at him, but instead I pulled down the rearview mirror and caught sight of my face, a rainbow of color running down my cheeks from my mother’s beautiful makeup. I mopped myself up with the handkerchief until the white had become streaked with color. When I looked in the mirror again, my eyes looked red-rimmed and my face was blotchy, but I looked more like myself.

I handed him the handkerchief. “Thanks. Are you going to paralyze me again?” I got my first really good look of him, and couldn’t stop staring. He didn’t look like any of the Wilds I’d seen. He had a receding hairline, sagging cheeks with wrinkles around his mouth like he’d spent a lot of time frowning and a red mark imprinted on his cheek. He looked old, fifty at least.

“Not today,” he said with a sneering smile that did little to comfort me. “Tell me about the PTSD.”

I frowned at him trying to decipher his words.

“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Tell me what you’re thinking about when you lose control and exhibit your abilities.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Of course you don’t want to talk about it, but that’s today’s lesson in pain: talking about it.”

“I’d rather be paralyzed.”

His smile shifted, looking actually amused. “Then we’re on the right track.” He raised a slender dark eyebrow, waiting while he measured me thoroughly.

I looked down at my hands, uncomfortable with his gaze. I wasn’t comfortable with any of this. Of course, I had to be trained or I would cause innocent people pain. Talking through my issues sounded productive if tortuous. I lifted my chin, meeting his gaze evenly.

“Last fall, I went to an art gallery where my brother’s murderer tried to kill me.” I gripped my hands in my lap as I continued through a tight throat. “My friend was shot, one of my uncles died trying to protect me, and Lewis got captured by Jason.”

“Stop,” he said, raising a slender hand with long fingers unmarred by time. “Go back to your brother. Tell me about him.”

My throat tightened and I found it nearly impossible to swallow. “He died…”

“No,” he interrupted with a slight sneer. “He took your soul, and then he died.”

I winced, feeling a wave of helpless anger, at my brother and at this stranger who thought that he could drag whatever he wanted out of me. It was bad enough when my own father forced me to say what I felt, but this man had no right.

I glared at him then blinked when the emotions disappeared as he watched me with disinterest. All my emotions were gone, the anger, the fear, the relief and hope, all of it, leaving me with nothing but rational thoughts.

“You took away my emotions.”

“Yes. It’s called ‘leaning’. Maybe you’ve heard of it,” he mocked. “This is your first line of defense. When an enemy strikes, instead of fighting back, you change his mind. That’s power. It doesn’t begin with your ability to lean, it starts with your knowledge of others, reading cues verbal and nonverbal, knowing what people want, what they’ll do to get it, what you need from them and how to get them to fight your battles for you. You have to stop focusing on yourself. It isn’t productive. Why are you Training? I see that you’ve accepted it, more or less. What is your motive?”

I stared at him, coolly, unemotionally as I considered his words. “I thought you didn’t want me to focus on myself. I need Training because I have to learn to control myself. I killed people out of anger. That was my action because I had no control. I worry that I am that monster inside, that it wasn’t Lewis’s soul, a fury, but that Devlin took my soul because he knew that I would become evil, and no one would be able to stop me, except Lewis.”

His thin eyebrows narrowed at me as he scratched his stubbly chin. “You have a strong guilt complex, although the propensity to see yourself as evil might be more destructive than helpful. People are what they do, not actually the term we use to define them. You are alive. You are female. You are capable of acting in ways others might consider violent, destructive, and even perhaps, evil. But marrying yourself to an identity makes it difficult to change. Innocent. That’s another term that will hold you back from your actual potential. Tell me about your mother.”

“I don’t understand what my mother has to do with anything,” I said, frowning at him.

He only waited, mouth pursed until I continued.

“I don’t understand my mother. I know that she loves me, but I don’t think she knows how to show it. She trusted my brother. She supported him when he took my soul. I hate her for that.”

“Hate?” he asked, and I felt the rising emotion slide away.

I shook my head. “No, not hate. Betrayal, confusion and hurt. She’s so sad. I’m not dead and she sees my dead brother more than she sees me. She won’t fix her relationship with my dad so that she can be happy. She’d rather be right than happy. She’d rather miss my brother than see me, the child that isn’t dead yet. I don’t want to be her. I don’t want to be my father either. He left us when we needed him most. My mother is right that he betrayed her, us.” I frowned staring at his gaunt face. “She said that you betrayed her. How can I trust you if you already have a history of betrayal?”

He shook his head slightly. “This isn’t about my history, it’s about yours.”

