Dark Remnants (The Last Library Book 2)

by Jill Cooper

  A brilliant light shone out of my staff’s center, and it was as if the sun had cracked through the clouds. A beckon of light shone on the death hunters, driving them backward toward the forest. Some fell to the ground as their rags dissipated in the sun, but the large one flew higher and contorted in the air as if the light hurt him.

  I wasn’t strong enough to destroy him, and until someone came along who could, we’d never be free. Tugging on Goldie’s reins, I ran up the hill toward the mountain passage. Goldie’s movements were slow, she needed rest, but I couldn’t abandon her. We had been through so many years of war together, giving up on her was like giving up on myself.

  “Goldie! Hang in there!” I pushed her up the hill from the rear, and together we made it, together we both heaved for air as I gazed down at the valley where the monster had been born.

  The dragon.

  I rose my staff, and its brilliant light caught her eye. She lowered her head to the ground and snuffed with obedience. “That’s it. You’ll let me pass! The death hunters coming for me, you’ll stop. Whatever means necessary.”

  The dragon’s wings lowered as I ran, and I only gazed over my shoulder once to see the death hunters coming. The dragon rose her wings up and breathed fire toward them as I had commanded.

  She may have been a dragon, but she was on my side, and there weren’t many left who were.

  *****

  We reached the ruins of D.C., the former capital of the free world, two days later. I was beyond exhausted, hadn’t eaten and hadn’t slept in an equal amount of time. My mouth was parched, and my lips were cracked. If I couldn’t find supplies, I knew I wouldn’t make the journey back.

  As I gazed up at the death hunters guarding the capital, I began to think maybe returning to the library wouldn’t happen at all. As much sorrow as it put into my heart, I had to hide the last crystal remnant. They had to stay together, and my memories had to survive.

  As I crossed the boulevard, Goldie collapsed and gave a sharp cry. I fell beside her and held her head in the crook of my arm. Her eyes were wide with tears, and I never saw a more human gaze than the one she gave me. So much sorrow and so much regret; tears sprung to my eyes even though I thought I had none to spare.

  “Rest, my friend,” I whispered and stroked her head, extending down to her nose. It seemed to give her comfort. Her eyes closed, and her breathing was long and gentle, if not erratic. “If I make it out of here, I’ll come for you. I’ll nurse you back to your former glory.” I kissed her snout before standing and rushed toward the wrecked museum.

  The Smithsonian would be the perfect place to hide the last remnant from prying eyes, but with the swooping death hunters coming in, I wasn’t sure if I’d make it.

  I angled down low, my boots slamming the pavement, and I struck the death hunters as they reached me, using my staff to throw them back. As I reached the bridge, I dove beneath it and found myself in good company.

  “Teddy!” My eyes widened. “You’re supposed to be in the library. What are you…”

  “All soon will be lost. I knew you’d come this way.” Theodore loaded his gun and cocked the safety off. “You get to the museum and do what you need to do to hide the remnant. I’ll buy you some time. Enough so the death hunters won’t know which way you went.”

  I sighed. “It’s suicide.”

  Teddy laughed like I said something incredibly funny, but his cheeks turned red and tears filled his eyes. “Curator, you know what waits for us the same as I do. Death would be a gift if it meant avoiding the enslavement camps or becoming one of these… things.”

  Despite all our arguments and conflicting methods for getting the job done, I hugged him. “Buy me as much time as you can, but don’t let yourself get caught.”

  “And don’t you look back,” Teddy struggled as he took a deep breath, his eyes gazing back at the sky before us. “You keep going, and no matter what happens, don’t you stop.”

  I wouldn’t because I had only gotten this far because I refused to second guess myself and how I had managed to survive. My children had been by someone else’s family, their names hidden so they wouldn’t be traced to me. Even I had no idea where they were gone, if I had grandchildren by now.

  With luck, no one would ever know my children were not blood Montgomerys, any more than they would be traced back to me.

