NaNo 2008 - Chapter Five
Chapter Five - Ones Own Heart: In Which Darian Finds Out That Monsters are Real
He was five when he realized he saw the world differently to everyone else. Darian saw a world covered in glowing threads. He took him a year after that realization before he tried touching one of those threads. Part of him was afraid of what would happen, if he gave in to the temptation. Finally, he worked up the courage to touch one. He steeled himself, trying to prepare for anything. He wasn't sure if he was disappointed or relieved when nothing happened at all.
He'd written his power off as a 'spot-on-the-wall' ability. He'd begun to wonder why the Larabees bothered sending him to a special school when he was average in every way, except how he saw the world. Then the day came when he was climbing a tree with Jake. That was a day that changed everything.
He was high in the branches when he saw a ribbon tangled in them. It was green, with white dots. His sister would like that ribbon. She could wear it in her hair. She could use it for her dolls. He was determined to grab that ribbon. He reached and reached, straining his arm and stretching his fingers.
Then, just as his fingers closed around the strip of cloth, the branch he was standing on snapped. He felt himself falling and braced for the impact, even as he flailed, trying to catch something - anything - to stop or slow his descent. He caught hold of one of these threads and stopped.
He blinked and looked around. He was several feet in the air, floating. He blinked in wonder. Was that what the threads were for? He looked down and realized that he was standing on a thread. He stepped down tentatively to the next lower thread, climbing down the threads just like a ladder, until he was on the ground.
Telekinesis, the people at the school called his gift. It was a physical one. His ability to see the threads he used to propel it was his mental gift. Now, as Darian stared out over the soccer field, he had to wonder. Where had that gift come from?
Was his mother the one who had psionic powers or his father? He wanted very much for it to be his mother, but he didn't know. His brows furrowed. Shysie had been so happy when she'd told him that their father lived in the same town as they did. Darian, though, was not happy.
He didn't care that their mom had tried to find him and couldn't. The man had left. He'd never looked back. Even if he didn't know about his two children, didn't he care about their mom? She'd died waiting for him and he still didn't show up. Darian didn't consider Kevin Travers his father, even if Shysie did. So far as he was concerned, James Larabee was the only father he wanted or needed.
Darian looked at his watch and sighed. The recital would be starting soon. Shysie would be mad if he skipped it, not to mention Jake. He stood up and kicked a stone off the soft grass and across the blacktop that covered the nearby playground. Then he saw it. There was a ripple in the threads, a ripple like nothing he'd ever seen before. He frowned and looked back up the slope. Like waves in a pool, the ripples seemed to radiate out from a single point: the center of the field.
Squinting, Darian tried to make out what was causing the strange ripples. A person stood at the center of the rippling energy. He tilted his head to one side. "Hey," he said, "how are you doing that?"
When the person didn't answer, Darian scampered up the slope and frowned. "Hey, Kieran," he said. "What are you doing here? Did you come for the recital?"
Kieran nodded and stepped over towards him. As he drew near, he smiled. Then his skin seemed to shiver, as though something moved under it. A heartbeat later, Kieran burst apart. Darian gasped and stumbled back.
"The veg?" he whispered. He could still see the lines of energy flow around something. Now, though, it was something large. His eyes widened as the shape of it became clear to him. It was like a giant scorpion, only without the tail. It didn't need a tail. The pinchers were plenty dangerous.
The beast scurried towards him and Darian leapt out of the way, as pincher came crashing down. He jumped up and caught hold of a thread. He stood on another and ran along it, trying to put some distance between himself and the strange beast.
He was just barely out of its reach when something happened that he never could have predicted. The threads lurched and changed direction. Suddenly, they were sloping downward, with the beast at the center. Darian's feet slipped out from under him and he slid down the thread, directly towards the monster's mouth.
"Help!" he yelled, praying that someone would hear him. He squeezed his eyes shut and whimpered. Then he hit the ground and gave a startled cry. He opened his eyes, blinking in shock.
"Don't just sit there!" a strange boy said. He glanced back over his shoulder at Darian and said, "Get back!"
