by Gary Jonas
I noticed something even more terrible than the constant breaking. Brand’s healing was slowing down, too. The time between laughing and silence stretched. Fresh sweat slicked his forehead. If they kept breaking him, Brand might bleed to death internally before he could heal. The thought of seeing him die such a horrible death tore something open inside me.
Liz nodded to herself, satisfied. “What a wonderful way to tenderize and marinate them. I wonder if I could have extracted even more power from the other Sekutar if they’d had a chance to see a loved one suffer. Oh, the fear that floods your souls when you watch each other getting hurt. I wish you non-Kin could see it! The light it gives off is breathtaking.”
“What fear?” I tried to stare down Liz.
“Right. You can’t feel it, can you? Oh, but it’s there, all tucked away in your broken soul that cracks and fissures under the pressure of fresh fear even as I’m talking to you.”
She turned to Brand. “You feel it though, don’t you? You’ve watched other people you care for die. It’s given you quite a case of PTSD. Is that how DGI recruited you? They promised to block your fear, like they did for Kelly?”
Liz walked closer to him. “It didn’t work, did it? As much as you try to hide it, you are absolutely terrified right now that Kelly is going to die next.” Liz ran a finger down his cheek. “Well, you’re right. Kelly is going to die. Feeding me.”
She leaned forward and kissed him. “Watch.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
My pain became a background haze as I forced my mind to sharpen. Why was Brand weakening? Maybe Sekutar 2.0 had kill-switches too, and DGI decided to activate them. Or, more likely, it was in Brand’s very structure. I thought about how Lina had to refuel every time she healed someone. The body uses up energy to heal itself, and to heal as rapidly as a Sekutar does means that the energy must come from one of two sources – massive amounts of food or good old magic. I was engineered to draw more energy from magic than food, or else I’d have to eat throughout a battle just to maintain my abilities. Maybe Sekutar 2.0 relied more on food than I did.
What I needed was a source of magic. Sekutar magic.
Liz pulled back from Brand. “Now, Amanda, you’re going to undo all the no-kill buttons you used to shackle my children or I will test the Sekutar’s limits by breaking every bone in their bodies.”
Liz pointed to Jiggs. “But before you get to my children, you take his out first.”
Amanda shook her head no. She stared helplessly at me, but I barely registered her.
I was thinking about energy, its quality and where it comes from, how it flows and how it can be used against an opponent. And I was thinking about two words that Liz said to Brand. Feeding me. You want to be fed, bitch? Let’s get it on.
I finally acknowledged Amanda. “Do it.”
My best friend looked at me like I was a monster.
A Sekutar ghoul walked over to Jiggs. He clung to his daughter through the bars. Or maybe Bliss was holding him up, holding him together, the inverse of how things should be, but often are.
“Be careful with him,” Liz said.
The Sekutar ghoul reached for Jiggs with surprising gentleness. Jiggs opened his eyes and lifted his head. He let go of Bliss, who protested and clung to her father as best she could. He reached through the bars one last time and laid a hand on either cheek, wet with his blood and her tears.
“I’ll always love you, Baby. No matter what happens.”
“To the moon and back, and back again,” she whispered, then let him go.
The Sekutar ghoul walked Jiggs to Amanda. As soon as the ghoul released him, Jiggs collapsed. Amanda knelt next to him. She touched him under the chin, spoke a few words and the no-kill button disappeared. He ran his fingers over the now-smooth skin. Jiggs scratched his chin and his eyes narrowed with pleasure. When he stopped scratching, he said, “Finally. Been trying to stop that itch for a while now.”
Amanda gave him the barest but warmest of smiles.
Liz looked them over and crossed her arms.
“See, Kin are different from humans. We’re more resistant to magic. To make a Kin into a Sekutar warrior, we found, required not only surgery but a conduit. Like my Marcus. So handsome to look at, and built just for me. DGI upgraded him with a bit of magic so that he could be my own conduit. So he could feed me just as he fed himself. And boy did he have the taste. Just like you, Jiggs.”
