by Rainy Kaye
The man spun around to face us.
The purple soldiers did the same.
“Someone got a promotion,” Randall muttered, shifting the van into reverse. “I think he just made him a captain of his own army.”
Before I could formulate a reply, Randall swung the van out and rocketed it forward, toward the crowd.
My arms shaking, I scrambled to fasten my seatbelt as we rammed into another soldier. Then another.
Neither of them stayed down.
The van sped through the intersection, tires squealing as we took a sharp turn. I braced my hand on the ceiling, as if that could somehow keep us from flipping the vehicle as Randall drove like we were in a video game.
Behind the van, the soldiers spun and charged toward us. A few brandished swords and one even swung a mace.
What the hell was with this town?
The soldiers split around the van, swallowing us. Randall’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel as he urged the vehicle forward. The paintings in the back rattled against each other.
As the soldiers swarmed around us, they pushed in and forward, forcing the van to slow.
The ones in front parted, and Randall slammed on the brakes.
Right before the next intersection, the new captain appeared, standing among his men, who fell back with slight bows of their heads.
From a few yards away, the captain peered at us through the windshield, making eye contact with us in turn. Despite the fact he was dead, his eyes carried a human, intelligent spark.
He lifted one hand in front of him, palm up. Green magic roiled to life like smoke billowing, collecting in his grasp, preparing to be launched at us.
“Oh, hell no,” I whispered, and then leaned forward to thump the back of Randall’s seat. “Good god, man, go.”
He shook his head as if he’d been in a stupor and then floored the van. It shot forward, toward the captain. As the captain pulled back his hand, Randall cut the van at an angle. The front tires hit the sidewalk and then the back followed as we bounced through the short walkway to a two-story food market.
The captain spun around to us, releasing his magic. Randall swung the van to the side, and then took a sharp turn. The van tilted like a ship about to capsize but righted itself. The magical blast slammed into the market. The building lit up green as a tremor vibrated through the ground. Then the building collapsed, folding in on itself.
A cloud of dust rolled up around it, sweeping toward us. I froze, unable to react as our windows, front and back, were engulfed in dirt. The van hit the road, and then bounced over more sidewalk, through more yards. I doubted Randall could see where he was going; I couldn’t make out anything outside the van.
I clenched my teeth, releasing the belt, prepared for when the van crashed and caught on fire. I leaned forward, hands in my lap, like I could will our course to safety with my mind.
As the van continued to throw us back and forth, the windows cleared. We were half on the road, half on the sidewalk as we raced through town, the buildings spreading out. The ground rose in a smooth incline, and the van barely slowed as we climbed higher.
I sat straight, swiveling back and forth, trying to check for how near the soldiers were.
We seemed to have evaded them, for now.
The van plowed onward, and the ground leveled out. Randall hit the brakes. The tires spun and swung around the back end. I lurched back, grabbing the portraits, but the doors remained closed. The van hit a line of tall bushes sideways. Branches scraped along the roof, along the windows, and let go with thuds as the van slid to a halt next to a concrete pillar.
Silence draped over the vehicle. Then, the sounds of heavy breathing filled the interior before we dared to peer outside. To the right, the line of bushes we had sailed through stood with gaping holes and broken branches.
To our left, the concrete pillar gurgled water, and I realized it was a cascading fountain with a tower of stylized lotus flowers passing water to each other. Beyond the fountain stood a three-story house, with only one upstairs window lit. The house looked out of place around here, with blue gables and decorative spandrels over the porch, and tree leaves collected in windblown piles around the side.
I shifted to look at Ever. “Any idea who lives here?”
“Yeah. This is the house of Isadora and Arthur Claymore,” she said. “Older couple. Isadora is a sweet woman. Arthur is—”
“Dead,” I finished, wincing at the memory of his resurrection and torture. “He’s dead, and if there’s any grace in this world, he’ll be allowed to remain that way.”
Randall glanced at me in the rearview mirror, but I couldn’t read his expression. “Should we give it a knock, see if anyone is home?”
I turned to stare through the damaged bushes, into the direction of the undead army. Even though I wasn’t sure what Isadora could possibly help us with, the notion that she had been tied so closely to the necromancer settled over me. Her husband had brought the necromancer to town, even if by accident. Perhaps somewhere in that house was a clue how to defeat him.
I nodded. “Let’s go see what Isadora has to say.”
20
We crawled out of the car through the passenger side doors since the driver doors were jammed up against the fountain. As a group, we gathered around the front of the van and stared up at the house. If anyone was home, they didn’t seem to notice someone had just crashed into their front yard.
With a sigh, I started forward, soles crunching the iced-over dead grass and alternating snow as I picked around for the walkway. I found it, overgrown, and followed it up to the porch. Dirt lined the windows and streaked the concrete. It seemed as if no one had been through here in years
I knocked on the door as everyone trudged up the stairs behind me and spread out on the porch.
No one answered, and no sounds came from inside. Next to me, Randall shrugged. I knocked again, then dropped my hand to the doorknob and I tried it. The door eased open.
I tensed, peering into the darkness, but I couldn’t make out much.
