Casting - Volume 1.1: Drained

  *

  When good things happen in your life, they just trickle in… maybe so that you can appreciate them all the more. When bad things happen, however, they rain down in a shit storm. Even though I was practically up all night working on my assignment, in all that time I never remembered to recharge my phone. Since I depend on the damn thing to wake me up in the morning, when I finally dozed off after sunrise, I overslept, only by luck waking up with twenty minutes to get myself ready and at school. I really only just made it in time for class, where, of course, my dipshit Geography teacher, Mr Thompson, made me present my paper first. I know it sucked, but I still scored close to seventy percent, which was pretty awesome, considering I did the entire thing the night before.

  For the remainder of the class, I tuned out completely, shifting my attention instead to Stephen. I’d told Grant that we’d all try to invoke a vision when Vanessa was all healed, but the truth was that if we hadn’t been able to see anything in seven months, we probably wouldn’t be any more successful now. Whatever Vanessa had seen, it was most likely a one-time occurrence. Knowing that Stephen was out there somewhere alive – no matter in what condition – and he might have tried reaching out to us, without us being able to respond, made me feel less than useless, and I hated it.

  When class was over, I made my way to my locker. Everywhere around me, kids were running, shouting, laughing, or making out, and it all seemed so strange to me. They were all untouched by what Grant, Vanessa and I were going through… separated… unaffected. I shoved my geography text books into my locker with more force than was really needed, but it made me feel good to hit something – even an unresponsive metal box. As I stood there violently flinging books around my locker, someone came and sidled up to me. I barely had to glance at him to know who it was.

  ‘Hey Javi,’ I greeted with as much cheer as I could muster, which I honestly knew wasn’t very much.

  ‘What’s wrong with Grant?’ he demanded, though not particularly rudely.

  ‘How much time you got?’ I joked, glancing at him with a smirk.

  Javier was shorter than I was by about five inches, and had all the features you would stereotypically expect from someone of Hispanic descent: thick, curly black hair, light brown eyes, and high cheekbones. He was slim, but toned because of all the dancing he did, and his frame suited him really well, but often stood out prominently next to Grant’s muscular build.

  ‘He isn’t answering any of my calls or texts,’ Javier huffed, and I tried not to smile, thinking of how insignificant this might have seemed to Grant in light of what we were dealing with.

  ‘He’s probably still in class,’ I offered helpfully.

  ‘Uh, no!’ snapped Javier, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world. ‘He isn’t at school. Neither is Vanessa. That’s the point!’

  This immediately got my full attention. Neither Grant nor Vanessa had come to school? I’d gotten here too late today to be aware of that. I was close to panic but I couldn’t let Javier see that, so I thought quickly.

  ‘Oh, right,’ I lied as calmly as I could. ‘I forgot he stayed home to look after Ness today. She’s sick… you know, girl troubles.’ I whispered the last two words like they were something inappropriate.

  In sitcoms and stupid movies, this lie would never have flown with Javier, because gay characters are somehow always aware of when their female friends are on their periods. But the reality is that gay guys are no more in tune with girls’ cycles than straight guys are. In fact, very often they’re even more ignorant than we are, because it affects them far less. Case in point: Javier’s face just took on blind understanding, instantly believing the lie.

  ‘Oh,’ he said simply. ‘Well, when you see them, can you tell Grant to respond to at least one goddamn text message?’

  Javier hardly waited for me to reply before he took off, slightly placated. I, however, was not.

  Why hadn’t Grant and Vanessa come to school? Had something happened to one of them throughout the night? Was it Vanessa? I pulled out my phone to see if either of them had left me any message, and then cursed loudly. The damn thing was still uncharged!

  I tried to stay calm, but I could feel my heart start racing with worry. We never missed school when we were Drained unless it was really serious. Most times we just lied to everyone and said we were hungover… Vanessa usually blamed hers on cramps. Last night she’d said that hers wasn’t that bad, though, and we never lied to each other about the severity of our Drains – it was too important that the other two knew the precise repercussions of specific Castings, in case we tried them ourselves.

  I’d have to go over to Grant’s house right away, I rationalized. If I couldn’t get them on the phone, I had no choice but to make sure that they were alright in person.

  They had to be alright; if they weren’t… I couldn’t complete the thought.

  With all this power that I had, I should have been able to just recharge my cell phone’s battery in a second. The crappy thing is that mixing Casting with electronics isn’t always as simple as it sounds. Casting relies on the very manipulation of nature… electronics couldn’t be any further outside of nature – and the two forces don’t mesh well. It takes an inordinate amount of precision to be able to successfully Cast on electronics and, to date, Grant was the only one of us who could accomplish it.

  On my way to Grant’s, I only slowed down to below triple digit miles per hour twice, and that was only because I saw that I was approaching a cop. Even if I had been pulled over, I would have been able to get rid of them easily enough, but that would have cost time that I didn’t want to spend.

  I hammered on Grant’s front door a dozen times straight before I stopped to allow him time to respond. I counted to twenty in my head without anyone responding before I hammered a further twelve times. I counted to twenty again, and still no one came to the door.

  ‘Shit. Shit. Shit,’ I chanted in agitation. Where the hell were they?

  I was about to shout Grant’s name to see if that would yield any better results when the door swung open, and Grant’s dad appeared, looking at me in slight bewilderment.

  ‘Mr Carter,’ I said in surprise. ‘I didn’t expect you to be home.’

  ‘I can tell,’ he replied with his brows raised. ‘I’m preparing for a major case later. I figured I’d have more peace and quiet at home than I would at the firm… I see I was mistaken.’

  I knew he wasn’t really upset. Despite having a reputation as super hard-ass judge, Mr Carter was one of the nicest and most jovial people that I knew.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ I apologized genuinely. ‘Are Grant and Vanessa here?’

