The air sparked across every molecule between Lei-selle and Tina. This electricity was intoxicating to her, unlike the nauseating languidness that came from any other Mixer's presence as they tried to dull her mental capacities. The clarity in the air around Tina was like swimming in a crystal-clear lake, the cool waters refreshing and calming. Of course, she knew it was only because Tina did not know how to utilise her powers, but she could not help but revel in this new experience.
They stared at each other, their breaths mingling in that clear, electrified space, brown eyes searching her obsidian mirrors. Lei-selle could clearly see Tina's slashes now. They were not only solid blue lines, most notable of Mixers, but a faint white wisp curled around it like a lost scarf clinging to a light pole on a windy day. She cocked her head to the side to observe it more and Tina threw her eyes to the ground, a bought of shyness eclipsing her own curiosity.
With a resolute grunt, Lei-selle pushed off the old, grey wall of the building and rose to her feet. "Since you have no questions, meet me on top the hill tonight, 3 a.m. I expect punctuality of my kin."
Without a glance over her shoulder, she kicked the dust off her feet in Tina's direction then entered the school building. Hybrids peered at her from every corner of the hall as she returned to the original scene of Tina's Cicatrix.
The nervous girl was a wonder to Lei-selle, like rediscovered land. She wondered what was so enchanting about the girl that she would decide to Claim her despite her Conscious-less history. Was it how she trembled at every sound and gesture? Maybe, it was the hesitancy in her voice causing her syllables to lurch here and there like travelling on an old train. Or, most probably, it was the prospect of sinking her claws into unblemished meat, akin to a vampiric obsession for virgin blood. Arriving at the lunch hall, she snatched her untouched bag off the cracked tiles and approached a small side-door to a discreet flight of stairs.
In the narrow hallway, Lei-selle was ambushed by a small and ragged bunch of Hybrids. A dark, burly boy in a starkly orange sweater shuffled in behind her, and a wiry Mixer with stringy blond hair traipsed in smugly before he slammed the door shut. The old lock was wobbled closed and a few steps ahead, a pair of Executioners rose from the rickety staircase beside her and made their way around the banister toward her.
Lei-selle bit her fingernails into her palm and a roughly shook her head to release herself from the trance the spaghetti-headed Mixer had put her under.
"Shitty Mixers," Lei-selle cursed. She would not have taken this rickety staircase back to class on any other day. "If you know what's good for you, you'll let me through," Lei-selle said to the Executioners before her, daggers serrating her words.
"If you know what's good for you, you'll hand over the weapon you killed Enilse with," the raggy blond screeched behind her.
"Over my dead body," Lei-selle said, and she dropped her lunch bag under the stairs. "Give me your names, so I know who to send to Lucifer."
"Gladly, I'm Kamera Gamtah," the Executioner on her right cracked his knuckles then gestured to the Executioner to her left, "this is my kin, Lito Concillable. And the Mixer behind you is Thal Tascenda."
"And the big guy in the tacky orange jacket?" Lei-selle found her centre of balance as she thumbed her razor out of her cardigan's sleeve.
"No one, just some human I picked up," Thal licked her lips. "Don't worry, I've taken all mental precautions," she said as she swirled her index finger beside her temple.
"You three are going to be sorry for-"
Before she could finish, a great weight slammed into her, knocking the razor out of her hand and the air from her lungs. The small blade skittered delicately beside her lunch box along with any oxygen she had. A heavy punch landed in her right side further suffocating her.
Fortunately, one did not survive on oxygen in Below. She hurled her knee upward and found purchase in Kamera's groin. He coughed a shower of grimy spit in her face and rolled on his side, doubled up in pain. Rolling to the left to avoided Lito's foot coming down on her stomach, Lei-selle stretched her hand out for the razor but the human in orange lunged at her hand.
"Screw it," Lei-selle hissed and brought her free right hand up to her mouth and gashed her wrist with her canines.
