Going Home

Sylis

As Paige’s truck speeds down the highway, we talk.

“Okay. Explain,” Paige demands.

I explain everything, with interjections from Grace. I can’t imagine what she’s feeling right now.

“How long have I been gone?” I ask.

“Three days,” Paige replies.

“Yecch. I need a shower. Did my teachers call?”

“Yes. I told them that you were too sick to come in to class. I also called your job and told them the same thing. By the way, I’ve saved your life 15 billion times.

”I’m well aware of that. You’re the best.”

“I know!”

Grace

As I listen to Shadow and Paige talk, I never miss my parents more than I do in this exact moment. I can’t understand why I had wanted to leave the Academy. It was like I had just had some idea, and I was too excited about it to carry it out. I just felt that my whole life up to this point would have been wasted unless I left.

“You will have to stay the night, and then tomorrow I’ll drop you off back at your place, Sylis,” Paige says. Shadow nods.

”Thanks, Paige.”

“No problem. What else are big sisters for, other than to supply gadgets?” Paige teases.

”Therapy. Oh, you may want to set up your arsenal of traps. Just in case they track us,” Shadow says. “You never know.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Paige replies.

A while later, we pull up in front of a little blue house. We get out and are greeted at the door by a tall man with black hair.

“Ah, bienvenue, ma cherie,” he says, to Paige I suppose.

“Hello, my sweet,” she replies, kissing him and entering the house. Shadow looks at me and rolls her eyes.

“Grace, this is Andre Rossi, Paige’s hubby,” she says. “Andre, Grace got us out of the Iris Academy.”

“A pleasure, mademoiselle,” he says, kissing my hand. Paige wrinkles her nose and ruffles Andre’s hair. I blush. Shadow gags into the corner.

“Dinner will be ready in 10 minutes, Sylis,” Andre says. “There is enough for two more.”

“Great,” Shadow says. She motions for me to follow her down a hall.

“This is the room I stay in when I stay here,” she says, opening a door.

“So Andre is French?” I ask.

“Yup. He and Paige met three years ago, and they got married last year,” Shadow explains. “Oh, and when we’re here, call me Sylis, not Shadow.”

“Right.”

Shadow takes off her equipment, and I follow suit. We leave our stuff in the room and go to wash up for dinner.

Later that night, I lay on the bed that Paige had set up for me and wonder what it is I’m doing. I can’t believe that I just left the Iris Academy! I suppose it was the only thing I could do, after helping Shadow/Sylis escape, but still!

I look over to where Shadow is sleeping. It’s amazing how easily she can sleep in the same room as someone who recently tried to kill her (or at least violently make her sleep). I sigh, wishing I could let go of things as easily as she can. I roll over and try to get to sleep.

Sylis

I sit up. It’s completely dark in the room I’m sharing with Grace. My senses are prickling. I look at the clock. It’s 3:30. Something is wrong…. I get out of bed and go over to Grace.

“Grace,” I say. “Wake up.” She does almost instantly, drawing a dagger as well. I take a step back.

“Calm down. There’s someone here.”

“Besides you, you mean?” Grace says.

“Yes, you idiot, besides me. Get your equipment on, we have to leave.” I gather up my stuff and quickly don it, then go to Paige and Andre’s room and knock on the door. Paige answers.

“Sylis?” she says sleepily.

“Paige, I’m really sorry, but there’s someone here. Grace and I have to leave,” I say.

“How in the world did they get past my traps?” Paige says wonderingly. “After all the trouble I went through to get the parts and set them up!”

“I don’t know how. The point is that they did. And they’re here. And we need to leave.”

“Where will you go?”

“Probably just back to my house, but the person downstairs doesn’t know that.”

“They’re actually in the house?”

“Yeah, I think they’re in the basement.” There was a door in the basement that leads up some stairs and outside, that’s probably where he got in. “We’ll draw him away, and then I’ll call you when we get to my house.”

“What if someone is at your house?”

“You know Solomon would have paged me. “

Paige hugs me. “Stay safe. Don’t get yourself killed,” she says.

“I’ve managed to survive for this long, I’ll be fine.” I say. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Let’s go,” I say to Grace, my nerves on fire. I take out my crossbow and we go down into the kitchen where the door to the basement is. I pause and put my ear to the door. Whoever this person is, he’s down there, and not trying to be particularly quiet about it. I quickly open the door.

“Hey, who are you and what are you doing here?” I call down the steps.

