“Now you see cliffsides, you mean,” said Cassandra with a pout. “After they got through my first set of illusions and stole all our supplies.” She turned to me. “We really are sorry about stealing from Elysium, you know? And when that celebration was planned, we figured no one would notice. If we’d known then what we know now we’d never have tried it, I’m sure.”
“It was a mistake, all right?” Olivia said, from up at the front of the group. “How was I supposed to know that she’d changed the trapdoor spell? It used to just set off an alarm.”
“How did you know about the trapdoor spell in the first place?” I asked.
“You think you were the first brujita she took on as a student?” Olivia said, looking over her shoulder and grinning wryly. A pang of shock and something like jealousy went through me. “We’ll have to talk sometime.”
Yes, I thought, my hand on the penny around my neck. We would have to. I had a lot of questions, and I had a feeling that only Olivia could answer them.
I would have dwelt on this more, I’m sure, but I had another feeling, a familiar tingle beneath my skin, demanding my attention. Deception—and strong, too. But it wasn’t coming from any of the girls. Where was it coming from?
“I just hope they haven’t gotten to this place yet,” said Susanah.
“Don’t worry,” Cassandra said. “They haven’t found this lode yet. I’m sure of it.”
“I wish they would come,” said Mowse, pulling the corn-husk doll out of her pocket and making her dance up Susanah’s arm. “I could make them all fall asleep.”
Susanah reached out and ruffled her hair. “Hopefully it won’t come to that. Hopefully we won’t see them at all.”
Zo led us through the pass and the desert brush for another mile, until we reached a narrow crack in the earth, where the land had changed and a new ravine had opened at the bottom of the one we were in, like a wound within a wound. At the bottom were three automobiles: two pickup trucks and one sedan, falling apart at the hinges. The hole was big enough for two people to slip into. The sand around the hole was clean, save for Zo’s and Cassandra’s footprints from earlier.
The tingling under my skin was almost an unbearable itch now. Deception was coming from all around me, bleeding out into the air like ink in water.
“There’s something wrong,” I said. “I can feel it.”
“Oh, don’t be a scaredy-cat,” said Judith. “If Zo and Cass say they cased the place, they cased the place.”
“Let’s go,” said Olivia. “We don’t have that many bullets left after the last run, so we don’t want to end up having to use them.”
Judith nodded and jumped down into the hole. Susanah followed with her backpack full of tools.
“The rest of you, keep a lookout,” said Olivia. “And help them load the metal.”
There was a horrible rending sound as Judith and Susanah began tearing the doors off the vehicles, ripping the metal, taking off the handles and hood ornaments and mirrors. It echoed loudly off the cliffs and around the ravine. In a few moments, the seats themselves appeared on the lip of the ravine, and we moved them onto the sleigh, carefully stacking the other pieces of metal. To take the engines (Lord knew why Susanah wanted them), we fixed a rope to one of the car doors and made a second sleigh, which Susanah would pull herself.
I flexed my fingers close to my spell components belt. A bead of sweat rolled down my forehead. Couldn’t any of the other witches feel it? Then I saw a flash of movement on the cliffside.
“It’s a trap!” I shouted. “Everybody down!”
Gunshots rang out, echoing through the ravine as we ducked and ran for cover in every which direction. Bullets ricocheted off rocks, made holes in the truck and car parts. Olivia ducked behind a nearby rock and drew her guns. Judith picked up the car door, holding it like a shield by the rope we’d attached to it. It was so loud, so fast. Something went whistling by my ear. I balked at a flash of blood in the air as a bullet grazed Zo’s arm right in front of me. She shoved me past her, then turned and sent two shots of her own back.
“Quick! Over here!” Susanah grabbed me, and pulled me behind the mountain of parts with Cassandra and Mowse. Bullets rang all around us. My hands shook, and my nerves felt like they were full of fire. I screwed my eyes shut and tried to calm my breathing, to think clearly.
Somebody scrambled around the corner, and Zo ducked in next to me, out of breath and bleeding.
“Damn Laredo Boys,” Zo said. “There have got to be at least ten of them up there.”