Red, iron blood leaked into her mouth, and she slurped it up carnivorously, letting the rest form her signature scabby claws. She dragged the claws across the human's face, and he drew back throwing both hands over the wounds. Lito threw another kick in her direction, but she caught his leg, sinking the lethal edges of her fingertips into the tendons in his ankles.
"Shit!" Lito cried out, tripping over himself to get away, his blood soaking his long khaki pants like a paper towel dropped in a lake.
"That's right, you nuisance," Lei-selle snarled as she got up, bringing his bleeding ankle with her.
Lito stared up at her in terror, his bushy eyebrows furrowing over his angular nose. Kamera groaned beside him, still clutching his groin, and Thal stood at the door, mouth opening and closing like a suffocating fish.
"We didn't…" Thal stammered, her wiry, pale frame vibrating like sheet metal and her stringy blonde hair shivering above her shoulders like terrified wet spaghetti.
"Oh, shut up," Lei-selle hissed.
She dropped Lito's ankle then stood over him, pressing her full weight on his left shoulder. With one swift jab, she plunged her hand into his chest. She dragged out his pounding heart secured in her fist, some blood still sputtering from the gaping aorta. His slimy blood dripped onto his cream shirt, soaking it in crimson. Lito went completely limp, a perfume smell of lead rising into the air from his formerly warm body.
"I'll be taking this as compensation," Lei-selle smirked. She bounced the weight of the organ in her hand, "not bad."
Lei-selle yanked her lunch bag open and dropped the sopping heart inside. The heart was not able to hit the dark cloth before a yell sounded behind her, and she whirled around to Thal's expression of painted horror and despair. Her eyes, lit completely blue, washed a wave of nausea over Lei-selle, and the mental attack came right after it. A splitting headache shot through Lei-selle's skull, and she crumpled to the floor as paralysed as the dead Lito beside her.
"Stop!" Another voice rang out.
The dreadful attack finally lifted and Lei-selle shot up, gasping for air. She spun to consider her unwanted saviour only to find a short boy with wispy black curls and pale brown skin as though he was perpetually anaemic.
"Escari," Lei-selle wheezed. She took a few more mouthfuls of air to steady herself. "What brings you to this side of the building?"
Thal shifted uneasily on her feet, now caught between two Clairvoyagers with nothing but her skinny arms and weak Control. Lei-sell turned on her, leaping to her feet into a crouch, claws still out. Thal prepared her Control again, the light of the blue slash in her eyes wavering, her body further trembling.
"That is enough, Thal," Escari's voice of smooth, warm milk had an edge of authority that froze the weakened Mixer in her place.
Thal obeyed, as was custom, and let her Control fade.
"You got what you came for, now go," Escari chided her further and the girl flinched.
Thal leapt to retrieve Kamera who stumbled to his feet and ordered the unfortunate human she had dragged along to pick up Lito's limp body. The desolate crew of Claimless Hybrids were gone in the blink of an eye.
"I didn't need your help, Escari," Lei-selle said, picking her claws from her fingertips and letting the scabs fall to the tiles. "I could handle them just fine," she said while taking up the soaked lunch bag and shaking it in his face.
"Evidently, the Den is growing restless for you to get this over with," Escari's authoritative tone had left his voice, and he now parsed his words carefully with Lei-selle.
She noticed this and a shot of pride bloomed in her chest. "I know."
"So?" He opened his arms to block her path up the stairs. "When will you be done?"
What Escari was truly asking was when she would finally challenge him, and the rest of the Clairvoyagers, and claim her right to inherit her mother's Den. Of course, she wouldn't give him the benefit of that information.
"Get out of my way before I make my decision right here," Lei-selle gave him a provocative look and flashed the razor between her fingertips. He respected the threat and pressed his back to the wall to allow her to pass in the narrow space.
Still, she bumped him with her lunch bag and left a streak of blood along the knees of his brown trousers.
"I know what you did," a raspy voice spoke.
"Of course you do," Lei-selle responded cooly while waiting for the light to change.
