Young Writers Society

I know this is long, apologies. I can break it up if it is too long. This is a very rough first chapter, although probably not a complete chapter.

Im glad to be back on this site after quite along absence I will be around reading and reviewing over next few days when I have free time, can't wait.

I would greatly appreciate with views on this. Thanks

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The black fug of a night in Soorey Island gave Kai a cracking headache, but he prowled the streets nonetheless. Soorey Island sat near the marshes of Bordan Peak, where the white cliffs descended down into marshy bogs, a place where only frogs and hunting herons dared to earn a living. The hot fog that rolled off the marshes swept over the sea and towards Soorey Island with the vengeful glee of weather that enjoyed inflicting itself upon people.

The walkways turn a murky grey, the piled-high buildings become black stoned turrets of shadow, the cobbles turning to bubbles on an oily black pond. The fog did little to hide the wear and tear years of civilisation had enacted on poor Soorey’s streets. They twisted painfully and impossibly, knotted and gnarled around the cluttered family neighbourhoods and alongside the sea-salt crusted boats at the docks. The houses bulged from their foundations onto the cobbles, growing ever taller with necessity. Drying lines were strung between the houses like stitches on a wound, a desperate attempt to keep the streets from bursting open.

Kai rubbed at his forehead and scowled into the darkness, the glint in his eyes dulled by the pain. He could feel the houses around him beating with life, the smells of their occupants getting ready for the night bleeding through the thick stone. He wondered briefly whether that might be the reason for the headache; the onslaught of the smell of humans and their day-to-day lives.

But he knew it wasn’t true; the fog was the culprit and always had been, since he was a child. It crawled inside his ears and mouth, clawed its way up his nose and into that tight space against the frontal bone. And there is sat, gnawing happily until the sun burnt the fog away the following day. He remembered nights of lying with tears welling in his eyes, knees tucked under his chin, with his face into the pillow and his balled fists in his hair. His father’s strong hands would settle at the back of his neck and work away the pained knots, the rough pads of his fingers tracing the lines of taught muscle.

Now, in his final year of the teens, he had become partly used to the headache. He could now walk whilst suffering the affliction, and had eventually learnt how to think and talk through it.He could even smile through the headache if he tried hard, not that walking the streets at night required much smiling. A lot of smelling and sensing and curling of his fingers, but not a whole lot of smiling.

The inns were opening up and the shops were closing down. The changeover period was done in the dead of night so that both avenues of industry could squeeze the most of their customers. Soorey Island had a good reputation, not that Kai could quite figure out why.

The fishing boat wrecks faced out into the yawning mouth of the black sea at the North of the island, and the gleaming white yachts faced out towards the mainland of the Bordan region behind them.

Kai rolled his eyes heavenwards, a navy blue sky watching him solemnly, grey clouds were pregnant and swollen with expectant rain. Kai felt the glint in his eye returning; a small, hopeful shine. If it rained, the cold curtain of water would chase the fog away, leaving the air clear to breathe in deep. He smiled inwardly – still finding no need to smile outwardly – and took Beach Road down to the town centre. Soorey Island had one central area where night time activity enacted itself in it’s all sparkling, ceremonious glory. The music from the bandstand changed from Germanic brass bands to smoky jazz , and the orange flow of street lamps sent the youth’s mind into a racing whir.

A group of the Soorey’s finest drunken teenagers had assembled around a rose bush not too far away from the bandstand.

Kai crouched against the grass and watched them, feeling the pinch of his belt biting into his skin. Self consciously he stood again, lingering back in the shadows, and readjusted the leather belt. He couldn’t deny there was a little more flesh on his hips now, that he filled his clothes better and his bones were less jutting and obvious. Still, it would take a little longer before he remembered to apply the knowledge to how he did up his belt.

A bottle smashed against the grass and the explosion of sputtering beer caused a frenzy of excitement amongst the kids. Kai sunk back down to the grass, curling his limbs in close so as to make himself as small as possible. The rain hadn’t come yet but he could smell it in the air, through the dirty fog and stink of beer and ‘a good night out’. He was overcome by a sudden fear the party by the Bordan rosebush would smell him on the breeze, but reprimanded himself quickly after.

