by E J Elwin
It was over. I hadn’t seen any signs of magic. Even if Harriet could hear me, she would never get to us in time. The Brotherhood, at least four or five of them, were on the floor below us. They’d just murdered the bartender downstairs and who knew how many other people. They would soon climb the stairs and find us. We were trapped, and there was no way out.
A woman’s singing voice echoed in my head, a beautiful but mournful song. It took me a second to remember where I’d heard it. It was from the movie that Connor and Harriet were watching when I’d shown up at her house so many hours ago. I couldn’t help the tears that came.
Connor gasped. “Arthur!” he whispered, taking my face in his hands. “My love, what is it?” There was real fear in his eyes and I knew it was because he could sense the darkness of what I was feeling. He could sense that these were no ordinary tears. They were tears of grief.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“What for?” he asked, looking at me in confusion.
“This is all my fault,” I choked out. “The cameras at the church, Sheriff Murphy, the Brotherhood, everything…”
“Arthur, none of this is your fault! None of it!” he whispered, pulling me into a hug. “How could you say that?”
I wept soundlessly in his arms. “I should’ve been more careful,” I whispered. “I just brought you back and now it’s going to end. How can this be it? How can it just end like this?”
“Arthur, listen.” He held my face firmly in his hands and looked into my eyes. “You’re right,” he said. “You brought me back. You gave me life. You gave me a second chance. You gave us a second chance. You gave us more time together! I will always be thankful for that.”
His kindness, his refusal to blame me for anything, was heartbreaking.
“You deserve better than this,” I said, barely audible. “You deserve to be happy. You don’t belong here, in this mess…”
“I belong here because you’re here,” he said plainly. “I’m happy, because I’m with you. No one, not the cops, not one of the assholes in the Brotherhood, is going to change that.”
I looked into his eyes, marveling at just how truly extraordinary he was, and my blood caught fire. Strength rekindled inside me and flowed through my veins. Even after everything that had happened, even though we were staring down the barrel of death, this boy loved me and I loved him. I stroked the hands he held to my face.
“You’re the love of my life, Connor.”
“And you’re mine,” he said. “How lucky are we?”
He leaned forward and kissed me, and I kissed him back, and we were shining bright light in the darkness, a fiery star in a black sky, defiantly refusing to burn out. When we finally broke apart, Connor opened his eyes and something was different.
“Well, if we’re going out,” he said in a low fierce voice, “we’re going out fighting.” His ocean blue eyes were bright and determined. “Are you ready?”
My blood burned inside me. I was ready. If death was coming for us, then I would meet it fighting at Connor’s side. “I’m ready,” I said.
He gave me a bracing smile and squeezed my hands, then walked to the stacks of boxes barricading the door. We pressed our ears against the wall, trying to catch any sounds that would indicate what was happening on the floor below. I heard furniture being shoved around, tables and chairs being toppled over. There was the sound of clinking glasses and then laughter.
“Unbelievable!” Connor whispered. “Are they seriously having a drink?”
There was more clinking glass and the sound of what I was sure was a glass bottle shattering. It seemed the members of the Brotherhood who had come into the pub were taking a break from their search and rampage for some refreshments. Connor straightened up and squinted around the room at the many boxes.
“We need weapons,” he said. “Something to fight with…”
The boxes mainly held liquor and beer, and bar supplies like drink mixers, napkins, and cleaning products. There were also boxes of snacks, like pretzels and bar nuts. There were no knives, no crowbars, no pool sticks, nothing to wield as a weapon. Connor reached into an open box and pulled out a large bottle of whiskey. He gripped it by the neck and mimed swinging it at someone, then frowned and lowered it. I reached into a box of cleaning supplies and unearthed a jug of bleach. The most damage I could do with it before being shot would be to irritate some eyes and exposed skin, and ruin some black masks and clothes. Well, it was something.
I set the jug aside and turned to another box, determined to find something useful, when Connor gasped behind me. I jumped and looked up at the door, expecting to see someone trying to force their way in. Instead, I saw Connor holding the large bottle of whiskey in one hand, and a small box in the other. I leaned in and saw that it held a bunch of small colorful objects.
They were cigarette lighters, the kind sold at convenience stores. I looked up at Connor and saw a smile spreading across his face. A smile broke across my face too, as I remembered a term I had once heard in a movie: Molotov cocktail.
Before I could praise him for his genius, a bright light shined in through the windows from outside, moving across the room and casting long shadows on the walls. We darted to the windows and peered through the shades. It was the Brotherhood’s black van, windowless except for the heavily tinted ones on the front. The street was littered with trash from the party but otherwise cleared of the swarms of partygoers. The empty stage and the now silent speakers stood grim and abandoned a block away. The van swerved and positioned itself so that it faced the pub, as if to block any cars wanting to pass even though there were none in sight, not even any police cars. Then the headlights turned off.
“Perfect!” Connor whispered, and then turned to me. “Rags! We need rags!” He looked quickly around at the room, peering into the boxes nearest him.
