by August Li
I pulled a small pair of binoculars from a pocket in my pants, but my vision still hadn’t recovered. I passed them to Emrys, still hoping he might have an idea. “See anything?”
“It looks like—” With a gasp, he dropped the binoculars and pulled his pistol—Dante’s gun—as he ran. I recovered them, brushed away the fouled snow, and squinted to watch the wavering shapes.
Emrys’s friend Jet had run to Moirin, and they stood talking, Jet gesturing wildly with his—her?—hands and Moirin shouting over her shoulder. The pale man in the outlandish fur coat stalked toward Jet’s back, while Emrys ran hard in that direction, somehow managing to avoid taking a bullet even though every Nazi still breathing fired on him. With the exception of a few men, the people attending the party had retreated inside, most likely to take shelter in a cellar and wait for the authorities.
Emrys shouted. Jet looked over their shoulder and held their hand up to the man in white. Whatever they said to attempt to placate him, the way they waved their hands around at the destruction to try to impart something, failed. Even from my position, I could see anger and hate in his posture, the way he moved. Jet cowered, curling their shoulders forward and retreating a few steps, though I noticed no weapon.
The man in white lifted his hand just as an especially brazen Nazi emerged from behind the white pickup, his AR-15 pointed at Jet. Moirin lunged, tackling Jet to the ground, while whatever the man in white had aimed at Jet seemed to strike Emrys. He stopped running midstride and nearly doubled over. A second later the Nazi’s fire hit the man in white, and blood bloomed like poppies down his left arm. He ran for the stone stairs, and in the ensuing crossfire, I lost sight of him.
Emrys recovered, and his mouth moved rapidly. Moirin nodded and yelled something to her people. A moment later a man handed her a bundle of dynamite sticks. She lit it, lobbed it where the remaining Nazis had congregated, and then ran hard in the opposite direction, following her people. They headed for the woods where I’d been concealed and then looped back around to cross the road farther from the house and make for the semi.
I scrambled to climb into the cab and made it just as the detonation of that dynamite seemed to tear the earth apart. Clumps of frozen soil, shards of metal, and human flesh so mangled that no body parts could be recognized slammed the side of the truck and splattered the windshield. I used the wipers just as Moirin hopped onto the seat next to me, grinning from ear to ear.
“Now that’s what I call an evening’s entertainment, love.”
“None of the vehicles can be traced to us?”
“This isn’t my first dance,” she said. “You’ll be wanting to get a move on, lad.”
I did as she said, turning the semi as sharply as I dared and gunning it hard, tearing up gravel as the engine revved and I made for the road. As we hit the asphalt, I breathed a sigh of relief. “I can’t believe it’s over.”
“That’s not the last of the fun,” Moirin said. “In fact, the best might be yet to come.”
Before I could ask her what she meant, an explosion that made everything we’d been doing seem like children firing slingshots tore the night in half with a chasm of orange and a thunderhead of smoke.
I SMELL Dante’s blood, Charlene said, again perched upon my shoulder. Sure enough, I soon found the trail: two deep sets of footprints sprinkled with dark blots and smears. It seemed they’d escaped through the orchard and into the forest, where they made their way back to the road.
They are in danger, Charlene said. The boy and the girl.
“Yes, I sense that too, through the bargain I made with Dante. We must hurry.”
ALL I could think of as the barrel of the gun bit into the back of my head was what was going to happen to my sister. I pictured it all in sickening detail, and even with death seconds away, I tried to figure out a way to save her. I had to do something.
Then there was a bang, the familiar scent of a gun firing, followed by the muffled sound of a body hitting the snow. I couldn’t look. What good would come of it? It would all be over soon, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do. I hung my head as tears and snot dripped down my face, and I bit my lip until I tasted blood.
Bang. Bang.
