by David Estes
“Ahhh!” I scream when the shockwave of cold and raw fear hits me again. I drop my sword and grab my skull, which is full of the images, the horrifyingly violent and awful and memory-like images.
“Resist them!” the Reaper says and though I’m almost certain he’s shouting, his voice is nothing more than a murmur in my ears, far away and fading into a hole of darkness.
“No!” I yell, remembering myself. Who I am—what I am. I grit my teeth and think of a hot, crackling fire and a mug of hot chocolate, and a joke told by Laney while curled up under a thick woolen blanket.
The ice melts and the images fade and my eyes can see the real world around me once more. For just a second I think that maybe my Resistance didn’t work right, because the day has turned to night and there are dark bat-like shadows all around me, screaming like banshees, seeming to whip the very air into a gale force wind. The shadows seem to grab things—rocks and planks of wood and an old sprinkler resting in the grass—launching them at us with a recklessness available only to the hopeless and insane. If I remember correctly, Mediums can only use poltergeists to interact with inanimate objects. They can’t touch living creatures directly, other than invading their minds with suffocating horror.
The witch hunters around me are on the ground in the fetal position, clutching their heads, surely seeing the living nightmares I myself witnessed and was almost destroyed by. One of them takes a two-by-four to the head and it seems to stick to him. A trickle of blood meanders from the spot where the rusty nail entered his skull. He stops shaking and goes still. Almost instantly, a dark form rises from his corpse, joining the other spirits assaulting us.
Neither the Necros nor their Reanimates seem to be nearly as affected by the mental aspect of the Mediums’ assault, although they’re just as powerless against the ghouls, who fly around them and through them with wraith-like grace, smashing them with plastic garbage cans, clay pots and glass bottles—pretty much anything they happen to find laying around.
To stop the ghosts I have to stop their masters. The Mediums.
Ducking low to the ground, I race for the front door, hurdling the lion, which lies serenely on its side, having succumbed to the grievous wounds he sustained. It’s eerily dark inside, unnaturally so, not as much like a cloudy day as a world in which the sun has been destroyed completely. Luckily, my sword begins to glow and I silently thank Tillman Huckle for his awesomeness.
There are more ghouls inside, their banshee screams as terrifying as their shadow-like forms. They seem enraged by the fact that I can Resist their mental assault, strengthening their physical attack, launching entire bookshelves of hardbacks at me, followed shortly thereafter by the wooden bookshelf itself. I slash at the books—but not before taking a nasty bruise-raising knock to the jaw—and dive out of the way of the crashing furniture, which splinters upon impact with the wall.
I find one Medium in the living room, her eyes rolled back in her head as if she’s caught in the throes of an epileptic seizure. Wait, no. Under the glow of my sword, I can see that they’re not rolled back permanently—they’re spinning. I see the black dots of her pupils surrounded by shockingly blue irises. Once more they disappear into her skull, replaced by the red-veined whites.
It’s freaking creepy.
There’s a fireplace in the corner with lots of deadly-looking fire-making instruments. I shove my sword through the Medium’s chest before she can instruct her ghosts to make use of anything pointy. Her mouth bursts open with a gasp and her eyes stop spinning, aimed out at me in an eternal stare.
The shadows overhead fade like morning fog under the rising sun, vanishing as if they never existed in the first place. Outside, I can still hear the sounds of the one-sided battle, which means there’s at least one other Medium, maybe more.
The second Medium is in the kitchen. Bile rises in my throat when I see her face. Teeth grow from her forehead while a tongue slips from each nostril as if searching for something to lick. Her eyes are closed, her entire body shaking slightly. A new tooth pops from her chin. A new tongue pokes from her ear, licking her lobe.
A black streak rips overhead, plucking an entire block of knives from the countertop. The ghoul spins the knives around and hurls them in my general direction. One grazes my ear while another embeds itself in the wall behind me. Another two narrowly miss my abdomen while I manage to bat the fifth and final knife away with a fortuitous swing of my sword.
