by Ashia Monet
“Mm, no, I’m better with close range combat.”
Register Boy studies him, as if running through a mental list of the store items. “I got it,” he says after a moment.
He slides open the display case and presents them with a long white pillow of watches. They are all intricately beautiful, but the one he takes delicately into his hands is as red as blood. Its face is pitch black, with barely readable Roman numerals.
“Give me your dominant hand,” Register Boy says.
“I’m ambidextrous,” Jay answers.
“Fine, show off, give me either hand.”
Register Boy clasps the watch around his left wrist. It looks nice on him—then again, everything looks good on Jay.
“Now, twist your wrist and close your fist like you’re grabbing something.”
Jay starts to. Register Boy jumps back. “Wait! Do it over there, not in my direction.”
Jay faces the wall and twists his wrist. The watch snakes into his palm like a living creature. It melts into a liquid, shifting and growing forward, forming a sharp point and a long, straight edge before it hardens into a completely new object.
Jay is holding a sword with a handle as black as onyx and a long, crimson blade. It is a sword sharp enough to kill.
Blythe gasps. “Whoa! Bro, you look so cool!” Antonio shouts.
Jay weighs it in his hand, studying it. “What’s it do?”
Register Boy’s jaw literally drops. “What’s it—it’s a sword!” he screams. “A Bloodsword that you can literally carry around with you because it’s also a sick-ass watch! A Bloodsword! Is that not good enough for you!? Do you need it to cook filet mignon too—”
Jay’s losing what little patience he has. “Just tell me what the fuck it does.”
Register Boy pinches the bridge of his nose and groans. “Bloodswords absorb the blood and-slash-or the lifeblood of the creatures they attack. That’s how they get their color.”
“So, it’s already been used?” Cordelia asks. Her words earn an awkward silence.
“By the way, there’s no proof that our items aren’t cursed,” Register Boy blurts. “We literally have no screening for that. There are hundreds of magical artifacts, heirlooms, and weapons floating around the world and we’ll take any of them, no questions asked. We don’t even accept returns, which means you’re stuck with everything you purchase. For life.” He pauses. “Anyway, enjoy your items!”
Cordelia scoffs. “My God, do you hand out weapons of mass destruction to anyone who walks in here or just us?”
“Usually I sit here and critique the lives of strangers via my Instagram feed without paying much attention to…anyone,” Register Boy answers. “But you guys give off an oddly relevant vibe, even though I have no idea why.”
“We’re Guardians,” Blythe says. “And we’re kind of a big deal.”
Register Boy’s eyebrows shoot up. “Could’ve fooled me.”
Could’ve—? Blythe recoils. “You work at a crusty thrift shop that sells magicians’ trash--”
“Ay, don’t do it to him, Bee,” Antonio interrupts, shaking his head solemnly. “He doesn’t even deserve to be dragged.”
If Register Boy is at all offended, he doesn’t show it. “Wow,” he drawls.
Antonio points at him. It is a warning. “And I’m the nice one.”
The Guardians are already heading for the door, new weapons in hand—the boy asks Cordelia if she’d like anything, but she plants her hands on her hips and asks if it looks like she’s about to ruin her manicure trying to decapitate some slimy Calling creature, which shuts Register Boy right up—but Blythe pauses in the doorway.
“What’s your name?” she asks Register Boy. He acts like he loathes their existence, but to be truthful, he’s done a lot for them. The least she can do is call him by his proper name.
“I don’t think I’m important enough for you to remember my name,” he says. “I mean, it’s a little late to introduce new people, isn’t it? I mean, the final act—”
Blythe glances down to his shirt, hoping to spot a nametag. Bingo. “So, Rodger?” Rodger the Register Boy.
He sighs. “Forgot I was wearing that.”
Blythe smiles as she heads out. “Thanks Rodger,” she says.
He doesn’t smile back, but he does watch them go, his expression not quite a smile but not quite a sneer.
“Hey, Guardians,” he calls as the door swings closed. “Good luck. And come back soon.”