“How many bullets do they have?” I heard myself ask. “Surely they can’t have that many out here?”
“In the desert, bullets are whatever you can melt down and shove in your gun barrel,” said Zo. She reached into her pack and began reloading her pistols. I saw then that her bullets were nothing more than little pellets cobbled together from different materials. “The Laredo Boys have most of the metal out here.” She clicked the bullets into their places. “But even they don’t have unlimited ammo. We have to wait them out, however long that takes.”
“Well, let’s see if I can make it faster, darling,” said Cassandra, looking somehow unflustered as the bullets whizzed by us.
Cassandra closed her eyes and grabbed a handful of sand from the ground. She began muttering something in what sounded like French. Suddenly, there were two of each of us: our real, flesh and blood selves and a more transparent version of ourselves that was like looking in a mirror: not quite right. It sent a shiver up my spine to look into my own slightly transparent, reversed eyes.
“Go!” said Cassandra. Our shadow selves darted out from behind the metal fortress, running in different directions, and casting no shadows. The Laredo Boys fired and fired, and soon the gunfire grew thinner and ceased altogether. Our shadow selves flickered out. A silence fell over the ravine. All I could hear were our ragged breaths and my own rabbit-fast heartbeat. Were they out of bullets?
Then a sound rang out over the ravine: the sound of someone clapping, loud and slow.
“Well done, girlies,” said a deep, cold voice. “Well done.” A man stepped out from behind a boulder, still clapping slowly, sarcastically. I recognized him immediately: the man from before, their leader. He started down from the cliffs, and we could see his bald head—shaved and painted with the black designs—and a tattoo of a cross on his chest. He was frighteningly muscled and his eyes were cold blue.
“Samson,” Olivia spat.
“Olivia.” He smiled. Two of his teeth were silver.
Just the sight of him made me shudder, and whatever he was coming down to do, it wasn’t good. I flexed my fingers next to my components pouch, thinking of all the spells I could throw if I had to.
“When we found that lode, we thought of you girls and how sorry we felt for taking so many of your supplies a little while back. We miss you, you know. So we thought we’d leave this lode where y’all could find it, throw some extra rations in there, and have us an excuse to meet again.”
“Forgive me for not being flattered,” said Olivia.
He smiled and shrugged elaborately, a terrifying gesture with his broad, shirtless frame.
“Well, you know us. We figured we’d get us some more wives while we were at it.” He winked at Olivia. “Though it may take a couple of us each to break you in and that ox of yours.”
The sound of many male voices snickering rose all around us. I could see Judith’s fist clench behind her car door.
“Shut your filthy mouth, hijo de puta!” Olivia shouted. “You’re not getting anything! Or anyone! And the only ones leaving here broken today are gonna be you and your boys!”
“Now, now, now, that’s no way for a lady to talk!” said Samson. He was much closer now, almost to Olivia, and he stopped about ten feet away from her. “Especially a lady with no bullets.”
Olivia’s fingers twitched near her gun. Somehow I knew it was true: Olivia was out of bullets.
“What, you’re gonna shoot
us now?” Olivia said. “Fight us from a distance when we’re out of ammo? That’s cheap, even for you.”
“Who said anything about fighting from a distance?” Samson said. He whistled, and twelve men came slipping down out of the cliffs, their leathery pink skin painted over with those greasy black designs, their faces hidden behind dust masks, bandannas, and strange metal masks made from car parts and wire. Some of them carried old farm equipment—pitchforks and machetes and sickles. Others carried clubs made of twisted bumpers, wore armor made of rusty chrome rims, like junkyard Sentinels, rust monsters given life.
I steadied my breathing and reached into my pouches with shaking hands, checking my spell components. If we had to fight, I wanted to be ready. I wasn’t about to be or let anybody else become somebody’s wife or dinner if I could help it. But still, my breath came in gasps and starts.
“Don’t worry,” Cassandra said calmly, putting a purple-varnished hand on my arm. “There are thirteen of them. Thirteen is an unlucky number.” I saw her reach into the many pockets of her vest, gathering a handful of what looked like the teeth of a small animal. Getting ready to cast an illusion.
Samson was right in front of Olivia now. She looked up at him, her shoulders set with defiance.
“Now, we can do this the easy way, and you can give up and come with us voluntarily,” said Samson, reaching for the machete strapped to his back. “Or we can do it the bloody way.”
My heart caught in my chest.
But Olivia just sized him up, looked him in the eye, and spat on the ground.
He smiled. Then he swung out with the machete. Olivia ducked and kneed him in the stomach.
Everyone charged then. The men on the cliff ran down toward us, their weapons flailing. Judith ran at them, knocking two of them to the ground with her car door shield. Zo pulled the modified bow from her back, nocked in an arrow from her belt, and shot one of them directly in the chest. He fell to the ground and didn’t move. Olivia and Samson fought hand to hand, knife to machete, Olivia trying to put distance and objects between the two of them.
“Stay here, Kahúu!” Susanah said, shoving Mowse into the hole with the vehicles. She pulled her chain from her bag.
“NO!” Mowse cried. “Susanah!”
But Susanah was already out in the thick of it, whirling her sharpened chain, holding them back. Zo shouted something to Cassandra.
“I’m on my way!” Cassandra yelled.
Just then, two Laredo Boys spotted us and began making their way toward our metal mountain. Fire or hurricane? I thought, bringing the spells to mind. Fire or hurricane?
“CASS!” Zo shouted, ducking behind a rock.
“Help her!” I told Cassandra, gathering black roller dust into my hands. “I’ll take care of these two.”
“If you say so!” she said. Then Cassandra—three Cassandras—darted out to help Zo, leaving me alone behind the pile of parts. Shaking, I forced my magic into my hands and stepped from behind the mountain of parts. The men saw me and began to run in my direction.
I can do this. I can do this. With a dry mouth, I shouted, “Hurrikanmauer!” and blew the dust into the air. The dust thickened into a whirlwind, reaching up into the sky. The two Laredo Boys put their arms up in fear, but I slammed them with my dust hurricane, buffeting them with wind and slicing dust.
They staggered and fell back several paces. But my nerves were shot. My fear was affecting the spell. The hurricane began to grow thin in places, and I knew it wouldn’t last much longer.
I sent a stronger surge of magic and let the hurricane lift them off their feet. I gave them one final spin, then pushed all the strength left in the spell through my fingertips and hurled them as far away from me as I could. One of them hit his head against a stone with a stomach-dropping smack. The other rose, shaken, and started forward again, madder than hell, but going for Judith this time and not me.
“Judith!” I shouted. She turned just in time to block his punch with her car door. Then she rammed him with the door and turned to fight off two more.
I looked around for the other man I’d thrown, but he was lying still, his blood seeping into the dust. I killed him. The thought pounded in my head as I ducked back behind the metal fortress. I killed someone. I killed someone. Oh, God, I killed someone.
I knew I’d crossed some sort of a threshold then. But adrenaline shot through my veins and blood spattered the dust and I couldn’t afford a moral dilemma right now. I shook myself mentally and ran back into the fray.
Zo and Cassandra were fighting off three of them, Zo dripping blood from a head wound and Cassandra trying to fend them off with her copies. Susanah was fighting two men with her chain. One other snuck up on a cliff behind her, raised his ax over his head. I almost sent a jet of fire his way, but then he stopped, turned on his heel, and began attacking the others with odd, jerky motions. On a rock nearby, Mowse held her hands out like a puppetmaster’s, moving them away from Susanah before discarding them behind a nearby boulder like spent playthings.
They worked together, their magic instinctual, enviably natural, while I fumbled with my pouches. Nearby, Olivia was holding her own against Samson, returning blow for blow. But she was obviously tiring. She kept putting distance between them, ducking behind boulders and trees. I couldn’t cast a fire spell or a wind spell, not with all the girls all mixed in with the men. Olivia stumbled, barely ducking a blow from Samson’s machete. I clenched my fists, trying desperately to think of something, anything, I could do to help.
“Sal!” she shouted. “Give me your power!”
