by Walsh, Sara
A different sound came from above. Delane raised a hand for silence. He placed a finger to his lips. Thud. Thud. The sound rumbled through the house. A shriek that could shatter glass followed.
Delane did not move. “He’s on the roof,” he whispered.
“He’ll break his neck!” I cried.
Delane tracked the sounds overhead. “I don’t think so.”
Energized, he grabbed my arm, urging me to follow him to the window. I dropped the sword with a clang.
Mayhem continued outside. There was no sign of Sol.
One of the winged demons had surely swooped down and taken him, I knew it. I waited for his body, broken, yet beautiful, to plunge to the ground. Sol had taken one risk too many. It would be his last.
How much longer could it go on? I wanted to dive into the nearest chair, to scrunch my eyes closed, and stick my fingers in my ears like the big baby I really was. But I couldn’t. I had to know. I had to see.
Then a flash lit up outside like a nuclear blast. A boom, louder than thunder, shook the house. The explosion filled the air with limbs. The horses brayed in the kitchen, their stomps adding to the confusion. We braced for a second wave. It didn’t come. Something landed outside the window.
“You wanted to know what the yellow spell did,” said Delane. “You just saw it.”
I’d been dazzled by the flash, so all I saw were purple streaks and the afterglow of white light burning in the back of my eyes. But I made out a blurred silhouette close to the window. A second later, the door off the porch opened and there was movement in the kitchen.
“It’s him,” said Delane, gesturing me to stay back as he darted through the door.
Sol’s voice carried. “It’s holding,” I heard him say, between deep breaths. “Mia?”
“She’s fine,” replied Delane. “Solandun . . .”
Their words faded into whispers and I hurried to join them. I got no more than a couple of steps before Delane reappeared, alone. He closed the door behind him. “He’s okay,” he said, beaming.
Then why was Sol hiding in the kitchen? I knew I should trust Delane, but I had a feeling in my gut that something was wrong. “He’s hurt, isn’t he?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“He’s checking upstairs,” Delane replied, like it was no big deal. “Mia, don’t worry.”
Only, I was worried. I’d heard Sol on the roof. I’d seen the explosion. “How can I not worry with you two around?”
Delane hurried to the fire and gave it a poke. He looked like a guy trying to be busy.
Sol’s steps sounded overhead, but my anxiety didn’t lift. I couldn’t explain the feeling, but I had to see Sol for myself. “I should check if he needs a hand,” I said.
“Mia, he’s just securing upstairs. How could he be doing that if he was hurt?”
It was a very good question. How could he do that if he’d been sliced open by a razor-sharp claw and was bleeding to death, or had been blinded by a poison-spitting demon. What the hell was the matter with me?
I groaned. “You two drive me nuts,” I said. “I can tell when you’re up to something. You’d happily tell me about Bromasta, but you won’t tell me what’s going on here.”
Delane put his arm around me. “Nothing is,” he said.
Five, then ten minutes passed. Sol did not reappear. The demons had already returned in numbers, the explosion only a temporary deterrent. Now they’d regrouped. They looked pissed.
“They really don’t give up, do they?” I said.
“Not when they’re hungry.”
“But they’re all so different. How many kinds are there?”
Fights had broken out among the demons. There were creatures of green, blue, red. Pale ones, as nasty as the shadow imps, of which I was certain I caught a couple in the crowd. And the winged ones, scaled harpies, with claws like the ones Delane had described.
“There are thousands of types,” said Delane. “Demons interbreed and get nastier with each incarnation. When Elias opened the Warnon Mines, he took many of the demons there and bred them himself, creating his own monsters.”
“Like the visage demons?”
A gangly demon hurled the body of a smaller, rotund creature at the barrier. I heard the thud when it fell to the ground.
“Visage demons are different,” said Delane. “Some were once men, some were demons of other breeds until Elias got his hands on them.”
“Men?”