“I am a representative from the Iris Academy, and I’m looking for you!” a voice says, and a tall black form comes up the steps. Grace and I quickly turn and run out the door, just ahead of the someone. Outside, I tell Grace to just follow me, but keep maybe 5 yards away from me. I face back towards the door of Paige’s house just in time to see the Iris Academy rep come charging out. He looks around for a sec, trying to figure out which of us was who. He decides to just chuck daggers at both of us. I catch the one aimed at me, and Grace blocks hers with a sharp clang. She must have drawn her sword. I start running towards my house, which is a lovely three miles away. And then my pager starts beeping.

“Oh, for the love of…” I mutter as I quickly check it. A werewolf grouping, just a mile and a half away. Of course, I lost track of the days while I was a prisoner; looking at the moon confirms what I should have remembered. Yep, full. Crap.

“Shadow! We have more important things to do than checking cell phones right now!” Grace screams at me, while batting away a couple daggers.

“Keep up with me!” I yell back, and turn in the direction of the werewolves. I know a fast way to get there and it goes through some woods, and leading this dagger-chucking bozo into a pile of werewolves might not be a bad idea.

As we charge through the woods, I can tell Grace is tiring. I slow down a bit and run over to her.

“There’s a grouping of maybe four werewolves nearby,” I say to her. “I was hoping we could either lose the guy in the woods, or let he and the ‘wolves amuse each other while we take stock. I seem to have been right.” I can no longer hear the guy, but he probably isn’t that far behind. I hear howling coming from my left, so I head off in that direction, Grace right behind.

We come upon a clearing with the wolves in the center, howling away. Grace quickly puts her sword away in favor of throwing daggers, and throws a couple into the group. One werewolf falls, whining, and we burst out of the trees and charge the wolves. My right arm starts twitching, as it usually does when I face lycanthropes. I ignore it and concentrate on the task at hand. Two of the werewolves are already dead, thanks to Grace, but more are coming. There are now ten instead of the initial four. Maybe more than Grace and I can handle, especially after running a mile with some crazy Iris Academy rep coming after us. Speaking of which, said crazy Iris Academy rep came bursting out of the trees, and after killing a werewolf, made a beeline to where Grace and I are. He has to get rid of a couple more werewolves to reach us, though. And while he is killing wolves, we are steadily moving away from him, putting more wolves between him and us.

A huge, ugly brute is in my sights, so I fire off a couple shots, only to have another pop up in his place. I quickly switch my crossbow for daggers and meet his charge. After a few minutes of this there are only two left and Grace and I finish them off. We quickly turn our blades towards the Iris Academy rep, who quickly sheathes his mace and put his hands in the air.

“Hey, is that any way to treat someone who just helped you out?” he says. Grace narrows her eyes, and I can tell she notices it, too. This isn’t the crazy rep. This guy is shorter, and has a deeper voice. I put my weapons away.

“Who are you?” Grace says, suspicious, and she still has her sword out.

“Metal, Anathema Reaper, at your service,” he says.

“Well, Metal, while you were coming here, did you notice anyone else around?”

“Besides you? No. Why?”

“No reason,” Grace says. “Thank you for helping us out.”

“Okay, Grace, we’re done with the little gratitude thing,” I say, turning to go.

“Is this a fedora?” Metal says, taking my hat.

“Hey! Give that back!” I say. I love my hat.

”Well, is it a fedora?”

”Yes, now please give it back to me.”

”Make me.”

”Okay!” I grab for my hat, and he, predictably, steps backwards. So I jump forward another step and snatch at it again. He barely jerks back in time.

”Alright, I’ll give you five seconds before I get my weapons and use them on you,” I say. I mean it, too.

“She means it, Metal,” Grace says. Kudos to her for backing me up.

”Right,” he says.

”One… two…,” I say, reaching for my weapons. Metal smirks at me.

”Three… four….” Metal loses his smirk.

“Five. Too bad for you,” I say, drawing my daggers. Metal backs up further. I give chase.

“Give me my hat!”

“NO!”

As we sprint past Grace, she reaches out and plucks the hat from Metal’s hand.

“Here you go,” she says, handing it to me. I promptly place it back on my head and glower at Metal.

“See, she’s a good friend,” I say. Yeah. A good, dagger-happy, mind-changing friend. “And now, we need to leave.”

“Oh, but I couldn’t just let you two lovely ladies go home without an escort!” Metal exclaims. “Allow me to walk you home.” Yecch. Chivalry is undead.

“Take us home? I don’t think there’re two women less in need of an escort than us. Plus, you don’t even know our names!” I say, thinking “and let’s keep it that way.”

”What are your names?”

”Grace.” D’oh!

“Shadow,” I say, through my teeth.

