They’d literally been his last two weeks. At Fort Arcana, he’d told me he was convinced he would die young, that he’d made peace with it. He’d thought we all should . . . .
Kentarch tapped the GPS map to zoom in on our current location; then he turned onto a new road. “There was a military force that mobilized not far outside the city. Maybe a helicopter landed on the roof and forced her away at gunpoint.” More to himself, he said, “Though I blocked the roof access as well. Perhaps they rappelled.” Shaking his head hard, he said, “Not knowing has all but maddened me.”
“If anyone can find her, it’ll be Lark,” I said, hastily adding, “once Paul is defeated and she’s fully recovered. So our first step is Circe.”
As the game wanted, we were following a MacGuffin, which meant we would surely cross paths with other Arcana.
But would we find Circe—before Richter found us?
13
“Stop the truck!” I cried. We were a few hours into our drive, and Joules had just spotlighted a legless Bagger eeling its way across the road up ahead. “I need to get close to it.”
Kentarch barely let off the gas. “Pardon? I always run them over.”
I quickly told him about the Sol and Empress shit show, relaying how the Sun had betrayed me but ultimately redeemed himself. And how we’d communicated through his Baggers.
The Chariot looked disbelieving. About which part? “If he can command Bagmen, why allow them to harm humans?”
“He can’t command all of them at one time. No more than Circe can affect all bodies of water or Lark all creatures. We wouldn’t blame Fauna for every animal attack.”
“But the Sun Card did control the Baggers who fed on your blood. How were you able to forgive him for that?”
“I’ve also had to do things I hope can be forgiven by others, and I believe in karma.” Kentarch still hadn’t made up his mind about me, and that was okay—as long as he pulled over. “Look, Sol’s got eyes everywhere. We can ask him to search for Issa.”
The Chariot slammed on the brakes, maneuvering the truck onto the shoulder. He jammed the gearshift into park. Off went the engine. With a knife at the ready, he exited the cab.
The night was freezing, snow blowing inside.
Joules opened his door and stepped down as well. Lightning flared above him in the low cloud deck.
With all that electricity about us, I’d thought the Tower would get stronger. Even he’d admitted, “Those bolts are calling my name. I’d be unstoppable if I could eat.” Still, he’d already recovered enough to produce a javelin for this foray.
I slid across the seat toward the door, feeling less pain in my shoulder. My offensive abilities might be stifled, but my regeneration eked on. My fingertips had regained their normal color, and the bite in my hand had oozed out venom.
I hopped down from the height of the cab. The truck was a behemoth, so big Joules had dubbed it the Beast. Would Kentarch have enough fuel to get us to the Atlantic?
As we’d covered miles through the eternal darkness, I’d swept my gaze along the road for slaver spike strips, telling Joules and Kentarch: “The threat is real.” We’d chugged along through towns with the same striped pattern of destruction that Jack and I had seen when we’d left Louisiana.
On one street, the buildings had been incinerated by the Flash. On the next one over, they would be intact. All stripped by now, of course; zero resources left behind.
Nearing the Bagger, I studied its appearance. It’d been a grown man—all that remained of its clothing was a ragged necktie. It moaned, grappling to reach me, milky eyes gone wide.
Other than this zombie, we hadn’t spotted any animals or a single other soul. This area seemed to be a death zone. Lowercase d.
So why did I experience that all-too-familiar sense of being watched? I rubbed my nape. Was it another Bagger? Or had Lark’s creatures caught up with us? I told the guys, “Keep an eye out for animal sentries.”
Kentarch nodded. I’d learned the Chariot was a man of few words. Joules had filled the silence with nonstop chatter. “I’m Irish,” he’d said early on, “so it’s in me genes to dole out nicknames. Can I call you Kenny?”
Kentarch had demonstrated endless patience with him. “No, you may not.”
“Sounds better than Tarch. Still, Tarch it is!”
I’d asked, “What’s my nickname?”
“I only give nicknames to folks I like. But if I did, I’d call you tart. Tarch and the tart!” Ugh!
