by White, Gwynn
I fought to speak and coughed, my throat burning in pain.
Clearing my throat, I swallowed a few times and tried again.
“Where am I?” I managed.
It came out too soft. I had to stop again midway, swallowing thickly. My tongue still didn’t want to work, and my throat burned like fire.
“Is someone there?” I swallowed again. “Who’s there? Can you hear me?”
“Relax, Miss Taylor.”
Recognizing the voice, I felt my stomach sink.
Ponytail.
A match was struck not far from where I lay. Whoever held it threw it towards the ground before I could make out their face.
The match didn’t complete its arc.
Instead it bounced halfway, in the shadowy pile heaped around the stone basin.
There was a whup sound, like an old-fashioned gas heater turning on. Flames shot up from those dark shadows, illuminating a heaped stack of broken packing crates and wooden pallets, wet with starter fuel.
I blinked, wincing away from the sudden, bright light.
When my eyes adjusted, I found myself staring at a bonfire arranged around the white stone basin. The edges of the fire were bounded by large chunks of white granite. Several thick spokes stuck out from the blazing pyre in the center, made of more logs and broken pieces of packing crates.
The shape looked almost like a wheel to me now.
One good thing: I was less cold.
The fire’s size, and the burning, rectangular pallets reminded me of beach parties we had at home, especially back in college, when we’d sometimes drive all the way down to Santa Cruz to hang out with friends. Those fires always burned like this one, high enough that waves of heat would wash over you whenever the wind shifted in your direction.
At first, all I could feel was relief at that heat, at my belly and feet slowly warming.
Then I realized one of those wooden spokes coming off the main fire led to me.
Looking to the left, where another spoke of dry wood had been piled up, leading away from the center fire in the opposite direction, I found myself meeting a set of dark purple eyes I recognized. When the fire blazed higher, illuminating her face, I sucked in a breath.
It was the seer from that morning.
Her high, angular cheek wore a darkening bruise. Her full lips looked cut and swollen.
From her predicament, I could guess my own.
She’d been tied down with what looked like green-tinted chains, her arms locked around a thick log that still had most of its bark.
Under her, someone had piled a smaller stack of wooden pallets and broken crates. They weren’t burning yet, but my eyes followed the trail of splintered wood from her log back to the center fire. It was then I noticed that the campfire in the center formed a triangle, bordered by those white, granite stones.
I might have missed it, if one corner of that triangle hadn’t been pointed at me. Once I saw a second edge pointed at her, I found I understood.
My eyes shifted to my right and back. I craned my neck and head.
I saw the third body through a rippling sheen of smoke and heat.
That one was a man.
He’d been tied to a log that looked identical to the seer female’s. Unlike me and the seer, he he must not have struggled much. While the two of us hung awkwardly and painfully off the sides of our thick logs, he remained perfectly balanced on top.
I watched him stare up at the sky without blinking, his expression serene.
Somehow, the blissful contentment on that face brought up a hotter wave of panic in me. I didn’t know if he was drugged, or if something else was wrong with him, but his calm acceptance of his fate made me feel like an animal chained over a spit.
I struggled harder, fighting to loosen my arms.
I slid sideways a few more inches. The scraping against my back made me gasp in pain. Looking down at the ground and the nearer line of wood, it hit me again that I was only bringing myself closer to the fire for when it came.
I tried to get a better look at the face of the third man. It took me longer to make him out since the smoke still billowed that way, but I finally glimpsed his face when the wind shifted direction. He wasn’t unconscious. His eyes were definitely open, and his smile looked disconcertingly genuine as he aimed it at the stars.
He was young, too, in his early thirties at most. Tattoos covered most of his bare upper body, along with burns and scars in the shape of symbols, most of which I didn’t recognize. I saw the triple spiral pattern among them and wondered if he’d done that to himself.
Thanks to the fire, I could see the men who held us captive now, as well.
I made out at least six forms through the rippling flames and smoke.