  If Mr Carter had seemed surprised to see me banging on his door at ten in the morning, it was nothing compared to the look he gave me now.

  ‘No, they left hours ago.’

  ‘Left? To go where?’

  Mr Carter stared at me in astonishment for a moment before regarding me closely. I couldn’t tell if he thought I was messing around with him or not.

  ‘To school,’ he said with deliberate slowness, as if I were too thick to understand otherwise.

  My heart sank. If they had left hours ago for school and had never made it, then where were they?

  ‘What’s going on?’ Mr Carter demanded, his parent mode kicking in. ‘Is Grant not at school right now?’

  Fuck, I thought desperately. How was I going to explain this one away?

  ‘He probably is,’ I said, hoping that nothing in my expression was giving the lie away. After all, I was dealing with someone whose job demanded that he sift through professionally crafted lies every day. ‘The thing is, we were supposed to carpool today in my car. But it broke down this morning, and I only just got it fixed. My cell phone’s dead as well, so I couldn’t even call Grant or Ness. I really just came here on the off chance that they were still waiting for me.’

  Mr Carter stared at me for a long moment, almost as if he were mentally wi
lling me to tell the truth, but I kept my face as innocent as I could, never breaking eye contact.

  ‘Sorry, kiddo,’ he finally said. ‘The two of them left without you. Man, dead car and dead cell phone. This isn’t your morning, is it?’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ I muttered. ‘Hey, Mr C, can I use your bathroom real quick?’

  ‘Yeah, go ahead,’ he replied, waving me in.

  It said a lot about how often we were at each other’s houses that, although the guest bathroom was right there on the ground floor, Mr Carter never blinked an eye when I raced up the stairs to use Grant’s instead. I never went into the bathroom, though. I made a beeline for Grant’s room the second I got upstairs.

  A few seconds in Grant’s bedroom made me realize that I had no further hints to where they were than I did outside. Had I expected Grant to leave me a nice handwritten letter explaining their whereabouts? I could have always used the house line downstairs, but then I’d run the risk of Mr Carter overhearing us… I was still operating with the hope that Grant and Vanessa were fine and able to answer if I called.

  I had to hold on to that hope.

  After two minutes of going through my options, and just as quickly dismissing them, I knew that there was only one sure way of reaching them, though I really hadn’t wanted to resort to this. I scanned the room quickly, searching for the tools that I’d need. Slung untidily across Grant’s bed’s headstand was a pale pink sweater of Vanessa’s that I recognized instantly, and I quickly grabbed it. Grant’s own possessions lay all around me, so it would be a piece of cake to get something with a connection to him. Still, I scanned the stuff on top his chest of drawers until I found something specific that I had in mind – a heavy leather and metal wristwatch. Grant loved that thing; Vanessa and I had gotten it for his birthday a couple of years back, and he took better care of it than he did almost anything else. If anything was going to guarantee me success, it was this watch.

  I sat on Grant’s bed, Vanessa’s sweater in my left hand, Grant’s watch in my right, and I concentrated heavily. Loud rushing filled my ears, threatening to cause my eardrums to explode, but I ignored it steely, focusing on the task at hand.

  Grant! I called in my head. Vanessa! Can you guys hear me?

  Hundreds of voices bounced around in my head, kind of like switching through endless static-y radio stations, without leaving any one of them on for more than a second. I knew that they could drive me mad if I didn’t block them out enough, but they were just so many!

  Grant! Ness! I continued screaming, trying to get a hit on one of them, while sifting through the myriad of other individuals that I was unwittingly connecting to. I could feel my right palm start throbbing painfully from all the pressure that I was applying around Grant’s watch.

  Grant! Can you hear me?

  I could hear the desperate edge that my thoughts were taking. I hadn’t really expected to hear from Vanessa. Even if they were both perfectly safe, she was still Drained and would most likely cut herself off from any Casting. But Grant… if I couldn’t get to him…

  I finally let go of Vanessa’s sweater, feeling like I was also letting go of all the hope that it had been carrying. I was about to do the same with the wristwatch when…

  Ryder?

  The connection was shaky and Grant’s voice sounded as if it were a million miles away, but it was enough for me to pick up on, and I honed in on it instantly.

  Grant, can you hear me? Are you guys okay?

  Yeah, Ry we’re fine.

  Grant’s voice came through as clearly as if he were right next to me, and I let all the other voices fall away at once. I never knew just how great relief felt until that moment. I savored it for a moment before I let self-righteous indignation take its place.

  Where the hell are you? I demanded harshly.

  We’re checking up on a lead. I don’t know if it’s what I think it is, but it’s pretty much all we’ve got so far. We had to do it today.

  Without me? What the fuck?

  Dude, we tried calling and messaging you a shit load of times. You never responded.

  My still-forgotten uncharged phone once again popped up in my memory, but I was careful not to admit it to Grant.

  Wait a sec. Ry, are you Casting at school? Are you out of your stupid mind? What if someone sees you?

  Don’t worry about it. I’m alone in your room.

  My room? I could hear clearly the confusion in Grant’s head, but he didn’t press the point, even though he had to be curious. Alright, well Ness and I will meet you back there when we’re done.

  The hell you will! I’m coming to meet you guys.

  Ry, we’re in Crestview right now.

  Crestview? Where Stephen’s office used to be?

  Yeah, we’re literally standing right in front of his old building.

  I’ll meet you there.

  Ry, it’s a two-hour drive!

  Shut it! I said I’ll meet you there!

  I broke off the connection before he could argue any further.

  What are they doing in Crestview? I wondered, resting Grant’s watch gingerly on top the bed. Stephen had had one of his less successful businesses there before he’d vanished, but that had been closed off since. Well, I guess Grant would clue me in when I got there.