Inside my mask, I bit my chapped bottom lip. I leaned forward, aware something could leap out, but dumb enough to do it anyway.
“Hello?” My voice came out hoarse. I swallowed to try again but only managed to form a lump in my throat. “Anyone in here?”
No response came, and I eased open the door farther. Randall reached over me, feeling the wall, and an overhead light came on. The foyer was dim and quiet. Faded white and blue wallpaper lined the room, and a windchime with a wooden bird hung in one corner. It twirled gently in the breeze coming through the front door.
Our shoes made small hollow sounds as we trudged our way into the living room, flipping on lights. A marigold-colored couch stood to the immediate right, and behind it towered a set of rusty green metal lockers. Across from the couch, tucked near a stack of firewood, was a Victorian mahogany tete-a-tete chair with pale green flowery cushions. A table pushed up against it boasted trinket boxes in greens and blues, and on the wall above it hung shadow boxes with so many small items my tired eyes blurred out the details.
Across the room was a hanging goddess rain lamp, a taxidermy chipmunk posed with a vintage camera, and a stack of hardcover books without titles on the spine.
To the left stood an old brick fireplace, the hearth cold. Right above the mantle covered in figurines of women and a German cuckoo clock was a big empty space.
A space just about the size of the portrait of Uwe Visel, the necromancer. Arthur had said he had been tending the fire when Uwe had appeared.
The poker was missing from the set of fireplace tools.
My stomach churned a little. “Maybe we should go upstairs and check on Isadora.”
A woman’s voice came from behind us: “I came to check on you.”
I spun around to find a woman standing in the doorway, hunched over, gripping the wall. Her gray hair had been gathered back in a loose bun at the base of her skull. Her skin was thin and pale,
and her eyes drooped. She coughed, not bothering to cover her mouth, and then choked on phlegm.
“Are you sick, Isadora?” I asked, keeping a safe distance.
She waved her hand dismissively as she continued to hack and cough.
I exchanged looks with Randall.
Out of the corner of my eye, Ever guided Fiona over to the hearth, plucking a green throw from the sofa, and wrapped it around her.
Isadora cleared her throat. “Ever, did you see Arthur when you were out gallivanting around?”
I bristled at her tone but forced myself to relax. She was sick, her husband was dead, and her town had an epidemic. Plus, we had broken into her house. The least I could do was not be a jerk to her.
Ever hesitated, panic on her face.
“No,” I interjected. “No sign of him.”
She gained nothing by knowing he was dead and had been resurrected and tortured, and then killed again. I didn’t even know the guy and I was certain I would have nightmares about him the rest of my life. However long that might be, which wasn’t looking so great for me either these days.
“That fool,” she said, but nothing had ever been said with more endearment. “He’s probably bartering down another ridiculous piece he just can’t live without.”
She gestured around the living room.
Did she not realize he must have been gone for days? Maybe a week or more.
She pulled a faded red and white checkered handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed her forehead. “I’m going to go lie back down. When Arthur gets here, ask him to bring me up some tea.”
I nodded slowly. She turned and hobbled away, catching herself against the wall before disappearing back up the stairs.
When she was gone, I groaned. “Why does it feel like everything keeps getting worse?”
“Probably because it is,” Randall said, strolling around the room. He turned a globe in a floor stand and adjusted a stuffed raven that had fallen off the stack of books. “You know, he was betting against the odds collecting all this. There was sure to be a cursed tiki mask or something at some point.”
I rolled my shoulders, and then nodded in the direction of the stairs. “His poor wife. I don’t have the heart to tell her he’s dead.”
Randall picked up a rose water shaker from the mantle to blow it off and then set it down. He came over to me, and I turned to him as he rested his hand on my shoulder.
“We can deal with it later,” he said. “For now, let her sleep—and we should rest too.”
I nodded, glancing at Fiona where she sat on the hearth, blanket around her shoulders, staring blankly at the far wall. My heart sank deeper, until I thought my chest might cave in completely. Tears burned in my eyes. I pretended to be interested in gemstones in a case next to the sofa as the others mulled around, finding extra blankets in the lockers and settling in for the night. No one in this room had less problems than I did, and I was supposed to be, somehow, leading this little caravan of nonsense. I wasn’t sure if that was true, but it certainly felt like it was, and I didn’t want to let them down, even if I already had, countless times.
Now was not the time to have a breakdown. Not with the undead army roaming around outside and the necromancer still on the loose.
I took a deep breath and crossed the room to grab a throw pillow propped against the wall. I wasn’t sure if it was meant to be used, but Arthur probably didn’t have a strong opinion on that anymore.
Fiona stood as I approached her, and I made her a bed on the couch. She laid out on it, her feet propped on the arm, her hands folded on her stomach. I draped the throw blanket over her. She continued to stare at the ceiling, barely blinking.
I started to turn away, but I remembered how she had responded to Randall’s road trip memory. It had calmed her from her snarling, feral state. Now she was quiet, but maybe if I could coax her back into another memory, another time, while she was calm, maybe I would find a glimpse of Fiona in there, somewhere. I had seen her swimming below the surface. Maybe I could pull her out again, let her take a breath. I needed to know she was still there, to remind myself there was hope.
