Fictional Reality.

Blaze POV.

I padded quietly through the near-silent house. It had been a week since the Manticore attack.
After the chaos had been cleared up, Danger had set extra wards and protection charms, ordered a permanent watch from the werewolf pack, then grabbed Zacky, Shadows and Jimmy and disappeared off to try and track who had sent it. Apparently Manticores can only get that big with magical intervention, which meant that someone had it out for us. And Danger was pissed. I don’t think I’d ever seen her so angry. She had looked positively feral while she had stalked around the house setting wards. She’d burnt the Manticore to a tiny pile of ash with her dark shadow-fire. And then kicked the pile of ash into the wind for good measure. Even the guys treated her without their usual joking and dicking about as they patched each other up. Miraculously, no-one was hurt too badly – considering the size of the monster lying on the driveway. Johnny’s cuts were deep and healing up nicely when I changed his bandages, but he had lost quite a decent amount of blood. Zacky had received a deep cut to his forehead that Danger had roughly bandaged until his healing took care of it. Shadows had a hairline fracture to his tibia, according to Danger, who had summoned one of the Changelings from Home to heal it before Shadow’s vampire healing set it wrong. Beth, the quiet-spoken Ellyon Changeling, had healed him within seconds of laying hands on his leg but warned him against straining it for the next day or two as the bone was likely to still be weak for a day or two. He’d proceeded to ignore that to head off hunting with Danger. Jimmy had it worst off, he had been in the SUV when the Manticore first attacked and smashed the windscreen. He had managed to get out, but had hundreds of glass shards embedded in his skin, which had healed around them. Unfortunately for him, that meant he had to endure Zacky and I removing the shards with tweezers and forceps. By the time we were done, he was covered almost head to toe in blood, both dried and fresh. He’d only had a handful of deeper wounds that Zacky had roughly taped gauze over while they healed over. Danger had somehow come away unscathed, her magic taking the brunt of the impact when the Manticore had thrown her. From where he was being bandaged, Synyster had mumbled something along the lines of “bloody Fae witch” before he fell silent upon seeing the look on her face. He had come off the worse of everyone. His left forearm had been lacerated open by the Manticore’s sting, his right had been gashed badly by a leg and he’s been knocked out for a good ten minutes. Danger and Beth had drawn the poison from the sting and leg out of his wounds before he had regained consciousness, but apparently he was going to have to heal at bog-standard human speed due to a side effect of the poison – something he’d sworn a blue streak about, his curses turning my face bright red from the other side of the room. Once she was certain that the house was protected 6 ways to Sunday, Danger had gathered Shadows, Zacky and Jimmy – dragging the latter out of the shower by his hair after he ‘took too long’ –, given Johnny an earful when he complained about being left behind, and disappeared into the shadows in an unlit corner of the room. Like literally disappeared. Walked into it and vanished. That was a new display of power, but apparently one that neither Johnny nor Synyster had blinked at.

Danger and the guys had returned four days later, with Danger in an even fouler mood. They hadn’t found a single trace of the person who had sent the Manticore. By all accounts, it had just appeared out of thin air on the driveway. Not even a trace of magic to track where it came from, Danger had grumbled over dinner. When I’d asked if there was anyone that they even suspected, I was met with a stony silence as Zacky glared at the table. Which meant that he was hiding something from me again. I’d confronted him about it afterwards, but he’d just evaded my questions saying that it was nothing I needed to worry about, then disappeared off to Home with Danger.
I sighed as I turned and wandered down another hallway. I’d tried repeatedly over the past few days to get answers out of Zacky and the rest of the guys. They had all been evasive and I’d got no definitive answers. The whole house felt like it was on edge and I deserved to know why. I’d have asked Danger, but she had been busy with the wolf pack as the full moon arrived again and I had barely seen her. Also, since her – quite frankly – terrifying display of power during the Manticore attack, and her subsequent temper, I’d been kind of wary of her. I couldn’t quite believe that a month had passed since I’d started my change. I was entering the tail-end of it now and almost at full-strength as a half vampire. I was even able to start drinking tiny amounts of normal blood. After the attack, Synyster had taken the camp bed and moved back into his own room stating that I was strong enough that I could cope with him just down the hallway now. That had been a relief. It was nice to be able to have some damn peace and quiet again. Except, it wasn’t. I found myself missing his company. I’d gotten so used to having him nearby that it was strange to suddenly have him gone. I was missing those silent conversations, his too-observant chocolate gaze and the guitar playing. I missed that most of all. I hadn’t slept nearly as well without the soft sound of his guitar lulling me to sleep. I turned and paused, sighing as I stopped outside a closed door. A whole host of reasons had led me here, and when I’d set off I’d been confident about my reasoning. Now that I was here, doubt was setting in. Was I just being stupid about the atmosphere in the house? Maybe it was natural for everyone to be on edge after being attacked by a giant Manticore. Maybe I was reading too much into everything. Maybe I should just curl up with the almanac Danger had given me all that time ago and see if I could find the answers to my questions in there. Maybe I should just download some guitar music to my phone and leave it at that. I sighed again and turned away, making to head back to my own room. But both the dull ache in my gut and a tired voice stopped me.
“Are you just going to loiter out there all day or are you actually going to knock?” I swore under my breath. There was nothing for it. I raised my hand and knocked gently.

Notes