Wilder The Chosen Ones

by Christina Dodd

  Now, at the end of the long, dark tunnel, the door of Davidov’s brew pub glowed softly. Behind it, Aleksandr knew, was duty, civilization, the real world.

  If he was going to speak, he had to speak now.

  He stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Charisma.” Her name was a treasure against his lips. “When we go through that door, if Davidov has done his job, the Chosen Ones will be there and we’ll go to war.”

  “We’ll do battle,” she agreed, cradling the Chanel-wrapped feather in her arms. “Some of us won’t return.” She wouldn’t return.

  That was a knowledge that tore at him like a raven’s claws. And that was the reason he said, “Before we go in there . . . I want to say . . . I have to tell you . . . I lost my mind for a while. For twenty months, I didn’t remember my life before I was Guardian. And since, it’s all been demon fighting, and blood and gore, sweat and pain, and, at the end, certain death. There’s no escape in sleep, either; that’s all terror while nightmares fight their way out of my brain.” The recollection of Smith Bernhard and his abhorrent surgeries shattered him yet again, and for a moment he trembled.

  She moved closer, her green eyes filling with tears.

  But now was not the time for terror. Now was the time for Charisma, and him, and saying what needed to be said. He shook off the memories and continued. “Every minute with you has been golden, filled with laughter and sex and love.”

  “And you and me fighting,” she reminded him.

  “And you and me fighting. Good times.” He turned her face up to his. “No one can ever take this time away from me. I have jewels to remember; the joy of realizing you were going to live and see, the way you attacked me the first time, when you were blindfolded—”

  She cringed. “Yes, that was one of my better moments.”

  “It was, because you didn’t recoil when you realized I was a monster.”

  Irritated, she said, “You’re not a monster! Stop calling yourself that.”

  “The tone of your voice when you scold me.” He smiled at her. “Your voice in every way, especially hearing you hum and realizing your singing would attract demons.”

  She shoved at him, and wavered between tears and laughter.

  “How understanding you are of Taurean,” he said.

  “She’s a nice lady.”

  “Not many think so. I love your two-tone hair.” He ran his fingers over her head. “I loved seeing you in the waterfall the first time, naked and glorious. The sun shone in the cave—”

  “It was night.”

  “The sun shone, because you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.” He cupped her cheek. “No matter what happens, you’ve given me memories. Good memories. On the day I die, today or tomorrow or fifty years from now, your name will be on my lips, and I’ll remember . . . you.”

  Tears welled in her eyes. “I’ll remember you, too. Wherever you are, that’s where I want to be. Wherever you are, that’s paradise.”

  There was nothing else to say. There was nothing else to do.

  Charisma stood looking up at him, tiny, defiant, courageous, with tears in her green eyes, dirt on her face, her cream suit smudged, and her feet shod in her black-and-pink athletic shoes.

  He had never seen anything more beautiful in his life.

  Standing on tiptoe, she lifted her head.

  He leaned down.

  With the feather cradled in her arms between them, they kissed, a kiss of passion, love . . . and good-bye.

  Stepping away from each other, they nodded. They clasped hands.

  “All right, then,” Charisma said. “Let’s go.”

  Aleksandr opened the door to Davidov’s brew pub.

  She stepped over the threshold.

  He followed.

  She stopped.

  He stopped.

  Davidov had kept his promise. He’d assembled an army to fight Osgood and his evil. The place was full: the Chosen Ones and their spouses, Taurean, Moises, Amber, the Belows, people from the street, people from the mansions, police officers, former Chosen Ones. Davidov was putting out plates of food and drink.

  And in front of them all, the Wilders. Aleksandr’s family. His mother, Firebird, smiling with tears in her eyes. His father, Douglas, looking fierce and glad. His uncles and their wives. A bunch of the cousins. And his grandparents, Konstantine and Zorana, so much older than the last time he’d seen them.

  What did Aleksandr feel?

  A leap of joy.

  A dollop of dismay.