Once we reached the Bagger, the putrid stench nearly overwhelmed me.
Joules rocked from his heels to his toes, looking uneasy. “You think the Sun Card’ll hear you?”
“He probably won’t be monitoring one lone Bagger, but maybe I can get his attention. I’ve got to try.” I asked Kentarch, “Can you hold it still?”
He placed his boot on the creature’s head, forcing it to face me.
I knelt just out of its reach, my breaths shallowing. “Sol, can you hear me? Sol?” Zero recognition sparked in those disintegrating eyes. “Come on, Sol!” Choking back my fear, I leaned in and yelled, “SOL! WE NEED HELP!” No answer but for the mindless moans of the creature.
“Call it, Empress.” Joules pulled his coat tighter. “This undead doesn’t feel like gabbing, and the truck is warm.”
I stood. “Fine.”
In a pissy tone, Joules said, “Are you just goin’ to leave it? Are Baggers off limits now?”
“They’re still a danger to our species. Even Sol couldn’t begrudge us taking out random zombies. Will one of you do the honors?”
At once, Kentarch let his knife fall, skewering the Bagman’s brain. Its body went limp.
Collecting the blade, Kentarch wiped it along the sole of his combat boot, then sheathed it at his thigh. “We might as well stop here for the night.” Night was relative these days, but his eyes were bloodshot with fatigue.
Once we climbed back in the truck, Joules wadded up his threadbare scarf, making a pillow against the window. “Is somebody gonna take watch? We’re deep in cannibal country.”
I should have been exhausted, but my nerves were wired. “I’ve got first shift.”
“Hey, Chariot, watch out for this one”—Joules pointed at me—“she’s a temptress.”
I rolled my eyes at him. When we’d stopped the truck earlier to winch a car out of the road, I’d taken Joules aside to get his impression of our new companion, wondering if we could trust him. Kentarch certainly didn’t trust us. He’d concealed his movements when he’d entered the ignition sequence. Insurance so we didn’t kill him in his sleep?
Joules had smirked at me. “You got me alone ’cause you want to seduce me, eh? One among your string of doomed men? Tough luck, Empress—I’m faithful to Cally’s memory.” Sometimes I more than slightly wanted to strangle the Tower.
He swiftly nodded off, his soft snores competing with the sounds of his empty stomach.
Kentarch drummed his fingers on the wheel, clearly wanting to voice a question.
“Just say it, Chariot.”
“Do you believe the game can be stopped?”
“I used to work toward that very goal.” Until my grandmother had gotten hold of me. She’d been right about so many other things.
She’d advised me to stash seeds all over the castle for protection, but I’d felt safe there. The plants I’d grown inside had been more for decoration, and I’d let them wither. She’d told me Death and all my friends would turn on me.
Bingo. Guilt weighed heavily on me. Toward the end, I’d dreaded being around her. Part of me had . . . hated her. Recalling the excuses I’d made not to see her cut me deep.
Yet all she’d wanted to do was warn me—protect me. Her only living relative. She’d wanted me to be deadly because I was immersed in a deadly game. How shocked she must’ve been when she realized I was in love with my age-old enemy.
I’d told Aric we’d rewrite history. Wasn’t that the same as defying fate? If fates cou
ldn’t be changed . . .
No, I refused to believe that. If I ever accepted that, then I would lie down and never get back up.
Kentarch quietly said, “You no longer think we can end it.”
“Maybe it’s possible. But probably not before the world is beyond salvage. The gods like their games, and we’re all pawns.” Why me? Why had I gotten tapped for this bullshit?
“Then we need to figure out how to fight the gods instead of each other—to take control of the deck.” He leaned against the driver’s side door. “What a splendid battle that would be.” In time, he drifted off as well.
I believed the Chariot was a decent-minded, disciplined guy. But I also suspected he would slit my throat with a song in his heart if it meant saving his wife.
Still, he’d gotten me thinking. What if we Arcana had all banded together to fight our shitty fates?