Liz leaned down and clasped his chin in her hand. Jiggs tried to pull away but didn’t have the strength.
“You’ve been so bad to me. So contrary and rebellious. You took my Marcus away. I should punish you. But instead, I’m going to give you exactly what I know you crave, even as you give me what I want. You’re my new conduit, Jiggs. My consort. You’ll feed me, and you’ll talk to the other Kin and you’ll persuade them that I’m right. All the things Marcus used to do so well. Congratulations on the promotion.”
Jiggs sneered. “It’ll be a short-term assignment. If you haven’t noticed, I’m not long for this world.”
“Don’t be so pessimistic. Amanda will fix you. Once this next bit of business is over, I’ll have her magic you up just like Marcus. She’s smart. She’ll figure it out.”
Liz straightened, clapped her hands and rubbed them together. “Besides, you’re going to feel like a new man in a minute. Everything feels better after a good meal.”
She signaled the Sekutar ghouls gripping my arms. “Bring her.”
The room erupted in sound. Sekutar ghouls cheered and clapped. Brand yelled and fought against his captors who broke him again. Jessica crawled toward Bliss and reached through the divider to hold her, turning the little girl’s face away from the room as they hugged. Jessica didn’t look away. Her gaze stayed steady and strong, as if she could lend me the last of her courage.
Liz addressed the room. “The witch will send her magic through my consort as he does the Good Work on the Sekutar. The Sekutar’s fear and magic will feed both him and me, as doing the Good Work will nourish you all when the time comes for you to feed on the old Sekutar. Your power and healing will increase as mine has. Then the Kin will bloom and cover the earth. There will be no more eating the dead for us! Only the living! Only the choicest of food for my children!”
The Sekutar ghouls dropped me to the floor beside Jiggs and Amanda. I blacked out from the pain.
When I came to a minute later, I was in Jiggs’ arms. His breath wheezed in and out, and I could feel his heartbeat against me – fast, weak and irregular. His skin was more white than gray. He was bleeding somewhere deep inside. He met my gaze with barely a flicker of orange in his eyes.
“I won’t do this to you,” he whispered. “I won’t desecrate myself and take your life.”
“Do it, Jiggs. There is no desecration in this. I forgive you.” I only hoped he could forgive me, too.
“Kelly, I can’t do it.”
“For Bliss. For Kess and your baby to be.”
Amanda shook her head. “Kelly, stop. I can’t do this, either.”
“It’s our only choice. Ship’s going down, all hands on deck.”
“Stop it.” Her eyes watered up.
“You know the song that plays endlessly in your car. The price of magic. It always has a cost.” Amanda looked so hurt and exhausted. I hoped she had the strength to do this. It was our only hope.
Liz stood over us, savoring the growing fear. But even she had her limits and her appetite.
“Start the Good Work. When we’re done with her, we’ll feast on the other Sekutar. He should be overflowing with fear by then. He’s already brimming. Make sure he sees every last bite.”
I gently pressed my forearm against Jiggs’ mouth. He tried to pull away, but a Sekutar ghoul nudged his head forward.
I met Amanda’s gaze and held it. “Start the magic.”
“Dammit, Kelly.” But she began chanting, and soon Jiggs glowed with the same orange light that reflected in every hungry Sekutar ghoul’s eyes
.
The pain in my head from the magic was like a million spikes driving down to the core. “Now bite me, Jiggs,” I said with the last of my strength.
He did. The pain in my head quadrupled. But it was nothing compared to the fear. What I had felt as a child came back to me in a rush and I screamed.
I screamed for all the times I woke alone in the dark.
For all the times I went up against an opponent I knew was stronger than me.
I screamed for the time Monique told me Jessica was gone. For when Jonathan died in my arms leaving me alone in the world.
For when I lost him again.
And for when I watched Brand disappear in a flash of deadly light. Gone.
The fear poured out of my soul and I felt every bit of it as it passed into Jiggs. A look of rapture spread across his face as my fear fed him and then Liz. Glassy-eyed, he took another bite.