  He wasn’t ready for them to see him like this. He was a beast. He was the Wilder who had betrayed his family’s decision to turn away from any temptation to once again indulge in shape-shifting. Worse, he had done it to save his own life.

  But it was too late. They were here, they had seen him, and he couldn’t hurt them again.

  Arms outstretched, he walked toward Firebird.

  His mother ran to him, sobbing.

  His grandmother, Zorana, hurried over and wrapped her arms around them both. His father joined them, holding them and saying, “Thank God. Thank God.” His grandfather cried tears of joy.

  As the rest of the family closed in, Aleksandr looked over the top of the smiling crowd to Charisma, who stood watching him with such tenderness, he knew he was the luckiest doomed man in the world.

  While the Wilders embraced, shook hands, laughed, and scolded, the Chosen Ones surged to surround Charisma.

  Jacqueline’s eyes gleamed at the bundle Charisma held. “You found it!”

  Charisma nodded and carefully unwrapped the shining feather. “We could have had it a lot sooner if I hadn’t been such a coward.”

  Even Samuel laughed at that. “You put us all to shame with your courage.”

  Isabelle smiled at her. “For your reward . . . Show her, Sammy.”

  Samuel’s eyes gleamed as he placed on the table a long object wrapped in blue cloth.

  Charisma caught her breath. “Samuel! You figured out how to open the case without getting knocked on your rear?”

  Her friends froze.

  “What?” Charisma looked from one to another, at the guilt and grief etched on their faces. “What happened?”

  “Irving freed the feather,” Aaron said.

  Charisma sank down on the bench and hugged her own feather close to her chest. “How?”

  “We think he simply tore the latch open,” Jacqueline said.

  “He . . . Was he hurt?” But in her heart, Charisma already knew what they hesitated to tell her.

  Genny hugged her. “He’s gone.”

  “Gone,” Charisma repeated.

  “Everything in his study is untouched.” For the merest wisp of a second, Rosamund looked relieved. Then her eyes filled with tears. “But there’s nothing of him left. Jacqueline thinks . . . That is, she’s pretty sure . . .”

  “Martha’s gone, too,” Caleb informed her.

  “Martha helped him?” Charisma asked. “I don’t know. She always supported us and cared for us, but I thought it was to honor the idea of the Chosen Ones. Honestly, I didn’t think she would ever have sacrificed herself for us.”

  “We talked about it, and we agreed,” John said.

  “In her case, I don’t think it was a willing sacrifice. There’re some pretty violent vibes in there,” Jacqueline said. “And the dust of three souls who went on in a wave of magic.”

  “Three souls?” Charisma sprang to her feet. “Oh, no. Not McKenna!”

  “No. Dina.” Samuel attentively unwrapped his feather. “I’m pretty sure it was Dina. I tried to find her in my mind, and she’s gone. So Irving and Dina died together, and Martha . . . I guess Martha came along for the ride.”

  “But Irving was just there, in his library, talking to us, guiding us. What will we do without him? He was our link to the former Chosen Ones, our mentor, our friend.”

  The exterior door to Davidov’s bar opened. McKenna slipped in.

  Charisma smiled shakily at him.

&nb
sp; He nodded at her.

  A movement on the table focused Charisma’s attention.

  In slow motion, Samuel’s feather lifted off the table.

  As people noticed, the noise from Aleksandr’s reunion died.

  The police, the wealthy from the mansions, people who had never witnessed anything magical stared with rapt attention as the feather rose as if on an invisible breeze. It swirled once in a full, graceful circle, as if celebrating its freedom from its long confinement. Then it floated toward Charisma and settled into her arms directly beside the other feather.

  A moment of silence.

  The room exploded in cheers.

  John allowed the commotion for one moment; then he stepped up on a bench and flung out his arms.

  The Chosen Ones quieted.

  The civilians kept gasping, talking, marveling.

  John shouted.

  Still the babble went on.

  Konstantine Wilder put his hand on John’s shoulder. “Let me,” he said in his accented English, and shouted, “It is time!”

  Silence descended.

