cave. Winded, Ronan scrambled to his feet and turned just in time to see Morgandy standing in front of him. But it wasn’t the Morgandy he remembered; this was something new and ugly.
His face twisted and transformed right in front of Ronan’s eyes. His beautiful curls disappeared to reveal shorn locks that looked like a madman had pulled them out of his scalp. His eyes were black, surrounded by jaundiced irises. Only his teeth remained recognizable, pure white with two exquisitely chiseled fangs on either side of his mouth. The rest of his body looked deformed, burnt, and raw.
Morgandy showed no signs of feeling any pain, but Ronan felt his heart break with pity and fear just looking at him. “Morgandy,” Ronan said, his voice barely a whimper. “What’s happened to you?”
His full lips now just a thin vertical, sliver of red, Morgandy smiled and opened his mouth to speak.
Even before any words were uttered, a rancid smell rushed out to invade and claim the air, making Ronan wince. “That might have been your destiny, Ronan,” the creature hissed. “But it wasn’t mine.”
Confused and frightened, Ronan watched this thing that Morgandy had turned into run out of the cave, leaving him alone, broken, and lost. Watching Morgandy swim past him, Ronan refused to let those feelings take control of him again.
Surging forward, he somersaulted and pushed off the side of the pool with every ounce of strength in his legs. It was enough to catapult him through the water so he was now a mere shoulder length behind Morgandy. Above him he could hear the crowd respond to the sudden shift in action, and using his preternatural hearing he could hear Michael cheering him on loudest of all. He also heard David mumbling something about an angel’s wings, but he didn’t have time to decipher the headmaster’s cryptic meditation. It didn’t matter; Michael could do it for him.
Keeping his eyes focused on the match in the pool and not on David who was now standing in between two of the starting blocks, Michael blocked out all other sound so he could listen to what the headmaster was saying. Michael was startled when he realized he was eavesdropping on a prayer.
“O Zachariel, lord and master,” David said so softly it couldn’t be heard by a human ear, “give this child an angel’s wings so he can fly in the water like you can fly through the clouds.”
Abruptly the prayer stopped, not because David was finished, but because he noticed Michael staring in his direction. Involuntarily, Michael had been drawn to the odd words and failed at trying to act in secret, but he didn’t care. Let David know that he had been caught; let him know that he couldn’t always dupe everyone; let him know that he couldn’t always emerge the victor. And neither could Morgandy.
After slamming one hand down onto the edge of the pool first, Ronan pumped a fist into the air. A roar went up in the crowd, and one by one the kids jumped into the pool and surrounded their team captain, who proved once again that he was undefeatable.
Michael, Ciaran, and Nakano held back and watched Morgandy reach up to grab David’s waiting hand. With one easy pull the boy was lifted out of the water and onto the gym floor. David threw a towel around Morgandy’s shoulders and whispered something in his ear. “Did you catch that?” Ciaran asked.
“Well, I saw it, but I didn’t hear anything,” Michael replied. “What do you think that means?”
Both he and Ciaran looked at Nakano thinking that he must know what David’s motives were since he was part of his race, but they were wrong. “Don’t look at me,” he growled. “I’m in the dark, just like the two of you.”
A few weeks ago Michael wouldn’t have believed Nakano; he would have assumed he was concealing information. But having witnessed firsthand the subtle changes in his character, Michael knew Nakano was telling the truth. Even though it meant that Morgandy’s presence was that much more of a mystery, it made Michael feel better. At least he could start to trust Nakano again, as weird as that sounded to him. He just wished he knew what Morgandy was doing here and why David seemed to be so interested in his arrival. Once again Blakeley put an end to such speculation and brought everyone back to reality. Well, him and his whistle.
Before the shrill sound stopped blaring through the gym, Blakeley raised Ronan’s arm in the universal sign of the victor. He didn’t need to speak. He didn’t need to announce that Ronan had won and therefore maintained Double A’s bragging rights. The kids got it, and they responded loudly.
“I guess our illustrious coach doesn’t realize that it’s a moot point,” Ciaran said to Michael.
