by David Estes
As usual, Tillman comes through for us. The Glock’s blast is nothing like a normal gun, where one shot equals one victim—if you’re a good shot, that is. No, her single trigger pull takes out at least ten Necros, who explode in a burst of purple flame. Tillman’s favorite color is purple, I remember.
“No!” the Reaper yells, less commanding than before. Almost pleading. Is he scared of us? “Don’t touch them!”
The tide of Necros stops.
Wait…what? That’s when I realize: His commands were intended for his gang members, the Necros, not us.
I give Laney a look. She shrugs, holding her Glock out in front of her, as if daring any Necros to attack.
“That’s better. Rhett and his friend are our guests,” the familiar voice says, no longer distorted by the electronic feedback of the microphone. Wait. Wait. I stare at the podium where the Necro leader, the Reaper, removes his hood.
My face goes numb with disbelief, and the unwanted and embarrassing spill of tears blurs my vision. Because it can’t be. It can’t.
And if it is, then I’m lost, so lost.
Broken, so broken.
His dark-skinned face is a black hole above me.
“Mr. Jackson?” I say.
Chapter Fifty
“Rhett,” Mr. Jackson says.
My mind is blank, my heart clenched. My fingers uncurl and my sword drops to my feet. “Mr. Jackson,” I say. “I don’t understand.”
I’m dimly aware of Laney turning in a slow circle next to me, keeping her weapon trained on the hordes of Necros, but I can only focus on the man who trained me.
“I will explain everything in time,” he says, reaching out a hand as if to invite me up with him.
“You…”—I can’t even say it; I can’t—“Xave and Beth,” I say. “What have you done?” I crouch down, resting on the balls of my feet.
“No,” he says. “You don’t understand.”
My mind is a mud puddle, being splashed about by children playing in the rain. Blink, blink. Focus. This is real. This is real. Everything comes down to this. “Are they alive?” I ask with a nonchalance that a year ago would have been impossible. But now…the line between impossible and reality is so blurred it’s like a windshield in a downpour.
“I’ll explain everything in time,” Mr. Jackson says.
“No,” I growl. “You’ll explain now.”
“Rhett,” Laney says from behind me, but I don’t turn to look. My eyes are lasered on the man who used to be my instructor.
“No,” Mr. Jackson says, in that definitive way he always used to reject my requests for information about his past. All of that makes sense now, too. His grandfather was a warlock. His son is a warlock. He is a warlock.
“Rhett!” Laney says again, this time more urgently.
I turn, finding Laney alone in the field of cauldrons. The Necros have retreated, scurrying back into the bleachers like spiders. At first I don’t understand why Laney was calling me, but then I see it. The large black cauldron in the center, where the pregame coin flip would usually be held, is spouting clouds of smoke, black and white, swirling together to form a gray fog, which crackles with spears of lightning that dive into the cauldron. Into the brew.
A dozen Necros are in a circle around the pot, chanting, their hands raised to the heavens.
“Stop!” the Reaper yells. “That’s an order!”
It’s mutiny. The dozen Necros ignore their leader and continue speaking in a strange tongue. Or is this another of Mr. Jackson’s tricks? Pretend like he wants to protect me, explain everything to me, and then sick his creepy gang members on me.
A boney hand reaches over the lip, bleach-white and clutching a curved dagger. Then another hand. And another. Dozens of armed skeleton warriors leap from the cauldron. Something’s different about them from the last of their kind that we fought, back in Waynesburg. They’re bigger, thicker, tougher-looking.
“Super-Boners!” Laney yells, raising her Glock.
BOOM!
An arm flies, and a head, too, but even the dismembered and headless skeletons keep coming, picking up speed as they get control of their newly forged frames.
“No, dammit! No!” the Reaper cries.
“Keep shooting!” I say to Laney, a pointless command because she’s been firing nonstop since her first blast. Her Glock seems to contain the magic of unlimited ammo.