The abandoned prison looks exactly like Blythe imagined: barred windows, whitewashed silhouette towering against the night sky and surrounded by looming barbed wire. But they can’t just walk straight in—of course not, because that would be easy and wouldn’t give Blythe a headache.
Instead, they have to travel, on foot, through an underground tunnel that dips down into the earth and opens in front of the prison’s entrance.
A chill runs up Blythe’s spine as they approach the tunnel’s dark mouth. Electric City has always been silent, which isn’t surprising, but this is almost…too serene. Are they really about to head straight into their first building of interest without a single person stopping them? Are they really that stealthy?
Katia’s words race back to her, as if her ancestors have gifted her with this reminder. As soon as you walk in, a sniper waiting on the roof across the street has you right through the skull.
Blythe checks behind them. On the roof of a blown-out brick building stands the scarred woman with the billowing sleeves.
“Aw,” she says. “I was hoping to get you while your back was turned.”
From her beckoning hands, a flock of Krubim rises like a cresting wave, cloaks blacking out the night sky as they descend onto the Guardians.
Twenty-Five
Blythe slams her hockey stick into the leader of the Krubim wave. The explosion ricochets through their crowded bodies, sending them backward in a mass of fluttering black fabric.
“What the fuck are these things?!” Jay shouts.
“Don’t worry about it, just get rid of them!” Blythe replies.
The Guardians hear her loud and clear. A second flock arcs downward like a mass of falling arrows. Roots burst from the ground, dripping in clumps of dirt. Their gnarled tendons twist along black capes, tugging the creatures from the sky. But most of the Krubim soar past their sluggish movements. They are too swift to catch.
A flash of white and Antonio is in the air, wings glowing against the black sky. The Krubim shoot after him. He is fast on the wind, baiting their sharp talons above the rooftops, yards away from the others. But Blythe doubts the diversion will last long.
“Why didn’t we ever practice like, fighting maneuvers?” Blythe asks. “So I could be, like, I don’t know, Alpha-Seven-Beyoncé or some bullshit and we could roll out Power Rangers style?”
Cordelia yells, “Because your plans suck!”
“Wait a minute, my plans don’t—”
A Krubim shrieks much too close to Blythe’s ear. She whirls around—too fast. Her feet twist and she hits the ground as a black cloak soars overhead.
It passes just in time to reveal the giant bird from the Tempore, the one with talons the size of school buses. It opens its black beak and caws. Blythe’s very organs tremble from the noise.
Fuck. The Krubim they could probably, maybe handle. That thing? Definitely not. Absolutely not.
The ground shakes as the bird barrels forward, straight toward Daniel and Cordelia. Blythe calls to them, but they already see the thing. Daniel throws himself into Cordelia, both of them collapsing into the asphalt as the bird barrels past like a runaway train.
Jay’s voice pierces through the cacophony of Krubim shrieks. “Antonio!”
The Krubim hoarse has swallowed Antonio whole. Their claws tear feathers from his wings as Antonio struggles to stay afloat, wings fighting to flap, face twisted with pain as his hand reaches, stretches, upward—before a Krubim’s body thumps straight into his chest, and he plummets lik
e a falling star.
Blythe pushes to her feet, but Jay has already crossed whole yards, running faster than Blythe has ever seen a human being run. He dives forward, catching Antonio in his arms only a moment before he hits the ground.
The woman makes a noise of distaste from the roof. “I thought it’d take longer for the Sages’ Guardians to fall but I’m not exactly complaining—”
She gasps. Her hands fly to her head as her body shudders, falling to her knees.
From her position, still lying on the ground, Cordelia’s gaze is steeled on the woman. “I have her!” she says. “She won’t be able to summon anything else, but I need to concentrate, so if someone could watch my back, it’d be much appreciated!”
Blythe darts. “I got you!”
She’s barely moved three feet before sharp claws sink into her side. Blythe screams, jabbing her elbow back as hard as she can. Her arm collides with a solid torso. The Krubim shrieks, recoiling just far enough for her to slam the hockey stick against its head. It dissipates into black goo at her feet.
