Vital - Book 1 (On hold: to be rewritten)

7. They Are Getting Closer

“I spose you found that revealing?” said Wilbur. 

“Yes. Yes I did.” Wren rubbed her temples, trying to process the huge amount of information she had just been given.

“That’s thirty pounds, then.”

“Wilbur! We’re family!” Celia folded her arms angrily. 

Wilbur shrugged, indifferent. Celia swore under her breath.

“Wait, Celia. I have money. I’ll pay. That was my head we saw inside.”

Wren felt around in her pockets until she found three ten pound notes and threw them on the table. The group moved to leave. 

“Enjoy the book.” Wilbur lit a cigaret as he leaned back in his chair, only two legs on the floor. Wren nodded. 

“Thank you,” she said stiffly. The frowned as she caught sight of the inscription in the stone wall. simul aut ne vix quidem. ‘Together or not at all’ ; the Trianguli mantra. It seemed a strange thing to have on a wall. But then, Wilbur was a little strange. 

Wren blinked in the sunlight outside the dark house. She wanted, needed to think about it alone, to read the book in peace. But first she had survive the walk home.

Clarin was leaning in the doorway, arms folded across his chest. 

“Had fun?” He asked.

Celia grabbed his t-shirt and steered him inside. A few seconds later Leo and Iris tumbled out, and the door slammed behind him. 

“You have to tell me what it was like.” Leo jogged to keep up with Cara’s long strides. 

“At home,” she said shortly.

“C’mon!”

“At home!”

Leo glowered at the pavement, before deciding if he could get past his weaker sibling’s wall of secrecy. 

“Alec?” He asked sweetly, smiling like a saint. Alec just rolled his eyes and pushed him away. 

“Can you never just-” He broke off as they stopped at the square. Ten men in black cloaks and hoods stood around, brandishing knives and other weapons. One was holding a woman down under his foot, laughing as she struggled. 

“What the hell?” Leo stepped forward to get a better look but Cara pushed him back, making a wall with her body. The was a hideous, animal-like scream that chilled Wren to the bone. Her eyes widened as she saw a Darkling holding a woman in the air by her hair. A knife was stuck in her arm. Her eyes were glassy. The Darkling grinned as if a street performer and grabbed the knife, sliding it out of her arms and into the other one. The woman screamed again, filching and writhing and crying, screaming in pain. 

Hale spun around and caught Wren’s wrist, looking deep into her eyes. His brown eyes flashed with urgency as he spoke. 

“You have to go. Take Iris and Leo and you run. Do you hear me? You run and don’t look back. Please, Wren.”

She look at him intently, ignoring the thoughts spilling out of his head and into her ears. 

“Hale-”

“GO!” He pushed her roughly away. Iris and Leo followed her, weaving through the crowd that had gathered in the square. Another scream. She flinched, shaking her head. 

They broke free of the crowd and sprinted down the street, away from the screaming and the Darklings. The murderous, cruel, insane Darklings.

Despite Iris’s words last night, a cold feeling flooded her stomach. She was part Darkling. Mortimer’s daughter.

Leo kept up with her running easily, his blue eyes flashing her confused looks. Iris stumbled behind, panting. Wren slowed down, holding out her hand to the girl. It seemed safe to stop now; under the shade of the emerald green trees that knitted together at the top. The canal shimmered in the sunlight, blinding beams of light refracting off it and filtering through the gaps in the tree trunks. 

“What was that?” Asked Leo, brushing his hair out of his eyes. 

“They were Darklings. In Layken. That hasn’t happened in three whole years.” Iris looked terrified. 

“She speaks,” muttered Leo under his breath.

“Of course I do, idiot,” Iris said irritably. 

“You hear everything. You have no idea how annoying it gets.”

They argued all the way back to the house. Wren found herself grinning at some of the come-backs they came up with. 

The door at the Blackthorn mansion was locked, as Wren had expected. She spotted an open window on the second floor. She looked over at Leo. He was thinking exactly the same thing.

“Uh, Iris?” She asked. Iris looked over at her. She looked at Wren straight in the eye and then sighed. 

“Right. Ok. Just, please, try not to kill me.”

Wren laughed and Iris climbed onto her back, slinging her arms around Wren’s neck.

“Mind if I go up first?” Leo was standing a little way off with his hands in his pockets. “It is my bedroom and I can never be bothered to clear away the laundry…”

“Yes,” said Iris quickly. “Please, for the sake of Wren and me, go up first.”

Leo sprung up off the ground and pulled himself up onto the window ledge. He disappeared inside the room. After a while, he stuck his blonde head out again and said, “Ok! I tidied up.”

“Thank god,” muttered Iris.

It was considerably harder to jump with someone else on her back. She latched her forearms onto the window ledge, feet dangling in the air.

“Ok,” she said, wincing with the effort of not dropping Iris. “Climb onto my shoulders. Leo will pull you through the window.”

“I will?” Leo rolled his eyes, but pulled her sister through the window anyway. Wren followed. 

She landed in a room painted dark blue with glittering gold lightning bolts. An assortment of trapezes and ropes hung from the ceiling. Despite his ‘tidying up’, the floor and most of the furniture was still scattered with discarded t-shirts and trousers.

“Wow. I assumed you had some tidying skill, but then, seeing this, my expectations in you have lowered. Again.”

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t you have a book to be weeping over?”

Iris glared at him and left the room.

“Seeya, Wren.” Leo threw himself down on the bed, plugged in his earphones and opened a bag of crisps that lay open on the bed.

She nodded, and left the room.

           ________________________________________________________________

In the kitchen, the Tracer was blinking and flashing. Red beams of light were being thrown into the air. 

Wren watched it for a while, wondering why he had sent her away so quickly. It wasn't as if she couldn’t have dealt with it. Maybe it was for Leo’s and Iris’s sake. But then she noticed a small, yellow square in the corner of the Tracer screen. Small, computerised type was printed onto it. It said:            

                                   London   Six   2 Weeks between 

                 Possible sightings: Winter W, The Albino, Death R

                   New York - Relatively Clear

                     They are getting closer. 

They are getting closer. The last line was cryptic but yet so obvious, if that was possible. The Darklings were getting closer to something, but what? 

What scared Wren the most was that she had a pretty good idea of what they were looking for, and what they were planning to do.

Mortimer wanted Wren. And he would not stop looking until he found her.