“Morgandy’s a student now, not a member of the Swedish team, so even if he won, Double A wouldn’t have lost.”
Thankfully the crowd was still cheering, so Michael just had to shrug his shoulders and smile. He didn’t need to offer his suspicions that having Morgandy as their newest student meant just the opposite: their school was in more trouble than ever, and it wasn’t something that should be celebrated. Blakeley had other ideas.
Still holding Ronan’s arm up in the air, he grabbed Morgandy with his free hand and raised his arm as well. “And welcome the newest member of the A team!”
This time Blakeley’s announcement was met with silence. “C’mon, you dumb gits!” he shouted.
“He may be new, but with van der Poole on the bloody team, we’re sure to take top prize at Nationals!”
That got the crowd going once again. Michael clapped along with the others, but as if he was at some old man’s golf outing. He felt as uncomfortable as he knew Ronan must, having to stand a few feet away from the person who had practically destroyed his life. Finally, Blakeley let go of both boys and announced that along with Ronan and Morgandy, he and Fritz would be on the A team. Michael felt a crest of heat pulse up his neck as he realized Nakano was now relegated to the B team. Much to Michael’s surprise, Kano took the news that he would join the B ream of Ciaran, Alexei, and Ralphie Torino, the Italian kid who did the backstroke faster than anyone, in silence.
Nakano didn’t speak, even in the locker room, even when everyone was talking about how great Nationals was going to be, even when he overheard some other kids expressing their shock that Fritz got put on the starting team over him. He only broke his silence once, when Ronan asked him why he thought Morgandy was acting as if he had never seen him before.
“Guess time does heal everything, mate,” was all Nakano said.
One by one the kids left the locker room, patting Ronan on the shoulder or giving him a high five.
Michael didn’t understand why Ronan was moving so slowly; he was usually the first one dressed and ready to leave. When he saw Ronan look over at Morgandy, who was slipping out the side door, he knew why.
In the first shadows of dusk, they saw Morgandy sprint into The Forest, and, without speaking to each other, Michael and Ronan chased after him, careful not to step on a twig or make any noise to give themselves away. At some point, Michael reached forward as Ronan reached back and their hands met; they traveled as one until they came to a small clearing. Hovering over the ground for a few seconds they landed gently and silently on the grass, positioning themselves behind a cluster of oak trees to watch Morgandy feed on a man, who, by his dirty appearance and the state of his tattered clothing, appeared to be homeless.
Morgandy held the man tightly, his mouth fastened to his neck, until all color and expression left the man’s face. The body dropped to the ground with a thud, and Morgandy leaned back on his haunches, twisting his neck from side to side so his head moved like that of a cobra. Then, slowly, his long, black tongue flicked the stray drops of blood off of his chin and lips until his face was clean.
Expecting Morgandy to rise and travel to The Well to complete his feeding, Ronan tapped Michael on the knee, and they stood up together. To their surprise Morgandy didn’t move. They heard a rustling and saw some of the treetops flutter even though there was no wind, and finally Morgandy moved, but only to turn toward the trees and wait. When they saw David, wearing only his dress pants and carrying his shirt in his hand, emerge from the thicket on the other side of the clearing, they realized he had been expecting company. Taking cover once again, they also realized David and Morgandy were more than headmaster and student.
“Did you enjoy your meal?” David asked, his massive chest slowly rising up, then down.
“He was surprisingly tasty,” Morgandy replied, “for a vagrant.”
Laughing grotesquely, David ran his fingers through the thick mass of red hair on his chest and replied, “Every man does have a purpose.”
Peeking around the side of the trees, Michael and Ronan saw David circle Morgandy and carelessly step onto the dead man’s leg, the bone snapping in two underneath his weight. It was when he turned around, however, that they were really shocked. He had two deep gouges in his back, vertical in shape and on top of his shoulder blades. They weren’t bloodied, but congealed, like scar tissue, and must have been old wounds, because the rest of him was unscathed. Plus, when he put his shirt on they saw that there were no rips or tears in the cloth. They