  The legacy of my line demanded it.

  I took off running toward the capital building. The once great White House, a symbol of hope and freedom to the world, now had posters hanging out front that were brown and dingy with symbols of the ministers on them.

  Turning, I raced down the street as gunfire rained behind me. I bit my lip as my chin quivered and just kept running as the Smithsonian museum came into view.

  Just when I was about to enter the museum—

  “Tarnish!”

  ****

  I jolted as Sebastian rocked me back and forth. Like in a fog, I shook my head. “I wasn’t done!” Gritting my teeth together, anger simmered. “I didn’t see if she made it! I didn’t see!” I grabbed him by the scruff of his cloak and thought to throttle him.

  “Look!” He pointed over his shoulder, and I saw the mist apparitions were coming straight toward us, only this time their faces were twisted with anger and they held mine picks in their hands. The mine picks weren’t mist or fog; they looked as real as anything else I had seen.

  Well, that could be bad.

  I collected the crystal and stuffed it into my bag carefully as Sebastian tugged me up to my feet. The ghosts of the dead blocked the way ahead and bounced the pick axes in their hands as if they intended to strike.

  “What do we do?” I asked and stuck close to him.

  “You’re going to have to read.”

  “Right. What?” I did a double take and stared at him. “You know I can’t control it. The death hunters will come for us! You know—”

  “One thing at a time, Tarnish. These guys,” Sebastian pointed at them, “are getting closer, and they’ll kill us or push us down into the pit. Either way, we’ll be dead if you don’t try.”

  He had a point.

  As the men inched closer, I pulled a book from my bag and thumbed through it. How would I know which part to read? A gust of wind flipped through the pages, and I smoothed it down.

  “Chapter seven. There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a cushion, resting their elbows on it and talking over its head. `Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,’ thought Alice, `only, as it’s asleep, I suppose it doesn’t mind.’”

  As the pages lit up, the glow manifested not just on the words, but in me. My hands started to shine. I glanced at Sebastian with uncertainty as I read more aloud from memory before returning my eyes back to the page.

  “Force it out. Push the power out, Tarnish!” Sebastian’s voice quivered with fear and it pushed me in the direction I had to go, even if my fear was as strong as his.

  “Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it," said Alice angrily.

  “It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited," said the March Hare.

  “I didn’t know it was YOUR table, " said Alice, "it’s laid for a great many more than three.”

  The power flew out from the book in a wave and reached every crevice of the cavern. The men made of mist disintegrated as they were met with light, disappearing before it reached the ground.

  The magic lit the way, and Sebastian and I ran through the cavern and up the slope back toward the surface. Moans behind us carried our feet faster as the dead began to reanimate and charge toward us.

  The muscles in my thighs screamed as they carried me topside, and I struggled to keep up with Sebastian. A pick ax swung for my head, and I ducked, grabbed Sebastian’s waiting hand, and he pulled me forward.

  The momentum spurred me on and I charged up the
hill. Together we ran up the slope, jumping over the chains in the ground to get the hell out of there.

  Once I scampered to the top, I collapsed on the ground and my burning lungs heaved, desperate for air. Beside me, Sebastian coughed as he, too, struggled, but his eyes were filled with light. He shook his head with amazement. “That was incredible.”

  I swallowed hard as I struggled to collect my thoughts. “It’s a remnant. Bits of creativity turned into this shard. When we put it together, it returns color and creativity to the world bit by bit. At least I think so.”

  His face searched mine, and he read me as if I was an open book, ironically. “So, you had another vision?”

  I nodded. “This one didn’t finish, but I know for sure now she’s my ancestor. We’re connected through blood. She spoke about the Mitchells, my mother’s family, before she married Poppa.”

  “That was her name, too?”

  “No,” I said, and a frog lumped into my throat. Talking about her made me as emotional as if I had really known her. Feeling embarrassed and silly, I continued on. “She hid her children with the Mitchells. If she hadn’t, I wouldn’t even be here.”

