The Taste Of Night

Tekla sighed heavily. “Give them time to find their equilibrium. Let the balm of the familiar, and the safety of sanctuary blight the images they’ve brought back with them. There will be time enough for questions tomorrow.”

“But more people will be dead tomorrow,” I said, unthinking, and was immediately ashamed. Of course the troop needed rest. But I needed to tell Micah about the virus, though I still hadn’t figured out how to do so without tipping him off to how I knew it was a virus.

“More will die anyway,” Tekla said, and wandered away, her robes and then the hallway swallowing her up. I shuddered, watching her leave. That wasn’t pessimism. It was prediction.

With a muttered good-bye, Marlo followed Tekla back to the astrolab. I swallowed hard and turned to discover Rena already facing me. Tall, she wore a shapeless, long white robe similar to Tekla’s, hazardous considering her occupation. Still, she never seemed mussed, untidy, or ruffled. Her hair, which must have been a vibrant red at one time, had faded to a soft copper, gray wisps threading away from her temples to the bun lying just above the base of her neck. Her only adornment was a pair of gold disks circling her ears, and those appeared larger than they were simply because they winked so close to her sunken and scarred eye sockets. The rest of her face was lined only with the normal evidence of age. She’d been the troop’s senior ward mother for a long time now.

And, I thought, swallowing hard, if she’d had eyes, I’d say she was glaring at me right now.

“What?” I said, resisting the urge to look behind me.

“Maybe you’re the one who should be answering a few questions,” she said, and harsh anger sharpened her words.

“What do you mean?”

Her expression tightened. “I know you left, Olivia. Not just the sanctuary, but the boneyard. I went searching for you, and followed your scent all the way until it disappeared into a solid block wall.”

Oh shit. I’d forgotten that despite the cross-hatching of scars marring the lids where her eyes should have been, Rena could see better than most people with 20/20 vision. Superheroes included.

“I have a good reason,” I started, but she waved the words away impatiently.

“There’s no good reason to ignore the direct orders of your troop leader. Ever.”

And nothing I said could change her mind. Rena High-tower was charged with raising the children of the Zodiac until they entered their third life cycle, so every troop member that’d just passed us by had been, and in a way still was, her child. All except me.

I glanced around to ensure we were alone, then stepped closer. “All I did was follow them to the place where they found their first victim. Then I came right back. I just had to see.”

“Imagine the trouble I could get myself into if I just had to see?” she said, so bitingly I had to wince. “Restrictions are put on us for a reason. You were told to stay here and you should have done just that.”

“But-”

“Don’t but me, Olivia Archer,” and I knew I was in trouble because she’d never used my full name before. “You disobeyed a direct order, and as soon as Warren doesn’t act like another disappointment is going to crush him, I’m going to tell him.”

“No!” My voice came out louder and harsher than I intended, and I grabbed her hand without thinking. She jerked back with more strength than I knew she possessed, and I’d already started apologizing when she grabbed my hand again. “Where did you get this?”

I should’ve known Rena would be the first to notice the ring, even without eyesight. I considered lying for a moment, but the question had been asked with more curiosity than anger. “My locker,” I said, causing her to nod to herself as the metal circling my finger warmed beneath her touch. “It was…waiting for me when I came back this time.”

Waiting was the only way to describe the way the locker proffered its occasional contents.

“She must’ve left it for you,” she said, and her expression softened as she rubbed the ring with her thumb, then smiled. She sighed it away almost immediately, and dropped my hand. Louder, she said, “It’s a special ring, Olivia. One you’re obviously meant to have.”

The discovery had taken some of the venom from her voice, and that relieved me enough to have me regarding it anew. “Yes, but why?”

“That’s up to you to discover, but I can tell you what it does…or at least what it did for your mother.” She reached for my hand again and lifted it high, tracing the grooves around the cloudy stone. “Though it’s beautiful, it’s not only an ornament. See how the slits carve up and under the stone?”

I nodded before realizing she couldn’t see the movement. “Yes,” I said.

“If you follow those grooves and pull up on the stone, it’ll unhinge. Depress it again, and in that moment, you’ll have the power to call anyone to you, no matter where you are, and no matter what the circumstances.”

I’d known there was a way to call enemy agents to you, though call was a deceiving term. Invoking an enemy’s name would reveal your location by loosening your scent on the wind, so we trained to dampen our emotions and keep this from happening. It’d never occurred to me to draw them to me on purpose. And, I thought, studying the ring with renewed interest, it’d never dawned on me that there might be a way to call allies to your side as well. “You mean…like a get-out-of-jail-free card?”

She almost smiled at that, and inclined her head. “All you have to do is think of that person, and they’ll be there.”

“That’s awesome,” I said, studying the ring with new-found awe.

“Yes, but…”

I sighed, dropping my hand. “There’s always a but.”

And now the smile came. “And this time it’s also a condition. You can only use this ring once. After that it loses all powers and must be passed onto someone else.”

But one shot was all I’d need. I knew exactly who I’d call…and Rena did too. She shook her head and gave me a sorrowful smile. “Your decision cannot be made lightly, Olivia. You were given this ring for a purpose, and regardless of what you want, that purpose must serve the troop and the citizens of this valley. It’s a great honor to be gifted with a physical totem. You must choose wisely.”

I sighed, my heart sinking. Why’d there have to be a friggin’ lesson in everything?

Glancing back up at Rena, I saw some of the tension had left her body. Obviously if the locker was showering me with gifts of this magnitude, she’d trust I was still doing my best for the troop. Now to convince her that keeping silent would do the same. “Please, Rena. I need a little more time.”

Rena’s look was both patient and critical. She’d been a mother for a long time. “You keep doing things on your own and you’re going to find yourself with all the time in the world. Alone.” She took a symbolic step backward, and I suddenly felt just that. “I know you’ve had only yourself to depend on in the past, but you have to learn to work within the structure of this group. You can’t keep going off on your own because you have a hunch you think might help.”

“I’m trying to work with the group. If you haven’t noticed, I’m the one who’s been left behind.”

She said nothing, which I found encouraging.

“Just…” I blew out a long breath, trying to figure a way to explain myself without giving anything away. “There are things I know…or not know but feel, because of my Shadow side. Warren wants me to pretend it doesn’t exist, and Tekla wants me to stomp it down until it really doesn’t, but if restrictions are put on us for a reason, Rena, then so are abilities. What good is such a skill if I don’t use it for Light?”

Rena’s lips thinned as she searched for an argument. “We’ve always gotten by without the help of Shadow intuition before. The power of Light has always been enough.”

“Yes, but have you ever seen anything like this before?” I said, throwing an arm out to the chute, and the world above. I didn’t say the second sign of the Zodiac had been fulfilled, but I decided to hint at it. “You know we’re the real targets, don’t you? These mortals are only collateral damage. They’re coming for us, they’re coming here to the sanctuary, and they won’t stop until every child of yours burns.”

Rena gasped and I winced, knowing she was putting the scent that lingered in the air together with the faces she’d traced beneath her fingertips every day.

“Shouldn’t we use any tool available to see that doesn’t happen?” I said, softer now that I saw her wavering. “Even an instinct derived from the Shadow side?”