by David Estes
Silence. Uh oh. Somehow Laney not talking is worse than her venomous words.
I ease open my eyes amidst the roar of another thunderclap.
Laney’s eyes are narrow and filled with heat. “Maybe not,” she says. “But Trish is the only family I’ve got left, and if something happens to her while…”—her voice hitches slightly and I see her swallow a thick gulp of emotion—“…while I’m saving your sorry ass, I swear I’ll…” She lets the threat hang in the air, the heavy silence finishing it in a way that’s worse than any words she could have conjured up.
“Look, I—”
“No, you look,” Laney interrupts, sticking her chin out. “Until you stumbled up our steps we were doing a pretty good job of surviving the apocalypse on our own.”
I blow out a hot breath. Suck another one back in. Swallow. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.” I’m sorry about everything. The same words I spoke to the bloodstained wall at Beth’s house.
A portion of the anger leeches from Laney’s cheeks. “Why’d you just run off like that? We should’ve talked about it. Maybe you could’ve changed my mind, convinced me to come with you. We could’ve done it right.”
“There was no time,” I say.
“What happened to you?” she asks, and my chest tightens because I know she doesn’t mean today.
I play dumb. “I got captured by a wizard, nearly had my toes licked by a shapeshifting cat, and was knocked senseless by a half-bull/half-man.”
“Before,” Laney says with patience I didn’t know she possessed. “Before you met me.”
“Where’s Hex?” I say, suddenly realizing that the cage my dog was held in is now empty.
Laney shrugs. “That’s one strange mutt you got there. Ten minutes ago he melted into a puddle and…I don’t know how else to put it…flowed out of here.”
Traitor, I think, but I can’t help but laugh even though it makes my damaged head hurt even more. “He does things like that,” I say.
“Will he come back for us?”
“Usually.”
“You never answered my question,” Laney says.
“What do the Chinese characters tattooed on your neck mean?” I ask.
“If I tell you, will you answer my question?” she says, raising an eyebrow.
I stare at her. Never. Trust. Anyone. A crack forms in my shell. “Okay,” I say.
She shrugs. “I don’t know what they mean,” she says. “I thought they just looked cool and my friend dared me to get a tattoo, so I did. My parents were furious.”
“Liar,” I say.
“No, really, their faces were so red I thought they might catch on fire.” She stops suddenly, as if only just realizing her word choice.
“Tell me,” I say. She tries to act stupid and immature, but I can tell it’s a defense mechanism. I have the feeling I’m only beginning to understand just how smart she really is.
Her eyes narrow further, just cracks in the gloom. “Fine. They mean”—she pauses, almost seems to think to herself—“family, okay? Now you can laugh at the fool who thought the universe revolved around her family, when in reality they were ashamed of her because she didn’t have one speck of magical ability.”
I don’t laugh. I close my eyes. Memories of my family’s deaths may shriek through my nightmares, but at least I don’t have to be reminded every time I look in the mirror. And at least my family didn’t turn on me. I can’t even imagine…
I open my eyes.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Laney says, her mouth a red slash in the shadows.
I shake my head. “I’m sorry,” is all I say. “I’m sorry I asked.”
“Serves you right,” she says, and it’s good to hear the daggers in her voice again, chasing away chinked-armor and frayed ropes. “Your turn,” she says.
“I’d rather not talk about it,” I say.
“Right. Nice try. I spilled, so now you’ve got to.”
“I’ve…” I start, trying to decide where to begin. “I’ve let a lot of people down,” I finish lamely.
“Who hasn’t?” Laney says.
“I was trained to only help people when it was a sure thing,” I say. “You know, like when I know I’ll win.”
Laney screws up her face. “You’re a witch hunter, right? That sounds pretty pathetic.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I say, sounding harsher than I’d planned. My gaze travels down to my bound-together legs. “Mr. Jackson, the man who trained me, taught me that if I get myself killed, then a lot more people will die. So I have to put my life above all others for the greater good.”
“And here I thought you were some kind of hero the way you rushed into danger,” Laney says. “You’re just another coward.”
“I’m not,” I say quickly, attempting to meet her eyes but ending up on her nose. Am I? “At least, I’m trying not to be. Mr. Jackson taught me things that have kept me alive so far, so it’s not easy to just unlearn some of it.”
“It’s creepy the way you talk about him so reverently,” Laney says. “It’s like you’ve been brainwashed.”
I cringe at her words. Sometimes they feel closer to the truth than I want to believe. “He took me in when I was alone and broken and…”
“Scared?” Laney’s grin flashes annoyingly.
“Yeah, scared. So what? My family had been killed, maybe my girlfriend, maybe my best friend, too…so hell yeah, I was scared.”
“I—” The certainty fades from her voice. “Just. Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t know.”
“I didn’t tell you,” I say, wishing I hadn’t told her. I’m not looking for pity. I’m not looking for any of this. Being prisoner. This conversation. I just want to freaking find the Necros and make them pay. Considering they’ve put a bounty on my head, I should probably be careful what I wish for.
“You said your friends might have been killed?” she asks.