Darian stood and scrambled back, away from the monster and the boy. He realized, now, that the boy wasn't alone. There was another boy and girl with him. All three wore outfits like someone out of an anime. The girl had red wide-legged pants and a white shirt, with large billowing sleeves. The boys had the same type of outfit, but in blue.
The first boy, the one who'd yelled at him to get out of the way, looked so like Hitoshi that it was almost frightening. However, he was definitely not Darian's friend. He swung around a paper umbrella. Every time he would hit the beast, the umbrella would bite it.
Darian blinked in wonder. He looked over at the girl. She was fighting the beast with a strange looking wand, one that had little strips of paper sticking off the top. She was obviously in charge, since she was barking out orders to the other two.
"Keiichi," she yelled. "Keep it away from the human."
"Yes, sister," the first boy said. Immediately, he positioned himself between the beast and Darian.
The other boy darted forward and skidded to a stop very nearly under it. "Umeko! Heart stone's underneath," he shouted.
"Right," she said. She darted forward, then and struck it, from the left. The other boy hit it from the right. When Keiichi started to come in from the rear, Umeko yelled, "Stay back, Keiichi."
Keiichi skidded to a stop, but he didn't look very happy about her order. The beast roared in anger and pain at the assault. Keiichi rubbed his sleeve across his brow then. "We've got to finish this, Umeko," he yelled.
"Agreed," the other boy said. "Get it on it's back and I'll take it out."
The monster roared as Umeko and the other boy doubled their efforts. It reared up on its back legs, preparing to strike out at the two in front of it. Keiichi saw his chance. He flung his umbrella outward. It struck the beast's legs and the creature fell backwards, landing on its back.
"Now, Martin!" he yelled, running to retrieve the umbrella.
The other boy ran in then. He leapt into the air and came down on the monster's chest, smashing a bright red crystal with his fist. It shattered and then, to Darian's surprise, the beast itself shattered. "Whoa," he said. He looked at Keiichi and said, "That was... cool! Scary, but cool at the same time."
Keiichi grinned and rubbed his brow again. "Thank you," he said. He glanced over at Umeko and then looked a bit sheepish. Turning back to Darian, he said, "Are you hurt at all?"
"I'm fine," Darian said, shaking his head. He sighed and looked over at the girl as well. They all looked exhausted, including Keiichi, who hadn't seemed to do very much. Darian's brows furrowed. Why? "Are you all right? What was that? What happened to Kieran? Who are you?"
"That's a lot of questions," Martin said, smirking.
"That was what we call a time beast," she said. Her brows furrowed and she added, "They're attached to people with powers, like you have. The longer we fight them, the more energy they draw from us."
"That's why we had to finish it off so quickly," Keiichi added. He gave his sister a sidelong glance and said, "We didn't have a choice."
"We'll discuss that later," she said, a note of warning in her tone.
The other boy nodded. "I'm Martin Granger, this is Keiichi Koutokui and Umeko Koutokui," he said. He grimaced and said, "I'm afraid your friend - Kieran, was that his name?" At Darian's nod, he said, "I'm afraid Kieran died when the time beast... um, absorbed him."
Darian bit his lip. He definitely needed to tell a teacher about this. He looked at the three strange kids. None of them looked that much older than him. Keiichi looked to be about the same age. "What... what are you?" he asked.
"They're timekeepers," another voice said.
Darian looked up, towards the speaker, and saw another boy. He had short-cropped dark hair and glasses. He was also dressed very similarly to the others, but in black, rather than red or blue. "Nice work, Ume-chan," he said, his tone light and teasing.
"Bradley," Umeko said. She held her wand out at the boy, in what was clearly a threatening manner. "What do you want here?"
He smirked and drew a crystal out of his shirt. It spun a few times on the end of a long chain and he stared at it. Then he looked up at Umeko. "Lord Yokimaru wanted me to see if there was anyone of interest here," he said. He arched an eyebrow at Darian and said, "I've found a few."
"The students here are under our protection," Keiichi said, straightening proudly. "You'll have to come through us if you want to harm any of them.
"Oh, no," Bradley said, "I'm so frightened. Kei-kun might have his umbrella bite me." The other boy darted forward and Bradley simply stepped out of the way, chuckling softly.
"Don't think that they're safe," he said. "There are plenty of gholes where that one came from." Then he vanished.