Amanda’s magic flowed into my body and sought out what little magic was left that still held my Sekutar being together. Her magic drew out mine like a stream pulling the water from a still puddle, and channeled it straight through Jiggs and into Liz.
Including the magical kill-switch.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
After I felt all my fear, I had the infinite pleasure of watching Liz’s eyes fill with her own. When she realized what was happening, she tried to pull away from the circuit. The kill switch would do to her what it had done to me – mainly, cut me off from my source of magic. Liz had amped herself up with enough Sekutar magic to become one herself. What would happen if it all poured out suddenly?
“Up the wattage,” I told Amanda.
“It’ll kill you.”
“Don’t care. It’ll kill her.” I hoped.
Amanda poured everything she had left into the spell. I gave her one last smile and looked at Brand, who I figured would be the last person I’d ever see. It was a good view. Transfixed by their New Mother’s feeding, the Sekutar ghouls had stopped breaking him and his jaw had healed. He didn’t yet understand what was happening to Liz, only that he was watching me die. As the last bit of magic drained away, before my body went into shock from the damage I’d suffered, I looked at Brand through the eyes of an ordinary woman. I saw him looking back at me with admiration.
Yup, not a bad view, not at all. Those were the last thoughts of this ordinary woman who would never be ordinary in the eyes of a man who might have loved her anyway.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
You know how it is when the power goes out in your house at night, usually when you’re cooking and you’ve got the TV on and maybe the radio and every light is burning? First, you’re surprised by the sudden dark and the silence. You wait there in the dark for a bit, expecting the power to come back on right away. When it doesn’t, you might light a candle and read a book. Then after a couple of hours, right when you get to the good part in the story and you’re totally sucked in, everything comes back on at once and the surprise is bigger than when the power went out unexpectedly.
That’s how I felt when the last of the kill-switch’s deadly magic left my body.
Liz was right – ghouls were built differently from humans. Their bodies resisted magic. When the kill-switch entered her, it repulsed all the magic she’d stored up.
And then the magical current reversed, so that all the power Liz had drained out of the other Sekutar poured back into me.
There was a distant roaring in my ears. My eyes flew open as strength and healing flooded my body. Amanda quit chanting, out of shock more than anything else when she felt the tide turn. Then she chanted faster, urging the magic back into my body, back where it belonged. My bones knitted back together as all my wounds closed up.
Liz flailed wildly at Amanda, trying to cut off the magical stream. She screamed as her body collapsed in on itself. Muscle wasted away on her arms and legs as she shrank and disappeared into her now oversized dress.
The last of the magic filled me, but Amanda stopped the flow before the kill-switch could get back through. I stood up and kicked Liz square in the face. Her nose and cheeks sank into her head like a rotten Jack-O-Lantern. Her beautiful hair went flying across the room, an elaborate wig. I kept up my dance and felt Liz’s body come apart under my feet.
Then I turned and broke Brand free from the shocked Sekutar ghouls holding him. I smashed their skulls together. They flopped backward and slid to the floor, stunned. The Sekutar ghouls who had held me attacked and I thought of pulling my punches. Jiggs had asked me to help bring the Kin’s lost children home, not kill them. So instead, I dished out concussions like Halloween candy. When I was finished, they slumped unconscious to the rug, where they wouldn’t get in the way for a while.
The roaring in my ears grew louder, and I realized the sound was coming from outside the chamber. There was a deafening bang and then Kin poured out of every shadow in the room. New Mother’s word had spread all right, but not with the results she’d intended.
Kess appeared with Dobbs, the Kin who had led us to the ballroom earlier. They had the stray Sekutar 2.0 in tow like the scariest baby ducks in the history of impressionable waterfowl.
Better late than never. Denver traffic is a bitch.
They quickly dispersed and I expected some major carnage to go down if anyone resisted. And maybe if they didn’t resist. Brand joined them happily. Other Kin spread out to find their sons and daughters.
