by David Estes
“Laney!” a voice barks in my ear.
My eyes flutter open and Hemsworth is standing over me again. Except he looks slightly different this time, not so angry, not so malicious. Worried maybe? Scared? “Are you okay?” he asks.
“I’ll let you know after my nap,” I say, unable to hold my eyelids open one second longer. The lights turn to fuzz and the fuzz turns to black.
~~~
The white sheet is making me hot, so I push it away.
Someone says, “She’s awake.”
I open my eyes and everything is fuzzy, like someone’s messing with the antenna of the world, distorting it. My eyes stinging, I blink to try to moisten them. With each blink, my vision seems to sharpen and clarify, until I can see the world as it really is.
A room full of beds. People in the beds, some of them groaning, some of them sleeping. Or at least I hope they’re sleeping. Something smells. Not good, not bad, something in between. Or maybe both, the good and the bad combining to form a new, neutral smell.
I’m in a bed. Why? Just for a nap? I could’ve done that on a bed of nails, I was so tired. The hard, rocky ground would’ve felt like a plush pillow-top mattress.
Lieutenant Hemsworth stands over me for the third time today. Will he ask me funny questions or point his finger at me or punch me? “You okay?” he asks.
Funny questions, it is. “Yeah.” Why wouldn’t I be?
Wait.
He nods. Manages a tight smile, but his eyes are frowning.
Wait.
I remember. The bedraggled group of women and children. Hemsworth agreeing to help them. My sister’s face on the injured human girl. Hemsworth yelling, “Trap!” Everything changing.
“Changelings,” I murmur.
“Yes,” he confirms. “Powerful ones, too. I’m normally better at identifying them, but these ones were top notch. They were humans in every way—in need of help.”
“They tricked us.” They tricked me, I realize. I was the one thinking Hemsworth was being a big jerk not helping them right away. “Stupid,” I mutter.
“Yes, we were,” he says, and I don’t correct him. I meant me. Only me.
“You saved me,” I realize. “That Changeling was going to kill me.”
“Yes,” he says, but there’s no pride in his tone.
“Thank you.”
He reaches down and pries my fingers from the edge of the sheet, which apparently I’m gripping like a lifeline. His hand is warm as he holds mine. I close my eyes, trying to make sense of what happened. Clearly we survived the attack, but how? There were many of them and some had already breached the fence.
When I open my eyes, I ask, “What happened?”
“Never mind that now,” Hemsworth says.
I let go of his hand. “Don’t start that again,” I say. He cocks his head to the side, shocked. “Treating me like some child who needs to be protected. You saved my life and I’m thankful for that, but I’m not your daughter. Looking after me won’t bring her back.”
His face turns red as if I’ve slapped him. I wish the words back, feeling bad right away. “Sorry,” he says. And then, “I know. I know.”
“Look,” I say, grabbing his hand just as he starts to back away, lifting my head from the pillow. “We both just want to do what we can to protect New Washington. But you can’t put my life above any of the others just because I remind you of your daughter. I’m no more important than anyone else.” He starts to say something, but I rush on. “And you can’t baby me. I need to know what’s happening. That Changeling transformed to look like my sister.”
The tightness in his lips releases and he steps back to the bed. “I figured that when you cried out and ran to her. That wasn’t the only Changeling that looked like her, though.”
“What?”
“They all did,” he says. “They all transformed into your sister and retreated into the woods.”
I slump my head back onto the pillow, puzzling over this new information. “They fought first, right? Then retreated?”
He shakes his head. “Not really. Just the one I killed and a few others who we’d brought over the fence. The rest of them just morphed into the little girl you recognized, your sister, and took off.”
“Trish,” I say.
“What?”
“My sister’s name is Trish.”
“She said something,” I say. “Well, not her. The witch who was impersonating her and then you.”
“What did she say?” Hemsworth asks.
Tell the president your sister is coming for her. I stay silent, letting the words fade into my memory.