Darian's brows furrowed. He looked over at Umeko and shook his head. "I - I should tell the professors about this," he said.
"Yes, you should," Umeko agreed. She sighed and tucked her wand away. Then she looked back at him. "Lord Yokimaru is trying to sew chaos. You don't need to know why, the only thing you need to know is that he does that by killing people before their time."
"Then - then, that means he wants to kill someone here?" Darian said. His brows furrowed. "How would he do that? What would it matter?"
"It's hard to say how something will effect the stream of time," the other boy said. He sighed and shook his head. "As for how, he has people who work for him. They have powers that they use to alter events. The people they kill become lost souls - souls who don't have their... well, paperwork through, so they don't have anywhere to go."
"Some of them work with us," Keiichi said, smiling faintly. He shrugged and said, "Lord Yokimaru recruits others - those who don't know the truth or can be convinced in some way that following Lord Yokimaru is a better choice that following Lord Aeon."
Darian nodded and sighed softly. "I'll tell my teachers about the time beasts - the... gholes, he called them - and about you and the other guys," he said, pointing vaguely in the direction where Bradley had once stood.
"We'd appreciate that," Umeko said.
Keiichi nodded and then said, "What were you doing here, all alone, anyway?" He shook his head and his brows furrowed. "That was part of the reason the time beast attacked you. You were an easy target."
"I... needed to think," Darian said. He dropped his gaze and scowled. "My older sister - she just found our father - our birth father, anyway." He rolled his eyes and said, "She's all excited and he says he wants to be part of our lives, but..." Darian trailed off and shook his head.
Keiichi's brows furrowed. "You don't want anything to do with him?" he said, his voice soft. When Darian nodded, he said, "I - It's not any of my business, but... we're all lost souls. That means we died before we were supposed to." Keiichi shook his head. "I'd give just about anything to see my parents again, but we aren't allowed to contact anyone we knew in life, even if they could even see us."
"Most times, they can't," the other boy said.
Umeko shrugged and said, "Hey, it's your choice, but... well, you never know just how short life can be, you know? You may not get a chance like this again."
Darian's brows furrowed. Had that been why his father had abandoned their mother? Had he just assumed he'd have time to see her again someday, but that someday never came? Suddenly, he wasn't angry anymore. He shrugged and shook his head. "I'll think about it," he said, his voice soft.
"Do that," Keiichi said. Then he grinned and looked over his shoulder. Umeko was drawing the outline of a door with her wand. An old-fashioned wooden door appeared as soon as she'd finished. "I gotta go," Keiichi said, as the door slid opened.
"Thanks," Darian yelled, waving at the three timekeepers, as they disappeared through the doorway. The door slid shut as soon as they were through it. Then it vanished. Darian sighed softly and then ran for the school entrance. Someone had to know what had just happened.
He headed inside and looked left and then right. His brows furrowed. Where was everyone? Were they already in the auditorium? Had the recital begun? He bit his lip and headed down the hall, towards the auditorium. As he hurried along, the sound of voices echoed down the hall towards him. He followed them to one of the student laboratories.
"We need to tell Jake," one student was saying. She was younger than Darian, so he didn't recognize her.
The student she was speaking to, however, he knew. Frank rolled his eyes and said, "What's he gonna do? He's a panda!"
"He's also an owl," the girl said, stomping her foot. She crossed her arms over her chest and said, "He's the panda-owl. If anyone knows how to fix this, it's him!"
"He's in a recital," Darian said. His brows furrowed and he shook his head. "What's wrong? I'm an owl too."
The girl's eyes widened. Frank opened his mouth to speak, but she shoved him to one side and bounded up to Darian. "We think someone tried to hack into the systems," she said. "I think we locked them out, but... I'm worried they'll find another way in."
Darian nodded and headed over to the computer the girl had been working with. "I'm Darian, by the way," he said, as his fingers danced over the keys.
"McKenzie," the girl said. She leaned over his shoulder and watched. "Wow! You work fast," she said. "What are you doing?"
Darian smirked. "I'm following the trail they left back to their computer," he said. He gave McKenzie a sidelong glance. "We've got a program, works like a trojan. When we drop in a hackers computer, we can use it to find their IP address and location."