I took me a second to realize that while everything still hurt, I wasn’t dead. I hadn’t been shot, though I’d pissed myself a little. Slowly, completely disoriented, I opened my eyes and looked over at Inky, who was staring at the puke that steamed between his knees. Next to him, the fatass skinhead lay facedown, two holes in his back and half of his head gone, brains spilling out.
Behind me, the lanky guy with the five-o’clock shadow shoved his gun into a shoulder holster and said, “On your feet.”
“What the fuck is going on?” I asked, my voice high and trembling.
“My name is Special Agent Merrick Alden, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Just keep your hands where I can see them and keep quiet.”
“My sister!”
“She’s safe. I’ve been undercover in a joint operation with the ATF to investigate both human trafficking and the huge influx of illegal firearms to this area over the last five years.”
“Shit, you… you saved us?”
“I don’t know about that, Mr. Mayfield. You must realize you’re in a lot of trouble—you and the man you work for, Mr. Guzman.”
“Fuck me,” Inky muttered. “You’re taking us in?”
“Any minute now, agents posing as neo-Nazis will be calling to tell our friends up there at the van that the police are on their way. My ATF associate will convince them to leave without us.”
“And take my sister with them?”
“It was the only way to save your life,” Agent Alden said. “We’ll recover her as soon as you two are safely in custody—along with Mr. Guzman. We know he’s using this property to stockpile weapons.”
I barely heard what he was saying about Raf’s guns. All I knew was they were planning to let these Nazi pigs take my sister, and I didn’t buy the shit about recovering her later. She wasn’t going through any more. I wasn’t going to let it happen.
Then I remembered the fat fuck had been planning to shoot us…. He had a gun. I looked around without being obvious, and I saw it at the base of an old tree where it must’ve flown from his hand. It was about eight feet from where I knelt. I’d only have one chance. I launched myself forward, closed my hand around the grip, rolled to my back, and pointed the gun at Agent Alden. If this motherfucker knew as much about me as it seemed, he’d know I was faster than him. “I’m getting my sister, and if you want to stop me, you’ll have to kill me.” Which I knew he couldn’t do. He needed me for his case.
I hoped. And I tried not to think about the dead Nazi whose gun I held.
Keeping my attention locked on him, my eyes glued to his, I walked backwards through the trees, trying to feel my way with my feet so I wouldn’t land on my ass and lose whatever advantage I might have.
The agent was jabbering on, using a calm tone to try to talk me down. “Dante, I’m on your side here. You’ll only be putting your sister in danger by going back up there. The Nazis have to believe you’re dead. After you testify, we can get both of you into witness protection. You can start a new life, and so can she.”
I ignored him, and when the ground got too steep for me to keep backing up, I turned and ran. When I got back to the van, the blond guy was leaning against the hood looking at a cell phone. I stopped a few feet from him and said, “Your asshole friends down there are dead, and I want my sister or you’re next.”
His eyes got wide, and he slowly lifted his hands to chest level, fingers spread. “Agent Alden is dead?” he hissed out.
Fuck. This must be the ATF guy. “Put that pistol on the ground slow and kick it over to me.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing. You—”
“Do it!”
“All right, all right.”
“And don’t fuck with me. I’m not stupid.”
At that, he snor
ted, but he laid his pistol down gently and nudged it over to me with the toe of his boot. Without taking my eyes off him, I crouched down to pick it up and took off the safety. With my left hand, I held it ready to fire while I kept my piece trained on him. “Tell your Nazi friend to bring my sister out.”
Doing the last thing I expected, he cocked his head at me. “Or what?”
“As far as he knows, you’re one of them,” I said. “White race brotherhood and all that bullshit. Don’t you think he values your life?”
He heaved out a sigh and shook his head. “You don’t know these people.”
“My sister.”
He glanced over his shoulder and then back at me, but before he could say anything else, the side door on the van screeched open, and the greasy bastard with the beard stepped out—a pistol pressed to my sister’s head.
“Dante!” Ros looked pale, and she was shivering. Or trembling. I couldn’t be sure. But she held her head up and wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction of crying. That made me proud.
