by Heather Knox
“It doesn’t matter,” I start. “There it is.” I gesture to the box by the door. I offer a proud smile, despite his obvious distress, my attempt at hiding my gloating—my attempt at minimizing the severity of what happened—a failure.
“That woman is insufferable, but not a threat. And, until now, I didn’t think her an idiot,” he mutters, pacing again.
“What are you talking about?”
He stops, eyes boring into me. “You weren’t supposed to get hurt. She and I struck a deal months ago.”
I furrow my brow. “You gotta walk me through this, Zeke . . . ”
“Simone and I struck a deal for this months ago. She’d already been paid. The entire thing—”
“—was a test,” I say flatly. A test-turned-accident, like my Becoming, like so many other things since. A numbness settles in where usually the predator within paces, waiting for an opening.
He nods.
“That’s why you gave in so easily about my taking your place,” I say, my tone flat.
He nods again.
“So Simone wasn’t meant to be a threat at all, isn’t an Elder—didn’t Usher an entire army—” but he’s shaking his head before I can finish.
“The story, everything I told you about Simone is really Ismae’s story. Ismae the Bloody Ushered entire armies to secure her empire, then destroyed them—of course, there’s more to her story than that.”
“Was she not the first Praedari?” I retort, both angry and curious.
“When the Keepers offered Ismae the position of warlord, she declined and instead fought against them. That’s the short version, at least. The Praedari look to her as a symbol but I’m not so sure she returns the adoration. She never intended to mother a revolution.”
“You speak of her in the present tense . . . ” But he doesn’t respond. He’s calmed some, sitting in the chair which miraculously emerged from the outburst unscathed.
“Come, let me see.” He puts his arms out.
I go to him. He crinkles his brow, frowning as he runs his finger over the light pink starburst of scar tissue.
“Does it hurt?”
“Not anymore.”
“How did it happen?”
“This,” I say, pulling the pistol from my jacket.
He takes it from me, inspecting it. He releases the cylinder, spilling bullets onto his lap. Grabbing one between two fingers, he cusses as his flesh sizzles.
“The Praedari have gotten more clever. These have been blessed. Delilah . . . you should be dead. How did—”
That’s when he notices the Stone of Nyx, now matte black. The gravity—the guilt—of what he’s done washes over him, nearly palpable. Tears glisten in his eyes, perhaps the first I’ve seen there and I hear his voice, “Delilah, I—” But I am on him in an instant, my jaw snapping at his throat, fangs extended.
He catches my throat in his hand, easily dropping me to the floor and straddling my chest, pinning my arms above my head until my Beast within recognizes his dominance and slinks to the recesses of where my heart used to beat. I breathe heavily out of habit, coming out of my predatory daze. We’d been here before, more than once, me trying to kill him.
“You’re right to be angry—”
“Oh, well, let me thank you for that permission,” I nearly spit at him.
“But you have to believe that I never meant you to get hurt.”
“I know,” I grumble, exhausted, limp. I growl out of frustration.
He climbs off me, helping me to my feet. Without another word he takes up the box and I wrap the bullets in a shred of some torn bedsheet from the mess he’s made of them on the floor. He makes a call and we head out into the night to hail a cab. A few nights in a hotel while someone fixes the apartment, all signs of the struggle erased except in recent memory. So it’s gone and so it goes.
Speaking of erasure, Simone was never heard from again. I asked Zeke about it only once. “Some secrets are best left as ash for the wind to scatter,” he responded coolly.
THE WINDING COUNTRY ROAD STRETCHES OUT ahead of her. Nights like these Charlie feels the most like herself, breathing deeply, a chorus of crickets buzzing a lullaby underneath the hum of the engine. She could do this drive with her eyes closed. When Grady called her dad needing a hand, she volunteered. Winter left the electric fences surrounding his property a mess. Since his wife passed he’s become a bit of a loner, unwilling to call his own kids back to the farm to help. One time, waist-deep in a tractor older than Charlie, he admitted that his kids just never had what it took to love this place like he did—with his version of this speech punctuated by the clang of metal-on-metal and peppered with all manner of creative cussing.