Everything is happening so fast. Too fast. Roots burst from the ground, wrapping around the giant bird but it tears straight through them. Jay is pulling Antonio to his feet but Antonio’s body slumps against him.
Another wave of Krubim rises in the air. The Guardians will be swarmed if they stay here.
“Run for the tunnel!” Blythe orders.
Daniel leads the charge into the darkness, roots poking through the ground at his feet. Blythe catches up to Cordelia’s side.
The sound of their running feet echo off the curved brick walls. Cordelia is too preoccupied to fight the Krubim, and Daniel’s vines are effective, but slow. If something comes for the three of them, Blythe just has to fucking swing.
Blythe checks over her shoulder. Antonio’s arm is thrown over Jay’s shoulders, and though Antonio is walking, it is only barely. His wings droop, covered in bald, pink patches where the feathers have been torn. He does not look okay.
The Krubim wave closes in from behind them, filling the tunnel opening. They have about a minute before that wave of beasts is upon them.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“Daniel, protect Cords!” Blythe yells. The Krubim wave only grows larger as she heads for Jay and Antonio, like a tumultuous cloud of tattered fabric and yellow bodies.
“I can carry him,” Jay says. “But I can’t fight at the same time.”
Blood drips from a cut on Antonio’s temple. His words are hoarse and quiet. “I’ll be alright just…gimme a sec…”
They don’t have a second. The first few Krubim are already coming.
“Go on ahead,” Blythe orders. “I got this.”
The look on Jay’s face is defiant, but he doesn’t question her. Maybe he knows they don’t have the time, or maybe he doesn’t want to leave Antonio to fend for himself. Either way, he presses on.
And Blythe is left to face the storm. She sets her feet apart, squares her shoulders, and as the first shrieks ring in her eardrums, she starts swinging.
With every arc of her hands, the hockey stick connects with a body, setting at least four more back. She’s hitting them as fast and as hard as she can. But they keep coming.
“Daniel!” she yells. “Make sure nothing hits—”
The ground is already erupting, cracking, shaking. Roots coil around the Krubim’s bodies, holding them in place, pinning them mid-air. Blythe’s muscles burn and she gasps for breath, knocking them from the air as quickly as her body will allow.
But it’s not enough. There are already too many, and more are coming.
They are not going to win like this.
Caspian appears at her side. “Question.”
“Now?!” Blythe shrieks.
“Am I allowed to kill things?”
“Monsters? Fuck yeah! I don’t care what you—”
Caspian disappears in a streak of black smoke.
“—do…” Blythe’s voice fades into silence. A wall of smoke is clogging the tunnel entrance. It pours as if from the mouth of a machine, black and frothing, stretching from the ground to the bricks above without leaving a single inch uncovered.
A Krubim flies through it. The smoke slips across its skin, draining the yellow into a sickly grey. Its mouth opens and emits a strained noise, not quite a cry and not quite a shriek. But even that does not stop its body from curling, withering, and dropping.
Every cloaked form in its wake does the same, shooting through the smoke only to shrivel and crash into the ground. Their dying bodies form a waterfall of countless cloaks pivoting and crashing into heaps of lifeless bodies. They are dropping like the drooped stems of every lavender flower in Lavender Heights.
Not bad for the Guardian of Death.
Caspian’s face is impassive as he returns to Blythe’s side, watching his wall of death obliterate Krubim after Krubim, the resulting growing pool of black goo on the ground.
“I never got a chance to use that before,” he says.
“This is the only time I’ll allow it,” Blythe replies. “Could you fill a room full of people with smoke like that? Hypothetically speaking, of course?”
Caspian’s black eyes are completely expressionless. “Nothing’s stopping me.”
“Jesus, Casp.”
A pointedly cleared throat claims Blythe’s attention. Cordelia’s nose is wrinkled, her eyes narrowed with the force of concentration. “Let’s keep moving, mm? The longer this goes on, the harder it is to keep her incapacitated.”
Jay sighs, shifting Antonio’s weight against him. “I hate to be a killjoy, but should we really be walking into the place we got ambushed outside of?”
Blythe jabs a finger over her shoulder at the literal wall of death. “You wanna go that way? Into that stuff?”
