The Rift (11 page)

He rounded the corner into the kitchen. Dad was
tall like his sons, but older and heavier and with more lines on
his face.

“
Why am I not surprised?” Ice
infused his voice. He threw a stack of school papers onto one of
the counters. “Get out. Now.”

Steve opened his hands to his dad. “I don’t
have a place to sleep. Can’t I just stay one night?”

The ice turned to fire. “Get out! Stay at the
shelter if you can get sober for long enough!”

Steve looked at the ground. If he were high, he
would have screamed and fought. But now? Hungry and weak? He picked
up his pack and tracked a trail of dirt across the carpet toward
the front door.

Steve stood in the doorway, facing them. “Bye,
Dad.”

A long, shaking finger pointed outside. “Get
out.”

His footsteps descended the walkway. Dad picked
up the bag of chips. “He was eating these?”

“
Yeah.”

The sound of crushing chips followed the bag
into the trash can. “Why’d you let him in? You know
better.”

“
I didn’t,” Pieter replied. “He
just walked in.”

“
Next time, don’t forget to lock
the door. And call the cops if he shows again.”

It was better this way. Pieter shook off that
moment of weakness, the moment where he wanted Steve to stay the
night.

“
So, Dad, you… uh… craving orange
chicken?”

His dad’s face softened. “Why not? I have a
bunch of papers to grade. Maybe we can pick up some air freshener
on the way.”

“
No ‘maybe’ about the air
freshener,” Pieter laughed. However, after it escaped his mouth,
the joke tasted bitter.

Vero tore open a box bearing an Amazon smile
and pulled out a clamshell package.

“
Oh, this,” she said.

“
You sound surprised,” Neil
said.

The label read
celebrity mask
; inside
was a plastic mask shaped like Britney Spears’s face. Vero leaned
against a nearby tree and turned it over a few times in her hands.
“I ordered this?”

“
Yes, you ordered that.”

She barely remembered it. Neil had been
breathing down her neck to pick something for a disguise so that he
could place the order. She had searched for masks, picked out
something funny, then emailed it to him. Britney Spears? How had
she ended up as Britney Spears?

A light breeze rushed through the leaves
overhead. They were at their practice spot, a clearing near a trail
just north of town. Pieter and Vero had created the small clearing
by downing a few trees with their soul armors during their first
training session three weeks ago. They stopped when Neil pointed
out that they needed to train in secret and not get arrested for
illegal deforestation.

Pieter slipped his mask on. The off white of a
demented clown face—complete with angry eyes, slightly bloody lips,
and rotting teeth—smiled at them. A little bit of fluffy red hair
stuck off the bald head. “Now
this
is a
disguise.”

“
I am the Neil-man,” Neil said,
facing them while wearing a Batman mask. He spoke in a raspy,
throaty voice. “Gloria, how’s yours?”

She slipped on a white bunny head, slightly
cartoony, complete with ears stuck straight up like an antique TV
antenna. Whiskers pointed off the cheeks. “Well, it covers my
face.”

“
You look really cute,” Vero
said.

“
We’re not going for cute,” Neil
yelled. “These are battle masks. I can’t believe I let you pick
those out. Britney Spears? Bunny rabbit?”

“
Ditch the ears,” Pieter said.
“They’re a little overkill. Makes you hard to take
seriously.”

“
Neil gets to have ears,” Gloria
said.

“
That’s because I’m the Batman,”
Neil said in his deep voice.

Gloria slipped off the mask and stared at
it.

“
They’d probably get torn off in a
real battle anyways,” Vero said. She held out her axe, and Gloria
sliced off the ears and whiskers.

Vero took a moment to tie her hair up. Their
first practice, after a jump, she’d ended up hanging from a tree by
her hair. It actually hadn’t hurt much, probably thanks to the
armor. Though getting the twigs and leaves out of her hair had
taken an hour.

She turned on her armor and faced Pieter.
“Well?”

Silver ignited around his arm. “Whenever you’re
ready.”

Pieter stepped forward and slashed. She danced
back. Diotein knew how to be used. It gave her more than strength
and speed; she had technique and muscle memory, maybe some echo of
the previous users. She was no expert, but she reacted smarter than
she should have been able to.

She swung in return. Pieter soared backward,
planted his feet on a tree, and ricocheted toward her. He held the
sword back but aimed his other hand in an outstretched fist for
her—neither wanted to draw blood. Vero slipped to the side, twirled
around, and slammed her axe handle down. It smashed into his calf,
and the path of his jump carried him into a bush. One point for
Vero.

“
Dang, Vero,” Pieter called from
within the bushes. “You got some aggression, there?”

“
Jed owes us for Carlos’s shop,”
Vero replied. “Next time, I don’t plan to run. Neil, you want some
of this?”

“
I’ll take you on,” he said in that
ridiculously deep voice. “After all, I’m the—”

“
That joke is also officially
banned as of now,” Pieter called, dragging himself out of the
foliage.

Vero faced Neil with a smirk. Practice with
these things felt like a game. Twirling and jumping, training out
here in the woods… not a bad Saturday afternoon. Except that they
were training because someday they’d have to really
fight.

She went light on Neil; he wasn’t as good as
Pieter. She dodged a couple blows and knocked another aside. As
they sparred, a funny sensation grew in her axe. It felt like her
inner fire extended into the blade. She attacked.

Neil dodged with an awkward leap across the
clearing. He landed and gazed at her in intense concentration.
Again, some kind of power flowed into her weapon from her hands. It
nodded— as much as an axe could nod—that she should swing, despite
the range. She stared at the blade.

“
Vero?” Neil said.

She could hit him, somehow from here. At least,
so the weapon seemed to say.