“My clothes!” I said in a hushed whisper. “In our bags! There are socks and shirts—”
He cast around for the backpacks we’d been carrying all night, which were sitting in a shadowy corner. He snatched up the brown leather one Harriet had given him, zipped it open, and dumped out the clothes in it. He sifted through the pile, picking up socks and undershirts.
I leapt to the open box of whiskey that Connor had gotten his bottle from, dragged it over to us, and seized as many bottles as I could. I set them down next to us and wrenched off the caps, while Connor began to stuff my socks into the narrow openings. In just over a minute, we’d prepared twelve of the thirteen whiskey bottles that had been in the box.
Connor raised the thirteenth bottle, unscrewed the cap, took a swig, then offered it to me. I accepted it without hesitation and took a big gulp, feeling the soothing burn of the whiskey all the way down to my stomach. Connor reached for the box of lighters and grabbed a bright blue one before handing me a red. I snatched up one of my socks from the floor and stuffed it into the bottle we’d just drank from while Connor picked up one of the twelve we’d prepared.
We stood up and peered through the shades again. Through the van’s windshield, I could see moving figures in the two front seats. Black gloved hands rested on the steering wheel.
Together, Connor and I lifted open the old window. The cool night breeze flowed into the room and felt good on my sweat-stained face. Connor quietly pulled up the shades, illuminating both our faces in the soft glow of the streetlights. We looked at each other, holding the weapons we’d made, then both moved forward for a hard kiss that tasted like whiskey, a kiss that I wanted to keep forever.
Connor snapped his bright blue lighter into life, and I followed right after with my red. The sock poking out of Connor’s whiskey bottle ignited. He looked at me.
“See you on the other side, my love.”
He let out a breath, took aim, then hurled his Molotov cocktail out the window onto the Brotherhood’s van. I had just enough time to register that he made a direct hit on the driver’s side of the windshield, the glass shattering in a ball of fire, before launching m
y own flaming cocktail. Happily, it shattered right next to his, on the fractured left side of the windshield, erupting in another ball of fire.
The doors to the van flew open and five masked men tumbled out. The one who came out of the driver’s side batted frantically at his face and neck. I heard his noises of pain and panic and felt immense satisfaction. I thought of the men on the second floor, probably still drinking the Irishman’s alcohol, and remembered the glowing display behind the bar downstairs.
This one’s for you, Mr. McFadden. I lit a second cocktail and threw it as hard as I could down at the van. I felt a surge of pleasure watching it explode, this time on the roof of the van, and seeing the men scramble for cover. It would be difficult to kill any of them from where we were with just the cocktails, but the idea of burning a few of them and blowing up their van before we died felt satisfying enough. I wondered which were the ones we’d overheard in front of Harriet’s house— Carlson, Morgan, and the Patriarch— because I wanted a shot at them…
Connor lit his second cocktail and shot it down at the van, then ducked as the men fired back. We’d gotten four in before they’d been able to get their bearings. Not bad. The gunfire exploded through the window, shattering it into a thousand pieces that flew in every direction. We ducked low to the floor as we had at Harriet’s house, and reached for more cocktails.
There were thumps and shouts from the second floor as the men there were roused from their drinking by the gunshots outside. Connor and I peeked from the edges of the windows, exposing as little of ourselves as we could, and watched as all five men ran out into the street.
“They’re up there, you fucking idiots!” shouted the man who had caught fire. “Did you not fucking see them?!”
I recognized the voice of the man yelling. It was the Patriarch, the man who’d given orders to Carlson and Morgan during their attack on Harriet’s house. Connor and I took advantage of his distraction to launch our next attacks at the same time.
“Go back in there and get them, you—”
Bang! “NICE!” I shouted.
Connor’s cocktail landed straight at the Patriarch’s feet while mine flew through the van’s smashed open windshield and exploded inside it. The Patriarch dropped his gun as he was engulfed in flames and threw himself to the ground. Four of his men scrambled to put him out as he thrashed erratically around on the concrete. One of them ran to the burning van, threw open its back doors and emerged with a fire extinguisher, which he unloaded in a smoky gray cloud onto the flailing Patriarch.
The other five, the ones the Patriarch had been yelling at, glanced up at us and then ran back inside the pub. We were about to find out just how strong our barricade was.
The Patriarch moved feebly around on the concrete and it was hard to tell how badly he was hurt since he was covered head to toe in black clothing. There was renewed gunfire from the men on the street, and Connor and I ducked to the floor once again and reached for more Molotovs. The sound of footsteps thundered up the wooden staircase. We snapped our lighters to life but hesitated since we didn’t have a clear shot at the street through the spray of bullets.
BOOM! The five men had reached the third floor and thrown themselves against the door. Boom! Boom! They were trying really hard to knock the door down and it was gratifying to know that we’d made such a good barricade. But it wouldn’t last long. They would—
BANG! Gunshots went off right outside the door, and there was the sound of splintering wood and breaking glass from the box barricade. Still, the door did not go down right away.
Connor and I looked at each other and then at our cocktails. Was it wise to throw them inside and set our own bunker on fire? Did it matter? We were going to die anyway. We should try to take as many of the Brotherhood with us as possible. I wondered if Connor was thinking the same thing. Was he prepared to burn to death? Would the Brotherhood shoot us dead first?
