“Ethan!”
Strangely relieved and disappointed at the same time, I glanced up to see Guro waving me over. The rest of my classmates had gathered and were milling around nervously. It seemed the kempo matches were wrapping up.
Nice timing, Guro, I thought, and I didn’t know if I was being serious or sarcastic. Pushing away from the wall, I turned to Kenzie with a helpless shrug. “I gotta go,” I told her. “Sorry.”
“Fine,” she called after me. “But I’m going to get that interview, tough guy! I’ll see you after your thing.”
Guro raised an eyebrow as I came up but didn’t ask who the girl was or what I’d been doing. He never poked into our personal lives, for which I was thankful. “We’re almost up,” he said, and handed me a pair of short blades, their metal edges gleaming under the fluorescent lights. They weren’t Guro’s swords; these were different—a little longer, perhaps, the blades not quite as curved. I held them lightly, checking their weight and balance, and gave them a practice spin. Strangely enough, I felt they had been made especially for me.
I looked questioningly at Guro, and he nodded approvingly.
“I sharpened them this morning, so be careful,” was all he said, and I backed away, taking my place along the wall.
The mats finally cleared, and a voice crackled over the intercom, introducing Guro Javier and his class of kali students. There was a smattering of applause, and we all went onto the mats to bow while Guro spoke about the origin of kali, what it meant, and how it was used. I could sense the bored impatience of the other students along the wall; they didn’t want to see a demonstration, they wanted to get on with the tournament. I held my head high and kept my gaze straight ahead. I wasn’t doing this for them.
There was a brief gleam of light along one side of the room: a camera flash. I suppressed a groan, knowing exactly who was taking pictures of me. Wonderful. If my photo ended up in the school paper, if people suddenly knew I studied a martial art, I could see myself being hounded relentlessly; people lining up to take a shot at the “karate kid.” I cursed the nosy reporter under my breath, wondering if I could separate her from the camera long enough to delete the images.
The demonstration started with a couple of the beginner students doing a pattern known as Heaven Six, and the clacks of their rattan sticks echoed noisily throughout the room. I saw Kenzie take a few pictures as they circled the mats. Then the more advanced students demonstrated a few disarms, take-downs, and free-style sparring. Guro circled with them, explaining what they were doing, how we practiced, and how it could be applied to real life.
Then it was my turn.
“Of course,” Guro said as I stepped onto the mats, holding the swords at my sides, “the rattan—the kali sticks—are proxies for real blades. We practice with sticks, but everything we do can be transferred to blades, knives or empty hands. As Ethan will demonstrate. This is an advanced technique,” he cautioned, as I stepped across him, standing a few yards away. “Do not try this at home.”
I bowed to him and the audience. He raised a rattan stick, twirled it once, and suddenly tossed it at me. I responded instantly, whipping the blades through the air, cutting it into three parts. The audience gasped, sitting straighter in their chairs, and I smiled.
Yes, these are real swords.
Guro nodded and stepped away. I half closed my eyes and brought my swords into position, one held vertically over one shoulder, the other tucked against my ribs. Balanced on the balls of my feet, I let my mind drift, forgetting the audience and the onlookers and my fellow students watching along the wall. I breathed out slowly and let my mind go blank.
Music began, drumming a rhythm over the loudspeakers, and I started to move.
I started slowly at first, both weapons whirling around me, sliding from one motion to the next. Don’t think about what you’re doing, just move, flow. I danced around the floor, throwing a few flips and kicks into the pattern because I could, keeping time with the music. As the drums picked up, pounding out a frantic rhythm, I moved faster, faster, whipping the blades around my body, until I could feel the wind from their passing, hear the vicious hum as they sliced through the air around me.
Someone whooped out in the audience, but I barely heard them. The people watching didn’t matter; nothing mattered except the blades in my hands and the flowing motion of the dance. The swords flashed silver in the dim light, fluid and flexible, almost liquid. There was no block or strike, dodge or parry—the dance was all of these things, and none, all at once. I pushed myself harder than I ever had before, until I couldn’t tell where the swords ended and my arms began, until I was just a weapon in the center of the floor, and no one could touch me.
With a final flourish, I spun around, ending the demonstration on one knee, the blades back in their ready position. For a heartbeat after I finished, there was absolute silence. Then, like a dam breaking, a roar of applause swept over me, laced with whistles and scraping chairs as people surged to their feet. I rose and bowed to the audience, then to my master, who gave me a proud nod. He understood. This wasn’t just a demonstration for me; it was something I’d worked for, trained for, and finally pulled off—without getting into trouble or hurting anyone in the process. I had actually done something right for a change.
I looked up and met Kenzie’s eyes on the other side of the mats. She was grinning and clapping frantically, her notebook lying on the floor beside her, and I smiled back.
“That was awesome,” she said, weaving around the edge of the mat when I stepped off the floor, breathing hard. “I had no idea you could do…that. Congratulations, you’re a certified badass.”