Three actively tended the fires, prodding and pushing the wood to make sure it was slowly spreading towards the three of us, burning at reasonably equal rates. I wondered if they’d put starter fluid on the wood that led to each of our individual pyres––then got my answer when the first plank on my spoke caught fire, and went up with a fuel-aided whup.
Unlike with the bonfire, however, the whole thing didn’t go up at once. As I watched the flames work their way across the six or so yards of wood leading to where I hung chained, I realized it was burning too slowly to be covered in fuel like the central fire had been.
Watching that fire inch closer, my throat went completely dry.
I fought to breathe, then to think.
I was having trouble really processing this.
I was going to die. By fire.
That had to be on my list of top five worst ways to die.
I was still staring around, trying to jar some kind of inspirational flash, any ideas that might get me out of this nightmare, when the man with the blond ponytail appeared over me.
I stared up at him, breathing hard. My lungs were already catching and hitching on the smoke whenever the wind shifted.
“Relax, Miss Taylor.” He spoke soothingly, as if I were a wild animal panicking on its chain. “I know this is frightening, and I am sorry for that. But you have been chosen to be a part of something glorious. Whatever pain you feel in the process will be nothing once you are on the other side.” He smiled at me, stroking my hair. “You will be welcomed back to the halls of our Ancestors with open arms… as a goddess and a warrior!”
I stared up at him, unable to make sense of his words.
His smile widened, still unnervingly genuine-looking. “I am sincerely beginning to think you really don’t know who you are, Holy One.”
I frowned, staring back at the fire. I fought back and forth in my head, trying to think if there was anything I could say to him, any argument I could make to convince him to let me go. I kept coming up blank. When I looked up at him, my terror turned into rage.
“You’re not SCARB,” I said. “You’re not anyone. You just beat her up and kidnapped her. You stole her from her owner. And me… you stole me.”
I swallowed, thinking about Jon and Cass outside that club, finding my headset by the curb. I pictured them asking people what happened, and no one admitting they’d seen anything.
“You took me from my friends.” Staring up at him, I thought about my mom, my aunt Carol, my uncles. My anger grew colder. “Now you’re just going to stand there, grinning at me like an asshole while you light me on fire?”
“This is for a greater cause, Holy One,” he said. “I am happy to see that cause fulfilled… not for the suffering that is its unfortunate by-product.”
“Who do you think I am, exactly?” I said.
“You are one of our beloved intermediaries,” he said, smiling more warmly. “You are of the First Race, Miss Taylor. It was no easy thing, finding you. We began to fear we would not accomplish it at all––or that we would be too late to make the offering. We feared the window for the Bridge to come would pass us by.”
“The Bridge?” I clenched my jaw, trying not to eye the fire I could feel coming closer to my skin. �
�What is that? What does that mean?”
I couldn't help but think about how easily the lace shirt I wore would go up, and my hair, which was coated in a layer of hair spray. The low-rise pants would take longer to burn, but my skin would be on fire by then, so maybe it wouldn’t matter.
Talking to him was distracting me from my imminent death, but it was also distracting me from thinking my way out of this. I tried to think around the edges anyway, looking for a way out, but I saw nothing.
I tried not to think about Jon. Or my mother.
Mom would lose it––I mean, really, really lose it. She’d been a mess since Dad died. If I died too, especially from something this insane, it would send her right over the edge. If they dragged her to New York to identify the burned up corpse of her daughter––
“Where am I?” I said, cutting off the thought.
I looked around the trees and lawn, and found I vaguely recognized the place. I could see arches between columns, some kind of medieval-looking structure, almost like––
“Is this a church?” I said.
The man smiled. “In a manner of speaking.”
“You’re burning people outside a church?” I stared up at him. “Didn’t they stop doing that a few hundred years ago?”
When he only smiled wider, I struggled with my wrists, but only managed to slide a few inches further down the log. I was dangerously low now. I wouldn’t even have the log to protect me, or buy me time when the fire reached the end of my spoke.