I pointed one gun at the ATF guy, the other at the Nazi. Nobody moved, their breath freezing as it hit the air. We were at a standstill, and everybody here knew it.
Behind me, branches snapped and boots crunched through snow as Inky and Agent Alden followed me up the hill. Not that it made a damn bit of difference.
The old Nazi flicked his eyes in their direction. “Where’s Big Pete?”
“Big Pete’s dead,” Agent Alden said.
“This little piece of shit again?” the Nazi said, jutting his chin toward me. I wished I could’ve taken credit for it.
Agent Alden said nothing. Again, we were stuck standing there staring at each other because nobody could make a move without somebody else popping a cap in them or somebody they cared about.
I’d never been anywhere so quiet. Aside from our breathing, it was like a void. I could even be sure time was still moving.
The ring of a phone was so shrill, so loud, that I flinched, like the sound would cause an avalanche or something.
The blond ATF guy still stood with his hands raised, and when he met my eyes, I knew he wanted to convey something. “I’m going to reach in my jeans pocket and answer that,” he said. “If I don’t update our people, they’ll come to check up on us.”
I nodded once. “Do it slow.”
He pressed the phone to his ear. “Yes? Bad timing. No. No, I understand.” He put the phone back in his pocket and looked at the bearded Nazi. “The rest of our team is withdrawing from the mansion. The authorities have been notified.”
“Do they still have the guns?” the Nazi asked.
“I don’t know, but we need to get out of here. Now. The police are on their way. They’ll be blocking off every road in and out of the area.”
The Nazi shook his head and spat on the ground. “I can’t walk away from this, man. Not after the Aryan blood this little asshole has spilled. I can’t let him leave here alive.”
“Pass the girl to me,” the ATF agent said.
“You know, I think I’ll do her too. Let the kid watch. It’s not like the world needs another mongrel kid that nobody wants. It’s only—”
His face twisted into a grimace, but he didn’t seem able to open his mouth… or move at all. The ATF guy’s eyes darted back and forth, and he muttered, “What the hell is going on here?”
I noticed a familiar scent, something like freshly mown grass, and Blossom stepped into the circle we’d formed and up to my sister. He pinched her chin between his thumb and finger, angled her face up toward his, and looked at her for a long time, oblivious to the rest of us. “It was you. Astounding.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Ros said in a small, scared voice.
“No… well, I’m sure you didn’t do it on purpose. How could you? I can scarcely fathom how you did it at all. You have quite a talent. A gift. Oh! And Charlene is happy to see you again.”
“Hi, Charlene.” All I could see was Blossom’s back, but I imagined my sister reaching up to pet the kitten. “Are you the angel I prayed for?”
Blossom snorted. “Praying does not work.”
“Well you’re here.” Already, the attitude had snuck back into Ros’s tone.
I worried Blossom might get angry, but he threw his head back, laughed, and patted Ros on the head. “You and I are going to have a lovely time together. But first, it seems there’s a small matter to take care of. My lady?” He bowed with a flourish and held out his hand. Ros took it, and Blossom led her away from the big Nazi. “Would you care to do the honors?”
She looked up at him, confused, and he fluttered his free hand around. “Well, never mind. Tell me, Rosalind. Which do you like better, birds or flowers?”
Her face scrunched up in thought before she said “Flowers” with a decisive nod.
“Excellent choice.” He crouched down next to her and draped his long fingers over her shoulder.
A hoarse scream and some spit tore out of the Nazi’s mouth. Little green shoots pushed their way through his T-shirt one by one, until dozens of them grew out of his chest in tight spirals and a pool of blood melted the snow around his feet. He hacked up a glob of something wet and red as the tendrils thickened and sunflowers, poppies, daisies, and a bunch of other shit I couldn’t name bloomed. Something cracked, and a brown vine shot out of his wrist, his hand hanging limp and useless as the vine wound its way up his arm, squeezing, tearing off strips of his leather coat and then strips of skin and meat before it wrapped around his throat.
