by Laura Legend
His vision began to narrow. Stars began to appear. If he was about to have his last thought, he wanted it to be of Cass—not of Amare, not of death, not of failure.
Cass.
Was this how it was going to end?
No.
He’d promised. He would do whatever it took to keep her safe. No matter what it cost him.
His knees buckled. Amare lowered him toward the floor, maintaining his hold. Zach, though, kept his feet under him and, with one last burst of strength, launched them both backwards, hoping to crush Amare against the wall.
But he missed the wall.
Instead, Zach launched them both backwards into the display case that contained the Holy Coat. The glass shattered and rained down on them. Amare took the worst of it, cursing at his wounds.
Once the glass was broken, though, the relic’s power also poured out. The coat was draped over Zach’s shoulder, burning through his shirt. Zach broke free of Amare’s grip and staggered forward, the coat falling to the ground.
But it was too late, the power was too much. And, in his moment of desperation, Zach had invited it in. To save Cass, he’d welcomed it into his body.
Everything turned red.
His body grew, his bones popped and lengthened and popped again, his feet splayed, bursting out of his shoes, his heart thundered, his mind was flooded. He felt as if his mind and body were trapped inside of another mind and body, suspended in red amber. The pair of horns on his head grew and thickened.
His face became a mask of pain and anger. He turned on Amare and batted him aside.
The part of him that was still Zach was screaming inside his head: “Cass! Cass!”
35
ZACH HAD BARELY descended into the cave to retrieve the relic before the snow broke and the wind gathered a wicked, biting strength.
Cass didn’t really need him to retrieve the relic—she was here for Miranda, not the Holy Coat—but she did need Zach to be out of harm’s way. And, if possible, she would prefer that he not witness what was about to unfold.
The Lost that flanked Miranda were divided into three groups, each with six or seven members: the red leather jacket group, the yellow leather jacket group, and the white leather jacket group.
The Bloods, the Crips, and the . . . snow vampires?
Miranda signaled for the red leather squad to attack Cass, then she caught Amare’s eye and gave him a small nod.
The red squad looked experienced and, despite their signs of impending ferality, moved in coordinating fashion.
Good.
Cass didn’t want this to be too easy.
Smoking dark light that contrasted sharply with the falling snow, Cass met them halfway. In her hands, the sword was an unparalleled weapon. She could read their attacks before they unfolded and, with time running at half-speed for her, Cass quickly cut them to ribbons. Two heads removed, two hearts impaled, and two more split down the middle.
Ash mixed with snow.
However, while Cass had her hands full with the red squad, Amare took two of his associates, circled the skirmish, and slipped past Cass into the cave.
Zach would have to take care of himself. Either way, he was better off down there than up here. She couldn’t let her fear for him cripple her now. She had to keep using that fear as fuel for her anger.
Cass wiped ash from her eyes with the back of her hand. She felt for her grass ring with her thumb. It was still there. Would she ever be free to love again? Could she cross this line in pursuit of security and revenge and then return to who she’d been before?
Cass couldn’t tell.
Though she was a seer, she couldn’t see beyond the darkness of the present.
Miranda grimaced and signaled again.
It was yellow squad’s turn now. If any of the three groups was composed of snow vampires, it wasn’t this one. As soon as they leapt into action, they began to slide around on the icy ground, struggling for traction and coordination.
Ironically, though, this made them harder to dispatch because Cass couldn’t read their intentions.
The guy sliding toward her on his ass hadn’t intended to do that. He’d meant to bound forward and leap at her like a lion. Instead, he’d taken one big step forward, lost his footing, and rocketed down the slick incline, feet first, headed straight for her knees. This isn’t what Cass had expected. She dodged that missile, but barely, only to find herself punched in the thigh by a lady who, before she’d accidentally done the splits, had meant to knock loose a few of Cass’s teeth with a haymaker. Then, as a group, they were on her, biting and clawing, dragging her down toward the ground. With hardly any room to swing her sword, Cass was all elbows, knees, and open-fisted uppercuts.
Beneath their collective weight, she couldn’t help wondering if this was her end.
No. It might be an end, but it wouldn’t be hers.
One by one, she peeled them off her, severing limbs as she went, until she had room enough to take off heads and impale hearts. In short order, every member of yellow squad was a stain on the formerly pristine snow.
With her clothes torn and scratches bleeding, Cass staked her sword in the snow. She tightened her pony tail and took a look around. She retrieved her sword and turned to the white squad, looking at them down the end of her blade.
“Whatever you do,” she said, her voice more harsh than jocular, “don’t eat that yellow snow.”
Miranda snarled.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Miranda said.
“And you do?” Cass snapped back, her anger burning another notch brighter. “Look at yourself! You’re not even alive. You’re barely hanging on to your own mind. When you chose revenge against Kumiko and joined the Lost, you betrayed your family and traded away your own humanity. You’ve lost everything! Unless I put you out of your misery, you’ll be feral before the hour is out! We’re done! I’m putting an end to all of this!”