I tell her everything. I don’t know why I do it, and I don’t know why it feels so good to do so. Maybe because hiding secrets is like burning away your insides with a hot iron. Maybe because I’m beginning to trust someone for the first time since Mr. Jackson told me not to. Maybe because I know I’m probably going to be dead soon anyway—like a deathbed confessional.
When I finish, she says, “I’ll do what I can to help you avenge them.”
The air whooshes out of my lungs. “What? No,” I say. “No.”
“Yes. So long as we can keep Trish out of the middle of it, in a safe place, I’ll help. But this is the last time I rush into a house full of witches to save your un-hero-like rear.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “Okay,” I say, although I’m not sure how she can help me when she’s tied to a chair. I keep that thought to myself.
“Why am I alive?” Laney says, and it sounds like a deep, universe-shattering question, but I know what she means because I’ve been thinking the same thing. Witches don’t spare the lives of humans.
“Because they need me for some reason,” I say. “The Necros want me.”
“That explains why you’re alive, but not me.”
At that, I smirk. “Well…I might have, kind of, sort of…told them that we’re lovers.”
Laney makes a sound that’s half-laugh, half-choke. “You what?” she says, but I know she heard me the first time.
“It’s all I could think of,” I say, feeling a strange rush of amusement that’s completely inappropriate for the situation.
She laughs and then I laugh, and I suspect we look like a couple of crazy people as flashes of lightning illuminate the room. Our absurd mirth is cut off by a shout that starts inside and works its way outside our window. A dark wing-shaped shadow bursts across our view. The vulture—Crake. And beyond…
Beyond a familiar form seems to glide along the damp, overgrown lawn. Something unnatural tugs at my chest.
The Siren.
And past her, a rumpled brown fi
gure, his coat soaked through, running toward the house.
The mute beggar.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The Siren has remade herself once more. Straight, shoulder-length blue hair. A sparkling turquoise dress that seems to swim around her invisible feet as she crosses the tangled yard. Waves of rain sweep across her, but then gloss away, as if bouncing off of an invisible force field.
As untouched by the rain as the Siren is, the beggar man is soaked to the bones, his long trench coat clinging to him like a wrinkly second skin.
And I can’t get over the fact that they’re both here. There are way too many coincidences in my life.
With an angry caw! Crake dives from the sky, right at the Siren. I feel a bolt of fear in my chest, and I find myself unwittingly struggling against my bonds, which cut painfully into my wrists and ankles.
The Siren raises a slender arm, aims it at the vulture, and…
The vulture drops from the sky, smashes into the ground, and skids across the waterlogged lawn.
A door slams and the bull charges out into the storm. Sledge has joined the fight, and the Siren is still focused on Crake, who’s slowly pulling himself up, using his wingspan to balance his gangly body.
The bull crashes into the Siren, sending her soaring through the air, raindrops bouncing off of her fluttering gown. My body aches as if I’m the one who was hit by the Shifter.
“Carter!” Laney yells. “What are you doing?”
I tear my eyes away from the scene outside to find Laney staring at me in horror. My lip is stinging and I realize I’m biting into it with so much force that blood is rushing out, copper-flavored on my tongue. My wrists and ankles are on fire, as I continue to pull with all my strength against the tethers binding me to the chair. All at once, I stop chewing my lip, stop struggling. What am I doing?
Get control. It’s just the Siren’s magic. She’s pulling me to her, trying to control me, like the Sirens in crazy Bil’s story. Trying to make me her slave.
But why? Why me? Why is she here, going to such lengths to save me—is that really what she’s doing?—putting her own life in danger by fighting a gang of Shifters?
With a sharp woof! Hex appears back in his cage, which fades around him as if evaporating into the air. He bounds to Laney first and bites at her ropes, which fall away, uncut.
My dog is more talented than Houdini.
He lopes over to me, pauses, as if considering whether I’m worth the effort, and then does the same. I’m free!
Laney rushes to the door and I step to the window. “What are you doing?” Laney hisses. Hex barks at me, as if to ask the same question.
But I ignore them, because I have to see what happens to…
To the Siren?
To the beggar?
To both of them?
Something tugs me to the window, holds me there, fastens my gaze on the violent scene unfolding before me like a creased painting.
The Siren is back on her feet, raising an arm, but she never gets to unleash her spell, because the vulture is on her, clawing at her face, tearing at her perfect ivory skin. The bull is there, too, practically on top of the both of them, stamping and bucking, trying to find a way to harm her.
For the moment, the beggar is alone, running toward the house, looking up at me, his eyes locking on mine, and then—
The black panther streaks from the shadows, a graceful blur of agility and speed. There’s no escape for this man. No way he’ll be able to outrun or outmaneuver the natural predator who’s got him in her sights.
He raises his arms, and—do his lips move? And…
Nothing happens. His expression flashes with surprise, and he tries to duck out of the way, but the panther—the witch, Flora—is too close, too quick, and she rips into him, knocking him back, landing hard on his chest.