‘Humans don’t have the same powers of smell as we do, Kai’ his father had explained. It sounded weary on his tongue; he had repeated the phrase over and over again to Kai’s various brothers and sisters.

“You Ok?”

Kai heard the words and knew deep down they were directed at him, but ignored them. He hunkered down further against his legs, lowering his head a little to keep the people in sight. He also hoped the move would hide him somehow, but it wasn’t to be.

“Kai?”

“Go away,” Kai snapped, not taking his eyes from the group at the rose bush.

“I’ve been told to come and get you.”

Jack’s voice had a hint of amusement to it, a tone that Kai felt reluctant to rise to. He knew he wasn’t supposed to be here, out in the fog so late, and that back at home his father would be casting his grey eyes over to the window every moment or so.

“No, go away,” he tried.

His brother said nothing more, but remained a few feet away.

“I’m just having a bit of fun,” Kai grumbled. His hands unconsciously returned to his head, where his long fingers began to dig at his temples again, trying to work away the headache.

There was a movement of cool air around him, and he felt the strong brown leather of his brother’s jacket brush against his bare, goose-pimpled arms. He let one hand drift from his head to his brother’s jacket, curling the warm leather under his cold fingers.

They did this. Every night. Whether the heavens had opened above Soorey’s, or the sun was still reluctant to clear the remains of light from the darkening sky, Jack came out and found his brother roaming the streets. The Manio family of demons were happy to accept that the change from being a wild demon to what some may call a ‘domesticated’ one wasn’t going to sit well with them all. And so they dealt with Kai’s roaming with a gentle but firm hand.

Kai still tracked, stalked and wondered alone to find potential prey, but every night he was quietly intercepted before any potential bloodlust could take control.

“Kai, come on, it’s time to come home. “

“It’s about to rain, I’ll come in when it rains.”

A cold drop hit the back of his neck where his hair had once tickled him incessantly.

“Damn,” Kai muttered.

“Let’s go Kai. Dinner’s ready. Don’t you have a headache?”

The reply was a whisper, his younger brother’s face now firmly hidden against his jacket, “Yes. It hurts.”

“Come on then.”

Jack stood, scooping his brother close to his chest and letting the boy’s aching head rest for a moment in the nape of his neck. The kids by the rose bush were disturbed by the movement and watched them, calculating silently.

A few of them recognised Jack Manio, who had been a hit at the island’s only school during his years at the high school. One raised a hand to him, and Jack returned the gesture with a familiar grin, showing off that crooked canine that the girls had always been drawn to with acute fascination.

But the kids also identified that Jack was with his brother, Kai. He had never been a classmate of theirs, he had never attended the school, and neighbourhood rumours about him were rife, and so they turned their heads quickly and went back to their bottles of flat, dark beer.

“You know them?” Kai asked, his voice muffled against Jack’s skin.

“I went to school with them.”

“I was walking in town with Dean, and he saw some of his old classmates. They threw a brick at him and ran away.”

“Dean has that affect on people,” Jack sighed, his face clouding a little.

“My head,” Kai groaned, quickly reminding Jack of his task for the night.

“You’ll feel better after you’ve had dinner. Come on.”

************

The Manio family had lived in Soorey Island for years, residing down towards the shadowy end of its residential area to the east of the island. There, the French roots of Soorey were more obvious. As Jack led his reluctant brother back home, they walked passed a bakery proudly pronouncing itself as a ‘boulangerie’, and were watched by the narrowed eyes of a barman at ‘La Nuit’ who would glower menacingly at any customer who deigned to speak English in his establishment.

The family sprawled through No. 16 Place de Antoine; the house was piled high and the roof tottered in the wind, but it was as good a family home as any on the island. Making do on what the two men of the house earned and what the others could salvage, they were a quiet and unassuming part of the community. Some were uncommunicative and feared; others were relatively respected and liked enough to be talked to on the street, but all in all they had a defining characteristic in the neighbourhood as being a little odd.

Not dinner party guests, not especially neighbourly neighbours, and not to be trusted.

