Malachai

by Romi Hart

  The great mound of scales and fur and horns imploded into an enormous tangle of bodies. Isabelle blinked at it for a second. Her brain didn’t want to comprehend it. What could she do with them all? She didn’t want to walk over there to look. What if she found any of them dead?

  The gun crashed out of her hand. Her legs carried her forward against her will. She spotted Coop slumped face down across Lincoln’s legs. An arm stuck out from under Lincoln’s torso and she recognized the snake tattoo from Nolan’s arm.

  She gulped. She wanted to shut her eyes and run away, but she had to know the truth. If her life was over, she better know right now so she could hurry up and die of a broken heart.

  She halted next to a boot. A bloody stain discolored a leg of blue jeans. She bent down and took hold of the ankle. She gave a massive pull and dragged Riley out from under another twisted body.

  Riley flopped onto the pavement. Her black hair whipped to one side when her head lolled, but her eyes didn’t open. A nasty gash cut through Riley’s jeans to expose bloody flesh along her calf muscle. Isabelle laid her hand on Riley’s chest long enough to satisfy herself that her friend was still breathing.

  She straightened up and looked around, but her mind wouldn’t function. How could she cope with all this devastation? What could she do to help these people? She didn’t even have a Band-Aid to stop the bleeding.

  A lump stuck in her throat, but before she could move, a groan drew her attention to one side. She stumbled in that direction and discovered a long body sprawled to one side. A torn and dirty white shirt covered Malachai’s chest, but the ripped sleeves left his arms exposed.

  Grime smeared his forehead and blood covered his jaw and one cheek. His eyelids fluttered when he blinked up at Isabelle. He swallowed once. Christ, he looked awful!

  Isabelle stared down at him. He didn’t look like Malachai to her. He looked like a casualty of some distant war.

  His lips quivered, but he couldn’t get them to smile. His throat rasped when he tried to speak, but a familiar sparkle glistened in his eyes. “Hey, baby. Are you good?”

  Isabelle’s vision blurred with tears and she collapsed on her knees next to him. She groped for his hand. Any part of him was beyond precious to him. She hugged his arm to her chest and pressed her lips against his knuckles. Her tears stung her cheeks. “Yeah. I’m all good.”

  22

  The doors of the gymnasium at Dryades YMCA parted and Levi Kehoe appeared. His dark eyes found Isabelle and he nodded. “You can go in now. He’s gonna be fine.”

  Isabelle’s shoulders buckled. Her chin fell on her chest and she shut her eyes. “Thank you, Levi. Thank you so much for everything.”

  He shrugged and moved off toward the exit. “I didn’t do anything. You’re the one who saved their asses.”

  He walked away and left her there, but not even knowing Malachai was going to be all right could induce her to go inside. She dreaded finding out even one of the New Breed might be hurt.

  She shuddered for the hundredth time and took a firm grip on herself. She had nowhere else in the world to go. Until the wizards of NightRage Crest reconstructed Ogru-Kuche with their magic, everyone and everything she loved in the world was inside that gymnasium.

  Three days of waiting ingrained in her mind that she was alone. Not even the unfailing support of the other New Breed could get that out of her head. She hovered around this damned YMCA waiting to see even one of her friends again. Now she wasn’t sure she would ever see them again.

  They were in there. They were all behind that door. She had no reason to doubt Levi. He went the last three days without sleep to heal everyone who got hurt in the war. He constantly reassured her that Malachai and the others were fine…. when he bothered to speak to her at all. He couldn’t fail to see her pacing around and wearing out the carpet with her constant agitation.

  What was she waiting for? If Levi lied to her and they were all dead, she wanted to know. She never hid from the horrible truth before and she wasn’t about to start now.

  Still, she shivered one more time before she summoned the will to open that door. She gripped it and hauled it back. She wasn’t sure what she expected to find there, but she had to pause again on the threshold before she could bring herself to enter.

  Dozens upon dozens of cots filled the gym in straight, identical lines. Their white sheets created an optical illusion of symmetry that confounded her senses. She blinked several times before she could make out the patients lying in them.