Each of us had myriad weaknesses and strengths. Ogen had been immune to my poison but suffered from hydrophobia. Though Joules didn’t have great physical strength, he could electrify his body in defense. Gabriel’s black-feathered wings were awing, but they were also a huge target. All-powerful Aric had succumbed to Paul’s influence, yet hapless Finn had been unaffected.
What could we all have accomplished if we’d pooled the resources of twenty-two Arcana?
Would even the gods have trembled?
I leaned my head back and stared at the ceiling, thoughts racing. This was my first night away from Aric in months. I tried to call up a memory of his unguarded smile, but all I saw was that rage in his eyes.
The image of him in the window had been seared into my brain forever. I’d learned something in that moment: Rage is a type of madness.
Would he ever come back from it? Did some deep-down part of him understand what he’d done? No matter what, he must be hurting.
How was Lark dealing with her grief? A new worry emerged. What would happen if she tried her faunagenesis—on Finn?
No, Paul would never allow it. The Hanged Man’s powers had been activated with that kill.
Closing my eyes, I replayed Finn’s beach illusion. That last bit of harmony had been the calm before the storm. Years seemed to have passed, but less than a day had gone by.
Finn’s voice echoed in my head. I freaking love you guys.
Tears spilled down my cheeks.
Though I cried silently, Joules woke. In a rough voice, he said, “Finn was my friend too.”
14
Day 536 A.F.
Still in the foothills
“I say we rent her out at the Sick House.”
“No way. The Stix will pay more for her.”
“But they’ll be wantin’ her untouched. And dang it, we should acknowledge our own limitations.”
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” I told my two would-be pimps as they debated what to do with me. Stix? Sick House? I had no idea what they were talking about and didn’t care. I just wanted to be absolutely certain they deserved what was coming to them: their executions. “Look, I don’t want any trouble with either of you.” My damsel-in-distress act was getting old.
One guy’s halitosis smelled like radioactive waste. I’d deemed him Hal. The other had a handlebar moustache littered with food debris. He was Stache.
“Please let me go.” I wasn’t managing a believable level of panic. “I’m trying to make it home to my husband.” Not a lie.
After parking their serial-killer van, they’d approached me with raised weapons—a bat and what was probably an empty pistol. They’d asked me if I was alone, and I’d said I was.
Definitely a lie. Kentarch and Joules crouched nearby behind an overturned tractor trailer.
I still hesitated to steal from innocent folks, so whenever Kentarch heard a vehicle coming, he and Joules got scarce, and I trotted out to the road to do my damsel routine. If anyone tried to hurt me, the boys stepped in, and the non-innocent forfeited everything. Including their lives.
All I had to do was give the signal. Kentarch would easily pick them off with his rifle, pistol, or throwing blades. Joules normally held off using his spears in close quarters. His javelins tended to go boom in a big way.
My powers remained fritzed.
“You ain’t ever gonna see your husband again, peach,” Hal told me from way too up-close. His mouth smelled like someone had told him to eat shit, and he’d complied. He kept licking his chapped lips as he leered at me. “But soon you’re gonna have plenty of fellas to keep you company.”
I was so over this. For the last week, we’d encountered a surprising number of survivors; I supposed they tended to converge like Arcana did.
Not as surprising—they’d all been bad guys. We’d scored twenty-three gallons of gasoline, a bug-out bag for me, half a bottle of gin, and a case of Sheba canned cat food.
I’d declined my share of kitty chow, fearing I’d just throw it up anyway. When Joules had first dug his fingers into a can to scoop chunks to his mouth, I’d gone running to vomit.
My perilous escape from the castle seemed to have done nothing to interrupt my pregnancy. Fatigue was taking its toll. My hunger pangs were constant, the pain like an old, untended wound.
Maybe Hal and Stache had food, something to keep me from daydreaming about hush puppies and ice cream and mashed potatoes and cheeseburgers with extra, gooey cheese.
I turned my thoughts from food, my bleary mind wandering over the last few days. As Kentarch, Joules, and I had descended from the mountains, the temperatures rose, and snow cover grew sparser.
