“Speed up,” Manning orders into the radio. “We have no choice. They’re less likely to attack a fast lorry.”
A few seconds later, I feel the lorry speed up. Wind whistles through the gaps in the wagon.
Several of the Zharat look worried.
“But why they gatherin’ now? The calendar says—”
“Aye. I know, man. But the spirits be gathering now.”
“The Turning coming?”
“Shouldn’t be. Too soon to the last one.”
I frown, trying to remember Corin’s words. Hadn’t he said it was the Turning all the time in the Noir Lands? I can’t remember. My head feels too groggy.
“The spirits are active. Unusually active.”
“Probably that damn girl, pretending to be a Seer, angered them. Good job we killed her when we did.”
I turn, look at Corin. The way he’s sitting says he’s tense, that he’s going to have bad backache later. He hasn’t said much at all. Part of me wants to lean across, put my hand on his arm, but I stop myself. His brows are furrowed, and he looks annoyed as he stares at Esther.
I want him to speak to me, to say something, but I don’t know what to say. Jed’s words still ring in my ears, and I can tell Corin is angry, that he feels threatened by the older man, but he’s trying not to show it. I feel like I should reassure him, but I don’t know how—and I don’t want to do anything in front of all these men.
“If we head across, past the Old Lakes, we can get in through the lower tubes,” Jed says. He stretches forward, toward the map a different man’s now holding, then groans, clutching at his thigh. “We should be getting close. What about the southern ones?”
“Not sure.” One of the men stands up and—
The lorry hits something, lurches forward. The man flies forward, crashes into boxes. Something jolts into me, and I hit my head against the aluminum wall, see whiteness for a second.
“Sev?”
Corin’s hand closes around my wrist, he pulls me to him. I look up, see—
Something crashes into the side of the lorry.
I pitch forward with the momentum as the lorry swings to the left, but Corin grabs me.
“What the hell?” Corin shouts, pulling me toward him as hard as he can. I hurl head-first into his chest. His arms go around me. “What the hell was that?” Then he’s reaching for his gun. “The Enhanced?”
He glances sideways at me, his eyes searching.
I shake my head, breathing hard. But I don’t know for sure… Just because I’ve had no Seeing dream, it doesn’t mean… Or did I see too much of the outside before? Did Raleigh see where we were, work out where we’re going?
Pain flitters in front of my left eye, and I flinch.
Manning laughs. “Put your gun away, man. You ain’t shooting us, and you sure as hell ain’t shooting no spirits and making ’em more angry. That one that hit us’ll be angry enough.”
A spirit? I try to sit up straighter, try to listen hard. I should be able to hear them. Spirits scream and scream. The sounds in each of the Turnings are horrible. I think back to the many nights I’ve spent undercover when the seasons were changing and the spirits were most active. I’ve spent hours listening to their fights, their frenzied battles.
But they were quiet when we spent the night in the temple, quiet enough for us to sleep. They didn’t start screaming until they wanted us gone. Or maybe that’s only when we heard them, when they had enough energy again to be heard properly.
But I can’t hear anything now, just the engine roaring and the humming in the air and—
The engine stutters. But it’s just a one-off thing, and then we’re accelerating again. I breathe a sigh of relief.
Corin shifts his weight a little, keeps his arm around me. I lean into him, but I’m too tense, can’t relax. I drum my fingers against my thigh.
But it happens again: the engine stutters, five or ten minutes later. It lasts for longer this time, and I feel the momentum of the lorry slipping away.
Manning brings the radio to his mouth again, speaks into the little box. “Alban, what’s going on? Why are we—”
The lorry slams to a stop, jolts to the left.
I scream, whack my head against something hard, see dark spots amid whiteness for a second.
“Sev!” Corin’s by my side, falling, but grabbing me. He closes his fingers around my arm, yanks me up somehow.
I whirl around, choking, arms spread out, grabbing the wall. Boxes slide across the floor, throw up dust. Someone shrieks.