  I hopped up from the bed and instantly lost my balance, but I was able to right myself before I toppled down. This was barely a scratch compared to what more advanced Casting could inflict, but even those couple of minutes of connecting to Grant had an effect.

  Mr Carter had returned to his study when I left, but I shouted farewell to him as I dashed out of the house. I was really tempted to just leave my car in the driveway, because going with it would just waste more time than I’d like, but I didn’t want to make Mr Carter any more suspicious, so I grudgingly removed it and parked it a couple of blocks away from their house.

  I sat in the locked vehicle for a little while, and looked around to make sure that I wasn’t being watched. I had only a couple of seconds at my disposal to travel over one hundred miles… this was definitely going to cost me big, but I threw the thought to the back of my mind.

  Crestview Grotto. I’d been to Stephen’s office there so many times throughout the years that I could picture it as vividly as if I were staring at a photograph of it right then. As if this image were right in front of me, I reached my left hand out towards it. At the same time, I used the index and middle fingers of my right hand to push into my chest, right above my heart.

  A bolt of pain, white-hot and intense, exploded in my head, seeming to rattle my very cranium. Around me, the air solidified and pushed in on all sides, as everything in my vision went black. My head was screaming at me to stop it, but I kept pushing, never losing sight of the image of where I wanted to be. In seconds, which felt like days to me, the squeezing pressure around me vanished, and I found myself standing on my feet, my head spinning and feeling like it was about to burst open.

  I began to fall headfirst, but a pair of strong hands caught me by the shoulders and held me steady, for which I’m sure I would be incredibly grateful, if I weren’t too focused on the fact that everything inside me was on fire.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Ryder!’ I heard Grant cry worriedly. ‘I told you you didn’t have to come. Look at me. Ry, come on, look at me!’

  It was only then that I realized that I’d had my eyes shut since I started the Casting. I opened them slowly, and they were instantly assaulted painfully by the sunlight. I winced, but kept them open, not wanting Grant to think that I wasn’t well enough to join them. One of his hands went to the back of my neck and he jerked my head up sharply so that he could look into my eyes.

  ‘Shit, you’re Draining,’ he muttered in agitation.

  ‘It’s nothing, I’ll be fine,’ I assured him, which might have sounded more convincing if I weren’t currently seeing two of him swimming before my eyes.

  I shook my head gently, and took in deep slow breaths
until the worst of the effects had faded. When I looked up at Grant again, everything had come back into focus, and I thankfully saw only one of him staring at me worriedly. I managed to flash him a smile, which I hoped didn’t appear more like a grimace, and patted his left arm gratefully.

  Behind him, Vanessa stood looking at me, worriedly no doubt, but also with an amused twinkle in her eye, as if she had expected nothing less than me suddenly appearing in front of them in spite of whatever physical pain I would have to endure as a result.

  ‘Hey Ness,’ I grinned at her. ‘How are ya?’

  ‘I’m okay,’ she replied, smiling. ‘I’ll be as good as new really soon.’

  Despite my own health blow, hearing Vanessa say that made me happier than I could say, and I beamed at her. Indeed, there was a lot more color to her cheeks than there had been last night.

  ‘What are we doing here, anyway? You mentioned something about a lead?’ I asked, glancing upward at the hulking building in front of us.

  It was familiar, yet, at the same time, it couldn’t have looked more different. When Stephen was around, there was always some form of activity going on here; now, all the windows were boarded up and all that was left was a four-storey mass of forlornness. Crestview wasn’t one of the better neighborhoods of our city, and this particular block was even more secluded than those around it, so right now, there was a general feeling of neglect and despair that couldn’t quite be shaken off. In the distance, I could make out the furious barking of a pack of dogs, and the faint wailing of a police siren. Where we stood, though, there was nothing but the stench of something decaying nearby.

  ‘Yeah, at least that’s what I’m hoping,’ replied Grant, and I shifted my attention to him. ‘Have you ever heard of Redirected Visoneering?’

  ‘Uh, no,’ I admitted blankly, feeling unread like I often did when speaking to Grant.

  ‘Don’t feel bad,’ said Vanessa with a small laugh. ‘I’d never heard of it either.’

  ‘It’s when a Caster invokes a vision that another Caster has already had,’ explained Grant patiently. ‘It’s ancient Casting, but not very well known. I remember asking Stephen about it a couple of years ago, but at the time he didn’t think it made much sense teaching us. After all, why redirect another Caster’s vision onto yourself when you can just invoke your very own? But since we can’t invoke our own visions in this case, Redirected Visioneering would apply directly to us.’

  I frowned at him, and then at Vanessa.

  ‘Wait, redirect another Caster’s vision? I asked disbelievingly. ‘It sounds like you’re saying it’s possible to just call on the exact same vision that someone else has had.’ I’d never heard such a thing – I’d always thought that visions were unique and personal.

  ‘That’s exactly what I'm saying.’

  I felt my frown deepen as I tried to wrap my head around that. Suddenly, the frown vanished, and the implication of what Grant was saying smacked me like a ton of bricks.

  ‘Grant, does this mean that we can invoke Ness’ vision? Like, not even try to call on one of our own? Just, like, copy hers or something?’

  Grant nodded slowly, deliberately, and excitement coursed through me with savage intensity.

  Despite the absolute newness and profound shock of this revelation, if it were true, I wanted us to try it at once.

  ‘Well, what are we waiting for?’ I cried.

  ‘Nothing. I’ve already done it.’

  I stared at Grant for a moment, too stunned to respond.

  ‘You… you invoked the vision?’

  Again, he nodded.

  My next question took a while before I could voice it. If Grant had had the exact same vision that Ness had received, he would have seen the exact same things that she had. I had to ask this question – I knew it, and so did the two of them, yet too many conflicting emotions were tumbling around within me, leaving me without the ability to speak. Finally, I managed a whisper.

