Lady Renegades

by Rachel Hawkins

  For a long time, the only sound was Bee’s breathing in the backseat and the rustle of the pages as Blythe read.

  Then she lifted her head, looked at me, and said, “Well, if we’re going to do this spell, we’re going to need some supplies.”

  “So you can do it?” I asked, not taking my eyes off the road.

  And when Blythe just made a sound low in her throat, I told myself that surely that was a yes.

  Chapter 26

  I DON’T KNOW if you’ve ever been to a flea market, but it’s not exactly something I can recommend. I mean, unless you need some sketch jewelry, a puppy, or a cassette tape from 1988, flea markets usually don’t have much to offer. But Blythe was sure that we could find what we needed for the spell at the one she’d seen advertised in one of those colorful flyers you can pick up outside a grocery store. After a less-than-comfortable night sleeping in the car, we pulled into the field serving as the parking lot and stared at all the booths laid out in front of us.

  It was already hot: Sweat was beading on my upper lip (ew) and starting to trickle down my spine. The little colored triangular flags they’d hung up just lay there, limp and listless since there was no breeze. The air smelled of car exhaust, animals, and the faint tang of lemonade from a nearby concession stand. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of the Azalea Festival back home, just dingier and a little more depressing.

  Which was quite the feat. Once you’ve watched grown men chase greased pigs, it’s hard to find anything that actually seems scuzzier.

  Bee slid the sunglasses up on her head.

  “So whatever it is you need to do this spell, it’s . . . here?”

  Blythe nodded. Her dark hair was tucked behind her ears, and while she’d been quieter since our trip to Alexander’s, she also seemed . . . more settled. Probably because we finally had a plan. I knew that was making me feel better, even as I tried to ignore the pang the thought of a memory-less David caused me.

  Still, better that than a Super Oracle David or, even worse, a dead one, which was why I put up with this trip to the flea market to get whatever it was Blythe wanted.

  “Where do we even start?” Bee asked, and Blythe looked around.

  “Jewelry booths,” she said, and gave a decisive nod. “Over there near the weapons stuff.”

  Which maybe seemed like a good idea, but this was a flea market, which meant that there were roughly nine thousand jewelry booths, and that wasn’t even counting all the people advertising “rocks and gemstones.” Blythe tackled one end of the long line of tables and open car trunks, and Bee and I headed for the other. I know we should have split up to save time, but I wanted to talk to Bee out of Blythe’s earshot.

  The table I picked was one of the nicer ones, spread with what was probably a Christmas tablecloth, bright poinsettias blooming across the white cotton. There were boxes of various polished stones—amethysts, fool’s gold, plenty of quartz—and if what Blythe was after was in here, I sure couldn’t feel it. Still, I poked through the rocks, and without looking over at Bee, said, “This is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Or, you know, a magic rock in a box of not-magic rocks.”

  Bee snorted, her sunglasses back in place. “She said we’d be able to sense it if we touched it, right?”

  I shrugged. “She did, but for all we know, that just means she’ll be able to feel it. We could be duds at the Magic Rock Hunting Game.”

  “She was right about Alexander’s place,” Bee admitted, moving over to my table. Under the morning sun, her shoulders were tanned and freckled, and I wished I had thought of wearing a tank top. How could it be this hot when the sun had been up for only a few hours?

  After nodding and smiling at the lady by my table, I strolled farther down the line, Bee trailing behind me. “She was,” I said, passing a booth full of slightly grubby stuffed animals. “And I feel like she’s right that we’re on David’s trail. It’s just—”

  “You’re not crazy about this spell,” Bee finished, and I stopped in front of another table of jewelry, rings and necklaces and stuff, all laid out on little velvet trays. I hated to keep groping people’s wares without actually planning on buying anything, so I tried to run my finger over everything as quickly as possible before moving on, not lingering if I didn’t have to.

  “I’m really not,” I told Bee. “I mean, I get it. If we can neutralize David, we keep him safe. We keep us and everyone we love safe. It’s clearly the best solution.”