“It’s about me having a Trainer that I can rely on. It would be irrational for me to continue if you were unable to prove her words false.”

We stared at each other until he shrugged his wiry shoulders. “Your mother needed what she didn’t want. I gave her that.”

“Clarify.”

“What do you think love is?” he asked instead of answering.

I frowned but said, “Love is a feeling.”

“The greatest love is demonstrated through sacrifice. Love is pain. Love is what a mother feels when she dies in childbirth. Love is the emotions that allow actions that are for the sake of another in spite of our own well-being. Love is what keeps the world from breaking down into chaos. It is the ability to see beyond our own self-interest. I loved your mother and gave her what she needed instead of what she wanted.”

“My mother’s love does not inspire me.”

“She left her soulmate, her heart’s desire for the sake of your brother and you. She would not abandon her family for the sake of her happiness.”

“She’s right. You are like my father. You both would call abandonment love.”

He smiled, a full show of teeth that looked dull, stained. “You have an interesting mind. Do you love your brother?”

I stared at him, flatly, aware of the building emotions, the anger and betrayal but overwhelming grief, that I would never see my brother again.

“Yes.”

“Would you sacrifice for him?”

I frowned as I battled the emotions that threatened to overwhelm me. I waited, but he didn’t take them from me, didn’t lean me.

“Of course.”

“Do you trust him?”

I swallowed and shook my head. How could I trust someone who took my soul, leaving me alone in darkness, practically dead until Lewis… I felt something in my chest clear as something settled into place. He had taken my soul and given me Lewis, someone who I would have tried to kill, otherwise. Did I trust Devlin? He’d taken my soul, yes, but did I actually think that he’d done it out of spite? Of course not. He’d had a plan. That plan had involved Lewis. It must have. Whether it involved him dying, I wasn’t sure about.

“Yes. I trust him.”

He nodded and leaned back. “And so you should trust me. It was your brother who asked me to be your Trainer, not Slide.”

I gasped, staring at the strange Wild who looked nothing like a Wild. “You knew my brother?”

“I showed him the way down the path he took. Not that I intended him to take your soul for such a very long time, but I showed him the possibility.”

He looked troubled, his brow furrowing over his strange, muddy gray eyes.

“Lewis said that you might know how someone could fracture a soul, leaving a fragment so that the person didn’t die. How did he do it?”

Matthew shook his head and I felt a rush of emotions tangling with one another so fast and sudden that I could barely breathe.

“Next topic, soul flight. I understand you’ve been dreaming this Lewis. That’s an interesting skill that’s supposed to be extinct along with the race of Hollows. I’m sure you understand the importance of keeping your origins unknown to the general populace. I want you to do it now, while you’re awake.”

I frowned as I struggled to breathe around the gripping sorrow in my chest from my brother’s death and betrayal along with how I felt about my parents and Lewis.

“You have to tell me how he did it.”

“No such thing. I wouldn’t admit the possibility except that you experienced it so there isn’t much point in denial. What would you do with such knowledge? Whose soul would you take? What would you do with it? Your brother paid for that knowledge with his life. I do not know how. I’m here to train you for something better. Now, about soul flight,” he said, narrowing his gaze at me until the streaks of silver emerged, giving his eyes a luminescence that reminded me of being paralyzed.

I gritted my teeth as I struggled to breathe through the frustration. I should be grateful for the little bit he gave me, never mind what he held back. “How do I soul fly?”

“Think of your beloved.”

I frowned. “I think of Lewis all the time.”

“No, you don’t,” he corrected. “You try not to think of him all the time. You’re part Cool. Your methods are avoidance and minimizing contact. Think of him. Everything about him. Embrace your emotions. Allow his aura to fill your mind until the knowledge of him overwhelms your self-awareness. Become him. Lose Dariana.”

His voice became background noise as I closed my eyes, seeing Lewis’s face, his smile, feeling his arms wrapped around me, his blood streaming down his skin, the darkness of the Nether in the woods whispering to me, words that sounded scary but calmed me, centered me.

“Forget you,” Matthew snarled, bumping me out of my own awareness.

How had I felt when I’d dreamed him? I felt tall. Big. Strong. Capable of anything. I’d been action, motion, intention and fury. I’d just leaned him. I let the desire, the need that spread through my veins grow until I’d become a humming nucleus of agony. I saw his soul, fierce flame surrounded by velvet darkness, the fury and the Nether calling me to him.

I slid through a world of sparks and lines of light until I’d found him.