White Raven, Night Crow: Chapter 2.1 - Don't Make a Sound

Cornyx

I was in a bed. The room was dark and the lights dim to the point where they were almost pointless to have. A dresser was next to me of the old antique-looking kind. I sat up and everything around me seemed to be upside down and sideways. I blinked and shook my head, trying to clear it.

The sound of the door unlocking; a mechanical hiss as light flooded into the room, a figure entering.

“Blackthorne. How do you feel?” the deep voice inquired.

I didn’t answer as everything finally stilled and I was able to get my bearings.

“Don’t go too quickly; the drugs in your system still haven’t worn off. You gave us quite the chase, you know. Most either fight or submit; few try to bring us to their turf like that.” He was a smallish man, with dark skin and thick black hair back in a ponytail. He looked strong for his size and wore a brown trench coat, which I was sure had guns in it. My senses were still dulled from the drugs, but logic and simple thought could let me at least extrapolate that.

I studied him, unsure if that a good thing or not. Everything in me warned of danger, but I knew I couldn’t fight — I was on their turf now. The demon in me snarled and growled as a caged monster, wanting out and was willing to fight with a fierce determination; the other part of me, however — the part that was just an orphaned boy — was scared and knew better than to try anything.

“At this point, you have two options: either you stay here or we bring you back.”

Why kidnap me if they were going to return me home? What kind of logic was that?

He watched me with those piercing brown eyes of his, reading me, waiting for some sort of reaction. I tried to keep a mask so that he couldn’t tell; I wasn’t to sure if it was working, however. “If you go back, someone will die, and when that day comes, I will kill you. One bullet through the head is all I need. If you stay, you can use your powers for the better and learn to find ways around that urge to feed.”

Was he offering me a way out of the pit called my life? Was he offering to train me and let me do something good with my abilities rather than hide them? My demon self screamed in defiance, wanting out and to kill this insolent mortal who dared play with fire. But then…if I followed that instinct, I’d surely end up dead.

But why would I kill? I hadn’t done so before, so why would I then?

The man regarded me as my mind raced through the possibilities and choices. “I’ll be back,” was all he said before disappearing out the door.

Dazed and confused I laid back down, trying desperately to make sense of things to no avail.

Go back and kill or stay here where I knew I was in danger. But, then, wasn’t it better that I was in danger as opposed to my presence endangering others? With a low snarl of annoyance I closed my eyes in an futile effort to calm myself.

Branwen

My head ached as I slowly pushed myself into a sitting position, causing everything around me to seemingly tip and shift as if I were on a ship at sea. I uttered a low groan as I tried to clear my thoughts and convince the world to stop spinning. All I could tell was that the room was white and brightly lit; there was the beeping of machines and I was in a white bed. Other than that, everything was too blurry and tipsy.

“It’ll wear off soon enough. Give it a couple minutes and everything should stop moving.” I recognized the voice without having to look up — no, that couldn’t be right. What would Mr. Smith be doing here? Speaking of which, where was here?

“Mr. Smith?” I blinked and looked at him. Sure enough, it was his owl-like face looking down at me; this time, however, he was missing his spectacles.

“Not my real name of course, but yes,” he smiled faintly. “My apologies for all of this, Branwen. There wasn’t really a better way to do it.”

“Do what?” I growled, frustrated and tired of not understanding — not understanding the whispers, my abduction, anything about my current situation, or what the hell Mr. Smith was doing here!

“Those voices you hear? You aren’t crazy.”

“You knew?” My voice went up a few decibels and I didn’t care. All those times he’d sent me to the office, put me on the spot for zoning out, so on and so forth and he had known! Everything about my predicament was gone with those two words. I trusted Mr. Smith for some crazy reason and knew I wasn't in danger.

He regarded me with those big bird eyes of his. “Yes, I knew. I am your Keeper, after all. It’s not as though I could do anything, though, Miss Blackthorne. Or do you prefer Mr.?”

“I don’t give a damn!” I meant it, too; right then, whether I was being called a guy or a girl really didn’t concern me. “You knew!”

He sighed and studied me. “Of course.”

“You could have at least told me I wasn’t crazy!”

“Branwen Blackthorne, why do you think I didn’t tell you?” Great. The teacher returned — making me do the thinking.

“I don’t care,” I grumbled.

“Why don’t you ponder it a bit, then?” he suggested. “I’m sure it would do you good.”

“Mr. Smith…” I begged.

“You’re a straight A student, I’m sure you can work it out. Why wouldn’t I want to tell you?”

It wasn’t really overly difficult to figure it out. Most people didn’t know of my abilities — I assumed that if people did, it put me in danger. Also, if people knew he knew it might endanger him as well. I knew full well that I was an asset and if there was a power play I’d be a pawn, and if people knew he was my ‘Keeper’, as he put it, then he would become a target. “It would put us both at risk,” I finally muttered.

“That’s right. See? I told you you could figure it out.” He smiled.