No! I don’t know who this guy is or why he keeps popping up, but I can’t let him die like this, not if he’s trying to save me. I start to turn away, a plan of attack forming in my head, but wait.
Wait.
With a yowling scream, the panther is flung off the man, clawing at the air, twisting to land on her feet. And the beggar no longer looks old and weak, but powerful, almost throbbing with energy.
And in a flash, it’s gone, and he’s just an old man again, a pained expression cutting into his cheeks. He looks up at me, his finger pointing away from the house. Go, is what he means.
The panther charges toward him.
Laney pulls me away from the window, through the door, down the steps—pausing only to grab our bags and weapons from the bloody kitchen countertop—and out the backdoor into a raging storm and away from the shouts and screams of the battle that saved our lives.
And I let her. I let her pull me away while a Siren and a homeless man die so we might live.
Words have power, for better or worse.
Like the smell of fresh rain on cut grass,
Or the stench of a decaying corpse,
Like the soft comfort of a warm blanket on your shoulders,
Or the agony of a dagger splitting your chest in two.
Use them wisely.
Words to the Wise, Rhett Carter
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Corpses and daggers and split chests feel like the right words for our current situation, even as I shiver so much I can barely hold the pencil I use to write the new poem. Somehow I find the poem more comforting than formulating a blog post for a book about shape shifting witches that will never be written.
Laney’s not much better off. She and Trish and Hex—thanks a lot, buddy—are huddled under a dusty old blanket we found in the abandoned home furnishings store we managed to break into. Wet footprints and sopping articles of clothing are strewn everywhere, illuminated only when lightning flashes through the cracks in the boarded up storefront window. I almost expect a scraggly, bearded janitor to shuffle out and stick a yellow Slippery When Wet sign in the center of the entrance.
If the Shifters manage to track us here, we’re in no shape to defend ourselves. My only hope is that the heavy rain—while cold and miserable for us—will be enough to confound their heightened animal senses.
My poem finished, I tuck my journal into my backpack and pull the covers up under my chin, covering the whole of my naked body. I hope none of us catch pneumonia.
“D-Do you th-think we lost them?” Laney asks, her teeth chattering like she’s in the middle of a snowstorm in her underwear.
“Yeah,” I say.
“That w-woman…w-witch…she looked familiar.”
I nod, although I’m not sure Laney can see my face in the dim lighting.
“From just b-before we b-battled the b-boners?”
I nod again.
“Why is she following us?” she asks. “And what g-gang is she with?” Her voice is getting stronger as she exercises her numb lips.
“She’s a Siren,” I say. “I think she wants me to be her sex slave.”
A sharp laugh escapes Laney’s throat. “Seriously? You are into some weird stuff, Clark Kent.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Clark Kent?”
“Y-yeah. You know, like Superman’s mild-mannered disguise identity?” Laney says.
Hex’s chuff is muffled under the blanket, but I can still tell he’s laughing.
“You think I’m like Superman?” I ask, unable to hide the incredulity in the question.
“You rushed into a dangerous situation to try and help people,” she says matter-of-factly.
“I’m black and can’t fly and didn’t save anyone,” I say. “And Superman is never black and always flies and wins every time.”
There’s a flash of lightning and I see Laney roll her eyes in the dark. “For being so smart you can be a real dumbass sometimes,” she says. “The President of the United States was never black or a woman until Obama and Collins. Just because something hasn’t ever happened doesn’t mean it won’t. And anyway, being a hero transcends race and color and religion
and age and gender. It’s ordinary people doing things that are beyond what they think is possible, all for the sake of another. You might look like a total geekball behind those glasses, but I’ve seen what you’re capable of. It’s like with playing football, you might not want to do it, but if you play, you’re going to be the hero.”
Her words take me by surprise, but then I realize something. “I never told you I didn’t want to play football,” I say.
Her eyes dart to her feet, stay there. “I’m—I’m sorry. I read your journal. Beth seems like an amazing person.”
“You what?” I’ve never felt so violated, so disappointed. I didn’t even want Beth reading my journal, although now I’d let her read every page if I could only see her again.
“You were asleep—I was looking for food. I found your book and flipped it open. I only read one entry, and when I realized what it was, I stopped. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t ever touch my stuff again.”
“I won’t.” I try to read the expression on her face, but come up empty. Does she look guilty? Or is it the face of sadness? I can’t tell.
As the minutes tick off in silence, and weariness and fatigue pull me toward sleep, three words dance circles in my head.
Never. Trust. Anyone.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I awake to abject darkness. I realize right away that something woke me. A sound. An eerie creak, like an unoiled door hinge opening. There are no doors in this place—at least not that kind. And the sound is too close to be a door opening and shutting.
Staying silent, I wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, my hand slowly reaching for my sword, which I always keep next to me when I sleep.
Gone. My sword is gone.
My heart begins to beat faster and my mouth goes dry. Who would take my sword? Laney? Did she grab it and take off?
As the inky black slowly transitions to a murky gray, I see two white eyes staring at me in the darkness, not far away. The creaking sound is coming from near them. “Hello?” I whisper.