Chapter Three: Holly

With Arlo's magic failing, it put extra pressure on Holly to deliver. The werewolf watched through hooded eyes, along with the older necromancer, as Holly struggled to concentrate. She rubbed the watch in her hands, trying to pinpoint a psychic echo. This was one major way that mediums differed from necromancers. Mediums could pick up clues from items around them.

Echoes began to impress themselves upon her psychic senses. First, a faint hissing, breathing noise spread out, reminding her of heavy breathing. An emotion bubbled to the surface – fear – the desperate desire to run, to get away from something unseen but felt.

"He was running from something," she murmured, eyes squeezed shut. "It terrified him." Not any kind of terror, either, but a supernatural one. An image swam into her mind's eye. Stark, milky-gray eyes. A cruel, cold, single-minded determination to catch that which evaded it. The cold fury slammed into Holly, making her gasp. The thing was furious – outraged – the kind of fury that stirred up when something sacrilegious or blasphemous was done. Scents now entered her mind. Human sweat – dirt – the stale air of something undisturbed for decades.

She began to cough as the air invaded her lungs, wheezing and hunching over until someone's hand tapped her back. Her eyes snapped open, and Arlo was there, patting her back, brow furrowed. She took a few gulping breaths.

"This man was digging up something. Broke into something. He disturbed a spirit, a ghost. He couldn't see it himself, but he knew it was there, and he ran. But it got him."

Arlo's hand quietly moved from her back, and now he looked incredulous. "You got all that from a watch?"

"Good," Marisha said, nodding in approval. "Excellent, in fact. You have some serious psychic chops there."

Holly blushed at the compliment – it wasn't quite a big deal in her family since all of them came with lofty expectations of their psychic abilities. If Holly had done this in front of her mother, the woman would simply dismiss it as child's play, like anyone could do it.

Now, the certified necromancer nodded, smiling, and it boosted Holly's confidence just a little. "Now, I did actually lie to you both about something. I've already interrogated the body, and I have a report of the scene the sheriffs were able to see. The lie was simply to see what you both might glean from the situation yourselves." To Arlo, she added with an apologetic air, "It was also why you struggled more with contacting the spirit. You did very well considering your limitations."

"I didn't get shit," Arlo muttered, and Marisha's smile widened.

"On the contrary, you got more than what I've seen some other necromancers do. It is just that your questions might have been better planned. Now you know this for next time." Marisha beckoned for them both to come over. "You, as well as any other students who have the abilities, will be asked to test their powers like this every time there is a death. All the locals around know that we need to train you, and we pay them handsomely for it, so for the most part, they don't mind. Sometimes, morgues donate Jane or John Does to the academy and hand us cold cases where all leads have dried up. Sometimes, we don't work with bodies, but with bones or just objects of interest."

Holly nodded thoughtfully. "I guess that makes sense. I suppose I hadn't thought about how you might train us. I imagined just… writing essays or something."

Marisha shook her head. "No essay can prepare you for this. For your information, the victim here was killed by a crypt ghost. The victim broke into a wealthy family's crypt in the hope of finding something valuable to sell. Indeed, there were some valuable objects in the crypt. But he did not account for the crypt's guardian to be there as well. He could not see it, but its presence drove him into insensate terror, and he ran with one of the items he'd pilfered. A necklace that has since been returned to the crypt."

Once more, Marisha congratulated Holly on her psychic prowess, and then both Arlo and Holly needed to return to Dreadmor. Since Marisha still had some things to sort out with the local sheriff's office, she couldn't join them, so they went into the car that awaited them after buying donuts from a small bakery, courtesy of Z'Hana's wallet. They munched on their donuts in relative silence, though Holly sensed a rather foul mood emanating from Arlo. Z'Hana spoke to the driver, not paying much attention to her students in the back.

After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, Holly finally asked Arlo, "Is everything okay with you?"

Arlo acted like he didn't hear her at first. Then, clearing his mouth of crumbs, he faced her. "I'm still not happy with you."

What? She began to speak, but he drove on with: "You said that my life was easy. You have no idea of the kind of expectations I have placed upon me. No idea what it means for me to be here." Then his tone softened. "I don't expect you to know. You're not a werewolf, so why should you? But I would appreciate it if you thought a bit more before you spoke."

She puffed up then, indignant, ready to retort with something snappy, but she hesitated.

Do I actually want to fight with him? Is it worth it?

She noted Z'Hana turning in mild interest, one eyebrow raised, ready to break up a potential argument.

With some effort, Holly backed down. "Okay. Fine. I'm sorry for what I said earlier. Perhaps I should get to know you more before I start calling you a rich boy."

He snorted at that. "Apology accepted. For now." The foul mood seemed to vanish, and Z'Hana continued her conversation with the driver, no longer concerned about there being a potential blowup in the back seat. "I admit, I'm a little envious of what I saw you do," he said. "I had no idea that mediums could get that much information. We're a little used to seeing charlatans and crackpots, but less so seeing the power being used in such a way."

Charlatans and crackpots. Sounded about right. "Yeah, there are a few too many frauds," Holly acknowledged. "It does drag down the power itself. I remember when my mom used to do psychic readings for her clients, they were always so skeptical. But she really could read the cards."

