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“We can’t sit back anymore!” Crystal cried, pacing the floor of their small apartment. Kitchen counter, living room couch, and back again. She hadn’t stopped since she hopped out of bed that morning.
Harmony struggled. These were her friends, but she understood her job.
“You heard Tristan!” Crystal continued, gripping her sister’s shoulders and shaking her aggressively. “He said we have to fight!”
“He uses the Divine,” Harmony said, her voice cool. “I don’t have that luxury. I have to—”
“Listen to the fucking Universe, don’t I fucking know it,” Crystal bit off. Harmony’s rigidity only fueled Crystal’s passion. She raced to a closet, threw back the door, grabbed a backpack, marched to her bedroom, and started shoving fistfuls of clothing inside without regard for organization or style.
Harmony stood in the bedroom doorway. Crystal’s frustration came off her in waves so strong that Harmony saw them in the air like a shimmering heat.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m going to Michael and Vivian,” Crystal growled. “They’re probably going to leave to fix whatever’s happening. We saw a bunch of young vampires herded like cattle. You saw those ashes. They’ve killed a bunch, and the rest are about to die, too. Tristan already died. Stay here if you want to. I can’t sit by and—”
“Ok. We’ll go.”
Crystal froze, one hand shoved into the backpack and the other gripping the nylon backpack ribbon with white knuckles. She blinked a few times in disbelief, frozen in confusion. She raised her head from her half-packed bag.
“Really?”
Harmony nodded. “I needed to find out for sure. Now I know.”
Crystal’s jaw jutted out. “You didn’t know a second ago?”
Harmony sighed, and Crystal sensed the impatience in it. “I did. You weren’t listening.”
––––––––
“SO, WE AGREE?” MICHAEL said, seated in a chair Vivian perched on the arm next to him. “Find Doyle and get him away from Charles? That will be our first step?”
“He put his life on the line to save you and Viv,” Lukas said. “It’s time to pay him back, I think. He might have been a bit shady, but he came through when it counted and picked the right side.”
Megan nodded, nestled in the crook of Lukas’s arm. She looked positively petite next to him instead of her actual five-foot-five. “How are we going to find him?” she asked.
Vivian frowned. “He’s too entrenched in the Maleficence for me to touch him psychically. Lukas?”
Lukas’s head swiveled her way.
“Can you hack into the Tribe database again? See what they’ve got on him?”
Lukas nodded, unwound his arm from around Megan’s back, and lifted his rump from the sofa. As he did, the sound of ripping material caught their ears. He contorted himself into a twist to see if his pants had torn, his expression baffled. Megan smirked. It looked strained.
The sound of frantic whispering drew their attention to the kitchen, where a golden, otherworldly light had appeared. Brows furrowed, Michael, Vivian, Lukas, and Megan hastened to inspect it as three people—two tiny and female, one a tall, bronze-skinned male, tumbled through a supernatural doorway lined by what appeared to be a jagged, white-hot light. Once they released the light, the portal sealed behind them as if it'd never been.
It was the two women from earlier who’d seen Vivian connect with the Source. They stood with their companion, their cheeks red with embarrassment. Dainty, neither of them over five feet tall, they stood dwarfed by Lukas, who cast a broad shadow on them from the light coming from the living room. Their male friend stood closer, protectively.
“Can we help you?” Lukas asked.
The three of them shared an awkward glance that spoke volumes. The dark-haired one took charge by unspoken agreement.
“We—uh... we wanted to ask you the same thing.”
“I’m sorry?” Michael said.
“We want to help you,” the dark-haired one continued. “Me—uh, I’m Crystal Novak, and this is my sister, Harmony. Adopted sister. We’re both adopted.” Her hands flew in dizzying motions as she spoke. “This is our friend DB—Dorian Bradley. We call him Dragon Boy,” Crystal said.
“Does he morph into a lizard?” asked Lukas.
“No, but he can breathe fire.”
DB puffed a smoke ring that rose lazily in the air and viewed Vivian and her family with a subtle humor, a twinkle in his eye and a lopsided grin.
“Fire-breathing friends,” Megan said, her eyebrows raised, giving the newcomers a skeptical once-over.