“From all of the five families. It’s a long story. Not all demons are like this,” he added, gesturing outside. “And not all demons came from the Warnon Mines. There have always been demons in our world, but they were separate, rarefied.”
With an ear trained for a sound of Sol, I listened to Delane’s tale. “Rarefied?” I asked.
“It means they’re like me.”
“You’re a demon?”
“No,” he laughed. “I’m Samu—one of the five original families—but rarefied, pure. I have no other blood but Samu. There aren’t many of us left.”
I’d been curious about Sol’s and Delane’s roots ever since Old Man Crowley had told me about the families in Bordertown. I wasn’t sure if it was polite to ask them about their bloodlines, but Delane had brought it up himself, and I was itching to know more.
“You have no blood from the other families?”
“Not a drop,” Delane replied. “It makes it difficult to find a girl. My family is determined that we keep the line pure.”
“You can’t see whoever you want?”
“Not if you want to get your hands on the family silver.”
I’d never considered that. Crowley had just said that Brakaland was a melting pot of families and breeds. I couldn’t imagine what it meant for Delane. He was the nicest guy ever. He could take his pick of girls. I was pretty sure Willie would take him in a heartbeat. But an arranged marriage? He deserved to be with someone he loved, regardless of what his parents planned to do with their money.
“So what’s special about the Samu?” I asked, wondering why it was so important that Delane’s family remain pure.
“We’re tough.” He took my hand and placed it against his chest. “Can you feel that?”
I wasn’t sure what I was expected to find. “Just your heart.”
“Now here.”
He moved my hand to his right side, just above his hip. And there it was. Another beat, as strong as the first.
“You have two!”
“To cleanly kill a Samu requires two accurate shots,” said Delane. “Our hearts rejuvenate. If one is hurt, the second still beats while the other heals. Only time and age slows a Samu heart. And we live a long time.”
“Longer than humans?”
“Much. Our bones are tougher, too. Not a single Samu bone has ever broken since the five families appeared in our world.”
This was pretty cool. I was becoming friends with a guy who had two hearts and indestructible bones. “Impressive. And what about Sol?”
Delane paused. “Solandun’s not rarefied,” he said. “But that’s different.”
“How so?”
He watched the demons continue their rampage. “That’s up to him to explain.”
But when Sol returned, I was more concerned about checking that he was okay than asking about families and bloodlines. His hair was wild. His shirt was disheveled. Sweat glistened on his brow.
“You’re pale,” I said, hurrying to his side. “You okay?”
He lingered in the doorway, massaging his back at the waist, twisting as if something had pulled. “I’m fine. You?” he asked, checking me all over as if I’d been the one fighting demons.
“All in one piece,” I replied, confused. “Thanks to Delane.”
“She wanted to go out and fight,” added Delane. “I told her it was a bad idea.”
“Very bad,” said Sol. He looked from me to Delane, and the shadow I’d caught on his face after the imp attack returned. “The spell’s holding,” he muttered.
>
“Thanks to you,” I replied. I nudged his arm, trying to jolt him out of the mood with a joke. “But you have to stop with the crazy action stuff, Sol. You don’t have to be the big hero to impress me.”
“I wish you’d told me that before,” he said, with a half smile that interrupted my heartbeat more than any shadow imp or visage demon ever could.
I smiled back. “So what now?”
“We rest,” said Delane.
He said it as if it was the easiest thing in the world, despite the circus going on outside. Delane hunkered down in the corner close to the window. I pitched a spot by the fire. I’d barely gotten comfy, when Sol laid his rug beside me. It was only when he sat that I noticed a small red stain on the back of his shirt.
“Sol, you’re bleeding.”
He laid his sword beside his makeshift bed and shook out his blanket. “It’s nothing,” he said.
“You haven’t even looked.”
He glanced at Delane, who was watching us from the corner, then he turned to face me. “It’s really nothing,” Sol said, when he caught me still watching him.
