Chapter 1
On the morning of his fourteenth birthday, Max Damiano awoke to the insistent beeping of his alarm clock at five a.m. After a few minutes’ worth of blinking at it sleepily, he turned it off, switched on the lamp and swung his legs out of bed, yawning. Shuffling drowsily around his windowless bedroom, he changed out of his pajamas and into his training knits. He then headed off down the shadowed corridor to the training hall.
This was no different from any other morning of Max’s life. What was different was that, when he arrived, still yawning and stretching, in the training hall, they greeted him with hoots, cheers, laughter and general acclaim.
“Here’s the birthday boy!” cheered his sister Renee, hugging him hard. A bit too hard. She let him go when he gasped and wriggled like a landed fish. “Sorry, little bro! How’s it feel to be fourteen, though?”
“Like you broke my ribs again,” Max gasped, massaging his ribcage.
She smacked him in the arm, making him stagger. “That was just the one time, Max. Get over it.”
“Yeah, Max, you’re so sensitive!” Another sister, Estelle, bounced up, hands still trailing fire. “Happy birthday, of course. Have you…?” She looked at him keenly.
“No.” Sadie, the oldest and most serious of the sisters, glided up and gazed at him. Her purple eyes flashed with hidden lights. “No, his talent hasn’t awakened yet.”
“Yet!” The sisters scattered as a tall, lithe young man dropped into their midst. Renee whooped and immediately engaged; the newcomer sparred with her, darting and boxing around the training hall while Max and his sisters cheered them on.
The boy had Renee pinned at last, slamming her to the mats on the floor. “Now, little sis—”
He yelped as Renee’s knee flashed up, knocking the wind out of him and tossing him aside. Renee rolled neatly to her feet and planted a foot in his chest. “Who’s on top now, Tom?”
“Now, now.” Renee hastily withdrew her foot and Tom jumped to his feet as their parents entered the training hall. “This is Max’s day,” said Janet. She came over to plant a kiss on Max’s head. “Happy birthday, sweetie.”
“Mom!” Max recoiled in embarrassment, wiping the maternal kiss away, and was thus completely unprepared for the attack when it came. Not that being prepared would have made any difference.
Max lay on the mat, lungs laboring to draw breath, the impact still burning through him. “No fair,” he wheezed out when at last he could breathe again.
James Damiano loomed over him, face in shadow. “Life isn’t fair, son,” he said. His voice, as usual, gave no hint of laughter. “Fighting demons isn’t fair. Get up.”
Max rolled easily to his feet and stood nervously before his father. “Come on, Dad,” said Tom, “not even a ‘happy birthday’?”
“It’s your fourteenth birthday, isn’t it, Max?” James said, and Max nodded nervously. “Has your talent awakened yet?”
Max shook his head. “I don’t think so, sir.”
James didn’t exactly shake his head in disapproval, but his lips tightened. “Come on. Let’s have a training session before breakfast.”
Max concealed his sigh. Tom and Renee both flashed him sympathetic grins, and even Janet looked a little pitying. “Go easy on him, James,” she said. “I want him in one piece for his birthday dinner tonight.”
“I’ll do my best, and so will he,” said James. He assumed fighting stance, a tall, lean knife of a man, dark eyes burning. “Won’t you, Max?”
Max looked back with his father’s eyes. “Yes, sir.”
He assumed his own stance, and training began.
***
In honor of his birthday (and perhaps to make up for being pummeled by James all morning), Sadie made Max his favorite breakfast of buttered toast and scrambled eggs. They all ate together in the kitchen, Max’s siblings all laughing and chattering, Janet joining in while James ate slowly and said nothing at all.
After breakfast came academic lessons with Janet. Max still didn’t see the point of American history or long division in the family’s Work, but all the Damiano siblings were held to high academic standards: slacking was not permitted here, just as much as in the training hall, and birthdays definitely didn’t constitute an excuse. They all did their lessons together in the schoolroom, fitted with desks, chairs and a whiteboard. Like every other room in their family hideout, however, it was windowless, hidden deep under the downtown city block. Max could hear the faint roar of traffic outside.
“Come on,” said Tom as lessons concluded. He stood in the doorway, jerking his head at Max and grinning widely. “Let’s go patrol.”
Max stood up, rolling out his shoulders. “What’s the point? My talent hasn’t woken.”
“You’ll be okay, little bro.” Renee bounced up. “You’ll be with me and Tom.”
“And patrolling might help wake it up,” said Tom. “It did for me, after all.”
“Be careful!” Janet admonished, cleaning up school supplies.
“We will, Mom!” Tom flashed her a grin as he and Renee escorted Max away.
Leaving the hideout always entailed a certain amount of preparation. Not only did they put on shoes and jackets—it was October in New York City, after all—but they fitted themselves with weapons, tucking daggers and short swords around their persons and loading cannisters and grenades of odd substances into their belts. Max did the same as his older siblings, though he had to fight a sense of faint futility. James’s disappointed look kept flashing before his mind’s eye: Still not awakened.
This year for sure, Max thought in determination. His talent for the Work would awaken, and he would prove himself a true Damiano. He would show James that, though the youngest and the smallest, he was not in any way the weakest. He would prove himself worthy. He would make his father proud of him.