  “It is,” Bee said, picking up a heavy turquoise stone on a silver chain, “but it’s also a solution that ends with him not knowing who you are anymore.”

  There was no disagreeing with that. I’d told myself that I would do whatever it took to stop David and save him. That this was about me being a Paladin, not me being his girlfriend. But maybe that was just incipient heatstroke talking.

  Speak of the devil, Blythe suddenly broke through the crowd, walking toward us, a little orange plastic bag dangling from one wrist.

  As she approached, I could see that she was sweaty, too, her dark hair damp at her temples, her forehead glistening. “Okay,” she said brightly, waggling an orange plastic bag at us.

  “You found it?” I asked.

  Eyebrows lifting over her sunglasses, Blythe stared at me. “No, I grabbed a cheap charm bracelet.”

  “Okay, okay, sarcasm earned on that one,” I said. “So can we get out of here?”

  And then she focused her gaze on me again.

  “What about you?” she asked me. “Did you feel anything?”

  Turning, I ran my hands over a box of rocks, but there was nothing, and I shook my head. “Nope.”

  Blythe frowned. “Nothing? No . . . pull to anything?”

  I glanced back at her, and she was watching me in a way that made faint alarm bells go off in my head. “No,” I repeated. “Which clearly we wouldn’t have since you found whatever magic rock we need to do this thing.”

  “Did you try the table closest to the weapons display?” Blythe pressed, and confused, I started to shake my head.

  And then my head was splitting open.

  Or at least that’s what it felt like.

  But the agony was over quickly, and suddenly I was in a cave again, the damp, cool, earthy smell of underground surrounding me. This time, though, there was no hint of the sulfuric tang I’d picked up in the vision of Alaric.

  And when I lifted my head, it wasn’t him standing in front of me.

  It was David, and he wasn’t standing, but floating, the tips of his sneakers barely dragging against the rock. His chest was moving slowly, deep breaths that seemed to saw in my ears, breaths that I could feel in my own chest. The glow pouring from his eyes lit up his whole face.

  In those moments, I felt like his breaths were mine, that our hearts were beating at the same time, and I could feel . . . anger. Hatred. Fear. His head was full of images: wards scratched into stone suddenly wavering into wards scratched into soft brick; people in robes milling around a dusty street suddenly becoming kids from Grove Academy. I recognized Ryan and Bee, saw the twins and Lucy McCarroll.

  A beginning must end for a new beginning to start.

  The words slid through my mind like smoke, and I could feel power in my—no, in David’s hands as he clenched them into fists.

  I came back to myself all at once, shaking and sick.

  “Harper!” Bee cried, and I raised my head to look at her. She seemed worried, her mouth turned down at the corners, her gaze intent, but not freaked out. Not like me.

  “What was it?” Blythe asked immediately, and I shook my head, unable to talk right away.

  The sun suddenly seemed to be too hot, too bright, and I stumbled away from them, moving toward one of the big white tents set up along the flea’s main thoroughfare. I pushed a flap away and moved inside, taking deep breaths, hoping I wasn’t going to th
row up all over someone’s table of collectible shells.

  But the tent was empty.

  I stood there in the center of the tent, my breath rasping hard in my ears, trying to get my bearings and make sense of what had just happened.

  “Harper,” Bee said, coming in just behind me, “are you all right?”

  It was obvious that I wasn’t, but before I could say anything, the tent flap moved again. I was expecting Blythe, but instead, it was a taller girl with lighter hair, moving fast. She pushed Bee hard as she came in, and Bee immediately stumbled, falling to her knees with a soft cry.

  And then the girl was on me.

  Chapter 27

  I FELL BACK, more from the surprise than anything else, but was able to recover fast enough, shooting to my feet and whirling around, not surprised at all to be confronted by another teenage girl.

  Behind the girl, Bee was rising to her feet again, and I saw her hands flex at her sides, but she wasn’t making any move to jump in. That told me all I needed to know about just how great Bee’s powers were doing right now.