I felt a warm glow of…something, deep inside. “Thanks,” I muttered, carefully sliding the blades back into their sheaths before laying them gently atop Guro’s bag. It was hard to give them up; I wanted to keep holding them, feeling their perfect weight as they danced through the air. I’d seen Guro practice with his own blades, and he looked so natural with them, as if they were extensions of his arms. I wondered if I’d looked the same out there on the mat, the shining edges coming so close to my body but never touching it. I wondered if Guro would ever let me train with them again.
Our instructor had called the last student to demonstrate knife techniques with him, and he had the audience’s full attention now. Meanwhile, I caught several appreciative gazes directed at Kenzie from my fellow kali students, and felt myself bristle.
“Come on,” I told her, stepping away from the others before Chris could jump in and introduce himself. “I need a soda. Want one?”
She nodded eagerly. Together, we slipped through the crowds, out the doors, and into the hallway, leaving the noise and commotion behind.
I fed two dollars into the vending machine at the end of the hall, choosing a Pepsi for myself, then a Mountain Dew at Kenzie’s request. She smiled her thanks as I tossed it to her, and we leaned against the corridor wall, basking in the silence.
“So,” Kenzie ventured after several heartbeats. She gave me a sideways look. “Care to answer a few questions now?”
I knocked the back of my head against the wall. “Sure,” I muttered, closing my eyes. The girl wouldn’t let me be until we got this thing over with. “Let’s have at it. Though I promise, you’re going to be disappointed by how dull my life really is.”
“I somehow doubt that.” Kenzie’s voice had changed. It was uncertain, now, almost nervous. I frowned, listening to the flipping of notebook paper, then a quiet breath, as if she was steeling herself for something. “First question, then. How long have you been taking kali?”
“Since I was twelve,” I said without moving. “That’s…what…nearly five years now.” Jeez, had it really been that long? I remembered my first class as a shy, quiet kid, holding the rattan stick like it was a poisonous snake, and Guro’s piercing eyes, appraising me.
“Okay. Cool. Second question.” Kenzie hesitated, then said in a calm, clear voice, “What, exactly, is your take on faeries?”
My eyes flew open, and I jerked my head up, banging it against the wall again. My half-empty soda can dropped from my fingers and clanked to the floor, fizzing everywhere. Kenzie blinked and stepped back as I gaped at her, hardly believing what I’d just heard. “What?” I choked out, before I thought better of it, before the defensive walls came slamming down.
“You heard me.” Kenzie regarded me intently, watching my reaction. “Faeries. What do you know about them? What’s your interest in the fey?”
My mind spun. Faeries. Fey. She knew. How she knew, I had no idea. But she couldn’t continue this line of questioning. This had to end, now. Todd was already in trouble because of Them. He might really be gone. The last thing I wanted was for Mackenzie St. James to vanish off the face of the earth because of me. And if I had to be nasty and cruel, so be it. It was better than the alternative.
Drawing myself up, I sneered at her, my voice suddenly ugly, hateful. “Wow, whatever you smoked last night, it must’ve been good.” I curled my lip in a smirk. “Are you even listening to yourself? What kind of screwed-up question is that?”
Kenzie’s eyes hardened. Flipping several pages, she held the notebook out to me, where the words glamour, Unseelie and Seelie Courts were underlined in red. I remembered her standing behind the bleachers when I faced that creepy transparent faery. My stomach went cold.
“I’m a reporter,” Kenzie said, as I tried wrapping my brain around this. “I heard you talking to someone the day Todd disappeared. It wasn’t hard to find the information.” She flipped the notebook shut and stared me down, defiant. “Changelings, Fair Folk, All-Hallow’s Eve, Summer and Winter courts, the Good Neighbors. I learned a lot. And when I called Todd’s house this afternoon, he still wasn’t there.” She pushed her hair back and gave me a worried look. “What’s going on, Ethan? Are you and Todd in some sort of pagan cult? You don’t actually believe in faeries, do you?”
I forced myself to stay calm. At least Kenzie was reacting like a normal person should, with disbelief and concern. Of course she didn’t believe in faeries. Maybe I could scare her away from me for good. “Yes,” I smirked, crossing my arms. “That’s exactly right. I’m in a cult, and we sacrifice goats under the full moon and drink the blood of virgins and babies every month.” She wrinkled her nose, and I took a threatening step forward. “It’s a lot of fun, especially when we bring out the crack and Ouija boards. Wanna join?”
“Very funny, tough guy.” I’d forgotten Kenzie didn’t scare easily. She glared back, stubborn and unmovable as a wall. “What’s really going on? Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“What if I am?” I challenged. “What are you going to do about it? You think you can save me? You think you can publish one of your little stories and everything will be fine? Wake up, Miss Nosy Reporter. The world’s not like that.”