Since I wasn’t Lily’s guardian anymore, that meant there was no reason for me to go to school. It also meant no more going to that club, assuming they were even still going after the school got trashed by the creature. Nevertheless, I snuck out of the manor that night and went for a walk down the road to pick up the snacks for Lily. It was a good opportunity to clear my head, and sort out the thoughts that had been building up.

I didn’t have any chance to see Lily for the rest of the day. After being dismissed from Jane’s office, I was thrown directly into Adept training. Today was for building pain tolerance. My back was still sore from the lashings. Nobody told me anything else about my reassignment. I figured that Lily had said something about the argument we’d had, and her parents wanted me away from her. Lily might not have the same authority as her parents within the family yet, but she was still the heir to their power and magical teachings. If she wanted me gone, I was gone. And if her parents wanted me gone, I didn’t have a chance. I didn’t know how badly I’d hurt her with what I’d said, nor if she was going to get over it. For all I knew, I was permanently banished from her life going forward.

I walked down the road, bundled up in a jacket and watching my breath form fog in front of me. Nights were cold during the autumn, and other than the streetlights, there was only darkness on either side of the road. I kept watch in my peripherals for any sign of the creature lurking near the manor, but there was only the usual wildlife for this time of year: some owls, a couple squirrels that hadn’t gone into hibernation yet, and other unassuming forest creatures. I kicked a loose pebble and watched it clatter across the pavement, and tried not to think about Lily. Instead, I turned my attention towards the monster that had attacked us.

Things didn’t quite add up with the monster attacks. First it had attacked me and barely left any trace of its existence in the middle of the night. Then, it’s suddenly brave enough to strike in broad daylight, at a public building, with plenty of witnesses and security cameras around. Its only apparent goal was destruction. It had single-mindedly pursued me both times, and just rampaged around without any concern for its surroundings. I hadn’t really thought about it at the time, but it hadn’t even spared a second glance at Lily during the attack. I’d assumed it was after her, and made protecting her my primary objective, but it had remained focused only on me the whole time. For all I knew, she could have stayed where she was in the middle of the fight and been unscathed, if it was really going to just ignore her. If that was true, then why was it after me? I scratched my head. It reminded me of Rowan, who’d had a similar obsession with trying to kill me for no apparent reason, a mystery that I still had yet to solve.

Then there was the issue of its retreat. On both occasions, it had aborted its attack at bizarre times. The first was when I’d thrown glitter at its skull. The second was when Lily had thrown sparks at its skull. Both times involved striking its skull and empty eye sockets, but neither of those had been particularly lethal attacks. I would have thought that it could shrug them off as a mild inconvenience, but it seemed to be in genuine pain and felt some kind of fear that forced it to back off. It didn’t make much sense.

My feet took me to the convenience store around the corner, about a mile from the manor. My body appreciated the temporary respite from the cold. I picked up the chips and soda and paid for them at the counter while mulling everything over. When I left, I took another deep breath of the crisp air and started my way back towards the manor. I had a long day of training ahead of me, and not a lot of time left to sleep. And I had a handful of mysteries to untangle. Why had Lily requested my reassignment? Why was this monster after me? Was it also related to Rowan’s attack?

A fourth question occurred to me as I felt a new chill waft over me. If the monster really was after me and only me, then why had I left the safety of the manor and walked a mile outside its defenses, all alone, in the middle of the night?

The attack came as suddenly as the thought formed. I was already diving for the ground by the time it came rocketing in from the woods, smashing the area I’d just been standing in with its hooves. It slapped the ground and backhanded me, making me roll off the street and into the dirt and snow. Before I could roll back to my feet, it was on top of me. It stood over me and pinned me to the ground with one of its massive hands. Then, with its fingers wrapped around my torso, it started squeezing. I struggled to breathe while it crushed me. It arched its head up, letting its antlers catch the moonlight. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to focus as I felt its weight shift and it started crashing its antlers down towards me.

I’ve never had a good understanding of magic. I’d been told that the proper mages actually knew what’s going on, but they kept those secrets to themselves. In either case, my understanding was that for mages, magic is more of an academic affair, with equations and rules and strict logic that dictates how everything works. For Adepts, it’s a much more emotional affair. They’re born with an inherent understanding of how to use their abilities, even if those abilities are more limited in scope. In my case, my powers had only manifested when my life was in peril. They’d first come out when Rowan had attacked, and only when he was about to deal the mortal blow. A mortal blow not unlike monstrous antlers plummeting down from the sky, ready to impale me while I was pinned to the ground.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

My eyes flew open and I felt the rush of power surge through my body. A shockwave erupted from me and flung the creature back, pushing it into the air and forcing it to tumble head over heel. It crashed onto the street with a cacophony of noise as its hooves and antlers scraped against the pavement. I struggled to my feet, the energy already leaving my body. On top of the cold making my extremities numb, I could barely feel my core. My lungs were on fire from being crushed by the monster’s hand, and my energy reserves were already struggling after the shockwave. I stared at my hands, not sure how I’d just done that. I looked back up at the creature. While I was wobbling and barely able to stand, it was already back on its feet, stamping its hooves and ready to charge again, murderous intent clear in its lack of facial features.

