Reckoning

by Sonya Weiss

  I wasn’t someone who could murder in cold blood, but for Ide, I’d make an exception.

  I would lie to him to protect her. Leaving her there, wounded and vulnerable, wasn’t something I’d wanted to do. If I hadn’t, Ide would have come to the Void with his Guards, with his swagger, with death on his mind. He would have killed her, and he would have made me watch. I’d done what I had to do, but it didn’t make abandoning her any easier.

  “Tell me!” he yelled, swinging his legs out in front of him. Leaning forward, he put his hands on his knees, and his eyes gleamed with the light of the truly mad.

  “She fell off a ledge after the Fuse swarmed us. I couldn’t reach her in time.” Even thinking of what could have happened to her made my voice crack.

  Ide moved his attention to the Guards holding Stone’s arms behind his back. These two weren’t loyal to me. They were Ide’s eager followers.

  Stone’s head was bowed. Blood dripped in a steady flow from his lip and chin onto the marble floor. I’d warned him this could turn ugly.

  Getting up from the throne, Ide stepped down from the platform and crossed to Stone to lift his head by his hair. He lowered himself to peer into Stone’s bruised face. “Did you hear her scream for help?”

  I’d warned Stone Ide would dig at him. Finding out what hurt someone the most delighted Ide. Stone curved his lips into a smile and lurched forward, slamming his head into Ide’s face. Ide let out a high-pitched scream.

  “Yeah. It was a girlie scream like that,” Stone said.

  One of the Guards hit Stone’s head with the butt of his weapon, and Stone crumpled to the floor.

  Ide wiped his busted lip, then kicked Stone in the ribs and spit on him. Then he

  motioned for me to follow him. “Come, Brother. We have a lot to discuss.”

  I followed him across the great hall, and the cavernous space echoed the sound of my shoes hitting the floor. The black marble walls were fifteen feet high and imposing, built and reinforced strong enough to withstand an F-5 tornado. Ide walked down the hallway, passed through a formal sitting area, and went into the war room. Tapestries of every king who’d ever ruled our people adorned the walls. In between the tapestries sconces inlaid with rubies and sapphires tilted at angles to shine light on the faces of the kings, giving them a washed out, ghostly appearance.

  My father spent many hours in this room with the other leaders plotting the deaths of the humans in the Great Extinction. He’d calmly talked about the best way to get rid of the bodies afterward.

  With a flourish, Ide took a seat at the head of the table in the same chair where my father sat while discussing the deaths of the humans. “I have to tell you, brother dear, being the one poised to rule the world is an incredible feeling.” He took a deep, satisfied breath.

  “Then my father is dead?”

  Waving his hand, Ide said, “Oh, yes. I took care of that problem before you even hit the floor of the Void.” He folded his hands together and leaned forward. “It’s kind of sad really. He would have loved seeing the two of us working together. A family at last.”

  “We are not and never will be a family. I serve you only because of the mark on my arm.” I smacked my fist against the Torment Mark, wishing I could pound it into Ide’s face instead.

  Ide pursed his lips. “That hurts deeply, Brother, but I’ll rally.” He pulled a folder toward him and spun it around. “These are the blueprints for the White House. We’ll plant them on the imbecile out there and drop him off outside the human’s military base.”

  “Why?”

  “They’ll think he’s the one out to capture the president, and they’ll torture the hell out of him.” He laughed. “He’ll be the perfect decoy, and they’ll never suspect you’re the one who’s going to bring the president to me.”

  “I won’t do that. Taking their president will escalate the war, and more of our people will die.”

  “I would imagine killing her would probably make the humans a little angry.” He pursed his lips. “If more of our people die, so be it.”

  “I’ll kill you before I let you do that.”

  “Nice bluff.” Ide reached over and tapped the Torment Mark on my arm. “This prevents you from using your power against me. I’m ordering you to bring the president to me like the good little puppet you have to be.” He pushed back the chair and rose. “I can see by the look on your face you’re still not convinced. Let me show you something that’ll make you see things my way. Dear old Dad and his saggy-skinned royal buddies created this. You know of it, but you’ve never seen it in action.” He walked down the black marble hallway and into an inner room of the castle.