“Forward is our best option,” Cordelia agrees. “If they’re this desperate to keep us from getting in, there’s got to be a reason. We can’t turn back now.”
Daniel gives a determined nod of agreement.
Jay dramatically holds up a hand in surrender and they travel forward, walking to the soundtrack of the dying Krubim behind them. Their pace is brisk but, as everyone is careful to ensure, not so brisk that Antonio strains himself.
Daniel watches him with drawn brows. “A-Antonio, are you okay?”
“S’all good my dude,” Antonio croaks. “Don’t worry about me. I just…need a second, that’s all.”
Jay studies him. “Don’t you pass out on me,” he says, low. “I’ll have to carry you bridal style if you do.”
“Not gonna lie bro, that sounds great right now.”
Blythe wishes he would’ve have said that, because Jay, of course, obliges. “Alright, brace yourself,” he says.
“Oh God, Jay, please be careful,” Blythe begs, but Jay is already sweeping Antonio into his arms.
“I got him, I got him,” Jay insists, as Antonio lets out the smallest grunt of pain at the shifting of his limbs.
Jay instantly freezes. “Good?” He checks.
Antonio musters a smile. “Good.”
“Can you carry me, too?” Cordelia asks. “I’m simply tired of walking.”
“Sorry, the Jay Train only has one seat and it’s booked, but if you don’t mind flying coach, I can piggyback you.”
Daniel pouts. “If Storm were here, she’d carry us.”
Blythe scoffs. “I don’t know what alternate-universe-Storm-Crane you’re thinking about, because the one I know absolutely would not—”
The ground shakes. The tunnel grows dim. Blythe stills, holding her breath, because up ahead, a wall of oil black feathers blocks their only exit.
“Oh,” Daniel sighs. “I hate that bird.”
The bird plunges, head first, through the tunnel—but its form is too big for the structure to contain. Its feathers burst through the bricks. Debris goes flying as dust rains from the ceiling. The whole world seems to quake as the whole tunnel rips around them.
Cordelia’s eyes flash t
o Blythe. “Please tell me you have a plan for that thing.”
“Working on it,” Blythe answers.
“Well, work fast, because it’s running at us!”
The tunnel cracks from its every massive movement. Roots rise, but aren’t fast enough to catch its limbs.
Caspian is handling the Krubim. Daniel’s vines aren’t working. Cordelia can’t concentrate on anything other than the woman. Blythe can’t take that thing alone without risking her life. Antonio is injured.
“Take Ant!” Jay drops Antonio against Blythe. Antonio’s not heavy, so it’s not hard to hold him upright, but Blythe still stares after Jay as he sprints forward.
“Joshua Hoffman, you’d better have a plan!” Cordelia screams.
He runs like he does, fast and sure, shoes slapping against the ground as he runs straight toward the creature that dwarfs him like an ant.
And then he stops, arms outstretched, palms first. Blythe doesn’t get it. He’s in the center of the bird’s path. It’ll run straight into him.
Oh.
The creature’s body hits Jay like a speeding car hitting a wall. And Jay is impenetrable—he does not flinch, not even a single muscle, as the bird’s feathers drown him.
The whole tunnel stills. The creature tries to press forward. It bends its odd, oil-formed body against Jay. Its claws rake through the asphalt. But it is moving in place. Jay does not budge.
Joshua Hoffman is holding back this fifty-foot monstrosity with his bare hands.
“Oh. My. God!” Blythe yells over Cordelia’s wordless shrieks of excitement.
“Heck yeah bro, go beast mode!” Antonio shouts as Daniel applauds with earnest.
But they’re still sandwiched between this creature and a flock of dying Krubim. There has to be a way to get rid of that damn bird.
The memory of Katia’s fight in the Tempore hits Blythe like a bolt of lightning.
“Jay!” His locs fly as he looks over his shoulder at Blythe. “Stab it in the neck!”
His forehead wrinkles. “Wh—”
The bird charges forward, burying Jay under a mound of slick feathers.
“Oh my God,” Antonio breathes. “You killed Jay.”