For as long as she can remember she’s flitted between their place and his, fetching tools and parts and working alongside her dad and Old Grady—even when she was young enough that she did more harm than good. She’s always been something of a whiz with jury-rigging and, now that she’s older, Grady pays her by letting her rummage through the many derelict vintage cars out behind the farmhouse for parts for whatever project she’s working on. Really Charlie thinks he enjoys the occasional company, even if they spend some afternoons working side-by-side without saying a word.
She pulls up to the house, each window dark. The glow of fluorescents emanates from the barn where he must be working, making up for time lost trying to mend the fences himself. She hops out of the truck and whistles to herself as she approaches the barn.
“Grady?” she calls, pulling open the heavy door. She’s greeted by silence.
Charlie notices a surge of light over-illuminating the interior of the barn through the open door, saturating the room in golden hues before she registers the sound of the explosion behind her. She turns to see the farmhouse erupt in flames. The house she spent nearly as much of her childhood tracking engine sludge throughout as she did her own, blazes against the night sky. She can’t breathe for a moment. She’s sprinted only a few yards when two figures seem to materialize in front of her. She freezes.
“He’s not hurt, but he could get hurt if you cause problems. The choice is yours,” a male voice calls.
“Wh—who are you?”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is who you are.”
“I’m Charlie,” she offers defiantly.
“Not your name. I don’t care about your name. Your name isn’t who you are.”
“What? Then who the heck am I?” she asks, giving him a long look.
“Some girl we were told to bring back to the ranch.”
“Why? By who? What ranch?” She glances around looking for something—anything—that could serve as a weapon. Propped near the door of the barn, a few yards off, a Garden Weasel, with its metal spurs for tilling new soil to the surface. Charlie can only imagine how it would feel raking it across this guy’s face, but even with the reach provided by the long handle it would offer her little range. Inside the barn she knows where Grady keeps a couple rifles and ammo—they had a coyote problem a few seasons back.
“Don’t bother, princess,” the other voice, female, taunts. “We’ve got you outnumbered four-to-one—though we’d rather not spill your blood. We need that.”
As if on cue, a hand clasps down on either shoulder. Two men have enough time to sneer at her before the headlights of her truck and the loud thunk-thunk of a large animal rolling over the grill of a vehicle catch three of the four intruders off-guard. Charlie sees Grady behind the wheel, grinning as wide as the Cheshire Cat as he mows down one of the men. He starts honking the horn, an almost melodic series of long and short bursts. Morse code: run.
“What the—” one man cries out.
“I thought you tied him up!” the other accuses.
“I did! Old coot musta slipped out somehow!”
As an argument ensues, the truck engine revs. Charlie twists out of their surprise-weakened grasp and bolts for the barn. She slips inside, lodging a stray metal pipe through the handles before taking off to w
here she knows Grady keeps the rifles. She hears chaos outside, but follows cover as best she can anyway in case she is being followed.
She climbs the retractable ladder to the hayloft, winding the crank to reel it up and out of arm’s reach of anyone who may have followed her. He keeps the rifles here because the large windows afford him the best view of his pastures—and property. This barn, the farmhouse, the shed, each grain silo—all the buildings were designed and built by him, each with their own quirks like retractable ladders and tunnels running between buildings underneath the property and, rumor has it, a doomsday bunker that Grady won’t admit to and that Charlie, despite hours of dedicated childhood exploration, could never find.
The Morse code was something he insisted she learn one summer and she obliged, being eight and thinking the made-up spy and end-of-the-world scenarios fun. Even a couple years ago, when she found herself sent to her room with the anger and angst caused by parents who just didn’t understand, she’d tap out cuss words on her walls so her defiance could go unpunished. She would smile at the memory if it could break through the panic.
