The Warrior

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The Warrior Page 27

by Kay Camden


  The next breath I take returns me to my own form, my arms and legs, my skin, my pounding heart.

  “Fuck.” It’s like a first word after years of silence. I decide too late I should say something nicer. “Balls.” Great, Rex, that’s great.

  I take in the outline of branches ahead of me, the lighter night sky beyond. The shimmer of stars create so much light I’m not looking into the night sky but a depth of endless purple. “Bunnies, kittens, rainbows—shit.” Perception shifts due to a sudden awareness of gravity, bringing attention to the plank of ground under my back, and I sit up, my vision readjusting to accommodate what’s really up versus what’s really down like I’m waking from a KO. I flex my fingers, relieved they don’t crumble into loam. I stretch out my backbone, gulping a lungful of air.

  What I can do with my fists and elbows, a knife, a gun—it’s nothing. The ready power all around me, sitting idle, waiting to be used … no wonder my family wants all the Bevans dead. No wonder the Bevans think just one of their kind can take down all of us. The big question is why the Bevans don’t fully use this. Don’t abuse it. They’d have won this war a long time ago. I’d probably have never been born. My parents, grandparents, every Moore snuffed out centuries ago.

  It’s not something I’ll ever ask Sloane, but I turn to her anyway as if I can. It takes a frantic moment to find her. She’s on her back like a corpse, eyes closed, palms flat against the forest floor. Ferns curl around her body as if she’s been there years not seconds. She’s just another piece of debris, a fallen log, a weathered stone.

  All at once the spell words make sense. The essence of our sudden sleep, now captured in those stones in the pail, waiting for release on someone new.

  *

  The Baltimore house is an alternate reality version of the D.C. one. Same historic neighborhood with boring luxury sedans tucked underneath porches that probably used to hold carriages. I’ve convinced Sloane to bring a firearm this time. Of everything I brought, she went for the most boring and practical Glock. We had to stop to buy a shoulder holster that would fit her. She’s stashed that straight razor in her stretchy silver armband, extra mags in her cargo pockets. I can’t decide if working alongside her like this is a dream or a nightmare.

  We split up this time because her animal allies reported two armed guards—one at the front, one at the rear. I take the guy at the front by surprise and knock him out. She made me pinky swear not to kill him. And as I’m hog-tying his limbs with the duct tape I brought, I’m laughing that my family could ever think two armed guards would stop us.

  I take a pic of the front of the house, part souvenir, part log entry. And it will be nice to have a visual of everything I own once this is all done.

  Following our plan, I test the downspout for its ability to hold my weight and climb, spidering over the decorative wood inside the gable and meeting Sloane on the roof over the opposite side. In the wall under the roof overhang she’s found a vent she lifts easily out of its frame. A moment of silence, her bowed head. And I’m rewarded with a big smile.

  “It’s in there?” I mouth, not believing this can be so easy.

  A thumbs-up. The cloud of black magic fuel is here. A wind rushes up the side of the roof. She ducks down to gather balance; I readjust my feet. She points to a little window off another peak in the roof and then dives into the vent, sliding in, her boots disappearing before I can stop her. I’ve unconsciously reached, throwing off my balance which can’t be righted until I’ve slipped a few feet down the roof. The rush is to die for. I stay in position, one leg stretched, the other bent, all my weight reliant on a tiny lip of shingle caught under the edge of my boot’s tread. I’m dangling so close to death all it would take is the slightest shift of weight. I let my feet slip a little just to feel it again.

  Sloane’s face pops into the little window she pointed at earlier. I crawl to it as she slides it open soundlessly. Someday she’ll have to tell me how a deaf girl learned to move in such silence. I climb in and hop down, knees absorbing the fall. The room appears unused. A stack of boxes, cobwebs, dust. She leaves the window open and sneaks to a door, turning to look at me over her shoulder. She must sense I haven’t followed.