The rivers and ponds had been only partially iced over. I’d hailed Circe at the larger ones. No answer. Nor had I heard from Matthew. Jack, are you out here?
Though I trusted my new traveling companions to a degree, I never told them about the Fool’s last message. As time passed, Jack’s survival seemed less and less believable, even to me.
I’d also never given them all the details of Aric’s attack at the castle—even when I’d woken up screaming. My nightmares of Richter now alternated with those about Aric . . . .
We should’ve been able to pick up our pace to the coast, but so many roads had been washed out or blocked with vehicles. Whenever the Beast couldn’t winch or bulldoze its way through, Kentarch had to teleport us.
He was also using his teleportation each night to measure the spread of the Hanged Man’s influence. Kentarch’s last report: It’s unpredictable and sporadic.
Hunger and overuse had weakened the Chariot’s abilities overall. Earlier today, he’d tried to teleport the truck across a wreck-choked bridge. We’d flashed from tangible to quavery and back as he’d gritted his teeth. He hadn’t been able to move us an inch, so we’d had to backtrack and go around.
Afterward, his outline had wavered, making him look like a ghost, then a man, then a ghost.
At this point, I could have walked faster, but I never complained when I slept in the Beast’s toasty cab. I’d once asked Kentarch, “Why don’t you carry a bug-out bag?” His answer: “This truck is my bug-out bag.” Several times an hour, his gaze would stray to Issa’s picture on his visor.
His chariot was a weapon and a roving safe house rolled into one, but it was a demanding tool, requiring ever more fuel. As my own resource-suck did.
“Right on!” Stache said, waking me from my daze. “Then we’re in agreement.” He started forcing me toward their van.
“Guys, if you want to live past the next few seconds, then release me and keep moving.”
Stache tightened his grip on my arm. “Another word out of you, and I’ll cut out your tongue and feed it to you.”
“Literally? Or is that just a saying? These days you have to wonder.”
Stache raised his hand to backhand me. Before I could stop him, Hal grabbed his wrist. “Don’t mark her up. I want her pretty. No reason not to enjoy her till we reach the Sick House.”
Aaaaaand, we’re done here. “Your lifetime’s over.” I gave the signal. “Come, touch,” I told these men, “but you�
��ll pay a price.”
A knife flew past me, end over end. The blade plugged Hal in the face. He reeled before he collapsed.
Eyes gone wide, Stache released me and fled. He didn’t get five steps before another knife sank into his back. THUNK. A kill shot.
Kentarch jogged over to retrieve his blades. The first time he’d made a throw like that, I’d gawked. His aim was so uncanny, even Joules—no slouch himself—had been impressed.
“Let’s make quick work of this.” Kentarch remained as reserved as Joules was mouthy. He mostly liked to talk about tactical things, or about mind over matter, and he never volunteered information about his life in Africa.
As Kentarch siphoned fuel, Joules investigated the men’s van, tossing me their bags to root through. They had pictures of family, probably stolen from other victims. I snagged a flashlight and two flints to put in my bug-out bag. Not exactly winning Lotto.
I raised my head, suddenly feeling as if we were being watched. “Kentarch, do you see or hear anyone else around us?”
He assessed the area. “No, Empress.”
“Probably nothing then.”
“Food!” Joules cried from the van. “They’ve got food. A container full of soup.”
I’d bet I could keep that down! I hurried over.
Joules held up a clear takeout container filled with a dark broth. He ripped off the lid and inhaled. “Take a whiff of that!”
Though the soup was cool, the delicious aroma reached me. My stomach was on board! My first real meal in days.
“Looks like we’re goin’ to vary our cat-food diet—”
A pinky finger floated to the surface. Mushy skin. With a long, dirty nail.
Joules yelled and hurled the container.
Then he puked right beside me.
_______________
Enough. The cannibal soup had marked a turning point for me. Resolve gave way under the weight of depression. My eyes watered, my bottom lip trembling.
As we continued onward, Kentarch kept glancing from the road to my face. “We had a minor setback foodwise, but we gained valuable fuel. Overall, our mission was a success.”
The Dark Calling Page 10