Chapter 23

     I lean close to Markus' still form. I smile as I move his hair out of his face. He is slumped over his calculus book, pencil in hand and final review sheet half done.

     There are two kinds of advanced math students: those that work their butts off and those that are naturally good at it. Having taken calculus, and all the other high school classes, several times in my past lives makes me a natural. Math and science have always been favorites of Balances because they never change much. Markus is in calculus because he works himself into the ground while I don't study a bit and get A's. I've come to notice that Dragons are not very good with math from Markus' many funny stories.

     He is better with history than me, though. What is taught and what really happened are more different than you’d think, especially when it comes to and Adept-related events. Light Users have always been fervent recorders of history and they don’t like Adepts.

     With quarterfinals in three days Markus is buckling down on calculus. I help him until he starts frowning about me not studying for history. The major thing that bothers him is that I don’t care what I get on the exams as long as I pass. Going through high school more than once and learning things wrong takes the perfectionist right out of me.

     Seeing that he is completely asleep I carefully use some air to carry him out of the kitchen and upstairs to our room. I make sure he is comfortable before leaving the room.

     Downstairs in the meditation room I move aside a ceiling panel in the plain, gray room and bring down a small clothes chest with another flow of air.

     The chest is one of Myra’s two possessions that she actually cared for. Balances have been using it to stare their precious items for thousands of years. After a Balance dies the new Balance takes those items into Aqura’s realm of ice where they are carefully stored.

     Every time I see it I remember the one thing my mother kept in it. My eyes tear again as I see the picture of Vik giving me a piggyback ride that had been taken a year before the car accident surrounded by it’s solid silver frame.

     I blink away my tears and open the chest with a gentle touch on the lock. The lid swings up and the two pictures on the inside of the lid are the first things I see. One is of Vik napping on the couch with Syree curled around him that he has no idea I have. The other is of Markus smiling brightly at me.

     Folded neatly in the bottom of the chest is a black silk dress. It has thin spaghetti strips and stops halfway down my thigh. It is tight and clings to my curves. A pair of black three-inch heals accompany it. Both belonged to my mother before she died. It was the outfit she wore when she first met my father.

     I look up at the clock and start changing. If I didn’t hurry I would be late for my meeting.

 

~*~*~*~*~

 

     Kic watched the silver haired young woman walk down the dark street. Miss Greapson looked like the many other clubbers that came to the city’s unofficial party district. She walked with complete confidence, as if she thought she had nothing to fear.

     She had no idea what was stalking her.

     He was so old he couldn’t remember exactly how old he was. He was the most gifted of his thirteen siblings even though he was the youngest. He didn’t need to sleep or eat regularly. He could see in the blackest black as easily as in a well-lit room. He was the perfect stalker, the perfect hunter.

     Little Mimerain had much to fear.

     That’s why his older sister, Ni, the only one that could best him at anything, put him in charge of Capitals’ old harbor and the hunter of the new Unicorn’s head.

     But even one such as he had limits. He could not step foot anywhere near the girl’s house and the Adept Meeting House. The wards and protective spells, placed there by Balances long dead, would kill him or Ni instantly. He also couldn’t get too close to his prey without her sensing him. Those facts only made the hunt, in his opinion, even better.

     He watched her enter the district’s most popular night and strip club, C.a.D. Kic pearched lightly on the roof of a bar across the street.

     Cynthia Moonwatcher and Diac, the owners and main attractions of C.a.D., were two vampires who Kic wouldn’t want to fight with. One vampire alone would be trouble, but the species preferred to travel in pairs, so they were all the more deadly. Because of their power and vicious nature, Palmen had hunted them down and killed as many as they could during the Shadow Age before the 7 Palmen empires had risen. For a thousand years they thought that they had killed them all. It wasn’t until half a century ago that this pair, now thought to be the last of the vicious race, appeared and demanded their Human Rights, basic privileges grated to all members of every one of Venderas’ many races.

     So no, Kic didn’t want to fight the powerful pair. Besides, they didn’t like him at all.

     “What are you doing in a strip club, Miss Greapson?” the Dark One wondered aloud. “Do you have a secret addiction? Or is it some other reason you are here once a week?”

     Kic settled down on the roof. He pondered his prey and waited for her to come out of the club he had been kicked out of centuries ago.

Author's Note

At long last, Chapter 23! 24 is in the works, but it will be a while.

Reviews

[Brie]

finally its chapter 23! yay!
anyway, i liked this one, it gives a little more history as well as some humor.
hope chapter 24 won't take TOO long!!
-Brie