She finds the rifles loaded, ready, and with enough ammunition to prove the doomsday bunker theory at the very least plausible. She positions herself at a window, off to the side, the barrel just at the sill. With the scope, a luxury she is unaccustomed to, she can see everything happening down below unfold like a movie. Charlie learned to shoot before she learned to ride a bike, on an old rifle with iron sights that was too heavy for her. The recoil knocked her on her butt but she never missed a target.
She takes a deep breath and squeezes the trigger.
Little do they know, her dad’s called her Annie Oakley ever since she took down all seven glass Coke bottles in only seven shots with her six-year-old butt planted firmly in the dirt.
LELAND WAITS OUTSIDE THE DOOR TO THE COUNCIL chambers as we arrive and guides me inside without a word to either me or Caius. He wears the same plastered-on smile as before, betraying no sign of what verdict the Council may have reached.
“The girl is armed,” Brantley announces as we enter, squinting at me. He leans back in his chair, smirking.
Leland waves him off with an uninterested sigh. “A breach of etiquette, not a crime. Besides,” he continues, “who in this room isn’t either armed or themselves a weapon?” A sound like a chuckle snakes amongst the Elders assembled, the first time I’ve seen them remotely collegial on the whole. I am not put at ease. Hyenas’ strength is in their numbers, after all, and too many hungry eyes fall to the pendant on my chest.
Though they bid me to sit, I do not. I stand behind the empty chair, spine straight, arms crossed, jaw set in a hard line. Our hearts do not beat, but it’s amazing what sensations the body remembers in times like these. For a moment I swear I can hear the ocean of my blood coursing through my veins. I struggle to keep my Beast dormant. To show the Beast is to show fear and to show fear is to show weakness.
In the Everlasting, as in mortals—as in every living thing—there are two reactions to fear: fight and flight. Sometimes flight means survival, means recognizing one stands outnumbered or outgunned. Sometimes flight means biding one’s time. This is not cowardly.
Sometimes to survive one must fight. As I silently measure how many steps I took from the door to where I stand, the revolver at my thigh presses into my skin. I am flanked by six Elders who’ve survived centuries, perhaps thousands of years, some relying on flight and some personifying massacre. How much blood could I spill before one of them took me down? To fight here means to die here. Not survival, but also not cowardice.
Temperance’s honeyed words startle me from thought. “Delilah, darling—please sit.”
“I will stand, thank you.” Though met with a shrug, my response rouses her Beast, a subtle shift in her energy that I can feel: a Gift of my Blood and, knowing her relationship with Zeke, not one she could remain oblivious to.
“She certainly is her Usher’s Childe, is she not?” Alistair sneers.
Caught off-guard by the combative tone, I growl.
That’s the thing about the Everlasting: they often mirror themselves. What they can inspire in others, others with the right Gifts could manipulate in them. Temperance can calm the Beast where others can only hope to get out of its way; the price being a tax on her own. Where I can sense the ebb and flow of the Beast in others, I wear my emotions close to the surface if I don’t spend considerable effort to bury them. And that, of course, demands a price.
Of all the Gifts I inherited from Zeke, this I took to an extreme.
“Oh hush, child . . . ” Though Temperance’s tone mocks, my Beast retreats to a quiet inner corner. An overt show of dominance, not even pretending to soothe me with a reasonable address but with an insult.
“Can we just get to the verdict?” I ask through a clenched jaw.
“Verdict?” Leland chuckles, shaking his head. “You misunderstand the situation, Delilah. The Council has summoned you to thank you for your insight into the murder of Ezekiel Winter and put your mind at ease regarding what steps will be taken next.”
A glance between the faces of the assembled Elders makes it difficult to believe I am here to be commended for anything, so I speak. “You said ‘murder’ . . . ”
“Indeed we did,” Leland starts. “The Council convened after meeting with you. We discussed your vision, as well as how it might be relevant to the current state of affairs between the Keepers and the Praedari.”
