I woke up to the steady beeping of a heart monitor. Additionally, I was in a bed. A nice, fluffy bed. That… was new. I’d almost forgotten what it felt like. The last week or so, I’d gotten used to waking up in cars, dark alleys, or cursed forests. Not beds.
Also, I wasn’t dead.
Whoop-dee-do.
I kind of wish I were.
Everything hurt. A lot.
There was a fire burning in my right arm where an eldritch-infested-daemon (whom I exorcised) had decided to try and turn it extra crispy. Besides that, all the pain below my neck formed a coalition that meshed into one giant blob of soul-rending pain. They screamed and fought to get in line, telling me that each of them needed attention.
My unbandaged hand rummaged inside the blanket, finding my stomach bandaged so tight that it might actually stop bullets. My back, too. My leg—the one with the twisted (broken? I couldn’t tell at this point) ankle— felt weird, and I had one terrifying moment of waking up to find a stump. But I could feel my toes wriggling. Right. It was probably just elevated in the air by one of those slings attached to the ceiling or something.
My thoughts froze. Wol, Hwari, they—
The weight on my stomach.Looking down, I saw the two curled up on my stomach.Opening my eyes in a hurry, I breathed in desperate relief.
Then I groaned as my head began to pound with an intensity that reminded me of that one movie where a Japanese dinosaur kaiju fights a gorilla.
“You’re awake.”
The voice sounded familiar. With great effort, I turned my head to see who it was. It took me a moment. The room, which was definitely a hospital room, had the lights turned off. No TV or cellphone screen was illuminating the darkness. A rarity in this day and age. The dim lamp in the corner was the only source of light in this place. But I’d recognize that specific unassuming build anywhere.
“Beta,” I said. The sound barely came out. I started coughing.
Beta handed me a cup of water, which I drank greedily. While drinking, I studied him.
Unlike last time, he wore a baseball cap, which hid most of his face, especially in the dark.He was in the same outfit as before.Leather jacket, jeans, t-shirt.Simple.Efficient.Stylish in a way that I could never pull off.
He took the cup away. “You remember your name?” He asked.
“Jain with an E at the end. Don’t get it confused with that other Jain guy. He worships devils or something.”
I saw movement around his face.A smirk, maybe.“Funny,”he said.
“How long was I out?”
“A day,” he said. “You know why I’m here?”
“Cause we’re friends and you wanted to make sure I’m okay, of course.”
“No,” he said without mirth. “You’re under Table protection.”
I lifted my neck and immediately regretted it. But before plopping my head down, I saw that the windows and door were closed.
He got what I was trying to do. “Just us, and no one can hear us. The Hudson Witch personally saw to it.”
“You didn’t need to say that. You could’ve just kept on protecting, which means that someone wanted you to say that to me.” I gestured for the water again.
He poured me another cup and waited until I finished drinking to talk. “I’m neither confirming nor denying anything you say, Hallow.”
“People are so dumb. That’s practically confirming. It’s easier to deny,” I said immediately. “Whoever wanted you to say that wants me to know I’m in danger.”
He said nothing this time.Which was practically another confirmation as far as I was concerned.
“I pissed off a lot of people in this city during the trial.” I kept talking. “Yet, you’re not telling me who. Which means, it’s someone they can’t just openly accuse.”
“You can stop talking now.”
I held up a finger in one of those mock ‘Ah-ha!’ moments. “Someone from the Table!”
“Jain Hallow,” Beta said, his voice strained.
“The Wick—”
He placed his hand over my mouth, bringing his face very close to mine.
He looked around the room, studying the window, the door, and even the TV screen, which was off. Only when he was satisfied did he look at me.
His eyes were smoldering with brown light. “You spit out the rest of that name, or play some smartass tomfoolery, you can be rest assured, you will be spending the rest of your time under my protection with enough drugs in your body to start making Philly Zombie Mules look clean by comparison.” He gave me a moment for the words to sink in. “You got that?”
I nodded.
The Table’s gunman released me.
“You need to wash your hands. Yuck,” I wiped my mouth on the bandage. “Lovely how the first thing I have to worry about when waking up is the possibility of an assassin. You know, they could’ve sent flowers. Or a fruit basket.”
“Assad sent a fruit basket.”
I stared at him. He stared back.
“Well, where is it? And if you ate some while I was asleep, I want you to know, I’m going to be following up with Assad on exactly what was in that fruit basket.”
He took a noticeable deep breath, the way people do when they’re trying not to blow up at a mouthy teenager. He exhaled even slower. “I already hate this job.”
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“Dude, most guys your age are doing summer internships. What the hell are you doing working as a supernatural witch hunter for the freaking New York bogeyman’s club?”
“The pay is better,” he said matter-of-factly.
“You know, with what I hear about the job market, I believe you.” I quipped. “Am I allowed to ask you questions?”
“You can ask.”
“My frie—” I stopped myself. “Abigail and Mina. Are they okay?”