Hemsworth is unfazed. “Well, regardless of what she said, apparently she’s made a major impression on the magic-born.”
“That’s not surprising,” I say, although I mean it in a very different way than he probably takes it. “Why would they retreat?” I ask. “They’d completely surprised us. It’s possible they all might’ve gotten inside before we realized it.”
He shrugs. “Why do witches switch sides faster than politicians break promises?”
I have a feeling that the comparison references the current president in some way, but I don’t ask about that. I’m too busy wondering how my sister is wrapped up in this whole mess.
“A few of the Destroyers tailed the Changelings for a while to see where they’d go, but they kept morphing into different forms and splitting up until it was impossible to keep track of them, so they gave up and returned. It’s possible they were just trying to keep us guessing where the next attack will come from. If so, it worked—I’m as confused as anyone.”
You don’t know the half of it, I think. My sister is with the Changelings, that much is clear. Is she their prisoner? Or is she helping them of her own accord? Is she really helping them? Oh Trish, why did you have to leave me? I wonder.
“Laney?” Hemsworth says. I glance at him to see that the fatherly look of concern is back.
“I’m fine,” I say quickly. “Just trying to work through everything in my mind. I feel like my brain is Swiss cheese.”
“You took quite a knock on the head.”
“It was your fist,” I say, forcing a smile.
He grins back. “And yet not.”
“I’m really starting to hate Changelings,” I say.
“They make it awfully hard to tell friend from foe,” Hemsworth says, which gives me pause. What if…
“Nah,” I mutter under my breath. If the Changelings had stuck around to fight and we’d lost the battle, surely I’d be dead, not chatting with a witch pretending to be my friend. We’re still in New America and humankind is still safe. For now.
Lieutenant Hemsworth gives me a strange look, but I don’t explain my thoughts; it would probably be rude to tell him I’m worried he might be a witch or warlock.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Rhett
Of course, being witch hunters, we run toward the Necros, rather than away. Hex is yapping around my feet as if urging me on. The black-cloaked magic-born, however, don’t charge. Instead, they form a circle around the jet’s severed cabin, chanting in low voices punctuated by high wails.
I hurdle what appears to be part of the cockpit’s navigation panel, keeping my eyes peeled for signs of Xave or the Reaper. Most of the Necros’ dark hoods are pulled over their heads, casting their faces in shadow, making it nearly impossible to identify them.
When a massive plume of green smoke spouts from the airplane, Floss raises a hand and we stop just short of the magic-born, who continue chanting. She looks back at us, her eyes wild. “Get ready,” she says.
The circle of Necros parts on the side closest to us, and bodies leap from a gaping hole in the side of the downed plane. The Necros don’t cheer, don’t command, don’t do anything but watch with silent mouths and hooded eyes as their creations race toward us, a tidal wave of plane crash victims reanimated like puppets. I wonder how many passengers a Boeing-747 can hold—and how full this plane was on t
he night of Salem’s Revenge.
They fall upon us like wolves on fresh meat, weaponless, with only nails to gouge and teeth to bite and bones to smash.
They almost seem hungry.
Disgust fills my mouth with a bitter taste as I draw my new sword. Re-killing the dead isn’t something I relish, especially not after Pittsburgh. Beside me, Hex turns completely black, even his eyes, as if mirroring his own somber mood. A woman with a crushed skull and one of her arms hanging limply from her side—clearly dislocated—charges at me. She’s still carrying a leopard skin purse, which seems to be infused into her skin, as if the impact of the crash allowed the straps to cut into her arm, becoming one with her. She’s barefoot, and I wonder if she lost her matching leopard skin heels somewhere along the way.
She leaps at me with surprising speed and agility, reminding me that Reanimates have supernatural athletic ability, regardless of their physical nature while alive. Ducking under my sword swipe, she attempts to sink her teeth into the flesh of my face, but I also duck, letting her fly over me. Her momentum carries her a few feet where she rolls to a stop. Lifting her head, she growls, her unusually big teeth like white pearls.
