by Rainy Kaye
We wouldn’t be able to store a third portrait in the back, but that would be a problem for another day. For now, we had to worry about capturing the necromancer in this one, and then pray that neither mage escaped their prisons before we knew what to do with them.
In the end, all of this might be for nothing.
I closed up the back of the van before doing a mental head count.
“So, there’s seven of us,” I began as I walked back to the side of the vehicle where the others gathered. “That is, if I can still count straight. There are only five seats. We could squeeze one extra into the back row if we don’t mind violating each other’s personal space, but seven isn’t that practical.”
Ever looked between her sisters, lips pursed.
Paisley sighed, dropping her backpack to the ground.
“I know, I know. I’m the smallest.” She rolled her eyes. “I’ll fold myself up in the back.”
“If you insist,” Ever said with a grin that implied she absolutely was going to request that in the first place.
I winced, trying to imagine how Paisley could fit around the portraits without damaging them. Then I corrected myself and felt a tinge of concern for her comfort—but the portraits did matter more in the grand scheme of things.
“Let’s get going,” Paisley said, sliding open the side door.
She crawled past Fiona and twisted her body as she high-stepped into the back before sinking down into a tiny bundle of coat, shoes, and eyes.
“It’s great,” she called, dead pan. “Don’t worry about me.”
Ever flashed her a thumbs up and then hauled up her backpack before crawling in besides Fiona and stuffing both bags around her feet. She didn’t look any more comfortable than Paisley.
Sasmita and I crammed into the one seat on the opposite side of Fiona, and April took the passenger seat in the front. We closed up the doors, and it seemed to take an extra inch on either side, smooshing us closer together in the backseat. My muscles remained tensed and slightly hunched as I tried to keep most of my weight off from Sasmita where we overlapped on the seat.
“Just follow this road for a few miles, and I’ll tell you where to turn,” April said to Randall as he started the ignition. “Our camp isn’t too far, at least not when on wheels.”
The van set out down the road, bumping us around. Every time the portraits clattered, I glanced back at Paisley even though I couldn’t make her out unless I turned around and effectively elbowed Sasmita in the process.
Ever piped up. “We’re pretty confident the cockatrice is dead, right?”
“I can’t imagine she survived,” I said, remorse burning under my chest bone. “I think you’re safe to take Skyla out of town.”
Ever clasped the bent knuckles of her fingers with the opposite hand as she turned to stare out her window. I watched her, trying to determine what she was calculating, but her face gave no clues.
I inched my feet closer together, trying to not overtake in the shared seat. Sasmita plastered her side against the door, but even then, we couldn’t get an inch between us.
“April, you and Noah can take Skyla,” Ever said, out of nowhere. “Leave behind everything you don’t need to get into town so you can move fast. We’ve lost a lot of time. Paisley and I will be staying behind.”
“What?” Paisley snapped, jerking forward. Her shoulder caught a frame with a solid smack and she reeled back.
April spun around, gripping the back of her seat as she stared at Ever. “Are you insane?”
“The road is safe now,” Ever said, putting up one hand, “but Haven Rock isn’t. We have a chance at fixing this.”
“I don’t want us to fix this,” April whined, and I startled. She had been through so much in the last few days and hadn’t been anything but stoic.
To be fair, she had earned being petulant for a moment. I certainly felt it, too.
Ever shot April her best older-sister eyes. “We don’t get to pick and choose what needs to be done.”
“But I mean…” April continued, as if she was the one being asked to fight the necromancer. She gestured between Sasmita, Fiona, and me. “It’s already being handled.”
“They’re doing it because it’s the right thing,” Ever said.
That wasn’t entirely true. Sasmita was on some bizarre quest for blood, and Randall and I had come here in what I could only now assume was an adrenaline-fueled bout of insanity. Once we crammed the necromancer back into his hidey-hole, we were going to have to sit down and have a serious chat about what, exactly, we thought we were doing.
“Let them do the right thing then,” April said and with a half-sigh, half-groan, started to turn back in her seat.
“The necromancer killed Jax.” Ever’s voice was soft but firm and seemed to fill the interior of the van.
The air shifted as realization dawned over Paisley and April and—truth be told—the rest of us, too. As muddled as our reasons to continue were, Ever, and by extension her sisters, had a clear focus. They weren’t going after the necromancer to do good in the world, or even for practical reasons. They weren’t searching for answers.
They wanted revenge.
Judging by their expressions, the war was on.
18
Revenge wasn’t a bad motivator, at least as long as it meant we would be joined by a fearless rappelling spider-woman, and her kukri-spinning sister. We needed all the help we could get, especially since the necromancer had risen his undead army before we even knew what he had been up to.
Still, I expected them to look for an out by the time we reached Skyla, but when we pulled up to the camp, Ever seemed as stoic as ever and Paisley and April had relented. Whatever loyalty they didn’t possess for Haven Rock, the sisters made up for ten-fold with their devotion to their brother.
Randall eased the van to a stop a few yards from the tents. Noah crouched by the campfire, placing a metal coffee pot on a grate standing over smoldering embers. He looked up at us at Ever pushed open the door and hopped out.