  I’m stuck in place. She’s confident in that magic. She thinks this is going to be routine, but I’m reliving the gore from last time. I’m watching the bodies fall. I have a fistful of hair, a finger pressing the trigger. I’m slipping in blood, getting the spray on my face, my mouth. I’m wiping it away, feeling the smear across my skin, tasting it. Another killing spree is the only way this can go again. Bevan magic is powerful, yes, but there are ten people in this house. We can’t count on them all being plugged into that dark cloud.

  Will ten more bodies make a difference to my family after all I’ve already done? Not a chance. Will they make a difference to me? Depends on whether I’m going to admit what I’m feeling right now is a conscience. If the whisper of chill in my bones is imaginary or real. If the old Rex wants to stomp it out, replace it with the hate I’ve been taught, the ground-in duty I’d rather die than disown. Or if the new Rex wants to accept it, let that whisper of choice color the things I do.

  She’s come to me, her pupils so big and glossy I wonder how they see me. If she sees the old Rex or the new one. If she likes either one as much as I like her. I brace myself against her approaching touch. She puts both hands on my chest. Her heat transfers through my shirt. A new heat fires up between them—the amulet. Strange. Not sure if I should be concerned about that. Hopefully this thing never malfunctions. Hopefully it’s still not trying to protect her from me. Having it strung around my neck might be a bad idea.

  She pats my chest twice, demanding attention. Then she draws an invisible symbol on her forehead, then mine. Two hands, cutting the air horizontally as if to say, that’s it. Two thumbs up. A smile.

  I can’t stop myself from tracing the lines of her war paint on her cheeks, her chin. If I die in there, this is the image I want to revive while I bleed out. Her pale face tipped up to me in the dim light, framed by those perfectly screwed-up bangs. The trust in her eyes. Her confidence in me. Her patient acceptance of someone she should hate. And how it’s rewired me. If I don’t die before this is over, she’s going to put me back how I was, severing all the new wires, twisting them onto old ones. This new Rex is temporary no matter which happens first.

  She’s frowning now. She’s captured my hand and placed it over her heart, and I decide working alongside her is in fact a nightmare. I’m so close but I can never have her. I’ve made a new home inside her beating heart, but I can’t stay there, not for much longer. And I could never bring her to the home I plan to reclaim even if she’d let me. She’s the first thing in my life I can’t have; she’s the only thing I’ve ever needed.

  All this—it’s just noise. I need to shut up and move.

  So I yank my hand from her and head to the door. She slips around me to lead us to a staircase we descend. An old clock stands at the bottom, ticking away. She’s stopped to search her pockets, so I stare at the shiny brass hands of the clock, fully knowing I shouldn’t but it’s like that extra slip on the roof. I have to do it, just to feel what it’s like.

  Then she’s grabbing my hand, and I don’t know why I’m fighting her until I’m looking at the pill that just flew from my hand to the floor. She crushes it with the heel of her boot.

  I’m not a slave to Sloane Bevan but to my own family. They made me like this. They taught only what I’d need to avenge them while keeping me ignorant of my missing connection to magic. They got me addicted to pills they crafted to control my sleep and wake cycle. I’m a thing to use. To use up.

  She has a twisty grip on my shirt, an expression that both asks if I’m okay and demands I get it together. I raise both hands and mouth, “I’m cool.”

  I’m so not cool.

  She takes one of the sleeping stones from her pocket and r
aises it high, eyes closed. Her breath releases in a whoosh. A shudder runs the length of her. I’m primed to reach and yank her away from whatever seems to be possessing her, but then she lowers that stone to the floor in slow motion and steps away from it like it’s a landmine. Her index finger points to the rooms beyond. Time for the fun.

  Chapter 25

  Sloane

  The first bedroom we enter holds a couple sleeping in a bed. Instead of seeing them, I see Rex’s burn scar. I see those caged doves. Closing my eyes, I imagine my dad as a kid, chained in that old shack on the Moores’ land.

  I point at the woman. Rex is ripping a piece of duct tape off the roll with his teeth. He slaps it over her mouth and rips another one for the man. Neither stirs, not even a hitch of breath. The dark cloud of hate is like a conduit between my black magic and my sleeping spell, the cloud fueling my black magic which then fuels my spell. It’s such saturated power I worry these people will never be conscious again.