  The room was made of thick diamond walls except for one wall made of glass. The room was cold, the brilliance nearly blinding. The glass offered a view into an area of the Void beyond the Terrors.

  Realization dawned. “This is where—”

  “The Night of Grief is housed.” He pulled a Corresponder device that resembled the humans’ ancient iPhone technology from the pocket of his robe. “Go with the demonstration.”

  Light slanted across the top of the area when a small door opened. A middle-aged Supernatural was pushed inside. His wire-rimmed glasses fogged and he took them off to wipe them hurriedly on the tail of his shirt. When he put them back on and looked around, his mouth dropped open. He dug frantically at the walls with his fingernails, desperate for a way out. As he opened his mouth and screamed for help, his words ran together. “Helppleasehelppleasehelp!” His skin began to peel from his body, melting into a pool at his feet. Then his muscles started liquefying.

  I couldn’t form words to describe what I was witnessing.

  Ide touched his hand to the glass, stroking it, whispering as if fascinated. “They feel every second of it. First the skin, then the muscles. Finally the heart stops beating. Kind of hard to beat when it’s melting.” He smirked.

  The image of the man dying burned into my brain. “You sadistic freak,” I managed to choke out.

  “Aw, Riley. I love you too.” He rubbed his hands together. “It’s not as much fun when they die fast. The women don’t scream nearly as long as the men, especially the human ones. They’re tough. I kind of admire that.”

  I grabbed him by the throat and shoved him into the glass. “I’ll kill you. You’re a monster.”

  He twisted his face to the side and yelled into the Corresponder. “Next!”

  The top of the area housing the NoG opened, and a Guard dangled a young mixed-blood in the air.

  I released Ide and backed off, raising my hands in the air. The breath rushed from my lungs. “Don’t.”

  “There are more where he came from. Like Juliet’s sister. Fail to bring me the president, and this is what will happen to every child on Earth. Drop him,” he ordered.

  “No!” I rushed forward and pressed my hands on the glass, desperately trying to break it. I sent volley after volley of my power, and though it skittered around the edges of the glass, it couldn’t find an entry point.

  “It’s power proof. Dear old Dad used rock from the Void for that reason. Very safety conscious of him. He knew the power of this Supernatural virus. If it releases from the NoG and gets loose in the atmosphere, it can expand and mix with anything. Rain. Dirt. It can be absorbed through the skin or inhaled, and the reaction on humans or Supernaturals is the same as what you saw in there.” He turned to face me. “Fail to bring me the president, and I’ll release the Night of Grief. Imagine the parents desperately trying to save their children only to watch them melt in front of them. Or two lovers liquefied.” He smiled at the thought, then gave me a hard stare. “Only the king has the power to release it, and I’ll do that if you fail to do what I say.”

  Nausea rose in me. I slid to my knees and put my hands on the sides of my head. “He was a child. A child, Ide.”

  “Yes, I know. Tragic. Anyway… You take a moment and deal with the guilt of not saving the brat.” He slapped me on the shoulder. “Glad t
o have you home, Brother. Put on your royal clothes and meet me in the kitchen.” Whistling, Ide left the room.

  Chapter 8

  JULIET

  Something tore into my skin. I smelled the coppery scent of my blood on the air at the same time the pain ripped through me. I was being eaten alive. Not this way. Please, let me die first.

  The animal moved its hands—wait. Hands. Human. Not an animal. My muscles were too weak to move away from the one who was hurting me, my throat too parched to speak out in protest. I focused my gaze and blinked, trying to make sure I wasn’t seeing another hallucination.

  An older Supernatural cut carefully into my side with the blade of a scalpel. He dabbed the blood with gauze as it spilled forth. I focused my eyes. Henry, Riley’s friend and mentor. His hair still stood up straight like porcupine quills. “You look the same,” I said in a voice that didn’t sound anything like me.

  “Don’t try to speak.” He pulled on my muscle and skin, attempting to place a fail-safe in me. He pushed harder and the device, thicker than it normally was, slid in. Then I realized Henry was implanting multiple fail-safes at once. His gaze burned into me in a silent order not to say anything.

