Kei

  Tyger! Tyger! burning bright; In the forests of the night,

  What immortal hand or eye; Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

  --William Blake

  A snarl so massive it vibrates the whole street and buzzes into my bones echoes through the air. I snap my head around to see a blur of distortion ripple across the treetops, pounce onto the roof of Frank’s Pizza, and then leap down into the street. With each stepping stone, it seems to grow in intensity.

  Then the colors swirl inside the shape like a supersonic kaleidoscope, and an unmistakable set of jaws and eyes open simultaneously as the hunter manifests. A vast, ghostly wolf crouches in the street behind us. Then, with an earthshattering howl, it sprints in our direction.

  A Hound.

  Then, in an even more disturbing act of violence, it speaks.

  “You have led us on a fair chase, Chaos Child,” drawing up just yards away to stare at me with burning intensity. “Far from your hidden birthplace. Far from the many places you called safety. Far even from fire and sea. But here you are at last.

  “And here we are to fetch you home.”

  A triple growl, impossibly loud, rumbles around us, and Emily gasps as three more shiver into view – to our right, our left and behind us. Count the one in front and we’re surrounded.

  Hounds never play fair.

  “This is going to be messy.” I don’t mean to say that out loud, but whatever. Hounds tear through flesh as easily as paper or steel, and even if they want you alive, they never want you intact.

  So, messy. Just a fact.

  I unfold the telescoping quarterstaff Haley gave me from her practice set. One that’s actually a weapon. Pure titanium with a built-in taser. It’s a toy, compared to these monsters, but better than nothing.

  Emily glances over at me, and I can see the whites of her eyes. Okay, maybe I should keep a few facts to myself. Time for the pep talk, then.

  My staff’s in my hands, whirling into discs of blurring motion, and cold fire runs through my heart like a volcano. “Stay close,” I tell her quietly. “Don’t run until I tell you. They like to chase things.” I keep shifting position, keeping eyes on no more than three at once, hoping the fourth will a make a mistake and go for my back.

  No luck. They clearly remember me better than I do them.

  Too bad. The hard way, then.

  “Hate to do it here,” I mutter, looking around at the still pristine streets. “No choice, though.”

  Their one mistake? Making me stand and fight to protect someone like Emily. If I were trying to hold back my power, they could have hounded me at their leisure, while I ran to save everyone from the collateral damage.

  Now I have no choice but to fight. And to do it hard and fast.

  “What are you going to do?” Emily’s voice shakes.

  “Kill them,” I say with a shrug. “I’ll try to contain the fallout, but I’m not making promises.” I try to use my soft voice. You know, the reassuring one.

  Emily gasps. The Hounds, as one, stop waiting.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  They come in a blur, closing in a single heartbeat. Fortunately for us, my heartbeat is a single slow, thunderous drumbeat, as time stretches like truth and my body accelerates in protest.

  The staff slices an arc in the air, dreamlike, but still fast as clocks hold their time and people freeze between eyeblinks.

  This instant is our battlefield.

  Sparks fly from the ends of my staff, but they’re a distraction. Lightning can barely sting the substance of a Hound. But I feel the coldfire flow down my arms, through my palms and into cool metal, and I know the vortex will touch the staff, which means the staff will touch my phantoms. I’ve forgotten many things, but they’ve forgotten my power was made to destroy their very substance and anything like them. The touch of chaos makes them bleed.

  They’ll remember now.

  They sweep forward in perfect coordination, charging from all four directions simultaneously, and that symmetry is the first thing to break.

  But before they can shatter, they hit a bubble of blue light around us, and stop. They blink, together, puzzled. Not much can truly stop them when their substance flows like vengeful wind, yet there they are.

  And there Emily is, arms flung wide, one palm facing North, the other South and her mouth gaping wide in shock as she stares at me, barely moving in accelerated time. Unexpected. But not unwelcome.

  The Hounds bare their fangs again and strike from the four directions with teeth and claws. There’s a sound like the ringing of a distant chime in the back of my head, and then they’re through, the membranes shattering and the sphere’s soft light already fading.

  But I’m past Emily now, and already moving.

  I catch the crackling end of my staff in my right hand, and grit my teeth as the current surges down my arm and fights with coldfire before they merge together in pain. I thrust in a single lunge at their leader, the end of the shaft striking what should be the center of its skull. A six-foot rapier tipped with sparks.