Ignoring the looks from the others, I crouched down next to Fiona.
“Hey, Fiona,” I said softly, and she did not respond. I kept trying, anyway. “I was thinking, when all this is over, on our next movie night, we should try a French film. We haven’t tried one of those yet. What do you think?”
She barely blinked as she continued to stare up at the ceiling. I hadn’t really even scratched the surface though. We had tried talking to her before, and it hadn’t worked. Randall had pulled up an actual memory, but I found myself shying away from them. Each time I touched one in my mind, it burned.
I forced myself to grab one.
“Remember that time…” I began, my face prickling with restrained tears. “Remember when you went to the bar by yourself, and you got a little drunk, and that guy kept hitting on you. You tried to call someone to come pretend to be your boyfriend, but no one was answering, so I came down there and claimed to be your angry girlfriend and picked a fake fight so we could yell our way out of the bar until we were safely in my car.”
She didn’t even look at me.
“Remember when we were kids, Fiona,” I said, and my voice cracked. I worked my throat, trying to dislodge the words. “Remember when we went down to the creek and you hurt your ankle jumping out of a tree into the water. You were so afraid your dad would be mad, so we pretended we were going to learn to make brownies, so your dad let you spend the weekend at my house while your ankle healed.”
She still did not respond, but I kept going. Talking to her hurt as much as it soothed.
“Like we were gonna do any baking, right? That was all up to Jada.” I smiled a little at the silly memories, because they were nothing, but they were ours. “Jada and her stupid cookies. She’d insist you try one when you came over and stand around like a nerd waiting to see if you liked it, but it was the dumbest thing ever. She took everything so seriously.”
My chest hurt as I realized I had not lost just one person from that memory, but two—Fiona didn’t register I was speaking to her at all.
I reached out to pat her arm, but my hand hovered over her. I couldn’t quite bring myself to make contact.
My heart thudded harder, until I realized it wasn’t me, but the pulsing from the heart necklace in my pocket. I fished around for it and then held it up over Fiona’s face, like I expected her to bat at it like a cat.
Something sparked in her eyes.
“I found this in a house in New Orleans,” I said, letting it sway like a pendulum.
Her gaze followed it back and forth.
“It was in the same place where you were being kept on a boat,” I said and even though she only followed the motion of the necklace, I somehow believed she was listening to me.
Wishful thinking, perhaps.
“I don’t know what it is,” I said softly, lowering the necklace away from her. “I don’t know what happened to you, either.”
She gave no indication, her attention fixed to the ceiling again.
“Sleep well,” I said, and pushed to my feet.
Before I pocketed the necklace again, I studied it in my palm. It continued to throb with magic, but I couldn’t make sense of it. I had found two medallions now—the one from New Orleans, and the one for the cockatrice, and while those two had resembled each other, this one didn’t seem to go with them. It was something differently entire.
I shoved the necklace back into my pocket as I turned to face the room. Everyone had huddled down with blankets and pillows. April was already out cold, one hand on the top of her head and one leg jutted out.
At least Isadora had been kind enough to let us stay here, to get some rest. She hadn’t even asked what we were doing in her house, but that may have just gone without saying, given the state of the town these days. Wrangling the necromancer should more than repay her generosity, given we succeeded. Unfort
unately, it would do nothing to bring back her Arthur.
A thought occurred to me. That poor woman was upstairs alone, probably cold, waiting for her husband to come back and bring her tea. I knew that wasn’t going to happen. He was dead, and if he did come back, thanks to the necromancer’s special brand of magic, he wasn’t going to be the sort that would make tea anymore.
But I could. Just this once. I could do something nice for the woman whose home and life I had invaded, whose future I had seen in broad strokes of the reality she didn’t yet know.
I shuffled toward the kitchen.
“Where you going?” Randall asked, voice groggy, peering up at me from where he propped in the corner near the fireplace, blanket draped over him. He struggled to keep his eyes open.
“Just for some tea,” I said, because it seemed to take energy I didn’t have to explain the nuances of my thoughts just then. “I’ll be right back.”
“While you do that,” he said, tugging off the blanket, “I’ll go get the portrait. I don’t think Herr Visel’s picture should stay out in the van, unguarded.”
“Now that you mention it,” I said, “yes, please.”
He flashed me a tired grin. “We suck at this sometimes, Saf.”
“We do.” I returned the smile, gentle and full of all the simmering feelings I couldn’t quite name. “Do you need my help?”
“Nah. Get your tea and I’ll grab the necromancer’s portrait, and then we can rest.” He pushed to his feet and stepped around the bodies sprawled out around the floor as he made his way toward the foyer.
I sighed, heading into the kitchen. A small pot rested on the counter near the sink, so I rinsed it out and filled it with water, and then set it on the gas stove to boil. As the water warmed, I rummaged around the cabinets and canisters, procuring a mug, loose tea leaves and infuser, a jar of honey, a spoon, and a plate.
When the water boiled, I poured it in the mug, added the filled infuser, and placed the mug, spoon, and honey on the plate. Holding the plate with both hands, I carried it into the hallway and up the stairs.