  ‘Did you see Stephen?’

  More nodding.

  ‘So, he’s really alive…’ I said it more as a statement than a question, but I wanted it confirmed either way.

  ‘Yeah, I think so,’ said Grant, the hint of a wistful smile tugging at his lips. ‘I don’t know one hundred percent that he is. But yeah, Ry, I really think so.’

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ I whispered, thunderstruck. ‘Did you see where he was? It isn’t here, is it? It can’t be.’

  ‘No. I still don’t know where he is. But listen, remember when Ness said that Stephen kept popping up the most in her vision? I get why should thought that but it wasn’t entirely true. I counted it. His face showed up a total of six times… this showed up seven.’

  With that, he reached into a jacket pocket and pulled out a neatly folded sheet of paper. When he handed it to me, I unfolded it and stared at the drawing of a strange symbol. It looked like a long vertical eye surrounded by ornate waves and flames. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but there was something really familiar about it.

  ‘I've seen this before,’ I said hesitantly, tracing my finger over the drawing.

  ‘Yeah, we all have,’ Grant replied. ‘It’s the same insignia hanging on the tapestry behind Stephen’s desk at this office.’

  Recollection hit me at once. Grant was right; there was a similar picture about four feet longer inside this very building – or at least, there had been; we’d seen it hundreds of times before, but we hadn’t been here since Stephen went missing. When I asked what this symbol was exactly, Grant shook his head in frustration.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted bitterly. ‘I drew this one from memory, but I can’t find a proper image anywhere – not in my books, not online, nowhere. But if Ness’ vision really did come from Stephen, and he knows that here is the only place that we’ve ever seen it, it’s worth a shot to at least check it out, right? Right now, we have nothing else to go on.’

  All three of us knew that it wasn’t much, and just a hunch, but I'd learned a long time ago to trust Grant’s hunches.

  ‘Let’s do it,’ I said with grim determination.

  ‘Are you sure you’re up for this?’ asked Grant. ‘You can wait out here for us if you want; Ness and I shouldn’t be long.’

  ‘I'm fine’ I said, waving my hand impatiently. I was in pain, sure, but I could already feel my body healing. As long as I didn’t do any more advanced Casting, I was relatively confident that I'd be alright. ‘Besides, Ness still isn’t properly healed yet either,’ I added. ‘If she can go in there, so can I.’

  Grant nodded once in understanding, and then turned to face the front door. A huge, thick steel chain was strung across it, fastened in place by an enormously formidable padlock. The door leered at us, as if daring us to try to get through. Grant flicked his middle and fore fingers effortlessly towards it, and the chain and padlock evaporated straight through the door in a cloud of black smoke. With a swish of his hand, the door swung open.

  The evidence of abandonment hit us even before we entered the building. A cloying, musty odor permeated the air, and all three of us coughed violently at the layers of dust which fell and hung everywhere. The place had definitely seen better days, and it just made the fact that Stephen was gone all the more powerful.

  ‘It’s dark in here,’ whispered Ness, as the door swung close behind us.

  I don’t know why I'd expected her voice to echo, but it didn’t. It was as if it had been swallowed up by the very air. She was right though; I could start to make out the vague shapes of different furniture a few seconds after we’d entered, but I could barely see anything else.

  ‘Don’t be startled,’ Grant warned.

  Before I could ask him what for, a loud clattering sounded to our right, as the wood which had been boarded against one of the windows fell to the floor. Sunlight streamed in weakly, struggling against the heavy dust particles, but it was still an improvement in visibility. Grant pointed sharply to his left, and the boards against another
window fell to the floor with just as much noise as the first. Ordinarily it might not have even been very noticeable, but right now, in here, the sound was obscene and grating.

  ‘Come on,’ said Grant quietly. ‘Third floor.’

  ‘I don’t suppose the elevator would be working,’ Vanessa suggested hopefully.

  ‘When we get out of here, remind me to explain the concept of electricity to you,’ Grant answered. He’d said it as a joke, but there was a strained edge to his voice that showed he wasn’t as relaxed as he was trying to show, not that I blamed him. I felt the same way.

  The completely unwelcoming state of the building aside, this was still a messed up situation. We had no idea what we were looking for… or what we would find. We were at least confident enough to know that Stephen, himself, wasn’t here, but we still didn’t know what he expected us to look for. Had he left some sort of letter explaining his whereabouts? Would we find some vital clue that we could use – or at least take to the police? There was so much unknown about what we were doing that it was impossible for us not to feel tense.

  As we made our way upstairs, Grant unbarred more windows along the way. I noticed that he wasn’t doing very many – just enough to provide us with sufficient illumination to guide us. My guess was that he was trying to bring as little attention as possible to the fact that we had broken in, should anyone be in the area and become suspicious. We moved cautiously upward, our slow progress marked all the more by the fact that none of us dared say a word. I don’t think any of us was rethinking our decision to come here; we just weren’t pretending that it was any less pleasant than it actually was. Still, the silence unnerved me a little.

  When we got to the third floor landing, Vanessa’s head turned back towards the stairs sharply.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked her, startled, as Grant and I looked back also.

  For a while she said nothing, just staring intently into the semi-darkness.

  ‘Ness…’ I prodded, feeling severely bothered by her silence.

  ‘I thought I heard something,’ she finally said in a low voice.

  The hairs on the nape of my neck stood erect.

  ‘You’re freaking me out,’ I hissed to her. ‘It’s just us in here.’

  She looked troubled, but didn’t argue, and finally returned her gaze in front of her.

  ‘Come on, let’s get this over with,’ grumbled Grant, picking up his pace upwards and towards Stephen’s old office.