"Sure you can handle it, norm?" Frank said.
"Gee, I hope so," Darian said, rolling his eyes. He glared at Frank and added, "I'm the one who wrote the program." Then he turned back to the computer and focused his attention on the task at hand.
After a moment, he pushed away from the computer and said, "Either of you know why Kieran was here?"
"He was testing Project 834," McKenzie said.
Frank nodded once. "It's still a classified project, so only the lab rats and guinea pigs know what it does," he said. "Why?"
Frank was a lab rat, he knew that. He guessed that, since McKenzie was with him, she was either a lab rat or a guinea pig. Darian shook his head. He couldn't tell other students what had happened to their classmate - their teammate. "I need to talk to a professor," he said.
He headed to the hallway and called back, "I'll let them know about the hacking attempt too." Then he hurried off towards the auditorium once again.
The hallways were a blur as he all-but ran through them. He skidded to a stop, just outside the auditorium, when Mister Jones stepped into his path. "The recital's started," he said, in a soft, wheezy voice. "Ya can't go in there."
Darian bounced and shook his head. "But I gotta talk to Professor Reeves," he said. "There was this monster and it ate Kieran and there's this group that wants to kill people here and they’re the ones that sent it!"
Mister Jones's eyes widened. "This isn't the Circle Society yer talking about, is it?" he said. He'd spoken in a clear, mellow voice. He was also standing straight and, well... not quite tall, but certainly not hunched and twisted the way he normally did. Suddenly, any pretense of being mousy was gone.
Darian blinked in surprise at the sudden change. "N-no," he said, shaking his head. "Mister Jones... you..." he trailed off.
Mister Jones smirked. "Yeah," he said, ruffling his hair. "Reggie Jones is my cover." He shook his head and said, "I'm not really the head janitor, Darian. I'm the assistant headmaster."
"Professor Clayton!" Darian gasped. He could hardly believe it. No one had ever seen the mysterious assistant headmaster, or the headmaster for that matter. Now, though, he realized that it wasn't that they hadn't seen him. It was that they hadn't recognized him! Was the same true of the headmaster?
"Yes, Darian," he said, chuckling softly. He shook his head, as if to clear it, and then turned serious. "Now, take a deep breath and tell me what happened."
Darian nodded and did as the assistant headmaster said. When he'd finished repeating everything, he said, "What are we gonna do, sir?"
Professor Clayton sighed and shook his head. "This adds an unexpected wrinkle," he said, in a soft voice. "The Circle Society is a group we've been dealing with for a long while now. I won't lie and say we didn't know there weren't other groups out there. A couple adult agents had disappeared under very strange circumstances. Presumably, the same thing happened to them that happened to Kieran."
He looked into Darian's eyes and said, "I'll discuss this matter with the headmaster." He set a hand on Darian's shoulder. "You did well bringing in this information, Darian. Very well, indeed," he said. "We'll have a decision on a course of action by tomorrow morning."
"One more thing, Professor," Darian said, blushing faintly under the assistant headmaster's prize. "There was a hacking attempt. I sent out the Mark Trojan to track it, see if we can find the source."
Professor Clayton nodded. "You head into the recital at intermission," he said. "I'll check the computer lab and see if we've got anything yet." He hunched forward, then, resuming the persona of head janitor yet again. "Keep what you know 'bout Professor Clayton under wraps fer now, right?"
"I will, Mister Jones," Darian said, grinning. He sighed in relief as the assistant headmaster headed off down the corridor, towards the computer lab where he'd left Frank and McKenzie. Then he leaned against the wall to wait for the intermission. His brows furrowed as he realized that he still hadn't decided what to do about his birth father.
His brows furrowed and he whispered, "Guess it can't hurt to meet him." Maybe Kevin Travers wasn't a bad person. Maybe he was. Either way, Darian would never know, unless he gave the guy a chance.
The door to the auditorium opened, just then. Darian looked over and blinked, as his foster father came out, along with another man.
"Darian," Dad said. His eyes widened and he shook his head. "Where've you been?" Darian had just enough time to flash him a guilty smile, before he shook his head. "We'll discuss it later," he said. Waving at the man beside him, he added, "This is Kevin Travers, Darian. Shysie told him about the recital and how she's in charge of the stage crew, so he wanted to see it."