Hex growls back, his black form now roping with coils of red hot embers, like the remnants of an old campfire.
When she comes again, Hex cuts her off, tackling her to the ground with enflamed paws. He climbs off of her, wagging his tail, his black eyes reflecting the fire that now spreads up her clothes engulfing her. I want to look away but I can’t, entranced by the horror of watching her burn.
Her movements jerky, she stands, her clothes gone, her skin bubbling.
I back away a step, hoping she’ll fall and die, but she doesn’t. Instead she takes a step toward me, flames eating through her already decomposing cheeks.
Both arms outstretched, she reaches for me, as if trying to give me a flaming hug. Blech.
I sever her head from her neck in a single slash, surprised when my sword splits into three separate blades, cutting down a small burnt-to-a-crisp Asian man wearing a scorched tie and carrying a briefcase, and a big man who lost his shirt somewhere, showcasing the many bloody wounds inflicted during the crash. All three die under a single stroke of Huckle’s magged-up sword.
I’ll have to thank him again later. Jury’s still out on whether I’ll thank Hex for helping; he made my first kill of the day far more disgusting than it had to be.
Around me, my fellow witch hunters are fighting hard, some more successfully than others. I watch as the bird-like girl plunges her sword through the eye socket of a small golden-haired boy, grinning wickedly before moving on to a tiny blonde who might’ve been his sister. Not far from her, the old man who’d bragged about killing fifty-six witches is being viciously bitten by a gang of five Reanimates. His scream becomes a gurgle and then silence. He’ll never kill his fifty-seventh witch now.
Bil Nez is in trouble, too, his rifle and crossbow losing their effectiveness in close quarters. He has a knife out but it’s knocked away when a heavyset Reanimate barges into him from the side. The bald man head-butts him in the face, sending blood spurting from his nose. I start to run toward him just as the man’s mouth opens, revealing bloodstained teeth. He snaps at the witch hunter’s neck, but Bil manages to hold him off with one hand, reaching behind his back with the other.
I’m too far away, but I keep sprinting, hoping Bil can buy a few more seconds.
He does better than that, grabbing a bolt from the satchel strapped to his back and shoving it into the open mouth of the hungry Reanimate. “Eat that,” he growls, shoving the big man to the side. He bucks violently and then goes still.
Bil flashes me a smile, which I return with a shout of, “Watch out!” as another Reanimate, a gangly black woman with a piece of metal plane shrapnel protruding from her chest, leaps at him from behind.
He ducks and the woman tumbles over his back and then head, sprawling out on the road. I jam my sword through her forehead, cringing at the way her eyes and mouth widen as she re-dies.
I expect Bil Nez to say thanks, but he’s already running away. Not toward the action, but away from it, like a scared puppy with his tail between his legs. I’m shocked, because Bil has never been one to run from a fight, especially not with magic-born.
Something isn’t right.
Instead of heading down the road from where we came, he ducks into the woods, looking back for a split-second, his expression a miasma of deranged darkness. Crazy Bil is back.
Hex charges after him, a black streak, but then stops when he seems to realize that the guy who’d been playing games with him is long gone, and not just because he’s now running through the woods away from us.
I consider going after Bil, but there are already three more Reanimates surrounding me, closing in with clawed hands and snapping teeth. From out of nowhere, Floss leaps between them into the circle. Her teeth are bared like an animal as we fight side by side, cutting them down like they were never fathers or mothers or brothers or sisters or daughters or sons. Cutting them down like they were never human.
Floss moves on to the next battle, seeming to methodically move through the fray to help her fellow witch hunters. She might not be the friendliest leader, but she is certainly loyal to those under her command.
That’s when I see an opening. Almost like the separating of a zipper, the fight seems to part before me, creating a tunnel all the way to the Necros. A sudden thrill envelopes me and the familiar heat of vengeance spills through my veins. This is their doing. People are dying and re-dying, blood is being spilt, heads are being severed…because of them. And I don’t care that Xave is one of them or that he’s convinced the Reaper and his Necromancers are doing what they’re doing for the right reasons, in the name of some absurd form of peace-seeking.
