The Beast of Callaire Page 3

  I wake up at three in the morning with my face plastered to a book and my head swimming. I roll over in bed—and promptly remember I’m not in bed right as I thump to the floor.

  I curse into the silence, and realise it’s not silent. Someone is knocking.

  My body reacts quicker than my mind, taking me to the door before I’ve even found the key. I groan, hunting for them in the usual places: the sideboard, the windowsill, the floor. They’re nowhere in sight. Fists pound against the door. I snap my head around to shout at them, but moonlight catches on the keys in the door and I bite back the words.

  Swearing under my breath, I throw the door open and come face to face with a blank-eyed Minnie.

  “Min?”

  “She will find you on the day of all days, the beginning of beginnings, at the end of ends. She will find you, and you will find the heart of her, and you will fall.”

  “Ah crap.” She’s in a trance, stuck in a vision of someone’s pathway—mine apparently. ”How did you get here?” The Academy is at least a half hour’s walk away, if not an hour.

  “You will fall so far.”

  “Yeah, lots of falling. Did you walk here?”

  “Your heart knows her already.”

  “That’s lovely.”

  “You will fall.”

  “You’ve already said that a few times.”

  In her head, I shout, Minnie!

  She blinks suddenly. “What the—?”

  “Having a midnight stroll?” I ask, trying not to smile.

  “I …. My feet hurt.”

  “I bet. You should probably head home.”

  She massages her head. “What did I say?”

  “Falling. End of all ends. The usual.”

  She stumbles through the door.

  “By all means—come in. Make yourself at home. Take my bed if you want.” Sleep theft makes me grumpy.

  Minnie, half asleep, misses the absolute sarcasm in my voice. “You’re an angel,” she says, and dives face-first onto my fluffy bed cover.

  I drag a hand over my face and shut the door.

  *

  I’m forced to look smart. Minnie insists my usual look of ‘hippie disarray’ won’t be suitable for a meeting. I don’t see why not. It’s hardly a gathering of The Shadow Ministry; it’s just the motley crew of people who live with Minnie at The Academy. It’s just The Red. Still, I wear trousers and a blazer to shut up Minnie’s endless whinging.

  The Academy is a large red-brick building, as deep as it is wide. I expect faces to press against the windows to get a glimpse of me but the rooms look empty. Taking a deep breath, I step over the threshold.

  I haven’t been here since I inherited my trust fund and had enough money to escape. It wasn’t terrible living here, but after years of hatred and disgust I wanted out. It makes my skin prickle to be back.

  I peer into familiar rooms as I walk down the hallway. The place is a mismatch of mahogany furniture, cheap Ikea wood, gaudy ornaments, and paintings—most passed down family lines, from Numina to Legendary to Legendary. There’s a riot of colours both bright and pastel, twenty personalities clashing in every room.

  The kitchen is wide and airy, the frigidity of outside seeping in through an open window. I close it without thinking, forgetting this is no longer my home. Minnie gives me a long, knowing look.

  “You miss it,” she says, chewing on a fingernail.

  Without answer, I stalk down another hallway, this one with dark wood doors and lush carpet. I didn’t want to come here. I never planned to be a part of the meeting but Minnie begged and persuaded so here I am, nervous and unwelcome, my heart drumming.

  A deep voice comes from the door at the end of the hall, steady and calm. It’s enough to make me feel less out of place. At least one person won’t be annoyed that I’m here.

  I pull in a breath, hold it, and walk into the room.

  Everyone turns to stare, shocked no doubt by my untimely appearance after two years of avoidance. I lower my eyes and slide into a seat at the long table.

  “Sorry we’re late,” Minnie says, sitting beside me. She smiles wickedly, daring anyone to say something out of line.

  Mavers springs out of his chair, coming to stand behind me. His hands rest on my shoulders as he resumes talking. When the others begin muttering to each other, arguing over every topic as usual, Mavers squeezes my shoulders and thinks, Thank you for coming. I know it’s difficult for you to be here.

  No, I say back, It’s fine.

  I’m glad you’re here. Guy has been more difficult than usual. Though he’d never admit it, I know he’s worried for you, being out there on your own with the hunters.

