Disharmony

  Disharmony

  Leah Giarratano

  A psychopath… an empath… a genius.

  Three siblings who will save the world – or destroy it.

  They know nothing of each other. They know nothing of the Telling.

  But they’ll need to learn fast if they’re going to survive…

  A gripping new series about a collision of worlds, the power of destiny, and the darkness in us all…

  Leah Giarratano

  Disharmony

  The Telling 01, 2012

  As I always have, and always will,

  I dedicate this tale to Joshua George.

  I drew the four of wands.

  ‘Even the wisest among you is only a disharmony and hybrid of plant and phantom.’

  Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None

  Status: Logged in User: Intellice

  I’ve been awake here since lights out, wondering how to lay all this out for you. The fact that they’ve entrusted me with this job is pretty freakin’ funny, but I’m not sure whether the joke is on me or on you. Maybe you could answer that if I could tell you where I’m sleeping tonight, but then again, it’d probably still be just as tough to figure out. Trust me, though, somebody’s laughing.

  Anyway, I think I’m just gonna begin with the Witch. I mean, she’s the one who started all this, at least the stuff this century, anyway. And, personally, I think it’s best that whenever witches are involved you should get them right out in the open straightaway – you know, so you know what you’re dealing with. Especially this one. Morgan Moreau. The way I hear it is that Morgan has never given a rats about the Council, the treaty, or anyone other than herself. Except maybe that dragon-daemon she’s rumoured to hold captive. Of course, you can make up your own mind. Maybe you think it’s okay to breed and discard children until you get the right set?

  No one is precisely sure when Morgan Moreau first heard of the Telling, and that means, of course, that we don’t know exactly how many children are out there. Maybe we never will. It was never any surprise, though, that if one witch was going to learn of the Telling it would be Morgan. She was always playing around with daemon-lore, delving into the para-illegal. Word is that at eighteen she murdered her best friend with a knitting needle through the eyeball. Harsh, huh? But her best friend was a succubus, and Morgan was trying to absorb some of her power – you know, on account of how you’re supposed to be able to steal some of their skills if you take out a succubus that way.

  You have heard of the succubi, right? Sheesh, I don’t know how much I have to try to fill in for you. Well, they’re only minor daemons, but if you’d ever met one of these chicks, you’d remember her: completely irresistible. Which can cost you a lot – not resisting, I mean – like your money, your youth, your life.

  I’d say that Morgan did end up absorbing some of her bestie’s powers, because she sure had her way with men, and that was half her strategy in trying to bring the Telling to life.

  Look, if you haven’t heard of the succubi, then I’m pretty sure you’ve never heard of the Telling. And that’s the bit I need to get to, so listen up. You’re not supposed to know about the Telling – hell, neither am I. For five thousand years, maybe ten people from every generation knew of this prophecy, and they passed it down, shrouded in secrecy spells, mouth-to-ear. But nowadays every elf and goblin knows the tale, and even the orcs have heard of it (not that they understand it any more than they do the theory of relativity, or even spaghetti bolognaise). Even humans now know about the Telling, but they’re not stupid enough to speak of it. Nobody wants to be jabbed with a shedload full of antipsychotic medication, if you know what I mean.

  Still, you should be told about it. And that’s what I’m here for. Well, for as long as I’ve got to log this right now, anyway.

  So, the Telling…

  You know how we all live in disharmony? Chaos? War? And how more than half the world suffers in poverty, with disease? Well, it’s not only like that for mortals, you know, it’s Universal, and get this, it’s not supposed to be that way. But maybe five thousand years ago, when everything got so screwed up, it was foretold that three children would one day be born who could change all that.

  One, a child with no capacity to feel emotional pain and no ability to understand the emotions of others.

  Another, the opposite, a child of such pure emotional connection that she would have known where and why you had an itch before you even knew that a bug bit you.

  And the third, a laser beam of concentrated brilliance – pure, personified intelligence.

  And there you have it.

  The Psychopath, the Empath and the Genius.

  Together, they can create harmony. You know, heal the world. Peace, love and hummus, baby.