  The office stood at the end of a very long corridor, which had several other rooms to both sides. We spared not a glance for any of those other rooms, as we rushed towards the office.

  ‘Dammit, it’s locked,’ Grant growled, turning both doorknobs of the double doors futilely. He waved his hand towards the doors just like he’d done outside but, this time, it didn’t move. ‘The hell?’ he muttered, confused. He tried the Cast again, but the doors remained obstinately locked.

  ‘Try breaking it down,’ I suggested, just as surprised as he was – I'd never known Grant’s Casting to fail.

  ‘It won’t do any good if the door’s been made impervious to Casting,’ he said and, even in the near darkness, I could see the deep frown on his face. ‘We’ve got to get in there. Lemme try something.’

  He stared intently at the door and began muttering furiously and inaudibly under his breath. The doors shuddered and rattled violently, its old hinges crying beneath the stress of Grant’s Casting, but it held, refusing us access. Grant cursed angrily.

  ‘What if we Cast ourselves inside of it?’ I asked.

  ‘There’s something really powerful keeping our Casting from working on the outside,’ Grant replied. ‘I'd rather not take the chance to see what it would do to us from the inside. There has to be a way to break down this door.’

  ‘Well, I've got nothing. Ness, you got any ideas?’

  ‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ she responded abruptly.

  I turned to her in surprise. ‘What are you –’

  ‘I definitely saw something move into one of those rooms.’

  It was impossible to miss the fear in her voice. It was sharp and infectious, and an unsettling feeling crawled across my skin.

  ‘I swear to God I'm not being paranoid,’ she insisted, looking down the corridor that we had just walked. ‘Maybe someone followed us inside but there’s –’

  She didn’t finish her sentence – she didn’t need to. She and I stared transfixed as, from the darkness of one of the rooms, a tall figure – easily seven feet – slowly emerged. Something black – too thin to be solid fabric, but too deep to be smoke – was draped in messy strips around it. It had the frame of a hulking man, but there was no way this thing could pass for human. Every inch of its body was raw sinewy strips, glistening dark and wet. Its eyes were nothing but dark pits that glared at us without moving.

  ‘No fucking way,’ I whispered, my heart racing frantically at the sight of this creature, recognizing it instantly.

  We were face to face with a Bleeder.

  My mind exploded in an internal scream as two more Bleeders glided silently up the staircase towards the first, all three of them staring us down hatefully.

  With unnatural speed, the three Bleeders flew towards us and, although I knew that I should try to move, I found my limbs paralyzed in terror. My mind screamed at me to get out of the way, but I could do nothing but stare in horror as the distance between the two Bleeders and the three of us closed terrifyingly quickly. Two doors, one from each side of the corridor, flew clean off their hinges with a loud bang and connected in the centre of the hallway, suddenly blocking the path of the Bleeders.

  ‘Move!’ Grant barked, and as if this were exactly the motivation that we needed, I grabbed Vanessa’s arm and we fled through the nearest door to us.

  Out in the hallway, we heard Grant’s barricade burst open with a crash, and he slammed the door to the room that we had entered. It wouldn’t be nearly enough to keep them out, but anything that stood between us and them – even temporarily – was a blessing. Just as we ran out of the room on the other side, the door through which we had first entered broke open loudly, and Grant only just had time seal the exit door with a wave of his hand before the Bleeders were once again upon us.

  ‘Upstairs,’ I shouted, racing to a flight of stairs that I knew was just around the corner. I was running as fast as my Draining body would allow me, but I never let go of Vanessa’s arm, pulling her behind me like a choiceless puppet. As we bolted towards the stairs, Vanessa let out a scream of surprise, and I felt her body jerk sharply in my grasp. When I turned, I followed her eyes to the floor, where a blood-covered fleshy hand had broken up to grab at her ankle. She whimpered and pulled her foot with everything that she had, but we both knew it would never be enough.

  I jerked a closed palm towards her foot and then opened it quickly. The floorboards surrounding the hand broke apart and fell downwards in a perfect circle, charred, as the Bleeder’s hand erupted into flame. It let out an inhuman screech that made my blood run cold, but I held on tighter to Vanessa and continued running. It was only when we’d gotten to an empty, unfurnished office, Grant sealing the door behind us with some unknown Casting, did it occur to me that the Bleeder which had grabbed Vanessa could not have been one of those originally chasing us, and a chilling thought occurred to me.

  I had no idea how many were in here with us.

  The three of us made no sound, huddled together in the pitch-black room, but I was deathly afraid that the pounding of my heart, which sounded so terrifyingly loud to my own ears, would betray our location.

  Who would send Bleeders after us? I wondered wildly. Bleeders did not exist coincidentally or spontaneously. This had been deliberate.

  There was a very dark side of Casting known as Shadow Casting and, although it could accomplish mind-blowingly powerful feats, Stephen had taught the three of us to stay as far away from it as possible. Working in that kind of darkness did more than just
Drain your body; there was a terrible price with your soul, and it wasn’t one that anyone should be comfortable paying.

  Bleeders came from the darkest parts of Shadow Casting. We didn’t know how exactly they were created, but we knew enough to know that the body and blood of several dead persons were involved, and even that was too much knowledge for us. Because of the way they were formed, Bleeders were death, inherent. They knew nothing else… they sought nothing else. Having so many of them after us meant only one thing: at least one of us was going to die today and it would be unavoidable.

  To die at the hands of a Bleeder was one of the worst possible ways to go. In the dark grip of a bleeder, every organ in your body would bleed out to nothingness, and you would die a shell of yourself, your blood pouring out of you from every opening. The three of us had seen it happen once as kids; it wasn’t a sight we would ever forget.

  ‘We’re dead. We’re dead,’ Vanessa whispered, her voice trembling noticeably. ‘We have to get out of here.’

