Chapter 6

Mia, Hilde, and I tromped down dirty sidestreets until we reached the main thoroughfare with the raised outdoor station for the bullet train. The digital sign hanging from the blocky roof, one of the few pieces of tech down in Midcity sturdy enough to resist corrosion or breakdown, said the train was due to arrive in just a couple of minutes. The three of us stood silently on the raised concrete platform, huddled in the pool of light from an overhead lamp. The constant fake wind rustled our clothes and hair with light flapping sounds, the only intrusion on our awkward silence.

I stood with my hands thrust sullenly in my pockets. I knew I was being surly, but I frankly didn’t care. These people had almost got me killed, ruined my favorite shirt, abducted me, then made outrageous claims that had my head spinning. Yes, I was blaming them for the ogre’s actions, because they’d aggravated him and driven him toward me in the first place, hadn’t they? All the crazy things Wyatt had said couldn’t possibly be true, but then why did they have a picture of my mom? And how did Hilde have fire powers?

It was all too much. I sighed and scratched my head in agitation. Hilde stood fidgeting next to me, her eyes looking nervous over the top of her mask. I gazed at her in thought. If we join, we won’t have to wear masks anymore, huh? That fact alone blew my mind and would have made just about any cult seem tempting. But can I trust Whisper not to exploit us?

I stared at the gold-and-crimson Avalon Corp logo stamped into the floor of the platform right where customers would walk to get on the train. The same logo was splashed everywhere: on the digital schedule sign hanging up above, on the drink vending machine tucked into a standing alcove near the bathrooms behind us, even on the sun lamps just barely beginning to raise their ambient light to simulate dawn in the underground city. We’d been out all night and the restaurant would be opening soon.

“Hey Mia,” I said, breaking the silence. “Was Wyatt really telling the truth about Avalon Corp?”

Mia looked over at me. She’d been quiet the whole time, letting me sulk in silence, but now she nodded. “Yeah, it’s true. They did a lot to found this city and get everyone settled here, but they cast a wide shadow. There’s a lot of things they do in the darkness that should be brought to light. But if they were all revealed at once, the people of this city may go mad.”

“Is that why Whisper doesn’t openly reveal the existence of magic and Protos?” Hilde asked. It sounded like she’d swallowed their claims hook, line, and sinker. I guess I couldn’t blame her since she’d just shot flames out of her hands for the first time.

“You’ve both encountered magic and Protos tonight,” Mia said with a sly smile. “You’re both living proof that it’s true. Even so, do you fully believe it?”

I pulled my hand halfway out of my pocket to look at the silver scale embedded there, then shoved it back in. “Point taken.”

“And even if they did all believe it, what would that do to everyday life? People cowering in their homes afraid of ogres and vampires and all the ghouls of the night, while their corporate guardian angel harnesses them like cattle to achieve their goals.” Mia flung her hand at the Avalon Corp logo stamped into the concrete at our feet. “If we did convince everyone at once, we’d cause mass panic and chaos. Riots. Suicides. If we reveal just a little bit at a time to those who can work to overcome the problems, but leave humanity to discover the truth for themselves at their own pace, the damage may be far less catastrophic. We have faith that humanity will find the truth and manage it on their own when the bad-faith actors are removed. That’s Whisper’s mission.”

“The power to help people,” Hilde whispered to herself. The sadness in her tone was unbearable. I brushed her arm with my fingertips, and she smiled at me reassuringly. “I’m okay, Eddie. Just thinking. It’s a pretty huge deal, you know? This morning I was just a waitress in a diner, even if it is the best diner in the whole city.” She covered her masked mouth with her hand and giggled, and seeing her relax made me smile. “And now, just a few hours later, I have to learn to control this dangerous new ability. I already worried about hurting people before, but now I can kill them without meaning to. It’s… it’s a lot, that’s all. Hearing there’s a tangible way to help others, that’s reassuring in the bigger-picture kind of way.”

Mia had watched me reach out to Hilde with narrowed eyes. She smiled knowingly at us, and I did my best to pretend I didn’t see. When she spoke, her husky voice was heavy with gravity. “It is a lot to take in, Hilde. You’re absolutely right. This is a sacred calling to protect humanity.”

I snorted. “Whenever someone calls something a sacred calling, it makes my eye twitch. I wonder what they’re trying to take from me in the name of their professed greater good.”