  Henry tapped on the devices, then dabbed at the opening with gauze. He pulled a needle through the muscles in my abdomen to anchor each of them.

  Fluids dripped into my body from an IV draped over a large rock. “My leg. Please. It’s on fire.” I tried to smile, but my lips were cracked in the corners and it hurt too much. I wanted to smile because I was saved. I had a chance to end the war. I would be able to get my sister and the other mixed-blood children to safety. We would all be together again. Me, the children, Chloe…not her. I tried to concentrate. She died. Stone. Was he…Riley…

  I latched on to Henry’s wrist, and my fingers closed around a cold metal band. One edge of it had two prongs that disappeared under his skin. I tried to pull it closer to study it, but couldn’t concentrate when Henry prodded my injured leg. I moaned and tried to shift away from him.

  “This is taking too long. You put the fail-safe in. Close her up and let’s go.”

  “I need to treat her leg,” Henry said to a man behind him.

  “There’s no time. We have to get her out of here before the Supernaturals realize we’re here.”

  “It needs immediate care. She could lose it,” Henry argued.

  “We have an ambulance standing by,” another voice said.

  “Rick?” I managed to force the word out. Rick Simon was the FBI agent I knew at the FBI’s FAD division. He’d worked to help my father.

  Rick knelt beside me. For once, he didn’t wear his usual smile.

  “How’d you find me?” I asked.

  Henry slid a needle into me to close the opening he’d created in my side, and I inhaled swiftly. The area wasn’t completely numb.

  “A phone tip.”

  I licked my cracked lips.

  “Here.” Rick lifted the back of my head and held up a bottle of water so I could drink. The coolness of the liquid burned my parched throat. I gulped fast, and some of it ran down my chin.

  “Easy. You’ll make yourself sick if you drink too fast.” He pulled back a little and capped the bottle.

  “Almost done.” Henry poured a liquid adhesive over the incision. I sucked in a breath at the sting of the liquid coating my skin.

  “Why is he wearing that band?” I asked.

  Henry’s gaze flashed to Rick. “Yes, human, why am I wearing this?”

  Rick’s face tightened. “The band disrupts a Supernatural’s powers. They’re not my orders.” He hesitated, then rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ve always been straight with you, you know that.”

  “Yeah.”

  “As of right now, it appears the humans are on the losing end of the war. We’ve been slaughtered by the thousands. The Supernaturals are on a rampage. We’re not able to reason with your new king.”

  “He won’t listen to me, either.” I didn’t like the look on Henry’s face. Sorrow, resignation, and fury all mixed together. I wiggled my fingers his direction. “What’s wrong?”

  He shook his head and didn’t answer.

  Rick motioned behind him. Two younger guys dressed in dark blue coveralls moved into my line of sight carrying a stretcher. Both of them wore electronic squares backlit by red LED lights on the front of the coveralls, identifying them as EMTs.

  The men lifted me onto the stretcher, and Henry covered me with a blanket. He held the IV bag as he walked beside the men carrying me. When we reached a narrow opening to the world outside of the Void, the men lowered the stretcher. The first one squeezed through and reached back into the opening.

  “Do you know where Riley and Stone are?” I touched Henry’s sleeve and whispered low so the others couldn’t hear.

  The man reaching in for the stretcher immediately barked out, “Prisoner! Step away from the girl.”

  Henry shuffled away, shoulders stiff. He raised his gaze to mine, and I was alarmed at the darkness I saw in the depths. The Henry I’d known was gentle and easy-going. Kind to the humans and the Supernaturals. He’d used his skills as a doctor to help Maisy when she was ill, even though treating an outlawed mixed-blood had jeopardized his own life.

  With a warning glance at me, Henry raised his arm to guide the IV through the opening, then crawled up the tunnel. Bits of dirt and small rocks fell back into the Void as he wiggled through. Once he was clear, the men dragged the stretcher out into the cold night air. Stars dotted the black sky. Beautiful sky. Free sky. With every passing second out of the Void, my power flowed back to me. I could feel the difference in my blood, in my organs, all the way to the marrow of my bones.