  Sighing, I crouched a little, holding out my hands in front of me. This was the third girl I’d had to take on in a few days; while I’d managed okay with the other two, I wondered if there might be a better tack to try with this one. “What’s your name?” I asked as we circled each other on the stamped-down grass underneath the tent. “I’m Harper Price.”

  “I know that,” the girl all but snarled. Her hair was the kind of blond sometimes called—not very nicely in my opinion—“dishwater,” and she was wearing a T-shirt with some boy band on it. I looked at all their disturbingly smooth-skinned faces, and really hoped I won this fight.

  Getting my butt handed to me by a girl wearing that shirt was too humiliating to contemplate.

  “We don’t have to do this,” I said. It seemed pretty clear that we were totally gonna do this, whether we needed to or not. Still, I’d hoped to get more of a chance to chat before she sprang at me.

  But, nope, I’d barely drawn a breath to talk to her again before she was already flying through the air, knocking me to the dry grass with a surprising amount of force for someone so slight.

  I landed funny, my elbow whacking the ground hard and a very unladylike sound exploding from my lips. Irritation flared through me. I’d told myself I’d just neutralize her as fast as I could before questioning her about David, but now I was frustrated and in pain, so I punched out as hard as I could.

  Except it wasn’t as hard as I could. It was as hard as the me from before could, sure, landing on the girl’s shoulder with enough impact to make her wince, but she didn’t stumble, and she certainly didn’t go flying back like she should have after a punch like that.

  I blinked, looking at my hand as if it had betrayed me, and then the girl was on me again, hitting with the kind of force I usually wielded. Which hurt.

  Weakness coursed through me the same way adrenaline and power used to, and I felt the same panicked helplessness I’d felt that night at the pool. Only this time, there was no resurgence of my power, no last-minute reprieve.

  Bee was closer now, though, grabbing at the girl with both hands, and even though she didn’t have her Paladin powers, she was still a good head taller than the girl.

  Not that it mattered. One well-placed punch, and Bee was falling back to the ground again, crying out, one hand flying to her cheekbone.

  Anger flared through me. Rage, really, and I went to get up again. No one hurt Bee on my watch, no matter how weak I felt.

  Except that rage was no match for Paladin strength. Another kick, some jabs to my back, and I was down again, my breath wheezing in and out.

  This girl was kicking my butt, and there was nothing I could do other than cover my face with my hands, still trying to punch and kick—I wasn’t going out easy—but knowing that it was almost totally ineffectual.

  I’m not sure what would have happened if Blythe hadn’t come into the tent. Or rather, I’m too sure of what would’ve happened and I didn’t want to think about it.

  This time, when Blythe did her mind-wipe thing, I just lay there on the grass, trying to breathe, trying not to let my panic show on my face.

  Trying not to let Blythe know that as far as powers went, I was now useless.

  • • •

  Blythe managed to get some ice from one of the soda vendors, and when she handed me a freezing bundle wrapped in a paper towel, I pressed it against my lip. “I am so tired of this,” I mumbled around the swelling. “Just, like, phenomenally over it at this point.”

  “Same,” Bee said. There was a bruise purpling her cheekbone, and she was holding her own soaking-wet paper towel of ice to her face.

  Blythe looked between us for a moment, then rested her eyes on me. “So you had another vision.” She nodded at Bee. “But she didn’t.”

  Shaking my head, I closed my eyes briefly, my stomach still roiling. “It didn’t last long,” I replied, and Blythe snorted.

  “Doesn’t matter how long it lasted. What matters is what you saw.”

  I sighed and looked up at the hazy blue sky. “It was another cave,” I said, my voice flat. “But it was David, not Alaric, in there. He was . . . he was thinking about home.”

  “A cave?” Blythe asked sharply, her brows drawing together. “So we’re too late?”

  “Maybe not,” I said, even though I definitely wasn’t sure of that. “He didn’t seem . . . scary, I guess?”