When Jack entered the family home with Kai in tow, the oven was roaring and the smell of meat and heat embraced them, dragging them in from the cascading rain.

Aunt Toba had baby Rosalie on her lap, and a sour looked plastered on her face. Her skin had been weathered and hardened by years of living by her own set of lifestyle ideals. Behind her back, her young nieces and nephew would whisper that she looked like a polished conker with a black wiry wig, but when those wide grey eyes turned on them they smiled innocently and scuttled away.

“Where the hell have you been?” she asked, as the pair spattered drops of water onto the

tiles.

“I was hunting,” Kai grouched, scratching at the inside of his arm.

Toba’s eyes flew up to her hairline and the deep wrinkles on her forehead were suddenly accompanied by a handful of extras grooves. She harrumphed to herself and shifted the baby against her bosom, Rosalie complaining as one of the large buttons on her cardigan brushed against her nose.

“He was just wandering around like he always does Aunt Toba,” Jack said, with the tone of a child well-used to his consistently hard-to-please relative.

“Hm,” Toba grumbled, and fixed Kai with a wide-eyed stare.

The family was baking contentedly in the kitchen’s heat as they did every night when the dark had firmly set in. Night time was their time; they cooked and argued, sent someone out to collect Kai from the dark streets, and pushed the limits of their father’s patience before the order was barked for bedtime.

The younger kids were scattering the cutlery over the table, and the two eldest were arguing over the meal cooking.

“Put some more salt in.”

“No.”

“What the hell? Do as I say, it’s my meal!”

The head of the family was at the head of the table, nose buried in a letter and one hand propping up his head. He glanced up as Jack intersected the argument at the oven and Kai flopped down on the armchair by the stove.

“You Ok Kai?” he asked, looking back down at his letter through the smears on his glasses as the heat condensed on his lenses.

“I was out hunting,” he scowled, “And Jack came and disturbed me.”

“Can we got out hunting?” the twins chimed, knives and forks bursting from their fists as they lay the table for dinner.

“No.”

“Awww, Dad!” they wailed in unison.

“Get back to laying the table guys. And Kai, stop stirring trouble.”

Kai pulled his legs in underneath himself and rested his head against the back of the padded chair. He had hoped that the warmth would help alleviate the headache, but to no avail. He could still smell it, even through the hefty walls of No. 16, even as it died out there in the icy barrage of rain. He covered his face with his hands.

Joe was glad he had chosen Soorey for the family to live, but felt guilty for not changing his mind when Kai complained of those headaches. There was something in the fog, something that Kai found noxious. It had puzzled Joe, but there were many things that puzzled Joe about Kai. Soon, he added the headaches to a list and kept the list at the back of his mind.

He acknowledged that the community of Soorey were suspicious of them, but they were used to that. The family had been hiding in time of humans for generations. In pockets of the world where the stupidity of humans meant people turned a blind eye to odd behaviour. Soorey had once been a hunting ground thousands of years ago, and Joe had a felt a natural longing instinct to return where he had once prowled lava flows and craggy outcrops. Soorey had been a peninsula then, and as far as Joe could remember it didn’t have a name. He had only known it as ‘mine’.

So when the family had needed a place to settle more permanently, he had brought them to his old hunting ground, and purchased a house where the family could be as inconspicuous as was possible for a family of demons. The floors creaked and at night the roof would groan in complaint as the wind over the island picked up. The windows were as thin as a paper, and in the winter fires burnt in the grates from dawn to dusk to keep his hot-blooded children from coming down with a chill.

Soorey still smelt the same. Joe could smell it even through the walls; that burning, charcoal smell mixed with an odd sweetness he had yet to discover the source of. Maybe it was the smell that affected Kai so badly; it had certainly made his stomach churn the first time he had come across it all those years ago before the people came and made a meal of the landscape.

“Dad, dinner’s ready.”

Joe scooped away the letter in his hand and folded it into his back pocket, leaping up and clapping his big hands.

“Fantastic. Come on Kai, come and sit down. Toba, hand me Rosalie and I’ll give her some of that pea mush. If anyone gets a bone they don’t want to eat then pass it here and I’ll give it to Rosy.”