  “No one exerts authority like the old wolf,” Aleksandr said in Charisma’s ear.

  “So.” Konstantine turned to John and rubbed his hands together. “What’s the plan?”

  “We’re going to Osgood’s building, and we’re going to destroy him,” John said simply.

  “Easier said than done,” one of the older Chosen Ones said. “Have you seen what’s happening out there? It’s the apocalypse. Thunder, lightning, black clouds rolling in from all directions, all headed right for SoHo and the Osgood building.”

  “That’s what we have to do,” John said.

  The brew pub rattled as the earth shook.

  “The building is miles away. We’ve got sixty-five people in here. How are we going to get there?” Davidov, Charisma saw, was packing up the pub.

  The mysterious man was leaving them now.

  McKenna cleared his throat and stepped forward. “I believe I have the answer to that.”

  Chapter 49

  The New York City bus McKenna had commandeered came with one pissed-off bus driver. Rosie sat in her seat, chomped on her cigar, and shouted for everyone to get in and sit down; she had a schedule to keep.

  In a low voice, Aleksandr asked McKenna, “The streets are empty. The whole subway system is shut down. What schedule is that?”

  “I told her we had two hours to get to the Osgood building and stop him from taking over the world.” McKenna’s voice was both fascinated and appalled. “She cursed me and asked why I didn’t tell her sooner.”

  “Really, McKenna, why didn’t you?” Samuel gave Isabelle a hand up the steps, then bounded after her.

  The Belows shuffled to the back.

  Taurean shuffled with them.

  The people from the mansions looked bewildered, as if they didn’t know what to do in a vehicle fragrant with the smell of pee and furnished with plastic seats, but they finally moved into the front seats close to the police.

  Charisma was interested to note that Amber sat with them.

  The former Chosen scattered themselves up and down the bus.

  Moises sat next to one of them.

  Rosie got up, looked down the aisle, and shouted, “Hurry and get your freaking seat! This isn’t a freaking first-class flight, and I am not your freaking stewardess!”

  The pace picked up.

  The Wilders filled in the middle left side.

  The Chosen Ones filled in the middle right side.

  Isabelle took the seat behind Aleksandr and Charisma—and the feathers, wrapped in the blue cloth and cradled in Charisma’s arms.

  Samuel sprawled next to Isabelle. In an aggrieved little boy’s voice he said, “I don’t never get to hold the feathers.”

  Charisma turned around and grinned at him. “The feathers like me best.”

  He fake-grinned back at her.

  She was going to miss him so much.

  “Charisma is the Chosen One of the Chosen Ones,” Genny said as she seated herself with John in front of Charisma and Aleksandr.

  “All right. I’m putting my ass in the driver’s seat, and we’re headed for the Osgood building. There’s not much traffic today”—an understatement; there was no traffic—“and we’ve got to get there fast. So if you’re on the wrong bus, get off!” Rosie pointed at the door. “Otherwise, hang on and I’ll get you there on time.”

  “I love that woman,” Rosamund said.

  Rosie put her ass into the driver’s seat, slammed the bus into gear, glanced in the rearview mirror, and they peeled out so fast they burned rubber.

  Across the aisle, Konstantine shouted, “Powerful engine in this thing!”

  Charisma looked around.

  The passengers were divided between the people enjoying the ride, mostly Wilders; the people looking stern about the speed, mostly cops; and the terrified, mostly everybody else.

  The bus screamed south on Fifth Avenue, past Central Park, past the stores, shuttered and dark. The city streets were empty, and the black clouds scudded across the sky, blocking the sun, turning day to night.

  Konstantine leaned over to Aleksandr and spoke.

  Aleksandr nodded, then leaned forward. “John, do you have any real plan at all?”

  John shook his head. “Get there, hopefully in one piece. Get inside with the feathers. Confront Osgood and see whether we can figure out how Jacqueline’s prophecy will work.”

  “Play it by ear. Got it.” Aleksandr leaned back and spoke to Konstantine.

  Konstantine nodded enthusiastically, hooked his elbow around Aleksandr’s neck, and gave him a hug, then gave John a thumbs-up.

