The Thief

Meredith’s hand curls around Hyde’s neck. Steam fizzles up from her grasp.

“Shame,” she grins. “I’m a little sorry I caught you before you turned sixteen. If you’d been at full power this might have been more fun.”

Hyde coughs. I can smell his flesh burning from here. “I’m seventeen,” he says, lip curling.

She frowns, pausing. “No,” she says, lines of doubt creasing her forehead. “No, that doesn’t work. The last Wolf died sixteen years ago, the new one can’t be more than fifteen, you must be lying...” She stares at him as if she could see through him. “Damn it,” she says softly, then yells, “damn it!” hurling him from her. He hits the side of a table and slides to the floor. “It’s not you. How could it not be you? You’re perfect. The strength, the speed, the temperament. On top of that, you’re Regenerative. Those wounds are almost gone. Do you have any idea how rare that is? How can you have all that and not be the Wolf?”

“My secret is a balanced breakfast,” Hyde snaps hoarsely, his hand to his throat. The fresh scorch marks there are still visible, but already the burns on his arms have almost faded. I look at him, seeing him in an entirely new light. Holy crap, he’s practically Wolverine.

Meredith lets out a shriek of frustration, turning on me. “You know where it is!” she declares hotly. “I saw its touch on you the moment I saw you outside the library. It’s so close. You know. You’ve been protecting it this whole time.” She grabs the front of my shirt. Steam rises from the wet fabric. “Tell me,” she says through her crooked English teeth, “or I’ll start searing off non-vital parts until you do.”

My eyes go wide.

“STOP!” Camille roars.

I turn my head towards her, gaze pulling as if magnetic. Destin is backing away from her, slowly. The air around her seems to shimmer, like a pulse. Her right hand is on her bracer, white-knuckled, clutching at it like a lifeline.

“Bloody hell,” Meredith murmurs. “Was that all it took? All this time, and all I had to do was - ”

She slams my head against the wall and I slide to the floor, dazed.

“Leave my friends alone,” Camille bellows, and I don’t know how it happens - maybe I’m hallucinating, but I swear that the bracer pours off her arm, then clatters against the floor. A solid iron sword.

Meredith’s eyes widen, and she backs up. “That’s not...”

Camille picks up the sword, a fine tremor in her limbs. Her left forearm, where the bracer had been, is even paler than the rest of her skin, and covered in tiny white scars. I don’t think she notices. She points the sword at Meredith.

“Supposed to kill immortals,” she growls. “Want to find out?”

A ball of fire forms in Meredith’s hand, and a manic grin on her face. “Why not?”

She throws the fireball and Camille swings the sword, shearing it. Destin and I duck, expecting some sort of shrapnel, but the fire vanishes, seemingly swallowed by the blade.

“That is a handy trick,” Meredith says appreciatively.

Camille grins and lunges with a yell, Meredith twisting out of the way. The sword nicks her forearm and a few molten drops fall, searing holes in the floor.

Meredith curses, fending off another advance with a blast of flame. “Who in their right mind would teach the Wolf how to swordfight? That’s like putting lasers on a shark!” She hurls another burst at Camille’s feet, but she catches that with the blade as well. Lightning-fast, Meredith steps in, her hand closing over Camille’s holding the sword. Camille cries out and drops the blade. It slides across the lacquer gym floor. I start to reach for it instinctively, but it skids to a rest at the feet of someone who’d been suspiciously absent all day.

Kei reaches down and picks up the sword. “Let’s see you keep your cool without this,” he says, with a smirk at Camille.

I can barely believe my eyes as he dissolves into dark whorls, not quite smoke - and vanishes, sword and all.

Even Meredith looks baffled. But recovering quickly, she shrugs, grabbing the front of Camille’s gi. “Never look a gift horse in the mouth, I say.” Flames lick out from her hand, and with a cry Camille pushes away hard, the seared fabric flaking off her shoulders. Panic in her eyes, she runs with impossible speed out of the auditorium, in her undershirt and white karate pants, gold hair streaming behind her. Meredith swears and chases after her, with the speed of someone less supernatural.

Tailor stumbles through the back door, looking ill and clutching a roll of parchment. He takes in the charred ruin of the gymnasium and Destin and I standing in the middle. I wonder if we look as stunned as he does.

“Meredith,” he says.

Hyde climbs to his feet, brushing the ash from his clothes. “Too bad about Teague,” he says. “Now I’ll never get a decent rematch.”

“She’s not dead!” I snap at him.

Tailor reacts. “Camille! Where is she?”

“They just ran off,” I say, “and she’s lost the sword - or the bracer - or whatever it is - ”

“And Meredith knows she’s the Wolf,” he says grimly, and swears.

“Can’t you do something?” I plead. “Aren’t you Mr. Magicbreaker or something? Put her on ice, man!”

“It doesn’t work like that - ” he starts to protest, then glances down at the paper clutched in his hand. “But there is something. Come on, I think I know where she’s gone.”

Destin and I hurry after him, out the front doors.

“And what am I supposed to tell Umino?” Hyde snaps after us, left in the charred mess of upturned tables and glowing impact craters in the walls.

Jul, wherever you are, please be okay.

Jul

Gabriel and I stood before the orchard mirror, moonlight trickling through the branches overhead.

“It’s been an age since I’ve seen it,” he said, fingers brushing over the silver scrollwork around the edges. The surface shimmered and went transparent, showing the stone steps inside. “It remembers me, how charming,” he smiled slightly. He stepped through the surface, into the Tower. He glanced up the stairwell as I climbed in behind him, leaving the orchard behind for the cool stone interior of the Tower.

I started to climb the stairs, then paused as I realized he was still standing in the entryway. “Are you coming?” I asked.

“No, what we want is right here,” he said, running a hand over the iron wall at the base of the steps. A light frost spread across the metal from his touch and he jerked his hand back, as if burned. “I thought as much,” he muttered to himself. “Here’s where you’re needed, Juliet dear. Open the door to the cellar.”

I looked up at the solid sheet of iron, twenty feet high and ten feet across. “I - I don’t see a door,” I said.

“It’s there, love. Close your eyes and focus. I know you can do this - you’re the only one who can.”

I closed my eyes, brows knitting together in concentration.

“Think about seams and hinges,” Gabriel coaxed. “Imagine them in your mind’s eye. Think about handles and knobs and passing from one place to the next. Imagine that you see it.”

“What does it look like?” I asked.

“You tell me.”

Attention still turned inward, I invented a door. An outline appeared in my mind - a tall, thin aperture. Instead of a handle, a hideous iron-sculpted face protruded from the door, scowling and trollish, with large, knobby teeth and wide, unblinking eyes. “It doesn’t look like a normal door...” I murmured. “Where’s the handle?”

“Where indeed?” Gabriel asked.

Something in his tone made me open my eyes - there was the tall door with the statue staring back at me.

I took a step back reflexively. “The weapon is in there?”

“Iron is the only thing that I can’t breach, even when I was at my prime. They thought I could never regain myself this way. Now tell me, dear, how do we open it?”