On the backswing I remove the teeth- and tongue-riddled head of the Medium. More shadows disappear back to elsewhere or in-between or Poltergeistville. All that matters is they go Somewhere-That’s-Not-Here.
Outside, I hear nothing, as silence drops, heavy and complete.
I’ve survived, but at what cost?
Chapter Eleven
Hex
Flowers are sniffable.
Weeds are scratchable.
Grass is munchable and usually full of lots of curious creatures.
And yet, despite the abundance of all three of these plants in his immediately vicinity, Hex finds himself on the roof, chasing after Grogg, who’s more fun than all three put together.
Laney is safe with Martin Carter. Bil Nez showing up was sort of funny and made Hex want to jump down from the roof and wag his tail and lick the Two-Legger’s face, but then Grogg made a funny squishing sound when he took a step, and so the chase started up all over again. Up the roof to its apex, down the other side, Grogg running down the wall while Hex floats to the earth like a balloon losing helium. Around the house, around again, fun fun fun.
When he finally catches the strange little mud monster, Hex is almost sad the chase is over. He licks a question across Grogg’s face: Again?
Grogg groans and says, “Offa offa offa ME!”
Hex licks him again but obliges, stepping away, allowing Grogg to scamper under the trampoline. He wants to give him a ten second head start, but after two seconds he’s too excited and starts to give chase anyway, diving under the trampoline and skidding to a stop when he sees his friend standing still, staring at the ground.
Hex paws the grass and chuffs. Chase? he barks.
Grogg doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. Hex licks him, Hex paws him, Hex sniffs at his muddy behind—a move that always seems to get the little guy scurrying—but still Grogg remains motionless.
Hex lays down behind him, frustrated. The most fun and curious thing about the mud-creature is that he always runs away. He’s not nearly as enjoyable just standing there.
Hex raises his chin when Grogg speaks. “Old master wants us again. Old master says we are needed. Old master needs our help. Grogg must answer. Old master is creator. She speaks for us and we move for her. We tell her everything.”
Grogg marches away, into the dusky light, and somehow Hex knows the mud man is no longer his friend.
He also knows Laney is in trouble and he might be the only one who can save her.
Chapter Twelve
Laney
“Rhett killed my mother,” Bil says, his voice monotone and numb.
I hadn’t considered how he might react to that fact. The last thing I want is Bil Nez hating Rhett for something he couldn’t possibly have known. “She abandoned you when you were a child,” I say. I notice the way Martin Carter flinches. Technically, he abandoned Rhett too, but he had no other choice. He would’ve died if he’d stayed. I focus back on Bil. “You saw what she’d become. She had to be stopped.”
“I—I know,” he says, and there’s no anger on his face. Only sadness, which, in some ways, feels worse. “Do you….” He trails off, his eyes distant.
“What is it?” I say gently, touching his shoulder. He looks at my hand like it’s a spider, and I pull it back.
“Do you think she knew I was her son?” he asks, and his previously distant eyes suddenly seem to have something remarkably sharp and powerful behind them. He already knows the answer to his question.
“Yes,” I say. “She must have.”
He nods
. “I saw something strange in the way she looked at me when I first arrived in New Washington. Almost like she was scared of me. Like I was a ghost.”
Martin is writing again. What happened to your father, Bil? he asks.
Bil tightens his lips and clamps his teeth together. When he speaks his voice is a growl. “My father was the first in my family killed. He didn’t even know Salem’s Revenge was coming.”
“What?” I exclaim. “But he was magic-born. He had to know.”
Bil shakes his head. There’s moisture shimmering in his dark eyes. “He never had a chance,” he says.
I remember something Rhett once told me about Mr. Jackson. The leader of the Necros knew about Salem’s Revenge, but didn’t expect it to happen until a day later. Certain magic-born were lied to. Bil Nez’s father, President Washington’s son’s father, was one of them, and he paid the ultimate price, almost as if she’d specifically targeted him.