Max lifted his head in this new vow as he followed his siblings up the long, sloping corridor, unlocking several doors, before they reached the final point of egress. Renee pushed the button, drawing up the electrum portcullis, and Tom negotiated the last door with various pressures of his hands and some muttered spells. Then the door slid silently open, and they exited out into the brisk autumn wind, and the indifferent roar of the city.
***
Max grinned as the day enveloped him. He couldn’t help it: he loved New York and everything about it, even when it took no notice of him. Even the endless traffic grinding past reminded him of his city’s endless energy, its continual life. The wind blew chill, but the morning sky was a brilliant autumn blue, and multi-colored leaves blew down the sidewalk, catching against the siblings’ boots. The sun shone through the branches and leaves of the planted trees, casting a shifting, patchwork pattern of light and shadow on the pavement.
They passed early-morning commuters, joggers, beggars and strollers, but no one took any special notice of them or their portable arsenals. The passersby could see the siblings themselves well enough—some of them even gave brief greetings as they went by—but no one paid the slightest attention to their weaponry. This, Max knew, was because their weapons weren’t visible or even perceivable to the average human. Indeed, their weapons would be entirely useless against the average human, bullets dissolving against their flesh, knives parting like mist against their skin. The Damianos’ target was something far more arcane, and far more dangerous.
And it was out and about this morning, rustling through some sickly bushes growing next to a nearby brownstone.
Without speaking, the siblings fanned out: Max to the left, Renee to the right, and Tom in the middle. They all got out their guns, gleaming in the sunlight. None of the passersby paid the least attention to this odd behavior, or seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary: they simply swerved around the siblings, barely looking up from their smartphones or Starbucks cups.
Tom gave the signal, and they all fired, the gun kicking up slightly in Max’s hands. The bullets passed through the bushes like they weren’t there, disturbing not a single leaf, but there came a pained, high-pitched squeal from among the bushes’ roots. The creature thrashed in pain, spattering potting soil across the sidewalk.
“Renee?” said Tom, not taking his eyes from the bushes. “Up to you.”
Renee rolled her eyes. “Isn’t it always?” With an elaborate sigh, she removed a long, electrum rod from the inside of her jacket and unfolded it to many times its original length. Still holding her gun ready, she poked behind the bushes, jimmying at the thing inside.
It finally popped out, rolling onto the sidewalk. Max had seen grubbers like this many times, but they still brought a rush of nausea to his throat: a naked, fetal thing, writhing and wriggling, bleeding black blood from multiple bullet wounds. It lifted its blind head, scenting the hunters; then it opened multiple jaws, each lined with rows of razor-sharp teeth, and lunged forward with astonishing speed—
Max, Tom and Renee all opened fire again, chopping the grubber demon apart. Within seconds, nothing was left but a smear of black blood on the concrete and a few scraps of flesh.
Again, none of the passersby noticed anything. The man striding behind Max was still yelling into his phone about Google futures, even as he delicately stepped around a smear of blood. Max shivered. James had explained that civilians’ brains processed evidence of the demonic differently than other stimuli, translating it into more rational terms—he probably thought the teenagers were playing some strange game, and he was stepping around some dog droppings—but it still sort of gave Max the creeps to see the principle in action. It gave him a strange feeling, seeing the civilians’ total obliviousness to the arcane and supernatural, even though the Damianos’ own perception was based as much on meditation and mental discipline as it was in their genetics.
Tom poked a piece of grubber leg with a delicate toe. “Gross. One more for the scavenger mantas to clean up, I guess.”
“The question is,” said Renee, scanning around, “was it alone?”
They all tensed and looked in all directions, but didn’t see any evidence of a swarm. The autumn morning in the city roared peacefully by.
“It’s okay.” Tom turned back. “Come on, let’s keep patrol—”
Max wasn’t sure, later on, exactly when he noticed the attack. Perhaps it was when Renee screamed “TOM!” Or perhaps when he saw the flap of membranous wings, the morning light shining through them, or heard the inhuman screech, or smelled the rotting stench as the demon swooped down over Tom. It was all very confusing. Max was only sure of what came next.
Renee fired. She fired in the right direction, and with good aim, but the flying demon was fast: it ducked, wrinkly bald head dipping down, and the bullet sailed past. Max watched the bullet fly, its trajectory seemingly slowed down infinitely. He could practically see each individual air particle slough off its path—
Max turned the bullet around. He felt his thoughts reach out, grab hold of the speeding object, and fling it back in a loop, to slam back into the demon. Blood and bits of rotten flesh flew as the bullet plowed into the flying demon’s back. The demon screamed, faltering in its attack, and Tom was able to draw his dagger and stab upward, the tip of his blade protruding from the demon’s neck. The creature flopped over onto the sidewalk, sliding off Tom’s blade.
“Okay,” panted Tom. “Two for the scavengers.” He wiped his knife fastidiously on his pant leg. “Demon blood, gross. Thanks, Renee.”
Renee shook her head slowly. She was staring past Tom at Max, her face white. “Wasn’t me.”
“What do you mean?” Tom saw her looking past him and craned back too. His smile faded as his gaze found Max.
“Max?” he said, sounding suddenly uncertain. “What happened?”
Max took a deep, shuddering breath. He couldn’t breathe, and there was a warm, expanding sun inside him, blazing with incredulous joy and excitement.
“I think,” he said, his voice shaking only a little, “that I’ve just awakened.”
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