by Rainy Kaye
For a moment, Fiona had not recognized us. There lied the worry. Whatever was causing her illness was making her predatory. Fiona, good and whole, would never harm us. Fiona, ill and broken, would never injure us, either.
This Fiona was something else entirely, and if she forgot, even for a minute, we were on the same side, I had no idea what she might do.
The sounds of vehicle doors opening as the others climbed in brought me back to the present. From the side of the van, Randall looked up at Fiona, shielding his eyes, and then gestured her down.
“Come on, Fi, we’re getting ready to save the world,” he said. “You don’t want to miss that, right?”
Fiona started down the stairs and headed for the van.
Randall turned, leading her around to the passenger side, and opened the door for her. “Ladies first, ma’am.”
She crawled in next to me, but didn’t acknowledge my presence, and Randall closed the door after her.
As he slid behind the steering wheel, I took in his profile. His interactions with Fiona had not changed, and part of me resented that he could be so oblivious, that her slow but inevitable destruction was passing right under his eyes and he wasn’t the least bit concerned.
Once everyone had tucked themselves into the van with barely space to breathe, bags stuffed around our legs, Randall started the van. The ignition turned over a few times, and I held my breath, hoping it would start.
Finally, the engine came to life. Randall crept the van forward, and then veered toward the path into the trees.
“There’s a place about a mile past the cave, where I used to go climbing,” Ever said from the passenger seat. “We’ll have to drive through Haven Rock to get to it.”
I grimaced. Most of the town seemed to be dead, but no one was staying that way. There wasn’t enough coffee anywhere to prepare me for another round with the undead army.
Not that we had many choices.
Once Haven Rock popped up in front of us, I held my breath and scanned out the windshield, out the side windows, keeping watch for any sign of not-life. My magic tingled on the back of my arms, ready and waiting, and I had to be impressed it had stabilized a bit. I wasn’t sure how long that would last. Perhaps it was just building me up to come to rely on it so it could yank the rug from under my feet.
I shrugged internally. I just wouldn’t rely on it. Problem solved.
The town remained silent, curtains drawn at the windows, though some fluttered as the breeze pushed through broken panes. Most doors remained latched, but a few had been kicked in, revealing only darkness beyond. I doubted anyone hiding inside had lived. The undead army had ransacked the town, and I could only imagine it was to create new cohorts.
The slight rattle of the picture frames in the back of the van behind me taunted my warring decision to ask Randall to keep driving, to get us far out of this town, and the realization that everything we needed to end this was already lined up. That if we didn’t strike while we had the opportunity, I would eventually watch my incoming death sweep toward me as the necromancer consumed city after city, wondering why I had been such a coward when I could have stopped all of this.
Or at least tried. We were two for two, and I planned to keep that streak.
Nothing besides wind stirred in Haven Rock as we drove straight through, down the main street, and as the buildings began to fade into trees, I sat straighter. The necromancer roamed the forest. If anything, he and his army had returned out here.
Still, the only sound was the wind thudding against the side of the van. Red mist swirled along the ground.
“Do you think he moved on to the next town already?” The question popped out of my mouth.
“I guess we’ll have to follow him,” April said, squished in the seat with Sasmita. “Any idea where he might have gone?”
“I don’t follow him on Instagram,” I muttered.
“Let’s just continue our plan,” Randall said, easing the van off the road until we crawled along, branches swatting at the windows and side mirrors. The red mist did not let up. “If he doesn’t show up, we’ll decide what to do from there. I mean, if he really is hitting another town, it won’t be long before there’s news of a massacre and then a miracle.”
I massaged one hand with the other and didn’t comment.
In time, we found the road near the field, now choked with red. The van picked up speed as it jostled along the ice and dirt until it hit wet ground. Then it wound down until it pulled free and shot forward again, splattering mud. I would have expected the van to have given up on us by now, but perhaps Joseph had picked a vehicle that could take chasing after escaped magical convicts.
As we neared the cave, Ever sat forward, palms against the dash. “Keep going. The ledge will be on the right, so keep to the left.”
The road ahead narrowed, the side of the cave coming up on the left, as she had said. On the right, the mountain sloped into a valley.
Every muscle tensed as I struggled to see past April and Sasmita.
Below rested an extension of Haven Rock, or an unincorporated town compromised of houses dotted along the mountain, cascading toward the bottom. Trees packed between the buildings, and from above, it looked scenic, like a postcard, and not at all like a necromancer had plundered the town above them.
“Maybe he’s down there,” Sasmita said, nodding out the window. “Seems like the next logical place to continue amassing his loyal followers.”
“Hopefully he can still sense my magic,” I said. “Assuming that’s how it works.”
“Well, we’re here,” Ever said, and Randall pulled the van to a stop.
He turned in his seat to face me. “You ready?”
Lips pressed together, neck taut, I nodded.
Without a word, we all piled out of the van to prepare our trap.