Some part of me couldn’t just lie there though, hoping for a slower death.
Thinking about that, I motioned towards the man on the third log with my head.
“What’s wrong with him?” I asked Ponytail.
He followed my motion with his eyes, smiling once he gazed upon the half-naked man covered in scars and tattoos. “Ezekial? There is nothing whatsoever wrong with him. He volunteered, Miss Taylor.”
I struggled with my wrists and slid more, gasping.
I tried to feel over the cuffs with my fingers. I had to assume they’d chained me with the same thing they’d used on the seer. Whatever material it was, it gave slightly under my fingers, but I couldn’t make a dent in it.
“We are making tribute to the One True God,” the man explained. “The birther of the Bridge, and of the Sword. The Creator. The Speaker of Worlds. You really should feel honored, Miss Taylor. Your blood will shape the course of our races for generations to come. It will bring us to the next stage of our evolution as a species. The Bridge should be here, you see. The time for the end is swiftly approaching, and she should be here…”
I fought to make sense of this, couldn’t.
I was still looking around, trying to figure out where we were. Had they driven us somewhere outside the city? If so, why could I see so much light wherever I glimpsed pieces of the horizon? Looking back at that stone basin surrounded by fire, it hit me.
“The Cloisters,” I said, disbelieving. “You’re burning me at an art museum?”
My mind whirled around what I remembered about the place, trying to decide if anything about the location could help me. It housed the Met’s medieval art collection. It was in Fort Tyron Park, as close to the boondocks as existed in Manhattan.
I hadn’t been here in years, not since my first trip to New York with Jaden, but I remembered the oddly out-of-place reconstructed medieval church, or pieces of a church, sitting on top of a hill in Washington Heights.
It was unlikely anyone would stumble upon us up here, apart from museum security, and Ponytail’s guys must have done something to neutralize them. No one came to New York parks at night. Even homeless people didn’t hang out in parks anymore; they were too likely to get rounded up and put in state-run “work-reclamation” projects.
Somehow, I had my doubts the SCARB cameras up here would be working. There still should be flyers, but maybe Ponytail and his friends had a way around those, too.
Looking around, I realized we were half-surrounded by stone walls, the outer walls around the museum itself. Would anyone even see the smoke, given how dark it was here and the lights, virtual projections and holograms in the city itself?
My eyes returned to the bonfire. Flames had already climbed halfway down the row of broken crates forming my spoke in the wheel.
The reality of the increasing heat on my face brought my brain into sharper focus. I couldn't just lie here and wait for my skin to start to blacken.
I did the only thing really left open to me: I screamed.
Lunging against the chains holding my wrists to the wood, I screamed again, louder.
The seer across from me started screaming too, amplifying the sound.
“Miss Taylor!” the man said loudly, to be heard over my yells. “Do you want me to gag you and your new friend?”
“HELP US! PLEASE GOD HELP US! THEY’RE KILLING US!”
“No one can hear you, Miss Taylor,” he said.
“FIRE!” the seer screamed. “FIRE! TERRORISM! FIRE!”
“POLICE!” I screamed. “POLICE! HELP! 911! FIRE!”
“It is too late for us to stop, in any case” the man added calmly. “You will only get your would-be rescuers killed.”
“FIRE!” I screamed, glaring at him. “MURDER! FIRE! THEY’RE KILLING US!”
The seer across from me yelled louder. “FIRE!” she screamed. “FIRE! MURDER! TERRORISTS! THIRD MYTH TERRORISTS!”
Ponytail glanced at her, then aimed his gaze back at me. “The ritual is already underway. To stop it now would be blasphemy. A crime against God. We will not stop it, no matter what happens. Do you understand?”
“TERRORISTS!” I screamed, louder, following the seer’s lead. “TERRORISTS! FIRE! FIRE! WE’LL PAY YOU TO HELP US! PLEASE!”
