Infinity Reaper

by Adam Silvera

  “Special request to alert me if you see Stanton,” Tala says. “I’m going to cut that snake’s head off for killing my mother.”

  “Very dark,” Wyatt says.

  “And duly noted,” Brighton says.

  “How much time are we giving ourselves in there?” Prudencia asks.

  “Until we find Ness,” I say.

  “That’s not going to fly,” Maribelle says. “One hour.”

  “There’s four towers to search.”

  “Bro, I’m going to dash around, but we’ll have to call it quits at some point,” Brighton says.

  “Then I’ll stay.”

  “Then you’re forcing everyone else to stay too because I’m the door getting us in and out and you know I’m not leaving you behind.”

  Brighton is staring at me, and I know he’s one hundred percent serious.

  I can sacrifice myself all I want, but I can’t force everyone to do the same.

  I agree to the terms, not knowing how I’ll be able to live with myself if I can’t save the person who keeps risking death for me.

  Sixty-Five

  Strike

  MARIBELLE

  Lightning flashes and rain pounds the river as Roxana flies Tala and me toward the Bounds. Prudencia is telekinetically piloting the speedboat away from the phoenix’s storm as Emil and Wyatt blend into the night on Nox. Everything is smooth sailing, as Papa used to say, until a phoenix pops out from the river’s surface and shoots into the sky with water spraying from its large wings.

  “Please don’t attack us,” Tala says, hoping this won’t have to get violent between the phoenixes.

  The sky swimmer flies toward us at furious speed. Its wings begin burning in cerulean flames and the phoenix flaps the fire toward us with the force of a gale. Tala sharply steers us away from the attack, and I hold on to Roxana’s strong yellow feathers for balance. The sky swimmer dives toward the speedboat, about to collide until Nox swoops up out of nowhere with a breath of bronze flames that scares the sky swimmer back underwater.

  I try searching for shadows in the river, but it’s too dark out. The sky swimmer emerges behind us and speeds toward us. “Tala, attack it now or—”

  The collision of phoenixes is so powerful we’re both thrown off Roxana’s back. My dark yellow flames carry me back up, but Tala smacks straight into the river. Wyatt dives off Nox to search for her. The sky swimmer is scratching away at Roxana with its talons, and the light howler is screaming like never before.

  I hurl fire-arrows up at the sky swimmer, striking it in the back. The phoenix spins and pursues me. I fly away in terror, looking over my shoulder to see the sky swimmer catching up. My power isn’t strong enough to take the phoenix down, so I brake in the air just long enough for the sky swimmer to fly over me, and I make my way back to Roxana as quickly as possible.

  I drop onto Roxana’s back as she wails, not knowing how to soothe her, but knowing I need her.

  Halo Knights have vowed not to harm other phoenixes, even if it means putting their own lives at risk.

  I’m not a Halo Knight.

  I scream the command that Tala used when we first met: “STRIKE!”

  Roxana opens her mouth and massive bolts of lightning strike the sky swimmer out of the air, again and again, and before it crashes into the river, it explodes in a massive blue fireball. Ashes cloud the air and feathers float on the water.

  My muscles are throbbing from Roxana’s lightning as I steer her toward the island, landing moments before everyone else. Tala jumps off Nox, her teeth chattering, as she observes the slashes across Roxana’s belly.

  “I had to kill that phoenix,” I say.

  “Thank you for saving mine,” Tala says as she guides Roxana toward the shore, getting her to lie down so the gentle waves can cool her wound.

  “How long until that phoenix resurrects?” Brighton asks.

  “Sky swimmers need an hour, maybe two,” Wyatt says.

  “Depends on how old it is,” Emil adds.

  “Then we better keep it moving,” Brighton says, moving across the beach.

  Tala kisses Roxana between the eyes. “I’m coming back for you.”

  I admire her strength as she runs toward the Bounds, her crossbow at the ready.

