Indelible

by Dawn Metcalf

  Joy threw off her robe, stabbing the scalpel through her shirtsleeve, and tore near the seam. Fabric snarled as she yanked her arm free.

  “Get me Ink’s body.”

  To her credit, Inq did not pause or ask questions. She simply started walking.

  Inq crossed the barrier. Joy caught a glimpse of a nail-studded club aimed at her skull, but a tongue shot forward, stuck to the man’s head and yanked him backward. Jaws slammed shut. Graus Claude sank on his haunches and started chewing.

  Joy shuddered and rubbed her bare arm.

  Inspecting the raised callus of her scar, Joy tried to remember what it felt like to heal her hand, and she simultaneously tried to ignore how close the fire must be to Briarhook’s signatura. She could try to escape, cross the battle and break the script, or she could remove the mark on her own flesh before the fire reached it. It wasn’t brave to stay inside the ward, but it wasn’t as stupid as trying to leave it. Joy swallowed, thinking back. Remember: No Stupid.

  Ink knew that he could not save her, but she could save herself.

  Pressing the thin blade flat against her arm, Joy scraped a slow, even line toward the scar. Where she hit it, there was no pain, just a slippery sensation as the tip of the scalpel passed easily beneath her bubbled-over flesh. Joy kept the blade steady as the thick skin peeled away like a curl of whittled wood.

  Joy carefully sheared the signatura from her body amidst screams and snarls and clanging brass. It was agonizingly slow. Her fingers tightened on the grip. Roughened skin split. Her palm stung with sweat. There was no room for distraction, but it was hard to ignore the wet, breaking sounds and the cries cut short just outside the ward. Hot smells scraped her nose and salted her eyes, smelling of spice racks and copper and campfires and blood. Somehow, it smelled too sweet to be death.

  But she was alive. Still alive. With moments to go.

  Her vision narrowed to the last few millimeters of skin-on-skin, the imminent hiss of fire clawing at her nerves. Joy half expected to feel a surge of hot sickness, as if she might spontaneously combust along with the glyphs. It was just a matter of time she didn’t have.

  Joy forced herself

  to slice

  the last bit

  free.

  A perfect stenciled rose floated to the floor—a couple of layers of crinkled, peach-colored skin. Something inside snapped, followed by a sense of relief. The mark next to Briarhook’s caught fire. Joy exhaled.

  Safe!

  Feeling flooded back into her body, leaving her weak. Safe! She was free of Brairhook’s signatura—he had no claim on her.

  Kurt exploded into view, snarling and red-faced, his eyes fixed on Aniseed—all cool, calm austerity gone. It scared Joy back a step. Kurt aimed himself at the segulah with single-minded fury.

  Graus Claude sat nearby, holding his weapons in a defensive, four-cornered shield as he chewed.

  “Graus Claude!” Joy shouted and was satisfied to see his bright eyes flick through the electric fence of runes. Her tongue probed her lower lip, trying to find Inq’s mark. “Where is Inq?”

  His eyes swerved back and he turned his massive head thirty degrees, pointing with the tip of his spear. Joy saw her.

  Inq held her hands flat and tight, like fins, spinning in what Joy first thought was some sort of martial art. A large, boarlike creature rushed her and burst, a slash splitting his torso, erupting and vibrating blood. It happened a good two feet away from where Inq stood, looking grim.

  Inq swung her forearm through the air and another attacker’s face shattered with the sound of chain saws grating bone. Her face remained smooth, her eyes dark and deadly. Inq fought as if her arms were swords and her skin was armor plate. She hadn’t physically touched either foe.

  I don’t need tools at all.

  Joy felt herself grin. “Her weapons are invisible!”

  “Of course,” Graus Claude spoke through a full mouth. “She’s a woman.”

  Joy laughed, hysterical, raw. But how could she remove Inq’s mark when it was invisible?

  A grayish blur flickered and jumped. Ten, then twenty, then fifty flitted about the battlefield. A flurry of wings tugged at her eyes. Flash! Flash!

  “Second wave,” Graus Claude grated as he easily parried something thrown.