  Coop propped himself against his pillow reading a comic book. He barely looked at her when she passed his bed. “Hey, did you know that the Green Arrow never had any fucking romance with Felicity Smoak? This says his one true love was always the Black Canary. That stupid fucking TV show lied! Can you believe that shit?”

  Nolan groaned from the next bed. He flung his elbow across his eyes and the cobra tattoo came into Isabelle’s view. “Will you shut the fuck up about the goddamned Green fucking Arrow? Do you think I give a shit who his one true fucking love was? Jesus Christ, man!”

  Coop flipped a page. “I’m just saying. The TV producers should have at least made it fucking accurate. I hate it when TV and movies change the fucking stories around. It ought to be outlawed. That’s all I’m saying. Oh, hey, girly! How ya doin’?”

  He nodded to Isabelle and went back to reading. Isabelle feasted her eyes on all these New Breed, all these strong, courageous people who sacrificed so much for her. Her heart overflowed to see them hale and healthy again after almost losing their lives.

  She continued down the line of beds all lined with the same white sheets. They all looked the same, but every face in them woke her to the significance of her budding relationships with each one. She knew every person in here now and they meant more to her than her own family.

  Felicia dared to give her a small smile and immediately looked away. A few cots to the left, Lincoln Manning and Todd Strauss argued back and forth about the latest football scores.

  Isabelle halted dead in her tracks when she spotted Riley sitting on Victor’s bed. The two conversed in low tones. While Isabelle watched, Victor turned to Colonel Weeks leaning against his pillows on the next cot. They exchanged words before Victor came back to talking to Riley. His eyes softened and he glanced down at her mouth.

  Isabelle hesitated to approach. She didn’t want to intrude on the modicum of intimacy they could eke out in this makeshift infirmary. Should she leave?

  Just then, Victor glanced over and saw her. His features lit up and his eyebrows flew up. “Here she is! Where have you been hiding? I’ve been waiting to see you.”

  Isabelle looked around. “Me?”

  “Of course you. Come over here.”

  She tiptoed up to the bed. Riley moved aside to make room for her to sit down, but Isabelle didn’t want to join them.

  Riley took her hand and pulled her down. “Are you okay? Where are you staying?”

  Isabelle scanned the gymnasium. She didn’t want to offend them by saying she wanted to go find Malachai even though she did. “I’m staying with Courtney and Brittany at the Hitchcocks—at least, I’ve been staying there when I haven’t been here.”

  Victor nodded. “Levi tells me you haven’t been out of this gym in days. Is that true? I hope you haven’t been neglecting your health.”

  She looked down at her hands. Victor exuded authority. He affected everyone like that. “I’m afraid I have been. I keep thinking….” She shrugged, but she couldn’t stop fidgeting. “I keep fearing I’ll find out one of you is dead.”

  “You can see we’re not,” Victor returned. “We’re all fine.”

  “Thanks to you,” Riley added. “We all owe you a big thank you for what you did.”

  Isabelle mumbled into her collar, “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Of course you did. You shot those people.”

  “I just wish I could do more,” she blurted out. “It seems like not very much compared to…. you know.�
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  Victor cocked his head. “Compared to what? Compared to us all nearly getting killed? None of us would have survived if you didn’t shoot those people when you did. Not all of us could defeat them, but you could.”

  She wanted to get away. She didn’t like him saying all these things about her. She didn’t care about killing those people. None of her friends would be in danger in the first place if those strangers didn’t come after her.

  Riley’s voice drifted into her ear. “Their magic didn’t affect you, probably because you’re human. Whoever they were, they came prepared to fight New Breed. Their power didn’t work on humans. That must be the reason you didn’t get caught when they blew up the building.”

  Isabelle cast her gaze around the gym one more time. None of this mattered until she saw for herself that Malachai was okay. He should have been near his family and the rest of the Prometheus Crest leadership, but she couldn’t see him anywhere. What if Levi made a mistake and he really was dead?