  Sebastian sighed, and his brow furrowed as if he helped carry my burden, and part of it was true. He had helped me this far, and now this mission was as much his as it was mine. “Did your vision show you where we’re headed to next?”

  “Yes, and the map should help us find it. It’s in an old museum somewhere she called the Capitol.”

  Sebastian’s eyes widened. “Then we’ll need more than good luck. We’ll need a miracle.”

  My heart skipped a beat. “What do you—”

  “Later.” Sebastian gazed in the direction of the pit lying before us. “The dead stir, and we better not continue this talk here. Let’s move, and once we make camp, we can look over the map and discuss our next step.”

  As voices groaned beneath us and the chains rattled like the souls of the dead, my heart agreed with him. Still, I dreaded what was to come. If the look on his face was any indication, things were about to get harder and not easier.

  And already hunger ate away at the pit of my stomach.

  ****

  We walked for hours across the unforgiving terrain that appeared to lead nowhere. The earth was cracked, and we passed only one begotten tree. What few leaves it had barely clung to its branches, the edges curled and brown. This was the place of the forgotten war where humans had done battle against the death hunters before scores of my people had been killed and our uprising ended.

  Had I known the information before I started getting the memories from Magenta? Hard to say, but my heart ached for her and what she had gone through. Had she made it into the Smithsonian to hide the last remnant?

  The only way to find out was to go there, but Sebastian’s reaction…

  I glanced over at him as we walked and wondered what he knew about the Capitol I didn’t. I had never ventured beyond the cities and the train lines; maybe I'd spent too much time as a merchant’s daughter. Those of us in the cities had no liberties or freedom, but we thought we were safe.

  How wrong we had been.

  To destroy the hunters and the ministers meant we would be free, but would we be safe from the harsh realities of the world? Maybe it didn’t matter if we were free to choose our own destinies. Maybe none of it really mattered if we didn’t follow our hearts, and mine was screaming loudly. It thumped against my rib cage and wanted nothing more than beauty, stories on pages, and bold colors scrolled across a stretched canvas.

  It ached to breathe, I wanted it so bad.

  We walked until we were too tired to go any further and made camp against what was left of a shattered stone wall. Jagged in some places but with a high base that would keep us hidden from the sky, we lay our bags down. Sebastian unraveled the map I had given him, and I peered up at the gray sky. Streaks of clouds as thin as strips of paint floated in front of the moon.

  Dark as it was ominous, silently I feared it as I sipped from the canteen we shared.

  The water was cooling to my parched throat, and it tasted like the sweetest fruit I had ever had. I wanted to gulp it all down, but I had to leave some for him. When the water hit my belly, it called out in anguish and reminded me how empty it was, and how much it could use another meal.

  I searched in the bag and pulled out the last can we had to share, but maybe we should save it for morning, when we needed to start the next leg of our journey. With uncertainty, I watched Sebastian as he studied the map. His hands held the edges down so it wouldn’t roll back.

  Leaning in close to see what he was looking at, I took in his scent, and it wasn’t unpleasant. Quite the contrary, I found his musk to be appealing, and that scared me. I couldn’t afford to complicate things. Plus, there was the little matter of George.

  “This is the road we’ll take.” Sebastian traces his finger across a red path. “Tomorrow, we’ll reach the farmstead of my friends. You could call them… supporters of your cause. Harry and Claire McRow. Good people. They’ll restock our supplies and give us fresh water to drink.”

  That certainly sounded promising. “We can trust them?”

  Sebastian nodded. “Surely as you trust me.”

  If they were good people, I hated to put them in harm’s way. I shook my head. “And if we lead the death hunters to them?”

  “They’ll understand the risks, Tarnish. If we don’t go that way and stop, we won’t make the journey. It’s simple as that. I know keeping people safe is important to you, but this mission must be completed. Can you see how many more lives are at stake?”

