The Shifter World

Bustokki City, Balalaika

At the same time Lillian Cart Ci found out she was a Shifter, Max Wikkens found out his father was a criminal.

The night began with a bomb and ended with a belt.

A mermaid from the River Thalis made the explosive. It was an incendiary device coated in sparkly purple shelling; it could have passed as a seashell or a crystal. Max hid it in an empty upstairs bedroom, started his stopwatch, and pressed the yellow button on the device.

The bomb began to beep.

Two minutes.

Max burst out of the empty upstairs bedroom and pounded down the stairs. He whirled around tables stashed with apple-stuffed dumplings and bell peppers dripping in mushroom marinades, dodging the grasp of Traders. He bumped into a dessert table in his rush, accidentally sending a teetering nine-tier cake crashing to the ground with a splat. Bloom Officials and party guests screamed in shock.

"Isn't that Official Wikkens's son?" they asked. "What is he doing?"

Max exited through the manor's front door. From the porch, the driveway slithered away from the house, lined with seas of jewels teeming bloody, sapphire, and lilac colors. Max exhaled his frustration; the path to the road was too long, and he wasn't a fast runner.

"Mal." He yanked a small radio clipped to his waist up to his lips.

"I'm here," came his twin sister's hushed voice. "With the kids."

"You have about a minute."

"What if I hack someone's wrist off?"

"Don't aim for any body parts."

Mallory scoffed. "You're such an idiot."

"Let me know when they're all—"

A hand snatched the crook of his arm, causing Max to drop the radio. He jumped and caught a flash of six-inch acrylic nails painted an ugly shade of red, and as his eyes trailed up to the woman that had grabbed him, his breath caught in his lungs.

An antlered headdress scaling four feet jangled above her, stuffed with bits of dead animals. Her makeup was oceanic...blue blushes, silver eye shadows, gems glittering against her tear ducts and lips. Her dress was billowy and sequined and, Max realized with sick revulsion, also crafted of dead animal parts. Preserved entrails were woven through the silk of the dress, dark and wet against the sequins. Frail bones lined the plunging neckline. Teeth had been strung together to form a belt around her waist.

Max suppressed the urge to puke. The woman pulled him close and sneered, "Little boys should be down there. How'd you escape the chains, dear?"

Actually, if Max had been a little boy down there, he would have escaped with the help of Mallory. She was in the manor's basement now, wielding an ax, hacking away at the chains that bound the children's wrists and ankles. 

He lied, "I didn't escape. I'm here with my father, one of the Bloom Officials. Let go of my arm, you fat old scumbag."

Fat old scumbag probably wasn't the smartest thing to call the fat old scumbag.

"You brat," hissed the woman, eyes slitting in ire. "Perhaps I'll fashion your skull into a crown."

Max jerked and twisted, but she wouldn't let go. How much longer did he have? Thirty seconds? He could hear the sounds of metal clanking, breaking, shattering from the radio on the ground. The rage ruptured within him, tumbling through his bloodstream like a landslide. Animal killer! Kidnapper! Torturer! Fat old scumbag!

If this woman had had the chance to torture any of the kids in the basement, Max didn't doubt she would kill them and fashion their skulls into a crown. As she turned towards the radio, asking him what the noise coming from it was, he twisted and bit her upper arm.

The woman screamed the most dramatic scream Max had ever heard in his life. He hadn't even bitten her that hard, but her screech was akin to cats getting their heads bashed in: horrible, wretched, theatrical. Her hand fell away from Max's arm as people began to gather around the front porch. The violin quartet on the lawn paused to watch the commotion.

Free of her grasp, Max hurled himself toward the road. Fifteen seconds now? Ten? He'd lost count. He jumped the last three feet, barely making it to the asphalt of the road before the manor exploded.

The ground shook; the house rumbled. The red roof soared towards the night sky in a spray of stone, and from the distance, it looked like blood spatter against the glow of the flames. Fire rose through the house in scarlet pillars. The classical music stopped with the shriek of a cello and the world turned to a symphony of screams, crackles, snapping dresses, ripping tuxedos...it was cacophonic chaos.

Max rolled onto his stomach. His head throbbed. Heat rippled across his back, burned his arms and legs in sharp stinging spears. His vision was full of fire and people and stars...and then, for the second time that night, strong hands snapped around his bicep and yanked him to his feet. 

Max stumbled back into a rock-hard chest.