”There, now I do. So what do you say?”

I look at Grace, who is giving me a “can we keep him?” look.

”It’s up to you,” I say. “He’s probably the one who needs an escort.”

”Well then, Metal, we accept your gracious offer,” she says, a little formally I thought. We start walking. I am walking in front of them, since it’s my house, Grace may not remember the way, and Metal better not know where it is already. I can hear them talking, though.

“So tell me about yourself, Grace,” Metal is saying. I smirk, meanwhile willing Grace to shut up, considering we have no idea who he is. He seems to be a huge flirt. Grace tells him about the Iris Academy, and Metal shudders. Riven Control vampire, I am not.

”Sounds like a terrible place. I don’t blame you for getting out of there.”

I’m trying to figure out where Metal came from. There aren’t many Reapers in this area and I know them all. He could have come from the Iris Academy, but in that case Grace would likely recognize him, and he’s acting like he doesn’t know anything about the place. Somehow, I don’t think he’s a Reaper on holiday. Not in Morhall. Let’s see, what else do I know about him: 1) I don’t trust him. 2) I don’t like him. 3) He took my hat.

”So, what about you, Shadow?”

I’m taken off guard. I don’t exactly want to pour out my life story to him, and checking my quick mental score-sheet, he’s got too many marks on the wrong side of the ledger.

“I hunt the Anathema. What more do you want to know?”

He seems taken aback by my abrupt answer. I can feel Grace glaring holes into my back. Well, excuse me, missy, while you might want to pour out you heart to this guy, it’s just another piece of evidence of the difference between us.

We reach my house. I turn to face them.

“This is where we get off. Thank for your escort, Metal.”

”Yes, thank you. Maybe I’ll see you around sometime?” Grace says.

“Yeah, definitely,” Metal says. I suddenly understand with a jolt that I have just led this man straight to the place that we will be living! Who knows how he will use this information!

Maybe I’m just being overly-paranoid, but I highly doubt it. We walk in the door just as light begins to touch the sky. I yawn.

”Welcome home, Miss Sylis,” Solomon says as soon as I tap the control box.

“Thanks, Solomon,” I reply, watching Grace’s reaction out of the corner of my eye. She’s watching the control box, looking as if she expects it to start shaking the house apart. “Solomon, this is Grace. Grace, Solomon.”

”Welcome back, Grace,” Solomon says. Grace twitches.

“Well-,” I start to say, but Grace cuts me off.

“You’re really a piece of work, did you know that?” she says. Umm… what?

“What brought this on?” I ask, blinking at her.

“Why did you have to be so hissy at him? Oh, and by the way, I blame you for the Iris Academy coming after us.” Okay, the last part was completely expected, but… hissy?

“Excuse me? At least I didn’t pour out my heart and soul to some complete stranger! I’m just paranoid. If I could change, I would, but after 15 years of hunting, I’ve earned this level of paranoia!” Maybe it was because I’m so tired, but I’m suddenly really – what’s the word? – hissed. Maybe it has something to do with escaping from multiple grudge-holding idiots, the fact I haven’t had a proper sleep in a long time, or that I just had to deal with some inconvenient werewolves and an obnoxious free-lance Reaper who might be even worse than the ‘wolves. At least they disappear when you stab them.

“I’m going to call Paige, then bed. Grace, there’s a room down the hall that you can use. It’s already set up. Solomon, after I call Paige I’m going to bed. If so much as a cockroach sets an unauthorized foot on these premises I’m going to trade you in at Radio Shack.” With that, I stalk off to the kitchen and grab the phone. I dial Paige’s number.

”Hey, Paige? Yeah, we’re fine. Are you alright? Great. No, he just disappeared, but some other guy came in. No, it’s not the same guy, Metal’s shorter and has a deeper voice. And doesn’t make nearly as much noise as the first guy. ‘K. Love you, too. Bye.” I hang up and go to my bedroom. I take off my equipment, and notice that almost all of it is coated with blood. I’m too tired to do anything about it, though. Knowing perfectly well that the blood is only going to be harder to get out when I wake up, I fall into bed and am asleep almost instantly.

Grace

I go to the room Shadow had told me about, still fuming. What is with her? She just had to snap at poor Metal. Who cares about paranoia! That’s no reason to be rude. Her little attitude is getting on my nerves.

I lay on the bed, but no matter how tired I am, I can’t sleep. I like Metal, enough to flirt with him, and I do want to see him again. I can tell he is one who likes to flirt, but for some reason, that just turns me on.

After what seems like two hours (though it was probably only ten minutes), I fall asleep.

bookmark to: