Elysium Girls

by Elysium Girls (retail) (epub)

  “There really isn’t one,” Asa said, and his voice sounded so sure, so serious that I looked up at him despite myself. “You’re wasting your time. I promise.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “What all do you know?”

  “Look, I wasn’t completely honest with you before… and I don’t know how much I can say now, but—”

  Then something about him shifted. Changed before my eyes. The lower half of his face was suddenly, terrifyingly different. His nose was more of a snout, but the end of it was gone, replaced by a sort of dark hole, like a horse’s skull. His teeth were long, black, and needle-sharp, and a snakelike black tongue lolled downward.

  My body went cold and stiff, my mind trying its hardest to reject what I was seeing. I stumbled and fell onto my backside, scrambling backward, spluttering.

  “What?” Asa asked, his eyes puzzled above the rest of the monstrosity.

  I fumbled with my pouches, pulling out a handful of crossroads dirt.

  “D-don’t come any closer!” I said. “I’ve got enough pepper here to roast you alive!”

  “What do you mean?” he said. “Why are you so scared all of a…?” Asa put a hand to his face; then the human part blushed. “Oh! Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t… quite know what happened there.…”

  He moved his hand over his face, and there was a flicker of electricity. Then his face went back to its normal, human shape. “Don’t worry. I won’t hurt you.”

  “What… what was…?” I gasped.

  “My real face,” Asa sighed. “I…” He choked for a moment, searched for words. “I failed. So it’s harder to maintain the illusion now.”

  My back was against the wall. But the crack through which I’d crawled was only a yard away. Slowly, I began to inch toward it.

  “Don’t come any closer!” I said. “I’ll burn you to a crisp!”

  “Humans are so distrustful,” he said, with a tone in his voice that was both disappointed and pitying. “Come on, let’s talk it out like civilized… beings. I’ll tell you what I can. Then, if you want, you can burn me to a crisp.”

  He was looking at me. I froze, my hand full of pepper.

  “So let’s address it,” he said over steepled fingers. “I am what you might call a… d—” He choked, then tried again. “A d-d—” He used his fingers to make horns on his head.

  “A demon?” I gasped. “You’re a demon?!”

  He shook his head emphatically. “No, those are the evil ones. I’m… I’ve got an ae instead of just an e. The ancient Greek kind, you know? Inhuman messengers between people and the Gods. Like the voice that spoke to Socrates!” Smoke started to trickle from his nose again. “Completely… neutral!” he gasped.

  “But you’re not a voice! You have a body!” I paused. “Is that body even yours or did you… possess it?”

  “No, no, no, no. Of course not.” He knocked against his chest, pulled at his hair. “This was created especially for me. It just… takes a lot of magic to keep it together.”

  “Who made you? God? The…” I gulped, inched just a step closer to the crack. “The Devil?”

  “I’m from the ones who built it all, who set everything in motion, here to influence the…” He gagged. A trickle of smoke ran out of his nose. “The G-G…” He took a deep breath and rasped, “The Game!”

  He doubled over, choking. Smoke began to pour from his mouth, his nose, his eyes.

  It stunned me for a moment; then I realized: This was my chance. Like a flash, I was gone, back through the crack as fast as I could shimmy.

  “Sal!” he shouted. “Where are you going?”

  “Entflammt!” I sent a stream of fire at him and he staggered. I wrenched myself through the crack in the plateau and started running. I ran and ran across the hard, baked earth, into the wind and grit, until I jogged to a stop, sides heaving, in a pool of my own shadow. I looked behind me. Asa—whatever he was—was nowhere to be found.

  But when I turned back, he was right there, in front of me, as though he had materialized from the dust itself.

  “Like I was saying—” he said. But I was already backing away.

  “Don’t come near me!” I gasped, digging in my pouches again. “I mean it!” I took another step back.

  “Sal!” he said, eyes wide. “Watch where you’re—”

  But before he could finish, I felt a painful grip around my ankle and looked down. A hand made of shadow was wrapped around my ankle. I jerked and kicked, but it was no use. It pulled downward on my ankle, and my foot sank into the hard earth as though it were water. The shadow thing was pulling me down, down into the very earth itself. Before I knew it, I was waist-deep into my own shadow, losing sensation as I went.

