by Kevin Lawler
Chapter 24
“The tree must be behind this door. I can sense it,” Winter said.
They were outside the door to Agnes’s chamber.
“I’ll go first. I’m youngest,” Winter said. Meadow’s eyes were red and irritated but she smiled warmly at Winter.
“Meadow, you should go in right after on the left, and I’ll go in on the right,” Topple said, “Winter, you can keep your pig outside.”
They had no idea what was on the other side. With luck this would be over quickly.
“This is it for us,” Meadow said, “If we don’t make it, it’s been fun.”
Winter nodded. She readied her crossbow to go in through the door: pointed at the ceiling but away from her face. She felt the string against her chest. She started counting heartbeats. She threw open the door.
It looked like they were having a meeting. Winter pulled the trigger. Agnes was there in the center seated, being attended to by some young cadet. Her Komodo was lounging in front of her. To the left of her was some witch Winter didn’t recognize, and to the far left was Elodie. To the right was Didrika, and to the far right was another witch Winter didn’t recognize.
Elodie and Didrika had each taken a crossbow bolt, one from Meadow and one from Topple. Agnes stood. Elodie began slinking towards a door near her and Didrika followed left in front of Agnes. Agnes was standing. Winter’s crossbow hadn’t fired. She pulled hard against the trigger but it didn’t budge. The safety. Winter unlatched the safety. Agnes was looking at her. Winter pulled the trigger. The bolt left the groove. Agnes swept her hand to the right and the bolt went wide around her.
Winter felt the pig brush behind her legs. The Komodo had stirred and darted to Winter’s right, where the pig had ran. The Komodo covered the distance bit into the pig’s hind leg, stopping him. That didn’t work so good.
Winter didn’t have a backup plan. She put the nose of the crossbow on the ground and yanked to prime it. As she was slotting a bolt, Agnes whipped her hand up. The next thing Winter felt was her head turning and cheek and chin burning. She was being lifted. This was it. At the bottom of her vision she could see the Komodo chewing on the pig.
An electric blue tentacle wound its way around her face over her eyesocket and temple. The space around her was receding, warping into some other ethereal dimension. In the haze Winter could see the body of a giant jellyfish. That must be what had had her. The tentacles wrapped tight around her. Winter could barely move her arm. Her whole body was burning.
“I don’t know why you reloaded. You didn’t miss, hon,” Agnes said, “I deflected it. What did you think was going to happen when you tried it again?”
Winter squirmed. She tilted her left hand up, the hand where she had last had the crossbow. It was pointed away from Agnes, but she could just tilt it up at herself. She didn’t have a lot of options. She pulled. The next thing she felt was the simultaneous feeling of the tentacles around her head releasing (shredded) and the piercing end of the crossbow bolt glancing off the side of her skull. And then she dropped to the floor.
Agnes started casting.
Winter hit the floor and was crouching in a small ball. This couldn’t be it. She didn’t have another bolt so she threw the crossbow itself at Agnes and magically accelerated it to interrupt her. Agnes paused her casting to deflect the crossbow. Winter pulled her knife and dashed forward. She could see Agnes recovering and about to finish her spell. What had she been told? Stab hard. Winter stabbed hard. The next thing she saw was Agnes’s face in her face, finished. The spell had stopped and Agnes’s body was stuck against hers, as in an uncomfortable embrace.
Up close, Winter could see the detail in Agnes’s face. It was weird. To be obsessed with a person and never know them. Right up until the end. Winter could see the subtle wrinkles in Agnes’s lip under her makeup. The loosening of the skin the way it hung on the body. The crow’s feet under the concealer. The wiriness of her bleach-damaged hair. The steel blue eyes looking at her. Agnes opened her small mouth to say something and the little gasp of air was as fresh as a pack of bubble gum.
“For Kayla,” Winter whispered to Agnes.
Winter pulled back and wrested her bloodied hand and knife from out of Agnes’s center. That was it. Winter turned around to survey the room. She heard Agnes slump behind her. The image of the jellyfish faded from the room.
The cadets filtered in slowly through the door, unsure of what to do. Winter felt their eyes on her, on Agnes. She turned her blade upside-down and straddled Agnes’s head, staring back at them. She grabbed a handful of Agnes’s hair into a ponytail and hacked at it, chopping it clear. The layered ponytail end hung sprightly from her hand. Winter held her knife in the air over her head. “Do you want this?” Winter yelled at them, “This is Woe.”