“That’s fair,” Mia allowed. “But consider this. Without us, those ogres will take your family’s restaurant right out from under you. They just may kill and eat your family in the process. Ogres do that, eat human flesh. Joining us would be a way of protecting all the things you find important.” She caught my gaze, then flicked her eyes meaningfully toward Hilde. I grunted and turned my face away from her to let her know she’d crossed a line, but she kept yakking. “And it may be what your mother would have wanted. Whisper was her life, her passion. She loved her family, but she also loved her work. I know she died when you were very young. I remember when it happened. I’d be happy to talk to you about her any time.”

Mia pulled out a black flip phone. “Avalon Corp rations phone sales, and reception is spotty down here, but do you have phones?”

“Yep!” Hilde said enthusiastically. She pulled her light blue flip phone from her pocket. Her collection of phone charms rattled in the breeze. They were mostly animals, books, famous characters like Happy Hattie, and a concert keychain for the singer Elegance. I spotted the red lizard kaiju charm I’d given her as thanks for joining our restaurant. She still had it after four years.

“Uh oh,” Hilde whispered. She turned her phone to show me ten missed calls from Evie and a host of text messages with an increasing number of exclamation points and profanity.

“Don’t read them yet. She gets frantic when she doesn’t know what’s going on. I’ll deal with her when we get home.”

Hilde nodded. She and Mia held their phones together and activated contact sharing to swap addresses. Afterward, Mia held her phone up to me invitingly.

“No,” I said flatly. “I don’t know if I want any of you contacting me. This night has been enough for now.”

Mia looked just a little deflated, but she covered it with a smile. “Sure. I get it.”

The bullet train roared into the station with a whirl of dust and papers. It stopped on a dime right in front of us, and the electric doors slid open with a whoosh, disgorging a blast of air that stank of cigarettes and cheap perfume. I started toward the open doors without saying goodbye.

Behind me, I heard Hilde say, “It was nice to meet you, Mia. Thank you for helping us get home.”

“Oh my,” Mia laughed. “Such gracious manners. Thank you for not calling Avalon Corp Security on us for abducting you. Text me if you have any questions.”

“I will. AvSec just seems to make things worse, anyway.” She hurried after me toward the train doors, her boots tapping on the concrete platform as she crossed the Avalon Corp logo and entered the train doors. They slid shut behind her and we found seats facing each other, which wasn’t hard because we had the entire train car to ourselves.

“What do you think?” Hilde asked as the train pulled away from the station. When I looked up at her, she gave me a nervous half-smile. “You seemed pretty angry about the whole thing.”

I looked down at my chest. “Well, they did wreck my favorite work shirt…”

She giggled. “I think the ogre did that.”

“And who aggravated him? Who drove him toward us? If they’d handled their self-professed job correctly, you and I wouldn’t even have known they were there. Instead, I nearly died and you’re stuck with a dangerous gift that you need their help to control.”

She looked sad at that, and I kicked myself for being so blunt.

“Sorry about that.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s fine. Not your fault. I was just thinking, you’re right. I’m even more dangerous to people I care about now.”

“’Even more’?”

“Forget it.” She forced another smile. Other people wouldn’t have seen through it, but after growing up together I’d come to recognize when she was covering for something she didn’t want to let out.

“Hey,” I said, leaning forward. “You’re scared. That’s okay. This is pretty huge.”

She looked surprised, then laughed under her breath. “Yeah, I guess it is. Even more for you though, huh? Magic is a big enough thing, sure, but your mom? That’s got to feel like a punch to the gut. You doing okay?”

I sighed and leaned back. “Not really. I don’t know what to think. Doesn’t make sense, Pop has never mentioned it. But they had a picture of her, and she did die on travel. We never really got a full story, just some claim that she’d been killed in a robbery gone wrong. She was cremated before she even got back to us. I guess I can’t disprove their claim but… Come on. They want me to believe my mom was this legendary huntress who killed evil monsters.” I snorted, then turned to stare out the window. “It’s an awful lot to swallow.”

“So what will you do? You’ve got the silver scale, and they said the ogres won’t stop until they take over our district. That means they’ll probably keep coming after the restaurant.”

“I don’t know. I can’t think straight right now. I need some sleep and some food.”

“Well,” Hilde grimaced adorably, “you’ll get plenty of food at the restaurant today…”

I slapped my forehead. “We’re both working opening shift, aren’t we?”