All these things ran through my mind at lightning speed, but the one thing I knew for sure was that I wanted to stay alive as long as possible to hurt the Brotherhood as much as I could.
Boom! Boom! There were more shots at the door, more splintering wood and more crunching glass. They were about to break through the door and through our barricade at any moment. Bullets continued to fly through the window and it wasn’t safe to stand up and take a good shot at the street, but Connor and I lit our next cocktails anyway— not two, but four.
Three of my socks and one pair of underwear burned out of four whiskey bottles. Connor and I each took two, then lobbed them over our heads out the window. At least one of them landed on the van, based on a metallic thumping noise paired with an explosion. We then scrambled to light two more cocktails, stood up, took a quick glance at the street, then fired at the same time. Both cocktails exploded on the hood of the van in a dazzling inferno. It looked like the van now had a very good chance of exploding.
Crack— CRACK! The wooden door began to come apart and the many stacks of boxes that made up our barricade began to tremble. This was it. There was one cocktail left of the thirteen we’d prepared. Connor grabbed it and handed it to me.
“Here, take it!” he said. “I’ll make more!” He darted toward a sealed box of liquor and tore it open. I raised the red lighter to light the thirteenth cocktail when suddenly the banging on the door and the sounds of splintering wood stopped. I glanced at the barricade and saw that the boxes had gone still. Thumping footsteps receded down to the second floor and then faded away.
Connor looked up at me from his box of liquor with a puzzled expression, before yanking up a bottle of whiskey with renewed urgency. We both knew the men outside the door hadn’t just decided to pack up and go home. They must have been called downstairs. I looked out the window and saw them run back out into the street and join the others. I lit the thirteenth cocktail and threw it into the center of the group, then quickly moved out of the way as they returned fire.
Suddenly, there was a thunderous, guttural scream from the assembled men, and the gunfire stopped abruptly. For a second, I thought I might actually have killed one. I peered around the edge of the window and looked for a man on fire. Instead, I saw nine masked men backing away from the building. Nine. There was one missing.
Then I saw him. The Patriarch, without his mask, emerged from the back of the burning van. I knew it was him because of the angry, scorched red flesh on the left side of his face. He looked to be in his forties, with dark hair and eyes, and severe square features that made him look like he’d been carved out of wood. His face was contorted in fury, his eyes bulging and insane, and in his hands I recognized, even though I had never seen one in person— a bazooka.
Everything turned to slow motion. I could hear every beat of my heart, could almost hear the blood racing through my veins, as though it were desperate for one last go-around. Connor come up beside me and I saw the prepared cocktail in his hand.
The Patriarch raised the bazooka onto his shoulders.
All the sound in the world went out except for Connor’s lighter snapping to life, then the flames rushing onto the sock that poked out of the whiskey. He raised the cocktail and I watched the whiskey swirl around in the bottle before he hurled it out the window. The Patriarch stumbled back behind the van and managed to avoid the flames that erupted on the concrete before stepping back out. He raised the bazooka once more and cocked it.
Time stood still and an entire lifetime existed in the next second. I looked into Connor’s ocean blue eyes one last time and he looked back. He smiled, and so did I.
We had come to the end, but I wasn’t afraid because I was with him. I had known love, and together we had rained fire on those who threatened us. Love was all around us, and even when the flames came and the world burned, I knew that my life had ended in victory. We embraced each other, and in that moment and forevermore, we were eternal.
PART II
THE SACRED FOUR
CHAPTER 9
Ashes to Ashes
I’m on
fire. It spreads over my skin, seeps into my blood, and settles in my insides. My body is a furnace, my heart consumed by flames that burn on everlasting firewood. My bones are charred, my lungs blackened with smoke, my stomach shriveled to a cinder. I am devoured until I am nothing but flame. I hold on tight to Connor, my one truth, my beginning and end, the reason I burn without writhing in pain. Everything turns to ash and we are no longer there.
**
I opened my eyes and saw daylight. It was fuzzy, coming in through a white veil. Beyond the veil was a window, the curtains fluttering in a soft breeze. The air had a familiar, unmistakable smell. I knew without having to pull back the veil and walk to the window that it was the ocean. I could hear the waves on the shore, could almost taste the salt water in the air.
That’s nice. I haven’t been to the beach in a while… Wait. How did I get to the beach?
My mind was blank for a second and then everything came back in a chaotic burst of images. The red and blue lights of the police, the giant party in Portland, the Brotherhood murdering people in the streets, the exploding whiskey bottles, the bazooka—
I felt around for my body. The skin on my arms and face was just as I remembered it. I took a deep breath and felt my lungs expand. I put a hand to my chest and felt a definite heartbeat. I was alive.
But how? Had it all been a dream? I looked around at where I lay. I was wrapped in a cocoon of silky smooth white sheets on a large four-poster bed that I didn’t recognize. I looked under the sheets and found, to my surprise, that I was naked. I felt a stab of unease. I couldn’t remember taking off my clothes and I didn’t usually sleep naked to begin with. The last time I had done so was a few nights ago, and I’d only done it because I was with—
