Witch's Pyre

by Josephine Angelini

  The pilot wrestled desperately with the stick and didn’t even see Lily floating level with the helicopter. Simms stared at her in a mixture of horror and triumph. Lily recognized Miller, who was utterly terrified, and couldn’t imagine how he’d ended up in the mix. And behind them all was Carrick. The look of hunger he gave Lily stole the breath from her body. She watched him move easily through the cabin, never taking his eyes off her, open the door, and throw himself out of the falling aircraft with the slithering grace of a snake.

  The helicopter careened to the ground, narrowly missing the gas station, while Carrick dropped lightly to his knees and rolled smoothly over a shoulder, hitching his stride and flapping the dust off his jacket as he strode forward toward the small army of police that were streaming toward Rowan.

  Alone, in the middle of the road, Rowan stood waiting for them. He looked to make sure Tristan had joined the rest of the coven on the dunes, and then looked up at Lily before launching himself at the oncoming tide.

  She Gifted him as he leapt into the fray, throwing back her head and shouting with mad joy. Magelight pulsed out of Rowan’s willstone, phosphorus bright. It stunned the officers closest to him and dropped them to their knees as they clutched at their faces to shield their eyes. He hit the second line before they could draw their weapons and wove through their ranks so quickly his progress was only made visible by the trail of unconscious bodies left to slide to the ground behind him.

  The third line had their weapons ready by the time he faced them, standing knee deep in a swath of immobile bodies. They fired as one.

  The crack of gunfire halted before it could resound across the sand. Lily took the thousands of little explosions into her as jubilantly as the night sky receives fireworks. She Gifted the rest of her coven with the fresh burst of power, and they streamed down the now-frosty dunes like falling stars.

  Police cars continued to arrive at both ends of the street until the road looked like a garish river of flashing lights. The gunfire came randomly now, and although Lily was stealing momentum from the bullets as fast as she could, there were some that were starting to slip past her. She couldn’t risk losing any of her claimed. She needed to make them impervious as she had done against the Hive. It was a little thing. One small difference that wasn’t so bad, after all—at least, not compared to death.

  Rowan was the only one who felt the difference when Lily invaded his stone and took it over.

  No, Lily. What are you doing?

  Making you stronger by making myself stronger, she replied. He balked for just one moment more, and then relented.

  Lily used their willstones to transmute energy, and with five more loci of power to add to her three, Lily drank a bigger measure of energy than she ever had before. She flooded the bodies of her claimed with so much power even Rowan forgot anything was wrong.

  She became They.

  They bellowed and screeched with bloodlust, vaulting over the cars in their way to get at the fresh foes behind. It didn’t matter how many They faced. As one, They were unbeatable. Every line but the last fell before Them. They looked down from their throne of air, purring with pleasure, and saw one among themselves who did not belong. He was a sour note that jangled out of tune in Their symphony.

  The bubble of ecstasy that surrounded her shattered, and Lily was just herself again.

  Carrick was not sparing his opponents. Each officer he faced he killed. Ice flaked in Lily’s blood.

  Lillian, you must rein in Carrick. He is killing innocents.

  He feels he must kill to protect you, Lillian answered.

  He’s lying. He’s only doing it because he likes it.

  Lily watched the back ranks of officer as they set up stronger machines of war—rocket, tanks, and high-caliber assault weapons. Carrick would kill them all, and if Lily didn’t stop her coven, they would have no choice but to kill as well.

  The officers were signaling to one another. They planned on unleashing all their hardware at the same time, but coordinating their attack would only make Lily stronger. The more power she gathered, the more berserk it made her and her coven.

  Rowan saw the firepower arrayed against them and knew what was coming.

  Lily, we have to get out of here, he said. Hundreds will die if we don’t. Worldjump us. We can’t make the crossing east in this world with so much against us.

  If we go back to your world it will take us months to travel and gather my army, and in that time Lillian’s army will be wiped out by the Hive. Hundreds of thousands will die, Lily argued.

