by Hal Schrieve
“Those guys were there when the werewolf house got raided,” Z said.
“Shit,” Tommy said.
Officer Burton and the tall officer appeared to be having an argument. Officer Burton raised his hands defensively. It was not clear what he was saying. He pointed in the direction Elaine had gone, and asked a question. The tall officer turned and said something to the other cops, and two of them got back into their car and pulled out of the parking lot in the direction of Safeway. Mr. Weber watched all this with increasing alarm. As two more officers approached Z and Tommy, he looked as if he were about to spring forward to step between the officers and Z’s ragged knees, but Z and Mr. Weber both knew that would be a stupid thing to do, so he stood near Officer Burton looking tense and wary.
The officers—a woman and a man—spoke to Z and Tommy.
“Stand up,” said the woman officer.
Both of them stood and were spun around. There were suddenly zip ties, pulled tight, around their wrists behind their back. The police officer seized Z roughly by the shoulder with the hand not holding Tommy. Z, not expecting this level of force, stumbled and fell to the ground. Their head hit the painted cement. Their face was tilted back toward the dark gray sky. Anyone who happened to be passing by at that moment would have seen Z’s eye fall out of its socket and hang down their cheek.
“Undead,” the officer articulated clearly, and kicked Z in the stomach. Z felt the world spin around them with the unexpected pain. They bit down on their own tongue. Fear like a ribbon of wire closed around their throat.
With their good eye Z could see the cashier inside the gas station standing at the window, watching this unfold. The noise of the road seemed to have flickered out into silence. There was a long pause as Z pushed themselves up into a sitting position, looking at the officer with their good eye. They stood slowly, deliberately, and faced the officer. The officer, still holding Tommy with one hand, reached and grabbed Z by the back of the neck. Her hand was so large that her fingers reached almost the whole way around. Z thought about how undead bodies were supposed to be able to leach magic toward themselves, and use it. They wondered how it was done. They remembered the passage in the necromancy book, about interrupting the sigil, breaking it open.
Mr. Weber, who was being handcuffed by the squad car, suddenly tried to step forward, and cried out. His feet made a scuffle on the pavement as he was dragged backward by the shoulder of his coat and slammed against the side of the squad car.
“What you’re doing is illegal,” he said.
The officer turned to look at Mr. Weber, taking in the sudden widening of his eyes and the sheen of sweat across his forehead. His fists were clenched behind him. Through his palms Z could see white fire.
“I’m sorry?” the officer asked. She glanced over at the wall, and one of the two policemen who were now standing near the door began moving toward Mr. Weber. His eyes flickered over to the advancing officer and he swallowed. The fire in his hands evaporated.
“Brutality toward a suspect without any threat or hostility to the officer’s person is illegal, and the choke hold you are putting on that child is illegal. The state included it in a measure against police corruption which passed three years ago in ’94.” Mr. Weber coughed and swallowed. “Initiative 5587. If I remember right, the old commissioner in Salem lost his job shortly afterwards.”
The other policeman near Mr. Weber reached forward as if to restrain him.
“It is also illegal for you to use any force against me,” he said. “I am not obstructing your work. I’m restrained and not resisting.”
“Put him in the car,” the officer holding Z’s neck said. “Come on, both of you.”
A gust of wind made the cold dry air hit Z’s throat. Z felt their legs weakening under them and allowed themselves to lean against the officer leading them. The officer grunted in surprise and perhaps a little fear. The whole group moved slowly toward the cruiser.
“No,” Mr. Weber said to the officer holding his hands behind his back, “I’m not going with you.” He looked at Z and Tommy.
“I’m sorry, I have to go.”
Z gritted their teeth. “That’s okay, go,” they said. “But help me undo the sigil.”
“What?”
“I know you know how to do it!”
“Quiet!” the officer holding Z said. The officer nearest Mr. Weber moved to pin him down, secure him.
“Do you want to?”
“I don’t think we have any other options!”