“What—”
The sounds of glass shattering fill my ears.
“Alban—what’s going on?”
“They’re…the windows…they’re getting in….”
There’s a pause, a long pause. And then a scream. A male scream.
Chills run down my spine. I look up, see purple swirls through the gaps in the wagon roof.
“Run for it! Only chance…” Alban’s panting. Then we hear scraping noises. And another scream.
“Alban? Yanugh?” Manning grips the radio so tightly his knuckles go white. He’s breathing hard, something drips from his braids. Dark red. Blood?
“Get out now… They’re in the cab! Going to get in the—”
The radio cuts off, hissing.
Manning springs up, heads toward the door. No one says anything as he slides the bolt back. My heart hammers against my ribs. I feel sick.
Manning throws the door the rest of the way open.
The sky outside is deep purple, with smaller pockets of mauve, red, navy, and gaping gaps of blackness. The purple’s stronger than what I’ve ever seen, and the black holes are eating everything.
I gulp.
The Turning.
It’s the middle of the Turning. The most dangerous time. The most lethal time, as the seasons change, and the spirits—especially the evil spirits—become more active.
Something moves in the sky. A dark mass, and it howls, flies toward us. A spirit. And suddenly there are so many. My mouth dries, and I’m trying to move backward, trying to move away, as far away as possible. But Corin’s in the way, and he’s not moving. He’s just a solid mass, like stone and—
A spirit dives down, toward us. I scream, and the men are shouting. And—
The spirit flies into the lorry.
I jerk up, arms and legs barely working. I crash into the side, with Corin. Then he leans forward, grabs Esther, wrenches her to us.
The spirit hovers in the middle of the lorry. It is grotesque, not one I recognize. Too many eyes. Semi-translucent. Lots of tendrils.
We’re all pressed against the walls. Mart whimpers. Someone whispers how they wish Iro was here—the dead man?—that he could use his powers to help us.
And the spirit looks at us all, each in turn.
Don’t look at it.
My heart’s beating too fast, and my hands are clammy. People rarely see an evil spirit and live. I’m shaking, trying not to look at it, trying not to make contact with its many eyes, trying not to accidentally challenge it. I turn my head, see Manning still in the doorway. The light is strange; he’s silhouetted, yet he shouldn’t be.
Corin’s hand suddenly closes around mine. He’s shaking.
Everyone’s shaking.
The spirit dives forward, screaming.
It crashes into the man next to Jed. And—
Too much happens at once. I can’t make it out. I hear the screams, the crying. I see the man fall. I see the spirit leap onto his body, but I can’t make its form out now. It’s all just a mass of movement.
I see the man’s foot kick out. And then—then his foot’s gone. Just gone.
My chest tightens. My forehead burns.
“Run!” Manning screams.
Corin’s hand jerks in mine, and then he’s turning—turning toward Manning. I try to follow, but my legs won’t work properly. And I can’t move my head, can’t look away from the spirit eating the man.
My eyes wid
en.
This isn’t just feeding. This isn’t what happened in the last Turning—immediately before the battle against the Enhanced Ones—when some spirits fed from us, so they could get enough energy to help us in the battle against the Enhanced—no.
This is—this is destruction.
This is bad.
This is carnivorous.
This is evil.
“Just run!” the chief shouts. “We’ve got a chance if we’re quick! The Turning’s only just begun. We’ve got to run for it. Now.”
“We can’t go out there,” Corin shouts. “It’s the Turning. Shut the door!”
But the Zharat men are jumping out. They’re just going. Running and jumping. I see Jed crawling to the doorway. Don’t know how he’s going to make it. Not outside, because… Because we’ll be running.
But no one can outrun a spirit. We all know that.
Oh Gods.
And the spirit’s still eating the man.
“Out now!” Manning shouts. “We know these lands. We know how to survive. Do as I say. Elmiro will help us.”