My legs churn and my arms pump and my sword flashes at my side as I race through the open lane to the Necros, who are watching the entire battle with only barely concealed glee. Hex bolts ahead of me, seeming to comprehend my purpose. The Necros see us coming and they close ranks, forming a black barrier. They raise weapons—swords and knives—but I’m not interested in any of that. What I want to see is who’s calling the shots. Who’s the Wizard of Oz behind the black curtain? Is the Reaper here?
So I fake left, fake right, and then go right up the middle, slashing hard and watching as my tri-blade chops three Necros down like pathetic saplings. Hex pounces on another, his ash-black paws setting the warlock alight. And then we’re through the circle, on the inside, my eyes frantically searching around me, Hex running in circles.
The space inside the ring is empty, save for debris, body parts, and gore. No! I scream in my head. There must be something. Anything. Some meaning to it all. My bones are tight and my muscles tighter as I charge toward the mangled airplane cabin, dimly aware of the Necros closing in behind me, my ears muffling the screams of the witch hunters as they kill and re-kill their foes.
The cabin is dark as I swing my body inside. The seats are torn and burned and strewn about like a discarded hand of cards. A Reanimate groans from beneath them, her teeth snapping and hands clawing at me as I pass. Hex stands over her for a moment, letting a bit of drool from his tongue splash her in the face, which I’d say is pretty immature of him. I stab her in the face to bring her final peace. That’s the screwed up world we live in. Death for peace.
The thought startles me, because it sounds almost exactly like a sermon preached by the Reaper.
Hex lets out a low whine and then I see him, sitting in one of the half-destroyed seats. My brother from another mother. My best friend?
Xave’s eyes are fully white, his brown irises rolled back into his head. His arms are raised overhead, his palms flat. His lips are moving, but no sound comes forth.
The last ten minutes of my life congeals into a recognizable stew of truth. Not all Necros have the power to reanimate the dead. Most of them can only provide enough magic to prepare the bodies for rebirth. Only the most p
owerful witches and warlocks, like Xave, can restore life.
Every passenger on the plane was brought back to life by Xave, who seems to be continuing to exert considerable effort to keep them fighting. Fighting us. Fighting witch hunters. Fighting me.
Even as I watch him with disgust, his eyes roll forward and he blinks. “Crap,” he says. “Rhett?”
I stride forward, remembering Beth, remembering her sewn-shut eyes and her chattering teeth, the way her frail voice tried to sound out my name. Rhet-t-t-t-t-t.
I grab my friend’s cloak up near his chin and lift him to his feet, slamming him against the side of the plane. Raise the tip of my sword to the brown flesh of his neck. Revenge roars through me, seeking an outlet. “How could you?” I say, not sure of exactly what I mean. How could you be a warlock? How could you bring Beth back like that? How could you bring her back at all? How could you still be doing what you’re doing?
He’s not scared of me, his eyes narrowing. “How can you still not understand?” he says. “New America doesn’t seek peace, but destruction. Your president wants to kill all the magic-born, not just those that are evil.”
“No,” I say. “She wouldn’t. We have magic-born allies.”
My statement seems to startle him, his body tensing. “What? No. But my father said…” His words trail away even as I hear the sound of feet thumping into the cabin, of blades shrieking against each other, of guns booming.
“Do what you have to,” he says. “But know that all I want is to live. All I want is peace.” His words seem so contrary to the violence that I just witnessed from his creations, creations that…wait a minute. I realize something. It’s supposed to take months to reanimate the corpses of older people, unless they’re only skeletons. And yet Xave seemed to accomplish such a feat in mere moments of us having arrived on the scene.
“Your power is growing,” I say.
“Kill me,” he says. “I can’t live if you hate me.”