SWNOVELS Chapter The Truth
The hunter furrowed her eyebrows then tried to sit up, only to find her hands strapped to the bed. Vainly she tugged at her restraints that wouldn't give in. A frustrated sigh sounded beyond her mint green curtain before Dr Cardin came in, scrolling through her tablet.
"Good almost morning," the doctor greeted chipperly. "Excuse nurse Caleb, he's new to the secure ward and he-"
"The secure ward? Why am I in the secure ward?"
Dr Cardin laid her tablet on the bedside table then took out her little torch to examine Ryan's optical response. "What's the last thing you remember," her doctor deflected.
"I asked first."
"And I'm trying to keep you alive," Cardin countered then lifted the huntress' top lip to expose her top row of teeth. "What's the last thing you remember?"
Ryan shrugged lightly as she thought about it then her levelled expression dropped into a livid contorted scowl. "That wicked witch bit me!" Her anger vanished when Dr Cardin started stretching her cheeks to massage them. "I think it's safe to say that I'm not a Class E, doc!"
"No, you're clearly not," she replied then started unbuckling the restraints. "A lot went down in the two weeks you've been out."
"Two weeks!"
"Chill. We manned the fort," the doctor downplayed. "Firstly, Richard Axel and Jakob Sorensen are dead. They died that day of your attack." Ryan massaged her wrist then sat up slowly. "Another Guardian Program hunter too." Ryan's lips parted in anticipation. "The first year, Jason?" Her shoulders deflated but still she nodded. "There's more but there's something I have to address with you," she began seriously and reached for her tablet.
"What is it?" The doctor started typing on her tablet then she mutely started scrolling. "Doc, whatever it is just tell me. You don't need any of the fancy..."
"What do you see," Dr Cardin cut in coolly, holding up her tablet for patient to see.
On the tablet was a vaguely deformed humanoid that made Ryan's face drain from all colour. She grabbed the tablet to zoom in on the blurring image. "Um... please tell me I was supposed to be a triplet and this is just the third Axel."
"You're six weeks in," Dr Cardin stated and Ryan really went pale. "You know the rules. No Mana gradus, no relationships. Now look because this is out of my control. You're eighteen so I'm not obligated to tell your parents but you're an expecting hunter without a Mana so I'm obligated to report to the territorial head, who just happens to be your father." Ryan shook her head while starting to tear up. "I know. I know. I've had to do this a few times and it never gets easy."
"Please. You don't understand."
"It's out of my hands, Ryan. All I can do now is tell you what's to come and refer you to the leaflets for addition aid," Dr Cardin admitted. "Non-Invasive Prenatal Paternity Tests can be performed as early as nine weeks and..." Ryan started sobbing into her knees and the doctor had to bite back. "I waited for you to wake up but this is as far as I could delay it."
"I promise you'll never have to see me again if don't tell him. You won't have to tell anyone if I'm not here."
"I'm sure the father is a good person but that changes nothing. My advice is get this over with as quickly as possible; the sooner the truth gets out, the sooner you'll be able to move on."
"What a hypocrite," she jeered through her blocked nose. "Not just you, The Hunt! We vowed to protect the innocent and yet in doing that, I would have to kill an innocent baby and watch someone I love be tortured. Please don't tell my dad. Please don't tell anyone!" The mint curtain was whipped back and behind stood the angry Clarke Axel. Slowly he closed the curtain and his eys never left the cubicle's occupants. "No," Ryan began as he made for them and Dr Cardin stood up. "No, no. Daddy, please don't-"
Clarke snarled then buried his face into the doctor's neck and tore out her throat. While Dr Cardin caved to the floor, Clarke paged through her tablet. "We don't have a lot of time," he began. "We have a fifteen second window before they realise that your entire file just magical vanished. Think you're strong enough for some violence?"
Ryan narrowed her eyebrows then slapped Clarke across the cubicle. "You bit me!"
When he turned backed, in place of the male donor of Ryan's genes, the female donor stood before her. "You hit me. Call it even?" Ryan scowled. "Hey, if you want Junior to survive the next seven and a half months, suck it up," Renee ordered then handed her a loaded revolver and extra ammunition. "The entire ward is heavily guarded. There're only two ways out: either we die or we risk dying by running."
"For a master strategist, you seriously suck at planning," Ryan stated while taking in the number of rounds in her gun.
"Trust me," Renee sang. "It will be like playing tag in the rain. In place of touching, we'll be killing and in place of water, there'll be blood. Fun, right?" Ryan rolled her eyes while Renee grinned a blood-soaked grin and typed of the tablet. "Deleting in three... two... go!"
