by Logan Keys
I frown. “You mean zombies?”
He bites the inside of his cheek. “I tried that. She just grew deader in my hands. In fact, that’s why she’s dead in the first place. I think me using her was a mistake.”
Cory rises. “Follow me.”
I realize now that we’re on a hill, and he takes a narrow path trekking downward before motioning through the trees.
“Down there,” he says.
“Who are they?” I ask, curious despite my reticence.
“A man and his daughters. I’ve been tracking them for days.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Simple. Kill him.”
“What?” I rear back away from him. “Why would you want me to murder a man?”
“Come,” Cory says, starting down the hill quietly.
He waits until I follow and I have to, or he’ll make me. We pick our way along, quietly.
“What do you want from me?” I hiss when we get closer, panic making my voice squeak.
Cory pauses and pushes the branches aside so we have a clear view of the family. “Silly girl, I want you to see.”
Chapter Fifty
Dallas
Joelle and I stand before Adrian inside of her spider loft. “Mother, we need to accept their agreement for peace.”
“Peace?” Adrian says, her face stricken. “But we must make our move now!”
Joelle’s mother hadn’t seemed happy when we told her Bradford was gone. Why would she be upset by him being out of the game? But I see, Adrian has enjoyed this gender war. She hates them, and I think that has to do with her past.
“No,” Adrian says. “What do men know of peace, daughter? Do you know what your…”
“What?” Joelle asks. “My father, you mean?”
“He killed your friend! Do you want peace with the man who killed Tommy?” Adrian has gone off the rails it seems. Her face twists into a mask of hatred over the thought of Simon being free. She’s all over the place laughing then about to cry. “Simon is in his machine. We can’t release him, anyway.”
Is she talking to us or herself? Is that hope that rests in her gaze?
Joelle looks at me and I show her the images in my mind of the machine. She nods. She knows it’s the same as what made her. But now, at this, she’s fisting her hands. “Perhaps we should hear what he has to say,” Joelle tests.
It’s obvious Joelle has no love for her father, but I sense that she’d rather stare into his eyes when he paid, make him confess that all along he’d been her parent, and maybe demand answers as to the charade.
Adrian rises, marching toward Joelle. “He’s useless! You don’t know him like I do!”
“Mother, tell me the truth for once in your miserable life. You’re afraid he’ll take over. You don’t actually care about Tommy or me. Any of us. Just yourself.”
Adrian makes the grave error to lift a hand to Joelle. She means to strike her daughter. She pauses, curls her fist, and lets her hand fall before she can connect. But the damage is done. Joelle’s face contorts with a pain I can understand, a pain I’ve known. The betrayal of your own flesh and blood, not just that, but the betrayal of someone who by the very nature of things should be raising that hand to defend you.
Before I can move, before I can do anything, Joelle grabs her mother by the throat. She lifts her up off the floor. The guards rush forward, but so do our own vampires.
“You wanted the rise of the queens.” Joelle’s voice shakes with rage. “You wanted the women to rule. And so it shall be. But not you, Adrian. You will not rule. And if you raise your hand to me ever again, you will surely die for it.”
Joelle flings her away with disgust. “Was it Simon who burned me in the sun time and time again? Who slapped me, who hurt me, who would have let me die to find out how strong I was?”
Her mother holds her throat and croaks out, “No, he only pitted you against special after special for training without worry over whether you’d die.”
“Which reminds me, you stopped none of that either.”
Adrian bursts into tears, her body folded up on the floor. “Come to me, daughter. Come here. I know it must hurt. I know I have wronged you.”
Joelle’s face hardens, and it’s interesting, how her mother makes her stone after all.
I startle to see the doors swing wide, and it takes some focusing, but Shade has entered the dark loft. I stride forward to tell him to leave. I’d rather not see him killed.
“Don’t worry,” he says, touching my chin, lifting my gaze to his. “Her magic doesn’t work on me. You can’t turn a shadow to stone. I’ve come for other reasons. To warn you. Simon is free. Once Bradford was out of the way they managed to get the machine to let their leader go. He’s on his way. Full force.”
I turn to Joelle who has heard everything. She stands tall and gives a dry smile.
“Dallas, summon the rest of the vampires. Tell them to cross the moat. There is no reason to hide any longer.”
“What about Simon,” I ask.
She moves to the doors, and exits onto the balcony. “Let him come.”
Chapter Fifty-One
Crystal
“Jeremy,” I say, my voice as soft as satin.
He turns to face me, his features alight with the sudden realization. He can order them. He can command the guards. Rule the guards, rule Anthem.
It’s everything we could have dreamed of. I’m no longer held by the minions, and so I come closer to Jeremy. “Untie me,” I say.
“Oh, yeah.” He pulls a knife and cuts through my binds. “Don’t you see… what? What is it? Crystal.”
I shake my head and put his face between my hands. Surrounded by obedient guards, I kiss Jeremy Writer as if my life depends on it. He saved us, but it’s not us who needs saving.
“What was that for?” Jeremy asks, drawing back. “What’s wrong? Tell me.”