  Rex stands back to assess them, laying a hand on the handle of his .45. He must be like me and expects them to leap up because there’s no way this is so easy. Then I see the troubled glare, the sideways shift of his jaw. That hate was at one time directed at me, and I remember what he did to try to alleviate it.

  So I flip my straight razor open and walk to the bed. Where to cut her? Palm. Her blood oozes onto the sheet. I paint her forehead and mine. As soon as the second symbol is complete there’s a rush through me, a rearrangement of atoms. I’m not just harboring a taste of black magic, I’m made of it. I’ve turned molten and charged. I thought I’d need these people awake to cure them but no, I sense her corruption there. I feel it drawing toward me, magnetic and alive. My forehead against hers and I’m lost in time, just for a moment, and then it’s there, in my head, falling down into my chest, taking form around the original lump I stole from Rex.

  Next victim. His head lolls off the pillow when I’m drawing the symbol; Rex comes to my side to hold him straight. Again, I’m snatched into new space then back again, returning heavier, lopsided like the balance of my magic has been tipped. Unfit for my own body until I swallow it down, match it to what I’ve already gathered.

  One after the other they go down, room after room. The hate I’m collecting starts to fade, not away, but in. Fleshing me out in a foreign but expected way. Pushing out existing parts of me to make room. And I don’t know what Rex’s problem is, but if he doesn’t clear that glare from his face I’m going to make him bleed.

  Should that be a shocking thought? It seems it should, but right now it’s just admitting the truth.

  We finish off a guy who must’ve fallen asleep on the sofa with the TV on. Either that or my sleeping spell ruined his movie. I’m too bloated on hate to put any thought into seeing Rex screwing on his suppressor. Then he’s blowing the guys brains out and I’m blind from the terrible flash. My vision is made of liquid green spots, but I manage to grab Rex by the arm anyway.

  He shakes me off. I chase him into the room we just finished, but I’m too slow—he’s stuck a knife in the neck of the man we already fixed and now he’s twisting it, watching the blood spray onto his forearm like he’s not even here. I already cured Rex. What’s gotten into him?

  I yell his name. He jerks upright, dropping the knife like it’s just cut him. I snatch it up—why, I’m not sure. Evidence? We’ve left plenty of that already. I find his hand and tug and we’re running. Down the hall, the stairs, out into the air. If I don’t leave now the dark cloud will drink me up. I don’t know how to block it, and right now, I’m not sure I want to.

  A couple blocks later we’re hopping into Rex’s car. Five minutes on the road I make him pull over so I can throw up. If someone told me it was demon blood I’m vomiting, I’d believe them. There’s no relief this time. My body has become a host for a concentrated mass of hate, and I don’t know what to do with it.

  *

  It’s okay. Sloane, it’s okay.

  I see the words but I don’t believe them. Where are we?

  His hands, strong against my jaw, tilting my face up toward him. I sag, but he’s holding me up. He seems very interested in my eyes. Am I crying? He smears thumbs against my cheeks. Yes, I must be crying. I close my eyes, feel the tears squeeze out, his arm hooking around my neck, his warmth against me. A connection—so faint, just a trace. The simple act of recognition taxes me, sending it spiraling away.

  Rex shifts against me like he’s bracing his feet for an oncoming blow, his arms still tight around me. And again, that connection, stronger this time. The forest—it’s near. Here. Life, movement. Creatures moving in, curious, helpful. I take in a missing breath. Scented by pines, it cripples me with longing for home. I reach for it, finding a different kind of home. The swirl of breeze chilling my arms. The steady comfort of the earth beneath my feet. Above me, the expanse of limbs and leaves, the stars and sky beyond.

  I push away from him. His face is drawn with an angry determination others might mistake for panic. It’s the mark of control he’s found, not lost. He tapped into the elements and brought them to me so I could locate myself again.

  I sign, Thank you.

  He nods. He knows that one.

  Two dead, though. We weren’t supposed to kill anyone this time. And he did it for no good reason. I hold up two fingers, certain he’ll know exactly what I mean.