They took off running down the hallway which triggered the hunters. They armed themselves. Renee looked like she was about to break; her grey hair and wrinkling body were making her look closer to an old lady than she should have looked. Still she had her speed and agility and stamina. Not forgetting her eldritch, even if that was the cause of her decay.
She set the entire hallway on fire. A fire that protected her and Ryan on their escape. Ryan shot everyone! Whether they came at her or not. Alarms were blaring under the gunfire and the entire ward was sent into lockdown but not before Renee shattered a window and dove out it with Ryan in tow.
Coolly on the ground, their escape was hardly final. Ryan circled around to hug Renee and Renee hugged her back. The eldritch hummed then opened her eyes with a gasp. She spun Ryan out of the way and her green flames engulfed Sayeed, who had a crossbow aimed at them. He fell to the ground screaming but his dogs continued. Amenta - a German Shepherd - and Scarab, a doberman, charged for the mother-daughter duo.
Ryan fired two shots into Scarab but the doberman's bulletproof vest was at the rescue. She raised her arms when the dog pranced onto her and immediately the dog's flesh decayed before it fell dead to the ground. Renee caught Amenta by her jaws. The goldblood effortlessly ripped her upper jaw clean away from the canine's lower jaw. She tossed aside the carcass and the half jaw, in her other hand.
"Stand down," Ryan ordered the other German Shepherd and doberman, Anubis and Nemyss. The two dogs obeyed.
Sayeed's screams of agony were doused by the low hum if his skin singeing. Ryan looked up to see the green flames were white and behind them came her mirrored other half, clutching onto her karambit in one hand and her birthday katana in the other. The icy fire extinguished itself while its manipulator squared off against her sister and mother.
"Don't kill her," Renee whispered and Ryan huffed. "She'll be dead in the next few hours but not now. We have to wait."
"Fine," Ryan sneered then lowered her gun she fired a single round but the katana cut it clean in half. "This is going to be very useless."
"Agreed," Renee stated with a nod. "I'm really tired but I think I have a bit more to offer," she began then cleared her throat. "Block them," she ordered and from the shadows came her snarling army of ajar lynxes. "Clear a path and make sure we're not followed!"
Ridley tightened her hold on the Japanese sword then narrowed her eyes as the hunters behind her - both human and canine - formed ranks against the lynxes. The beared cats charged for the hunters who underestimated their strength from their small size, compared to common wild cats. Even Ridley was caught off guard in the fray when one attacked her from behind.
He held her down while two others caught her hands in their strong jaws. Through the erratic environment, the huntress with the undeserved Hunter gradus could make out her mother and sister fleeing the scene. So many emotions flooded through her at once and everything went black.
The darkness wasn't entirely a normal one. Ridley could feel she wasn't in the infirmary but she could feel that she was on a construct similar to a bed. The sound dynamics showed that she was surrounded. The voices were ones she recognised but in that darkness, she didn't pair them with names or faces but with colours. Everytime a particular voice spoke, its paired colour created ripples in the darkness.
First was a pale green voice and from how its ripples were scattered, Ridley could tell it was pacing. "One thing at a time," it began. Somewhere, under the distorted sound the green voice made, it was vaguely a woman's voice. "Despite how she looks now, your daughter is taking tremendous neurological strain. Too much information at once will interrupt her mind repairing itself. She could end up in a coma, or die."
"Will she be okay," a dark blue, almost black, voice asked. There a clear worry in the man's distorted voice. "Will she wake up? Will Ridley still be Ridley?"
"Luck is on her side," the pale green woman replied. "Halfritches are the most resilient of ampyrakind," she went on. "Adaptable yet conformist; collected and still capable of great violence."
"What did she do," a plum... another woman... inquired.
"The Ancient Egyptians called it 'nabdh'. It means 'mind renounce'," the woman went on. "The more common term among the eldritch population was abjuration. Creating fields or barriers in one's mind to block out other eldritches from using their mind controlling capabilities. Only an elite few can bring their abjuration out of their minds."
"Clarke, the preliminary report is in. I-it's not good," Dane's distinctive voice called from a distance. "35% of the moon students and three sun students witnessed the episode; at least 92% of the secure ward has been destroyed or damaged or is just not safe for use; 30% of it's inventory is also out of commission; total fatalities is seventy: forty medical staff, thirteen hunters, seventeen patients; and nobody is buying the cover story that the lynxes were a random animal attack."
