“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!”
“I am your protector. Get behind me,” Kim said, shoving him back.
“Protector? You can’t take on that woman!” Brendan couldn’t believe what he was seeing. This kind of stuff happened in the movies or in comic books. Orcadia looked like a total badass and Kim, grade nine student at Robertson Davies Academy, was acting like she was going to throw down with this total nightmare. “I’ll say it again. Let’s run!”
“His instincts are good, Ki-Mata,” Orcadia sneered. “You can’t hope to resist me.”
“Ki-Mata? Kim, what is she talking about?”
“Zip it, Brendan,” Kim snapped impatiently at him. Then she snarled at the smirking stranger. “You will not take him. He is under my protection. And we are in the open, where the People of Metal will see.”
The cold laughter froze the air again. “What care I for the Humans? Vermin! The bird doesn’t ask the worm’s permission before devouring it! When we take back the world, they will know of us soon enough. They will have no choice! Ki-Mata? You honestly think you can stop me from taking him? Oh, that is rich.” Orcadia raised her arms slowly from her sides until they were spread like wings. As she did so, her body levitated off the pavement until she hovered a metre off the ground on a cloud of crackling energy. “Your house will keen 50 for you, Ki-Mata Na Graal. Alas, they will have no body over which to perform the rites.” Lightning crackled in icy blue filaments surrounding Orcadia’s form, outlining her in a nimbus of shuddering violet. She looked like a crane, 51 black as midnight, ready to spear a fish with its sharp beak.
“Don’t, Orcadia,” Kim demanded. “Not here. The Law forbids it.” As she spoke, Kim reached over her shoulder and pulled her field hockey stick out of her pack. It was nicked and scratched, the tape fraying on the handle, and Brendan doubted it would be very effective against the woman levitating in front of them.
“A field hockey stick? Are you kidding?” Brendan cried. “Do you have something a little nastier in there? I’m thinking a machine gun
…” He stole another look at Orcadia. “Or maybe a rocket launcher?”
Kim sneered at him, “Just stay out of my way!” She pushed him behind her.
This isn’t happening! It can’t be! I’m gonna wake up and realize all of this was a dream. Any time now! Like right now! Or maybe now?
“Laws are made for weaklings,” Orcadia hissed. “I am my own Law!”
“No,” Kim said, flexing her shoulders. “The Laws are there for our protection as well as the Humans’. We can’t survive without them.”
“Laws were made to be broken, so…” Orcadia shrugged. With a final peal of exultant laughter from her, the air itself ignited.
Or so it appeared to Brendan. A wave of blue fire flared out from her. She was like a star going supernova. In the instant before Brendan buried his face in his hands, he saw Kim whack her field hockey stick against the concrete paving stones. He waited for the end.
It didn’t come. He crouched, his arms over his head, waiting to be incinerated, but nothing happened. Instead, his nostrils were filled with the sharp smell of burning wood, like the fires his father made when they went camping. Because his father always managed to find the dampest wood available, his fires were more smoke than flame. Now there was heat, uncomfortable heat, but he wasn’t being burned alive.
He tentatively lowered his arms and stole a look. His mouth dropped open in amazement. Kim stood in the path of the blue flame, her field hockey stick firmly planted on the concrete. She was humming softly, a haunting, lilting sound that seemed to fill the air around them. Brendan couldn’t believe his eyes. Radiating from the hockey stick, a thick, thorny hedge sprouted in a protective shield. The branches of the hedge were large and black, glistening with sap. Wherever the white fire touched the foliage of the hedge, the sap bubbled and spat, turning to gas and dissipating the heat. Brendan followed the thorny brambles and discovered that the hedge sprouted from a single tiny crack in the pavement where a shoot of green vegetation had managed to force its way out into the light. Kim seemed to be coaxing the wall of thorns from this single small sprout. 52
The heat from the fire was intense. Brendan could feel his hair curling and crisping. The hedge wrapped around them in a cocoon of branches. If he hadn’t been in danger of being incinerated, Brendan would have felt more awe than terror. 53
“What is going on?” he cried. “How are you doing that?” He grabbed Kim’s arm.
The contact startled Kim, her singing faltered, and the hedge contracted. The heat washed closer and their clothing smoked.
“Don’t touch me! I have to concentrate,” Kim shouted at him. Brendan dropped his hand. She picked up the tune again and the melody steadied. The hedge inched outward again and the heat lessened. Sweat beaded on Kim’s brow.
Brendan peered through the branches and saw Orcadia. Her face was twisted with rage. She raised her arms higher. The heat intensified. Kim groaned and the hedge contracted. Brendan studied Kim as she struggled to keep