I look around for this Elmiro man, but no one steps forward. And then Manning rushes at us. But no, he’s not going for us. He’s going for Esther, scooping her up, flinging her over his shoulder like she’s a ragdoll. She screams—the first sound in ages—and her eyes flutter open. The fear in them grabs me.
“Hey!” Corin yells. “We—”
The second spirit enters.
A mass of red and green. It’s small, but sharp teeth appear out of nowhere, all over it. I don’t recognize it, haven’t seen that type before, but there are so many. Thousands of different spirit types.
The mass of teeth goes straight for Corin.
I scream, throw myself in front of him. I crash into him. We fall. Sharp corners jab at my side—more pain—then I’m scrambling around. Dust billows into my eyes, scratches, claws. I gulp, rub at them, but just get more dust in them.
A dark shape moves toward me. The spirit? More? Can’t tell. My chest tightens.
“Esther!” Corin shouts.
I turn, see boxes fall down. Something rushes past me, nails against my skin. Tearing. I shriek, and then—
The night is screaming.
I hunker down, or maybe I’m pushed down, I can’t tell. I taste grit and phlegm at the back of my mouth, feel something hover above me. I roll over, try to get away, can’t see a thing. Something hisses. A spirit?
There. A skeletal frame, dark, yet glowing. More hissing.
I crash into more boxes. Something moves in my right shoulder, a sharp twinge, reminds me of when I got shot there. White pain flits in front of my eyes. My skin tingles. Fingers. Spirits’ fingers, on my back. Bare skin. My shirt?
Let me eat you, dear human.
The words jolt through me. I scream, trying to turn, and—
“Get out!”
Something inside me jars. I feel more fingers on my skin. Fingers that aren’t fingers. The spirits. The Turning.
“Sev!”
Corin grabs me—his arms around my chest—and pulls me forward. I manage to find my feet, then we’re by the open doors. He’s shouting, cursing. Another spirit—a gust of sudden coldness—comes straight for us.
Corin aims his gun at it, fires. He misses.
But the sound—disorientating, too loud, and—
They rush at us.
Purple eyes and skulls and fingernails. I scream. Corin screams. My hands scrabble in the mess on the floor. Wet, blood. The smell of rust and bile. My insides heave. A skull hovers in front of me, blue tendrils dangling from its purple eye sockets.
Let me eat you!
I turn, step back onto the edge of the vehicle bed, then fall off. Land heavily on my right side. My mother’s pendant slams into my chest, cold. I shriek, then Corin’s there—right next to me, pulling me up. His gun goes off again, a hole in the night.
“Where did they go?” he shouts, pulling me forward. “The Zharat! Where did they go?”
My hair whips around, across my face, as I try to see, try to peer through the foggy colors and trees.
“That way!” I try to pull Corin along, but he’s too big and my hand’s too sweaty and my fingers are slipping. “Come on!”
We start to run, but our feet are sinking. The ground’s too wet. It’s mud, thick mud. The kind of mud that pulls you down. And there are plants, vines—things that grab me, try to stop me because everything’s moving.
I focus on the retreating figures in the distance. Manning is struggling with Esther’s weight, at the back of the group. Spirits are right by them, throwing their tendrils down and—
Corin’s hand is ripped from mine.
I turn, eyes streaming, heart pounding.
“Corin!” I scream, but the spirits are howling, shrieking, and I can’t hear anything else.
I drag more air in. Black dots appear in front of my eyes.
“Over here!” a voice yells.
A Zharat man—not Corin. He’s suddenly close by and lunges for me, grabs me, and—
I see the spirit at the last moment.
Too late.
I scream as the heap of silver feathers hits the man. A flurry of movement, followed by howling. I cry out, trying to step forward toward him—to help him—but I don’t know what to do, and—
The spirit tears a chunk from the man’s torso. Clothes and sinewy muscle and redness and skin. Blood. Something white and hard and—
I inhale sharply, start choking. My eyes start streaming. Something brushes against my back, like fur. I whirl around—another spirit? But I can’t see one…it’s gone?