“They’re both fine,” Beta said.
“Oh. Okay. Thank god.” I felt something deflated inside of me. It was the adrenaline wearing off. My eyelids started to droop. The moment I found out that everyone was okay—Wol, Hwari, Abigail, Mina… and Seoul too—it was like my mind no longer had any reason to stay awake.
Beta said nothing. He just settled back in his reclining chair. In my dazed stupor, I saw the gleam of something metallic on the nightstand next to him.
Ah, good ol’Mortal Ferromancy.
And the thought that ‘Mortal Ferromancy’ was the first word I conjured instead of a perfectly good word like ‘Gun’ was so ridiculous that I couldn’t help but smile before falling asleep.
***
The next few days were… well, I won’t get into the details. Suffice to say, it was a lot of waking up screaming, realizing that I was okay, getting a few bites to eat, and falling back into blissful unconsciousness. Since this whole thing started, I’d been running on the teenage equivalent of rocket fuel overdrive, and now that I felt safe, it came to hit me all at once.Honestly, when I looked back on what this ‘whole thing’ was, I’d have a tough time really explaining it to people.It helped imagining it as a music video montage with the song ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ by Keane.
A scene with me hanging on these bars for support and learning how to walk again. There are a dozen more scenes. Clenching my teeth as they changed out the bandage on my stomach and back. My arm, too, which didn’t look too bad. It might scar, but not those lumpy ones. Sending a note through Beta to the Hudson Witch to ask for permission for Hidebehind and Tagalong to remain in the Old Forest until I could get there. Falling asleep with the aid of sleeping meds. Weaning myself off of Morphine. A humiliating spongebath-thingie by a female nursing student only a few years older than me.
There were some good things, too. Movie night with Wol and Hwari. Reading the Three Little Pigs to Hwari’s commentary. Just shooting the shit to Beta sullen silence.
I got better. Eventually. I worked myself up to sitting up, then standing, walking, and then bemoaning how I was ready to be discharged. I was tired of being woken at random times of the night for Heparin injections and IV line changes. Unfortunately, the doctor in charge refused. When I impressed upon her the lack of insurance, she just gave me this look. Apparently, this entire hospital wing was funded by the Table so I didn’t need to worry about that.
She was the doctor who patched up my arm and leg the first time around. And get this, her last name was Nightingale. Fancy that.
Either way, she didn’t let me leave.
I… I had dreams.
Daemons. Vampires in human skin. Ghosts in dark corners. Birds that watched.
Things.
I think the hospitalization was just as much as it was for my mind than it was for my body.
Eventually, Beta left.I think it was less a matter of my competence to protect myself, and more a statement that the Table had managed to reach a consensus to make sure I wouldn’t get killed by the Wickerman.Or whoever else was working with him.
I also had visitors.
“—got out on the first flight out of JFK. Also, the Valentines basically lost all presence in New York. All the branch members are heading back to Europe or relocating to Canada.” Mina took a breath after speaking non-stop for about five minutes, catching me up on everything that had happened in the last few days. “Rumors are going around.”
“About?” I asked, one hand on my Calculus textbook. I couldn’t turn the page. Mostly because Wol decided the textbook was the best place to loaf.
“The Valentines are going into seclusion.” Mina had her own hand on top of Seoul’s head. “In Society terms, that means calling all their important family members back to to Main House and cutting off outside contact.”
“What are they, some kind of Wuxia clan?” I asked. By the blank look on Mina’s face, she wasn’t a fan of martial arts novels. I let it be and pressed on. “Let me guess. There’s a typical power vacuum, and people are scrambling to fill the void.”
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
I groaned. “I thought stuff like that only happened in history books or movies. Isn’t that too cliche?”
“Far from it, Practitioner,” Wol said. “Such vacuums are a driving force in how the universe works.”
“Conflict, Chaos, Change,” Hwari chanted.
Mina shrugged. “Well, I’d watch my head if I were you, Hallow. It looks like things are going to get dicey here.”
“It’s been dicey since Emyrith went all diddy on me.”
“…What?”
“Nothing. Inside joke,” I said. “By the way, what happened to you in the forest?” I gave a pointed look at the sling around her neck. Her left arm was broken.
Mina grunted. “I was ambushed by some kind of Fire spirit. A… what was it called, Seoul?”
“La Candileja,” Seoul said in flawless Spanish.
“Yeah, that. Some kind of Colombian fire spirit thing. It was…” Mina shook her head. “It wasn’t a familiar. I think it was there as a favor.”
“You couldn’t kill it?”
“No. When I got close… all these ghosts started popping up.” She looked out the window, which I kept open during the day. “It was bad.”
“How’d you get away?”
Mina immediately looked away. Her jaw did this weird movement, clenching and unclenching. She was frustrated. “Your friend helped out.”
I felt my eyebrows rise. “Abigail?”
She huffed out a long breath. “Yeah.”