Mr. Weber looked at Z for a moment, and then nodded. “Brace yourself,” he said to Z. “You have to be ready.”
“Stop,” the cop at Mr. Weber’s shoulder said.
Mr. Weber opened his hand, which was still wrenched behind his back, and a sphere of bright fire glowed there. The officer at his shoulder put a hand on his gun. Mr. Weber flicked his wrist, and the fire flew toward Z’s chest. It sat on the surface of their shirt for a second before being absorbed through the fabric. Z felt it burn along both sigils inscribed on their skin, and then had a sensation inside like something had broken or shattered and all the vague icy coldness left in their body was shooting out of their skin and a fire was replacing it, streaming toward them from all sides.
“What the hell was that?” the officer asked. “What the hell did you just do?” He drew his gun and pressed it against Mr. Weber’s neck.
Mr. Weber opened his palms again, snapping his handcuffs into pieces. Only Z noticed. “I’ve been afraid too long,” he said flatly.
“I need you to shut up,” the officer said.
Mr. Weber looked at Z. “Just remember, I didn’t want to destroy anything. I wanted to make things right.”
The light shot out of his back in a thin bright spear and ran through the body of the officer behind him. The officer let out a shout and pulled the trigger of the gun. The gun went off, but Mr. Weber’s head and neck were elsewhere. The light which had replaced his body expanded in a brief flash and dissipated, leaving a charred circle on the ground beneath the officer’s feet.
“A portal spell. Burton, why did you not contain the area?”
“I didn’t think . . .”
It was silent for a moment. The police were shaken. Tommy and Z looked at one another.
“Okay. Deal with that later,” a woman officer called. “Man was a sorcerer. We weren’t prepared. We weren’t going to be able to apprehend him without a fight. He did something to the curse on the zombie. Get the suspects in the car.”
“What’s the evidence you’re arresting us on?” Z demanded. They could barely speak over the rush of heat flowing into their body from the direction of Tommy and the policemen surrounding them.
“You were both seen in the vicinity of the burnt building yesterday, and censored materials were connected with your names. Necromancy. Demonology. Susan Chilworth, you are being apprehended as a revived life-form with no human guardian which has inflicted damage on private property, arson, destruction of evidence, and burglary. You have also been linked to attempted murder. Alondra Dunnigan has been declared missing and you are implicated in her disappearance.”
“That’s bullshit!”
“Mostly bullshit, anyway,” Tommy said, making eye contact with Z. He looked mildly alarmed and Z wondered if he could feel the way his magic was flooding into Z’s body like water out of a broken dam.
“We have reason to suspect this boy has stolen materials long missing from the Willamette library and may be, through the work of dark magic, associated with the Wolf Guts Group and complicit in the murder of Archie Pagan.”
They were being guided toward the car.
“Reason to suspect!” Z said loudly, thinking, What would Aysel do? They felt the fire hot within them and could feel the faint hot resonances of the bodies around them, the hearts of the officers pulsing with their own blood and magic.
“Reason to suspect!” Tommy repeated. “What a bunch of corrupt assholes. You were going to shoot Mr. Weber when
he didn’t do anything.”
“Thomas Wodewose’s father also confirmed earlier today that he is an unregistered magical being who has on several occasions transformed into uncontrollable monsters which caused him to fear for his life.”
“He’s fourteen!” Z shouted. Their eye was still dangling down their cheek. They felt the hot heartbeat of the officer nearest them and thought about merging it with their body, with the white fire Mr. Weber had put in them. They felt magic building up within them and preparing to burst forth. They hoped Tommy wouldn’t be destroyed in whatever explosion happened.
“But they’re right, aren’t they?” Tommy asked. “Neither of us are human. I’m an unregistered magical being. And dangerous.”
“Shut them up,” shouted the police officer who had put on the zip ties.
“You need to loosen my handcuffs,” Tommy said. The zip tie was too tight. His hands were turning purple. The police tightened Tommy’s zip tie.
At the entrance to the gas station, more police cars were pulling in. Three, then five of them fanned out to form a circle around Z and Tommy.
