by Chris Howard
I couldn’t get a word in, so I motioned her back up the stairs, and the three of us sprang up them, two at a time.
Phaidra limped along the aisle next to Jill’s bed, pacing anxiously, but stopped when I entered the hall. The front of her armor was burned black, and she was missing the one braid—still had her other two, though, a very strange sight in the nine-to-sixteens hall. She looked formidable even while stunned and recovering from Fenhals’ attack. All the girls, Deirdre, Autumn and Cornelia included, huddled down at the end of the room, as far as they could get from the strange woman with the sword.
Scared shitless. Charisma was sobbing uncontrollably, of course. But so were others, even fifteen and sixteen year olds who claimed they’d never feared Matrothy.
I watched them huddling against the far wall in frightened groups, glancing my way. So, I gathered the courage to talk to them. I didn’t make it more than a couple steps. When I glanced out the window looking out over the front of St. Clement’s, the strangest sight brought me up short. A pickup truck with twenty people piled precariously in the back, on the roof, along the fenders, inched up the road, its doors wide with more people standing along the running boards.
Down the road, a line of vehicles piled with more people followed.
A dark edge of motion hovered on the horizon. I blinked again, uncertain, and then realized what it was.
The Olethren had emerged from the river. Time to fight or take cover.
I forced myself away from the window and raced to the end of the hall, stepping right up to Deirdre Milhorn.
“Listen to me. Something horrible is coming here. It’s an army that will kill anything that gets in its way. I want you—”
“How dare—”
I slapped her. Hard.
“Shut up, Deirdre.”
She staggered back, stunned, her mouth gaping, one of her manicured hands covering her cheek.
“Use your pretty pierced ears for once.”
Autumn looked to Deirdre for commands.
No sense waiting to get all geared up—and they’d already seen Phaidra’s armor. I backed up a step and closed my eyes. Felt a shudder of power. I heard the roar of the Wreath off in some recess of my mind, and bit back a gasp, my response to the spine-buckling squeeze of energy from me.
When I opened my eyes directly into Deirdre’s, I saw fear. That is good.
I glanced at the gaping mouths of the twenty-three frightened girls—everyone accounted for. I had Deirdre’s full attention. Time to put this Kassandra myth to rest.
Autumn’s mouth sagged open. She stared at my armor. I drew my sword, but didn’t raise it, hitting Deirdre with a glare instead.
“You are the Hall Leader. Matrothy is not in control anymore. It’s you.” I pointed at her. “Take everyone to the school wing, second or third floor—not the first floor. Close the doors and keep them closed. Lock them if you can.”
Deirdre nodded slowly. It took her a few seconds to find the rest of her body. Seemed like my slap had shaken the thoughts right out of her head. She snapped out of whatever I’d done to shock her and nodded again, this time with some purpose behind her eyes.
Done. I turned and walked away, and behind me Deirdre—using her standard tone of authority—ordered the girls to the school wing. They filed out as I stepped around Phaidra to get closer to the window.
So much for the Kassandra myth, that she could foretell the future but was doomed to have no one believe her. The original Kassandra was just too gentle with the things she saw. She could have predicted tomorrow’s weather, that Odysseus’ ships would be blown off course, and a hundred other things that would have convinced them that she could see what was on its way. She should have hauled up and slapped King Agamemnon silly. Look, you idiot, your wife’s waiting at home to kill you! You’ve gone off to war against Troy for ten years, left her alone, while you took women from the villages you conquered. You nearly lost the war because of a woman! That’s what the Iliad’s about! Are you totally stupid? It doesn’t take a damn fortuneteller to realize what’s going to happen. What did you think your wife was going to do? She’s a queen, and a powerful woman. She doesn’t need you! She’s had her share of lovers, and has even joined with the last one to kill you when you arrive home, stupidly drunk with victory. Believe me or not. I do not care. Go to your death, you maggoty narrow-minded fuckwit! But you’re not taking me there with you.