  With a deep breath, I nodded that I could. Dying from dehydration wasn’t exactly high on my list. “When you heard we had to go to the Capitol, it wasn’t the best news you had ever received.”

  His eyebrows rose. “That’s because the place is a graveyard compared to what this world used to be, more than the dead may haunt it. Creatures manufactured out of the evil and what they did to this world roam it and protect it. There’s lava flowing through what was once the streets. Getting there will be the easy part, but crossing it?” Sebastian shook his head, and his eyes were dead serious. “It’s going to be like crossing a mine field.”

  Silently, his words sunk into me, and I fought with the urge to run and give up, but I thought about my ancestor and everything she had gone through. Already I had two of the remnants put together, and I couldn’t stop before I had the third. I couldn’t give up on the idea the library would save us once we found it.

  “My visions of the first curator...” I paused and watched Sebastian straighten up. “She hid her children from sight, so I know she’s my relative. I also recognize her, Sebastian. I recognize the staff she wields. Is the first curator Temptress?”

  I knew the answer, but still I was nervous and worried he wouldn’t give me the truth. In the end, he nodded and all hope left me.

  “How?” I begged. “How can she have been alive for so many centuries? It’s not possible.”

  “Evil fuels her. Evil fuels her nearly the same way it fuels Creighton. Pick your poison, because we must defeat them both.”

  I shook my head. “She’s good. I know she is. The things she’s felt, the things she’s seen… I have felt the same things! So how can she be evil?”

  Sebastian slid closer to me. “She faced Creighton and lost. He stripped away what made the first curator special and banished her here. Her lust for revenge, her thirst for destruction, makes her powerful. Her staff’s power splintered. No longer a force for good, it fueled her tower, it gave her the ravengers. You will need to take the staff from her and make it whole again. Death is the only way out for the Temptress.”

  I covered my mouth and shook my head. “You expect me to kill her?” Beyond that, I didn’t know how to make a staff whole—what did it even mean?

  “I expect you to win, Tarnish. If you don’t, your fate won’t be much different than hers. You’ll join her, and the world will plunge in
to a darkness unlike a kind we’ve ever known. There will be no end.”

  I couldn’t speak. I stared down at the floor and imagined what it would be like to face this woman. She created the ravengers, she had George, but the idea of killing her instead of showing her mercy terrified me.

  “I can see why you didn’t want me to know.”

  “I’m sorry.” Sebastian shook his head. “I wanted to save you from knowing what it is she was. Your journeys are linked, but your outcome will be different, Tarnish. You have something she never did.”

  “What’s that?” I whispered.

  “Friends.” He gripped my fingers, and I gripped his back.

  Sebastian was solemn for a moment, and I thought he might have something else to add. Instead, he tapped the ground beside his backpack. “We should try to get some sleep while we can. Morning will be here before we know it.”

  And the journey would be long, especially with the water running out. It’d be a hard day ahead, one that would lead us exactly where we needed to be.

  I curled up on the ground and stuffed up the fabric of my robe beneath my head. With a yawn, I closed my eyes as Sebastian lay across from me. He wasn’t too far away, our bodies hidden behind the stone wall to keep ourselves hidden from the enemy. I hoped they wouldn’t track us out here.

  I couldn’t help worrying about my town, my family, and the friends I left behind. I hoped they’d be okay and my choices hadn’t doomed them. As I drifted to sleep, I was aware of his strong presence and the aching of my tired feet, but that wasn’t all. Something deep inside me pulled.

  Something I hadn’t felt before. I tried to hold on to it, tried to listen to it, but my exhaustion took me before I even got a chance to explore what might be changing me on the inside.

  ****

  I could feel her presence but couldn’t see her face. Her cloak billowed in the breeze even as I could barely feel it. Dark and angry like a cloud, she was shrouded in mystery and vengeance. The black stallion she rode had red eyes, and instead of reins, he was fitted with chains, as much of a prisoner to its will as she was.