  But the big problem was, according to the Telling, they could also be used as a weapon if the wrong person got a hold of them, schooled them up the wrong way. You see, they have to be taught about their Calling. They have to be instructed from their earliest years in how to use their powers, in how to fulfil their destiny, in how to save the rest of us. They need guidance, the right parents. They need love.

  What they got is Morgan Moreau.

  Well, sort of.

  Look, I’ll do my best, but I’m not sure how much longer I can spend here with you. I can see torches in the hall. I hope the synthesiser is kicking in properly. Hell, they should really have got someone else to do this. If they catch me… well, let’s just say that the people keeping me here have a library dedicated to torture interrogation and truth extraction under psychosurgery. Believe me, I know.

  Anyway, Morgan didn’t want to wait about for the Telling to eventuate. No, she wanted the prophecy here and now. She wanted to control it. Who wouldn’t want the world’s future in their hands? She knew that the trio had to be exactly right, so she set about trying to find mates who could sire babies just like the three in the prophecy. Unfortunately, the… um… recipes weren’t always exactly spot on. So, when Morgan gave birth to a child who didn’t fit the bill, so to speak, she just abandoned it, or let Welfare take care of it.

  Well, the lucky ones anyway.

  And we wouldn’t have known about any of this if one of her little darlings hadn’t almost killed her when making his way into the world. Word is, a Bedouin tribe found her almost bled out in a desert in Southern Jordan. When she recovered, and figured out the child wasn’t the right one, she left it behind. She took to deliveries in mortal hospitals after that.

  We think it took about fifty years, but Morgan Moreau finally did it. The twins were born first, fifteen years ago. Can you believe it? The Psychopath and the Empath are twins. That little twist was never in the Telling. The Genius arrived a year later, and he proved to be just one too many babies. Morgan died screaming during childbirth.

  But the plans, the prophecy, the Telling, had already been set in motion. Morgan Moreau had planned long and hard, and she knew that she had to split the siblings up. To hide them. After all, there’s just no way that beings so powerful could exist in one spot and not draw forth all manner of creatures. If she was smart, and believe me, Morgan Moreau was smart, she’d have found places for them that would sharpen their talents, draw out their gifts, teach them to fully become what they were meant to become.

  So, where are they? Well, that’s not part of the Telling, but it is the next part of this story, and…

  Oh, hell. You’re on your own for a while – the torches just stopped at my door.

  Dwight Juvenile Justice Detention Centre, Sydney, Australia

  June 26 8.41 p.m.

  Luke Black slid his face out of the way at the last minute, smudging his cheek across the triple-layer flexi-glass, but Toad’s sledgehammer fist sti
ll clipped his ear before smashing into the shatterproof door. Luke dropped. Toad followed, using him to break his fall.

  Luke tried to take a deeper breath: not easy with Toad sitting on his rib cage. Right now, Toad was dead weight, taking a breather, tired out by the exercise of giving Luke a flogging.

  Through the one eye not pressed into the lino of the recreation hall floor, and to take his mind off being unable to fill his lungs with oxygen, Luke used Toad’s rest-break as an opportunity to check out everyone watching the fight. Well, not that it was a fight exactly, unless Luke’s one punch to Toad’s thirteen could technically be classed as a fight.

  Luke didn’t understand the lustful glee in Jason Taylor’s eyes, any more than he could comprehend the tears in Hong Lo’s. Why did Hong always cry when someone got hit? It wasn’t like he was the one with Toad’s knee in his neck.

  Luke’s vision narrowed as he felt his eye swell. Already. Oh well, at least that was gonna look impressive in the morning. And then he thought he spotted something crazy. He tilted his head a little.

  What the hell?

  Oh no, don’t do it, Zac.

  Zac Nguyen had been here just two days; had only just completed orientation. He would have weighed – wet – around as much as a well-fed cat. Luke could feel him pumping up, tensing, readying to jump in. His face was blank, but his eyes were locked on Toad. For some incomprehensible reason, he was about to have a go at truck-boy Toad Wheeler. And that was suicide.

