Mathieu (White Flame Trilogy) (36 page)

In the distance, Mathieu could see the house he was talking about and watched it come closer. Unlike near the border, there were clearly marked roads to use instead of winding around the edges of properties and hopping you didn’t run something over. The path was made with flat black stones that allowed for a smooth ride and decent speed.

As they pulled up to the blue, single story house with a white picket fence in front of it, Mathieu got out and scooped up Niveus; he noticed the ivy hanging on the walls of the house. He looked around he followed Darcia to the back of the house to a maze of hedges. Voices were floating out of it, but he couldn’t see who they were coming from.

“Eek!”
A girl barreled out of the maze, a bow made of pulsing darkness in one hand, the other resting on the string, ready to pull it back. But her bow disappeared into thin air when she caught sight of them.
“Darcia!”
At full speed, she ran at him then leapt through the air.

Darcia caught her, smiling.
“Hey, Zani.
What are you doing out here?”

“Getting her ass kicked.” The spitting image of the girl in
Darcia’s arms was standing on top of a hedge, where she pulled back the string on her own bow and shot Zanika in the back.

“Ow! Son of a bi-” She bit her tongue before the rest of the sentence could get out. Zanika kissed Darcia’s cheek, let go, and barreled back to the hedge. She jumped up, and tackled her twin off of it. A solid thump could be heard, and Mathieu ran into the maze to see the two brunettes wrestling on in the grass. He couldn’t tell them apart, but one clearly had the upper hand. The one who was winning had the other in an arm bar.

Darcia took his time to enter the maze, a bemused expression on his face. “Come on, Zanika, don’t hurt her. I brought flowers.” He said, holding them out.

“Flowers!”
The girl in the red cardigan let go of her twin, hopping up with childlike enthusiasm.

The one Mathieu presumed was Zerieve stood, too, brushing herself off. Frowning, she pulled a few pins out of her pocket and pinned back the front of her A-line haircut.
“Funny seeing you here, Darcia.
Last time I saw you, you were running off to Nathan’s with your tail between your legs. And who is this?”

The expressions that crossed Mathieu and Darcia’s faces at the mention of Nathan had Zanika smacking the back of her head. “What’d you upset him for? He came to see us and you’re being rude.
But, Darcia, who is your friend?”

“His name is Mathieu.” Darcia said. “He lives with us, now.”

Zerieve held her hand, which Mathieu shook.
“Nice to meet you.”
She looked between them, rubbing her chin idly. “Why do you two look like someone died?”

“Because Nathan did.”
Mathieu blurted out before he could stop himself. He rubbed the back of his head and now that he had a moment to look at the two women’s shocked faces, they really were identical; all except for haircuts.

A short silence fell in the distance between the four of them as the clones pulled themselves together. Eventually Zanika said, “What the hell did he do that for? I bet Solomon
is just loving
it, that rat. Glad I don’t have to deal with him trying to be in charge.”

Darcia sighed. “Let’s go inside before we continue this conversation.”

Zerieve took the flowers from the older male and led them all in through the back door, taking off her shoes before walking across the carpet. “Who wants what to drink?”

“Tea, if you don’t mind.” Mathieu said, also slipping off his shoes.

“Sit at the breakfast bar.” Zerieve said with a serious expression. She motioned to the bar between the living room and the kitchen,
then
got water for the flowers; As she set them on the bar she previously mentioned, her eyes skimmed over Mathieu appraisingly. Whatever she was thinking, she didn’t say.

Zanika followed Darcia in and set about helping Zerieve by getting together a plate of snacks. “What happened,
exactly? To Nathan, I mean.”

Darcia frowned and took a sip of the brandy he’d poured himself,
then
sighed. “I don’t know, really. I wasn’t there. Talk to Mathieu.” He looked at the other visitor.

Not quite liking the attention of Zerieve, she seemed a little too serious to him, he looked at the flowers. “I was at Elise’s house when she got a vision of something bad happening to Nathan. He was fine at first, but then he started to get dizzy and thirsty.” Talking about it was awkward and rather rushed; it wasn’t something he
was really wanting
to recount. “He started to convulse and get really hot, Adele tried to heal him, made it worse,
then
he died.
The end.”
Mathieu ended, folding his arms over his chest.

Zerieve leaned her hip against the counter, having set a kettle to boil some water while they spoke.
“How detailed.”

Patting Mathieu on the arm, Zanika leaned across the counter to steal a cheese and cracker from the plate. “So who’s running the show now? I’m sure the HQ is in disarray.” 

Darcia shrugged one shoulder, “No one really. Everyone
is just existing
right now at Nathan’s place. And the headquarters is all but shut down. Elise is a mental mess, Enak and his god haven’t visited, and now we’re coming to tell you that there’s going to be a full house meeting. Solomon is being a big help in keeping things from falling apart, however.” He gave Zanika a pointed look. “He stops most of the fights and is keeping our District, and Elise’s, running moderately smoothly.”

She gave him a ‘blah’ look before going back to eating. “Well it hasn’t affected us here. And Solomon is a snake. He probably planned this.”