24
To the left, in the distance, mountain peak after mountain peak rolled toward the gray horizon, dusted in snow like powder sugar. The scene had been both breathtaking and isolating, but right now it just made me tired. Somewhere among all this, a necromancer roamed off his leash. We had to find him.
“I used to hike up here,” Ever said, shouldering her bag as she stepped out. She slammed the van door shut. “If we head off down the path a short distance, there’s some ledges I used to sit on and watch the sunrise. One of those will work to hold the picture.”
“Let’s get the portrait then,” Randall said, rounding to the back of the van. He threw open the doors and, grabbing the bottom of the frame, yanked the picture toward him.
Sasmita hurried over to help ease it out, closing the doors behind them.
“All you, Ever,” I said, staring down at the red mist swirling around my ankles. “Lead the way.”
Ever set forward down the trail, at home at these heights as any mountain goat.
Fiona lingered near the van. I took her wrist with my fingers and tugged her forward as our group trekked after Ever. Fiona let me lead her, in no hurry but with no resistance.
The path sloped upward, and my thighs ached. Fiona didn’t seem bothered at all, but she had also missed the mine expedition. It was going to take weeks before I recovered from any of this.
As we headed higher, I kept an eye out for the outcroppings among the rock gray side of the mountain. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the fact Ever hiked out here as easily as if strolling a park in the city.
Below, the houses curved along the side of the mountain, sparser as the vegetation thickened.
The outcroppings came into view, jutting out from the side of the mountain, small enough that my stomach clenched and my body felt weak at the thought of crawling down onto one of those. They must be safe enough, given Ever apparently ate her morning cereal there, but being tied to a tree as necromancer bait was sounding like I got the better end of the deal.
Ever crouched, pawing through her bag in front of her. She retrieved rope and anchors and then looked up at me, squinting as the pale sun
caught her face.
“This is the only ledge I think is big enough to safely tie the portrait to it,” she said.
Releasing Fiona, I tiptoed closer to the edge and peered down at the rocky formation jutting out from the side of the mountain. If the portrait fit, it would be just barely.
Ever sat to work fashioning a rope harness for the portrait, April and Paisley lifting the bulky frame as needed, leaving two tails on the same side. When they finished, I couldn’t imagine exactly how this would play out, but it was impressive shibari.
“April and I are going down to the ledge,” Ever said, and April lifted her eyebrows as if this was the first she had heard of the plan. “Then, you guys will need to lower the portrait to us.”
She clasped April’s shoulder and led her to the edge, their feet so close to hanging over that I had to glance away. Still, I was mesmerized at her apparent lack of fear of plummeting to her death as she anchored herself and her sister.
They turned toward us with cheeky grins and saluted, before hopping down backwards off the side of the mountain. The rope unwound and then came to a taut halt as they landed, knees bent, on the ledge.
I crept forward to take them all the way in, and Ever flashed a thumbs up.
“Send ’er down,” she called.
Randall and Sasmita lifted the portrait onto its side and dragged it toward where I stood, peering down at the ledge. I reached out and grabbed the end of the portrait, guiding it until it jutted over the side. Paisley joined us, and together, we tipped the portrait downwards until April and Ever caught the edge. We fed it downward, inch by inch, until it was nearly vertical. The bottom of the frame hung a few feet from the ledge. We let go, and April and Ever strained to keep it upright as they eased it back against the mountain.
Once it was stabilized, Ever rammed anchors into crevices in the side of the mountain and fed the tails through carabiners attached on the ends. The rope tails kept the portrait from falling over the ledge but provided enough slack that they were able to ease the portrait flat, face up. The portrait took up enough room they could only stand on opposite sides of the ledge with one foot on and the other jammed up against the side of the mountain, not entirely unlike a spider.
I backed away from the ledge and turned to assess the next step. The nearest trees were on the other side of the path, which meant once we lured out the necromancer, we would still have to survive long enough to beat him back several yards before we could bowl him over the side of the mountain, onto the ledge and into his portrait.
“Anything we need to do before we come up?” Ever called, and I blinked, trying to refocus my thoughts.
The medallion. Right.
I pulled it from my front pants pocket and then lowered onto the ground on my stomach. Chilled wind beat at my face, and I squeezed the medallion, envisioning it slipping from fingers and plummeting over the side of the mountain and disappearing forever.
Ever climbed up partway to retrieve it from me, and it took everything in me not to demand her to be careful as she lowered back to the ledge.
“What do I do with it?” she asked, leaning forward to brace her free hand on the rocks. “Just put it on it?”
“Yep,” I said, but the wind muffled the word.
Ever tipped her head back to look up at me. “No magic words or anything?”
“I mean, you can if you want,” I said with a shrug. “Not required, though.”
With a laugh, Ever eased forward and slapped the medallion onto the portrait. Blue light shone around it. She yelped, jumping backwards. Her footing slipped, and she dropped a few feet before the line caught.
April shook her head and climbed toward the top as Ever found her holds and followed after.
On my stomach, I wiggled backwards and then pushed to my feet as they came up over the edge. Red light flashed out behind them, from just out of view off the side of the mountain.