The woman officer pushed her hand against Z’s face, to push them backward into the car, and Z bit her. The officer yanked her hand back, and Z reeled in the other direction, their knees not strong enough to hold them. They slipped down to the ground, their cheek against the metal of the car. They felt Tommy next to them suddenly, his magic like a fire coming through the skin of their chest so hard it hurt. Z and Tommy looked at each other, and Tommy mouthed What, now? Z tried to remember what it had felt like to cast magic. They murmured the spell their mother had given them again, and felt Tommy’s magic draw into them through the second sigil on their chest. It burned them and sent a rapid jolt of electricity out in a wave, a ripple.
Then, a blow came down on the back of their head.
18
Aysel woke up to a pounding noise outside at the window of her room. She sat up in a haze. It was still dark outside, and her feet were tangled in the covers. There was a dark figure at the window. Aysel’s hair, short now, spiked up in a frizz around her head. As she threw her legs over the bed onto the carpet she gave herself an electric shock.
“Elaine?” she said, opening the window. “How did you get here?”
“Tracker spell I put on everyone earlier in case we got separated,” Elaine said. “I figured we were going to.”
“Oh,” Aysel said. “Well. Hi.”
“Hi,” Elaine said, panting. She leaned over and propped herself on her knees and inhaled deeply. “Look. The police have Z and Tommy. We have to do something.”
“What?” Aysel asked. “How?”
“There were police at Mrs. Dunnigan’s place,” Elaine said. “Here, get back from the window, I’m coming in.”
Aysel took a step back, and Elaine threw a long leg over the sill and pulled herself into the room. She fell onto the floor with a jarring thump and looked around in the dark, trying to pull herself upright on the sill. Aysel went over to the wall and turned the light on.
“So they got you when you went back there?” Aysel asked. “How are you not dead?”
“No, not there. We went to what’shisface, Mr. Weber. Z thought it was a good idea. And he said he was going to drive us to the train station, but then his car broke down over in the gas station by Safeway and a cop was driving by and we all got busted. He got arrested too. Mr. Weber. Some—I don’t know. The point is, I have no fucking—” Elaine made a weird noise, and gasped, and made the weird noise again. Aysel realized after a second that the noises were sobs. “I have no idea what to do.” She hiccupped. “I can’t figure out how to save anyone. And they’re kids, and you’re a kid, and . . .” Tears were coming down Elaine’s face in big wet drops. She suddenly clutched both hands to her face. Aysel had cried so much in the last few hours that she found herself unable to now.
“We have to go right now,” Aysel said. “To get them before they get back to the police station.” She went around the bed and started to pull on her shoes and coat.
“We have to run.”
“Wait,” Elaine said. “God. They’re just going to arrest you too. Or shoot you. Or god knows. And then you’ll be gone too. God.”
“We have to go,” Aysel said again.
There was a noise in the next room, where Azra slept, and the sound of feet on carpeted floor.
“Great, now my mom’s awake,” Aysel said. A moment later the door to Aysel’s room rattled and Azra opened it and shrieked.
“Who are you!”
Aysel found herself shaking.
“I’m Elaine,” Elaine said.
“Why are you in my house?”
“I’m sorry. I came here because the cops got me and Z and Tommy and I was warning Aysel.” Elaine stood up, brushing her hands on her pants. “And running, because that’s all I know how to do, or whatever. Or I don’t know.”
“Mom,” Aysel said, “Z got arrested by police at the Safeway. It’s about the werewolf gang thing, and about the Archie Pagan thing and the building that got burned earlier. My friend Tommy is there too.”
Azra looked at Elaine, and then at Aysel. “This is happening now?” she asked. She put a hand to her forehead and looked at Aysel. “Where has your hair gone?” she asked as an afterthought.
“It’s my fault,” Aysel said. “I set the fire earlier. I have to fix this. I have to go to them.”
“You can’t,” Azra and Elaine said at the same time.