  ‘Not until we get into Stephen’s office,’ Grant hissed back.

  It was a good thing that we were in pitch blackness, because if I could have gotten a good look at Grant’s face just then, I would have punched him right in it.

  ‘Are you out of your fucking mind?’ If we hadn’t been hiding for our lives just then, I no doubt would have screamed it him.

  ‘If this is where Stephen wanted us to be, we've got to try. Who knows when we're gonna get another chance!’

  I wanted to physically shove some sense into him, but the rattling of the room’s main entrance door sounded out like thunder, and any argument that I had stuck in my throat. They’d found us!

  Had the door not been protected by one of Grant’s Castings, the Bleeders surely would have busted in by now. But we knew that even this protection wouldn’t last long against Shadow Casting, and I reached out to where I figured Vanessa’s hand to be, and pulled her to her feet.

  ‘Let’s move,’ I said urgently to the two of them, feeling my way along the wall to where I knew and exit to be. We knew this place just as well as we knew our own homes, and we had to rely on this knowledge right now to keep ourselves alive.

  We’d taken no more than three running steps out of the room when we found our way blocked by an enormous Bleeder, standing sentinel in the hallway. I only had just enough time to come to a skidding halt too close to it, and I heard a strangled, guttural scream escape, unbidden, from my lips.

  Before I had time to do anything to defend myself, a dead, rotting arm reached out with impossible swiftness and a cold, wet hand closed around my throat. It was like a vise had fastened around my windpipe, and the unmistakable stench of deathly decay hit me right before my air circulation was shut off. Angry red dots exploded in my vision, and I knew I was staring death in the face.

  Something hard and strong knocked into my back with a powerful blow. It didn’t hurt, but I hadn’t expected it, and I buckled from its force. I wasn’t the only one. Whatever it was whooshed right through me, sweeping at the Bleeder and, though it did nothing to take it down, the grip around my neck loosened, and I wasted no time in scrambling backwards, away from the feel and smell of decomposing flesh.

  Though my lack of air intake had been brief, it was enough, coupled with my Draining, to make my head sear with pain. I felt dizzy and nauseated, but I forced myself not to succumb to any of it because I knew that if I did, I might never again regain consciousness.

  Another invisible wave of force hit and then passed through me, and I turned to see both of Grant’s arms stretched out towards the Bleeder, trying to force it back with this strange force field.

  He has to be Draining, I suddenly realized! He’d been the only one of us doing any Casting since we’d entered this building, but he'd kept right on protecting us without pause. He was the only reason we’d gotten as far as we had… he was the only reason we were still alive. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t stopped to consider what all this Casting must have been doing to him.

  I saw him begin to conjure another of his waves but, before he could manage it, a Bleeder suddenly appeared behind him, grabbed him by the neck and lifted him clean off the floor. Vanessa screamed, but I was too horrified to make a sound. Grant flailed his body helplessly until the Bleeder that had been blocking our path glided over to him and held on to his wrists so tightly that we could actually see blue veins pop up along his arm.

  Grant let loose a bloodcurdling scream as the first Bleeder’s nails dug deep into his neck, and blood flowed down rapidly into his shirt collar.

  Time can’t stop. If there is anything that I know, that’s it. Yet, for a horrible moment, it seemed as if everything had frozen. Then, painfully slowly, time started moving again and, as I watched Grant’s eyes roll to the back of his head while a final gurgling sound escaped his lips, I felt as if my heart were being skewered.

  Vanessa yanked her hand out of my grasp, and clapped her hands together loudly. Before I understood what was happening, a bright white spark shot from her palm towards the two Bleeders, bursting into blinding shots of light around their heads.

  The effects of Casting while Drained were immediate, and Vanessa’s knees buckled beneath her, sending her crumbling to the floor. Although she was paying for it, her efforts proved successful enough, because the Bleeders drifted apart in mild bewilderment, and Grant’s body slumped to the floor, unmoving.

  I knew that I’d be signing our death warrants if I didn’t take this chance to try to get away from these Bleeders, so I threw Vanessa’s arm around my neck, and hefted her off the floor. I hobbled away as quickly as my Draining body would allow, in spite of Ness’ weak protests for Grant. I understood… I absolutely did. I hated myself more than she could know for abandoning him there, but we weren’t doing anything to help him by leaving ourselves open to be next for the Bleeders. I would help him if I knew how but I knew, with a hollow feeling of misery, that he may very well be beyond anything we could do to help. For the first time since we three had met, we were down to two.

  It was nothing short of a miracle that neither of the Bleeders had recovered enough to follow us; whatever it was that Vanessa had done to them, I loved her for it! However, I was still blindingly aware that there were more of them in here with us. Worse, I didn’t know how it was that they even did their tracking. Just to be on the safe side, I led us down one flight of stairs and through several different rooms, hoping that if the Bleeders used scent to track, weaving such a random pattern would make it all the more difficult for them. I dragged us through so many rooms that, by the time I finally settled on a dark office, not only did I have no idea where we were, I felt close to passing out.

  Still, I fought against it, trying to keep all my senses on the highest alert possible.

  ‘Grant,’ Vanessa sobbed quietly next to me. ‘Ryder, we shouldn’t have left him. We can’t leave him.’

  ‘We won’t,’ I promised her in a whisper.

  I had a plan. Well, it wasn’t so much a plan as it was an insane idea that was bound to get one of us killed. But it was what we did for each other.

  ‘You’re gonna go back to get him,’ I said to her, quietly but urgently. ‘Take the closest flight of stairs up and keep yourself hidden – you’ll find him. When you do – and, Ness, this is super important – you’ve got to get the two of you out of here! Forget your vision… forget Stephen’s office… just go! And try not to Cast as much as possible. I’m gonna stay down here and try to distract the Bleeders for as long as I can.’