I clenched my fists, one around the sword, and looked down at a steep angle through the window, where the circular drive at St. Clement’s swung up next to the front entrance. There were six cars and two big pickup trucks parked like a wall in front of the stairs, and then I understood who had arrived just before the storm.
I turned and put my hand on Phaidra’s shoulder. “Lady Kallixene is here with her army.”
Chapter 28 - The Storm
It was time to go, but I had one more idea to explore. Skidding to a stop at the door that led from the nine-to-sixteens hall, Phaidra, Jill and Nicole piled up behind me.
I pointed to the stairs. “If you’re hungry you can get something from the cafeteria. You go. Start looking for my father. I’ll be right there. I’m getting more help.”
Phaidra scowled at me. “From where?”
“Locally,” I said and pushed through the bathroom door.
This wasn’t going to be easy, but witches were naturally nosy, they said. Couldn’t resist being in on the game, would risk life and other people’s limbs in order to not be left out. I supposed I’d just have to tell them the truth. I spun the faucets of the nearest shower to full and stepped into the spray. The water ran over the plates of my armor. I was already nice and cold and hadn’t come close to drying out from the trip to the Gulf.
“Naiads! Parresia, I need you!” I shouted into the water.
“Kassandra,” gasped Limnoria almost immediately. “The Olethren—”
“I know! I need you here, as quickly as you can.”
I jumped back from the water. A confused mass of shouting and cursing followed from the motel bathroom in Mullen. They were bickering over the smell of the Olethren-fouled path to the school, over who would go first, and other less clear but stubbornly disputed positions.
I glanced at the bathroom door, hearing the click of the school’s PA system, and then a muffled woman’s voice.
“Attention.” It sounded like Mrs. Vilnious. “—tention. All students must report immediately to their home classrooms. All faculty and administration staff report to the gymnasium.”
Whose side is Vilnious on? Is she trying to get the students out of the way for some other purpose?
Limnoria dropped out of the spray, landed heavily on her feet and staggered into the pink tiled wall, gold gown soaked. She stepped out of the stall, fixing her hair.
“Hello, Kassandra.”
Parresia entered next, landing with bent knees. She straightened imperiously and joined Limnoria. Helodes and Olivia came one after the other.
“Nice bathrooms,” said Helodes, looking around.
“Why have you called us?” Parresia asked after they had all—with dignity—brushed the water from their clothes. “The Olethren are on their way to kill you, girl. You should be miles away from here.”
“I need two things now, and there’ll be more when they come to me.” I ignored Parresia’s question. “We have to find my father. He’s here at St. Clement’s—most likely, locked in one of the basement rooms. We need to find him before the Olethren kill us all.” I paused over a troubling question. My name again. Why on earth would my parents name me after someone who was cursed? “One of the teachers has already told all the students to go to their homerooms, but the teachers and the staff will probably need some explanation. Can you make everyone in the rest of the school believe me when I tell them that an army of dead rotting soldiers is coming to kill everyone?”
They blinked at me, mulling that over. Let’s see...girl whose name refers to someone who makes exaggerated clai
ms and isn’t believed...or find a seaborn lord, slave of a king, hidden somewhere in a maze of underground tunnels and locked rooms.
“We’ll help you find your father,” announced Parresia. “Before the Olethren kill us all.”
“Perhaps a mass sleep would be easier than explaining?” Helodes suggested.
“Perhaps,” muttered Parresia, stopping for a second and then nodding. Her gaze swung back to me. “What happened with the teacher? Did you find him?”
I told them about my meeting with the seaborn in the Gulf of Mexico, the remnants of House Rexenor, that they had saved Mr. Henderson from murder, not meant to harm him, and they had come to defend the school in battle until we found Lord Gregor and got him safely away from Clement’s.
The bathroom went black. The power in the school failed, and Olivia squealed hoarsely.
“The Olethren,” whispered Parresia.
“They’re not here yet.” I pushed open the door, letting in the sunlight from the hall.
Limnoria slapped Olivia’s hand as they emerged from the bathroom. “Remember. Don’t touch anyone...I mean, anything.”