  They needed to get east, and they needed to be there now. She had to at least try to jump them. She sent her spirit out to look.

  High in the air, Lily could see the face of the land. She saw the sand on top of the bedrock, like wrinkled skin over bones. She sent her spirit out, and let it sink a little deeper to touch the mind behind the face. The land had a pulse—a unique identity that resolved into a low thumping vibration. There was no other place on earth with this exact rhythm, and Lily knew that if she ever wanted to return here all she had to do was replay that rhythm in her willstone to unlock the path. She called her spirit back into her body again.

  Lily looked down to see Simms glaring up at her. Blood streaked down her face from a ghastly head wound, but she had not given up. Simms would never give up, no more than Lily would. Simms had said once that she had been raised just a few miles away from Lily in the town of Beverly. Maybe it was something in the land that made them as pigheaded as they were. Maybe that something was a vibration she could key into.

  Lily saw the commanding officer raise an arm and scream the word fire. Desperate, she sent her spirit out, grateful now that the burning desert had left her so dangerously dehydrated. She quickly found the Mist, passed through it rather than coasted along it on the raft, and soared into the overworld.

  She looked around at what seemed to be a slippery facsimile of the world, more spirit than location. Lily knew she could travel vast distances in a moment, or it could take an infinity for her to take one step. It was a shadowy landscape with an ever-changing map and, like the worldfoam, it was impossible to traverse without some kind of beacon to guide her spirit through it. She thought of her home. She thought of how the cantankerous water pounded ceaselessly at the stubborn rocks of the shore. She thought of the low whistle of the wind and the quiet thrum of the rocky soil. Her spirit arrived there in a single step.

  In spirit, Lily could easily feel the vibration of the land. She wasn’t surprised to learn that she had known it all along. It was in her blood, more than skin deep. She called her spirit back and it rejoined her suspended form in an instant.

  The bright wall of fire arrived just as Lily played the vibration of her particular Salem in her willstone, and with the ocean of energy her opponent unwittingly gave her, she gathered up her coven and jumped them across the continent.

  Carrick picked his head up from the carnage long enough to realize that every person in a uniform was running away. That could only mean one thing. They were going to attempt a massive salvo to end the conflict, which would make Lily stronger, but not Lillian. Lillian wasn’t present to harvest the energy.

  Lady, I need more strength, he called to his witch.

  I can’t help you anymore, Carrick, Lillian replied, exhausted. I suggest you run.

  During the fighting, Carrick had somehow worked his way back to where he had started and found himself near the wreckage of the helicopter. He leapt behind it for some cover and felt himself being pulled down.

  “Hold him,” Simms barked.

  Miller and the helmsman wrestled Carrick to the ground just as he felt the last of Lillian’s strength bleed out of him. The helmsman pulled a pistol from a holster on his hip and pointed it at Carrick, ending the struggle. Carrick sat back and showed them his hands. They were covered in blood.

  Simms stood and looked up at Lily, who was soaring above the battle, her arms flung wide and her delicate feet dangling.

/>   “I’d duck if I were you,” Carrick warned.

  A second later a roar erupted from the back of the police barricade . . . and was silenced. The flash of the salvo fell back onto itself just as the sound did. Then, in the absence of noise, thunks and pings could be heard as the projectiles that had been launched at Lily simply fell out of the air—robbed of their momentum. There was a great whooshing sound, as if the wind were inhaling, and then Lily and her coven vanished.

  Silence. For a moment, everyone present just stared, and then the moans of the injured and the gasps of the amazed started to swell up in a clamor. Simms turned on Carrick and crouched down in front of him. She was pale under the wash of gore down her face.

  “You’re going to explain this to me,” she said, her voice quiet and shaking. “And after you explain, you’re going to tell me where she went and how to capture her.”

  Carrick narrowed his eyes at her. “Tell me why I should.”