He fell to his knees, moaning, sobbing, and trying to beg. Everyone else, even Ros, stood quietly watching. His flesh fell off in chunks, and flower petals fell with it. I could see the rungs of his ribs, his exposed guts writhing around. His head shot back, face to the sky, and a thin silvery tree shot out of his mouth. Lacy pink flowers pushed their way through the blood and bits of organs on the branches. A red rose the size of a baseball sprung out of each eye socket, and the Nazi twitched for half a minute before he went still.
Blossom walked over, plucked one of the roses, and tucked it behind Ros’s ear.
I thought I was going to puke. “Fuck,” I said.
He waved me off. “Don’t overreact, Dante. I checked for thorns first.”
“Can we please just get the bloody fuck away from here?” Inky’s voice sounded as close to shattering as the Nazi’s skull.
“What about these others?” Blossom asked.
“They’re not bad men,” Ros said.
Maybe not, but they wanted to throw my ass in jail. Raf too. “Can you just… leave them like this? Keep them from moving until we can get away? We can take the van.”
Blossom scratched Charlene’s head absently. “Of course, though it would be easier to extend the effect if the one who summoned me here releases me.”
“How do I do it?” Ros asked.
He knelt down to her level, looked her in the eye, smiled, and rested a hand on her shoulder. His demeanor was… weird, almost paternal. “You can see, yes? Yes, of course you can. Look closely. Some ropes are binding us together, ropes of light. They’re green and gold, sparkling.”
Ros gasped. “I do see them. They’re pretty.”
“They are.” Blossom nodded. “But you must sever them. Each and every one. Only then will we both be free.”
Ros’s face settled into a determined expression I knew well. “I understand. I wish you could stay and keep me and Dante safe. How do I do it?”
“Pull your magic out of the strands and back into you. When you’ve done that, I’ll be able to extricate my own essence. Without either of us to sustain them, the bonds will grow brittle, and you will be able to break them.”
“I’ll try.” She closed her eyes, and for ten minutes or more, we all stood watching as she scrunched up her face and sweat beaded across her forehead. She panted and her hands curled and uncurled.
Blossom watched closely, his face unreadable.
Finally Ros grunted and staggered
back a step. “That’s… the last of them.”
Blossom rolled his shoulders back and shook out his hair. “Ah. Much better. And Rosalind, I believe you’ll find that you won’t need anyone keeping you safe for much longer.”
“But for now she does,” Inky said. “We all do. Let’s get the hell away from here before something else happens.”
I shoved both guns in my pockets, took Ros’s hand, and we got into the van. I was afraid to relax, afraid to believe this might finally be the end.
But what else could come at us now?
Chapter Thirty-Four
WE DITCHED the van about a mile from the motel and walked the rest of the way. Dante and Ros walked hand in hand, and Charlene rode on Blossom’s shoulder. I couldn’t help but wonder why he was still with us, after he’d had his knickers in such a twist about being stuck here and even conscripted me to help him get loose. Come to think of it, his release meant I was free as well, didn’t it? I had what I’d wanted most since stumbling into this mess, and somehow it didn’t seem that important—nowhere near as important as making sure Dante and Ros were safe and finding out what had happened to Jet and Emrys.
Still, after I saw to that, I intended to gorge myself.
I sat on the bed feeding Charlene bits of beef jerky from the vending machine. A couple of hours after we made it back to the motel, someone knocked on the door. I started to get up, but Dante held up his hand and picked up the gun he’d set on the night table. Then he opened the door a crack without releasing the chain, and after a few moments, his rigid posture relaxed. Jet, Emrys, an older man in tattered military gear, and a dead-gorgeous woman with short hair came into the room. Jet threw their arms around my neck and kissed me before flopping onto the bed. Emrys sat next to Jet, and the woman leaned against the wall. The man who must’ve been Raphael stared at Dante. “Hello, Rosalind.”