Grace and Mac plonked themselves down on the two wicker stools, and sat tottering and wobbling as Jack landed the great pot of food onto the centre of the table. The two youngest – twins and proud of it – attended the local primary school and learnt to read and write with the ten other children on the island. They had become naturalised in the world of humans, and Joe was proud of their lack of demon instincts.

At the other end of the table to his father, his ankle crossed over his knee, Dean sat languidly watching the goings on with affected detachment. Joe was less pleased with the affect living on the island had had on his eldest son. Still, there were always going to be casualties.

“What is it?” Kai asked, peering at the steaming meal being doled out by his father. He thought of the kids relieving their beer and themselves into the Bordan Rosebush. All that pulsing vitality he had been watching, and now this. Dead meat and vegetables.

“Chicken, potatoes and carrots. A stew, basically.”

Kai gave no reply, and took his plate silently as it was passed to him.

“I’m going out after dinner, Dad,” Dean announced. The table went very still.

“Where?”

“Just out.”

“I know, but where?”

“Nowhere. Just out, Dad.”

There was no doubt of a challenge in his son’s voice, and Joe didn’t have the heart to rise to it.

“Fine. But be back before sun-up. I need you to get some sleep before midday, you can

help me on the site tomorrow.”

Dean grunted, his smirk failing slightly. He shifted about in his chair, keeping his eyes on his father.

“So, Kai? Was it busy out there tonight?” Joe asked, ignoring his eldest son’s stare.

Kai shrugged, chasing a piece of meat around his plate with his knife, “Some kids.”

“They were peeing all over the mayor’s push again,” Jack added, stabbing a piece of meat with Kai’s fork and pushing it into his brother’s hand as he spoke.

“Drunk?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Shock, horror,” Dean muttered sardonically, green eyes narrowed along the table despite his father continuing to ignore him.

“Who were you writing a letter to Dad?”

“Old friend of mine. You won’t know him. He used to hunt with me, now he runs an ice cream van on the shore.”

“Can I have an ice-cream?” Kai asked, to a chorus of sniggers from his younger siblings.

“No, Kai, you can eat your dinner.”

“Yeah, but I like ice-cream. I don’t like dinner.”

“You can eat your dinner and be thankful of what you’ve been given. Ice-cream indeed,” Aunt Toba growled, picking up a chicken leg and burying her tiny, peg-like teeth into the flesh. She disapproved highly of many things, and Kai was one of them. But number two on the list was demons behaving oddly. Whether they be domesticated or not, she found it distinctly strange that a demon would like anything cold, whether it be eaten, lived in or visited.

Ice-cream indeed.

The family descended into a relative calm as the meal progressed. Rosalie sucked happily on any bone fed to her, in between mouthfuls of green baby food; the twins whispered conspiratorially to themselves over their plates; Jack gently urged Kai to continue eating; Dean chewed, brooding darkly; and the eldest girl Margo listened tiredly to her great aunt complain about the family and its various flaws.

They had sat like this for years, putting up with one another, bartering and arguing; one large family rammed under a small and holey roof. They had their dinners late, just before they headed to bed. It suited a demon’s metabolism to eat at such a time; meals full of meat and protein late at night helped little demons grow big and strong.

So, as the sound of cutlery scraping plates filled the room, Joe announced, “It’s late. Once everything’s cleaned up I want you all heading to bed. Grace and Mac in particular, you’ve got school tomorrow.”

The twins mumbled vaguely in response, hopping down from the table and disappearing into the bowls of the house.

Dean stood up, his impressive build blotting the light from the small angle-poise light on the side table. It casted an imperious shadow down the table, one which even manage to black out the face of his father.

“I’m going out then.”

“Fine,” Joe repeated, standing up too. He held Rosalie in one big arm, her tiny fists trying to bat his nose.

“Be back at a reasonable time.”

There was a lingering sense that he had wanted to finish that sentence some other way, but the moment was broken and he turned to head to the stairs.

After establishing Aunt Toba was occupied cleaning the dishes in the sink, Dean lifted a hand and flipped the V-sign at his father’s retreating back.