"Anything on Ryan," the dark blue voice asked, still matching his initial worry.
The name alone made the memories come spiralling back. Ridley was in physics. Sayeed was next to her, constantly talking to Dr Coleman to get him out of teaching and issuing homework on a Friday. It somehow worked and while everyone was praising Sayeed and his tactics, Mekhi - Dane's chemistry partner - came up to Ridley. She invited her to a party in the moon dorm. It was nothing special; just a way to shake off being imprisoned in a school.
It was Sayeed who accepted the invite on her behalf and he twisted her arm into going. Dane joined them, keeping a small distance between him and Ridley. Ankh was between them, more upbeat than she usually was. It was at that point that Sayeed confirmed that his mother was in Dunon Town to help Ridley manage her evolving skills.
The wolf led the way into the stables, where Mako was eager to see her. She stood on her hind legs to lick his nose before Ridley let him out to go hunting with her and the rest of Sayeed's canines. That's when Ridley felt a sudden surge of fear, regret and self-hate. None of which was her own. She couldn't entirely pinpoint where it came from and she could sense something was amiss.
Only when Ankh howled that she could sense other psionic energy did the pieces fit together. Sayeed ran the fastest to where Ridley confined the wave of emotions to; the residential buildings. Dane detoured to the dorms with a subunit of hunters to secure the perimeter. Sayeed was the first on sight with his dogs loyally at his side.
Once everything realigned, Ridley's eyes spewed open and she bolted upright. She was on the settee in the parlour, surrounded by Esmeralda, the plum, Clarke, the dark blue, and who she could only guess was the pale green woman, otherwise known as Calista Badr; Sayeed's mother.
"Ridley," Clarke replied relieved. "Thank God," he whispered weakly and gathered her in his arms. His manbun was let down and his hair covered her face partially. "Are you okay? What's the last thing you remember."
She ignored him then turned to Calista. She had Sayeed's thick eyebrows and wide cat-shaped eyes bit that was it. She was white and he was Middle Eastern; his hair was black and hers was chocolatey; she had a pronounced nosed and his was subtle. "How are you," Calista asked, slowly kneeling before the halfritch.
She was wearing a grey jacket with her black pants and matching grey platform ankle boots. She didn't look like was a mother, in fact, she looked closer to Ridley's age. That was just another perk of the prolonged youth. Looking younger for longer.
"Sayeed," Ridley asked for no reason. There was a mountain of questions she wanted answered first yet that's what her mouth spat out first.
"He's fine," Calista replied calmly. She shifted out of the way and Ridley was him laying away on the couch on the other side of the coffee table. He was covered in burns that were slowly fading and he saluted Ridley casually. "Thanks to you," Calsita added softly. "He could have been much worse had you not been there," she added just as soft and twice as grim.
"Ryan," Ridley mumbled and realisation struck hard. "Ryan! Where's Ryan?"
"We don't know," Esmeralda replied downed then settled next to her stepdaughter. "We just know she's with Renee," she went on genuinely heartbroken by her own words as if she were only now starting to accept them. "Renee did something to her."
"No," Ridley replied. "No, I would have felt it," she stated, earning the attention of the entire parlour. Even Sayeed sat up with his charred left side receding. "I don't know how to describe it," Ridley stated.
"A psionic link," Calista corrected. "I shared one with my twin brother. They're exceedingly rare to come across at birth. How long have you been able to sense her?"
"Two months, give or take."
"As I suspected. Renee forged the bond between you. As your biological mother, she as the strongest psionic link to you both. You best be grateful she doesn't have any emotional leverage on you; she'd be able to see into your mind, if she did," Calista went on and rested a hand on Ridley's shoulder. "I'm sorry to point out the obvious conclusion but Ryan is not an ally."
"Why would she do this," Sayeed asked, focusing specifically on Ridley.
Esmeralda shook her head. "She wouldn't," she denied. "I know Ryan; she's not like this. She's been blackmailed or held hostage or... or something!"
"Ridley," Calista asked. "Anything?"
"Nothing. She's 100% herself."
"No," Esmeralda desisted. "There are probably blindspots in your link. Ryan is innocent!"
Calista straightened up, showing that she was quite petite. Esmeralda towered above her angrily but Calista clearly didn't feel intimidated. Whether it was because she was a goldblood and Esmeralda was a redblood or just because she generally wasn't threatened was beyond the others.