  I shake my head, fixated on the table. Yeah, right. Guy would never worry about me. He might be my brother but he hates me. He’s always hated me, for as long as I remember. The only memory I have of him not being spiteful or aloof was when I first came to The Red. I was six. Mavers had saved me, picked me out of the Legendary equivalent of the foster care system—I’d had twelve carers by the time I was five—and when he brought me to the newly set up Academy, Guy was here. Mavers told us we were related and I cried because I wasn’t alone anymore. Guy held onto me while I sobbed. That’s the last time we were civil to each other. After that I became a burden and Guy resented me.

  “Are you done with the freaky mind talk now?” a nasal voice slides across the table. I glower at Fearne. She coils dark hair around a finger and smirks at me with painted-red lips. Some things never change. When Fearne turned up at The Academy four years ago everyone was mostly friendly to each other, which left a vacancy for a Resident Bitch of The Red. Fearne was only too happy to fill the position, and she’s stuck in it even now.

  “Fearne, be kind,” scalds Amity. She meets my eyes and smiles, genuinely glad to have me here. I’m not sure why that shocks me. Amity is kind to everyone.

  “Why?” Fearne demands. “Why should I be nice to her when she’s betrayed us?”

  Cold slides through my veins. “Betrayed you?”

  “Someone told the hunters in Almery Wood that the beast isn’t a wolf like they thought. They know about us, and now they’re looking for the Academy.”

  “What?” The hunters know we’re Legendary? And The Red think I told them? “Why would I do that? They’d kill me if I told them the truth. I don’t have a death wish.”

  “Don’t act innocent. We all know you’re the one who told them.”

  Mavers stalks around the table, his low voice commanding when he shouts, “That’s enough!”

  A bulb above us bursts, sparks and glass raining on the table, and Fearne storms out of the room.

  Guy sighs and makes a gesture; the filaments and shards pull together and move back through the air until the bulb is whole again. By my next blink, the light is working and the table holds no evidence of Fearne’s Majickal tantrum.

  Mavers sinks into a chair, his hands running over the terracotta skin of his face. We’re all silent, not wanting to break whatever thought has taken him. After two tense minutes his attention falls on Cornelia and Priscilla Hannam.

  “Girls? Could you use your Persuasion to confuse the hunters?”

  The sisters glance at Mavers, their contemplative expressions mirrored on each other’s ivory faces.

  Cornelia says, “We could make them forget about us. And send them to Henacre Wood instead of Almery to keep them from our scent.”

  “That’ll give us enough time to find a better solution,” adds Priscilla. She and her sister join hands over the table, eyes unnaturally silver and smiles dainty.

  The Hannam sisters have always creeped me out a little. I think because they grew up with the Numina, they’re less human and more deity. All Dei are blatantly inhuman in some ways, but the sisters don’t seem remotely mortal—despite their human mother. I’m grateful I was raised on Earth, even though it means I was rejected by Venus—my mother—because at least I have a firm grip on who I am. The Hannam sisters float fro
m place to place, using their Persuasion Majick for anything and everything they need.

  “Thank you,” Mavers says, interrupting my thoughts.

  “Are you done?” Minnie practically bounces in her seat. “Is the meeting over?”

  Mavers’s eyes track the Hannam sisters as they leave. “It’s over.” Everyone else leaves, save for a few of us who stay behind. I don’t move. I feel tied to Minnie, like I’m a guest and can’t go anywhere in this house without her permission—which I suppose is true.

  A lithe figure pushes onto the table next to me, sweeping glasses and papers aside as he leans back on his elbows. “Hello, lady,” he says with an easy smile. “It’s been a while.”

  “Yeah.” I grab a sheet of paper and busy myself reading it. It turns out to be a poster recruiting hunters to ‘SAVE THE PEOPLE OF CALLAIRE’. I shove it away in disgust. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it. You’re here now.”

  I look up at him—wild ginger hair around a pale, freckled face—and frown. “Vic, I’m not staying. I’m only here because Minnie forced me.”

  “Oh.” His joy fades and my heart does a guilty flop in my chest.