“Dean,” Jack warned with a frown. It looked like Dean was going to ignore him, but when he reached the front door he turned and gave Jack a one-fingered salute of his own, before banging out into the night.

“You’d think he was twelve years old,” Margo sighed, “And yet he’s two years older than us.”

She reached across the table with a smile and patted Kai’s hand, “Why don’t you go and get ready for bed? I need to talk to Jack.”

Jack blinked in surprise as Kai shrugged.

“Sure.”

Kai was aware that Margo waited until he had left the room completely before she started talking to her twin in a low, confiding tone. Kai continued on down the darkened hall and up the stairs, wondering whether he should have hung around to eavesdrop. It would have been pointless though; demons had only average hearing, a sense that suffered at the expense of their acute sense of smell. Margo would have been well aware of her younger brother loitering in the corridor listening in.

No, better to go to bed and sleep. Maybe that would get rid of the damn headache.

He flopped onto the double bed he shared with Jack, and buried his face into the cool pillow. It smelt of smoke, with just a hint of damp. Their room occupied a leaky corner of the house, just under the eaves, and even when they kept the fire going the damp would prevail.

********

One floor below where Kai was getting ready for bed, Jack caught his father just as he left Rosalie’s room. He was damp from the chest downwards, having been splashed for amusement of the twins and little Rosalie as they shared a bath in the big, claw-foot tub in the house’s one bathroom.

Jack’s voice was low and concerned, and a small tingle of worry started at the back of Joe’s mind.

“You Ok, Jack?”

Down the corridor there was the distinct sound of little Grace thumping her twin brother’s head against the floorboards in retaliation for messing with her dolls. Father and son ignored it, instead retreating to the farther end of the corridor where the big photograph of the family hung on the wall.

“Can I ask you something about Kai?” Jack whispered, his face clouded and worried.

“’Course you can. Why? Is he Ok?”

“Well he’s been acting weirder recently, you’ve noticed that haven’t you?”

Joe sighed and pulled off his glasses, rubbing at where they pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Yes. He’s been wondering around a lot more, I noticed that. He never seems particularly happy unless he’s with you. He seems obsessed about hunting. And then there’s the headaches. They’ve been getting worse. He’s eating better though. I made him weigh himself yesterday, and he’d put a little on. Not much.”

“It’s more than that though,” Jack said, shaking his head. He leant in a little closer to his father, and in those whiskey-brown eyes Joe saw something there he hadn’t seen in a while. A darkness behind their usual bright shine, the inkling of a feral protectiveness he hadn’t seen there in years.

“Margo saw him. Kai’s father. She said she saw him on Soorey Island, as she was walking back from town. He was watching her, although I don’t think he realised she saw him. She wanted me to tell you; she said she didn’t want to think about it. Dad, what do we do?”

Joe blinked, and unconsciously thought about the letter he had been replying to. It had been from his friend Maurice, and was still tucked in his back pocket. Their letters were often long and rambling to each other; recounting the old days of hunting large, flat lava plains together. This had been long before Joe had come across Soorey and taken it for his own, and long before the notion of family had crept into their lives. This letter, however, had been only a few lines long:

‘I saw another one of us. Another demon, on Soorey Island. It was just as I was leaving from meeting up with you the other day; he was walking through the town. I could smell him a mile away; he was younger than us. A wild one. They’re dangerous Joe, you know that. Keep an eye on him around your family

Maurice’

The idea that there was another demon on Soorey Island had made Joe feel uneasy enough, but at the time he had dismissed the level of danger. He had sensed where the newcomer had been throughout the market place and the town square, but hadn’t recognised the smell. He assumed it was one of the few wild demons left simply travelling by, and that he would disappear soon enough.

“It’s Ok, Jack. He probably wants to see Kai, nothing more. He should keep his distance.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Then we’ll deal with it when the time comes.”

Jack nodded, and started to leave, but felt his father’s hand grip his arm.

“Jack? Don’t tell Kai you saw him. I’ll tell Dean and Aunt Toba, but otherwise we’ll keep it away from Kai.”

“Ok, Dad.”

Joe let out a long, exhausted sigh. He couldn’t wait to rest his head and go to bed, but how was he supposed to get any sleep now?

******