Awakening - The Last Science #1

Chapter 4 - The Council of the Awakened - I

  Alden had a million questions.

  "You've got a million questions," Rika echoed his thoughts nonchalantly. "Thanks, Dan," she added, as Dan finally slid a basket of fries onto their table. "Sorry about these. I'll pay you back somehow," she said, pointing at the couple of blackened spots on the wall.

  "You do that," Dan muttered. He obviously didn't expect much.

  "What do you mean, magic is real?" Alden cut in.

  Rika started wolfing down fries. "Look," she answered between mouthfuls. Not much in the way of table manners. "I can spend all day explaining, or you can follow me to the meeting." Alden winced as she stuffed another handful of fries into her mouth. She noticed and stopped gorging herself so much. "Sorry."

  "It's okay." Alden looked away before he felt sick. The restaurant proprietor was staring at the charred circles on the wall of his establishment with glazed eyes. Alden felt too nervous to ask Rika anything else. That show of power would scare anyone, he reasoned. Doesn't mean you're a coward. She's still the best bet you've found in town so far.

  Rika finished off the last few fries with a satisfied gulp. "All right, let's go."

  It wasn't a very long walk from Dan's restaurant to the college campus, but Alden felt like every step of the way was a step further into the dark underbelly of an otherwise unassuming village. It was intimidating, but Alden felt a thrill with every step. He was compelled forward inch by inch to follow Rika. They passed a bookstore and an overnight diner, a grocery store and a tiny gas station. It could have been the center of any small town in the Northwest. In fact, the only thing that seemed out of place was his companion walking briskly at his side.

  He kept a strict distance between them as they walked. If Alden stepped any closer, he could feel the electricity in the air—that faint hum and crackle that wasn't truly audible, but danced along the hairs on his skin and sent his mind spinning. He kept shooting Rika sidelong glances whenever he thought she wasn't looking, hoping (and maybe fearing) he'd see those arcs of lightning crackling along the streak in her hair once more. He still couldn't decide whether he was afraid of her or mesmerized by her.

  "'Sup?" Rika asked finally, with an air of frustration. Alden had just tried (unsuccessfully) to sneak another glimpse of his new companion.

  "Nothing," he replied, quickly looking the other way. To his surprise, he was greeted with a husk of a building at the end of the street they were crossing, caved in rafters and piles of ash. He stopped walking, fascinated.

  The place was mostly destroyed, but he could make out the broken remains of a gargoyle statue at one corner, cracked in pieces and shoved into the dirt as if it had fallen from a great height. From the way the walls began to arch upward, he guessed it had originally sat atop the third or maybe even a fourth floor, though there was only bits and pieces of the second floor remaining, mostly charred wood and timber. Stone gateways lined the bottom floor, with spiked fences leading away giving the entire place a very gothic feel. It was completely at odds with the architecture of the rest of the town, even with most of it burned away. As if to accentuate the bleak atmosphere of the place, it began to rain while he stared, drops tapping on his head one by one.

  "Yeah, I've been wondering about that place too," Rika spoke up from behind him. Alden jumped. He hadn't realized she'd stopped walking along with him. "It apparently burned down not too long ago. Was supposed to be demolished anyway," she added, nodding toward a torn wooden board nailed over one shattered window, with the word CONDEMNED scrawled across in orange paint, though half of the word had been chopped away. "Can't sightsee any more though, we've gotta hurry up if we want to make the meeting," she added, turning away. He hesitated, still staring at the caved in sides and piles of rubble.

  There was no way a fire could cause that much damage on its own, Alden decided. Some of that damage had to be deliberate and targeted. It looked like the structure had been besieged, explosive impacts knocking through the stone walls and collapse them in strategic locations. Who would be assaulting a library in this day and age?

  Alden's excitement grew along with his curiosity. He'd stumbled onto a real adventure, one beyond the mystery teased by the envelope still sequestered in his jacket.

  Rika got impatient and grabbed his hand. A tiny shock of electricity spiked through his arm, and Alden instinctively tried to recoil, but she just rolled her eyes and began pulling him down the street. After one last craned look at the desiccated structure, he followed her through the gates to the campus a block away.