  Charisma had to admire Konstantine, a man who faced the annihilation of his entire family, possibly during a bus ride before the battle, and yet who glowed with good cheer.

  Aleksandr leaned over to her. “He figures this is his last battle, and it’s a good one. Plus he’s happy to see me.”

  “Aren’t they all happy to see you?” Charisma asked.

  Aleksandr wavered. “Well . . . within reason.”

  Charisma’s temper started to rise. “They didn’t criticize you for your forced decision to change forms?”

  “They didn’t mention the way I look. I didn’t mention the reason I look this way.” Aleksandr rubbed the hair on his cheeks as if to call her attention to the difference between him and the boring-looking humans. “I imagine we’ll get to that when we finish off Osgood.”

  Charisma nodded. “Yes. When we finish him off.”

  Aleksandr continued. “But my father and uncles are a little tight-lipped about why I didn’t make contact sooner.”

  “You had amnesia!” Charisma glared across the aisle.

  “The women cried for me. The men grieved. My mother is still weeping. I put them through a lot.”

  “Oh.” Charisma glanced across the aisle. She knew Konstantine from his earlier visits to New York, and the rest of the family in a peripheral way. The legend of Darkness Chosen had been well documented, and she’d studied the Wilder family’s rare success in their battle with the devil. She respected them for their determination and admired them for their courage.

  But somehow none of them were the people she’d pictured.

  Firebird kept glancing over at them, and every time she did, she smiled tremulously.

  Douglas spoke to her quietly, and the glances he sent their way were a great deal more stern.

  At Davidov’s, Zorana had embraced Aleksandr . . . and then taken him by the shoulders and shaken him. If it hadn’t been so heartfelt, it would have been funny, for Aleksandr towered fully two feet above her.

  The people Aleksandr had introduced as his uncles and aunts were all holding hands. . . .

  “I guess, since they’re Wilders, they know what they’re getting into better even than we do,” Charisma said.

  Aleksandr put his hand to his chest, over his heart. “I would not have brought this trouble on the
m if I could have avoided it.”

  “You didn’t make this trouble.”

  “No. But they are here because of me. For me.”

  “You should sit with them,” Charisma said in a low voice.

  “No. I shouldn’t. I should sit with you.” He put his hand over her cold fingers and warmed them.

  Charisma was glad. In a time of so many sacrifices, whether they sat together on this last ride shouldn’t make any difference to her. It shouldn’t—but it did.

  The bus rumbled past Madison Square Park.

  Here a few people were on the streets, standing and looking toward the roiling black clouds and the lightning striking the empty skyscrapers, or running in the opposite direction. But mostly there was that unnerving stillness, as if the world were waiting for a storm to break.

  Charisma found herself listening too hard, holding herself too tensely, and she jumped when Jacqueline turned and made a speech to the Chosen Ones. “Aleksandr is back. This is the moment we’ve been waiting for. It’s time for us to join hands and feel the energy between us.”

  The bus got very quiet. Everyone craned their necks, including Rosie, who watched in the broad rearview mirror and never slackened speed.

  Jacqueline offered one hand to Caleb and one to Aaron in the seat behind her. One by one, the Chosen Ones and their mates joined hands: Jacqueline and Caleb, Aaron and Rosamund, John and Genny, Samuel and Isabelle, and finally Charisma and Aleksandr. For a long, tension-filled moment, nothing happened.

  Then the feathers in Charisma’s lap lifted.

  Lightning zapped through the Chosen Ones, clearing their minds and gladdening their souls. Before, that was all that had ever happened, and it was enough.

  But this time, in each of their brains, a vision sprang to life, and each of the Chosen Ones saw himself or herself soaring on angel wings through the crystal-clear air, the world far below, the heavens above . . . while Osgood’s building broke apart and vanished.

  Then the vision melted, the feathers settled back into Charisma’s lap, and each of the Chosen Ones was breathless with awe, reinforced in his or her determination, and exalted with a renewal of hope.