“Jeremy. Since the time I met you this has been… well it’s been everything to me. I don’t know why we started this without even really talking about it at first. It was just… just… Sympatico.”
He smiles, and pushes at the tears under my eyes, confused. “You were so inspiring. My muse.”
“Was I?”
“Crystal, every word I wrote, it would never have meant a thing if it hadn’t had action behind it. That’s you. You’re the angel of Anthem swooping down to show them we mean what we say. Without you Anthem would be a shell.”
“So you say. And it’s now that I act once again, my friend.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I love you, you know that, right? But… and I know you love me---no don’t say it, just listen. But Jeremy you are going to leave. Order these to take me back. And you can climb to the top of this building and rest. I see it already, the fog is coming for you, and what then? You order them until you cannot and your mother finds us both and purges us.”
“But I can…”
“No. Jeremy. No. Anthem needs us far more than we need each other. And you can give her freedom. We know that now. Through it all we searched for a weapon, an army, but this, this is what will win. Finally, it can end. Don’t you see? It’s been there all along. Inside of you. I knew it before, but now I truly see that it ends with you, Jeremy. And we can’t waste such an opportunity with our impulsivity. We lost before because we were young, naïve. We have long since grown up. Haven’t we? Yes. I think that we have. So, you are going to leave me. And that’s not the easy thing that’s the hard thing.”
He searches my gaze, frustration, fear, and then finally acceptance. Jeremy knows I’m right.
“Find the Skulls,” I say. “Then go south.”
“To where?”
“I think you know where.” I sigh, hug him to me. “Give them the best chance we can. You will rule, but not like this. We can’t risk it.”
I wait for him to relax in my arms.
He pulls away. “Okay,” he says, rubbing a hand through his hair.
“Go! Jeremy, go now!”
He moves to the fire escape and pulls down the ladder.
“Take her back to the house,” he says, voice breaking. “Say nothing and remember nothing of me being here.”
They take me by the arms and Jeremy starts to climb. He pauses. “I guess this is goodbye.”
I can sense his hesitation, so I smile through the pain that’s slicing me right in half. “Maybe,” I reply. “But it’s the good kind of goodbye.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
Dallas
The vampires are in place, but Simon arrives alone. Joelle allowed Shade to fetch him and offered a truce to speak. I’m wary of such a thing, but then again, it’s Simon who is at risk… I think. At the same time, I have this crazy image in my head, an impression from Joelle herself, of a man that is larger than life. Of an outline, tall, jacket long, fedora shading his eyes. I also see him using a power like none other.
He can stop time itself. So, what are we to the person who controls the day?
We follow Joelle outside, she must sense his arrival. The man in my mind matches somewhat the man outside. He’s normal looking, mostly. Nothing about him says special.
“We’ve come for the medusa and you can’t stop us,” he says.
Joelle laughs.
His face doesn’t show it, but I can sense through her, that he is tremendously surprised.
“I know who you are now, father.” Joelle walks down the steps to meet him.
I mean to follow but she stays us with a hand. Shade comes to my side, and he grips my hand. I must seem worried.
“Right back to your war then, right Simon?” Joelle asks. “Your forces must know that Anthem isn’t so easy to take. You can’t even control your own people, yet you think to go to war with the Authority?”
“For you,” Simon says, and the silence afterwards can be cut with a knife.
Joelle swallows, her eyes searching his. “Nothing either of you have ever done has been for me.”
“We thought we lost you,” he says. There’s little emotion to his voice, but it is there. “Anthem is a safe place where we could start over. It was for you. It was for all of you. Your mother as well. I wanted Anthem for you. I still do. We have the power now. With the specials, the vampires---”
“My vampires, you mean,” Joelle snaps.
“True. I didn’t see this before, Joelle. I didn’t realize. I sought a perfect special, when all along, it was my own daughter. You can create more specials without the machine. What is more perfect than that?”
Joelle smirks. “Daughter? You can’t just claim and unclaim me whenever you feel like it.”
“I never unclaimed you. Your mother thought that it was best if you didn’t know the truth. It would keep me impartial. It would keep you at a distance in case the war failed.”
“Lies,” Adrian hisses from behind us. She marches through where Shade, I, and the other vampires wait. “All lies. Your father was the one who said, ‘She can’t ever know, Adrian!’.”
“And your mother agreed.”
“Silence!” Joelle shouts.
Simon stands taller but waits.
“It matters little who did what. You wanted a war, you will have one. And you wanted a queen, well you are looking at her. Simon’s forces will join our side. The machine will be brought to me. You will give the men the opportunity to join. They have until dawn to decide.”
“Joelle,” Simon warns.
“I have given you our offer of peace, father. I suggest you make it clear to what’s left of your forces just how serious I am.”
“Daughter,” Simon’s voice rings many times over, and I feel my body vibrate before going deadly still.
Time itself slows. The world seems to pause. And then it goes back to normal.
Joelle smiles. “Stopping time will only pause the inevitable, Simon. Once it begins again, my vampires will rain down on your forces and demand they choose a side.”