  “I did not force anyone,” Minnie shouts from across the room, gesturing wildly. “I only influenced. A little.”

  Vic’s chest shakes with silent laughter. I touch the pendant at his throat without thinking. It’s a strip of metal bashed and bent into the shape of a wave. I remember when I gave it to him. Vic catches my eye and flashes an optimistic smile.

  I release the pendant, feeling my lips twitch. “Still not staying,” I say. “I can’t live here again. I have a life outside of all this now.”

  “So do I.” He holds a hand to his chest like I’ve wounded him. “I have a very lucrative job at a corner shop, and”—he leans forward, whispering—“I have a date.”

  “That poor girl.”

  He glowers. “I’m a catch. She doesn’t know I’m a Selkie yet but I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

  “Oh yeah. You turn into a seal on the Crea moon, no big deal. Everyone expects that bombshell on the first date.”

  “She doesn’t know about the other thing, yet, either.” He chews his lip. “I hope she’s fine with that too.”

  I pat his hand. I can’t promise him that she’ll be okay with it. In just The Red, there are people completely unbothered by Vic’s gender, but there are others—Rowan, Fearne, Harriet—who still call him Victoria. Half of the time I don’t think they mean to be offensive. They genuinely don’t know how to deal with a transgender person.

  “If she’s not,” I say, “she isn’t worth having.”

  “Yeah.” He shrugs. “Well at least I don’t still live with my parents. That’s a plus point, right?”

  We both go quiet at that, thinking about why neither of us lives with our parents—because they deemed us unworthy of life in the Legend Mirror.

  Vic raises his eyebrows at his own comment, then bursts out laughing. It’s hard not to join in.

  The abandonment will always hurt but we’ve grown up with it, got used to feeling like rejects. It’s more something to laugh at than something to cry over. I’m grateful again that I grew up with The Red and not alone with useless foster parents. I let out a groan and realise Minnie was right. I do miss them—some of them anyway.

  Vic tilts his head. “What’s wrong?”

  Minnie interrupts my answer, clicking her fingers at Vic and shooing him away. “We need to have a Girl Talk.”

  “No we don’t. We really don’t.”

  Vic is on the verge of laughing again. Min points a crooked finger at him and says, “You. Leave.” Glancing into the corner she calls, “And you. Stop skulking around.”

  I turn, accidentally meeting Guy’s eyes. He looks back at me evenly. Why was he waiting around? I never noticed he was there. Was he listening to me and Vic talk? I look away. He leaves quickly.

  “He’s worried,” Mavers says, hands clasped as he comes towards us. “I can see it in his eyes.”

  “He just can’t stand having me around.”

  “I don’t think that’s true.” Minnie fidgets, suddenly awkward with her hands. “I think he cares about you a lot.”

  I rise, tucking the chair under the table. “Interesting way of showing it.”

  Mavers exhales a long suffering sigh, leaning against the window behind me. I look at him worriedly, not wanting him unhappy with me even now. Mavers’s opinion of me matters. With amusement he mutters, “I am tempted to lock the two of you in a room until you sort out your problems.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t.” I pull my blazer closer around myself and tell my friends I’m going home. I surprise myself by being sad to leave them behind. I’ve been fine without them, and they’ve been fine without me, but it’s nice to be with them all the same.

  I walk swiftly down the hallway and past the cluster of Legendaries in the kitchen. Rowan sneers as I pass, filling in for Fearne since she’s nowhere in sight. Gods forbid I stay in this house one second without being reminded of how despised I am. A jet of water spouts from the tap above the sink; a ball of water dances across the room and explodes above Rowan’s mousy head. Expletives fill the room as I hurry out of it.

  I can’t be blamed for what happened—I have no water Majick—but it wouldn’t surprise me if they tried to. I burst out of the stifling house to the open relief of the courtyard, and then I whirl on Vic. He’s wearing the most deceptively innocent expression I’ve ever seen.

  “Are you trying to get me even more hated?” I ask. I’m not angry—I couldn’t care less about being best friends with Rowan—but Mavers will end up cleaning the water damage. If he thinks it was my fault it might hurt the relationship we have, which is already stretched thin by my years’ absence.