I studied him closely as he sat. For the first time, he looked almost weary. His eyes appeared to have darkened; liquid black ringed the iris.
I drew up my knees, trying to hold on to the fire’s remaining warmth. As I moved, Sol reached a hand toward my face. Convinced he was about to randomly kiss me, my heart stopped.
“You have cobweb in your hair,” he said.
“Oh,” I said, half disappointed, and then, “OH!” when I remembered the stripe-backs.
“It’s just a little. Hold still.” He gently brushed the strands of web from my hair and then quickly pulled away, almost apologetic. “I think I got it. You really should rest now.”
But I lay awake long after the fire had faded to embers. Screams raged outside. The horses stirred in the kitchen. I couldn’t sleep, no more than on the night that Jay had disappeared. Through everything that had happened during the day, thoughts of Jay had never left me. I could almost hear his voice, like one of those strange echoes I’d heard in the Wastes. I’d thought no further than finding him and getting him home—whatever that entailed. But now I knew that Jay was a Brakalander, too. A castoff like me. An exile. And I was the one who was going to have to tell him.
Or maybe I wouldn’t tell him. I’d take him home and we’d continue as normal. We’d pretend that Brakaland and the great Bromasta Rheinhold didn’t exist. We’d simply be Mia and Jay Stone, who lived on the outskirts of town with their crazy uncle.
I stared at the ceiling beams. Maybe Jay’s room had been the one with the stripe-backs. I imagined him bounding downstairs in the morning, ready for a day of sword fights, demon slaughter, and lessons in magic. He’d probably love it.
“Can’t sleep?” asked Sol.
I turned onto my side to find him watching me. “I don’t know why,” I said, quietly, careful not to wake Delane, whose deep breathing echoed across the room. “I feel like I’ve worked three shifts and run a marathon all in one day.”
“A marathon?”
“Twenty-six point two miles.”
Sol heaved himself onto his elbows. “We’ve come farther than that today,” he said.
“On horseback.”
“That’s true.”
However far we’d come, I was certain I’d never forget the things I’d seen in Brakaland. The image of that rabbit in the Wastes would forever be imprinted in my memory. I thought of Crownsville’s new subdivisions on the west side of town. All the land that way, which had been shared between Crownsville and Brakaland, would become the Wastes.
I didn’t know how to fix the problem, I didn’t even have a clue where to start, but there was one thing I was sure of: What was happening to Brakaland was wrong.
“Sol, if we’re squeezing you out, then isn’t the Suzerain right? Wouldn’t it be better if you fought back?”
He looked surprised by my question, or maybe he was just shocked that someone from the Other Side even cared. “There are some who believe so,” he said. “But imagine the Barrier coming down in Crownsville. What would happen?”
It was a good question. “The army would be out faster than you can say ‘domestic terrorist.’”
“So the sides are already drawn. What happens next?”
“I don’t know. First we’d faint,” I joked, “then I guess we’d talk.”
Sol shook his head. “Elias won’t talk. He’ll strike. What do you do?”
Don’t ask me why, but I bristled. “We hit him right back!”
“And?”
I sighed. “And Elias will hit again.” It all seemed like such a hopeless mess. “Sol, America gets blamed for everything that goes wrong on this planet, but you can’t blame us for this. We wouldn’t want war any more than you would.”
“But war would come,” said Sol. “With the Solenetta in Elias’s hand, the Equinox will spread, starting a chain reaction that can’t be stopped. Picture demons streaming onto the streets of towns and cities all across your world.”
I tried to picture it. Visage demons in Crownsville? In Omaha, Chicago, at the White House. “You’re saying we’d wipe each other out.”
He shrugged. “One day it would end,” he said. “After we’d destroyed enough of one another that there would be no point in fighting anymore. Now picture the world. The Barrier’s gone. What’s left of two different worlds would be thrust together.”
“It’d be chaos.”’
“Ripe ground for someone to take over.”
Finally it made sense. “Elias.”