  Dozens of humans stood around. All dressed in camouflage. Standing with weapons ready, stealthily watching the castle. They kept casting worried glances at me, then back at the castle. If they were caught, Guards would storm out and the humans would be no match for the excessive strength of those brutal Supernaturals.

  “Faster,” Rick urged. “We have to get out of here now.”

  An ambulance waited, idling quietly on the side of the road. No lights, no siren. I looked up at the castle. The place was built on top of the Void, although why any Supernatural would want a prison of horrors beneath where they lived was anyone’s guess.

  I dragged in a deep breath as Rick approached. Catching me staring at the castle, he said, “Your King Ide is probably inside right now, but we can’t risk attacking. We’re outnumbered. Whoever phoned in the tip for your location failed to clue us in that the Void was below the castle.”

  “Are you leaving any of your men in the Void?”

  He shook his head. “No. The Void is too much of an unknown. Once we breached the crevice, walls of rock came down, blocking our access into other areas.”

  His words made my blood run cold. The Void would protect itself. If the humans messed with it, they could end up accidentally releasing the Night of Grief.

  Rick leaned closer. “Do you know what’s behind those walls of rock?”

  I wasn’t sure how much I should tell him. “I was taught it was worse than the Ragespawn.”

  Rick’s forehead wrinkled as he thought. He’d had first-hand experience with the destruction the Ragespawn were capable of when he’d witnessed them kill a colleague of his. “You can’t give a reasonable guess what’s in the Void?”

  Henry suddenly shouted at me, “Quiet, Juliet!”

  Everyone jumped at the loudness of his voice.

  I gasped when one of the other men hit Henry in the back, forcing the old man to his knees. Pain flashed across Henry’s face when the man pressed a weapon against Henry’s temple.

  Forcing down anger and the desire to use my power against the human, I said, “No, I can’t. I don’t know.”

  “Who does?”

  I shrugged and didn’t speak. From the corner of my eye, I caught Henry’s deep breath of relief. For whatever reason, he didn’t want me talking about the Night
of Grief, and I trusted Henry.

  “Load her and take her to the base hospital.” The frustration was evident in Rick’s voice. I turned my face away from him to peer into the woods near the castle. I could have sworn I saw Riley in the pale light given off by the moon, but then the man who’d hit Henry stepped into my line of vision to grab the ambulance doors. He narrowed his eyes, then slammed the doors shut. After a few seconds the engine started and the vehicle moved slowly forward, leaving through the gate and bumping along the road as it turned.

  I held up my hand where the IV line dripped steady fluids into me. My body warmed as my power returned to full strength. It fought the infection in my leg, seeking it out and attacking the bacteria in the wound. I flexed my fingers, then sat up slowly and

  aimed the palm of my hand toward a metal container. My power erupted from the small portal in the center of my palm, streaked across the inside of the ambulance, and with laser precision hit the bowl. It turned as red as lava from a volcano eruption. The form of the bowl quickly changed, melting and caving in on itself. There was an element to my power that I didn’t like to talk about, much less think about, but I needed to share it with Henry. I knew I had a destiny to fulfill, but it was almost like my power was going to make sure I did. Like it was in charge and not me.

  RILEY

  I’d managed to sneak out and watch Juliet’s rescue. My knees went weak with relief when I’d seen Henry beside her. She was safe, and he would make sure her injuries were cared for. I could barely stand the physical distance between us. I wanted to run to her, to tell her what I’d done and why. I needed to hold her, to touch her, to reassure myself she was going to be okay. I would find a way back to her side.

  I buttoned up the shirt with the royal crest on the collar without seeing my reflection in the mirror. What a fool I’d been to think all I had to do was get out of the Void and overthrow Ide. I’d failed to take into account the depths of his madness or his willingness to unleash the horrific Supernatural virus on the world. Though it had no scientific name, my father and the other leaders had referred to it as the Night of Grief based on the weeping that was sure to take place when Supernaturals and humans witnessed the virus kill their loved ones.