  Dead silence greeted this. For several moments, Vanessa said nothing. Finally, she spoke.

  ‘Ryder, no way,’ she said so softly that I almost didn’t catch it. ‘That’s suicide.’

  ‘It’s better that than all three of us being murdered,’ I countered gently. ‘Ness, we might have already lost Grant. If I'm going to be next, I need to know that I at least went out to make sure that you lived.’

  Before she could a
rgue, I kissed her on her forehead and ran out of the room. I wasn’t trying to be some big hero… I wasn’t even trying to be martyred, though that was probably precisely what was happening. The sight of Grant’s lifeless body on that floor upstairs had almost irreparably broken my mind… the thought of the same thing happening to Vanessa was just too much for me to handle.

  After the impenetrable darkness of that room, even the weak light in the hallway came like an attack to my eyes. Strips of wood lay in messy heaps beneath a few windows, and the thought of Grant sent another spasm of pain through me.

  This entire incident had been a nightmare… a mistake from the very beginning. Someone had anticipated us coming here; someone had sent those Bleeders after us; someone was trying to kill us.

  But, why? I didn’t have the time, energy or mental functioning at the moment to even attempt to answer that question, but at the back of my mind, deep in its recesses, I could feel it nag me.

  For a few seconds, I stood in the hallway idly, noting the irony of this situation; for the past twenty minutes, we’d been trying to escape Bleeders who had converged upon us unbidden. Now that I wanted them to find me, I had no idea how to summon them. I had just decided on shouting out to them, when an idea hit me. I walked on over to one of the windows that Grant had unboarded earlier, and picked up a sturdy piece of wood beneath the sill. I pulled it all the way behind my head and then swung as hard as I could towards the window.

  The sound of shattering glass, splintering wood, and clanging metal rang out devastatingly loudly. It was the sound of me calling my own death, and it reverberated throughout the floor. I didn’t have to wonder if the plan worked. Within moments, Bleeders appeared before me, some of them seeming to materialize from the very darkness. I counted six before fear forced me to stop counting.

  I'd never been so scared in my life. My hands shook around the piece of wood, but I held on tighter to it, realizing that this was the only weapon that I had at my disposal. I'd told Vanessa that I would hold the Bleeders off long enough to give her time to escape with Grant’s body, but it was only now that I was facing them did I see that I had overestimated my abilities. I had no doubt that these creatures could tear all my limbs out in a matter of seconds.

  As a Bleeder charged towards me, I swung the wood violently. It made contact with a horrible crack, and the Bleeder was knocked sideways, but I’d swung too hard, not leaving me with enough time to brace myself for another attack. A second Bleeder had me tightly by the arms before I had time to defend myself.

  I took in a quick breath of air, and then let it out slowly through my mouth. As I exhaled, my body slipped right through the Bleeder’s clutches like I was nothing but smoke. Once free, I threw a steady blow upwards. Strips of bloody muscle ripped apart at the Bleeder’s neck, and its head wobbled sickeningly. I didn’t think that the Bleeder felt any pain at this, but I felt a savage pleasure nonetheless.

  A third Bleeder flew towards me but, by now, I had already realized that this was their MO, and I was ready for it. I felt my feet skid across the floor, as my body shot backwards seemingly of its own accord, out of the Bleeder’s reach. This time, I couldn’t appreciate my success because it made my head roar with a fresh wave of pain. Every inch of me burned as if I stood in the heart of a raging bonfire. I wouldn’t be able to rely on Casting anymore, I was already overdoing it; otherwise, the Bleeders would have no need to kill me themselves – I would have done it for them.

  I was about to hurl, but I fought it down, and charged towards the Bleeder. Whatever damage I inflicted on this one, I wanted it to be as bad as what I'd done to the first and second one combined! I swung with all the force that I could muster but, before the wood found its target, the Bleeder reached out and grabbed it effortlessly, and I realized in dread that I wasn’t the only one who had figured out my opponent’s MO.

  The Bleeder squeezed the wood, and it crushed into dust as easily as if it had been a feeble tree branch. With its other hand, it latched onto my neck and I was lifted of the floor so that I felt my legs dangle pitifully beneath me.

  I didn’t see when the other Bleeder came behind me, but, all at once, I felt a second pair of hands close around the top and base of my head. If air could have entered my lungs, I would have screamed in torment, as those dead but powerful hands simultaneously closed in on my skull and pulled it away from my neck. Unseeing, substance-less eye sockets stared at me without remorse, as my own vision blackened to nothingness.

  Suddenly, the crushing force against my head stopped and I knew, without knowing, that I was lying on the floor. If my body weren’t racked with so much pain, I'd have thought that I was dead. I couldn’t imagine the Bleeders letting go of me for any other reason.

  Maybe they want to torture me some more, I thought, but no further pain came.

  Slowly, I found my vision returning. Through the haze and darkness, I didn’t understand what I was seeing at first. It looked like one of those spectacular Saturn models that I used to see at our local planetarium when I was a kid, glowing with swirling luminescence. Light grew in intensity as I looked on, but even as my vision grew accustomed to it, it was so bright that I had to shield my eyes. Soon enough, I could properly make out what I was seeing, and my heart lurched within my chest. Standing together at the other end of the hallway was Vanessa and, holding on to her firmly, stood Grant, fully upright.

  Large rings of intense light orbited the two of them so brightly that, even from all where I lay, I could clearly see their faces. Vanessa, white-faced, looked terrified; Grant, his neck smeared with blood, looked livid. It was only then that I saw that my original assessment had been backwards; it wasn’t Grant who was holding on to Vanessa for support – it was the other way around!