Cass could see in her face that this was more true than Miranda wanted it to be. The time Miranda had left could be measured in minutes rather than hours.
As if to illustrate the urgency of the point, the remaining members of the white leather jacket squad were transforming before her eyes. Swamped by hunger and emotion, more animal now than undead, they didn’t even wait for Miranda to signal them. Teeth flashing, they attacked on their own, some on two legs, some on all fours.
The smoke streaming off Cass turned a shade darker. The fire behind her weak eye burned even colder. She let loose a primal, guttural scream, tapping into a lifetime’s worth of grief and pain and suppressed emotions.
She grabbed one by the throat and slammed it into rocky ground. She kicked another in the jaw and sent teeth flying. She gutted a third, ramming her sword upward as the guts spilled out until, finally, she found its heart and it turned to ash. Her movements were blazing fast.
Every action was purely reflexive, without conscious thought—guided by her training, amplified by her powers, fueled by her rage.
When the bloody cloud of ash began to settle, she and Miranda were all that remained.
Miranda’s face was white as a sheet. She was stricken at the sight of what Cass had become.
“More are on the way, Cass,” Miranda said, her voice both hard and melancholy. “We were just the first wave. You can’t win. They will be here any minute. We will have that relic.”
“You’re wrong,” Cass said, thumbing her ring. “I’ll cut every one of you down. If you run away, I’ll hunt the last of you to the ends of the earth.”
Miranda, despite herself, looked as if she believed her.
Cass, trembling, smoking black light, held her sword at arm’s length, pointed straight at Miranda’s head.
Miranda snarled.
Cass could hear the bones in Miranda’s neck cracking as her head tilted and the ridged bones along her spine jutted out even farther.
“Look at you,” Cass yelled above the wind. “You have become . . . the very thing . . . th
at killed . . . my . . . mother.”
“Oh, Cass,” Miranda said with a mouth full of teeth, struggling to retain control of her own mind for just a moment longer, “it’s not true. Your mother is still alive.”
“You’re lying!” Cass shot back, even as her own words rang hollow.
Riding a wave of hatred and confusion, she attacked, and Miranda—just as lost in the intensity of her own emotions, reciprocated. Swords clashing, they ranged across the frozen ground. Cass pressed Miranda back against the edge of the ruins. They locked blades, just inches from each other’s faces. Miranda, her strength increasing by the moment, broke the stalemate and sent Cass stumbling backward.
Miranda’s last words were sinking deeper into Cass’s heart and mind and, like a poison—or, like an antidote?—they were defusing the anger she’d been relying on to fuel her own strength.
How could her mother still be alive?
The question echoed, answerless, in her head. How could it be true?
How could her mother still be alive?
Cass shrieked in frustration. Her voice was piercing.
Time flickered precipitously. Cass was losing her grip on the present. Mirandas from her past swirled in her mind’s eye: laughing, dancing at a dive bar, cooking brownies at midnight—and in a sudden swell of emotion, Cass was mourning the aunt she loved even as she fought to kill her.
Miranda clearly had the advantage now. Cass retreated in the direction of the cave’s entrance. Miranda opened a gash in Cass’s leg and backhanded her in the face with the hilt of her sword.
Cass barely kept her feet and only just parried the next blow.
Time skipped and stuttered. Cass felt a deep lethargy spread through her limbs as the tight knot of ice within her finally began to melt.
She could hear a second wave of Lost vampires coming up the side of the mountain. Miranda hadn’t been lying about that either.
The light was fading from her sword and her eye was losing focus.
This, Cass thought to herself, this is how it ends.
36
ZACH FELT LIKE he was locked inside someone else’s mind and body.
He felt like he was encased in an enormous block of red Jell-O. No matter what he thought or screamed or how he moved his limbs, the Jell-O absorbed it all, unperturbed, and went about its own business as if he weren’t even there.
He pounded against the monster’s interior walls.
Nothing.
He screamed Cass’s name inside the monster’s cavernous head.
Nothing.
He could already feel his own identity, his distinct sense of self, receding.
The monster spun in a circle looking for something else to smash. Amare lay on the floor of the vault, unconscious. The Holy Coat—famous for being a single, seamless garment—was also on the ground, partially rent. Various bits of Zach’s split and torn clothing were strewn about.
The monster kicked its left foot free of the remaining vestiges of Zach’s boot. The boot flew across the room and banged hollowly against the vault door.
And Cass’s grandfather’s ring lay next to the relic, split in half and bent by the force of Zach’s transformation.
The monster stared at the ring and, as he did, Zach felt as if he’d found a toehold, as if he might be able to stop the transformation from becoming permanent. If he could just get the monster to calm down, then he might be able to reverse the change.
Zach focused his attention on the broken ring, willing the monster to remain still and continue staring at it. He couldn’t be sure he was having any effect, but the monster did stay still and continue to look. Zach gathered the whole intensity of his mind and narrowed its attention to just that pinpoint. The monster’s breathing began to slow. Zach could swear he feel the Jell-O shrinking, just a hair, with every exhalation.
If he’d dared to cheer, he would have.
