by H. D. Gordon
I went over to the plastic case Matt liked to keep my suit in, opened it up, and removed my jacket. The Masked Maiden’s jacket, I thought, and a chill shot up my spine as I slid it over my shoulders. Next, I pulled on the matching pants and secured the black mask over my eyes. Last, I lifted my hood over my head to conceal my mane of reddish-brown hair, and ran my fingers over my wooden staff, taking comfort in the feel of it in my hand.
Matt brought me over my earpiece, which would connect me to Sam, and handed it to me with a somewhat sad smile. He hadn’t spoken much today, but I could see the concern for me in his big brown eyes.
“Be careful, Aria,” Matt said.
I gave a nod and a half smile that I hoped looked convincing. “Thanks, Matt. I will.” I put the earpiece in and turned to Nick. “You ready?”
In answer, Nick Ramhart ran up the wall and leapt onto the landing that overlooked the warehouse, disappearing into the office where my private exit/entrance would let us out onto the rooftops of Grant City.
***
The air this evening did not kiss at the soft skin of my cheeks in the way I’d become accustomed to, but rather slapped at my face as though it were trying to wake me urgently from a deep sleep.
If I’m sleeping, I thought, then this is surely a nightmare, and here I am, running toward the Boogie Man.
I shoved this nonsense away as I leapt over the edge of a twenty-story building—nothing beneath my feet for a handful of heartbeats save for the soles of my boots—and landed on the structure beside it with a lithe roll.
This was the roof of the Grant City Commerce Bank, and I knew it to be one of the many great vantage points in the city. In my ear, Sam’s voice reminded me that I was not alone.
“Three blocks east, then four more north,” Sam said. “The Scarecrow would need to be somewhere near this area, based on the location of Shaylee’s home and school, and the scene where she was found. On top of that, there’s the GC morgue, the only one in the city, and there was a break-in there three days ago. It wasn’t reported on the news, but I found it in GCPD records. He would need some of the materials there to…” She gave an audible swallow. “To do what he does.”
“Sam,” I said, “I ever tell you you’re a dang genius?”
There was silence in my earpiece for a second or two, through which I could practically feel the growing disconnect between the two of us.
Then, Sam said, “Only like twice a day, but I still like to hear it.” There was a pause. Then, “All right. It’s time for you to do your thing… and be careful.”
I swallowed. “I always am.”
With a deep breath that I felt rattle in my chest, I closed my eyes and let my sixth sense unfurl. It was the opposite of my common practice. Usually, I had to keep my Empath ability from absorbing too much. Right now, I had to let it all in, to soak it up and see what I could find.
Slowly, I began to take in the auras nearest me. The dense population of the city made this a task, the feelings and emotions of the people flooding over me and making me sway back on my feet.
As per usual, the most prevalent emotion was sadness, so many people hurting in the same manner for different reasons. It never failed to ignite my compassion for the human race, especially in moments like these, where it was undeniable that the poor creatures spent such a great deal of their time suffering.
Fear was more prominent than average as well, the recent happenings in the city no doubt a contributing factor. The people of Grant City were on edge, and I couldn’t really say I blamed them.
I clutched at the medallion hanging around my neck, fear welling up in me as I reminded myself that the Scarecrow’s dark magic could not affect me as long as I wore the necklace. As it had been doing frequently since I’d stumbled upon the scene the night prior, the image of Shaylee Taylor, set up at that table like a real life doll, flashed through my head.
And, with it, I picked up what I’d been searching for. My head snapped toward the east.
“Found you,” I said, and then I was leaping over the edge of the building.
CHAPTER 35
My heart was pounding so fast I could feel it pulsing in my throat, its pace increasing with every step that I drew nearer.
“Looks like you’re headed to the Grant City Girls’ Home,” said Sam’s voice in my ear. Then, “Oh, God. Hurry, Aria.”
I didn’t need to be told. From the aura I was picking up, which certainly belonged to a young female, I knew that the Scarecrow was already inside the building. He was in the middle of the grab. I could sense his rotten soul signature as well, and with it, the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
I won’t lie and say I didn’t have to fight the urge to run, despite the fact that I would allow myself to do no such thing. Scaling the side of the girls’ home, I found a window and let myself inside.
It was the middle of the night, and the place was dark. The window I’d climbed in through was on the second story, and let into a storeroom that smelled slightly of mold and mildew. The whole feel of the place washed over me in a way that made my stomach twist. Orphanages are never particularly happy spaces.
The soles of my shoes moved silently over the linoleum, my superior eyes adjusting to the shadows quickly. I paused at the door that let out of the storeroom, listening for presences on the other side. When I determined there were none, I opened the door and snuck out into the hallway…
And was hit with a wave of terror so strong that I nearly stumbled. Moving swiftly down the dimly lit hallway, I removed my staff from its place in my jacket and whispered the incantation that made it grow to its full size, my knuckles white as bone as I gripped it.
I passed by a dozen doors, my sixth sense telling me that behind each one were girls with no families. In the final door on the right the Scarecrow had just woken one of these girls from her sleep. I could feel the terrible perversion that flooded through his aura, and I realized only when the taste of blood filled my mouth that I’d bitten my lip hard enough to bleed.