I nodded. No need to pry. Knowing Mina, she wouldn’t share much anyway. Besides, I wasn’t particularly keen on nosing around in their business. In the first place, there was no need for me to know everything that goes on between the people around me. They were their own people. They deserved some secrecy.
Besides… Abigail wasn’t the type to help for free. The less I knew about the transaction, the better.
“Were the ghosts burn victims?” I asked.
She nodded. “What are you thinking?
“Fire spirit. Ghosts of burn victims. You do the math yet? And I’m not talking no Calculus,” I said. “Charlotte Valentine wasn’t working alone,” I reminded her carefully.
“As far as Society and the Table are concerned, she was,” Mina said. She didn’t look at me as she said it.
“That’s the official statement?”
“It is.”
I didn’t press.
The Korean girl got up to leave, looming over me. Seoul gave me a stern look cause evidently, it was my fault she decided to leave, and as a result, he stopped getting the chin rub.
Mina clenched her fist at her side, lingering before leaving. “Hallow. This whole thing feels weird to you?”
“Besides the Society part? Yeah.” I said. “It’s disjointed as hell. There’s a lack of connections between the events. Everything felt rushed. And even after it’s over, it’s like all the knots are untied, and the ends are too frayed to put them together. It’s hard to make sense of them.” I sucked in a long breath. “You know the missing link theory in Evolutionary Biology? Same thing.”
“It sounds like you already know.”
I nodded slowly.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” Mina said. “Historically, New York hasn’t been on… good terms with Society. It’s rare to see so many powerful preternaturals gathered in one place, and well organized too. In light of everything that’s happened, Society wants to take this opportunity to,” she did air-quotes, “keep an open line of communication for stabilizing relations.”
“They want to establish a presence here,” I said. “What? A branch office or something? An embassy?”
“Similar. An ambassador.” Mina smiled at me. It wasn’t a kind smile. “I’m it.”
Shit.
“What does that mean?” I asked, a little weary. I immediately found myself more guarded than before.
“For me? A full ride to NYU. A lot of new responsibilities. Leverage. New connections,” she replied. “It also means I’m the de facto Voice of Society in this place. And I’ll be overseeing your citizenry process.” She relaxed a bit. “I wanted you to hear it from me. You know. Start with a clean slate, so to speak.”
I sniffed. “You don’t owe me anything. If anything, I owe you. I never went over that contract with you. And you didn’t get to meet as many of the Table members as you liked.”
“Well, we were busy. I didn’t think you’d end the whole thing in basically two days,” Mina replied. “Besides, I got some connections now. Hudson Witch. Assad. I also got in contact with the Intellect Transit a few days ago using the method you taught me. I have a meeting with the Ravok family thanks to Sana.”
I blinked. The gears in my head turned slowly, like a train picking up speed. They would have refused her invitations before. At least, an invitation from Mina Baek. But now… the situation had changed. She wasn’t just another scion of the Baek Family here to participate in a trial. She was here with a purpose. And with that purpose came responsibilities. Power. A voice.
“Did you get your college acceptance letters yet?” Mina asked before I start thinking about what being an ambassador really meant.
“No,” I said. “I’ve been stuck here.”
She gave me a mock sympathetic look, dropping the all-business act for a split second. Honestly, I liked the slightly stuck-up, sardonic version of Mina better this way. A bird shouldn’t change their feathers overnight. It’s confusing.
“Okay. I’ve stated my position. I think it’s time to show you why I’m really here,” she said. Mina walked over to the door and then turned around, leaving one hand on the knob.
I narrowed my eyes. “What’re you doing?”
She wasn’t smiling. In fact, her face had gone absolutely neutral as Charlotte’s had been. The poker face was back. “I am obliged to tell you that your next guest is here in their official capacity as a member of Society. They have sworn under oath to offer you no harm. They will also adhere to the proper decorum expected of a guest.”
Then she opened the door.
An absolutely plain man walked through the door.He wore thinly-rimmed glasses, slightly rectangular but rounded around the edges.His light brown hair was thinning, but not too much so.Just enough to know that he wasn’t bald, but not long enough to be styled in any way.He didn’t slouch, but he wasn’t too straight-backed either.White button-up t-shirt, dark jeans, dark blazer jacket that middle-aged men wear. No beard.Just a stubble.Plain in every sense of the word.
A normal person might have looked sheepish at introducing the two of us, especially knowing everything that’s happened. She was smart enough to put two and two together. Or have her grandfather fill her in. Regardless, Mina took all the possible guilt she might have felt in this introduction and looked absolutely cold. Maybe this was why she wanted to clean our slate. Her new role meant doing things that could be construed as screwing me over.
She was drawing a line here.
“I’ll leave you two to it,” she said and left, closing the door behind her.
The man and I stared at each other for a minute.
“Jain,” the man said, his voice deeper than people might think from just his looks.
I swallowed. “Hey, dad."