  Anger gives my blow less strength than does desperation. I feel the Hound’s unnatural substance shift to compensate as I pierce it, and then my own vortex whirling around the staff in its head, battling to spin apart what the beast’s power is pulling together. They reach a crescendo before hope can draw a breath. I slam both feet into the pavement and grit my teeth for what will happen next.

  The explosion throws me and my staff straight back and angling down, and I shoot under Emily’s immobile right arm as I ride the momentum. I’ve only kept a firm grip on my weapon to add to my own kick, but I can still feel the wrench in my left arm which even coldfire can’t numb completely. Then my back hits the ground and my jacket starts to shred. I let the repulsive force still hammering my staff have its way and let the end go in a shower of sparks, flying free under my left elbow – until I grab the other electrified end before it can get away, and let current and coldfire sear their way through my body and down the haft.

  I target the end poking out from under my armpit by instinct at the roar of the closing Hound to our South and throw our colliding inertia right into its teeth.

  Time to pull a reversal. The lightning-shod rod plunges into the rear Hound’s open jaws with a crack, and then the warping explodes out from that end. My power rips through its substance like a tornado through a fogbank. A high squeal like metal on metal comes from where its throat had been. A yelp. They might not feel compassion, but they can still feel pain.

  The shaft drives into its writhing heart and embeds itself there. I can feel the power of it straining my staff. In front of me, the flanking Hounds are closing on the spot where I am, eyes flashing from me to Emily as though choosing which to strike – the vulnerable, or their target.

  I decide for them.

  I slam the free end of my staff into the ground as the impaled Hound writhes down its length, tearing its way free and coming for me from behind. That’s good. I can use the momentum.

  I drop low beneath the staff, still not looking at the Hound breathing down my neck, and set my left shoulder under the rod just as I feel his jaws close around my right.

  I reach up and claw my hands into his skull, feel faux flesh and bone melt and solidify around my fingers, and lurch upright into a toss, combining the makeshift lever of the staff with a crude judo throw and an explosion of warping energies.

  I throw the shattering remains of his body and my staff at the right flanking Hound, and then throw myself at the left one.

  I don’t have long. The beast’s jaws are snapping closed on her shoulder even as I move, and blue sparks fly from his fangs as he clamps down. A shimmer of blue light runs across her jacket as his maw grinds down upon the defenseless girl. The glow of faint runes flicker for a moment, and are gone.

  Keeping secrets? Clever girl. Not enough, though.

  But only two Hounds remain, and one is delayed for half a moment. More than enough, as I am now.

  My full fury erupts against first one Hound, and then the other.

  One on one against my full Gift, they stand no chance, and seeing one draw Emily’s blood has made me desperate. That one dies before I realize I’ve clenched my fist in its heart. The second before I notice I’ve turned and driven my open hand like a blade through what passes for its brain.

  The last shreds of the last Hound fall from my fingertips, and I try to rein in my power. I know the terrors it can bring into the waking world. Nightmares which should not exist, yet do… somewhere. Until my Gift finds them. I pull my mind back from the brink of battle and remember what I’m there for.

  Emily is the first thing to save.

  I grab the front of Emily’s jacket and tug it to peer at her shoulder beneath. Despite some bleeding cuts and the beginning of a great ring of bruises, she’s largely intact. My attention switches to something far more interesting – her jacket, which is ripped and now exposing a layer of crystalline wafers, all moving as easily as the scales of a serpent.

  “Your jacket is armor,” I observe.

  She coughs and winces as she looks at the blood. “Not enough,” she groans.

  I sigh in agreement. “Let’s get you patched up.” And then see if they still need me at the Library.

  “What the…?!” Haley demands behind me, hurtling out of the woods. She lunges in and helps us with first aid before I can say anything. “I leave you for five minutes and this happens?”

  Paramedics arrive almost immediately, as if they were scrambling before they even got all the emergency calls or something. Impressive response time, anyway.

  A distant boom sounds from the direction of the Library as the medics are loading Emily into the ambulance. Haley and I exchange a glance.

  “Stay with her,” I tell the other girl, and turn towards the campus. If my mother’s Hounds are here, that can’t be a coincidence.

  Which means this whole thing is coordinated, and my fight has just begun.

  Patreon page for subscribers there. The first chapters released on here are already up there, even for free subscribers.