“How?” I panted. A dagger flew by my head. I stumbled, then threw up a wall of dust around me on three sides.
“Blood!” Olivia ducked under a blow, then gave back one of her own. “Use your blood!”
Frantically I scanned the ground. There was a stone nearby smooth enough to smear my blood on. But how could my magic help her?
“Sal, now!” she cried.
I bit hard into my thumb and smeared my blood across the stone, thinking of every offensive spell I knew. Fire, hurricane, wind projectile, please, please let this work, until my penny glowed. Then I took aim and threw the stone to Olivia. She caught it and held it to her chest. I felt a red flash through me and I knew somehow that it was Olivia copying my magic.
“¡Fuego!” she cried, and a tongue of flame shot out at Samson. It caught on his axle grease designs and ignited them. He cried out and rolled. Olivia darted away, shouting, “Come on! Let’s go!”
All of us ran for the entrance to the ravine. My feet pounded on the hard ground, my chest hurt. I flew with panic and adrenaline. Then I heard a blood-freezing scream and turned.
“Olivia!” Cassandra screamed. “Olivia! Help!”
One of the Laredo Boys had seen through Cassandra’s illusions and grabbed the real Cassandra around the waist and held her to him with a knife on her jugular.
I froze, panting, looking to the others.
“Hold on, Cassandra!” Olivia shouted. She started back toward Cassandra, and we fell in behind her, facing the four Laredo Boys who were left. I caught my breath as, behind them, Samson rose. His black designs were bubbling, red burns now, still smoking from Olivia’s and my fire. Shaking with rage, he came to stand in front of Cassandra.
“Like I said, Olivia,” he spat, his silver teeth bloodstained. “The easy way or the bloody way. Give up now, before my reinforcements come.”
“Take the metal, Samson!” Olivia’s voice was carefully steady. “Take the rations, take all of it, just let her go!”
“I want it all,” he said. “All the metal. All of you. Or she dies.”
I clenched trembling hands. I could see Olivia sizing them up, trying to figure out what to do. But there was no spell I’d learned that she could cast without hurting Cassandra too. I was utterly powerless. Behind me, even Mowse was frozen, too terrified to utter a word.
Olivia swallowed, started to say something; then a familiar voice rang out over
the ravine.
“Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls of all ages! Welcome to the show!”
The Laredo Boys turned, bewildered. Then one of them pointed.
Asa was standing, fully suited and hatted, on an outcrop high up on the side of the ravine.
“I am but a humble traveler from another land, another realm, another place in time!” He tipped his hat, and a white bird flew out of it and shattered into a million pieces of glittering confetti.
“Who’s this clown?” one of the Boys sneered.
“I am Asa Skander, magician at large, and I have come to open your eyes to otherworldly feats, death-defying stunts, and fantastical delights the likes of which have never been seen before. So I ask you: You wanna see a magic trick?”
He pulled the chain of colored scarves from his sleeves and stood, arms outstretched, waiting for applause. The Laredo Boys looked from one to the other, confused. None of us moved.
“No?” Asa said, pulling a comical frown. “What about—” Asa reached up and peeled his face up and off, revealing a hole of black smoke. “This one?”
The Laredo Boys screamed as the smoke leaked from the hole where Asa’s face had been and filled the sky over the ravine, but Samson stood his ground, grabbing Cassandra himself.
“He’s just a witch,” he said to his men. “Like… like these girls here. All tr-trickery.”
“Oh, I assure you,” said Asa’s voice, a daemonic face appearing in the smoke, all fire-red eyes and arm-length teeth. “I am something else entirely.”
Blue-white flames shot up all around. The ravine went dark as pitch. The cliffs echoed with the sound of inhuman shrieks and howls and wails. Then Asa himself leapt down into the ravine and moved toward the Boys, toward Samson. Samson held his ground for a moment longer, then shoved a white-faced Cassandra toward Asa and turned to run. Asa stepped past Cassandra and opened his arms. Suddenly they too were black smoke, wide enough to cover the whole ravine. And even though I knew I had nothing to fear from Asa, my knees shook.
Elysium Girls Page 18