  God, where are the screws? thought Luke. They should have been here by now to break it up. He licked his lips, spat out a dribble of blood and maybe part of a tooth.

  ‘Hey, um, Toad,’ he said.

  ‘What do you want, pussy?’ said Toad, using the name with which he addressed pretty much everyone. Luke suspected that this was because he’d already exhausted all downloadable space in his pea-sized brain and there was no room left to remember things like his fellow inmates’ names.

  Luke could sense Zac preparing to spring.

  ‘Um, have you ever thought about cutting out the carbs?’ Luke said, as loud as he could with a knee in his neck.

  His right shoulder was really beginning to ache now with his arm jammed up against the door.

  ‘It’s just that you’re pretty fat,’ he continued, ‘and what with you breathing so hard all over me I feel like I’ve got my head down a toilet. There’s this chemical overload thing that happens when the kidneys can’t break down excess carbs fast enough. Um, you stink, man.’

  Although the shouts of laughter from the other forty-six inmates of Dorm Four were far louder, Luke heard only the shuddering intake of Toad’s breath. He could feel the energy of the anger above him and he found it quietly puzzling even as he prepared to roll before Toad could strike again.

  Luke filled his lungs when Toad moved his knee and straddled his chest.

  Wrong move, thought Luke, smiling up into Toad’s piggy eyes. Toad had time to blink once when he realised his mistake before Luke’s right fist, now free, slammed into his crotch.

  ‘Eww,’ said Luke, rolling out of the way as Toad fell, wailing, clutching his bruised bits.

  Luke gave himself a moment on his back. He peered up at his world, sucking air. Shoe-view. It seemed he’d had this perspective often. Why did everyone want to put him on his arse? He’d never figure people out.

  Although Jason Taylor he could pretty much figure out right about now.

  Jason Taylor was not happy. Jason had expected his best bud, Toad, to get in at least a couple more good head shots, and he would have been hoping for a bit more blood. Instead, his show was cut short and he wasn’t yet sure what to do with all the adrenalin he’d accumulated for the anticipated viewing time.

  It was coming to him, though.

  Luke watched Jason move from shock to confusion to frustration to… there it was, rage.

  Luke knew these words. He’d been on the receiving end of all these emotions, especially the latter. He’d just never played host to any of them.

  Jason wanted his turn. And Luke had nothing left. Everything hurt, but that had never really mattered. It was just that Jason was all fresh, fat, furious and fifteen, and Luke, well, Luke was not. Okay, Luke was also fifteen, but right now – as usual – he was too thin, he felt like he had moths batting about behind his eyes, and he was pretty sure he had a cracked rib. The way that each breath tasted a bit like swallowing crushed glass reminded him of the time his foster mum’s boyfriend had thrown him into the garage wall.

  He sat up. Coughed. Yep, just like that. He put out a hand to help himself to stand. Always best to have one’s head above kicking height in these situations, he’d found. He knew he wasn’t going to be fast enough, though. Jason Taylor had a scarlet-faced, bull-like charge thing happening and he was going to slam into him, right about now.

  Except he didn’t.

  Wow.

  Luke plopped backwards onto the floor as a black blur flashed across his vision, the whir of movement raising the hairs on his arms. One moment Jason Taylor was all red-faced and charging, the next he was white and seated and quiet, his arm folded funny. Half of the now-silent crowd had their eyes on Jason; the other half stared, open-mouthed, at Zac.

  While Luke observed the others, hungry for their reactions, he allowed a small screen of his consciousness to try to replay the move Zac had made. But even on slow speed it was too fast. Was that some sort of cartwheel? A roundhouse kick? He’d never seen anyone move that fast in his life.

  He found Zac’s eyes. And everything became quiet.

  Zac had been to the same places he had. Hell, almost everyone in Dwight had been there: dark, hungry, angry places. Homes in which no kid wanted to be, with people who should never have had kids. But he had a feeling that Zac’s eyes had seen things Luke had never seen.

  Zac grinned, and Luke felt something weird. Like a kind of jolt in his stomach. He felt his smile match Zac’s, except his grin tore his split top lip right open. Warm blood gushed down his chin.