“Fine then. How about you tell me what the hell all this is, why I was drugged and abducted, who you people are, and what you mean by ‘Keeper’,” I hissed, still miffed that he hadn’t told me even though I knew it was irrational.

“You were drugged and abducted because it was the safest and fastest way to get you here. ‘Here’ is the Paladin’s HQ. The Paladins are an order that defend mankind from those who would harm them, namely demons. Every asset — demonic, angelic, or neither, like yourself — has a Keeper. The Keeper keeps tabs and watches so they can anticipate the Awakening or Emergence as well as when it’s time to bring said asset in. They also make sure no harm comes to the asset. Often the demons will be after the same assets, like with you. The one who initially drugged you was actually a demon; I got you out of there and here. It wasn’t really time to bring you here, but…” he shrugged. “It was close enough.”

I just stared at him. So the teacher who I’d known all my life, who’d taught me for three years and before that was the one who always kept an eye on me in the recess yard was really a demon hunter who was only teaching to keep me from being kidnapped by someone other than him.

Reality check.

“Awakening? Emergence?”

“Awakening is when a non-human being’s abilities start to emerge and that part of them is ‘awakened’. It’s when demons start feeding and angels start glowing in the dark; for you, it was when you started hearing voices. Emergence is the second stage of that in which the powers not only increase but also the instincts. You shouldn’t have to worry about it as much, considering you’re neither demon nor angel.”

“But I’ve always heard voices!” I protested. None of this made any sense!

“You’re an odd case, Branwen. You aren’t normal.”

Great. So now the demon hunter who’d posed as my teacher since preschool was telling me I wasn’t normal. “Thanks, I could figure that out,” I snapped. “You know, with the hearing voices and all!” I felt my eyes tear up. Dammit! I couldn’t cry now!

He put a gentle hand on my shoulder. “You are quite special. You’re neither demon nor angel, Branwen; you’re both.”

Demon, angel, Awakening, Emergence, Keepers, Paladins — it was just too much. I felt a tear run down my face and wiped it away with a growl.

“Try to get some rest,” Mr. Smith told me. “I’ll be back soon.”

I mumbled something under my breath about teachers and leaned back, staring at the LED-lit white ceiling.

Auryon

Now, that wasn’t very nice, was it? Stabbing me in the neck like that wasn’t a very good way to make friends.

I was in yet another cell, but this place was different. I knew that. Everything was the same bright, monotone color and shining lights reflected off every surface — it was too light, and I didn’t like it.

This cell was small, too, and the front wall was simply barred instead of solid. I couldn’t sense the presence of anyone else other than myself; interesting.

“Ah, Viper. I see you’re finally up.” It was the gray-eyed woman from before, boots clicking on the tile floor.

“Nope,” I remarked, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Still unconscious. I don’t suppose you’d turn down the lights?” My reddish-brown eye glinted with malice.

“I know better than that, Miss Blackthorne.” Blackthorne. It sent a shiver down my spine, awoke a part of my I’d forgotten existed…

“One last chance, Blackthorne,” he said, shoving me against the two-foot wall that marked the edge of the roof.

I hissed at him in retort and he shoved, his hand releasing my collar.

Thin air, the deafening sound of wind as I fell down, down, down…

“You remembering now?” she inquired, coming dangerously close.

“When did I forget?” I grabbed the bars with my hands, leaning towards her. Oh, I was hungry. How I wished for her blood and soul to satiate that ravenous beast clawing at me.

She chuckled and stepped back — not out of fear or a response to my closeness, I think, but simply to tantalize me. “The game has begun, Blackthorne, and the rules are simple.”
“Rules are made only to break,” I countered, the ghost of a malicious smile on my face.

“We’ll see. We wish to take advantage of your abilities.”

“Do you now?” Freedom…

“Yes.” She placed a finger on the doorframe. “But if you try anything, all I have to do is hit this button —” she held up her phone with a digital red button on it. “— and you die or go unconscious or whatever I choose.”

“Play with fire…” I warned, a sadistic glint in my eye.

“I don’t fear getting burned,” she answered, those cool gray eyes boring into me, and opened the door.

I stepped out, unbound and uncaged for the first time in…how many years was it? I couldn’t even remember.

“Your liberty is an illusion,” she warned me. “One step out of line and you’ll pay the price.”

“Yes, ma’m,” I drawled, snapping my neck. Time to feed, to hunt, to live.

She gestured down the hall. “Lead the way, ‘Viper’.”

So I did. She directed me through the many narrow, brightly lit corridors, all the while informing me of the plan.

“You’ll be bunking with a few others in the barracks,” she was saying. “Not all of them will be demonic, so don’t feed on them. You will report for training every morning at 5:30. The locker rooms are down that hall and the training rooms are the first right down the same corridor. And here,” she continued, “is your room.”

She slipped her keycard in and unlocked it rather like a hotel room and opened the door. It was small, with two bunk beds in it, along with two dressers. It was bare and gray; the bunk beds were metal. It reminded me of my cell before I’d come here.

“Make yourself at home. I’ll be back soon.” With those words, she closed the door and left, leaving me to work things out myself.