“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.”

“And Pop and Evie will want to know where we went. They’re gonna think we were out all night together.”

Hilde blushed. “Maybe we can tell them we were with friends?”

“Sure, that’d probably work. Man, I am not ready for ten hours of cooking.”

Hilde laughed. “I’m not ready to carry food around and take orders, either. Maybe we should get some coffee drinks on the way home.”

“Good thinking.”

It had been a long van ride but was just a ten minute ride by bullet train to the station near our restaurant. We already wore our work clothes, though mine were admittedly in poor shape, all ragged and bloody.

The train pulled up to the station just a block from Atomic Eats and we piled out through the open doors, passing a few commuters on their way to work. Few people went much farther beyond the boundary of the district where they were born, and the ones who did only traveled in search of work. The world above had become an ugly place in the last few years and no one wanted to travel except for folks like my mother who got compensated nicely for the danger. Though, I guess she faced a lot more danger than we realized.

Hilde and I strode up to a glowing vending machine with a neon red banner across the top which read Happy Hattie’s Liquid Dreams. The lady herself, Happy Hattie, was an adorable cartoon caricature of a young woman with a pretty face, a plain blue dress with white apron, and her brown hair held back with a folded white bandana. I guess Avalon Corp thought this was what Midcity folks looked like, as if she’d blend in down here like one of us.

Hattie’s foot-tall hologram moved independently from the machine and stood atop it as she smiled and waggled her finger at us. “Awfully late to be getting home! Try one of my special elixirs to keep the gloomies away!” A silent commercial started playing on the built-in display screen along the right side by the money slot. The words Tired of being tired? flashed on the screen with an obnoxious pulsing effect, followed by Then go drink a Knife!™

The view zoomed out to show the text was a tattoo on a ripped guy’s shirtless chest. His comically tall blue mohawk wobbled as he cracked open a tall red can and chugged it, making sure the audience got a good eyeful of the name Knife™ on the side. He screamed like a lunatic and crushed the empty can on his forehead. The commercial concluded with the mohawk guy spinning around to display his broad muscular back where he’d tattooed the words, Knife energy drink. Slash your thirst to death!™

I pulled two dimes from the bottom of my pocket and plugged them into the vending machine to buy coffee drinks for Hilde and myself. The cans dropped with a thud and I fished them out.

On the top of the machine, Happy Hattie clasped her little cartoon hands in front of herself and bowed. “Thank you for your patronage.”

I handed her the pink can of strawberry coffee.

Hilde beamed. “Oh, thanks! My favorite.”

“No problem.” I popped the tab on my brown can, lifted my mask a hair, and bolted the bitter coffee down in a rush. When I swallowed the last drop, I came up for air with a gasp and crushed the can in my fist. I wasn’t as adventurous as the mohawk guy, I guess. “Now that’s a rush!”

Hilde sipped at hers under her mask a bit more like a normal human should. I guess there’s a reason Evie calls me the Human Warthog.

I glanced across the little cement station and saw an Avalon Corp poster for one of our local favorite heroes, Spellbound. He wore vivid red leather armor with his black hair coiffed perfectly and a hulking barge of a chin. I considered what I’d been told about Avalon Corp, but couldn’t make much sense of it with how tired I was, so I just stuffed the restless thoughts in a box and shoved it to the back of my mental closet.

I ditched my shredded shirt in a trash can and walked home shirtless with Hilde strolling along beside me, still savoring her strawberry drink. The breeze was cool, but Avalon Corp kept our Midcity cavern at a comfortable temperature to prevent any extra sickness from exposure. We already had enough illness to deal with down here, after all. We hustled back to the restaurant just in time to see Evie flipping the Open sign on the front door. She caught sight of us and allowed us inside before she huffed at us in annoyance, though I suspected she was really just huffing at me. Evie always treated Hilde like a delicate flower.

“And just where have you been?” she demanded. “I’ll have you know I’ve been worried sick about both of you.”

“Sorry about that,” I apologized, pulling down my mask and scratching my cheek. Hilde removed hers and slipped it into her pocket as I fended off Evie’s verbal assault. “We—”

“And what happened with the dead guy in the alley?”

Hilde and I froze.

“The… dead guy?” I asked.