“Good to have at a barbecue,” Lukas quipped.
“Or when you need to flambé a vampire,” said Michael. “It’s one of the few reputed methods that’ll kill ’em.”
“Charmed,” Harmony injected with an awkward half-smile.
“We’re human,” Crystal said. “DB and I are... superpowered. Although Harmony can live an awfully long time, I’ve been told, but she’ll be human again, eventually. I’m, uh... I’m an aerocleaver.”
“A what?” Michael asked.
“We made the word up because we don’t think there is a word for what I do,” Crystal said, her discomfiture growing stronger the more she babbled on. “I... uh...” her hands moved toward where the bright light had been.
“She’s a spatio-temporal connector,” Harmony explained smoothly. Her explanation was met with blank stares from the four vampires. Harmony cocked her head and added without blinking, “She can cut holes into the fabric of space and connect any two points on the earth.”
“Handy,” Lukas said, impressed.
“Sort of,” Crystal said, relaxed by her sister’s contribution. “It makes vacationing easier.”
Vivian had to grin. “And what is your skill, Harmony?”
Harmony licked her lips with a mouth that neither smiled nor frowned. “I can’t tell you. Not now.” She pushed up the sleeves of her blouse before crossing her arms in front of her chest and gave them a half-shrug. “But I will when I need to. If I need to.”
Megan’s expression grew cloudy. “How can we be sure you’re not working with the Blood Tribe?”
“She’s not,” Vivian said, fascinated. “I can’t feel her at all!”
“What do you mean?” Michael asked. His muscles tensed, prepared to pounce on the newcomers.
“It’s not like Charles or any of the others. I’m aware of Charles’ existence. The thought of him makes me uneasy. She’s absent. Like a void.”
“Bad?” Megan asked.
“No... not negative... but intriguing,” Vivian’s lips turned up in curiosity. She might get no answers from Harmony about where her abilities lay, but the Source told her that accepting the newcomers worked in the Universe’s favor.
“We had another friend, Tristan,” Crystal said. “Tristan was a human with special powers, too.”
“What kind?” Michael asked.
“Prophecy. And he could turn energy into a ball and use it as a weapon.”
“You said ‘had a friend’ and ‘could,’” Michael observed. “Where is he?”
“He died a few hours ago,” Harmony replied. The candor in her voice was odd, almost robotic. “Killed by vampires. They were rounding younger vampires up and killing them.”
Conversation lapsed, and heads turned from Harmony, whose expression refused to emote, to Vivian. There were a thousand questions, but which to ask first? As Vivian’s family gave them their full consideration, Harmony drew herself to her full, if slight, height.
Crystal waved her hands at them beseechingly, her eyes tearful as her sister assumed a posture similar to the one Vivian had recently used. Head back, eyes closed, she inhaled deeply and then swooned. The tanned, golden-eyed boy placed a hand on either side of her, prepared to catch her. Harmony drew a sharp breath, one Michael heard duplicated by Vivian.
“Balance,” Vivian said. “She’s in the Balance.”
“Oh, great, now we can trust her,” Megan scowled, but Lukas shushed her and put a gentle hand on top of hers. Megan glowered, but remained silent.
Harmony’s eyes flew open, but her placid features revealed little. Vivian’s body became unsteady. Michael took her elbow with a distracted arm.
“Who’s Charles?” Harmony said, her voice in a rush.
“Charles Dunning, head of the Blood Tribe, the primary host of the Maleficence,” Vivian said. Michael questioned Vivian’s trust in the one being in the room she could not read, but bit his tongue.
“You mean the Darkness?” Crystal asked. Vivian blinked and nodded in confirmation. Maleficence, Darkness, it was all the same.
“He’s on his way,” Harmony said.
“How long do we have?” Michael asked, but Harmony’s head was already shaking, her eyes wide with panic.
“Now,” Harmony said gravely. “We need to leave now.”
“Time for me to show you what I can do,” Crystal said. She drew up her hand outside the bathroom and pulled it down. A ray of light shot across the kitchen, setting the room aglow.
“Help me grab our bags,” Michael said to Lukas. “Megan, you and Vivian get everyone out of here.”
“Into the fray again,” Lukas grinned. “Finally.”