"Hello," Kevin said. He stooped down to look into his eyes. He smiled, then. "It's very nice to finally meet you," he said.
Darian's cheeks warmed and he stared at the man - his father - for a moment. "Yeah," he said, blinking. He looked down at his hands. "I - I was wondering about something, earlier," he said, in a soft voice.
"Yeah?"
"Do you - do you have powers?" Darian said, looking back up at him. He tilted his head to one side and asked, "Did we get them from you or from Momma?"
Kevin's brow furrowed and he straightened. He stood there for a moment, clearly lost in thought. Then he looked back at Darian. "I seem to remember your momma never needing help getting things down off any shelves," he said slowly. "I'd go off to get a ladder or a step stool and then, when I got back, she'd be holding it already."
Darian smiled, then changed the subject. "What do you think of the show?" he asked. "Hitoshi, Hanako and Jake have been working really hard."
"I've never heard anything like it," he said, smiling and shaking his head. "I can't hardly believe they're only ten and can play so well." There was a note of pride in his voice, as he added, "And Shysie's got the stage crew acting like real professionals besides."
Smiling, Darian nodded and looked at Dad. "Do you think she noticed that I wasn't there?" he asked. He definitely did not want to get on the wrong side of his sister's temper.
Dad chuckled and shook his head. "She's too busy running around backstage to notice who is and isn't seated in the audience," he said. He arched an eyebrow at Darian and added, "I'd like to know where you were, though."
"I had thinking to do and then... stuff happened," he said. He shrugged and shook his head. "By the time that I'd gotten inside, it was nearly time and I ended up having to backtrack an attempted hacking, then I had to find a Professor to talk to, so..."
"It's all right," Dad said, nodding. He ruffled Darian's hair and said, "Let's get you in there, now, before Shysie and Jack do realize you weren't there from the start."
"Nothing weird going on with their music, right?" Darian said, following his fathers inside the room.
"Everything has been happening according to the program," Dad said. He looked at Kevin and said, "It seems a member of the Circle Society was hoping that, by frightening them, he might cause one of the children to break protocol and give them an opening to capture them."
"Very nearly worked," a new voice said. Darian looked up to find Professor Stanford standing at the end of the back row. "Hello, Darian," he said.
"Hey, Professor," he said.
"Patrick," Kevin said, sounding excited. Darian almost laughed at the horrified look on his teacher's face. "How've you been, man? You need to call, Drew. He's been beside himself with worry over you!"
Professor Stanford's cheeks darkened and he tugged on a stray lock of hair. "I - I -I'll remember that," he said, nodding. "I - I'll call him when I get home." He took a couple breaths and gave a soft, nervous chuckle. "I wasn't expecting to see you here."
"My... kids are students here," he said, smiling cheerfully. He set his hand lightly, almost uncertainly, on Darian's shoulder and Darian grinned.
"Oh," the professor said. He relaxed visibly, then, and nodded. In a soft voice, he said, "I'll call Andy in the next day or so. Will that be all right?"
"It'd make him very happy," Kevin said, nodding. He looked serious for a moment and said, "You are all right, aren't you, Patrick? Shysie said... from what she said, Drew said you sounded like you'd gotten worse."
"I..." Professor Stanford said. He looked at Darian and then smiled at Kevin. He nodded and shook his head. "I'm all right," he said. "I truly am."
Kevin nodded and Dad said, "Right, let's get back to our seats, before Monica comes back here and drags me over there by the ear." He chuckled, to show that what he'd said was in jest and in no way meant to be taken seriously. Darian, however, knew better.
"See you around," Kevin said. He waved back at Professor Stanford, as they returned to their seats. He sat down beside Marisol, and Darian sat on his other side.
He smiled faintly and looked around. Between them, they took up nearly an entire row. Now that Kevin was added, their family was one person larger. All they needed was for Oliver and Elle's mother to be released from prison, and they'd never be able to drive anywhere. He chuckled at the thought.
Dad gave him a confused look, but the house lights dimmed before he could ask the question on his lips. "Hush, Jamie," Mom said, in a whisper, as the stage lights came up.