“Yes! The dead guy! Avalon Corp Security were in the alley picking up some big corpse. There was blood everywhere. You two had disappeared, and I feared the worst. Dad has been a wreck all night with worrying, I made him stay upstairs in bed. I told him you’ve never missed a day of work and wouldn’t miss this morning, even if you’d been murdered, too. So where were you? What happened with the dead guy?”

“Uh, well…” Hilde and I shared a look. She seemed at a total loss for what to say, so I decided to fall back on our cover story. “Yeah, we did see the dead guy. Some… dark figure came along and killed him. We ended up… leaving. Went to stay with some… friends, until things cooled down. Figured it was safe to come home today.”

“You only have one friend,” she scoffed, “so you must mean that playboy thug Johnny. And you didn’t answer all my messages because?” she prompted, crossing her arms.

I dragged my black flip phone from my pocket and looked at it. “Huh, fifteen missed calls. And some texts. You know I don’t like to text.”

“You are absolutely impossible, Eddie. Next time you witness a murder and run for your life, you’d better contact me, or I will come murder you. Got it?”

“Got it.” I shot her a thumps-up which made her roll her eyes. Then she finally seemed to notice my lack of shirt. “Is that really how you’re going to start your shift? Looking like a degenerate bum?” Then she bristled. “Just what have you and Johnny been subjecting my Hilde to that involved you going shirtless?”

“Hey, just who do you think I am? And what do you mean, your Hilde?”

Evie grabbed Hilde’s arm and sidled up to her. “I’ve adopted her. So there.” She stuck her tongue out at me.

Hilde just blinked in frozen confusion.

“Whatever. I’m going to grab a shirt, then I’ll hit the kitchen.”

“Make sure you say hi to Dad,” Evie told me. She turned to greet a few of our early regulars as they approached and went to work as hostess while Hilde hustled into the back to wash her hands and prep for her waitressing job.

I headed through into the kitchen, then climbed the stairs to our apartment on the second floor. Dad was asleep on the bottom bunk but woke up as soon as our bedroom door creaked, raising his head to stare blearily at me with drool leaking from his mouth. “Eddie? S‘at you?”

“Yeah, Pop. I’m home with Hilde. We’re safe.”

“Good,” he mumbled. “Good you’re safe. Girl like that, you should…” he trailed off as his head collapsed back into his pillow.

I pulled on another black shirt that smelled mostly clean, used the bathroom, and tromped back downstairs to the kitchen. A couple tickets were already piling up at my station, and I fired up the burners to get the breakfast rush started.

Evie popped into the kitchen a few minutes later. “AvSec was poking around asking about the dead guy. Told us to call in if anyone had seen anything. You gonna make the report?”

“Nah, don’t want to get involved.”

Evie looked surprised. “Didn’t you see the killer?”

I shrugged and kept my eyes on the stove. “It was pretty dark. Doubt I’d be of any help to them, anyway.”

She looked skeptical but didn’t press. She headed back out into the restaurant and left me alone to cook.

Morning shift on Pop’s rare days off were usually my favorite because I got to run the whole kitchen like a head chef. Nevermind that the breakfast menu was sparse and extremely simple, nothing compared to our lunch and dinner menu. In these early hours, the kitchen was my private kingdom.

But we’re a kingdom under fire, now. I thought about the ogres, those suited thugs pressuring us to sell, and the supposed army at their back who wouldn’t stop until they took over our place and drove us out. I wanted to deny what Wyatt had said, his crazy worldview and all his insane ramblings about other species, but I’d seen them for myself. I even had a piece of their world embedded in the back of my right hand. How am I gonna explain that one to Evie when she notices?

Hilde pushed through the doors to grab her first tray of food for the earliest tables. We made eye contact and she gave me a warm smile, then looked me over. “Much better without the blood.”

“I’m all about customer comfort.”

She laughed lightly behind her hand. Then she got serious. “I think I’m gonna do it, Eddie. I’m gonna take Wyatt up on his offer to train me. I need to understand this new thing about myself and make sure I don’t hurt anyone.”

I leaned on the counter, still tired but fighting to think clearly. “If you’re going in, I’ll join, too. I won’t leave you alone in a den of snakes.”

“Thanks,” she said. And she gave me one of her big smiles, the genuine ones with nothing hiding behind them except more joy. Seeing that smile was worth all the blood and agony from the night before. I’d fight another ogre all over again for her.

A small one. Maybe one of their ogre accountants.