Chunks of white bone are crumbling behind the aptly named Super-Boners, but they push forward with what’s left of them, some even hopping on one leg. The swarm reaches us and I slash hard at the neck of the warrior leading the pack. Thuck! My blow makes a sound like I’ve just stabbed my sword into the trunk of a tree. The skeleton, his hand raised to catch my sword and prevent his own decapitation, smiles—well, the closest thing to a smile the nasty creature can manage, baring its teeth—and rips back its arm, practically yanking my shoulder out of its socket as I desperately cling to my weapon.
As it tries to wrangle my blade away, the Super-Boner swings a left hook. I try to duck but—
CRACK! The blow glances off my temple and leaves me seeing stars and groggy. My grip on the sword falters and I feel it being wrenched away, even as I’m falling, falling, hitting the grassy field beneath me, looking up, into my own blade turned on me, falling like a guillotine…
Ching!
Suddenly Mr. Jackson is standing over me, blocking the attack, slashing the skeleton to mere fragments of bone. His familiar sword, the one that saved my life all those months ago, gleams brightly, magic streaming through it.
He’s saved me again. But why? Why would a warlock save a human?
But he doesn’t see the other undead warrior looming up behind, jabbing a bone-handled knife toward my throat.
BOOM-BOOM!
BOOM!
The three staccato shots hurt my ears and leave my head aching, but my attacker’s skull leaves his body, followed shortly by both arms, one of which lands on top of me, still clutching the knife.
I rip my sword away from the skeleton that Mr. Jackson saved me from, shaking away the cobwebs that have taken up residence in my brain, while silently thanking Laney for not running when she had the chance.
I snap to my feet using a move Mr. Jackson said I’d never be able to do because of my body weight and shape, and whirl my sword in a horizontal arc that cuts through the upper vertebrae of the three skeleton warriors closing in. I bump up against something, and I see that it’s Mr. Jackson, fighting back to back with me, destroying the creatures created by his own kind.
Hack, slash, stab.
Death spills onto the field, and soon I’m stumbling on the chunks of bone, which are piling up around us, even while the tide of Super-Boners pushes forward, hands outstretched.
Hack.
Slash.
Stab.
The Destroyers and their chariots are gone, chasing Flora, and it’s just us and the undead.
I cut and I spin and I destroy skeleton after skeleton after skeleton, two four six twenty thirty fifty, until there are none left, the shattered bones carpeting the field like long white stones.
And Mr. Jackson is so close, fighting alongside me, but then he’s running away, toward the rogue Necros, who have stopped chanting, watching in horror as we destroy their creations. They don’t even try to run as Mr. Jackson slashes them to ribbons, their pale faces spilling from their hoods as they die in a bloody circle around the giant cauldron.
“What a waste,” I hear Mr. Jackson say to the sky.
His back is to us, his blood-soaked sword hanging loosely from his hand.
My eyes find Laney, whose arms are scratched and bleeding. “Do it,” she mouths, and I know exactly what she means.
But can I? Can I kill the man who saved me? Who trained me? Who…lied to me? Yes, I think. He constructed his casket on the lives of my friends.
I run toward the Reaper. I run toward Mr. Jackson.
He doesn’t react, even when I prick the tip of my sword
into the skin of his neck. I should kill him right now, but I have to know. I have to know the truth. “Are. They. Dead?”
His sword drops and I spin him around roughly. His lips part, showing his unnaturally white teeth. “I won’t blame you if you do it, Rhett. But I wish only to tell you everything you need to know before I die.”
Again, I hesitate. Everything I’ve done so far has been because Mr. Jackson wanted me to. All part of some plan he had for me. But what could he possibly hope to accomplish by me killing him? He’d be dead, and then what? He thinks I’d rise to take his place? I’m not even a warlock.
“All I’ve ever wanted to do was protect you,” he says, and his words sound so true. But they always have, haven’t they? Every truth, every lie has sounded exactly the same.
“Do it, Carter!” Laney shouts, egging me on. Why can’t I?
I draw back my sword, unsure of what I plan to do.
“No,” Mr. Jackson whispers. “Please.”