  Joy recognized the aether sprites using their locqui to maneuver about the room. The violent twist of a head dropped the soldier who’d raised a sword against Kurt. A plated anteater lifted, disappeared and dropped thirty feet to the right as a hunk of red, blistered meat. The sprites moved among Aniseed’s troops, cracking necks and weapons and limbs as they came.

  If Aniseed minded, her face didn’t show it and she clearly did not intend to withdraw. Two rings of signatura now burned on the floor. Countless humans infected.

  “Stop! Stop Kurt!” Joy called out to the Bailiwick. “He can’t kill her! She might know the only way to stop this!”

  But Graus Claude squatted, chewed and didn’t move.

  “Impossible,” he mumbled. “There’s no stopping him now.”

  Joy quivered. Her body felt heavy and cold. Everywhere she looked, those with the Council seemed to be winning, but what good would it do if humanity died? Another line of fire, a new ring aflame: three wicks simultaneously burning. Joy caught another flare in the distance. Four.

  What could she do? She squeezed the scalpel in her hand. She could erase things. She had Ink’s signatura. And Inq’s. But what could she do with them? Joy squatted down and tried drawing the swooping mark of Ink’s True Name. The thin blade stuttered over the concrete, but left no trace on the gritty gray floor. Joy pressed her palm to it, pricking the spots of her third-degree burns. Nothing. She scraped the edge of the blade gently against her lip. No mark. No ideas. Nothing.

  I have to save Ink.

  Joy stared at her prison. She touched the blade to the barrier and it cut a small hole. Lightning grabbed the pinpoint like a Frankenstein prop. She withdrew. It sealed over. Aniseed glanced in her direction and smiled.

  “If you dare, little stripling,” came a whisper of branches slicing through like winter wind. “Come for me. If you dare.”

  Anger filled her, hot and reckless. She wanted to slice that Cheshire grin right off Aniseed’s face. She could do it—she’d watched Ink pierce the barriers, seen him cut the witch with the scalpel, but there was a battle raging between them. Unprotected, Joy would likely die the instant she stepped beyond the ward.

  And it sounded like Aniseed wanted her to try—and anything Aniseed wanted wasn’t something Joy would do. Aniseed used people’s weaknesses. Hers was Ink.

  Joy frowned. It was a distraction. A tangent. No. Joy turned her back on the segulah and her war. Both Aniseed and Ink knew that there was something she could do with the scalpel and the signatura, but she couldn’t figure out what!

  Joy swung the blade, feeling helpless. She had to try something. She couldn’t just stand here!

  There was a grunting snarl as Briarhook passed the barrier, close enough that his quills brushed the wall. There was a thick metal plate riveted to his chest, the edges crusty with dried pus and blood. He brandished a hooked spear that he slammed into someone’s chest. His piggy eyes spied Joy.

  “Lehman!” he snorted. “I fight. See this? Fight for my heart! Tell Ink, you! I fight for my heart!” He shook his head as if tearing meat in his teeth and charged deeper into battle.

  Somewhere in the center of the mass, Kurt gave an inhuman howl as he hacked his way toward Aniseed. Bodies fell. Blood splashed. His eyes were fever-bright with madness. Watching, Joy suddenly understood: Kurt had been training and perfecting himself for this moment, for the day when he would finally kill Aniseed. It was written on his face in smears of blood. Graus Claude was right—there was no stopping him now.

  But there h
ad to be a way to stop her.

  Above the fray, Aniseed finally deigned to acknowledge Kurt. She touched her fingertips together, mocking his rage by smiling. The entire room moved with a sudden change in pressure, pressing lungs and feet flat.

  It began raining apes.

  They fell from the rafters—hairy, screaming, caped and helmed, with long tails fluttering behind them like kites. Their arms ended in thick, knobby bone and they pummeled whatever they landed on, full force. Backs snapped. Shields burst. Skulls crushed like hollow chocolate eggs. Hooting cries filled the air. The battle boiled like oil.

  Graus Claude turned his weapons inward, making a tepee-shaped cage against the onslaught from above. Kurt fell under three of them and Joy held her breath. Inq split one before it even hit the ground, a red flash dissipating into a fine pink mist.

  Joy couldn’t see Ink. His body. His eyes. He was lost somewhere in that mess, trampled underfoot. Joy’s hands fisted impotently. Fingernails dug into her palms. And she still couldn’t think of what to do.