  My pouch was too deep in the shadow to reach. I scrabbled on the ground for anything, anything I could use to cast a spell, to free myself. Then I saw a multicolored rope—a rainbow of handkerchiefs tied together—in the dust.

  “Grab on!” shouted Asa.

  I grabbed the rope of handkerchiefs, and Asa pulled. The shadow thing tightened its grip around my ankle and pulled back. Asa groaned and strained, and just when I thought my leg would be pulled completely from its socket, the shadow creature loosened its grip just enough for my waist and hips to be pulled out of the shadow. I released the rope with one hand and reached into my pouches.

  “What are you doing?” Asa cried. But I was moving fast, reaching for the crumbled robin’s eggshells in my farthest pouch. I grabbed a pinch of ground eggshell, took aim at the shadow creature, and flicked it beneath me. “Lichtfleck!” I shouted.

  Light flared, and I heard a muffled shriek as the shadow creature detached itself from my shadow. Then the claws left my ankle, and I scrambled over to Asa. A dull spot slightly darker than the soil rocketed away back toward the boulders, seeking safety in their shade.

  “That light spell was good thinking,” Asa said, pulling his scarf rope back and tucking it into his sleeve. “You all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, my muscles still tensed. “… Thanks. Now leave me alone, because you’re terrifying.”

  “Sal, will you please listen to me?” he said. “I am not your enemy. I swear it. I am here to help Elysium. I’m here to try and make things better!”

  “Fine job you did of that,” I said. “And why should I listen to you? You’re the whole reason I’m out here. Besides, what can you even say without spewing smoke all over the place?”

  “I… I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t write it, either, or my hands stops working. I just wish I had a way to show you what was in my head; then you’d understand.”

  Something clicked in my mind.

  “Give me your hand,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Just do it. Give me your hand.”

  “All right, all right.” Asa extended his hand as though he were giving a handshake. I took it.

  I thought of Trixie and Mother Morevna and squirmed. I had only ever done this by accident before. But maybe, just maybe, I could do it on purpose this time. I shut my eyes and concentrated on the power, the magic, the question What is the truth?

  And to my surprise, the magic channeled itself, responded. Darkness and nausea rose up. Across from me, Asa’s eyes turned daemon again and rolled back, and then the both of us were gone, gone into the vastness of Asa’s mind.…

  At first, there was nothing but darkness, boundless, huge. My nostrils filled with the smell of mercury and blood one moment, and water and green grass the next. All around was the sensation of others with me—not people, not animals, but other things—moving in the darkness. And somehow I knew that I—that Asa—was one of them.

  My ears suddenly boomed with the sound of radio static, amplified a thousand times. Then I saw what looked like a young man—Asa—switching appearances as quickly as an electric light turns on and off and on again. Different suits. Different hats. Glasses. No glasses. Blond hair. Black hair. Dark skin. Fair skin. Gradually he becam
e the Asa that I knew, the Harold Lloyd–looking one.

  His shoes began to glow—there were symbols on them, moving and twisting as though they were alive. I could feel the joy, the excitement welling in his heart. Then something golden appeared out of the darkness, a tiny, quarter-sized speck of gold: the cricket in amber he had had at the Witches’ Duel. Importance seemed to bleed from it like ink in water. He reached out his hand for it and put it in his pocket, promised to do his duty as a Wildcard, and suddenly I knew. I KNEW everything. Then there was a door that seemed to be made of light. He moved to step through it, but just as he did, a female voice boomed out, loud as a thunderclap.

  This is not meant for you! Begone!

  My head was suddenly racked with pain. It threatened to explode like a watermelon with a firecracker inside. Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! I commanded myself. But the pain worsened. Still I fought it, and just as the pain grew almost unbearable, I felt myself slipping away, out of my trance, back into myself.

  I felt my hand come unstuck from his. I gasped for breath, then coughed and choked, curls of white smoke leaving my mouth and disappearing into the air.