I almost laughed. “I sent everyone from my hall to hide in the school wing. They’re probably screaming now that the power’s out.” I looked up at the emergency light high on the wall between the public address box and the clock. One of the bulbs was dull gray, burned out. “Hope the basement is in better order.”
Parresia shook her head, looking beyond me through the windows. “Wait until the sun sets.”
“Not much time.” I turned to the eldest naiad, and couldn’t keep the pleading out of my voice. “Fenhals hid my father here somewhere. You will help me find him?”
Parresia nodded solemnly and jerked her chin at Helodes. “Olivia and I will search the school. You and Limnoria find the students and tell them something convincing. Make them sleep if you have to.”
“Where’s Agatha?”
I turned to Helodes. “Who?”
Parresia ignored me, but a small frowned formed on her face. “Find her. She knows what’s about to happen. If I know her she’ll remain to the end.”
“Agatha?” I asked, remembering Matrothy calling my teacher by her first name.
“Agathameria. Her married name’s Vilnious,” Parresia said with something like a grimace. “The eldest.”
“A little bossy,” said Helodes, filling me in on Parresia’s look. “Years ago, married a trawlerman out of Massachusetts, but came out here last year after he died.”
I blinked. Vilnious is a naiad?
“Which way is the school wing?” Limnoria asked, annoyed at being put on babysitting duty. “Will everyone be there already, or do we have to round them up?”
I pointed to the angled brown box sticking out of the wall next to the emergency light. “I think Aga—Mrs. Vilnious called them to their classrooms and the teachers to the gymnasium. Just before you got here. You’ll still have to round some of them up, I’m sure.”
I pulled the hall door open, ran across the landing, and turned left at the top of the stairs. “The school wing sticks out of the back of Clement’s.” I pointed to the stairwell. “First floor, straight across from the main entrance. With luck most of them are already there.”
Halfway down the stairs, I looked over my shoulder at Limnoria and Helodes. “I doubt Mr. Cutler—he’s the administrator and school principal—or some of the less controllable teachers will be there. They’ll want to see what’s going on.”
I jumped the last four steps and skidded to a stop, felt a scowl forming on its own at two old men passing the doorway that led from the girls’ wing stairwell.
They were headed back down the first floor toward the main entrance, and there was something a little bit Fenhals-ish about them. They wore fishing boots. One had a hat with hooks and lures stuck in around the brim. It might have been that they were just old men who happened to like fishing, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
No more thoughts wasted on a decision. My sword was in my hand and I jumped through the doorway.
“Who are you?” I shouted. “What are you doing here?”
Both the men turned, startled. “Ed Pearson, Miss.” With a thumb over his shoulder, he added, “This’s my brother, Will.”
I nodded impatiently, tilting my sword up. “What are you doing here?”
“Lady Kallixene sent us looking for a man named Gregor,” said Will. Both the men looked at each other and nodded.
I relaxed, lowering my sword. They looked well-meaning and they didn’t have the fish-out-of-water motion of Fenhals. “Okay.” Lady Kallixene and her warriors didn’t drive the cars and trucks parked defensively out front—probably didn’t know how to drive a car.
“We were fishing.” Ed jerked his head east, indicating some river or channel of water. “You mermaids and mermen walk out of the water all dressed for battle.”
You mermaids? A moment’s anger flashed through me. Don’t tell me they can see the Wreath, too? No. The armor and sword, stupid. I made a thin attempt at a smile.
“When’s the last time you ferried around a bunch of soldiers from the bottom of the sea, says Will? Twenty-three years in the Navy. Never had the chance, I told him.”
“And Lady Kallixene was very gracious,” said Will. “Paid us...in gold. We’d help find this Gregor without payment.”
“Lord Gregor is my father.”
Ed squinted at me, got a better look as if to capture some family resemblance. Will puffed out his cheeks sympathetically. “Not many fathers around this place. Should make finding him easier.”
I sighed. “Good luck.”
“Swifter finding if we come with you,” said Parresia, stepping around me and taking charge. “We’ll check in the basement first.”