  The Bleeder closest to Vanessa made a dash for her, but Grant shot it a furious glare, and nothing could have prepared me for what happened next. The Bleeder slammed to a halt, like some invisible restraint had yanked it backwards. As Grant stared it down, his face contorted with hatred, strips of the Bleeder’s muscles and tendons ripped viciously away. A loud, unearthly wail filled the entire floor, but Grant’s expression showed no hint of mercy. He kept at whatever it was that he was doing – and I fully admit that I had no idea what this Cast was – until the Bleeder was left in a grotesque, flayed heap.

  The second he was done with that one, Grant turned his attention to the two Bleeders who hovered nearest to me… those that had come dangerously close to tearing my head clean off my shoulders not two minutes ago. A ring of light pulsed away from Grant’s body, and flew towards them silently. The moment it made contact, the bodies of the Bleeders rose off the floor, burst into white flames, and were blasted backwards.

  I felt the searing heat emanating off their bodies as they both hit into a dark wooden door only inches away from my head. The combined force of the Bleeder’s huge bodies, the flames that surrounded them, and the power of Grant’s Cast made the door burst open with an audible CRACK!

  For a brief moment, the entire room was illuminated, and the first thing that my eyes landed on was a long cloth tapestry, bearing a symbol almost identical to the one that Grant had shown me outside. I hadn’t realized it before, but we were right outside Stephen’s office, and Grant had finally managed to open it!

  My head whipped towards Grant to see if he, too, had realized this, and it took me less than a second to know that he had. The look of loathing that had been plastered on his face before had disappeared to be replaced by one of pure longing. The hunger on his face was so strong that I was surprised that he hadn’t yet let go of Vanessa and made a dash to the office.

  I could almost feel him contemplating it, though. He was painfully close to whatever it was that Stephen had wanted us to see here, and his path to the office was almost completely clear. The remaining Bleeders seemed reluctant to approach him, and they stood warily away from the beams of light emanating from his body. I saw the attempt to make a decision battle across his face, un
til my eyes caught sight of something else. A thick line of dark red blood flowed slowly from his left nostril, and he didn’t even seem to notice.

  He was Draining… badly. Perhaps worse than I was. God only knew what the Bleeders had done to him upstairs, and here he was still performing the sort of advanced Casting that took no time at all to break us down. His body wouldn’t be able to handle this for much longer, and he wasn’t paying any attention to it. Already, I could see that the light of his Cast was a lot dimmer than when he’d first appeared.

  If he Drained, there’d be no point in us going into that office. Vanessa was already totally Drained. I knew that I was teetering on the verge, myself. Almost a dozen Bleeders surrounded us, and I was willing to bet that there were more in the building just waiting to attack us.

  Grant was going to hate me for this… enough to want to kill me, I'm sure. On the bright side, I thought to myself, I might die before he got a chance. I placed the index and middle fingers of my right hand against my heart, and pushed gently.

  A blast of pain shook me from head to toe, but I staggered to my feet and took advantage of the clear path to Grant and Vanessa. I sent out a silent prayer of thanks at the fact that they were holding on to each other. I grabbed Vanessa’s arm with my left hand, and pushed further into my chest with my right.

  The last thing that I heard was Grant screaming at me to stop before all sound was extinguished, painful pressure squeezing in all around us.

  ‘What the fuck did you just do?’ Grant shrieked at me, as soon as the Cast had ended.

  I couldn’t answer him. I fell to my knees, and started throwing up all the contents of my stomach. A pair of gentle hands landed on my back as I vomited, spat and coughed out everything inside of me. I was careful not to look at what came out, because the taste of blood was heavy in my mouth, and I thought it best if I didn’t see it.

  As if from far away, I kept hearing Grant scream obscenities at me, but I still couldn’t answer. My head was pounding! Suddenly, it didn’t seem like such a bad idea having those Bleeders rip my head off – it would probably feel better than this colossal headache. There was an insistent ringing in my ears that didn’t sound normal at all, but it was a small price to pay for being alive! I couldn’t believe that I'd survived that Cast! I had been on the very edge of Draining completely, and this last Cast that I'd performed to get us out of that building had pushed me further than I should have allowed, and yet I'd survived it.

  We’d all survived everything. I would have celebrated if my mind were able to appreciate the concept just then.

  ‘He just saved our lives,’ Vanessa snapped at Grant, as I felt her tug at the sleeves of my shirt to wipe at my mouth.

  ‘Stephen wanted us in that office!’ Grant raged. ‘We’d come so close!’

  ‘We also came close to being butchered by a goddamn army of Bleeders!’ Vanessa replied hotly, sounding almost hysterical at the stress of what we’d just gone through. ‘As far as I'm concerned right now, Stephen’s vision can go suck a fat dick!’ She exhaled loudly and, when she spoke again, her voice was gentler. ‘Look, Grant, what you did back there no doubt saved all of us. We’ve got you to thank for everything. But Ryder made the right decision getting us out of there, because the plan you were proposing would have gotten us killed. God knows that if I weren’t so scared shitless out of my mind at the first sight of them, I would have done the same thing he did. When you’ve calmed down and finally admit to yourself that you’re Draining, you’ll realize it, too.’

  Grant said nothing while Vanessa hoisted my arm over her shoulder. She would have a hell of a time getting me to my feet, so I tried to help her, but I quickly found out that I had almost no control of my own motor skills. Suddenly, I felt my other arm slung around someone’s shoulder, and I heard Grant whisper to me, ‘Come on, man, I've got you.’

  Together, the two of them lifted me to my feet, and it took all the remaining strength that I had to maintain that footing.

  ‘Ness is right,’ Grant admitted to me, all the anger gone from his voice, ‘you saved us. I'm really sorry, ok?’

  I turned to him, managed to flash him a smile and muttered, ‘Get me home and change my underwear, and we’ll call it even.’