Hot lips pressed against his ear. "You are in a lot of trouble, young man. I just saw your sister leading a bunch of kids out of the back exit of the basement. It wasn't hard to guess the boy running for his life down the driveway was the one who put the bomb upstairs."

No. Max jerked around to face the owner of the voice. Pain pounded behind his eyes and in the knob of his skull. He could not remember the last time he had prayed. Now he silently begged the Great King to get him out of this.

His father's grip on him was so hard, Max could already feel a bruise forming beneath his shirt. He shoved his questions down, afraid to know the answers. He was afraid and furious and joyful for the Acid children that had escaped with Mallory...he was also a grenade about to explode into a storm of anxiety.

Many corrupt Bloom Officials often held parties like this. Acid children were kidnapped from Acid territories and locked in the basement of some fancy manor. Every Bloom Official at the party would go down to the basement, light torches, and take turns choosing a child to torture with their own sick devices. Strangling, dunking the kid's head underwater for minutes at a time, ripping off body parts...it was repulsive, sickening, and reprehensible. Max and Mallory had been planning to help the kids escape ever since they'd discovered a message in an alley beside the Congregation Center written in glyphs, which were how the Bloom Officials who were planning illegal practices under the Stem's nose communicated.

Max hadn't expected his father to be here. 

And it stung.

He swallowed as his father yanked him away from the manor and started down a boulevard lit by colorful alchemical globes suspended by iron posts twice as tall as Max. Behind them, the manor raged fury and flames. "Dad," Max started. "Listen. This is not what it looks like. It wasn't me."

They came to an empty intersection bathed in silver lights coming from the glass skyscrapers rising on either side of the street. Max's hands were sweating; his heart raged inside his chest cavity, and he shivered in cold fear. He wasn't ready for what was coming. He was never ready.

His father stopped and yanked Max against him so hard, Max crashed into his chest.

Max felt the thumping of his father's pulse.

Official Wikkens was a no-nonsense man. There was no-nonsense in the way his eyes seared twin green fires into Max. There was no-nonsense in the way his nose knifed out from his face, harsh and sharp, an inch away from Max's forehead. There was no-nonsense in the fingers that gripped Max's arm so hard there would be red crescents there that wouldn't fade away for hours. Anger visibly rose within his father like a cumulonimbus cloud builds in the sky...fast, evil, and black.

No-nonsense burned in his words. "This is the third time in six months. I'm going to kill you."

Max exhaled, biting out every syllable with as much sincerity as he could manage. "There were kids in the basement. Seven and eight-year-olds. Innocent. They were going to be tortured, but you...you were there, weren't you? You were going to take a turn torturing them."

"What do you think?" his father spat.

Max couldn't breathe.

Air left. His throat dried. His lips felt very chapped as he tried to suck thick air through his mouth. That little bomb bristling with anxiety beneath its shell went tick tick tick.

I am afraid. Oh, he was so afraid, and the sting of betrayal burned hard in his gut. But Max asked anyway, because while the fear of knowing writhed in him, the fear of not knowing was a much bigger beast. 

Ezra Wikkens was an established government official; he worked as a Balalaikan lawmaker and, most recently, an executioner of Acid prisoners. Everyone, whether they worked below or above him, treated Official Wikkens with deep, solemn reverence that reminded Max of subjects bowing to their king. On the outside, everyone saw Official Wikkens with three children—a set of twins and a four-year-old—a drop-dead-gorgeous wife, a pretty house with servants that cooked lavish dinners and had phenomenally exquisite holiday parties, and a job that revolved around protecting the people of Balalaika. Everyone saw Official Wikkens and said, the lawmaker, the accomplished man, the providing father.

No one ever said, Official Wikkens, the criminal who tortures innocent Acid children behind the Stem's back.

Max's father dragged him deeper into the city. The world wept with sirens racing to the wilting manor some blocks behind them, and they turned into the poorest sector of Bustokki. Ezra stopped at an alleyway between two almost-empty restaurants. 

Max was about to be tortured himself.

Punishment in the Wikkens family ended with bruises and crying. Every time.

The night was cool and breezy, and the raw, sour smell of garbage sliced through Max's senses. What little light fell into the narrow channel was blue from the OPEN signs of the restaurants.

Max glanced at the restaurant walls framing the alley. No windows.

No.

Max backed up against one of the walls.