“Watch out for Fenhals. Matrothy too.”
I left them halfway along the first floor of the central hall, at the stairway that led underneath the school. Parresia, Olivia, Ed and Will went with a pair of Rexenor soldiers and an old man in a black robe, the one I’d seen talking to Mr. Henderson in my grandmother’s courtyard. What was his deal? He looked too old to fight and wasn’t even wearing armor.
The halls were deserted. We didn’t pass anyone else on the way to the wide intersection of the school wing and entryway. Helodes and Limnoria turned into the school wing and I went left, alone to the main entrance. It was crowded with armored seaborn soldiers.
They leaned against the wall in small groups, sharpening their swords and getting the feel of fighting “up in the Thin.” A couple of them glanced at me as I passed.
A few curious St. Clement’s staff members and the principal, Mr. Cutler stood out on the front steps, clustered around Lady Kallixene.
I wondered what my grandmother had told them.
Phaidra stood at her mother’s side, but when I came out, she gave me a nod and went in to ready another group of soldiers to search for Gregor. Nicole and Jill stood off to the side, arms folded, looking angry.
I stepped between them. “What’s up?”
“Power’s out. Phones are all dead. No cell signal. No Grid. Nothing. Mr. Cutler doesn’t want us out here.”
“He says it’s dangerous,” added Nicole.
“And we know the school,” said Jill.
I didn’t answer, just turned to Mr. Cutler, a balding middle-aged man who always wore short-sleeved collared shirts with plain ties. The last time I’d seen him, he was giving Fenhals a school tour. Was Cutler involved somehow? He wasn’t seaborn, I was sure. Who’s in on this? Where had Mrs. Hipkin gone? And Vilnious was a naiad?
I turned to Nicole.
“You still have the keys? I think you two should help find my father.” I lowered my voice so Kallixene and Mr. Cutler couldn’t hear me. “You shouldn’t be out here. There isn’t anything you can do against them.” I pointed to the horizon, past the battlement of bumper-to-bumper cars and trucks.
I squinted, tilting my head back, just able to make out individual soldiers
, smears of rust over bleached bands of rib bones and knuckly vertebrae. Tattered shreds of black cloth snaked over their skeletal frames. A taller more monstrous soldier of death, one of the eight royal guards Tharsaleos had murdered, marched at the front of the right flank, his helmet glinting. He lifted his right arm, gray dead flesh sagging along his elbow. He lifted something to his broken lipless mouth.
A horn sounded, a long, arching, mournful tone with thorny edges and a hoarse current of power that squirmed through it. The sound was a composite of chilling tones, a dying man’s scream, the weak drumming of a child’s fists on a locked door, and the hiss of air escaping through the fractured hull of a sinking ship.
A second horn blew, higher pitched and abrupt as death. It was as if some abyss mage of immense power had caught the breath trapped in a hanged man’s throat, seized the whistle of a storm wind as it swept the space beneath a gallows, and harnessed the sorrow-laden cry of a lost sailor’s widow, binding them into the single sustainable voice of a war-horn.
Another wailing tone joined the first two and the earth shuddered. A ripple of motion passed under my feet, bouncing the cars and loosening the bricks of the school.
Jill shook like a flag in a squall, her eyes fixed stiffly open, staring at nothing. Nicole caught her before she hit the concrete steps. Mr. Cutler was halfway into a high-pitched laugh that burst from him before he gathered his senses and cut it off. Then he ran—at incredible speed for a man of his shape and size—into the school, his tie flapping around his throat. The other teachers from St. Clement’s backed away from the front doors, twitching and stuttering excuses to leave.
Lady Kallixene moved to the foot of the stairs, pointing at her warriors, directing them into the back-to-back truck beds. A line of seaborn streamed from the school and scrambled over the walled sides of the front steps to the grass. Each one grabbed an enormously long spear from a forest of them leaning against the school’s outer wall. They slung big round shields high on their shoulders. The spear wielders formed into a solid block in front of the fortification of cars and trucks.