I reached the door, gripped the knob, and pushed my way inside.
There he stood, the creature that had so long haunted my nightmares, the not-quite-a-man who had nearly taken my life a decade prior, the Scarecrow himself, in all his terrible glory.
For a moment, it was as if the world froze, the universe pausing and distilling to just this time, just this place, just this room. Three twin beds sat in a row, a single time-stained window letting pale moonlight into the cold, dark room. There was a dresser made of old, scuffed wood, and a chair made of the same.
In two of the beds, children slept, hair fanned out on the thin pillow and breathing deep and steady as their minds floated among the clouds of dreams. In the third bed, a girl of no more than eight lay stiff as a board, eyes as big as saucers, staring up in stunned, terrified silence at the monster who had awakened her.
The moment was shattered as his eyes slowly rose to mine, and the most awful of smiles pulled up his wretched face.
The Scarecrow was exactly as I remembered him, down to the minutest of details. His graying, thinning hair hung like wires over his head, his teeth brown and jutting and crooked behind cracked, wormlike lips. His shadow fell over the frightened child, his long, lanky form still draped in the rags of his prison grays.
From that awful mouth, his voice floated over the small space between us. “Aria,” he said, drawing the word out as though it were a fine wine—something to be savored.
His hand came up, his long fingers and untrimmed, dirty nails swirling in the air, his mouth mumbling words of dark magic. When he saw this had no affect on me, his eyes went to the bulge of the medallion around my neck.
“Clever little Fae,” he said, his tone a familiar, chilling rasp.
“You’re going back,” I replied, and was perhaps prouder than I’ve ever been when my voice came out strong. “Get away from the girl.”
Still smiling, the Scarecrow moved slowly around the bed, his dark eyes roaming
over the child under the covers. “I love watching them sleep,” he whispered, and I felt the words crawl over my skin as though they were an unwanted touch. “They look like little dolls.”
Staff gripped tightly in my hand, I took a step forward, but halted in my tracks when his hand shot down and gripped the child’s throat. “Come with me, Aria,” he whispered. “And I’ll let this one live.”
“Fine,” I agreed, my blood feeling terribly cold. “Just take your hands off her.”
Grinning, he gave his scraggly head a single shake. “Take the medallion off first.”
“Don’t you dare, Aria,” Sam’s voice said in my ear.
With shaking fingers, I pulled the medallion out of my shirt. “Get away from her, and I’ll take it off.”
For all of a heartbeat, I thought it was going to work. Then, like a flash of lightning, the Scarecrow snatched the still-silent child up in his arms, and stole out the window.
“Catch me if you can,” he said, and then they were gone.
CHAPTER 36
I followed the Scarecrow’s actions in an instant, rushing over to the open window and catching sight of him as he threw a ball of fiery light at Nick, who’d been waiting outside as backup.
Nick was quick, and he was able to dodge the magic assault, but the Scarecrow used the time to escape, his tattered gray trench coat flapping in the wind as he rounded the side of the building and disappeared out of sight.
Leaping out the window, I flew through the air and landed on my feet with a roll in the small plot of grass beside the building. I could still feel their auras, growing further away with every passing moment, the child in the Warlock’s arms slipping further beyond my reach with each second.
I took off at breakneck speed in the direction I knew them to be going, the world blurring and tunneling as I zipped by. The night became a sea of black, points of white light morphing into shooting stars as I continued my pursuit.
We moved through Grant City like two ghostly shadows, unseen and unheard by the human occupants of the place. Every time I got close, the Scarecrow would slip out of sight again, and as we skirted the bay, I knew this was not an act I could maintain forever. My stamina would run out. All I could do was hope that his would run out first.
As it turned out, I got my wish.
By the bay, and back toward the middle of the city, we traced through the town as might a cat and mouse, or children in a schoolhouse courtyard. At last, just as the air was really beginning to tear in and out of my lungs, the Scarecrow leapt onto the side of the Cross Corp skyscraper, and began to scale the structure the way a cockroach might a wall.
“Oh my God,” Sam said in my ear. “He’s taking her to the top of the Cross Corp building, isn’t he? Aria, is he taking her to the top?”
My feet on the ground and my head tilted back, I watched as the Warlock climbed, and my voice came out choked as I answered. “Yes,” I said. “He is.”
“Oh my God,” Sam repeated.
The Cross Corporation building was easily the tallest in all of Grant City, standing over one hundred and fifty stories tall, there wasn’t another structure that stood even close to its stature. Unlike most of the buildings in Grant City, this one was made mostly of glass windows, and shaped not like the typical rectangle, but rather like a cube set up on its corner, making the multiple sides of it slanted and shiny.
Huge letters were stacked up the side of it, the CROSS family name big enough for the whole city to see. It looked like an enormous glass die balancing on its corner, the very top of it so far up in the air that it disappeared into the clouds.