“That’s really dumb,” Elaine said. “Stop, Aysel.”
“Aysel,” Azra said, “what is this? What have you gotten yourself into?” She moved forward, opening her arms to try to hold or restrain her. Her hands came around Aysel’s shoulders.
Aysel pulled away from Azra, pushed past Elaine, and jumped out the window without looking to see if Elaine was following.
Lightning formed in Aysel’s hands as she ran. The flush of her cheeks felt like fire in the cold night and she felt inflamed through her knees and in her nostrils and in the back of her dry throat. She wanted to let out a cry of pure fire, and she thought she felt sparks gathering at the back of her tongue. Her feet hit the pavement and her hips ached and her feet hurt from the memory of all the running she had done just hours before. She could hear her mother and Elaine calling out behind her, yelling at her, and then fading as she rounded the corner.
Aysel did and did not want to be followed. She was worried she would be held back.
The breath that Aysel found as she slowed, seeing the lights of the gas station over the roofs of houses at the end of the block, was channeled immediately into a long, rumbling roar that interrupted her and made her stumble. When she fell she left a charred mark on the sidewalk, her hands and belly and knees smoking and blasting away at the pavement beneath her. Her arteries throbbed in furious jerks and her intestines lurched. Her teeth were chattering. Aysel threw herself forward and became aware, out of the corner of her eye, that she had left a flaming trail behind her, which in places had caught large sections of lawn and mailbox and moss and telephone pole ablaze, and in places had fizzled into black chars on the asphalt and cement. Everywhere, steam rushed up in her wake.
Aysel knew where Safeway was, and the gas station. She had walked there a lot. It took maybe ten minutes to get there. Aysel knew that if she was too late—but she wouldn’t be too late.
When she rounded the corner to a spot where she could see the lights of the police cars, she was already winded, but in a way where there were sparks in her lungs and dancing purple before her and it only made her run faster. There was a circle of cars, a full wall blocking Aysel from immediately seeing what was happening. There were ten police officers total. Z and Tommy were visible near one of the police officers. Tommy was being pushed into the back of a police car. His hands were behind his back. Tommy’s hair was coming out of the bun on his head and falling back around his shoulders. It took a moment to see Z, half crouched and half sprawled on the pavement. Their arms we
re bent at an odd angle behind their back, and a pool of black-green bile was spreading under their mouth. A police officer stood over them with a baton, watching them, tense. It was a moment before Aysel noticed the wound in Z’s head was leaking blood.
Aysel felt a pulse of magic radiating out from her skin, involuntarily. It took her a second to put together that the pulse coincided with the tremors convulsing through Z. Aysel felt torn open, with all her nerves exposed. Any kind of restraint she had was gone.
Aysel started forward before she could stop herself. She had to get to Z. She did not think of hiding herself. She raced instead directly at the police officers, vaulting over the nearest car with fists raised, summoning magic as she went. She would destroy them. A fire burned in her nose, her teeth, her bones. It came from her belly, from the pit of tensed muscle over her spine, from between her eyes like a deep well of heat, the internals and externals all shaken by spasms, an iron burning. She would do more than she had ever done before, Aysel thought to herself. She saw Z on the pavement, among the black-booted feet, eyes open, not moving. Z’s head looked like it was coming open. Aysel remembered that Z had told her the head wound was how they had died in the accident. It had been split open again. Aysel felt part of herself being pulled at Z, her magic yanked out of her solar plexus toward Z’s bleeding head and the sigil on their chest. The rest of her was on fire.
Aysel screamed, in rage, and it felt like a wave cresting. There was pearly elastic grasping flame in her hair and at the tips of her fingers. Out of the corner of her eye she could see that there was already fire visible under her fingernails. The police officers turned and saw her. They tensed. Eight of them were men and two were women. Aysel prepared to release a spell in her hands that would blast them off their feet, send them spinning through the air. One of the officers must have seen that she had vicious fire in her eyes, must have seen the great depths to which she would reach to draw her magic out in violent force, because he shouted loudly.