“No he didn’t.” Mathieu snapped at her, frowning. “He’s the one it hurt the most. And it
will
affect you when things fall apart in our District because he’s gone.”

“Damn.
Sensitive, much?”
Zanika retorted, folding her arms.

Darcia rolled his eyes. “They’re an item, so don’t take it personally.”
 

“We are
not
an item.” Mathieu scowled into the tea that was placed in front of him by Zerieve. “He’s a jerk who avoids confrontation and serious relationships…”

“Don’t I know
it.
” Zanika said under her breath, munching on another cracker.

Mathieu looked at her. “What do you mean by that?”

Zerieve grinned in an almost cruel way, “Don’t you know? He and Zanika
were
a couple for
years
.”

He gave the girl a blank look before taking a gulp of the scolding tea, using the pain to test if he had nodded off to sleep. There were no words to express the tightness in his chest that he felt over this tidbit of information. Sure, he and Solomon hadn’t been
talking
or anything lately, but that didn’t mean that he had stopped caring about the blond. Hearing about him with someone else…it made him feel sort of choked. “Seriously, do I have a tattoo on my forehead that says ‘Bring up Solomon, I’d love to hear it’? Jeez.” Mathieu finally responded, shifting
uncomfortably.

Zanika give him a somewhat pitying look, then took his hand and pulled him out of his seat. “Come on, cutie. Let’s leave the chickens to cluck and go do something fun, okay?” Without leaving room for argument, she pulled him out the door. “I need to go see the children, anyhow, so you’ll just come with me. They’ll like you.”

He didn’t want to like this bubbly girl, still unsure how he felt about her and Solomon supposedly being a thing a long time ago.

“Uh, just forget what Zerieve said, okay? How are things going at Nathan’s? You know, before the whole ‘dead’ thing…”

“Well, we met with the kid and the god,” Mathieu recounted vaguely. “Two new members joined us from Unith, and I got my first sword.”

As they walked Zanika sort of floated from side to side, humming sometimes. “I wonder what will happen now, you know what?” She sighed, “But I guess we don’t get much of a saw. We’re going to leave it to the others to figure out. You and I are going to go play with the children and not think about anything sad.” She proclaimed.

“Alright.
I’m game for anything that doesn’t involve being sad.” He slung an arm over her shoulders and gave her a smile; but just a little one.

“Hhave you ever played soccer?” She asked him as a cloud of dust came into view. There were shouts and grunts coming from it and he wondered if there was a
brawl.

Mathieu made a sound of discomfort. “I’ve played a few times, but I’m generally not very good at it….”

“Don’t worry, I promise the kids will take it easy on you.”

“Jeez, thanks.” He rolled his eyes as they walked down a small slope onto another road, putting them much closer to the dust cloud. “So…what exactly is your gift?”

Zanika shrugged one shoulder, “That should have been obvious. My power is darkness that I can channel into anything I want. Mostly it’s just weapons. Zerieve and I prefer bows because archers are practically non-existent in our little army. I do okay with hand-to-hand with things like daggers, though.”

“You don’t have to have Lenore make your weapons, do you?”

“Nope.
We can shape our darkness to whatever we need it to be.” Zanika explained
,
distracted by the children they could now see. Mathieu coughed slightly, now in the middle of the dirty air.

Mathieu’s reply was cut short by the screams of excited children when they realized who was interrupting their game. A few of them jumped up and down while others were running towards them. A little girl giggled as she slammed into Zanika, clinging to her leg.
“Zani!
Zani!”

The brunette smiled down at them, “Hey there, little ones. What is going on?”

“Zani!
I need you to braid my hair!”

“No, no, braid mine!”

“I’ve got a splinter, help!”

“Make a daisy chain with me!”

“Come play soccer with us!”
And that got all the kids going, chanting ‘soccer, soccer’ as one voice.

Zanika laughed and scooped up one of the children, carrying her.
“Alright, kiddos.
Everybody just calm down.
I see we already have teams formed.” Mathieu thought she might be referring to how some of the kids were covered in a lot more dust than the others, but he didn’t ask.

In the group of clamoring children, one had stayed quiet. But now she raised her hand, her curly hair swaying in a slight breeze. “Uh, Zanika, there’s a less dusty field on our farm. Papa won’t mind if we use it.” Her voice was soft, but it cut through the din of the others.

Zanika shrugged one shoulder and motioned for the girl to lead on. “Let’s go, Mathieu.”

~*~

Mathieu flopped down in the grass, covered in sweat and dust.
“Holy cow.
Those aren’t kids, they’re monsters.”

Zanika sat beside him and handed him a bottle of water. “They’re good kids. I like them and we get along.”

“Do you play every day with them?”

“I try to. We play different games, or we go visit other areas. Most of the parents enjoy the fact that I get the kids out of their hair for a while and I like their company.”

“I hear you normally have good company. Darcia and Kiev have lived with your guys, right?”

She bobbed her head. “Man, Kiev…” she said, lying back as well. “That is one tough girl.”

“Yeah, she’s quite the fighter.”