"The only blindspot in a twin link this ardent is memories. They can't dig through each other's memories but if Renee posed a threat to Ryan, Ridley would sense it; if Renee used her mind controlling capabilities, Ridley would sense it." Still Esmeralda showed no sign of backing down. "I cannot begin to imagine the betrayal you feel, knowing that Ryan saw you as her own. I don't think I would bare losing my own daughter like this."
Esmeralda turned out the glass doors and watched the darkness beyond the trees of the back gardens. She exhaled heavily, stroking her unborn child. Clarke gather her in her arms and Esmeralda leaned her head into his shoulder. "I don't want to believe it either," he whispered.
Ridley turned away from her parents and towards the parlour doors, sensing Ankh nearby. She got unnaturally excitedly when she started sniffing around the residence. Eagerly she let herself into the parlour, wagging her tail erratically.
She snorted then growled at Calista before leaping into the goldblood's arms. She buried her snout into Calista's collarbone with her front paws leaning against the goldblood's shoulders. Strange how in that moment Ankh was behaving awfully humanistic. She didn't lick or bite or scratch Calista. Instead she had a bright grin on her snout and she hugged Calista. Even for a trained canine hunter, Ankh was behaving strangely.
Ridley was the only who didn't noticed because she forced herself to find Ryan through their link. It was like Ryan was just out of reach; mere centimetres away. Ridley's signature white faire started radiating off of her from forcing herself. What Ridley could tell was that Ryan was sobbing.
Bubbly Axel's misery flowed straight into her sister, through their link. Ankh felt it too and turned to Ridley quizzically. She fell back on her front paws then sniffed Ridley's cheek and that's when Calista noticed the white tendrils around the huntress. Instead of intervening, she folded her arms to watch.
Ridley furrowed her eyebrows before closing her eyes. Her breathing grew heavy and her nose started bleeding. The gold blood tinted with black made Calista's lips part. "Stop," she roared and Ridley obeyed from her surprise. "I'm sorry, I didn't realise you were a tempered halfritch." Ridley roughly wiped away the tear stream of blood. "You shouldn't try to use it as a locator; you could kill your sister, if she's not tempered also."
"How do we know if she is," Dane asked from the fireplace.
"We don't," Calista replied. "Not unless we actually cut her and see what her blood looks like." She turned back to Ridley warningly. "You need to be careful. You're probably lot stronger than she is."
If that was true, it only raised the question: did Ryan know that too? She didn't. In fact, there was a lot Ryan was about to find out. She and Renee were huddling together in town. They were laughing down Flattern Street, revelling in their early victory. They passed Morien's tattoo parlour and Ryan grinned to herself.
"I'm a Rogue now, aren't I," she asked and Renee's grin faltered. "It's okay. I mean, I think I'm done with hunting. Why be a hunter when I can be a halfritch?"
"Hard to fault that logic."
"Good!" Ryan released her mother's arm then jogged to the tattooist's workshop. Renee strolled behind her. "Lord Grey," Ryan called inside to the silence. "I humbly require your services."
"Lord Grey," Renee echoed. "Edwyn Grey," she asked suspiciously.
Before Ryan could reply, Morien creeped out from his back room. "Good Lord strike me down," he roared fearfully. "Clotilde du Luq?"
"Do I know either one of parents, at this point," asked out loud. "Your name is Clotilde?"
"Renee is my hunter's name," Renee stated. "Same with Rowan; his is Clarke."
"Ryan, what are you doing with her," Morien asked fearfully. "This woman, she is..."
"My mother. I thought you knew that."
"I do but what you do not know is..."
"He is Tomás's uncle," Renee cut in.
"Do you remember the story I told you," Morien asked, rounding his work station without looking away from Renee. "The woman I loved, who wanted immortality?"
Ryan nodded slowly. "You loved her but she has a child with your..." she turned to Renee "... brother. Nope! Moving on! You want to be immortal? It's impossible, remember? You failed last time." She turned to Morien. "And she almost killed you that night."
"There was a missing piece that night," Renee replied. "I found what it is. I won't fail a second time."
"And what, pray tell, is this missing piece," Morien asked revealing a gun in his hand. "I'm sure the hunters would love that piece of information."
"It's not like you won't tell them, even if I used my capabilities on you. A pity other goldblood are so immune to it," Renee commented. "If you must know, dear Morien, the missing piece is Ridley. Happy?"
"I feel like an idiot for not seeing that coming," Ryan pointed out. "Why Ridley?"