  He allowed himself to lie down as the screws busted into the rec room.

  JUNE 27, 8.10 A.M.

  Luke found that focusing on his running shoes stopped the soccer field gyrating quite so wildly. Foster mum number three always said that it was best to just stare at one thing when you were drunk or really hungover. Luke had never been drunk, and therefore never hungover, but right now he really felt a lot like his foster mum looked when in one of those states. Which was pretty much permanently.

  Not that he hadn’t been banged up and busted down before, but at least one of Toad’s punches seemed to have done something funky to his eardrum. Lying in bed last night had been like trying to catch some sleep in a cement mixer, with the world spinning round and around. Closing his eyes was worse – he’d lost dinner, lunch and breakfast trying that. He’d finally fallen asleep, pretty much sitting up, to take the pressure off his rib cage. But even as he’d drifted into sleep, he’d been aware of Zac Nguyen in the next bed. He could have sworn that Zac was wide awake, watching him.

  Right now, Zac’s duct-taped running shoes stood next to Luke’s in the icy, morning-wet mud of the soccer field. When Zac moved, shuffling his feet like everyone else to try to stay warm, his sock-covered pinkie toe peeped out through a split that the tape hadn’t covered. That had to be cold. He wondered why Zac wasn’t wearing the custody-issued sneakers that Matron gave everyone at intake. He also wondered what had possessed this kid to jump in to help him last night. People had jumped in when he was being bashed before, but only to help with the flogging.

  Kitkat had warned him in his first week that he should try to change the way he spoke.

  ‘Like how?’ Luke had wanted to know. ‘Like Chinese?’

  ‘Like not so smart,’ Kitkat had said. ‘Sometimes you talk like you had dictionary for dinner.’

  Luke changed nothing. He’d probably done less school than any of the kids in here, but he couldn’t help it if he had a brain bigger than Ronald McDonald�
��s.

  Next to Zac, who was still shuffling to stay warm, Luke didn’t move. He could hear the ocean in his right ear, and the breakers were crashing hard. But he couldn’t feel the cold.

  ‘You can sit this one out, Black.’

  Luke raised his head. Ms McNichol. Thank God.

  ‘You should be in the sick bay,’ she said.

  Luke heard Toad snigger somewhere behind him.

  ‘I’d rather be out here,’ Luke said. ‘In the fresh air. It stinks in there right now.’

  More laughs. Not Toad’s. Jason Taylor was in the sick bay with a broken arm.

  ‘Well, you’re not running. Not like that,’ replied Ms McNichol. ‘Take a seat in the stands.’

  Luke shuffled up the steeply sloping hill towards the row of wooden benches at the side of the oval. By the time he got there and gingerly took a seat, he noticed that Zac had almost finished a lap. Between Zac and the next guy, Travis Roberts, was a quarter of an oval. Luke stared. In the four months since Luke had been here, Travis had always been the fastest. Everyone tried to catch him, and sometimes Luke got pretty close. But with Zac out there the others looked like they’d given up. Even Travis was only just ahead of the pack.

  Jonas, Kitkat and Barry, Luke’s usual running mates, stamped and steamed through the mud. Behind them jogged the rest of Dorm Four, around forty boys in green T-shirts aged between eleven and sixteen, with Toad shambling along at the back of the pack.

  Luke spotted Hong Lo, just ahead of Toad, flicking a nervous glance over his shoulder as he tried to ramp up his jog. Not many people wanted to run with Toad; if you didn’t keep ahead, you always left the track with a few extra bruises. Hong reached for his asthma inhaler just as he rounded the goalposts.

  The freezing air felt great on Luke’s throbbing face and he angled it into the wind, towards the rear boundary of the secure complex. His left eye, swollen shut, oozed something, and he wiped it carefully, the moisture cold against his skin. The sensation was bizarre, and not just because the skin stretched over the puff of his eye socket was full of fluid and foreign-feeling, as though it belonged to someone else. Much more strange was the oozing liquid itself – Luke stared at his slightly wet finger. A tear. Huh. So that’s what they felt like. He’d forgotten. He put the finger to his tongue.