Touch

by Michelle Sagara

  “Chase had time to salt the earth. There are gaps in the barrier. I don’t know how long they’ll last. I can slide through them, with some effort—but if I breach the barrier, the Necromancers will know.”

  “If anything breaches that barrier, they’ll know if they’re paying attention.” Eric looked into the darkness from which no sound escaped. Hang on, Chase. I’ll be there soon.

  * * *

  Snow, rain, safe houses that changed from one minute to the next—these had been Chase Loern’s life. He didn’t have a home. He hadn’t for a long time. If you asked him on the wrong day, he didn’t have friends, either; he had enemies. He had a mission.

  He glanced over his shoulder at a tree.

  He’d learned a few things since he’d lost his home, his friends, and the life he’d taken pretty much for granted. He’d stepped into a world of kill or be killed, and he was fine with that. Killing? He’d make the bastards pay. They’d left him alive. They’d regret it, right up until the time they got lucky or he got careless.

  Until then? He’d fight.

  He’d learned how to do that. No sweat. He’d learned how to kill Necromancers. If he’d known then what he knew now—but no. No.

  What he’d learned, the most important lesson, was that the world was a harsh, bitter place. You had to get its attention. It didn’t negotiate with a man on his knees; no point. It had you where it wanted you.

  Chase didn’t beg. He didn’t plead. He didn’t pray. He’d tried that once, and he’d learned. He knew that the person with the power got to dictate the terms—any terms. Life or death. In Chase’s world, power meant one thing.

  But he glanced at the tree again, knowing who sheltered behind it.

  In his old life, he wouldn’t have noticed her. That was the truth. She was plain. She was surrounded by people who weren’t. She was quiet; she didn’t demand attention, and she didn’t reach out—the way Amy did—and grab it with both hands, shaking it until she got what she wanted. She would never have crossed his path.

  But the first night he’d seen her, she’d almost slapped him. She had been practically quivering with indignant rage. She was willing to say what her best friend wouldn’t: He had come to kill Emma. The fact that Emma was demonstrably not dead didn’t change her fury one bit. The fact that Emma didn’t want her anger or the confrontation it would cause hadn’t changed it either.

  Among the hunters, tempers frayed. Life on the edge did that. It was all about the fraying. He’d seen temper before; he’d see it again. But not Allison’s temper. Not Allison’s rage. It wasn’t for herself. It wasn’t for her loss. She’d known what was right—and what was wrong. And Chase was wrong.

  He wouldn’t have raised a hand against her if she had slapped him. He wouldn’t have raised his voice. For a minute—for just a minute—he could see the world as she saw it. And it felt familiar. It felt like—like home. Like the home he’d lost. Like the home he’d never tried to build again.

  It was stupid. It was wrong. His entire life had proved that. Tonight would prove that to Allison. It would open her eyes.

  And he didn’t want that. He wanted her to live in the world she saw. He wanted her to have what he’d lost—what he should never have lost, if the world were sane. Because he thought Allison could somehow defend her corner of the universe. Not with knives. Not with cold steel, or silver, or guns, or weapons; those weren’t her particular strength. She might be able to learn them; Chase had.

  But even armed as she stood, sanity—angry, furious sanity—had roots that were deep enough, strong enough, to weather the storms that surrounded her.

  He had no home. It was better to have no home; he’d only have to leave it. But he knew now that some glimmer of it had remained dormant in him, and she had touched it.

  He couldn’t pray. He couldn’t beg. He couldn’t plead. But what he wanted now depended on the things he had learned since the last time he’d tried. With his own hands, with his own power, he intended to protect the things he loved.

  * * *

  Allison looked for the gaps in the growing wall. She looked for the places where vines had, as the unseen speaker had claimed, withered. The tree she was sheltering behind was no longer good cover; green light had become too bright. She hesitated. Chase had told her to stay put. He knew Necromancers. He knew their powers. He’d given her the knife she held in a shaking hand, and he’d told her to cut and run if necessary.

  But running with no destination was a disaster in the making. She didn’t know where the Necromancers were, but their voices had drawn closer. She could see the wall of risen vines; it towered above her in the distance. As she narrowed her eyes, she could see gaps in that wall. The vines at these locations were brown and dark; the fire didn’t burn around them. They were almost evenly spaced, and they weren’t wide—but they were there. If she could make it that far, she should be able to push through them; they were just about wide enough.

  She inhaled, held her breath, and then crouched, peering at half-height around the cover of the tree’s trunk. She couldn’t see Chase; she couldn’t see anything but green and white.

  She exhaled into her sleeve, although visible breath was fast becoming a nonissue. Chase had told her to remain where she was. But he’d also told her to cut and run if necessary.

  “Over there!” The woman shouted.

  Allison froze. She didn’t have to hide her breath; she stopped breathing for a long, agonizing minute. But the voice was followed by footsteps—and the footsteps led away from the tree. Away from her hiding place.

  She had no idea what Chase could do. She’d spent one afternoon with Ernest—and Michael—and all she’d learned was how to run. How to kick someone so she could run. How to hit them. How to cause enough pain to get away. She’d learned that she needed to wear a thick, ugly necklace that rode a little too high on her neck; she’d learned that iron links could be sewn into coat linings. She’d learned that silver was useful.