April dropped down from the passenger seat and trudged behind her, hands tucked against her stomach. In the back, the portraits clanged a few times as Paisley untangled her limbs and ducked out the back doors.
I turned to gesture Sasmita out of the van, but she was already a second ahead of me. She shoved open the door and we sort of expanded as we climbed out from our shared seat. Stiff legged, I stepped over to the open front passenger door and let my body realign. Randall climbed out as well, stretching and rubbing his shoulder.
“Change of plans,” Ever called to Noah with a single wave of her arm. “The cockatrice is dead, so you and April can make a run for it with Skyla.”
Noah raised his eyebrows.
“Where’s Paisley?” he asked. “Did something—”
Before he could finish, she rounded the van and leaned back against the front, stretching out her spine.
“I’m fine. Besides my back, anyway.” She straightened up and marched toward Ever and April. “As it turns out, our dear ol’ sis wants to be a hero and we’re going to join her. No, I’m going to join her.”
She glared at April.
Ever rolled her eyes as she nudged Paisley’s shoulder.
“Getting Skyla out of here is hero enough, but we have more to do before we leave Haven Rock for good.” She turned her attention back to Noah. “You and April manage okay?”
He looked between the van and her. “You’re not going after that monster, are you?”
“Necromancer,” Ever corrected. “He’s a necromancer. He’s killing us to create an army, apparently. He killed Jax, and now, we’re going to kill him.”
Noah’s face contorted with protests, but instead, he took a deep breath. “You’re certain the cockatrice is dead?”
Ever nodded. “There’s no way it’s coming back from that.”
His expression dropped as if he’d just realized how much more tattered she was since the last time he’d seen her, a few hours ago.
“Well…” He peered in the direction of Haven Rock, though miles of trees stood between him and the town. “I can get Skyla out of here, then. On my own. April should go with you. At least help keep the situation under control—as much as can be, I guess—until the Feds arrive. FEMA. Whoever is coming.”
“No one,” Ever said, shoulders slumping. “It’s just them.”
She gestured toward Randall, Sasmita, and me, and I would have been offended, except I agreed with the sentiment.
A part of me wanted to interrupt and suggest she go with Noah, that they all get out of here. To lie and pretend that we had this covered without them. The rest of me knew that we needed her help if we intended to get out of here alive too.
Noah closed the distance between him and Ever and, taking her hand, pulled her to him. In one smooth motion, he slid one arm around her back and gripped the back of her head with his other hand, tipping her back into a deep kiss. I blushed, turning away, but my heart pattered a little at the thought of someone doing that to me, and of course, not just someone, but Randall.
Gritting my teeth, I pushed aside the nonsense and ducked inside the van, trying to act impatient, not smitten, because only one of those was acceptable in the current climate.
Randall stood by the front of the van, and I let out a shuddering sigh as I tried to itemize the feelings jumbled in my chest, but they were knotted up like Christmas lights. I didn’t have the energy to undo them today, and maybe not ever.
Finally, Noah and Ever broke their straight-out-of-a-romance-movie kiss and held hands, staring into each other’s eyes with love and adoration. I drummed my fingers on the console. We did need to get moving but also the next time Noah saw Ever, she might be an animated corpse and I wasn’t sure how he felt about such things.
I rolled my eyes at myself and slouched down in my seat.
April turned to Ever. “If I’m staying behind too, then I’m going to go say goodbye to Skyla.”
She started forward toward Skyla’s tent, but Ever grabbed her arm.
“No, wait,” she said, tone firm. “She’s too unwell for you to upset her with goodbyes. She needs to believe this is normal, this is the plan. Otherwise…”
Sadness draped over April’s face, and as much as I wanted to argue that Ever herself had just bid Noah farewell like they were headed off to war—and they sort of were—I kept my mouth shut. She knew her sisters better than I did. As far as I had seen, Skyla was the only person in this entire town clinging to life after becoming infected, and April’s tearful farewell just might be too much for her fragile little body.
After they finished their goodbyes, Ever, April, and Paisley clomped over the snow back to the van. Without a word, they packed back inside, this time with Ever and April sharing a seat so Sasmita and I had a chance to stretch out on the ride back to town. Paisley found her spot in the back, using the portraits as a lean-to, and then gave in and just laid out next to them. It seemed for the best.
Randall drove, and Fiona stared straight ahead. I tried not to think about how we still did not know what was wrong with her, how to fix it, or what was going to happen with her in the future.
For the moment, we had to focus on making a plan to defeat an undead army and the necromancer controlling them.
19
As we headed down the dirt path towards Haven Rock, I leaned my head back against the seat, face tipped toward the ceiling, and closed my eyes. I tried to imagine the jostling of the van to serve as a massage, but it only managed to antagonize the decoupage of aches and pains across my body.
“Is there a way back to the ranger station that doesn’t involve going through the town?” Randall asked.
“Since we’re basically built into the side of the mountain, no, not really,” Ever said. “Not without doing some pretty serious off-roading.”
“We’ll take our chances with the town,” Randall said.