I materialized my blade in my hand. I twirled it around to hold it up in a defensive stance. There was no way I could actually fight it in this condition, but I had to put up the image of someone dangerous. I couldn’t tell how bad its wounds looked with the lack of light, but it had felt pain when I’d hacked away at it before. It should remember how much it hurt when it charged me last time. Of course, last time I’d been fresh and ready for a fight. This time I was already hurt from the earlier fight, exhausted from training, and had just expended what little power I had to barely survive its initial attack. Things were looking grim.

The bluff seemed to work. It halted its hoof-stamping and huffed, its own breath forming a thick mist as it met the cold air. Its massive frame held still, apparently pondering how it wanted to attack. I’d already shown that I could deal with its usual charging attack at the school. How many more strategies did it have up its sleeve? I had to wonder if it was even capable of altering its plan of attack.

I wasn’t left wondering for long. It stretched its two hands out and clapped them together. I was confused for a moment, but then the thunderclap hit me. Compressed air shot out where its hands contacted each other, smacking me off my wobbly balance. I went careening back towards the dirt, but tucked into a roll as it came charging at me again. I angled my blade out and tried to hack at it while it came close, felt the cutting edge bite flesh where the creature stood on top of me. It howled again, and now I was close enough that I could feel my teeth chatter against my jaw as the sound washed over me. It backed off, but snatched my machete out of my hands and hurled it away into the woods. I wasn’t ready for that. The weapon went soaring away from me. I was left unarmed, alone, and rapidly running out of options against a monster that was bigger, faster, and stronger than me. The creature was finally closing in for the kill.

I bounded to my feet while it readied its next charge. I had nothing else that could be described as a weapon, and there was no way I could find the machete handle in the dark woods to rematerialize my weapon. I gulped and decided that it was time to test some theories. The monster launched itself towards me. I dove in towards the danger. It didn’t expect that, and went soaring past me, colliding with a streetlight and demolishing the post in the impact. Its momentum carried it into the woods while I scrambled back into the newly-darkened street, trying to find the point where I’d first been attacked. I groped the pavement in the darkness, until I felt the plastic bag filled with snacks that I’d dropped when the creature had first ambushed me. I shoved my hand inside and grabbed the bottle of soda, which had been dropped, rolled around, and shaken with all of the impacts from the massive monster causing the ground to quake with every blow. In other words, this soda bottle was ready to blow. And I had the perfect target for it.

I felt the thumping of the thing’s hooves as it stomped out of the woods and back onto the street. I turned in place and saw the path of wreckage it had left going off-track from that charge. I really hoped this was going to work. It lowered its head and spread its arms out, getting ready for another thunderclap to seal the deal. I didn’t give it the time it needed to wind up: I hurled the soda bottle as hard as I could at the thing’s gleaming white skull. The bottle impacted with a thud, exploding with sticky, shaken, carbonated goodness all over the monster’s mask. It howled as soda entered its eye sockets. It shook its head back and forth, trying to shake the fizzy beverage away, but it was too late. It shrieked, and I decided to push my luck a little further. I ran for it, screaming wildly as adrenaline pumped through my system, and vaulted up to reach for its antlers. I grasped the rough bony protrusions with both hands and hauled myself up to its skull mask while it was rocking back and forth, flinging me through the air, forcing me to hold tight. I swung myself around using the momentum of the rocking motion. My legs straddled the back of the mask to gain a little bit more stability.

I wasn’t sure what I was doing up there. It’s not like I had any weapon to inflict some damage while I was near its neck. I was going purely off instinct and adrenaline. My body leapt into motion before I could really think about what I was going to do. So I plunged my fist into its black, empty eye socket as hard as I could. I hit something warm, squishy, and, apparently, very sensitive. It howled in pain, louder than its earlier battle cry had been. I felt like my insides were going to liquefy from all the shaking. I squeezed my hand tight and whatever I was grabbing popped, covering my hand in fluid and gore. At that, the creature leapt into the air and contorted itself around, swinging violently as hard as it could, and I flew off its neck and slammed my back into the street. The monster didn’t stop throwing itself left and right in pain, and it went bolting into the woods, screaming as it went.

I blacked out, and I’m not sure how long I was unconscious. The next thing I knew, some of the family’s Adepts were standing over me on the street, checking my pulse. I cracked a smile at them, and they looked surprised to see me awake.

“What happened? Were you attacked?” There was a sense of urgency in their voice.

“Yeah. It’s gone now. And look what I got for all my trouble.” I held up my hand and showed them the smattering of gore, and whatever I’d ripped out of the eye socket. “Blood. Lots of blood.” I smiled, and rose woozily to my feet. The other Adepts helped me find my machete handle in the woods, and we went back to the manor, but not empty-handed.