  Someone touched her hand and gentle fingers slipped into her grasp. “You okay, girl?”

  She waved her hand at nothing. “Do you know where…..Where’s Malachai? I thought he would be here with you.”

  “He’s over there.” Riley pointed across the gym. “He’s over near Tessa under that window. You should go see him.”

  Isabelle didn’t mean to leave without saying goodbye, but she couldn’t linger here a second longer. She hustled between the cots.

  Tessa lifted her head and held out her hand to Isabelle. “God bless you, child. Come here and give your mama a kiss.”

  Isabelle turned aside with an effort. She took the lady’s hand and kissed her wrinkled cheek. Tessa blinked back tears and sank back on her pillow. She compressed Isabelle’s fingers and touched her face, but Isabelle tore herself away. She held her breath raising her eyes to the cot under the window.

  A shaft of sunshine lit up the white sheet, but the figure underneath it lay dangerously still. It didn’t move. The dark head on the pillow didn’t turn to look at her. She didn’t see the sheet rise or fall with breathing.

  She dared another step toward it. The head was turned away so she couldn’t see the face. She didn’t want to be here. She wanted to be anywhere she didn’t have to see that Malachai was dead.

  She stood still and stared down at the motionless form. This was it. This was where her life came to an end. Her throat hurt and her guts ached. She felt herself falling through the floor into some dimension of Hell from which she would never emerge.

  At that moment, the figure under the sheet heaved a massive sigh and turned over. Malachai rolled over on his back, his eyes drifted open, and his black orbs looked up at her. A light came on in his features. “Hey!”

  She crossed the last inch and sank down on the edge of his bed. The rest of the world vanished. Nothing existed but him. His perfect smooth skin looked darker against the white pillow. His black hair brushed across his forehead and his eyes sparkled.

  She fought to control her trembling lips. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” He cleared his throat. “I was just asleep. How about you? You look tired.”

  His palm came to rest against her cheek and she couldn’t contain her emotion. She grabbed his hand and pressed it into her face. She pushed her lips into his palm. Every particle of him gleamed with such exquisite perfection. She couldn’t touch him enough.

  He held out both arms to her and drew her into his dreamy, all-consuming aura. “Hey, hey,” he breathed. “It’s all right. Everything’s all right. You don’t have to worry anymore.”

  She didn’t really believe that until he folded her down on his chest. She closed her eyes against his shirt and inhaled the enthralling smell of him. He had her. Now she knew for the first time since she first met him that everything would be all right. As long as she was with him, she would be all right. They all would be.

  She didn’t need to see the rest of the infirmary. She didn’t need to see Riley or Victor or the Slaughter boys. She didn’t need to see any of it or any of these powerful people who took her as one of their own.

  She was with them all as surely as she was with him. She wasn’t even human anymore even though she was the lone human among thousands of New Breed. She was New Breed. She was a new breed all her own because she was with them. She left her old life behind and became something new. She was part of this shadow city hidden beneath the surface. She couldn’t see the world outside anymore because the waters of Anarock closed over her head and took her for itself.

  She didn’t have to see them because she already knew they were there. If they were watching her sink into Malachai or if they weren’t watching, it didn’t matter because they already knew and she knew and everybody knew. She no longer harbored any secrets from any of them. She was them and they were her. Her destiny was theirs and theirs was hers.

  23

  Isabelle frowned through the barbed-wire fence at the Ogru-Kuche building. “Is this….is this possible?”

  Riley shook her head and puffed air into her cheeks. “Man! It doesn’t seem real.”

  Beyond the gate, scraps of filthy paper gusted across the cracked asphalt and stuck against the concrete walls before they blew away. A rotten, drunken homeless man staggered down the steps, propped his rag-festooned hand against the door jamb, and spat a wad of green sputum on the pavement before he lurched away.

  Just inside the gate, a dog that probably should have been black heaved itself to its feet. It raked its broken claws against its mangy coat before it limped off somewhere. Two skeletal waifs huddled against the corner. Snot and puss smeared their cheeks and eyes. They scanned their surroundings with haunted eyes and licked their cracked lips.