“Rhett, no!” a voice shouts from somewhere in the bleachers, stopping my hand. A voice that’s more familiar than even Mr. Jackson’s. A voice that’s impossible, and yet—I know what I heard. I stare into Mr. Jackson’s eyes. A trick? His brown eyes soften.
“It’s me, Rhett. I’m here.” The voice again, closer now. I might be making a mistake, but I’ve come all this way, and even if it’s a final trap set by Mr. Jackson, I have to see. I have to.
My sword still raised, I turn and look.
A hooded figure is making his way down the steps, onto the field, watching me the whole way. He reaches the bottom, waves, a gesture so out of place and yet so familiarly awkward, and runs across the grass in those short strides I’d know anywhere.
It can’t be.
It can’t.
The cloak climbs the steps, stands before me, my heart racing, every last muscle and bone tensed.
With two familiar dark hands, he pushes back his hood. And Xavier smiles his crooked smile.
He’s a few inches taller, his face a little narrower, but still pudgy around the edges. His light brown eyes have the same brightness in them as always, and maybe even a little more. His hair is longer, thicker, and less sculpted than before. A wild sprout of tufted brown hair. He’s so different, and yet always the same.
My eyes are full of waterfalls as I drop my sword and grab him and pull him toward me, squeezing him into a bear hug, feeling daggers in my injured shoulder but not caring one bit. “Xave,” I say. “I thought you were…”
“Dead and gone? Six feet under? Embarking on the final journey?” he says, pushing me back to look at me, our arms still clasped. I laugh, because it’s so Xave. Clichés and gallows humor. “God, Rhett, I thought you were dead, too. The Reaper told me you were dead.”
He turns his gaze to Mr. Jackson. “Son, I’m sorry,” Mr. Jackson says, and at first I think he’s talking to me, but no, his attention is on Xave. “I needed to protect you, and if you knew Rhett was alive, you would have tried to leave.”
“Damn right I would have,” Xavier says.
Suddenly, the world swims around me as if I’m caught in a whirlpool. Because none of this makes any sense. Mr. Jackson was trying to protect Xave, to protect me? By making us think the other was dead? Xavier’s wearing a dark cloak and is allowed to walk freely amongst the Necros. And he stopped me from killing the man who must have abducted him. “Xavier,” I say. “I don’t understand. Where’s Beth?” Do I want to know the answer?
Xavier’s eyes are full of emotion, but there’s something else there, too. Something I’ve never seen in him before. Confidence or—could it be pride? No. No. That’s not Xave. That’s not my friend.
“I have something to tell you,” he says. “Something that changed me a long time ago.”
“What?” I say, searching his face for some hidden truth.
“The Reaper is my father.”
An uncontrollable shockwave runs from my feet to my head. “No,” I say.
“It’s true,” Xavier says. “He showed me proof. Photos, records. But there’s more.”
I can’t take any more. “No,” I say again.
“My father knew your father.”
I shake my head.
“They were best friends.”
I close my eyes.
“Your father was a warlock.”
My fists clench, my mouth dries out, my head aches.
“I’m a warlock.”
God, no. All the fight goes out of me and my knees buckle.
Arms that are too strong, much stronger than they were the last time I saw him, catch me before I fall. I open my eyes and look at my best friend, who has a slash of pain on his face. There’s only one thing left for him to say. If my father was a warlock, then what does that make me? Do I ask the question?
But I won’t I won’t I won’t. I won’t listen to one more lie, to one more attempt to brainwash me, to change me, to control me. This is all lies and if I can just get rid of Mr. Jackson, if I can just end his influence, maybe I can convince Xave of the truth.
Squirming out of Xavier’s hold, I bend down, snatching my sword from the grass. Xave tries to grab me, but I’m already spinning away from him, so much faster and more agile, pushing toward Mr. Jackson—the Necro leader, the Reaper, whatever, not Xave’s father, not my father’s best friend—but he’s not there.
I whirl around just in time to hear Laney’s shouted warning and see something dark and thick slashing toward my head.
A brain-jarring pain erupts in my skull, and then everything goes black.