  Maybe we’ll both fire arrows into Luna at the same time.

  Sixty-Six

  The Bounds

  BRIGHTON

  Showtime.

  We make our way up to the Bounds, sticking to the shadows the entire time. Maribelle is able to sense danger beyond a tree, grabbing Emil’s arm before he can fall down a trap where a blood orange basilisk is curled around a spike, its tail rattling. Prudencia telekinetically covers the hole with a nearby boulder, leaving enough space for air and moonlight but not enough to burst up and kill us.

  There are four towers, and we stand outside the closest.

  I prepare them for phasing, assuring them they won’t feel anything.

  They’re lucky that way.

  I turn on ghost mode, straining for air and freezing as I peek through the thick stone wall. The hallway is filtered stark white and shadowy like an X-ray because of my power. I get everyone through as quickly as I can, beginning with Emil, Maribelle, and Prudencia so they can defend me if guards appear in the meantime. I get Tala through right as it feels like some blood vessels might pop behind my eyes, and as I grab Wyatt, I’m certain I’m going to pass out and we’ll both be frozen inside this wall forever.

  Emil grabs my wrist, pulling me into the prison. “You good?”

  My breaths are shallow. “Just a lot of people,” I say as color fills the world again. “Got us through.”

  Prudencia rubs my back, and her touch grounds me in my body. “You all go ahead. Time is limited.”

  Maribelle and Tala take off down one hallway, dark yellow phoenix fire lighting their path.

  “Play this smart, Bright,” Emil says, holding out his fist.

  “Stay alive, bro,” I say, fist-bumping and whistling with him.

  I don’t think either of us ever thought this childhood handshake would follow us into a prison.

  “I’ll protect him,” Prudencia says as she hugs Emil. “Get going.”

  Emil and Wyatt run the opposite way, and Emil looks over his shoulder before they round the corner, as if this might be the last time we see each other. He’s forgetting that we’re the Infinity Kings—we’re going to go on and on and on.

  “This is a literal nightmare,” Prudencia says. She keeps looking back and forth down the two hallways as if someone is going to emerge from the shadows. “It’s even darker than they make it look in documentaries.”

  I hold her hand, trying to stay strong. We go down a curvy staircase and reach a level that smells like backed-up toilets and body odor. We cover our noses with the headbands and cautiously go down a hall toward a buzzing sound. Behind a wall there’s an electric fence surrounding the cell of a sleeping inmate. Prudencia leads me away.

  “What’s the rush? That could be Ness for all we know.”

  “We don’t have time to interview every inmate who might be Ness in disguise,” Prudencia says.

  “You tell that to Emil when we leave without Ness.”

  “Ness has no reason to hide anymore. Everyone knows he’s alive. Where would they have put him? Solitary confinement? A custom cell?”

  “His power isn’t dangerous enough for that,” I say.

  Those custom cells are more for the likes of powerful people like me. If I had to design a cell to lock up someone with Reaper’s Blood, I’d start with shackles to prevent any dashing at unsuspecting guards, put them inside a tank of water so any phoenix fire will be short-lived, and entrap the specter in a gleam-shield to prevent them from phasing through any wall, ceiling, or floor. I bet I’d still find a way out.

  We continue on, finding more traditional cells with inmates who start shouting when they see us. Prudencia and I stay in the very center away from reaching hands; if anyone touches her
, I’ll shove a fire-bolt down their throat. I scan everyone’s face, but no Ness.

  “I bet some of these prisoners would have great stories for Celestials of New York.”

  “I’m going to unfollow you in real life,” Prudencia says.

  “Hey, I’m just saying—”

  The ceiling bulbs flash red and metal grinds as all the cell doors slide open.

  The inmates have been freed.

  Sixty-Seven

  Manhunt

  NESS

  My heart is beating as fast as the flashing red lights. The other inmates cautiously step outside their cells as the doors open. I don’t know what powers they possess, only that they’re probably not as lethal if they’re in these standard cells. That doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous.

