The next day came with a knock at my door. I woke with a start, and sighed as I came to my senses. A part of me was glad that I was being roused. It meant that whatever Lily’s orders to me, they’d been overruled by her parents and I was about to get dragged out to more training against her wishes. I hauled myself out of bed and groggily slid open the door, only for Lily to sternly shove me back into bed.
“Nope! You’ve already failed the first test. Your orders were to rest up, not to answer the door.” She strode into my room and shut the door behind her. “You’re bad at taking breaks, did you know that? With how much you doze off at school I thought you’d be a natural at this.”
I stared at her from the bed. She looked cheery despite everything that had happened over the last couple days. How was she able to stay so positive? And furthermore, how was this actually happening? There was no chance that her parents had relented so quickly to her demands.
“Now, we have a packed schedule today. First, you’re going to sleep in. Then, you’re going to come with me to the hot tub to soak some of your aches away. Then it’s an early night for you and you’re going back to bed to rest. Oh, we’re skipping club fundraising today, don’t even worry about that.” She marked things off on a clipboard as she listed them down, like this was a real schedule. I raised my hand, and she glared at me before jabbing her pen in my direction. “Yes, Aster?”
“Don’t you have school today?” I said blearily.
“Yes! I’m skipping, just like you. Apparently someone can’t be trusted to stick to their rigorous resting schedule if I’m not here around the house to watch them. So that’s exactly what I’ll be doing.” She pulled up a stool and sat down, pulling some books out of her bag. I didn’t have much in the way of furniture here, but there was a desk that she quickly appropriated to start doing some homework. “Back to bed with you!”
I gaped at her, but orders were orders. “As you wish.” I yawned and curled back up in bed. I fell back asleep, simultaneously uncomfortable and grateful to her. I fell out of consciousness almost immediately.
That day went by as even more of a blur than the previous one, though it was a much more pleasant blur. Everything was warm and soft, and Lily didn’t press me with any more questions in her blazing interrogation. We chatted, we laughed, and we pretended that nothing had happened. But eventually, at the end of the day, her look turned somber and I knew she was going to get back to business.
“So about this monster that’s been chasing you. Do you know what its deal is yet?” She ventured.
“Not a clue. At first I assumed it was after you, or more generally, the family. But now that it’s shown its hand by coming after me all alone, it’s pretty safe to say that it wants to get me in particular.” I scratched my head. It really was still a mystery. “Have you heard anything about the blood yet?”
Lily shook her head. “No. Nobody ever tells me anything, it’s so frustrating! All I know is my parents have been really busy the last couple of days, ever since it attacked the school. I guess they’re doing something with the blood, but they should have been done a long time ago.”
I nodded along. The heads of the Blackwood family were no slouches. If they were working a spell on the creature, it shouldn’t have taken too long given its proximity and the preserved blood. If they were still busy with it, that meant there was a further complication. “I wonder if traditional magic has much of an effect on it.” I wondered aloud. “It was able to romp around and evade detection within the family’s wards, so close to the manor. And when you threw your magic at it, all that I think you did was make some bright lights right in front of its eyes. Maybe whatever spell they’re trying to do is just sliding right off of it.”
“Wait,” Lily interjected “its eyes? You mean those creepy, empty eye sockets?”
“Yeah. There’s something in there. That’s where I got the blood from, and it definitely felt like there was some kind of organ there. Maybe not quite like an eyeball, but my pet theory at the moment is that it has really sensitive eyes, which is why they’re kept so protected under that mask, shrouded in total darkness. It never seemed bothered by the dark, and it only ever retreated when something got into those eye sockets. The glitter, your sparks, the soda, and then my hand—yes, Lily?”
“Did you say soda?” She put down her hand and blurted out.
I raised an eyebrow at her. “You didn’t really think I just bought you chips with no soda, did you? It got all shaken up during the fight and I chucked the bottle at the thing’s face. It got all over the mask and inside those sockets and drove it crazy.”
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Lily’s smile widened, and then she doubled over laughing. I felt red in the face. “It made a lot more sense at the time, okay? I didn’t have many options.”
“That’s so like you, Aster. You’re always turning a bad situation around like that.” She smiled at me and wiped a tear away from her eye. “And you also said you felt its eyeball? Gross.”
“Or something that serves a similar purpose. Like an exposed optical nerve or something. Supernatural creatures don’t play by the regular rules of anatomy.” I tapped my chin. “But just knowing how to hurt it, or what its target is, isn’t good enough. We need to either drive it away permanently or kill it.”