Chapter Fifty-One
I wake up in the dark.
Or are my eyes closed? It’s so black they might as well be. But no…I think they’re open. I poke at my eye just to be sure. Ow! Yeah, definitely open, and yet, I can’t see a thing, not even the finger that I just jabbed into my eye.
I try to sit up and my head cracks open. “Uhh,” I groan. My skull splits again and again, throbbing with hammer beats. No…sledgehammer beats.
Like a nightmare, everything rushes back. How could my best friend do that to me? How could he lie to my face like that? Mr. Jackson is not Xavier’s father, and yet, Xave seemed so convinced. I know the only answer: He’s been brainwashed. Can I blame him? I was caught up in Mr. Jackson’s lies myself, once upon a time. Unbeknownst to me, he’s controlled my every move for the last six months, so can I really condemn Xave for falling for the act, too? But so many things don’t make sense.
A scuffle and a groan slide across the darkness, echoing slightly. “Hello?” I say.
“Carter?” Laney says.
“I’m here,” I say. “You okay?”
“I—I think so. My head’s pounding like a bongo drum, but other than that I’m alright.”
A wave of nausea and guilt build in my stomach. “I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s my fault you’re in this mess.” My words sound weak in the utter blackness, but I’m not sure they’d sound much better in the bright light of the sun either.
“Don’t. Don’t ever apologize,” Laney says. “Trish is safe with Hex, and I made my choice. I’m here because I want to be.”
“You want to be in a Necro dungeon?” I joke.
“You know what I mean. Is that what this is? A Necro dungeon?”
“Just guessing,” I say. “I don’t know. If it is, I’m guessing it was an improvement the Necros made when they moved in. Otherwise maybe the Pittsburgh Steelers used it as punishment when their players screwed up. Instead of running laps they sent them to the dungeon.” I try to push to a sitting position again, but a fresh jolt of dizziness hits me and I slump back to the hard ground.
Laney doesn’t laugh at my attempt at humor, and I don’t blame her. Nothing’s that funny at the moment. “So that was Xavier, huh?” she says evenly.
Innocent words so full of accusation. “Yup. Only he’s different now.”
“You think? He’s a damn Necro.”
“He’s not,” I say. “He just thinks he is.”
<
br /> “Wait. You’re saying he’s been tricked into believing he’s a warlock?” Laney’s words are loaded with disbelief and a side of Yeah right. Rightfully so.
“That’s the theory I’m working under at the moment,” I say.
“But what if he is? A warlock, I mean. He was a foster kid, right? Like you?”
I see where she’s going with this, and I don’t like it. “Just because he didn’t have any parents to guide him doesn’t mean he didn’t realize he was some powerful warlock. Mr. Jackson’s using him, can’t you see that?”
“But why?”
“To get to me.”
“But why?” she parrots.
“I—I don’t know.” Because he thinks I’m a warlock, too. Is that why? Please, God, please not this. Anything but this. As usual, every answer to every question raises a dozen new questions.
“But you’re not a…”—she doesn’t say the W-word—“right?” Laney says, reading between the lines. I can sense the uncertainty in her tone.
“You think I’m a—I’m a—”
“A warlock?” Laney finally says, her voice rising. “How the hell should I know? All I know is that my parents were magic-born, my sister, too, and now my best friend—my only friend—has just been told by someone he trusts that his father was a warlock. What am I freaking supposed to think?”
I close my eyes, although it makes no difference in the dark. All my theorizing and questioning and fighting fall away. I feel as empty as a hollow drum and as limp as an old sock. “They didn’t say I was a warlock though,” I say, surprised at my own calmness. Or is it numbness? “Just because they want to protect me doesn’t mean they think I’m a warlock.”
“But if your father was a warlock then…”
“Your mother and father and sister are witches,” I point out.
“And you fight like you’re more than human,” Laney rebuts, ignoring my point, which I thought was a good one.
“Like you don’t?” I say. “We were both pretty freaking awesome, and if I remember correctly, it was you who saved me more than once.”