Or it’s invisible and—
No. No. No.
Something hisses behind me, and I turn, heart pounding. I blink rapidly, see the silver spirit moving, see its teeth whirling around, and then it lifts up a few feet, and I see the man.
He looks at me, stares straight at me with hollow eyes. He’s still standing—I don’t know how—and his mouth is open, forming an eerie unison with the bloody aperture in his chest. His clothes are tattered around the edges of the gouge, frayed and broken. His lips are moving. With a jolt, I realize he’s telling me something, but I don’t know what he’s saying. Can’t make it out. A deep howling suddenly fills my ears; the spirit dives, going for him again, long teeth protruding like cast iron nails.
I try to turn, then duck as a wedge of the man’s flesh—still covered in his tattoos of birds—flies through the air. It misses my head by inches, and a new streak of gold hits it, followed by an ear-piercing shriek. A flurry of movement, more spirits—streaks of blinding color and black eye sockets. A bright flash of orange.
Run!
But my legs are too heavy, and I can’t leave the man, can’t—
It’s too late.
The spirits cover the man’s writhing body as he falls to the floor, as his limbs flail, as his blood pours out, soaking the ground. And there’s so much blood; the redness rapidly reaches my feet.
My stomach hardens, my breathing’s suddenly too fast.
A second later, the assembly of spirits parts down the middle, dividing into two channels, and I see what’s left of the man. Scraps of blood-steeped tattooed skin; the broken and scratched wings of birds that will never fly.
My chest hitches, my spine clicks.
Get out of here!
My body jolts, and I look around for the spirits—they’ll go for me next—but I can’t see them. The light’s too bad, and they’re hiding. All I can see is a thick, dark, pulsating fog around me that lifts and falls in waves.
“Come on!” Manning’s shout is distant.
I try to see him, but there’s no one here. Only the darkness as the world gets blacker and blacker. I turn and run and see land rising up ahead. A mountain. But the fog’s changing, getting deeper, and I can’t tell how far away the mountain is. And—
Raleigh has your eyes.
Rain lashes down. I try not to see anything, but the torrents of r
ain prevent it anyway.
“Sev!”
My chest thumps; he’s alive. Still alive….
I try to move, try to pull my left foot out of the stickiness. It’s gloopy, like tar. Like a black lake that wants to consume me.
Five. My chest tightens.
Don’t go to a black lake. If you see it, you run.
But I am knee-deep in a black lake. And I’m sinking. My chin trembles, and my nostrils flare, letting in more of a rotting-flesh kind of smell. Sweat breaks out across my forehead, and I clench my hands into fists, feel my nails digging into the soft flesh of my palms.
“Seven!”
Suddenly another Zharat man is here. He grabs my arm, yanks me forward. My fists fly open, and I see blood in them.
The black lake lets me go.
We run.
“It’s not far!”
Air rushes past me, and fingers. Lone fingers, on their own. I feel bile rise, and then I’m choking, gagging.
Let me eat you!
I surge forward, speed flowing into me.
And then…then there’s a hole in the ground. Straight in front of me. And I can’t stop.
I fall into the chasm—big, jagged edges of dark rock, leading down, down, down.
I crash onto hardness and rocks. Pain squeezes through me. I drag in air, but nothing happens—can’t breathe. Gulp more air, but…nothing, nothing—
Then I start choking. I roll to the side as a shape falls next to me, a man. A Zharat man. And hands—hands are pulling me up.
I scream, try to get away from the spirits. But it’s dark in here, and the ground’s uneven; I can’t see where I’m going, and huge nodules catch my feet. I stumble and—
“S’ven!”
I slam into a body. An upright body. Not dead. My chest rises and falls, too fast, can’t breathe. Going to be sick.
“S’ven! Do not worry!” It’s Jed’s voice, and then he’s patting me down—or at least, I think those hands are his. “The spirits will not enter the tubes.”
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