  Simms gestured at the helmsman, and he cocked his pistol. “You aren’t going to be arrested or put on trial. There’ll be no jail cells or opportunities for you to vanish into thin air like the rest of them did. You’ll just die right here, right now,” she promised. “Or you can explain.”

  Carrick smiled at her appreciatively. “This universe doesn’t suit you. But I know one that does,” he told her, and then began.

  CHAPTER

  9

  Lily fell out of the sky.

  “Catch her!” Rowan shouted.

  Caleb was closest and managed to get under Lily before she hit the ground. He made a basket out of his thick arms and Lily landed with much less of a smack than she would have without him. He went to stand her on her own two feet, but picked her back up as soon as he saw how wobbly she was.

  “Tired?” Caleb guessed.

  Lily nodded, and the world swayed uneasily. But at least it was her world.

  “Where are we?” Caleb asked.

  “My backyard,” Lily answered. She dropped her head on his shoulder and let out a long sigh. “It worked.”

  “Lily?” Juliet called.

  Lily picked her head up and saw her sister’s anxious face poking out of an upstairs window.

  “Juliet,” Rowan said, cutting her off before she could ask questions. “We need to come inside.”

  “Yes, of course. Holy crap.” There was a thump as Juliet bumped into something in her haste, and the window closed. Lily could hear her sister scrambling down the steps as she raced to meet them. The coven trudged to the side door. Now that Lily wasn’t fueling them, the minor injuries they’d incurred and general fatigue from the fight were catching up with them.

  “Get in, get in,” Juliet said urgently, holding open the door and waving them through. “Are you okay? What happened? How did you get here so fast?” Juliet asked in a rush.

  Lily burst into tears and wrapped her arms around her sister’s neck. Juliet startled and then went with it.

  “I’m guessing there’s a story here,” she said, smoothing Lily’s hair.

  They went into the kitchen and sat down. Una and Breakfast took it in turns to explain what had happened. Lily tried to calm herself down, but the tears kept silently leaking from her eyes no matter how many times she brushed them away. A half dozen times she reached out for her sister’s hand and squeezed it to reassure herself.

  Juliet handled the news of her death by deciding not to try to wrap her head around it just yet, and in turn brought the coven up to speed on what had been going on in this world since they had left.

  “They’re calling it ‘The Black Magic Murders.’ It’s a media circus,” she said bitterly. Juliet remembered something and addressed Tristan. “No matter what you hear about your parents, don’t go home. They’ll turn you over.”

  Tristan’s face went blank with confusion, and then pinched with an awkward apology. “Wrong Tristan,” he said.

  “Where is he?” Juliet asked, looking at Lily. She pulled in a small gasp. “No. Not him, too?”

  Lily nodded numbly. “He’s dead,” she said, just to make it real.

  Juliet sat back in her chair as if she’d been slapped. She covered her mouth with a hand, her eyes far away. “I can’t—oh my God,” she mumbled. “I don’t believe it.”

  “He’s dead,” Lily repeated, and for the first time she accepted it.

  She put her head down on the table. It was the same table where she had sat down with Tristan a thousand times to eat, to play, to talk, and to argue. The memories swam up out of the wood—Tristan dealing cards, puffing on a bubble gum cigar. The two of them switching chairs to put together an impossible puzzle with a picture of a pile of red candy hearts on the front. Tristan eating a hot dog with grape jelly. Doing homework together. Doing nothing together. Lily let herself cry until she felt a hand on her back.

  “It’s okay, Lillian,” Samantha said.

  Lily raised her head and turned to bury it in her mother’s stomach. “It’s my fault,” she sobbed. “I’m the reason he’s dead. I’m the reason they’re all dead.”

  “Oh no, sweetie,” her mother said. She tilted Lily’s head back and wiped away her tears. “You had no control over what happened to Tristan or your father.” She tittered anxiously, and Lily saw the mad light of a million other universes burn in her eyes. “That’s scarier, which is why most people choose to feel guilty rather than helpless when someone they love dies. But the truth is you had no control.”