“I want it,” said Isobel. She stepped forward.
Winter wasn’t expecting that.
“I want a duel,” Isobel said, “No funny stuff. Just us. Let’s go.”
Winter didn’t want to break her momentum in front of the crowd. This was probably not a good idea.
Isobel had a stick in one hand and a knife in the other. A stick, really?
“So,” Jeff said, bursting into the room, “I just got a notification from Agnes’s health monitor, it’s probably nothing but...” He looked over the floor. He looked up at Winter and Isobel. Winter kept her knife trained on Isobel. “OK, this is bad,” he said, thinking, “Everyone needs to go. Agnes is gone, all these floors have to be ‘cleansed.’ This floor is going up. I’m out of here.” He spoke in a low voice to the robot and soon warning lights were flashing and evacuation sounds were coming over the speakers.
Winter felt like she was staying behind during a fire. She looked for an exit.
“Not yet,” Isobel said. She circled Winter.
Winter had her knife up. She could feel the tentacle burns across her forehead and face faintly in the back of her mind, like chili pepper residue.
“I don’t think it’s fair that you get two—” Winter started, but Isobel swung twice at her with the stick in an X pattern.
“Hey!” Winter said.
Isobel bobbed back and forth quickly on her feet and swung the stick in her hand. She came at Winter with her knife. Winter dodged. Winter felt where the stick connected with her thigh before she saw it, all she saw was the stick aright in Isobel’s hand again, and the knife coming at her. She dodged again and made space to avoid the stick.
“Quit running,” Isobel said. Isobel swung the stick at her.
Winter moved in close to try to stab Isobel but Isobel came across and caught Winter in the side of the head with a quick flick of the stick. Winter closed her eyes instinctively and then had to open them again to not die. She flung her knife blade up in Isobel’s direction and got lucky and caught the stick before it hit her again. The stick connecting with the knife blade jarred her arm from her hand to her shoulder.
Isobel pushed hard on the stick where Winter’s blade was locked against it, but Winter wouldn’t move. With her free hand Isobel swung her knife at Winter, and it was all Winter could do to dodge in close quarters. Isobel got the idea to swing her knife at Winter’s occupied arm, but Winter pulled away and tried to counter-slash.
Winter felt the stick hit her twice in the arm, and then the next thing she knew she had her knife up, blocking Isobel’s from coming down on her. Winter flung her arm out, trying to catch Isobel’s stick at the base with her hand and finally succeeding.
It was then that Topple came up from the side and jammed her knife behind Isobel’s collarbone down into her chest. Isobel dropped to her knees and grabbed at it before falling over.
“We don’t have time for this,” Topple said.
Winter wasn’t prepared to argue.
The door creaked open and Winter saw Violet leaning on the handle, peering into the room from behind the crowd of cadets. She was covered in fire extinguisher powder, bleeding out of her wound. Where the blood was leaving the
dry chemical caked red like powdered sugar and jam. Violet looked at Agnes and Isobel on the floor, grimaced, and then started back the way she had come.
The Komodo in the corner was gorging itself on the pig still, chomping at the ham hock and trying to flip the whole body up into its mouth.
He’ll be fine, Winter reassured herself.
The siren blared. There wasn’t much time left.
Meadow jiggled on the door where Didrika and Skōhsl had gone. It was locked. She turned and held her knife at Elodie, who still bled from the crossbow bolt.
“I know there’s a tree in there,” Meadow said, quavering, “Open the door.”
Elodie pushed the knife arm away. “It ain’t gonna open,” she said. She went back to putting pressure on the puncture wound in her arm.
“Then get us out of here,” Meadow said.
“Good idea,” Elodie said, “Real good idea. Is it time for that now? The stairwell is this way.”
“Are you guys hearing that song?” Winter asked.
“What song?” said Meadow.
“What are you talking about?” Elodie said.
“We don’t have time for this,” said Topple.
In the door behind the chamber was a narrow shaft with a utility ladder that had been covered in layers of beige paint. Winter went up first. The footsteps clanged on the rungs. They echoed in the shaft. Winter decided against kicking Elodie in the face. Elodie climbed with her legs and held on with her single arm. Meadow complained about the blood dripping on her clothes.
“Can we go please?” Topple asked from the bottom.
Winter stepped out onto the rooftop first. It was dark now. Also freezing: nothing stopped the wind. The chopper was at the other end. They ran over to it shielding their faces and stood in front of its door.
“Take us out of here,” said Meadow.
“I don’t know how to fly this thing,” said Elodie.
Winter gave a disgusted sigh.
“What do you mean?” Meadow said.
Elodie just looked.
“Come on,” Topple said. The door was unlocked and they climbed in. Topple powered the chopper on but they weren’t going anywhere.
Winter searched for the instructions on her tablet.
“Look, I’ve got them,” said Winter.
“Hello, YouTube,” said a man on Winter’s tablet.
“Really?” Elodie asked.
“I’m TRYING to look it up,” Winter said.
Winter opened a wiki tutorial. “Pull up on the arm to your left,” Winter read off her tablet.
“You’re bleeding on me,” Meadow said.
“Yeah, because you shot me,” said Elodie.
The helicopter lifted off the pad.
Louisa’s lifeless body sat in the office chair, the head cocked to the side and the eyes open, as if she were looking intently at something.
Violet stumbled into the elevator clutching her midsection where she had been gashed. She was having a hard time hearing anything. She inspected the inside of the car, distracted by the view of the night skyline outside, remembering then that she needed to press the button. She mashed the button marked *G, leaving a smear of blood behind her thumbprint. She stepped back slowly towards the inside of the elevator and slumped against the wall. Having her knees up was too painful. She stretched them out towards the front, touching a ventilation panel and the door with the toes of her shoes. The elevator was going down. Slowly at first, and then faster, skipping the next four floors. Ah, express, she thought. The lights of the floors played through the transparent sides of the elevator. Her head lilted forward. The dark edges of her vision expanded towards the center. She opened her eyes wide and pushed her feet against the metal wall of the elevator for support.
From above the Spécieuse Générale building the top floors exploded out in a green fireball. The top of the building collapsed in on itself and burned there like the char end of a cigarette.
The helicopter crashed chin first into the freeway.
Ipsy walked in the commuter crowd past an Apoteket along what seemed to be the busiest avenue in Stockholm. The highrises blocked out the view behind her. She had on a stylish grey long coat and breathed cold air into the receiver on her tablet. “You know, I am ready for a change,” she said.
The demolition site of the charred disco lay empty. Ash mixed with dirt on the flat surface of the lot. The bulldozer was parked driverless at one end to catch the light from the streetlamps. Orange plastic streamed from the leaning temporary fence.
A distracted Oskar opened the envelope he had been handed. He stopped talking to his advisor and read the unfolded letter. The advisor stopped talking. Oskar stood angrily, his massive frame in front of his massive seat.
Ségolène’s bare legs rested over the side of the couch. She looked at the return address on the back of the unopened letter and scoffed. She fished her Spyderco knife from her purse and sliced along the fold. As she read the letter her face grew serious. She finished reading and bowed the envelope in her hand to look inside again. Ségolène pulled out a lock of blonde hair which she eyed with curiosity.
Winter came down the driveway to Cal’s house. She rounded the corner to go around back. The gate to the fence was open and there waiting in the back behind the little section of fence sticking out from the wall was the duck. The duck stood up and turned around and walked back to its pen.
Oskar held up a lock of blonde hair at eye level and twirled it between his mighty thumb and forefinger.
Didrika walked through the stands of an outdoor market in Hong Kong, a totebag in each hand, grocery shopping. She stopped in front of a fishmonger’s stall, an elderly man. He had a box of squirming eels and box of sardines on ice. On its own plate was a fleshy brown-gray fish. The goggling eye stared at the clouds. The man took his pronged filet knife and pulled back the side of the fish. The fish’s mouth opened to suck in air. The bean-sized heart beat in its vivisected chest. “Fresh. Fresh,” the man said in quite good English. Didrika motioned for him to prepare it for the bag.
The End
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Benjamin Slade for granting permission to use his translation of the epigraph. Marc ‘Animal’ MacYoung of No Nonsense Self-Defense for his thoughts on knifeplay. Marisa Guidi for info on silversmithing. Becca Turner for reading an early draft. Gina Lawler for reading later drafts. William Tyler Davis for help on publishing.
Contact
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