  She had no idea when Inq’s glyph would catch fire.

  Someone in the back raised a round metal shield—a pitiful defense against this newest attack. A large man draped in matted furs raised a long-handled hammer and swung its square head down with a grunt. A gong sounded. There was a great shout, an invocation.... A clap of lightning split the air, rattling teeth and raising every hair in the room. The ceiling filled with a cumulous mist and enraged riders on horseback galloped down from the clouds, sloping in at sharp angles out of the gathering storm. Ravens and eagles and bright white swans flew over the charge like royal banners. Wild hair flying, swords and shields at the ready...

  Lightning flashed. Thunder boomed.

  It was the third and final wave.

  “Filly!” Joy cried. Although she could not make out which of the face-plated women might be her friend, she took strength in the familiar flying blond braids and bony capes, their weapons held high amidst whooping battle cries.

  Joy peered around the warded wall, squeezing the scalpel in her hand, swearing to herself. There had to be something here! Something she could erase. Undo. Unmake. She had Ink’s signatura and she could use it. How?

  She moved her arm experimentally, mimicking Ink’s slashing a hole in the world—a swooping gash rendering space and time apart.

  There was no cut, no tear in the universe, but the mark itself flared briefly. A great snap echoed inside her. It was shocking, the loss. Some people beyond the barrier knew it—felt it—and a few nearby stared. Joy realized that there were suddenly many eyes upon her.

  Joy centered herself. She felt...looser. Alone. Blinking, confused, Joy suddenly realized that there was no answering flash in her eye. Nothing unusual happened, which wasn’t usual. It had been a long time since she’d felt “usual” and now it felt strange.

  Ink’s signatura was gone, his claim on her with it.

  Inq’s voice sliced through the war zone like a bell.

  “Again!” she commanded. “Do mine!”

  Four glyphs flared in doomsday fire.

  Joy needed no encouraging. She drew three concentric circles, imagining them as a bull’s-eye, glowing. It appeared where she’d carved it in midair, and an answering ripple tickled like a heat wave in reverse. The signatura collapsed inward, pushing Joy bodily back. Again, the internal snap. Again, the moment of odd freedom.

  For a glimpsed moment, Joy saw: everyone had noticed it now.

  Aniseed’s mahogany face constricted in fury.

  “You!” the segulah screamed. The word punctured through the clamor. But Joy smiled and spun the scalpel. She had the answer. One more signatura to go.

  It hadn’t been given. It had been forced upon her, much like Briarhook’s brand. Joy remembered Graus Claude’s words: while marks are given voluntarily, they are not always received that way.

  Holding the scalpel at eye level, Joy drew a long, pointy petal, pausing to circle a seed in its center like the iris of an eye. She purposefully faced the ward, knowing that Aniseed could see her. Knowing she couldn’t stop her. Joy drew one giant eye-petal, then two, three....

  “STOP!” Aniseed shrieked. The ward incandesced, a wall of lightning flame. Something—or maybe many somethings—swarmed the opposite side, trying to get at her, exploding on impact. Joy could smell burning flesh and smoke through the crackling cage. She ignored it. Kept going.

  ...four petals, five, six...

  The roaring quieted, blue-lightning geysers slowed to sparks. Joy could see the battle raging and hear the horses scream. Aniseed seethed above it all.

  Joy flashed her a smug look, the one her dad hated most.

  Aniseed dove, clawing headlong through the fighting as if the figures were nothing more than toys, her hands growing larger, her back lengthening in a surge. The sound of straining wood became a deafening roar as Aniseed swelled, becoming more and more the tree she resembled, awesome and gloried and ancient.

  Coming for Joy.

  A giant hand pierced the ward, three-foot fingers extended—

  Joy was trapped within Aniseed’s barrier. Nothing could keep Joy safe from her. But she could keep her family, her friends and the rest of humanity safe.

  She could do that.

  Joy stubbornly drew the seventh petal and curved up the eighth.

  Fingernails descended, barbed and ringed in white-hot fire. The lightning prison filled with the smell of smoke. Joy crouched, whipping her head out of the way, and nearly dropped the scalpel.

  I won’t make it. There isn’t time!