“Joelle,” I say, fearful that if she pushes him, he will kill her.
Joelle turns to me. “I would be dead already if he planned as such. He’s too glad to have found his perfect special. He won’t hurt a hair on my head now.” She turns to her father again, eyeing him shrewdly. “And I can give him everything now, can’t I? The one he cast away, with a snap of her fingers, can make it all finally come true. The perfect special. The city. I can give him Anthem on a silver platter.”
“Bring me the machine,” she tells him and Shade. “Tell the men to find a red ribbon or a red piece of fabric. Tell them to tie it on their arms, necks, or hang it from their pockets. It will be a sign.”
“Of what?” Shade asks.
“Of unity. A pledge to follow me.”
“And if they don’t?” I ask
“Then we will make them.”
With that, she turns and enters the building.
The Queen has spoken.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Dallas
“How long?” I ask, and Joelle doesn’t look at me.
“Not long,” she says. “Two hours tops.”
We’re alone inside a spare loft next to her mother’s.
Growing angry, I demand, “And then?”
Her dark eyes find me. Adrian’s waiting too, her breath held. I’m not sure which answer she hopes for.
“We will cleanse them all.”
I flinch. “You can’t be serious, Joelle. I’ve followed you all this time but, this---this is madness. You don’t actually mean to turn loose the vampires on them, change these people without their agreement?”
Joelle crosses her arms. Her eyes have faded from their teen angst. The decided matriarch of our vampire army has grown so much in such a short time. “I do mean to change them. I mean to have them follow me or else. We’ve tried things their way. If they oppose my leadership, what then? Wars between us until we are too weak to take Anthem? We need one force. For once and for all, we shall have it, and Anthem will be ours. We must do what they could not, can’t you see?”
“What about Tommy? What about Simon killing him? He was fighting for peace. Does that mean nothing?”
“Tommy died for a good cause. But you said it yourself. If you long to die for a cause, the world will let you. I won’t die for a cause. I won’t have to. I will take Anthem and I will give millions of people like Tommy a new chance to live free again.”
“You think that makes this right?”
“No.” She turns away. “And that is regrettable. I think that makes this a hard wrong for an eventual right.”
“I won’t do it. You can go murder them, but I won’t do it. If they don’t choose to be vampires, I won’t force the dark gift on their souls.”
Joelle’s eyes search mine. “Our souls? Do you mean you would have rather died? That back there in the tent with Toby, I should have left you alone to be abused and raped? A slave? Is that better than your ‘dark soul’?”
“That’s not what I meant. Besides, I chose.”
“You mean like Shade chose?”
“What do you mean?”
I frown but she is a vault. Her mind is shut off to me. “See for yourself,” she says, looking out the window.
Dread sinks into my guts and I rush from the room. I take the stairs, or rather, I jump over the rail and fall down and down to land with a sickening crunch at the bottom.
My body knows something my brain refuses to believe. Legs healed before I take my first step, I rush toward the door, and barrel outside. I find him there, laying on the steps.
He’s not moving.
“Shade!” I rush to him, and grab his shoulders, gently rolling him onto his back. “Wake up, oh God, please wake up!”
His head lolls when I try to sit him up. He’s cold, but he’s always chilled to the touch.
“Shade!” I cry.
His laser eyes are dim.
Slowly, his shadow face transforms. It grows bone then skin
. This has to be a dream. Am I stuck in a dream?
I feel for a pulse, but nothing registers. “Oh no, Shade, please…”
I turn to find Joelle behind me. The army of vampires too, have come to join her on her night of terror.
“What’s wrong with him? What’s happening!”
“One bite is all it takes. I wondered what would happen to a special that is bitten. He appeared fine when he arrived before.”
In our heads, Joelle is chiding me for judging her while having lost my own control before with Shade.
Where was his choice, Dallas?
“It’s not the same! I had no idea,” I snap at her. I touch Shade’s now fully visible face. He’s normal looking but still dying. “Wake up! Help him!”
But Joelle waits. She waits for me to make an offer.
“I’ll do whatever you want,” I moan. “I’ll help you with this… insanity. Just save him!”
“He needs my blood,” she says. “Or yours. Although, untested, I’m not sure if he will be like us or like Pike. My blood might be best.”
“Use yours,” I say, nodding my head. “Do it.”
Joelle leans over us, looking deeply into my eyes. My word will be my bond. “Are you sure?”
I sense the sarcasm at my hypocrisy. Am I sure I want her to force this choice on him, is what she means.
“Yes. I’m sure. Please. He’s so still.”
I cradle his golden head into my lap. Shade had fallen here on the steps… trying to get to me. Joelle rips her wrist open and puts it to his mouth. “It might be too late.”
“You knew?” I ask. “Earlier?”
She nods.
After Joelle finishes, I shake him, rocking him, trying to wake him up. “Please, work, please work.”
I look up at the sky. A drop of rain falls into my eye. I blink it away, and when I look down again, Shade’s eyes are open. The glowing red is gone, the irises normal, clear.