  Unless everyone else has been falsely imprisoned too.

  There’s static coming from the speakers in the corner. “Attention! Before you start blowing off some steam and beating the lights out of each other, you got to know something,” says a low voice I’ve never heard before. “Those of you who weren’t incarcerated until after late January will remember that a senator’s son was one of six-hundred-something people killed during the city’s Blackout. Except he wasn’t. Eduardo Iron lives and breathes in this prison. He became a specter for the Blood Casters and will be standing trial for acts of burglary, trespassing, selling hallucinatory drugs, aggravated assault, identity theft, and terrorism.”

  In other words, I’m here for life, if they let me live.

  I’m fighting back tears on how corrupt this place is.

  “Eduardo has the power to shift,” the voice continues. “He can look like anyone—a stranger, your cellmate, even yourself. If you’re looking for an extra challenge while blowing off some steam, whoever hunts down the shifter before dawn will be rewarded with thirty minutes on the roof this morning.”

  I don’t doubt the lure of that grand prize. Breathing in the air before being banished back to this darkness could be as welcome as a hug from a loved one.

  The red lights stop flashing as the speaker says, “Happy hunting.”

  There are shouts and cheers, even a roar, echoing through the halls.

  A bald man with a three-headed hydra tattoo on his forearm is talking with someone while staring at me. There’s one clear tell that I don’t belong here: I’m not wearing one of the lime-green jumpsuits. I charge the opposite way, hearing them call after me.

  I fight through the pain of my stinging wound, glowing gray midrun and giving myself the jumpsuit and a new face before blending into a crowd of celestials beating each other to death.

  A lot of people mistaken as me in disguise will die tonight.

  Sixty-Eight

  Firefly’s Flames

  EMIL

  “Hide-and-seek with the shape-shifter just got infinitely harder,” Wyatt whispers as we hide in a stairway.

  “And he doesn’t even know that we’re trying to find him,” I say.

  Just when I thought this place couldn’t be more monstrous, the guards are siccing the other inmates on Ness as if this is some acceptable practice. More than ever I’m terrified to be here though I have zero regrets. Ness might think he’s alone in this fight, but I’m going to back him up.

  “Perhaps it’s time we regroup.” Wyatt tugs at his whistle.

  “No, someone might think we should bounce.”

  “Not the worst idea.”

  “I’m not leaving without Ness,” I say, staring Wyatt in the eyes. I’m indebted to Ness for saving me over and over even though we were strangers who only met less than a month ago.

  “Of course,” Wyatt says, though it’s clear he knows the dangers he’s risking for a cause he doesn’t believe in. “What do you propose we do to find him? Shout his name over and over?”

  “No, but you’re on the right track. We don’t go looking for him. We make him come to us.”

  “How do we do that?”

  I conjure two gold and gray fire-orbs, hoping to draw Ness to my flames.

  Sixty-Nine

  Solitary Confinement

  MARIBELLE

  Ever since the announcement, Tala and I have failed to travel through the Bounds unnoticed.

  My fire-arrow collides into the chest of a woman trying to touch me with her electric hands. Tala kicks off a wall and drives the butt of her crossbow into someone’s forehead, laying him out. She fires an arrow into the shoulder of another inmate charging toward her, and he collapses in agony. I skip over a couple of the ten or twelve bodies piling up and we continue our hunt for Luna.

  There have been over one hundred steps spiraling down from where we began, as if solitary confinement is in the center of the earth. There is every possibility in the world that we’ll get caught by the guards and buried away in one of these cells too, but the memory of this alliance with Tala will make me feel less alone. Grief can be so isolating, and Tala and I have been united by revenge over the murders of our parents in ways that Iris and I were driven apart.

  Luna may not have gotten her hands dirty, but the monsters she created are the reason we all lost our loved ones. We’ll slay the monsters next.