Bil seems to reach the same conclusion at the same moment. “She killed him,” he says, a single tear leaking from his eye.
“No,” I say, “she couldn’t have. She murdered Rhett’s foster family.”
Bil makes a face like he has a bad taste in his mouth. “Then she sent someone else to take him out. One of her inner circle. Either way, she’s responsible.”
I can’t argue with that because he’s right. Although his anger at his mother will ensure he’ll hold no grudge against Rhett, the look in his eyes scares me. As cold as December in Canada. As sharp as a shark’s tooth.
The look slides away and he slumps to the floor, cradling his head in his hands.
I lower myself beside him and run a hand down his back the way I once saw my Aunt Terri comfort the husband of a friend who’d just died. Wait a minute, my Aunt Terri ended up marrying that man six months later, I remember. Withdrawing my hand sharply, I say, “I’m so sorry, Bil.”
“Leave me alone,” he says. As far as I can tell, he’s not crying, just hiding his face. Maybe he needs time to process everything. I can give him that.
When I look up I almost scream. Then I laugh. “God, Grogg, you scared the crap out of me.” The mud-creature’s face is pressed hard to the window, his enormous murky eyes staring right at me. He seems to be talking to himself.
Martin holds up a page. Strange, it says. I’m not even controlling him.
“I guess he’s got a mind of his own,” I say.
Martin nods and writes, You okay?
My eyes find Bil’s hunched form, which has gone as still as stone. I shrug. I have no clue what I feel. Sadness. Bitterness. Anger. Relief. Surprise. I’ve got so many emotions running through me right now I’d rather not think about them. Not when there are still questions to be answered.
“Who’s the other General?” I ask.
Martin Carter looks away, as if hiding countless secrets held by his eyes. He writes, What do you mean?
“There’s a third Resistor,” I say. “Which means there’s a third General, either dead or still alive. We’ll need to know whether he or she is a friend or foe.”
When Martin looks back, his eyes are a steel safe, giving away nothing. The General doesn’t matter, he writes. We need to find the Resistor.
I smile without warmth. “Mission accomplished.”
You have her?
Now who’s got the secrets? I think victoriously. “Not exactly.” I tell him how she showed up on the perimeter with the Shifter. I tell him about the three-day deadline for surrender, which is already almost a third of the way gone.
Although I’m pretty sure the news is a major revelation to him, the pain that flashes across his face seems far beyond what’s warranted. “What is it?” I ask. “Who are her parents?”
He closes his eyes and keeps them closed for a long time, until I’m about ready to pluck them open with my fingers. But before I can, they flash open and he starts writing. There is no other General.
“Not possible,” I say. My mouth opens again, but then I stop, considering the information. My mind is a hurricane, whipping thoughts around like torn-off tree branches, flooding my brain with a deluge of ideas and facts, all leading to one impossible conclusion.
Martin nods, his expression the very definition of sadness.
I was so focused on the ease with which she blocked my magic bullets that I didn’t really look at her, didn’t really take in her features, the shade of her skin, the size of her frame. God I was an idiot.
“The third Resistor is Rhett’s sister,” I say.
My daughter, Martin Carter writes, his eyes sagging as if pulled by anchors.
~~~
We don’t say anything for a long time.
There’s nothing to say, is there? Not only was Rhett clearly not aware that he had a sister, no one felt inclined to tell him. And now she’s the third Resistor and working for the Shifters, who, oh yeah, are intent on either exterminating or enslaving all of humankind. I can’t even imagine the conversation I’m going to have to have with him. “Hey, uh, I’ve got something important to tell you. You might want to sit down…”
Right. That’s going to be easy.
My fists tighten into knots and I have the urge to throw something, punch something, or at the very least scream at Rhett’s father, who kept this secret just like everybody else. As I try to take deep breaths, my eyes stray to the window to the backyard. Thankfully Grogg is no longer staring at me. Instead, he’s walking backwards under the trampoline. Well, walking might be the wrong word. It’s more like he’s being pulled under, his grubby feet sliding along the grass, staining it brown.