  So it was true, all of it.

  “That was crazy!” Asa said. “It’s like I was living it all over again! Like—Sal! Your nose is bleeding!”

  I wiped my nose and a long, dark line of blood came off on my forearm. “I—I’m fine,” I said. I wiped it off on my dress, leaving a thin rusty stain on my skin. “Was it the truth, Asa?” I asked. “Was what I saw real?”

  “Yes!” Asa said. “Completely and utterly real! And that magic! I’ve never felt magic so strong!”

  “That voice…” I said, putting a hand to my aching temple. “Was that…?”

  “That was Life,” said Asa. “And She didn’t seem too pleased with you seeing that.… I’m surprised She didn’t do more.”

  “And you—” I coughed. “You’re a Wildcard.… She built you to… save us?”

  “To try to win the Game for Her side,” said Asa. “Death has a Card too, somewhere out here.”

  My head throbbed again. I saw the cricket in my mind again, so golden and important in the darkness.

  “And that cricket thing… you were supposed to return it to its owner, and that’s what was supposed to help us. That’s why you were so eager to find the owner at the duel.”

  “But I failed,” he groaned. “Completely and utterly. I had everyone’s attention for days and weeks and even an assembly and, still, I managed to mess it all up. The cricket is gone, Sal. Lost. Sometime during the duel, I must have dropped it, and now I don’t know what to do. And then burning the Sacrifice… it really couldn’t have gone worse.”

  “So it was you?” I said. “You destroyed the Sacrifice? All this time I thought it was me, accidentally aiming a little higher.…”

  “I don’t know,” Asa said. “I assume so. But I don’t know how I would have messed it up that badly. My magic shouldn’t have been able to leave the salt circle, just like yours… unless…”

  “Unless what?” I raised an eyebrow.

  “Death, that’s what!” he shouted. “She’s been trying to sabotage me this entire time. She must have filtered in some magic of Her own. Yes… yes, that’s where the smoke came from! Because there’s no reason for Life to do something like that.”

  “I thought you were sent by Life?”

  “Daemons are neutral,” said Asa. “Even though Life made me, they can both interfere if they choose. Does that make sense?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Well, I don’t know how to explain it any better,” he said. “All I know is that if it doesn’t get made right again, I’ll be taken apart, shredded, my particles scattered across the firmament until I vanish as though I’d never been!”

  “And without the Sacrifice… without the cricket… we don’t have much of a chance of winning, do we?” I asked, my heart sinking.

  Asa sighed. “From here, we’ve got two choices: to wait for the end of the Game—which will go to Death now, I’m sure—and be killed, or…” He paused, licked his dry lips. “Or we could hope for some sort of miracle, I guess.”

  “No,” I said. “There’s got to be a way to fix everything.”

  “How do you know?” Asa asked.

  I was quiet. I wasn’t sure how I knew, but I knew. It tingled under my skin like deception, like there was a way to fix this, even now. There had to be.

  “I just know,” I said finally. “There’s a solution to this. It can be fixed.”

  “And how exactly do you propose we do that from where we are now?” he asked, gesturing to the great, empty expanse around us.

  “If it’s such an inconvenience, don’t come.” I shrugged. “Lord knows you’re not my favorite person—or whatever you are. But it seems like if you don’t fix this you’re in just as big a mess as I am. So are you coming with me or not?”

  He extended his hand to me. “Partners?” he asked. “For now?”

  “Partners for now,” I said, and I shook it.

  He turned and looked over the vast, cracked plains and rocky crags. “But… uh… where are we going, anyway?”

  “Only one way to find out,” I said. I brushed myself off and took my penny in hand. Closing my eyes, I whispered to it. “Just… show us where we can find something that will help us win the Game. Can you do that?”

  And my penny thrummed once, then pulled straight outward on its twine, out toward the dunes and crags to what I guessed was north.

  I opened my mouth to tell him what it meant, but before I could, I heard the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” said a voice. And when Asa and I turned, we found ourselves looking down the barrels of two pistols.