  We reach the lowest level. I light our way through what feels like a dark cave. There’s a woman shouting and banging on a door, and it isn’t until we get closer that I realize she’s not locked up. Tala aims her crossbow, but I stop her from taking a shot through the darkness, like when she killed Kirk.

  “This is your fault!” the woman shouts, crying. “You swore I would become a Blood Caster!”

  “Luna,” I say.

  The young woman turns and white flames run up her arm. There’s something familiar about her. Her hair looks choppy, but that’s not it.

  The stars be damned, she’s the specter that Atlas and I were pursuing the very first night of the Crowned Dreamer. Atlas had gotten a tip that a specter attacked her own family, and we rushed to the scene, pursuing her for blocks before we brawled. She was powerful too, and I needed a gem-grenade to take her down. That was also the night we first met Brighton and Emil, days before Emil’s powers manifested; some might even call our paths crossing destiny.

  The same can be said for this woman who was arrested after Atlas and I flew away.

  “Do you remember me?” I ask.

  “You have fire now,” she says.

  “Turns out it was always in me,” I say. “Is that Luna in there?”

  She nods. “She gave me power and claimed she cared about me, but was nowhere to be seen when I was locked up.”

  “There is no part of me that cares,” I say. “Luna is ours to end.” The woman holds out her palms like she’s about to unleash some fire. “Take a second to think. You’re outnumbered, and your power has been dampened from your time here in the Bounds, away from the stars. I’ve only grown stronger and less patient. You choose what happens next.”

  The specter looks between us and the door, weighing her choices.

  The white flames vanish, and so does she into the darkness.

  Tala wastes no time running toward the cell, eager to make sure that Luna’s breath remains a stranger forevermore. She drops a gem-grenade and blows down the door. We stand outside the tiny room where Luna is pressed against the wall.

  My grandmother eyes us like the reapers we are.

  Seventy

  Hunt the Shifter

  NESS

  I’m staying alive by posing as dead men.

  One man was telekinetically shoved so hard into a wall that his neck snapped. I wore his puffy cheeks and shock white hair while limping past a trio hunting for me. I found another dead on the floor, strangled by his own stretched-out, supple arms, which coiled around his throat like a snake. I imagined his face not being so purple as I morphed into him to climb the stairs undetected. For the past ten minutes, I’ve been walking around as someone with thick eyebrows and a face shaped like a teardrop—before he was burnt unrecognizably by a wounded woman with electric hands.

&n
bsp; No disguise is safe for too long in the Bounds. I either run the risk of bumping into someone who knows the person I’m impersonating or drawing suspicion for being unrecognizable. Maintaining someone’s features I captured at a quick glance is growing more difficult as I keep face-swapping under the stresses of being literally hunted by unleashed convicts.

  I find my way into a small room with sterile white floors and four octagonal cells with plexiglass walls. This is one of the rooms they use for holding when creating effective containment for new inmates. When Bishop gave me and the Senator a tour years ago there were security guards monitoring all of the celestials, using these special tablets that could manipulate the conditions if the celestial was acting out. There’s no one for the guards to supervise at the moment, which makes me wonder if they’ve been freed too so they can join the hunt.

  For once, I have some peace to catch my breath.

  I glow gray.

  It shouldn’t feel like such a relief to be myself again, but not using my power is exactly that.

  I pick up one of those tablets, scrolling through the features: temperature adjustments as high as one hundred and fifty degrees and as low as negative fifty, electrification between one hundred and three hundred volts, air decompression, and toxic gasses. I don’t know a single gleamcrafter that could survive all of these.

  The prison system has always been flawed, even during my ignorant days of fantasizing with the Senator about how I would punish the celestial who killed my mother. The procedures in the Bounds are so inhumane because the architects and guards simply don’t see celestials and specters as humans. The Senator’s supporters don’t care, especially as Bishop keeps masking this disturbing reality as dominance and security.