  “That has to mean we’re getting close again,” Bee offered. She was still crouched next to me, one hand on my knee, her skin going pink in the sun. “Going after Dante, we lost him for a bit, but now he’s back.”

  “And still following in Alaric’s footsteps,” Blythe added. “If he’s already found a cave somewhere, started powering up . . .” Trailing off, she twisted the orange plastic bag in her hands. “It would’ve been better to catch him before all that. Easier.”

  “I don’t think any part of this was ever going to be easy,” I muttered, my lip still stinging.

  I hadn’t liked the way Blythe’s face clouded over when she thought about David already in a cave, doing whatever it was Alaric had done before he wiped out an entire town. I’d always known there was a clock ticking where David was concerned, but now it seemed a lot louder.

  “Let’s go,” I said, rising to my feet, antsy. “We got what we came for, and the sooner we’re on the road, the better.”

  Neither of them argued with me about that, and we made our way back toward the parking lot, the ice melting and dripping onto my chest.

  We were almost to the exit but had to wind our way through more tables and tents. There was a whole table of weaponry, and even as I wondered why anyone would want any of this stuff unless they were deeply into Game of Thrones, I found myself stopping at the table, staring at the daggers and maces and steel-tipped arrows with something dangerously close to avarice. Becoming a Paladin had certainly given me a better appreciation for these kinds of things, either because I knew just how vital they were to the job, or because I had gotten some kind of passed-down weapons-lust along with all my Paladin powers.

  My fingers trailed over the shiny silver hilt of one dagger, and then I moved on to a thin fencing blade, the metal basket decorated with what I guessed were fake jewels, but they were still pretty.

  And then I saw the round metal handle sticking out of a box in the back. No, not a handle. A hilt.

  Standing there in front of that tent, a bag of ice pressed to my swollen lip, I looked at the top of that sword and felt something thrum deep in my blood. I couldn’t even see the whole thing, but I knew that I needed that sword. More than I needed the Coral Shimmer lip gloss I loved, more than I needed the Homecoming Queen crown.

  When I lifted a hand to point at it, I realized I was shaking a little, but that might have been from the adrenaline of the fight
. Or it could have been something more, something . . . fated.

  It wasn’t a long blade, nothing all that intimidating, really—other than the fact that it was used for stabbing people, I guess. More like the kind of short sword I’d seen in gladiator movies. And it felt good in my hand.

  “How much for the sword?” I asked the guy behind the folding table.

  “Um, Harper?” Bee asked. She stood on one side of me, arms held tight to her sides, and I was struck by how not-Bee-like she looked. The frantic pace, the crappy fast-food diet, the stress . . . the three of us now looked less like Cute Girls Headed to the Beach and a lot more like strung-out teenage runaways, albeit ones with decent tans. Anyone observing us would probably think we were only months away from our own Lifetime movie.

  “What?” I asked Bee, my eyes still on the sword as the vendor in front of me in a University of Alabama T-shirt glanced over his shoulder.

  “Oh,” he said, turning more fully toward the box. “Huh, that’s . . . You know, I gotta be honest with you, I haven’t seen that before.”

  The alarm bells going off in my head seemed even louder now, and when he walked over and lifted the sword from the box, they were nearly deafening.

  It wasn’t a fancy sword. There were no jewels on it, and the metal didn’t shimmer with unspoken magic or anything like that. It actually looked kind of dull, and while there were some deep grooves on the hilt, it was clearly nothing all that special. Still, everything inside me seemed to reach for it.

  The guy hefted the sword, weighing it. “What’s a pretty thing like you want with a sword anyway?”

  “She’s going to use it to castrate guys who ask stupid questions,” Blythe answered for me, her voice flat.

  “What she said,” I told the guy, lifting my chin. His eyes fell to my swollen lip and the ice bag still clutched in my hand, dripping into the dirt.

  Clearing his throat, he offered me the sword, handle first. “Fair enough. Since I have no idea where it came from or what it’s even made of, I’ll give you a discount.”