“It’s open,” I said, turning back to the trees. “My turn.”
The mood sobered as we ambled across the path into the trees. Every outcome from here was going to be awful but good or awful but terrible. Either I would be used as bait—my skin crawled every time the realization flittered past—and the necromancer would appear, and we would manage to shove him into the portrait; or, I would be bait, he would appear, and then he would obliterate us with barely any effort.
We might be setting ourselves up as the mosquito.
Randall strode to catch up with me and tugged my arm to part us from the group.
“We can try something else,” he said, voice low.
I scratched an itch on the back of my head but with my gloved fingers, it barely did anything. “Like what?”
“We could sweep those houses below,” he said. “He’s probably down there. We could find another spot for the portrait and just Sparta kick him into it.”
I shook my head. “We don’t have time for this. He’s already killed basically an entire town. The longer he’s free to kill, the bigger his army.”
“There’s got to be a better way,” he said.
“Oh, I’m sure there is, but we don’t have time,” I said. “We need to get him put away before he causes even more damage, becomes even more powerful—and before Fiona…”
My chest squeezed, as she meandered toward us, looking up at the trees as she went. I turned back to Randall.
“If this doesn’t go well…If the necromancer…” I took a deep breath. “Just promise you’ll get Fiona the help she needs, whatever that might be.”
His gaze searched mine, as if he was finding and analyzing each piece of me, and then putting it together, forming a picture of my most intimate thoughts and fears, as if he would not be satisfied until he knew everything about me. He shuffled closer, until we were inches apart.
“Don’t let anything bad happen to you,” he said, cupping my cheek.
Fire lit in my stomach and spread through my abdomen, engulfing my heart. It would have been romantic, except, of course, he was Jada’s ex-boyfriend—and we were wearing respirators, so kissing was out.
Which was fine.
It was all fine.
I bristled, pulling away. “It’s not like I’m feeding myself to a shark just to see how it pans out.”
With that, I allowed myself to be annoyed, to have half-formed angry thoughts about Randall, because it was easier than dealing with the actual feelings, the real ones. I didn’t want to think of Randall as anything more than my sister’s ex-boyfriend. Everything else was complicated enough. I needed one part of my life to remain simple.
I stalked toward the group, pushing aside the warmth buzzing inside my body, or the realization that no one had ever looked at me the way Randall had just now.
“Did we pick a tree?” I asked the others to force the thoughts from my mind.
Sasmita gestured to a nearby tree with a sturdy trunk.
“We’re thinking this would be the best spot. There’s an outcrop of rocks over there.” She pointed to the left. “Some of us can lie in wait there, and there’s this cluster of trees.”
She strode to where a group of three trees that fanned out from each other stood a few yards from my stake.
“Whoever is going to free you can wait here,” she said.
“Me,” Randall said. “I’m in charge of freeing her when the time comes.”
Wordlessly, Ever passed him a knife from her ankle.
He stole a glance at me, frowning.
I waved him off. “Let’s just hope the necromancer hears our call and decides to investigate. As far as we know, he’s left town, or he’s been watching us plan this out and knows what we’re up to.”
“Or he’ll sense us waiting to ambush him,” Sasmita said, scanning the trees. “I think it’s most important we understand there will be obstacles, and we’ll have to make split second decisions. If we go in like that, then we’ll win.”
I didn’t like the sounds of that at all, but mainly because she was correct. We’d had t
o wing it with the other two, so this was unlikely to go better. Just different.
I nodded, turning to Randall, and put out my arms, wrists together. “Care to do the honors?”
Jaw clenched, he stalked over to where Ever waited with lengths of rope by my chosen tree. I trailed after him, trying to appear casual and not at all like my heart had firmly lodged itself in my throat.
“One moment,” I said, holding up my gloved hand. With my other hand, I yanked off the glove and then scratched the itch on the back of my head. “There was no way I was going to deal with that while waiting for the necromancer.”
I tugged back on my glove and then pressed my back against the tree.
Randall eyed the trunk. “How about this—let me bind your hands behind you and then I’ll bind that to the trunk. Your shoulders will thank me later.”
“You seem to know a lot about binding women,” I said and then snapped my mouth shut.
Silence, the kind that would be pink if it had a color, fell over the group.
Every single person had heard my comment.
“Right, well,” Randall said, but he made no move to tie my hands.
I turned my back to him, dutifully placing my arms behind me, but he remained stock still, as if I had bluescreened him. He seemed to be rebooting.
“Randall,” I said. “Tie me up, will ya?”
Heat rolled off him as he bound my wrists with jerking motions, as if his limbs were stiff.
Perhaps other parts of him were, too.
Once my wrists were tied together, loose enough not to chafe too badly but tight enough to sell the story—I was effectively bound, regardless of his care—he wound rope around the trunk. I backed up to it and he fastened the ropes around my wrists to the ones encircling the tree, giving me all of about two inches of length to work with.
He was correct: my shoulders ached far less than when the green tunic guy had tied me out as bait.