  Joy wavered.

  “Finish it!”

  She didn’t know who’d said it, but her hand obeyed, completing the last curling motion of Aniseed’s signatura. The star anise pictograph flared once. Another bodily snap. Another release. Joy’s skin tingled.

  Aniseed screamed.

  Joy flattened, hugging the floor. Through her hair, Joy saw Kurt standing in triumph encircled by sharp-feathered bears. He had shoved his sword upward, deep into the inhuman body overhead, piercing the segulah’s wide throat.

  Aniseed and Joy shared an expression of raw shock.

  A paw slammed into Kurt’s middle and pulled out something wet.

  He fell.

  Joy screamed.

  Aniseed’s body crashed down.

  Horses reared, shrieking, and those creatures around them continued to fight, pounding, slicing and slaughtering whatever still stood, but the tide had turned. There was an angry flicker as simian troops bounced into the rafters, the clouds dissipating as arrows stopped flying and battle cries slowly sang out of breath. The blur of wings stilled, materializing into bony gray bodies that hovered gravely over the fallen. Weapons dropped, empty hands raised—including hooves, paws and claws—and all those who surrendered fell to their knees.

  A robed figure colored like some exotic deep-sea fish scattered fistfuls of powder that settled, crackling, onto the warehouse floor. The fires extinguished. Joy could hear its hush under the painful, crumpled moans.

  Graus Claude clambered forward with a clatter of armor, the plonk of his spear butts measuring his step. Bowing his head, he wove his hands in silent benediction. Heads dipped down, fists clenched solemnly over hearts, and the Twixt prayed over their own.

  Joy stood in the ghostly emptiness as the torches smoldered, the warehouse slowly growing darker by degrees. The ward remained, an obedient, crackling electric fence. Joy knew that she could cut her way out, but she felt like an intruder on whatever had just passed. Whatever else she’d become, she was still human.

  Feeling helpless, she fiddled with the scalpel. Silence folded over the warehouse like a coarse blanket. Inq emerged, the crowd parted, her face and torn corset flecked in blood, and her eyes pierced Joy’s as blue lightning flickered past.r />
  “Did we win?” Joy mouthed.

  Inq’s disembodied voice sliced through the quiet and answered solemnly.

  “Yes.”

  Vambraces rose, mouths opened and fists pumped the air.

  “Victory!” the voices yelled. Swords and hammers and shields clashed, joining the chorus, chanting, “Victory! Victory! Victory!”

  But to Joy, it was hollow.

  Ink was dead.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE CROWDS DISPERSED, taking their wounded on stretchers, over shoulders and dangling from claws. Some of them moaned, others glared and far too many were covered with cloaks, now shrouds. The rebels formed long lines, escorted by stocky, well-armed guards.

  A small knot of stragglers approached the barrier and Joy sliced herself a door to meet them. The air was warm and smelled like burned meat.

  Inq offered her hands, which Joy took with only the slightest hesitation, remembering the thrown ripples that buzzed through bone. Inq placed a chaste kiss against each of Joy’s cheeks.

  “I’m so proud of you,” Inq said. Joy shrank back. She didn’t feel proud. She felt carved out and confused, cowardly and weak. Inq squeezed her fingers. “Thank you for saving me.”

  Joy swallowed nervously, eyes tearful. “Fair is fair.”

  “Let’s go,” Inq said and opened her hands, creating a giant vertical whirlpool of concentric ripples in the air. Graus Claude switched his spear to another of his hands and offered Joy one as condolence.

  “After you,” he intoned, but kept a protective grip on her as they passed through the breach. It seemed he had no intention of letting her travel without him as her personal guard. She was deeply grateful.

  Graus Claude entered his own foyer with a hearty sigh. Unfastening the buckles across his chest, he clambered past, removing his helmet and armor plate while gathering his weapons together in one fist.

  “No room, blast it,” he muttered, lumbering down the hall. “And I might as well turn this water closet into an infirmary, while I’m at it. Place a little glazed tile with a Rod of Asclepius right here?” He gestured with a claw and glanced at Joy, who stood awkwardly behind him. He sighed. “I’m joking, Miss Malone.” He gestured into the washroom with a resigned expression. “Go on. The others will join us momentarily.”