"Can you card-read?" he asked, one eyebrow raised.

"No, that's not really my strength. My mother did give me a deck to experiment with once, but it's not really something my powers do. My mom can pick up emanations from living people and sense things about them. My talents veer more toward those who have already passed."

"Huh." Arlo looked beyond Holly as the swamp colored their view, growing darker as the sun sank beneath the horizon. "I suppose in that way, we're similar. We only pick up from those who are deceased. But necromancers… they don't have a good reputation."

"Something else we have in common," Holly replied with a smile. She took a hard look at Arlo, from the gleam in his golden eyes to his ruffled sandy hair to his strong jawline to his Adam's apple. A jolt of electricity raced through her, causing her to shiver. He was handsome. Sure, she'd been aware of it before, but she had never scrutinized him in such detail, not this close up, not since she'd become painfully aware of his physicality. Plus, he'd spent the last couple of days masquerading in werewolf form, so it was hard to get a proper read of who he was.

"One thing I highly doubt we have in common," he said, though he echoed a little of her smile, "is that you likely had more time to indulge your talent. That is – no one was really opposed to what you did."

She had no real rebuttal for that. Her family never prevented her from trying her magic – they just had some pretty strong opinions on the magic itself. "It's not the same for you?"

"No." His gaze hardened like stone as if weighted by the thoughts in his head. "My family is split on the matter. And it doesn't help that there's a lot of tension going on – just over half of our branch is seriously considering splitting off and becoming our own distinct clan since there is a necromantic magical strain that goes through our family that is quite different from the normal magic. My mother and those who support her abhor the magic. They wouldn't let me practice it. They said…" He sighed. "Never mind what they said. Just assume it wasn't nice. My father and those who supported him – of course, they wanted me to train. So… I did get some training. But it was often interfered with."

Holly shook her head. That sounded like quite the dysfunctional family dynamic. "Are there a lot of… issues with your parents? Are they still married? Divorced?"

He didn't seem to mind the questions and shrugged. "My parents do love one another, but this is one of the things they are not able to find neutral ground on. They're still together, but… I don't really know for how much longer."

Holly frowned. "I'm sorry." She didn't know what else to say. His family problems sounded a far cry from her own family situation, where at least, despite all their little dramas, everyone was more or less aligned on the same path. Nobody hated one another's powers, and nobody felt threatened by the power either. Maybe there were a few digs about how weak some family members were. Nothing more. "I don't know too much about werewolves and their families. But I take it there are ones with great influence."

"Yes. The Sixclaws – my family – is one of the richest of the families. The Redclaw clan like Lujan and Skyla – they're small fries in comparison to us – even though they share the combined name of two great families. But… me, my father, those who sympathize with the magic I have – we may soon be like the Redclaws. We will lose status, power, connections – but we will be our own."

Surprised but happy he chose to share that much with her, Holly straightened up before saying, "Honestly, that freedom seems worth it. So… do you have an idea of the kind of surname you'd take?"

He shook his head, absently staring out of the window. "We're considering a few – we want to reflect the magic in our name, maybe something of the Sixclaw. My dad likes the name Necroclaws. My brother thinks we should be called Deadwood, my aunt, Sixcrypt… suitably dramatic names, I suppose."

"You have a brother?"

Now he turned to look at her, his attention no longer wandering. "Six years older. He went through Dreadmor before me."

"That's cool. I'm the first of my family to make it here in about forty years," Holly admitted. "My mother, of course, is raving about it to every person who'll listen and claiming it was all predicted in her cards. Anything to make her feel more important, I suppose."

They smiled at each other, and a genuine sense of warmth emanated through Holly. Something twinkled in Arlo's eyes, something knowing, which sent a strange, warm shiver of heat through her spine.

"Seems like, for now, we're going to be working together a lot more because of the nature of our magic," Arlo said. "We should probably get to know each other better. There's a village down the main path from Dreadmor – it's where the students go to shop and eat. Would you be interested in going there with me tomorrow after school?"

Heat surged to Holly's cheeks. Is he asking me out?Someone like him? For real? Or just as a friend?Probably just as a friend. No need to make a big deal out of it.

"Sure, sounds like it could be fun. I haven't had the chance to explore there yet. Chloe and Kati mentioned something about it, so…"

"You can bring your friends if you like. Or it can just be us."

Just. Us. She struggled to keep the heat contained, finding her mind going haywire at the implications. Remember. Don't make a big deal out of it. It's just a friendly invitation.

"Yeah, I can bring some people, no problem," she blurted before she could stop herself, then kicked herself for not being bolder.

"Definitely not a problem," he said, his smile now inscrutable.

She couldn't tell whether he was bothered by her offer to bring others along or if he thought she was too insecure to be alone with him. She just wasn't good at these kinds of things.

They rolled through the swamp, and Dreadmor shimmered into view. Low furls of mist covered the ground in the distance, but not enough to hide the awesome structure of the castle-like building, with its peaked towers, crenelations, and Gothic architecture. To some, such a place might seem imposing and dismal and invoke a feeling of, well, dread. To Holly, it had now started feeling a little more like home.