Then, even deep within the cave, Zach heard Cass’s reverberating scream from outside, frustrated, scared, and piercing.
Cass needed him. And given what they were facing, she needed him to be as strong as possible.
“Fuck it,” Zach said, and willed the monster to scoop up the relic.
The monster hesitated for a moment, then did as it was told.
Then, despite Zach’s urgings to move, it also pinched the bent and broken ring between its two giant fingers and slipped it into what was left of his pocket.
“Cass, I’m coming!” Zach yelled. “Move you bastard, move! Cass needs us!”
The monster tore the door off the hinges and began bounding upward toward the surface.
With the relic in hand and nothing to separate him from its power, Zach could feel the waves of energy rippling off the coat. With every additional pulse, it sealed his transformation, cementing it into place.
There would be no going back from this.
Today would be a fine day to die, he decided. So long as Cass didn’t die with him.
They were almost to the surface now.
As a wedge of white sky came into view, Zach realized there was no way this monster was going to fit through the entrance he had used. He also knew, though, that there was no second option.
He put his head down and willed the monster to gather even more steam, to hit the tiny entrance at full speed, shoulder first. He squeezed the coat in his hand, trying to wring some additional power from it. The coat obliged. The monster’s entire body glowed like a red-hot coal in the darkness.
They hit the wall at full speed.
The rock face gave way and Zach and the monster burst out of the cave. Debris flew in every direction. A cloud of dust trailed in their wake.
The late-season snow was falling heavily now. It was difficult to see anything at a distance. Zach didn’t have to look far, though. He only needed to spot and follow the trail of crimson blood in the blindingly white snow.
Zach was rooted in place by what he saw.
Cass was on her knees in the snow, disarmed and clearly weakened. Miranda was standing over her with a wild, feral look about her. The ridge along her spine was prominent. Her fingers were elongated and gnarled into claws. The extra ring of shark-like teeth were clearly visible in her open mouth. Her sword was raised, poised to strike.
Miranda was more than Lost. Miranda was completely feral.
To make matters worse, Zach also spotted a second wave of Lost cresting the ridge. Their position would be overrun in moments.
“Cass!” he yelled inside the monster’s head. “We promised to protect her, you bastard! Move!”
Zach screamed out “Cass!” again and, this time, the monster issued its own guttural roar.
Miranda looked up, her bloodshot eyes wide with surprise.
The monster dropped the relic and threw itself at Miranda, tackling her to the ground. It pounded the ground with an gigantic fist, just as Miranda rolled out from underneath it.
Cass had collapsed in the snow behind them.
Miranda was back on her feet in a flash. She kicked the monster in the groin and slashed at its arm, drawing a line of black blood from its red flesh.
The monster roared in pain and, with a backhand, swept Miranda’s legs out from underneath her. She fell, but took a swipe at his ankles with her blade. The monster moved to stomp her but she dove between its legs.
Now the monster was no longer positioned between Cass and Miranda.
“Cass!” Zach screamed inside the monster, drowning in red.
Miranda raised her sword again, wild with blood-lust now, ready to finish Cass off.
The monster batted away Miranda’s sword and grabbed her by the hair, lifting her off the ground. Miranda squealed in pain and anger, her legs peddling through the air.
The monster looked into her eyes. Miranda met his gaze. Her eyes softened for a moment into something almost human. The monster did not blink.
“Do it,” she whispered. “Do it.”
The monster reached out with his other hand and snapped Mirand
a’s neck, nearly wrenching it off.
Miranda’s body went limp, her head lolled, and she dissolved in a shower of ash.
The second wave of Lost were here. They howled, enraged.
The monster positioned himself protectively over Cass.
“CAAAASSSS!” the monster roared into the falling snow and fading light.
37
THE HERETIC WAS positioned at the tree line, watching her world fall apart.
The soot and blood-stained field of snow clearly indicated that things hadn’t gone well with Miranda’s advance team. The entrance to the cave was now largely blocked with rubble. And while the whole community was toppling over into ferality, she didn’t see that a single member of Miranda’s company had survived long enough to even suffer that fate.
The Heretic had arrived just in time to see Miranda, lost and feral, make her second attempt on Cass’s life. And then she watched—with a jarring combination of horror and relief—as that monster had palmed Miranda’s head and ended her life a second time.
What was that thing, enormous and horned and glowing like a cracked coal? She’d read about similar abominations, but she’d never seen one.
In her lifetime, no one had.
More to the point, though, why had that thing saved Cass’s life? Why had it roared her name? She didn’t know. But she was certain that the only thing worse than watching Miranda die would have been watching Miranda succeed at murdering Cass.
Seeing Cass’s body limp and lifeless on the ground, the Heretic couldn’t help but wonder if she’d been wrong to wait. Amare had urged her to approach Cass and expose the whole truth, betting the Cass would be able to look past the costs and see what needed to be done. But she’d felt in her gut that it was too soon, that Cass hadn’t been ready, and that they would lose any hope of persuading her if she wasn’t properly prepared.
Now, it might be too late to find out either way.