The ground smoothed out from dirt to asphalt, and I opened my eyes as Haven Rock came into view with trees on one side going up the mountain and the steep drop beyond the buildings on the other. We were back on the main road, with no place to turn until the first intersection.
Randall eased on the brake, slowing the van but not stopping.
Dark skeletal figures with lengths of exposed muscles and remnants of skin lumbered about in crowds, leaving a wake in the red fog. They twisted door handles, shaking the doors in their frames, and beat their bony hands against windows.
The townspeople were nowhere to be seen. Even the New Hope cult seemed to have decided to stay covered.
A group of undead soldiers snapped their heads around, staring straight at the van.
Ever leaned forward from the back seat, squishing April into Fiona, who didn’t budge or seem to notice.
“Uh, this looks not at all promising,” she whispered, and then glanced back towards Paisley. “Get ready.”
Paisley snickered. “Yeah, for sure. I’m literally under a pile of Picasso paintings.”
“Those are far more Rembrandt than Picasso,” Ever said, her tone admonishing, but her gaze remained fixed out the windshield, studying the undead as they swaggered toward us. “Maybe even Jan Van Eyck.”
The undead army launched forward.
“Floor it,” I yelled, leaning into the dash, but Randall had already stomped the gas.
The van rocketed forward, slamming into undead soldiers and making a crunching sound as it rolled over them. I glanced in the rearview mirror as the broken bodies slid back together and pushed to their feet.
We weren’t going to be able to stop them with brute force.
Right before the intersection, another crowd of soldiers spun around. They lunged at the vehicle, grabbing the front and sides. With boney arms and legs, they crawled toward the top.
Something thudded on my window. I twisted around and yelped. A soldier had rammed his skull, tight with papery skin, against the window to peer inside as he hung off the roof of the van. Without thinking, I shoved my door open and then slammed it shut. He scrambled to keep his hold as he toppled to the ground.
Randall continued to stomp the gas, but the van hit soldier after soldier, slowing it down and all but gutting the bottom of the vehicle. Soldiers continued to scramble up and over the van. They tried the door handles and banged on the windows, and part of me wished they hadn’t retained so much of their faces from life. It would have been easier to fight something with just a dead empty skull. These were far too human still, far too obviously between life and death.
A soldier slammed its fist into my window and then pulled back and did it again.
The glass was not going to hold.
I turned my attention inwards to sense my magic. It was there, waiting, and I yanked it to the surface, wondering why it had not abandoned me when I needed it lately.
That was a thought for when we weren’t being swarmed by the undead.
The soldier rammed his fist into my window again.
Gritting my teeth, I shoved open the door and shot my hand out to grab him. His bony fingers clenched my arm and he tugged me from my seat. The seatbelt caught, cinching up against my chest and collarbone as the van spun to the side, squealing to a stop. My arm ripped free from his grasp, and I pushed myself upright, yanking the door closed.
I threw myself back against the seat, panting.
That hadn’t worked so well.
“Do you mind warning me next time before you try a new move?” Randall snapped.
I jerked around to face him, but something thudded off our roof. A man—a living one, not a corpse—bounded down the windshield, over the hood, and dropped to the ground in a run. Beams of green magical light jutted from him, like he wore a spiky shell of magic. He ducked his head and barged toward a crowd of the undead.
The crowd parted away from him, and the man skidded to a halt before colliding with a tall, robed figure.
The necromancer.
The necromancer put out his palm. The man d
ropped to the ground in a heap, the green light vanishing.
I strained to see if his chest still moved, but I already knew he was dead.
The necromancer had no use for the living.
The undead remained rapt, staring at the necromancer, as he tipped his head toward the man on the ground at his feet. With a wave of his hand, the man’s respirator slid off his face and tumbled next to him.
The red fog swirled right above his face. The necromancer used two fingers to trace an S shape in the air, and the fog slithered down to the man’s nose and mouth and forced its way inside.
“Oh, this is going to be bad,” I muttered, my palms pressed against the dash. I couldn’t quite put into words why this would be worse than the other deaths, but I could feel it coming. We were witnessing a new kind of horror.
The necromancer clapped his gloved hands together once. The man sprang to his feet, slack like a puppet whose strings weren’t quite taunt enough. His eyes opened, but already his skin and flesh had begun to twist and deteriorate.
“We should go,” Ever whispered, but no one replied. We all stared straight ahead, unblinking.
The necromancer unfurled one hand, and a purple spark lit on each of his fingers. With his thumb, he flicked one purple spark toward the man. It struck him in his chest, and his body shuddered as purple light zigzagged through him and then faded into a subtle halo around his body.
“What’s purple do?” April asked.
“We’re finding out, I guess,” I said.
The necromancer twisted to his crowd of waiting undead soldiers and, rapid fire, flicked the remaining three purple sparks toward them. The sparks flew toward three different crowds of soldiers and engulfed them in a matching purple aura.
The purple-engulfed soldiers flowed together into the street and convened in even rows behind the man still wavering in front of the necromancer.
“Hol sie ihr!” The necromancer’s growling voice carried across the road to our van, as he gestured toward us.