“
Vero?” Neil repeated. “You’re
spaced out.”

She looked up at him. “Sorry, something weird
with the axe. I need a break.”

“
If you do that in a real
fight…”

“
Oh, shut up. You and Pieter go
fight.”

Vero quenched her armor, and Neil’s silver glow
faded. Pieter approached Neil, whose face took on a slightly
terrified look.

“
Actually, turn your armor back
on,” Neil said. “I want to try something different.”

“
What?” Vero asked.

“
Collapsing our
weapons.”

“
Collapsing?” Pieter
asked.

“
Yeah,” Neil said. “Like James had
them that first night. They were little rods. We know it’s
possible, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out that trick. I
keep trying, but no luck. I mean, do you realize how convenient
that would be?”

“
It’d stop a lot of questions from
my family, too,” Vero said.

“
You want to give it a try?” Neil
asked.

Vero stood up and turned her armor on. She
pushed against the top and bottom of her axe handle. Solid. She
held the flat of the blade and tried to fold it sideways on itself.
Nothing. She poked; she prodded. Nothing happened.

Pieter did the same, though with a sword, he
had to be a little more careful not to cut himself. Neil struggled
in vain with his mace.

“
This is a waste of time,” Vero
said. “Let’s do some jumps. Gloria, get over here!”

Gloria sat by herself on the leafy floor under
an oak tree. Nadur seemed different. Despite looking like wood, the
staff was hard as steel. Even Vero’s axe couldn’t so much as put a
nick in it. But it wasn’t sharp; Gloria couldn’t fell trees with
it. The first week, she’d sparred a little, but mostly, she just
sat there, as though in some kind of meditation. She claimed that
when she concentrated, she felt power in the armor, something more
refined than hand-to-hand combat. To Vero, it seemed like a waste
of time.

“
Gloria!” Vero yelled.

Gloria stood up. “What?”

“
Jumping time.”

All four lined up, held their weapons, and
jumped. Fresh air rushed by Vero as she sailed above the shade of
the trees. The woods stayed in the wet ravines while the dead grass
of summer covered the hillsides.

Gloria slowed then fell. Then Neil. Then
Pieter. Vero inched just above him before she peaked and
descended.

Her stomach lurched upward. Panic rumbled
around inside as the ground rushed up to meet her. Soul armor or
not, that ground was hard, and she was falling fast. As branches
rushed by her, she trusted Diotein, and when the impact finally
came, she stayed on her feet. Gloria lay flat on her
face.

“
Looks like I win again,” Pieter
said.

“
Oh, please,” Vero replied. “You
were ten feet short.”

Pieter scoffed. “Right. Again?”

They jumped for height; they jumped for length;
they ran; they sparred. After intense exertion—say, ten or twenty
jumps in a row or a fierce spar—Vero felt a little winded, but it
passed quickly if she rested. The power was a little
addictive.

After about an hour and a half, Vero started to
feel that exhaustion that told her the end was near. Neil was
already finished for the day, and she beat Pieter in one last spar
before releasing her own armor. She could have pushed a little
harder, but in case an emergency came up or something, she wanted
to be able to use the armor, if only for a few minutes.

Vero walked over to Gloria, who was back by
herself between two big oak trees, armor still glowing a soft gold
on her chest.

“
Still at it? Aren’t you
exhausted?” Vero asked.

Gloria blinked, drawing out of a deep
concentration. “Whoa, you’re right, I am. But check this
out.”

She held her staff in front of her and spun it
in a circle. Leaves fell from the trees overhead and followed it,
like a tiny tornado.

“
Cool,” Vero said. Though not
useful in a fight.

“
And look.” She raised the staff up
with both hands then pulled down. Above them, a branch from one of
the oaks bent in their direction.

A loud snap echoed, and a quarter of the tree
split off and fell. In reflex, Vero activated her armor. Good
thing, too; the section landed on her. She found herself immersed
in a world of foliage.

“
I’m sorry,” Gloria shouted from
the middle of the mess. “Looks like I still need some
work.”

Vero grabbed a thick branch and pulled herself
out. “It’s okay; this is new for all of us. But Jed better never
come after us in a forest.”

Vero slipped Diotein’s leather guard onto the
blade, and they gathered their things and hiked back to the
car.

“
I looked up some info on maces,”
Neil said. “I totally have the coolest weapon. See these?” He
pointed to six ridges that extended around the heavy end of his
mace. “Flanges. They could smash right through plate mail. I’ll bet
this thing could tear apart a tank.”

“
Do you see that?” Gloria asked.
She pointed to the sun, which peeked just over the hills
surrounding the parking area.

Vero glanced up. “Yeah, pretty.”

“
No, look closer. And see if
turning your armor on helps.”

Vero did so, though using Diotein was pretty
hard at this point. A strange blob of light appeared around the
edge of the sun. It moved like something from a lava lamp. Trust
Gloria to see that. Occasionally, she mentioned seeing translucent
human figures walking around, too, figures that didn’t notice seem
to notice the world around them. Some parts of this Ruach thing
were hard, some were scary, and some were just plain
weird.

“
It’s like a halo around the sun,”
Vero said. She turned off her armor, and she could still see the
blob, just barely. “And yeah, now I can see it even without my
armor on.”

“
I don’t see it, armor on or off,”
Neil said.

The sun silhouetted a few trees on the ridge,
then slipped completely behind it. The blob lingered a little
longer before following the sun.

“
Well, what’s it mean?” Pieter
asked.

Gloria shrugged. “Wish I knew. I’m just glad
not to be the only one seeing it, this time.”

“
You think it’s related to those
people you see?” Pieter asked.

“
I don’t know. Maybe. Right now,
though, I’m ready for a shower and dinner.”