  She hadn’t learned why—and Michael had asked.

  She knew that Chase could fight. Chase could use knives. He could use guns. He could use—in a pinch—crossbows. But she knew that Chase could do more than that; if she needed proof, she only had to look at the hedge wall.

  She even understood—and hated herself for it a minute later—why he hunted Necromancers before they came into their power. Against people like that—against people who were almost normal, she might stand a chance. Against people who had magic, almost none.

  She heard another curse, more shouting; she took a deep breath, bit her lip, and headed in a straight line toward a gap in the fire that limned the wall. She held the knife clenched in one hand, and it made running harder, somehow, but she knew it could cut through the Necromantic magic anyone was likely to spare for her.

  And she knew, as she reached the dead vines that couldn’t support fire, that she should push them out of the way. She did that, cutting in places. She made a gap for herself; she’d be scratched, but whole, when she came out the other side.

  But she didn’t push through the hedge. She did the stupid thing. She turned. She looked back.

  Chase was facing two Necromancers. She could see the red shock of hair that made him visible no matter how many people surrounded him. She could see fire—green fire—enveloping his body like a bubble.

  She knew he was struggling. His movements were slow; the fire had trapped him. It hadn’t stopped him; it hadn’t killed him. Without help, it was only a matter of time. She wasn’t the help he needed. Running back to him wouldn’t save his life; it would only end hers. She suffered no illusions and no false sense of her own abilities.

  She turned back to the hedge, and then turned again.

  She suffered from no illusions.

  She wasn’t brave. She wasn’t kind. She worried about herself and her own needs far too much.
She had been jealous of Nathan. She had wanted him to go away. And then, sickeningly, he had. She could spend the rest of her life making up for that one selfish thought—and it probably wouldn’t be enough.

  Jealousy is natural. If you hate yourself for being jealous, you’re going to spend a lot of time hating yourself. But now that you’ve said it, how do you feel? She could still see her grandfather’s teasing smile, and his voice was so clear he might have been standing beside her.

  Terrible.

  Jealous?

  Afraid. Afraid that I’ll lose Emma. Afraid that I deserve to lose her.

  Fear is natural, too. Your mother’s not here, so let me put this the crudest way possible. Going to the bathroom is natural. If you never do it, you die. He held up a hand. Yes, you won’t die if you never experience jealousy, but that’s not the point of the analogy. You need to go to the bathroom. When you’re an infant, you go anywhere. Your parents clean up after you. When you’re a toddler, you’re not supposed to drop your pants and pee on the sidewalk.

  But you’ve seen children do it. You even laughed.

  Because they’re children.

  Yes. But they’re doing what comes naturally. They have to learn that there’s a time and place to express what’s natural. This is not about what you feel. What you feel is natural. It’s understandable.

  This is about what you do. Fear’s the same. It’s not about the feeling. It’s natural. It’s human. It’s about what you do.

  Her grandfather was gone, but his voice came back to her as she stood, frozen, by the hedge wall.

  We all want to be good people, her grandfather said. But no one starts out that way. When we’re infants, we’re greedy little creatures. The only things that exist are our wants and our needs. We’re not much better as toddlers. Becoming the person you want to be isn’t an accident. It’s not something that just happens.

  We choose. We live with our choices. We make better choices. We learn to judge others less harshly when we understand the costs of our own mistakes. So here’s my advice for the day.

  Do your best to make the choices that will lead to you becoming the person you want to be. Accept the fact that you’re human. Accept the fact that you’ll fail when the days are long and harsh. And never knowingly make a choice that will make you think less of yourself. Make choices that will make others think less of you if you have to—but don’t make choices that lead to self-hate.

  There’s enough hatred in the world. Don’t add to it.

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  ALLISON LOWERED HER HANDS. For just a moment she could see everything so clearly it might have been noon. She could see Chase. She could see his scorched hair. She could see blood on his hands and steam rising from the snow beneath his feet. The woman was almost within his reach, but she no longer had a gun; the man was ten yards away from him, his hands spread in a fan at the level of his chest. He was the source of the fire; she was certain of it.

  She had no illusions. She didn’t need them, now. She wasn’t going to run away while Chase fought. She wished—how she wished—she had taken her phone with her when she left the house through her bedroom window; it was on her desk. She had no way of calling for help; screaming probably wouldn’t cut it.

  But she wasn’t helpless. There was no one holding her back except herself. Herself, her lack of experience, her fear. And if she gave in, Chase would die. Allison sometimes hated what Emma’s sense of guilt did to Emma—but really, was her own so different?

  She pulled back into the tree cover. She used what little of it there was. She crouched, which made movement agonizingly slow. Slower than Chase’s. And she headed around him, as if her life depended on it. She didn’t give much for her chances if she caught the attention of both Necromancers now.

  Chase had it.

  Chase had it, and she needed him to keep it while she edged her way around them to the man who was standing out of his range, controlling the fire.

