A fierce murmur swam through the remaining crowd of spirits as they flooded onto the fifth floor ahead of Wick and his throng haints. Sierra felt them bristling like a pack of feral dogs. Wick strode across the room, swatting away shadows as they dove around him. “Come to the crossroads, to the crossroads come,” he muttered. “Where the powers converge and become one.” He reached Robbie’s first painted demon, placed one hand against it, and turned to one of the new throng haints. “It is time.”
A throng haint stepped up, momentarily engulfing Wick, and then disappeared. Robbie’s demon writhed to life, snarled, and hurtled out of the wall. It became three-dimensional, a towering monster glistening with fresh paint, long arms stretched out in front of it as it raced back and forth.
“You know what to do,” Wick said.
The demon haint bellowed and then rushed down the stairs and out of sight.
“They’re going for our people,” Robbie whispered.
The throng haint in Manny’s body stepped up to the wall. Sierra almost screamed as the hulking shadow emerged from Manny’s open mouth. His corpse collapsed in a heap and the haint vanished into another of Robbie’s demon paintings, which burst to life. It ducked quickly into the dark recesses of the room and disappeared.
Sierra felt strangely calm, as if her fierce warrior of a grandma was right there beside her. “Robbie,” she said quietly. He looked up. “Lucera has passed on the legacy.” It felt good to say it, felt true. She spoke slowly, feeling out each word as it came. “I’m the new Lucera.” Robbie nodded. His face changed from shocked to slightly smitten. “We can stop this. We have to. You have chalk?”
“Always.” He produced a stick from his jacket, and she took it from him. “But a chalk spirit could never stand up to one of those demon haints, Sierra.”
“Hopefully it won’t have to for very long. I just need a distraction so we can make it to that window.” Sierra nodded to the wall across from them. She’d been thinking it through as the spirits swarmed in: Their mural on the outside of the Tower — the dragon and the elegant, guitar-playing skeleton — reached all the way to the fifth floor. It wasn’t fully done, but hopefully close enough to work. If Robbie could make it to that window and have a few seconds of safety to touch the mural, he could ignite the whole thing with spirit. It was a long shot, but at least they’d have a chance and some backup.
Sierra used the chalk to scribble two women with machetes and long capes. She stood over one, raised her left arm, and touched her right hand to the picture. Nothing happened. The spirits were still all around them, glaring toward Wick and his burgeoning army. “C’mon,” Sierra whispered. A tremble of fear began gathering in her stomach. “C’mon.” She took a deep breath, tried to picture a spirit moving through her, exhaled, and slapped her hand onto the chalk drawing.
She felt it instantly — the sudden rush of coolness flooding through her veins. For a second she thought she might pass out, but then it was gone as quickly as it’d come, and the chalk warrior shivered to life and took off across the floor.
“You did it!” Robbie hissed.
Sierra smiled. She was about to ’shape the other warrior when one of the towering throng haints came slouching toward them.
Sierra steadied herself. That familiar holy terror tore through her blood vessels and wrapped a vise grip around her heart. She refused to scream, although her whole body begged to release the sudden burst of fear.
Her first chalk warrior charged the throng haint and shattered against it. She needed a stronger form for her shadows.
She remembered Wick chanting the poem, her poem: “Where the powers converge and become one …” Become one. Become one. Mama Carmen had passed along the poem to help her understand the legacy. Become one. The spirits formed a whirlpool of shadows around her. They pulsed with the rhythm of her breath. She could taste their rage at Wick’s abominations, distinguish each soul’s flickering memories as they buzzed through the air. Become one.
Sierra was Lucera, a fierce spiritual warrior like her abuela. She was stepping into her destiny. The spirits’ intentions unified with hers. They were righteous, these spirits, and ferocious. They were not about to see their world destroyed at the hands of some old fool like Wick. No. They, Sierra and the spirits, would not be manipulated, dogged, oppressed. Not after so many years of struggle.