  Samantha smiled at Lily like what she had just said made it all better—and Lily had stopped crying, but it wasn’t because she was comforted. Far from it, actually.

  Samantha pulled away and turned to Rowan. “You should tell her all of it,” she said. “What happened when she was unconscious in your tent? Tell her.”

  “Tell me what?” Lily asked. Samantha wandered away, humming a few notes to herself. Lily turned to Rowan. “Tell me what?” she demanded.

  Rowan’s face was blank. “I don’t know,” he mumbled.

  “She’s worse,” Juliet interjected. She was watching Samantha tackle the stairs with a worried frown. “The cameras, the police, the pressure to keep the story straight when she can’t even remember which world she’s in more often than not. It’s too much.”

  Lily really looked at Juliet. She’d lost weight and there were dark circles under her eyes. “Are you okay?” she asked. “How’s school?”

  “What school? I dropped out to take care of Mom.” Juliet rubbed a hand over her face. “Not that I could have stayed anyway, with reporters ambushing me outside of every class.”

  “I ruined your life,” Lily said, shaking her head.

  Juliet mustered a smile. “Didn’t you hear Mom?”

  “It’s not my fault?” Lily guessed.

  “Exactly.” Juliet glanced around the table, noticing the state of everyone. “You all look like hell,” she said, earning a round of rueful laughs. She turned to Breakfast, who was cradling one arm in his other hand. “What happened to you, Breakfast?”

  “I got shot,” he said, showing them a large red-purple-and-blue welt on his arm. “The bullet didn’t go through, though. It sort of bounced off. But, you know, hard.”

  “Why didn’t you get out of the way?” Una asked angrily.

  Breakfast rolled his eyes. “I’m fond of the color ouch.”

  Tristan hiked up his shirt to show Breakfast a nasty welt on his ribs. “Mine’s better,” he said, and then grimaced at the pain and dropped his shirt.

  “That’s incredible. You’re all bulletproof?” Juliet asked.

  “Not usually,” Rowan replied. He looked at Lily, eyes narrowed. “What did you do to us?”

  Lily cupped both her hands in front of her and wiggled her fingers. “It’s like a field thing, you know?”

  “No,” Rowan said, shaking his head.

  “I mean a force field,” Lily said, feeling silly.

  “Like in that movie Star Wars you made me watch?” Rowan asked, confused.

  “That�
�s the Force. A force field is more Star Trek,” Breakfast corrected. “Big difference.”

  “You did it to us before,” Una said. “It kept the Workers from stinging us when we fought the Hive. I’d say you’re getting better at it, though, Lil.”

  “You’ve never seen that done?” Lily asked lightly, like it was no big deal.

  “I taught you all I know about field magic,” Rowan said. “And I know it isn’t strong enough to repel bullets. You did something different. I felt it for a moment.”

  “Well, it’s not actually field magic,” she said, backtracking. “Instead of just putting energy into your willstones, like making a deposit, I use them to transmute energy directly. You’re enveloped in a flow of energy that’s strong enough to repel bullets. For a little while, anyway.”

  “You’re controlling our willstones?” Tristan asked uncomfortably. He shifted in his seat. “Are you controlling us when you do it?”

  In the heat of battle, none of them had ever been able to tell the difference. It was such a subtle thing that Lily started to resent that line in the sand. So what if she had to possess them to do it? It had kept them alive.

  “I only did it for a few moments when they were shooting at you.” Lily made an exasperated sound and turned to Rowan. “It’s the first thing you ever taught me. Remember how you had me heal my ankle through your willstone that first night I was in your world? Or when we fought the Woven in the cabin? I didn’t have a willstone then so I used yours to transmute the energy we needed. That’s all I’m doing.” She looked around at her coven’s unsettled faces, feeling defensive. “You’ve always known this, Rowan. When I have to, I can use any of my claimed’s willstone like I would use my own. Is it such a big deal I had to possess you for one second in order to save your lives?”