“Miss Taylor.” Ponytail sighed. “This is pointless. And very childish.”
“TERRORISTS!” the seer yelled. “FIRE! MURDER! TERROR––”
I heard a dull thunk and turned, staring at the seer. The bald guy with the beard had hit her in the head with the butt of a rifle. I watched her head bleed, her eyes roll up in her head.
“HELP!” I screamed again. “FIRE! FIRE! TERRORISTS! FIRE!”
“God is the only one who can save you, Miss Taylor,” Ponytail said, clasping his hands at the base of his spine. “I suggest you direct your appeals to Him.”
When I continued to scream as loud as I could, the man sighed, motioning towards the bearded Russian with the mean eyes. I winced when I saw him walking towards me with the same rifle, but Ponytail waved off whatever he saw in the other’s expression.
“Not her,” he warned. “Do not abuse her. She is still an intermediary.”
The Russian stopped at Ponytail’s words, pursing his mouth as if thinking. I watched his fingers as he reached behind his own neck, untying a dark bandanna he wore. Gripping it in one hand, he slung the rifle over his shoulder, walking right up to me.
I struggled harder, sliding the rest of the way down the log in my attempts to get away from him, but I couldn’t move much, not even my head. Gripping my hair, he easily got the bandanna around my head, then held my nose to get me to open my mouth. When I did, gasping, he forced the cloth between my teeth. He knotted the ends so tightly on the side of my head, I couldn’t close my mouth.
The sweat-drenched rag stank, making me gag, contorting my body in a painful dry-heave.
He smirked at me, flicking my forehead sharply with his fingers.
Then he rose smoothly back to his feet.
I tried screaming against the bandanna, but I could barely hear it over the fire.
“You simply do not understand what an honor this is,” Ponytail said as the Russian moved away, balancing his rifle back on his shoulder. “Clearly, you have compassion for the lesser races. That is why you objected to our hurting the ice-blood. That is why you ally with her now. Well, we are simply doing the same, only on a global scale, Alyson. We wish to save the world. At the very least, to play our small parts. If yo
u understood the meaning behind our sacrifice, you would want to help us…”
Through the gag, I let him know in no uncertain terms he was definitely wrong about that.
He smiled, but I saw the patient look in his eyes.
“Most people’s lives are inconsequential, Miss Taylor. You will never have to suffer through that lack of meaning. Your life has purpose. A glorious purpose. You will appreciate that more fully, I am sure of it, once you are on the other side.”
Again, I tried to let him know through the gag exactly how I felt about that.
He smiled, his small blue eyes reflecting firelight.
“Yours is the blood that will aid us the most,” he said. “Unfortunately, we have been unable to identify you precisely. We have your soul narrowed down to a number of second-tier deities.” Leaning over me, he rested his hands on the log. “More of your kind has incarnated down here than we expected, frankly. Based on interpretations of the Codex of the Three, we expected there to be five first-tier souls prior to the arrival of the Bridge. But the texts were wrong. Our Patrón told us of nine intermediaries with identifiable physiological traits. We can only hope this means the rapture of the Displacement will soon be upon us.”
His smile grew affectionate. Reaching down, he stroked my hair.
I winced away from his hand, but I couldn’t get away.
“We chose you, Alyson,” he said, softer.
I glared up at him, telling him through the gag where he could stuff his great honor.
He smiled faintly, as if he understood my words.
“Granted, some of that was logistical,” he conceded. “We could not find all nine, even using medical records. We must assume some live in remote areas, either in Asia or somewhere else, completely off the grid and unknown to the Registry. You were one of the few we could positively identify. You were also clearly not one of the Four. Your absence seemed least likely to cause problems to the upcoming glorious Displacement, and our Patrón agreed. You were isolated from others of your kind. Young. Relatively unattached. Doing nothing of real significance with your life––”
I let out a disbelieving sound, trying to give him a piece of my mind about that, too.