  CHAPTER 14

  Asa and I put our hands up and stood, completely taken aback. There were two of them: a tall, slim Black girl in men’s clothes and a cowboy hat, and a sturdy, broad-shouldered white girl in a sundress with her brown hair tied up in a bun. The Black girl had two pistols and an air of quiet confidence that told me she knew how to use them. The white girl had an animal energy and a football player’s stance, ready to tackle me or Asa or both of us with the ferocity of a wolverine.

  “Who the hell are you?” said the white girl. “And what are you doing on our side of Black Mesa? If you’re from the Laredo settlement—”

  “Do you see that black shit they put on themselves, Judith?” the Black girl said. “They’re not from the Laredo settlement.” She turned back to me and Asa and raised an eyebrow. “You do look familiar, though.”

  “Harold Lloyd!” said Judith. “He’s the spitting image of Harold Lloyd, Zo!”

  “No, you idiot.” Zo lifted her weapons. “They’re the two who were fighting last night,” she continued. “The Witches’ Duel. They were part of the trap.”

  Asa and I glanced at each other. The thieves. For a moment I expected Asa to disappear again, leave me like he had in Elysium. But this time, he stood his ground.

  “Were you?” Judith demanded. “Is that why that old cowboy came and left that bag you got?”

  Mr. Jameson. They’d seen him leave the rations for me and wanted them for themselves.

  “Look,” I said. “We were part of the plan, but we’ve been exiled now. We’re not part of that anymore, and I promise if you let us go you’ll never—”

  “We were victims of circumstance!” Asa said. “Pawns in a cruel game! Gifted witches thrust out of Elysium when all we intended was to make things better. And look where it has gotten us! Please, ladies…” (“Ladies,” Judith chuckled.) “Do not give us your judgment. Give us your help!”

  They looked at us.

  “Frisk them,” said Zo.

  Judith started with me. “I’ll be taking this,” she said, yanking the bag of rations out of my hands. She rifled through it as Zo held one gun on me and one on Asa. “Salt pork, biscuits, water. You think this is safe, Zo?”

  “Better not risk
it,” Zo said, a dark, cautious tone in her voice.

  Judith shrugged; then she slammed the bag of rations on the ground and when the water from the burst rations leaked into the dust, I nearly cried. The one nice thing, the only thing I had.

  She patted me down roughly. Then, one by one, she opened the pouches and looked in.

  “Just a buncha dust and feathers,” she muttered.

  “It’s one of those witch belts,” Zo said, holding her gun on Asa. “Take it anyway.”

  My stomach lurched. Without that belt I was defenseless, and I knew they had magic too. Mr. Jameson had said so. I’d seen it. But how could I defend myself now with my hands over my head?

  Judith took my belt and wrapped it around her chest like a bandolier. “What about this?” Judith said, pulling the Booke out of my pocket and holding it into the light.

  “I dunno, see what it is,” said Zo.

  Judith opened it and skimmed through it. My breath caught in my throat. Oh no, I thought. Not that. That book is my only hope out here.

  “Some Russian book or something,” she said.

  “You can keep that one,” said Zo.

  The Booke is written in plain English… isn’t it? I wondered as she slipped it back into my pocket. Before I could think about that too much, though, she was finished with me, and Zo’s gun was in my face as Judith moved on to Asa.

  She patted him down completely, even looking inside his hat, and as she did so, an elongated black tooth slipped down over his lip. I raised my eyebrows at him; he twitched and it was gone again.

  “Well, what’ve we got here?” Judith had pulled something from his pocket that I’d never seen before: a piece of paper—no, a photograph with something written on the back of it. She left Asa standing there, arms still up, and showed the photograph to Zo.

  “Tie them together and let’s get going,” she said, her eyes on Asa. “With the trap and now this, there’s no way the boss isn’t going to want to see them.”

  Asa and I exchanged looks. With Zo’s guns on us and my belt gone, we had no choice but to stand as they tied our hands together with a length of rope from Judith’s pack. Then Zo put her guns to our backs and marched us out into the desert, leaving the ruined rations behind. But as we marched, I kept quiet. We were heading straight in the direction my penny had pointed.