“Mia, Elias doesn’t want to attack your world for the good of Brakaland,” said Sol. “Nothing he’s ever done has been for the good of Brakaland.”
“But you can’t sit here and wait to be squeezed into oblivion.”
“There is a plan,” he said, keenly. “The Treaty of Roi. It’s a proposal to form boundaries between your space and ours. We can’t reclaim what’s gone, but we could halt what’s in progress.”
A treaty, like in the books I’d read for Rifkin’s debate, “The clash of civilizations has no basis in reality.” How was I ever going to complete my assignment knowing all of this? Treaties. Agreements. They never worked. “Sol, no one even knows you’re here. Who’d believe you?”
“It would mean letting the Other Side see us,” Sol replied. “A host of emissaries would enter your world.” It didn’t look as if the prospect pleased him. “But it will take time. Until then, the priority is to keep the Barrier intact and stop Elias’s war, or there’ll be nothing left worth saving on either side of the Barrier.”
I flopped back, listening to the demons outside, trying to get straight all I was involved in. And then I thought of Jay and none of it seemed important. “Sol, we’ve still got a chance to catch the gang, right?”
“We should. I’d never planned going much farther than we did tonight. The Orion road is faster terrain, but it swerves north before it veers toward Orion, and the gang won’t travel through the night on the Orion road. Not with the Solenetta.”
“Demons?” I asked.
“Thieves,” replied Sol. He looked to the window where black shadows danced beyond the purple light. “Mia . . .”
I waited for him to continue. “What is it?”
Though I’d thought Sol had been checking the demons, I noticed that he was actually looking at Delane.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He sighed and then straightened. “It’s nothing,” he said, as he turned back to me. “You should sleep. We’ll leave early in the morning. I’ll keep watch if it helps.”
I lay beneath my blanket for the longest time, trying to tune out the screams. Somewhere upstairs the stripe-backs crept through their web, and the corn doll lay on her shelf. But neither creepy beasts nor memories of a childhood I’d never known could distract me from Sol. He remained on his back, his eyes to the ceiling, alert. I’ll keep watch if it helps, he’d said. And it did. Hi
s unblinking gaze was the last thing I saw before I finally fell asleep.
EIGHTEEN
Whether it was because of sharing a house with the horses or sharing a room with two guys, a musty odor hung over the place when I awoke. I grabbed my blanket and crept to the window. In the dawn’s first light, the demons, and all trace that they’d been there, had gone. Only the purple lattice remained, though it had faded to lavender. Even the red mist had cleared.
Sol and Delane slept, so, taking care not to wake them, I tiptoed to the door, crept past the horses, and slipped outside. The crisp morning sparkled with dew. Pale sunbeams struck the mountains and glistened on the pond beside the paddock. From across the valley, a faint pounding, like a distant drumbeat, could be heard. That was the only sound.
Glad to be in the fresh air, I sat on the porch’s bottom step, my blanket beneath me. A feather lay on the grass beside my feet, deep, yet bright blue, and almost a foot long. I picked it up, entranced by the green iridescence that shimmered where sunlight caught the tips of its soft vanes. It was a beautiful thing, vibrant and full of color. But then I thought about the bestiary outside last night and it immediately lost its appeal. I let it fall to the ground. There was really only one thing on my mind. Today we’d reach Orion and that meant finding Jay.
Yesterday, Orion had just been a word, a vague somewhere in a world I didn’t know. Today it felt tangible and real. Reaching Orion was about the Solenetta for the others, and if there was anything I could do to help stop that war, then I’d gladly lend a hand. But whatever magic lay in the Solenetta’s stones, it was still just a necklace and, I suppose, I didn’t truly believe that a piece of jewelry could cause so much trouble. Jay was flesh and blood. My little Spud.
“You’re awake early.”
I turned to find Sol on the porch, his hair tousled from sleep. The color had returned to his skin and he looked strong and refreshed. After how pale he’d been last night, it was a relief.