I was not afraid of heights, but that didn’t mean I wanted to go up there. I was only half Fae, after all, and it wasn’t as though I had wings. But I didn’t need Sam’s repeated concern to know what the sicko was up to. I had no choice but to follow him up the side of the building. My gut told me he was going to drop her from the top. The terribly frightened child would slide down to her death, or crash through the glass windows and then fall to her death.
I took one final deep breath, wishing I could keep my feet on the safe ground, and leapt up onto the structure in the same fashion as had the madman I was following.
“Is this glass gonna hold my weight, Sam?” I asked as I made my way up, careful where I placed my footing.
“I guess we’ll find out,” Sam answered.
“Where’s Nick?” I asked. Sam had insisted Nick be on her radar, and now I was glad for it.
“He’s right beside you,” Sam said.
I looked to my right and saw that Nick was indeed scaling the building along with me. He looked just as enthused about doing it as I did, but in true Nick fashion, he said, “What? You didn’t think I was going to let you have all the fun, did you?” And he gave me a wink.
“Race you to the top,” I said. I would not have admitted it, but I was more than happy to have Nick here. Surely, between the two of us, we could end this thing tonight. Surely, together we could save the girl and stop the Scarecrow.
Or so I hoped.
The only way to scale the building was to grip the half-inch ledges that encased the windows making up the entire structure, and by the time I was reaching the top, the earth but a memory somewhere beneath me, my fingers were aching and the muscles in my arms and legs were begging for a break.
But there he was, sitting at the tip-top of the Cross building, his tattered trench coat blowing in the wind, the small child clutched to his chest as though he was a nursing mother. His balding head gleamed in the moonlight, his brown teeth jutting with a jeer.
Up this high, the wind tugged at me, trying to make me lose my balance, and when I spoke, I could see my breath on the cold air. “Let the girl go!” I shouted, tears being pulled from my eyes by the insistent wind.
The Scarecrow tilted his head, his dark eyes glittering under the starlight. “Poor choice of words, precious,” he taunted. His gaze flipped to where Nick was approaching from the other side. “I told you to come alone.”
With this, he gripped the girl by the back of the collar and held her body out to the side as though she were nothing more than a bag of feathers, her little feet kicking at the air.
For the first time, the poor child opened her mouth, but instead of speaking, she let out the most ear shattering and gut-wrenching of screams. I resisted the urge to cover my sensitive ears, because if I loosened my grip, I would likely slip down the side of the building.
So I got the full force of the screech, and so did Nick. Our bodies seized up at the sound of it, our backs arching like two black cats. The girl’s cries scraped across the air, sure to draw attention, like a siren blaring out into the night.
“Stop it!” I screamed, the words ripping from my mouth of their own accord.
With a terrible, ringing laugh, the Scarecrow pulled the child back toward him, clutching her once again against his chest and stroking her chestnut hair.
“You broke the rules of the game, precious,” he said, his beady eyes flipping from Nick and back to me. “And for that, you will pay the price.”
With this, the insane Warlock released the terrified child, sending her sliding down the side of the building, her tiny body tumbling to a certain death.
CHAPTER 37
There was a shift in the clouds above, and the silver glow of the moon was blanketed, making for a deeper darkness. It was only a moment, a heartbeat, a tick of the clock, but within this shift of cloud cover the Scarecrow made his escape, using his dark magic to blink out of the scene.
There one second, gone the next.
That left me and Nick, and the child, who was still slipping down the surface of the enormous structure, screaming bloody murder.
Then, I was moving, descending the building in a manner that should I lose my balance for even the smallest of windows, I would likely be unable to stop my own deathly descent.
It all happened so fast, like a flash across a movie screen, or a blink between breaths. I was closing t
he distance between the tumbling girl and me, but there was no way to know if I was going to be fast enough. I watched as if outside of myself as my fingertips brushed the edge of her nightgown before she slipped over the edge of the building and out of sight.
What I did then I can hardly take credit for, and had I any time to contemplate it, I’m almost sure I wouldn’t have done it at all. I saw the child go over the side of building, and without thought, I followed her over the edge.
My right hand gripped the cornered ledge as my body flung itself into the open air, and my left hand gripped at the space I could only hope the child would be in.
To my absolute astonishment, my fingers gripped the cotton of the child’s nightgown, and I held on for dear life. Her weight jerked me down, almost causing me to lose my hold on the building, which would mean certain death for both of us, but somehow, I held fast.
The two of us hung out in open air, some five hundred feet above the ground, where an unforgiving sidewalk waited below.
“Please don’t let me go,” the girl cried, her eyes streaming tears as she looked down. “Oh God, oh please, please don’t let go.”
My fingers were aching, my grip loosening with every passing moment, but I said, “I’m not going to. Don’t worry.”
In my ear, Sam said, “Aria, the police are on their way. You better get out of there.”
“Little caught up at the moment, Sam,” I gritted out.
I couldn’t hold on any longer. My fingers were aching and my strength nearly depleted. We were going to fall, and there was nothing I could do about it.
Then, strong hands were gripping my forearm, and with a heave that must’ve taken some serious Halfling strength, Nick Ramhart was hauling us back over the edge of the cube-shaped building.