Darkest Blood

Chapter Two

The forest surrounding Morristown, New Jersey, was big and mysterious, just as any forest should be. A lot of old manors and houses were placed there. Some of the big old-school manors were Blackwell's Orphanage and the Thelonien Estate. Noah's house, however, was a modern style hut, with indoor training facilities attached to it. The training facilities included a lot of the basics, half an Olympian size pool, weights for training your strength and even every kind of CrossFit equipment you could need.

I hated it. It wasn't as if Dark Beings needed physical training, we weren't in danger for being part of the Dark World, but apparently the Blackwells had traditions for not trusting Bounty Hunters, and often did the dirty work themselves. Noah's house was actually a summer house for the Blackwell's, that Noah and his family had moved into, after Noah's dad died.

Training one's Dark abilities was very different from all other kinds of training. Some people could do it easier, if they calmed their mind, by exercise or other activities. In the gang, it seemed, you cleared your mind by hanging out in Noah's house in the small area above the main gym, meant for yoga and activities as so, with your friends, trying to concentrate on your Dark Powers as well as figuring out why another one of your friends had gone missing. And we'd invited Noah's younger brother, Benjamin, too.

Benjamin was slightly smaller than Noah. Of physical features, Benjamin and Noah did not share the most. You could guess they were related by looking at them next to each other, but where Noah had golden-brown hair, Benjamin's was more blondish. Noah's eyes were also a mix between hazel and green. Benjamin's were just deep green. Ad was here as well, though he wasn't really contributing with much. Hannah was doing her very best to ignore him, Maia had stopped training to keep him company while Noah tried to teach me something. Maia was knitting. Why a girl who was also a dragon knew how to knit, remained a mystery to me, but she seemed content with the activity, so I didn't ask about it.

Noah had come to Blackwell's Orphanage since he was a baby. His grandfather owned the place, and hence, Noah knew everything about the children's Dark Powers and training of them. But he had never coached a banshee. Everything the gang knew about banshees came from general knowledge. In order to coach me, they had found some old dusty books at Blackwell's, before scouring through the library at Thelonien Estate, only to find nothing in the sections, I had thought most likely to contain the books. We'd even looked through Mrs. Thelonien's room while Maia's mother, Maria, had helped Mrs. Thelonien take a shower. The initial thought being that she might've hidden books about Servants in her more private bookshelves. She hadn't. There had been plenty of books, but none that seemed to be about the Dark World.

The lack of banshee knowledge let to a lot of frustration. I mainly wanted to learn how to control the entire 'messenger' part. Being able to foresee a death when I wanted to, and not just when my best friend was dying, would be great. However, acquiring that skill had proven difficult. Instead, Noah had asked me to start with something, that may have seemed easier: Contacting another Servant of Death. To this day, I had contacted a Warrior of Death once, a so-called Mr. Humphrey Smythe, who had screamed at me for pulling him out of the battle he was fighting at the city hospital. That was three weeks ago.

"You know, maybe I'm just a terrible banshee," I said, giving a desperate wave at Noah.

Hannah was standing in the other end of the room, repeatedly hitting a dummy with dark green flares of magic.

"A badshee," Ad said from his sitting position. I gave him a glare.

"Sorry, couldn't help it."

He started to stand, but Noah gave him a look, making him stay seated. I smiled at Ad's horrible pun. I knew he only tried to lighten my mood. And I always liked a bad pun.