  And when she reached him—if she did—what was she going to do? She didn’t look at the knife in her hand; it was the only weapon she carried. The “if” was big enough she was willing to concentrate on one problem at a time.

  She heard the woman curse and demand more power from, presumably, the man; he didn’t reply. But his focus was on Chase; Allison rounded a tree, forgetting to breathe into her sleeve, and she was ten yards from his back.

  His exposed back. He wore a wool coat that fell past the back of his knees; it was either dark gray or black. She couldn’t see his hands; she could see fabric stretched across taut shoulder blades. His boots were invisible, his legs ending in snow.

  But he wore no hat. She doubted very much that he wore a necklace similar to her own. She ducked behind the tree again. She would have to run if she couldn’t move silently. She wasn’t certain how much attention the Necromancer’s partner was actually paying to him—and wasn’t certain if they had taken the time to trap the ground, as Chase had done. She was pretty certain they hadn’t.

  But what did she know?

  Chase was in trouble. She needed to do something. She had a knife. She could stab the Necromancer with it—but probably only once; twice if she was lucky. She needed to make it count. And she needed to make it count in a way that still left a knife in her hands.

  It was hard to breathe. If she messed this up, she was dead. They were both dead. But if she didn’t try at all, Chase was.

  The worst thing that ever happened to me? Not dying.

  She hadn’t understood it, when he’d said it. But the gunshot—at her house—made it real in a way she’d never really considered. She could imagine Chase as a younger boy. She could imagine how powerless he’d felt; she felt powerless now, but she wasn’t. She had a knife. She had silence. She had a Necromancer who was concentrating on the only person he thought might be a threat.

  She had something. She had hope, a bitter chance. She intended to use it, because she didn’t want to become Chase.

  Allison Simner had never stabbed a man. She’d only hit one once, if you didn’t count her brother. She hated causing pain. Even angry, she tried to avoid it. But she moved toward the back of a stranger she now hated, and she held on to hate, sharpening her fear rather than surrendering to it.

  The Necromancer was taller than she was. His hair was dark, but snow-dusted where he’d come too close to branches. More than that, she couldn’t tell. She practically crawled across the snow toward his exposed back. She couldn’t see Chase at all.

  She was almost in touching distance of the Necromancer when he turned, his hands dropping as she raised the knife to press it against his throat. “Stop the fire,” she told him, her voice steady.

  His eyes were gray light. Emma had told her that meant he was using power; she tightened her grip on the knife and drew it across his exposed skin. The blood that welled there was more of a shock to her than it was to him, judging from his reaction.

  “Or what, little girl?”

  “Allison!”

  “Or I’ll kill you.” It was cold. It was so cold.

  He smiled. That was the worst of it. He smiled. He was bleeding. She’d cut him. But not enough. If he was afraid at all, it didn’t show. And she knew that she had to do more, do it quickly; that she had to make him bleed in earnest. She knew where the dagger had to cut.

  But she froze.

  The woman screamed; the Necromancer who faced Allison stiffened. She saw his eyes begin to glow as her hand shook, and she knew that her moment was passing. Maybe it had passed. But she also knew that Chase was free. Chase who wouldn’t have bothered with threats. Chase, who wouldn’t have wasted the one chance he was given, if he was given one at all.

  She moved her arm before the Necromancer could grab her wrist; she held the knife. She wasn’t surprised when his hands became gloved in the white
brilliance of fire; this close, the fire wasn’t so much tendrils of flame as the pointed, solid light of acetylene torch. And it was aimed at her.

  She cut it with the knife—it was so much easier to use the knife that way. Fire didn’t bleed. It separated, as if it were an extension of his hands; it fell away, as if it were solid. But it didn’t bleed. It didn’t kill. She backed away. Cut and run.

  But she couldn’t run now. She couldn’t turn her back on the man. The air was dry; the walls of her throat clung together, making breathing hard.

  And then she was hit across the face and her knife hand by something warm, and she looked at the underside of the Necromancer’s chin—and the sudden, gaping wound where his neck had been. She froze, but her knife was nowhere near the open wound; it was nowhere near slick enough, or red enough.

  “You really are a stupid girl,” a horribly familiar voice said. The Necromancer toppled to one side, reaching for his neck as if to close what had been so brutally opened. Her hands shook and she forced the knife up, to point it at Merrick Longland.

  * * *

  He showed no more fear than the Necromancer had. “You’ve already made clear that you’ve no intention of using what you wield.” He stepped toward her; she stepped back. “Your hunter had better be less squeamish than you are.” He turned his back on her.

  “Why?” she asked. Back exposed, she could have stabbed him. But she knew, now, that that was a wish, a dream. Whatever it took to knife a man in the back, she didn’t have it. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

  He didn’t pretend to misunderstand, although he didn’t turn to look back at her. Instead, he folded his arms across his chest; she could see small mounds of snow moving just above his feet, and realized he was tapping his left foot, as if impatient.

  “Your Emma has something I need. She values you enough that saving your life might put her in my debt.” He cursed and added, “I’d hoped my former colleagues would be competent enough to do away with the hunter by now. If you’d stayed where you were, I wouldn’t be saving his life as well.”