  It hits me all at once how I’d never have seen Mavers again, never have bothered to visit my friends, if it hadn’t been for Minnie showing up in the night with her crazy warning.

  I’ve been unreasonable for two years but I’m changing, right now.

  “Nobody hates you, Yas.” Vic bumps my shoulder. “You just think everyone does. Besides Rowan deserved that. He’s been bitching at me for days.”

  I don’t argue. Rowan generally deserves everything he gets.

  Minnie erupts through the main doors. Her presence is big enough to fill the courtyard and her brown eyes scream Girl Talk. I back up, holding out my palms, but she grabs me by the arm and hauls me away. Vic watches with a quirked eyebrow.

  “You didn’t tell me!” Minnie squeals when we’re out of earshot. “I had a vision. You met a girl! She saved you from the hunters.”

  I take a step back, not expecting that. The beast rages at the continued show of submission, wanting me to overpower Minnie.

  “She’s your—”

  “If you say epic love or one true love or anything else from a fairy tale, I will actually genuinely kill you.”

  “Soul mate.”

  I will melt all of your figurines, I think menacingly. Minnie gasps in horror at the thought of her fairy collection sabotaged.

  You will not!

  I give her a look that says I definitely will.

  “Fine,” she whines. “I won’t tell a soul. But you need to find out what she knows.”

  “She doesn’t know anything.”

  “Not yet. Like it or not, I had a vision about the two of you. Two visions actually.”

  I wrap my arms around my middle, vulnerable. I can’t think about love, about falling for someone who has the power to hurt me beyond repair. I definitely can’t consider Fray being that person, even if she is pretty and brave.

  Minnie leans on her tiptoes, and I think she’s going to hug me but of course she’s checking where I was shot. She frowns at the unmarred skin and sets herself back on the ground.

  “I’m guessing Fearne didn’t heal you ….”

  “It doesn’t change anything.”

  She throws her arms up. “Numina! Why a
re you both so stupid?”

  I stomp away from her, huffing with frustration when I remember I came here in Minnie’s car. I’m silent as she unlocks the doors and turns over the engine.

  “You mark my words, Yasmin Ex Venere, I will get you and your brother to fix your issues if it kills me.”

  I look at her with a sudden jolt. “Min, you know not to say something like that.”

  Her knuckles go white on the steering wheel. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t think.”

  I lean back in the seat and close my eyes, running though the mantra Mavers taught me when I was old enough to understand it.

  Don’t tempt the Gods. Don’t give the Numina any excuses.

  The Numina are fickle, impulsive beings with more power than any one creature should possess. They could wipe out half of humanity with one bout of anger—we’d be the light bulb to Fearne’s tantrum. There’d be no Guy to piece us back together. No God would go against another’s wishes to bring us back. Numina don’t stand against each other. If they did, it would throw the Legend Mirror into civil war.

  Nobody wants the Numina’s world in conflict. It was bad enough when they had minor quarrels and caused the World Wars. If the Numina were warring, the universe could fall in on itself.

  Minnie directs the car out of the courtyard. In the wing mirror I see Guy watching us, a twisted expression on his face. My heart flips. Maybe everyone’s right. Maybe Guy is worried about me. Maybe we could be civil if I just tried. But I’ve tried to make up with him before and had it shoved back in my face. I won’t set myself up for disappointment again.

  My eyes find the blinking time on the dashboard—barely noon—and I tell Minnie to drop me off in Callaire central. I need to work, to keep busy, so I don’t think about anything—Fray, love; Guy, family; Vic, Minnie, Mavers, friends I left behind.

  I think, maybe, I’m a horrible person.

  SEVEN

  THE VOICE

  My Majick manifested seven weeks after my thirteenth birthday, at the dining table. Guy was thinking vicious thoughts about our mother and Mavers was worrying that Amity would never love him back.

  With my family’s voices in my head every moment after that, I began to have nightmares. I remember thinking that a God must have infected me with hysteria. There was no other way to explain the force squeezing my throat or the pressure in my head.