“Can’t you just like…” Lily imitated swinging a sword in the air. I smiled at her.
“That’s the normal plan, but it was back in action only a few hours after taking a wound from my blade. It might be able to heal from conventional wounds faster than normal, or something like that. And besides, getting in close enough to do that kind of damage is risky as it is, even before we throw it into a blind rage by going for its eyes.”
“Is that normal for these things?” Her eyes were wide. I’d almost forgotten that she was kept in the dark when it came to the other monsters I’d had to fight as an Adept.
“There is no normal.” I settled back down. “That’s part of what makes magical creatures so dangerous. Like I said, they don’t play by any natural rules. Maybe all we need to do is take out its eyes and it will instantly die, or maybe it has four hearts that need to be pierced by wooden stakes, or maybe we can just hack and slash at it until it bleeds to death.” Lily’s expression grew more and more concerned as I went on. “This is all part of what being an Adept is about, figuring these things out and then executing a plan to stop the monster.”
Lily chewed her lip. “But it can’t get to you while you’re in the manor, right? It’s safe here. So we don’t need to figure this all out right away.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. It got inside the wards in the woods without any trouble, who’s to say that it can’t breach the manor itself? And furthermore, just because it’s after me doesn’t mean that it can’t attack someone else while I’m hiding away here. There’s a lot we still don’t know, so for all we know the time pressure is more severe than we realize.” I continued running down my train of thought, much to Lily’s dismay. “Though even if it could get into the manor, doing so would be suicide. Every Adept would come racing in to join the fight, plus your parents, plus you. So an attack here might be the best case scenario.”
Lily grimaced. She looked around the room nervously, like she was searching for weak points. She’d lived her whole life thinking that the manor was an impregnable magical fortress that would always be safe from danger. It must have been hard hearing me say that there was something out there that might shatter that impression.
“In any case,” I continued on, “you shouldn’t worry too much about it. You’re already more involved than you’re supposed to be. We’ll—”
“I already told you—”
“—you’re done with doing what you’re told. I know, but this is still dangerous.” I cut her off, and she crossed her arms again. “Come on Lily, you’re not a fighter. You know that practicing your magic in the safety of the manor is one thing, and using it in a fight is completely different.”
“I saved you from the—are we really just calling it ‘the thing’ and ‘the creature’ still? Does it not have a name?” Lily cut off her own outrage with the sudden question. I cocked my head at her. I hadn’t really thought about it.
“I dunno what it really is, but ‘monster’ tends to get the idea across pretty well.” I shrugged.
“That’s so boring! It should have a real name, like ‘the antler demon’ or ‘bigarms smashysmash’.” She tapped her chin while she pondered the name. I wondered how those two options connected in the slightest while she thought about it.
“In any case, you did help when we were attacked at school, but we had no idea at the time that you could drive it off by messing with its eyes. That was extremely lucky, but now it knows you can do that, and might target you first. If anything, you’d be the biggest help figuring out what’s up with its blood, and why nothing has happened on that front yet. Your parents should have—”
“The Helk! Like the Hulk, but it’s an elk because of the antlers. Helk!” Lily broke out into a wide smile and her eyes sparkled with joy. I laughed out loud. I couldn’t help myself.
“Fine. We’ll call it the Helk. The Helk is extremely dangerous and could pulverize either of us in under a second, if it doesn’t skewer us with its antlers first.” I said. Lily was barely listening to me. Her excitement was palpable.
“So it’s settled then! I’ll help you beat the incredible Helk, talk to my parents about getting you assigned back to my guard, and that should take us through the weekend so we can still make the club meeting by Monday.” She nodded to herself as she spoke, and I put my head in my hands. She couldn’t be serious.
“How are you still going on about this club? We went to one meeting and it nearly killed us both.” I groaned at her.
“Oh, that reminds me! Because we’re missing fundraising today, it’s our turn to bring snacks again on Monday.” She jabbed a finger at me. “Don’t blow up the soda on a monster this time.”
I leaned back in disbelief. I was pretty sure at this point that there was no convincing Lily of the danger of the situation. She was going to come along no matter how much I protested. I was still injured, with no idea of how much time I’d even have to recover before the Helk just went on a rampage and hurt innocents. And to make matters worse, it was my turn to bring snacks again.