  Sorry, he says, looking away. He runs two rough swipes over his head then looks back at me. Hands me his phone to say, No, actually I’m not sorry. I hate those people. I’ll kill them all.

  Anger comes so fast and hard I’m overcome by vertigo. I shove the phone back at him. Typing isn’t a solution for this moment. The computer voice could never do the words right.

  No more killing, I sign. I don’t care what they’ve done to you. You’re too good to have that kind of blood on your hands, and if you think it’s going to solve anything, then you’re not their king, you’re their fool. I think I imagined it all. He has to be too good for that sick stunt I witnessed, just has to. I can’t like a boy who can kill people that mechanically.

  He watches me blankly.

  I reenact his knife jab and twist into that guy’s throat.

  Still no reaction.

  I point to him and fingerspell, Fool.

  His response comes from a mouth too tight to read, along with three vicious steps toward me so he’s close enough to shove. That’s what he wants. Knowing a non-reaction will deprive him, I simply stand my ground.

  He points to me and fingerspells, Naïve.

  I point to him and fingerspell, Callous.

  He points to himself. Realistic.

  Coward, I reply. And too weak to face whatever troubles he lives with due to those people. Killing them is the easy way to overcome it. Well, that’s the coward’s way, and he knows it.

  Both his hands go to fists, and I’ve already squashed my reflex to dodge. Let him hit me. It’ll prove what I need to learn the hard way: Rex Moore is an unsalvageable monster I need to run far away from once we’re finished curing his family. I obviously can’t figure it out on my own. He’s tearing me up with that glare though, and I’m giving it right back. What I’m holding inside me is more toxic than anything he could summon. It’s releasing like a slow drip, a terrifying promise of something so unlike me it makes my teeth chatter.

  He turns and stalks away. I let him get ahead but have no choice but to follow. I have no clue how we got into these woods or where his car is. I’m missing time. I think I’d gotten lost in it, or out of it, and Rex brought me back. Thanking him doesn’t seem to cover it, but there’s nothing more to do, and definitely nothing I want to do now.

  He passes motel after motel before I realize he’s following the interstate signs to Philadelphia. That’s our next address on the list. The exit ramp we take is too far outside of Philadelphia to see the city skyline. We cruise past 24-hour quick
shops and drugstores lit like night will never end before taking a road protected by two elegant white oaks, thick trunks forking into several V’s, exposed roots twisting from the ground. When I see a tall iron fence sprout beside the road, I know we’re in for another palace on acres of land like Rex’s house.

  He notices the fence not long after I do, slowing to the side of the road to give it a full analysis. The sun is due up soon—the eastern sky has already begun to lighten. This is a bad idea. He knows as well as I do. He’s going to power ahead though, to prove some stupid point I doubt I’d understand even if he explained it to me. And I’m going to go along with it so I can see this stupidity fail and prove my own point: We’re only successful as a team. One that agrees on strategy. One that communicates. One without egos.

  Without a look at me, he kills the engine and gets out. We gear up like we did hours ago. I cloak the car. He climbs a nearby ash, swings off a high limb onto the top of a brick fence pillar then slides down the iron bar on the inside. Of course the filthy rotten jerk doesn’t wait for me. He disappears into the woods on the other side of the fence as I scope out trees I can climb. The one he used won’t work for me. The branches are too far apart for my shorter height. Once I got up in it, I wouldn’t be able to reach the one that will get me high enough to land on the brick pillar.

  I walk the fence and find a low spot under one section where an animal must’ve dug underneath. The earth is still loose from its powerful claws. I find a tree branch and dig more. After squeezing under the iron bars and popping out on the other side I feel a breeze down my ribs and see I’ve ripped a hole in the back of my shirt. Rex’ll be paying for that. I’ll have to start a tab because this house is going to cost him.

  The crows are restless in the trees, ready for their morning meals. They swoop down, teasing me. I ask for aid: one to find and lead me to Rex, another to check out the house ahead. Help finding Rex isn’t necessary though. His tracks are bold and uncovered, either left that way so I could easily follow or left carelessly and irresponsibly because he’s on a mission of stupidity. I guess it could also be both.

 

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