Kess went straight for her husband as soon as she saw Jiggs lying on the floor. I knew what she would find and my heart grieved. The kill-switch had passed through him on its way to Liz.
I ran to the cage holding Jessica and Bliss. The bomber ghoul standing next to it came to back to himself. He rubbed at his chin as he looked horrified at the chaos going on around him.
“Open the cage!” I shouted. He looked at me, then at the padlocks.
Right. Hebb still had the keys.
And Hebb wasn’t doing so hot. He’d lost his father, then the fearless leader who’d promised him revenge against the witch he’d thought killed his daddy. So he decided to get his own vengeance.
Hebb opened his mouth inhumanly wide, bared his fangs and sprang at Amanda, who was fresh out of magic and half-conscious. He tackled her and she tried to fend him off.
I ran to them, grabbed Hebb, and slammed him to the floor so hard I thought his eyeballs might pop out of his skull. He thrashed and snapped and caught my arm between his teeth.
“No.” Amanda’s feeble voice reached us.
Too late, Hebb bit down into my flesh. But he still had the no-kill button. Amanda designed the magical explosives to only harm the attacking ghoul, not the victim. A force field like a fishbowl enveloped Hebb’s head. A muffled whump then his head and all its contents splattered against the sides. The force field dropped and so did Hebb’s body along with a round red haze of blood and brains.
The fresh puncture marks in my arm healed up quickly. The bites that Jiggs had torn out had already mended leaving only a thin ring of pink scar tissue, and I thought even that would fade with time.
I grabbed the keys off Hebb’s body and sprinted to Bliss and Jessica’s cage. I unlocked the divider, then the door on Jessica’s end and she crawled out first.
Jessica stood up and hugged me. My body flooded with love for the strong, amazing woman now safe in my arms. She would never be ordinary, either.
Bliss ran to her mom and dad. Her steps faltered as she got closer. Jessica and I followed, our arms around each others’ waists.
Bliss knelt next to her mom as Kess cradled Jiggs’ head in her lap. He gazed up at his gray-skinned wife whose make-up had long since worn off. Her blond wig was askew.
“Always so beautiful,” Jiggs said, his voice faint and fading as the last traces of magic dissipated from his body. “The most beautiful woman in the world. The only one I ever see in the room.”
Then he was gone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The fighting, what there was of it, ended after that. Th
e existing Sekutar ghouls recognized their families and surrendered. They found the younger Kin in an adjoining room – caged, starved and waiting to be turned into Sekutar ghouls.
With New Mother’s influence gone, the Kin reunited. They had a long way to go toward healing. Under New Mother, some of their children had developed the taste and would struggle with it their whole lives. But now they had a strong, united family to help them, and to prevent the taste from claiming any new children. The ghouls were truly Kin again.
Half a dozen DGI wizards, brave or stupid souls all, take your pick, wandered through the mobs of Kin to the cages that held the human prisoners. They opened the doors, pulled out the kids and proceeded to do damage control. Memories disappeared or changed.
An anonymous tip to the police brought the cosmetics company, Conjure Couture, under investigation for human trafficking.
The kids that Conjure Couture recruited would have to testify to being locked up in a warehouse, waiting to be shipped overseas. Then the case would be closed, and all their bad memories – both true and false – would fade so they could go on to lead normal, happy lives. Courtesy of the DGI wizards from Human, Inhuman and Subhuman Resources, including Amanda.
The wizards gave Jessica the choice of remembering or forgetting what happened to her.
Amanda staggered up to me, her eyes red from crying over Jiggs. I guess mine were still red for the same reason. She put her head on my shoulder. “I’m going to sleep for a week.”
“In Chaz’s arms?”
“Naw, we broke up before I left for work yesterday. He was sick of coming in second to the job and I was sick of him confusing Nick Fury with Luke Cage.”
“I’m sorry.”
Amanda shrugged. She looked over at the Sekutar 2.0. One of them wore a T-shirt with the lightning bolt Flash symbol.
“That guy looks kinda lonely, don’t you think?” Amanda asked.