  Malachai furrowed his brow. “This is incredible. You can’t tell it was ever destroyed.”

  “Is it all the same on the inside?” Victor asked.

  “They say they recreated it down to the smallest detail,” Colonel Weeks replied from Victor’s other side. “I hope they recreated the weapons and emergency supplies, too, ‘cuz that shit is gonna take some bank to replace.”

  “There’s only one way to find out. Let’s go see what’s what.” Victor advanced on the gate and Jules Hitchcock appeared behind the wire. Victor smiled at him. “How ya doin’, son? Have you been inside yet?”

  Jules cast a brief glimpse at his illustrious leader. “I wouldn’t do that before you had a chance to go inside, Sir.”

  The little boy bowed over the padlock trying to force it open. From where Isabelle stood, it sure looked like the NightRage wizards recreated the rust in that padlock the same way they fixed the rest of Ogru-Kuche.

  When he finally twisted the key enough to open it, Jules hauled the gate out of the way. Victor, Riley, Malachai, and Isabelle slipped inside, but when Jules scraped the gate across the blacktop again, Isabelle looked back.

  Courtney, Tessa, Colonel Weeks, and half a dozen other New Breed of the Prometheus Crest lined up on the sidewalk. Isabelle scanned them until she spotted Coop and Nolan down on the other end. “Aren’t you guys coming in?”

  Nolan cracked a grin. “We’ll be along in a sec. You go on ahead. We’ll see you soon enough.”

  Isabelle surveyed these people who had become her closest friends, but none of them would move. Jules dragged the gate the rest of the way closed and relocked it. That left Victor, Riley, Malachai, and Isabelle standing together in the trash-infested yard.

  The two couples swiveled around to face the building. Isabelle still could hardly believe the evidence of her senses. Like Malachai, she struggled to remember the battle that destroyed Ogru-Kuche. Whatever those wizards did, they remade the building as though none of that ever happened. She couldn’t see a single pebble out of place.

  Victor let out a heavy breath. “Welp, we better get this done so we can all get back to work.”

  He started forward and Isabelle, Riley, and Malachai flanked him. They had to pick their way through semi-conscious dr
ug addicts and even a dead cat half-buried under a pile of soggy newspaper. A cardboard shelter blocked most of the corridor so they had to walk single file to the stairs. The building stank of urine, stale booze, and filth.

  Riley choked and pressed her fingers against her nostrils. “This is…. this is amazing.”

  Victor led the way into a bare concrete room with no panes in the windows. Graffiti scrawled across the walls and the door hung by one hinge. He advanced on an empty closet in the corner.

  Isabelle couldn’t help stopping to take one more astonished look around. She couldn’t be exactly sure, but from memory, even the graffiti on the walls was the same. She recognized a few of the tags and three-dimensional signatures decked out with spray-painted shading.

  Riley touched her elbow. “Are you coming?”

  Isabelle hurried down the stairs. She and Riley came upon the brothers at the bottom. They broke off a private conversation to glance up and down the corridor. “What do you want to see first?” Victor bit back a grin. “We better check the armory so we can assure Colonel Weeks we won’t be completely defenseless.”

  The four friends continued deeper underground. All the cabinets and locked steel cages in the armory held gleaming guns, stacks of ordnance, and equipment. Isabelle strolled down the room blinking at everything in disbelief. “How do they do it? How did they just magic up all this stuff out of thin air?”

  Riley came to her side. “They can do a lot more than that. I hate to think what they could do if they ever made up their minds to overthrow us.”

  Victor put a can of tomatoes back on the supply shelf and shut a cupboard. “That will never happen. They’re too comfortable letting us lose our fucking shit to the US military every four months. Why should they step out of the shadows to stick their necks out when we do all their dirty work for us? Come on. I want to see the war room.”

  The party returned to the level directly above the armory. The longer she spent down here, the more Isabelle settled into Ogru-Kuche like none of this ever happened. It really was the same building. It offered her the same protection and comfortable sanctuary it did before the attack.