Ezra unfastened his belt. The familiar sound of it hissing through the loops of his trousers was all too familiar. His tone was soft and low and even and factual. "How could you embarrass me like that? Everyone knows you're my son. They all know you put that bomb in the manor, and I'm left to clean up your mess." He weighed the belt between his hands. "If it wouldn't look so bad on our family, I would let Officials throw you in prison for endangering innocent civilians at a party."

Endangering innocent civilians?

Max swallowed. He usually thought he was pretty brave, borderline cocky, but all of this bravado drowned when Ezra slung that belt forward.

Official Wikkens, the abuser.

It happened in the space between breaths. The belt whistled, pain exploded across the right side of Max's face, and he fell flat on his bottom.

Max gulped for air. His face stung and stars burst across his vision. Blood spilled from the cut, running into the side of his mouth. Max spat it out. Tears sprang into his eyes. "Dad, I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"Don't start that whining with me. You know you deserve it."

He was so much bigger than Max. Tall, lean with muscle, blond-haired and green-eyed. Wild with fury.

The belt came down again. Hard. His father grunted with the effort.

Official Wikkens, the monster.

Max scrambled to his knees. The pain was ice, the tears on his cheeks were hot. 

The searing venom of betrayal hurt worse. 

"I did it to save them, Dad! I set all those kids free—"

"Those monsters deserve what they get. Acids do the same thing to Shifter children. Now they've escaped, and my coworkers know it was you who did it! They saw you running. You made me look horrible in front of some of the most important people in Balalaika!" The arm wielding that wretched belt rose again. Max ducked his head, and the belt hit him in the side of his neck.

He shrieked.

Max thought he should have been used to the pain by now. He should have been used to the blood sliding over his shoulder, beneath his soft jawline, over the high cut of his cheeks. He should have been used to his dad grunting with effort as he swung the belt as hard as he could. He should have been used to the acidic fear, the sting of anger, the repulsion of himself. 

But he never was. It was like the first time all over again.

And now all this wretchedness was coupled with betrayal. 

The face was always first, and Max breathed lies as easy as he blinked. He'd fallen, or he'd gotten into a fistfight with another kid in school. Everyone believed him because Official Wikkens would never hit his children. He was too good. Too generous. Looked up to. Ezra knew these lies were believed, and because the face was one of the most tender places on the body, he started there and worked his way down.

Smack. His ear. Max twisted into a ball. Ezra clicked his tongue in a sound of disapproval.

Smack. His neck.

Smack. His chest.

Max was screaming before he realized it. There was a hard dismal ache in his heart, and that stung more than any belt smacking against his body. His father was a criminal who tortured innocent Acid children at lavish parties. Was it worse than him being an abuser?

"Dad." Max spat. In his frail, bloody huddle, he couldn't see anything but red and stars. "Dad—Daddy, stop it—"

"What did I tell you about whining?" Smack.

Pain and fire and that deep, angry ache. It hissed. It burned.

Max vomited. When he was able to speak again, he gasped, "Please!"

"You should not have come to that party. I'll stop when you tell me you deserve it." His father bent down, clutching the belt with his right fist. With his left hand, he grabbed Max's chin.

Dry lightning cracked across the sky.

"Say it," Official Wikkens uttered with the aggression of lions ripping apart prey, but Max wouldn't dare speak the words. He didn't deserve it. He did not deserve to get beaten because he had saved lives.

Don't say it. Max held his father's gaze.

Thunder detonated above them.

The fingers on Max's chin tightened. "Say it."

"I deserve it," Max whispered. Now he was sobbing, the pain seething all over his body. The blood tasted sour in his already bile-filled mouth. His vision pulsed black at the edges.

His father bent closer. Max smelled onions and smoke on his breath. They were mere centimeters apart now. Wikkens whispered, "The only thing that's keeping me from killing you is your mother. If it were my way, I'd beat the life from you and make you beg me to live. You're a disappointment."

"I'll be sure to thank Mom," Max panted.

Ezra spat in Max's face.

Above them, the night sky moved.

It rippled like light shimmering over a bolt of dark purple silk. There was a rushing sound, and the rustle of a trillion tangled whispers filled the night sky. Ezra snapped his head back.

Around them, the city stopped breathing: Streetlights and neon OPEN signs flickered once and then went out. People screamed, a terrible orchestra of high-pitched wails and horrified sobs. The pulse of magic beneath the city intensified. A billion electrons got ready to explode.

Max looked up, too.

In the sky, a giant winged beast raised its great horned head.