“You speak as though the vote were unanimous . . . ” Alistair grumbles. Leland shoots him a look before returning his attention to me. “The Council deems it best for sect security to treat Zeke’s murder as a declaration of war.”
“Delilah, this means that if there’s anything else you can tell us—anything else you might remember—”
I don’t hear more of what Evelyn has to say, instead catching Temperance in my peripheral vision. Did Zeke confide in her? If he did, has she already told the Council about what I saw the night of my Becoming? If she hasn’t, why not? What will happen if she has and I do not?
“There’s more,” I announce. A hushed whisper breaks out amongst the Council members, my voice startling even myself.
“There’s more,” my voice, not under my command, states before launching into the vision I had at my Becoming. Sometimes sharing a vision causes me to lapse into a fugue-like state. Under these conditions, my retelling captures the most details. Sometimes I can only remember bits and pieces, always jumbled and often cryptic. This time, though, it’s as if the vision is pulled from me.
A low ringing in my ear when I finish. Six seated figures stare at me, a collection of pursed lips and furrowed brows. If Temperance is shaken or surprised by my offering up the rest of my vision to the Council, she does not show it, instead mimicking their judgment. Silence, except the ringing.
A figure stands. Taller than I would have guessed or taller now than the night before, I’m not sure. His gray robes shift around him, almost as though they live and do as he bids. Just as last time I hadn’t noticed him until he desired it, only vaguely aware that a sixth person sat in a sixth chair just as they had the last time I visited these chambers. Even in recollection his presence remains inexplicably obfuscated.
Moments melt into his robes, becoming the fiber of which they’re woven. I wonder if the others can see this or if it is a flash of insight, a sort of partial vision while I’m conscious and aware. His unflinching gaze causes the hairs on the back of my neck to rise.
“Delilah, daughter of Ezekiel Winter, granddaughter of Ismae the Bloody . . . ” A voice bellows in my mind using the old parlance, the word from before the Keeper’s adopted Childe—meaning one of noble birth—to denote the relationship between Usher and the one they Ushered. Before the Keepers and Praedari came into being, Zeke would tell me, the Everlasting didn’t need to rely on language to elevate their standing. A quick scan of the other Elders assembled leads me to believe I am not alone in hearing the voice
. “By decree of this Council you must find the mortals from your vision and—”
“The Council never voted on the girl’s direct involvement—” Brantley interjects.
Enoch’s head turns towards the interruption, the deliberate movement cutting off the rest of the chameleon’s argument. The Eldest whispers something unintelligible in his direction, the pupils of his eyes changing to milk-white for just a moment.
Brantley starts making gagging and sputtering sounds, his hands clutching his throat in the universal sign indicating choking as we look on in horror. His tongue elongates and writhes for what feels to us like minutes, to Brantley, I can only imagine, longer—then erupts into thousands of maggots. What would be howls of pain become gurgles as blood and maggots build a gory blockade in his long-dead airway. The pain too much to bear, he falls to the floor, limp. His eyes do not close. No one dares move to help him.
Enoch returns his attention to me. Every muscle in my body tensed, ready to spring. I feel my pupils dilate, my Beast nudging me to make the age-old decision: fight or flight. Then a hand on my own. Temperance. At her touch my Beast reluctantly quiets. I cast a grateful glance her way, her meddling for once welcome. She gives a slight nod of acknowledgement.
This time Enoch speaks, his voice gravel and silk and ocean at once.
“This is your chance to avenge your beloved, Delilah.”
Dizzy, I can’t help but glance at poor Brantley. Enoch speaks as though I have a choice but I can’t shake the feeling that there is only one right answer.
“Brantley will heal, with time, as the Everlasting do. What I’m offering you is a way to heal now.”
“A decree isn’t an offer . . . ” The words spew ahead of rational thought. If long pauses and awkward silences could build an empire, the Council has put the Roman Empire to shame sixty times over this night. I swear I can feel tiny pinpoints of wriggling inside my tongue as I anticipate my punishment.