The sound of a pen on paper pulls my attention back inside, to where Martin is scrawling another note. He’s already halfway down the page when I start reading:
My wife and I had a daughter two years before Rhett. We named her Rain because Rhett’s mother loved the rain. She believed it was heaven’s purity streaming down like tiny waterfalls, cleansing the earth.
“Wait,” I say. “Witches believe in Heaven?”
Martin chuckles, a wet gurgly sound in the back of his throat. Some do. We’re not really different than humans. The things we can do are just like human talents, nothing more.
Tell that to the millions slaughtered by those “human talents,” I think. Instead of voicing my dark thoughts, I say, “Tell me more.”
He chews the back of his pen, considering, and then presses the tip to the page.
When Washington cursed me, it was for both my children. I would never be able to be near Rain or Rhett again, at least not for a significant amount of time. I asked Xavier’s father to watch over my children for me.
That confirms my suspicions. The Reaper knew. Even as he was training Rhett, lying to him about who he was and where he came from, lying about his own dark past, he failed to mention his sister, Rain. The next time I see him I’ll tell him exactly what I think of the choices he made.
When Salem’s Revenge hit, I looked for both my children, Martin writes. Rhett was easier to find. He was safe with the Reaper. So I went looking for Rain. Evidently the Reaper had lost track of her a year earlier, when she’d run away from home. I found her with the Shifters.
This gets better and better. I don’t even question the fact that he didn’t tell us any of this before; instead I just shake my head and look back at the fresh sheet of paper he’s flipped over.
Flora had seen Rain survive an attack by some magic-born. Somehow Rain had figured out how to use her Resistor abilities. Flora somehow convinced her to join the Shifters’ side, helping them in skirmishes with other witch gangs trying to expand their areas. Rain wasn’t like Rhett. She was different, so different. Cold. Dark. She hated me for abandoning her, even when I explained why I had to do it. She was glad I was suffering, said I deserved it.
“How long did you spend with her?” I blurt out. I’m afraid to hear the answer.
Three weeks, he writes. I had to convince her that what she was doing was wrong.
It wasn’t the brief
minutes Martin Carter spent with Rhett that is now killing him. It’s the time he spent with Rain. “Why?” I say. “If she was so far gone already, why’d you kill yourself over it?”
He seems to age even more before my very eyes, his wrinkles deepening, his lungs laboring for every breath. His hands shake as he grips the pen, a poor replacement for his severed tongue. She tricked me, he writes, his handwriting worsening, a barely decipherable scribble.
He continues: In the weeks I spent with her, I knew pain like I’d never felt before and I lost many years of my remaining life. I would’ve gone all the way to the grave if necessary to convince her of the wrongness of her choices. And, as it turns out, that was exactly her plan. She was playing me from the start, pretending to listen, pretending to consider, when the whole time all she wanted was to see me suffer, and, eventually, die. She was jaded beyond recovery.
My heart sinks into my chest. And though I’m angry at Rhett’s father for withholding so much from his son, in some ways I understand why he did it. Rhett would’ve surely run off in typical gotta-be-a-hero style to try to save his misguided sister from the evil path laid under her feet. And he would’ve probably died in the process. Martin, as he has been from the very beginning, was trying to protect Rhett.
So I don’t hit him or scream in his face; I gently place an arm around his bony shoulders and hold him while he cries for both his children.
~~~
At some point Martin falls asleep in his recliner. Bil also seems to have drifted away, curled up on the floor. Grogg hasn’t emerged from beneath the trampoline, so he might be sleeping, too, assuming mud trolls sleep at all. Long dusky shadows stretch like probing fingers across the floor. Bone-weariness washes over me when I realize I haven’t slept in thirty-six hours.
The couch is soft and plush and long, allowing me to fully stretch out. If my body is tired, my mind is exhausted, unable to consider any more questions or revelations.