"Would you rather it were you," Renee countered and Ryan shook her head fearfully. "The text said that I needed to consume the blood of one of my own. Back then, I interpreted it as another goldblood, ergo Morien." He nodded understandingly but still kept his tattooed finger on the trigger. "What it meant was I need the blood of my own child. Initially I thought Tomás until I realised I had a soft spot for him. That and he had the wrong blood."
"Um, 'wrong blood?"
"He's a goldblood," Renee replied to Ryan. "The text said it had to be a child of 'tandr kharmen'. In Ancient Egyptian, it means young and old blood. The sort that comes from a goldblood and a human."
"So if I were an only child..."
"You would be dead by Christmas," Renee concluded shamelessly. "Anyway. What is the purpose of this?"
"Oh, yeah!" She turned to Morien. "Your lordship, I am a Rogue!"
"I deduced as much," he replied, eying Renee tremendously. "Come for your gradus?" She nodded eagerly. "That's certainly a first. You can have it as long as that one stays put." Ryan turned to Renee who raised her hands in surrender and strolled leisurely to the waiting area. "I'll be with you in a minute," Morien confirmed then started for his back room.
In response, Ryan held her gun up at him. "Not so fast, Lord Not-So-Bright. You really think I don't know you have a phone in your little dungeon? Park it," she ordered.
"You're not as blank as people make you out to be," the Welsh nobleman pointed out. "No matter, I suppose I will have to play hostage." He detoured for his work station to ready his equipment. He leaned Ryan back into the chair and turned her head to the side. "You should be careful," he whispered while his pen buzzed to life. "Clotilde is a manipulative wench. You can still get out of this mess but only if you surrender now."
"Now why would I do something as stupid as-- ow!" The needle started tinting the area just outside her left eye socket, where the Rogue gradus was always tattooed. "Renee can get me what I want, Morien."
"How do you think she secured my allegiance," he whispered on. "More than that, do you really think she will hold up her end of the bargain? She wants her own daughter dead. Need you be reminded that you are her daughter too? She has as much love for you as she does Scary Axel."
"You know, not that I give a shit, but what exactly did my mother promise you that you did this too?"
Morien sighed then dipped his pen into more ink. "Nothing that would have been worth it today," was all he said.
"Have you ever met Tomás?"
"I was there the night he was born. Nothing more." The parlour went silent after that with only the buzzing pen filling the silence. The 'R' on the side of Ryan's eye was taking shape and the pain was certainly there to match her reddening skin. "Are you sure you want to see this through? I know first hand how irresistible Clotilde is. God forbid she were to attain her goals, and by some miracle she does care for you, could you really live with your sister's blood on your hands?"
"I want her dead just as much as Renee does. Maybe more, since I actually know her," Ryan confessed. "She can live with my blood on her hands so can do the same."
Morien exhaled heavily shaking his head. "You don't know the half of your sister," he said while focusing on the gradus. "That Scary Axel persona she convinced the world of doesn't fool me," he went on. "It's a front. Underneath that fake projection, she's a frightened little girl. Get this, do you know what her biggest fear is?"
Ryan rolled her eyes, which set off the ageing in her left face muscles. "Something ironic like being a hunter?"
"No." Morien wiped away the excess ink and droplets of blood. "The one thing that terrifies Ridley Axel to wit's end, more than anything else in the entire spectrum of existence, is losing her twin sister." Ryan huffed then shook her head lightly. "True story. When you've been around the hunting society as long as I have, you see when people are trying to hide things. Watch them even longer and you see what exactly their hiding."
"I'm glad you haven't lost your touch for tall tales, my lord," Ryan replied while he handed her a mirror. Satisfied that she was a recognised rogue, Ryan handed Morien his hand mirror and allowed him to cover it, since at the the end of the day it was still a tattoo. "See you around." She slid off the seat then bounced over to her mother. "Let's roll, Rosy."
"Dare I ask what my late baby daddy's brother was on about?"
"He tried to convince me that I shouldn't do this. He even tried to convince me that Ridley's scared to lose me."
"Really," Renee purred turning back to Morien. He eyed her angrily while peeling off his surgical gloves. "Still in touch with his inner storyteller, I see. Oh, my sisters and I used to love listening to him make a fool of himself! He created magic realism, you know. Combining truth and fiction for entertainment. I suppose when your brother's friends with the likes of Shakespeare, something or other is bound to rub off on you."
Ryan glanced back at Morien, still watching them. "Fiction," she concluded to herself. "What he said about Ridley had to be fiction." Renee tugged on Ryan's arm and they were back to cruising through the moonlit streets of Dunon Town. "It had to be."