She was standing at the school gates, on the T-intersection of her street and the main road. The light was taking its sweet time allowing the cars to zoom past, causing the students to wait impatiently at the crosswalk. The rasping voice came from the cigarette addict of a security guard aimlessly waving a stop sign at the oncoming traffic.
"I saw that body they dragged out the back, had a hole in his chest like the other two," he peered at her through his right eye, the only eye that was functioning, the other was clouded over with the same smoke he breathed in every day. "That was your doin', wasn't it?" He drawled.
"Might have been, now keep your voice down crazy, old man," Lei-selle stepped into the road, the light having finally changed, and her clueless little sister in tow.
On top the hill, Mrs. Abaddon stood like a harpy eagle surveying her sprawling territory. However, her eyes were latched onto her prey, Lei-selle. A cold current wormed through Lei-selle's chest at the faint glow of red in her mother's black silhouette, backlit by the setting sun. When the two girls got closer, a thin smile spread across the lady's features.
"Welcome home my darling," she kissed Sabath-Anne's cheek then ushered her inside. "My germling," she spun on Lei-selle suddenly, "don't we have quite a lot to talk about?"
"Yes, mother," Lei-selle responded to the non-question, her eyes glued to Mrs Abaddon's severe black kitten-heeled pumps.
Sabath-Anne received a loving kiss on her plump cheek from Mr. Runi-Tineiden then she giggled up the stairs, the soft shutting of her bedroom door indicating her retreat from the family.
The front door slammed closed, and despite the sky light over the stairs, the entry hall became as black as a pitch lake, oily and heavy with fuming afternoon heat.
"My germling," Mrs. Abaddon's voice rang in Lei-selle's ears like heavy church bells, "how was your day?"
She was welded to the carpeted floor, her bag weighing on her shoulders like the world upon Atlas. Her lips trembled before her answer could be whispered into the air. "Just fine, mother."
"Jaako-baby, won't you be a dear and take Selle's bag, it must be heavy, right my germling?" Mrs. Abaddon slithered before Lei-selle; the empty smile still scrawled across her face.
"Yes, Rez," Mr. Runi-Tineiden swiftly moved to sweep Lei-selle's only anchor to the world from her shoulders.
Mr. Runi-Tineiden lay the bag on the steps and Lei-selle was careened into free-fall before her mother. She dropped to her knees and kissed her black heels with ferocity as a beggar before Christ.
"Please forgive me, mother, I wasn't in my right mind," Lei-selle wept, her tears dampening her ankle-high socks.
"You better have not been," Mrs. Abaddon hissed. "May we Fall further, Below."
At Mrs. Abaddon's utterance, Mr. Runi-Tineiden leaped forward, grabbing both Mrs. Abaddon's hand and Lei-selle's trembling shoulders. Hot air radiated over them as the three fell to Below.
First, a comforting warmth bloomed across Lei-selle's chest as the smoke and ash engulfed her. Then came the fire. A sweltering heat like being boiled alive yet also parched of all water in an arid desert. Biting ants of flames marched across her skin leaving exposed, singed flesh in its wake. Her clothes became scorched upon her like a branding. The stench of her burning rose into her nose with the waves of heat, momentarily suffocating her every time.
Lei-selle blinked tears out of her eyes, made easier with the hot air around her evaporating them, and she finally noticed where they had landed. Her stomach dove in fear as far as the deep pit before her, the cliffs glared with sharpness and the jagged rocks coaxed her to crash against them. Wicked, dead trees loomed overhead, their crooked branches reaching for her like the diving claws of a falcon.
"Little germling," Mrs. Abaddon cooed.
Lei-selle spun around to face her mother, the smile had dissolved from her lips and was replaced with the rotting, burnt flesh left in Below's wake. Mrs. Abaddon reached a zombified hand forward to caress Lei-selle's melted cheek. In the next moment, her mother gave her a hard shove and Lei-selle was sent flying over the edge of the cliff to relive her initiation as a Clairvoyager.