Sierra didn’t know which thoughts were hers and which were the spirits’. She knew death was all around, breathing down her neck like some ancient god, like the giant painted throng haint now rushing toward her. She raised her left hand. If there was no vessel for her to transmit spirit into, she would be the vessel.
The demon thundered toward her, only a few feet away. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and placed her right hand to her forehead.
Everything flashed and light flushed out the world, as if the sun had exploded. Sierra’s limbs were barely moving; ancient rivers gushed through her body, an ocean raged inside her heart. She might have been floating. Certainly, her feet were not on solid ground. And this feeling of lightness … Perhaps she didn’t weigh anything at all.
Gradually, things began to resolve around her: There was the large empty room, the demon-painted wall, and Robbie standing nearby, looking shocked. The long-armed haint that had been rushing her was now struggling to get back onto its feet, its long mouth hanging open in surprise. What had happened? Where was Wick? Where were all the spirits? The air around her was empty where hundreds of shadowy souls had frenzied just seconds earlier.
The painted demon rose and lunged toward her again. She swung one arm over her head and brought it down across the haint’s face. She felt the dull resistance of its physical presence, felt her hand cleave easily through it. Watched the thing gasp in surprise, stumble backward, crumble.
She had to remind herself to breathe. Become one. One wasn’t a person: It was a state. One with the spirits. Their purpose, energy, power, ferocity had all unified with her body. She was no longer the conduit; she was the form, the vessel. She, they, had become one.
“WICK!” Sierra’s voice boomed across the building, echoing back and forth amidst the empty light fixtures and dusty piping. Her voice carried the voices of a hundred thousand souls in it; a whole history of resistance and rage moved with her. It felt terrific. She stepped over the crumpled body of the demon she’d just murked. Wick had to be nearby, the little worm. And she would deal with him. She would end this right now.
There was only one demon painting left on the wall. That meant four were roaming free, some in search of Sierra’s family and friends. She growled, an unfathomable rage welling up inside her. What she needed was a little battalion of her own. A few spirits that could handle those demons while she … Of course! Her plan came swimming back to her. She turned to the boy standing by her side. “Robbie.”
He looked at her with wide, worried eyes. “Sierra?”
She reached nonchalantly toward his bruised face and placed her hand on it, allowing tiny flecks of light to seep into his cells and follow along his neural pathways. The black and blue became brown as she watched.
“I’m going to send spirits into the mural and then go after Wick,” Sierra said. “Go with them to my house. Make sure my family is safe. Please.”
He nodded.
“And Robbie? Be careful. Some of those painted throng haints might still be in the building.”
He had a strange expression on his face, something between a smile and grimace. He’d be alright. She smiled at him, vaguely aware that her whole body was glowing with a supernatural flare. “Go,” she said. He smiled back and turned toward the stairwell. “I’ll deal with Wick.”
The night air felt fresh against Sierra’s face. She reached a glowing arm through the window and slapped the wall at the top of the dragon’s head. “C’mon, Manny,” she whispered to the sky. Surely his spirit was one of the many that had come.
She held her hand there, allowing some of the spirits to flow through her into the
paintings, making sure they had enough time to fully engage. The swirling tingle of energy was an incredible feeling, like all the twinkling lights of the city were bursting through her bloodstream. Slowly, the painting came to life: The dragon stretched its long neck as if waking from a thousand-year sleep, blinked a few times in the glare of the streetlight, and then looked directly at Sierra. For a moment, they held each other’s gaze, and then it smiled slightly. In that smile, Sierra saw Manny. His spirit had entered the painting and was taking control.
The guitar-playing skeleton woman stood up beside the dragon. The churning city of her musical notes flurried into the air.
Go, Sierra whispered in her spirit voice. Find the haints. Scatter them, destroy them. Save my family.
The paintings slid off the wall, now full, three-dimensional spirits in the sky, and disappeared into the night.
Sierra turned and looked back into the room. A few shadows still flitted back and forth throughout the building. She shut her eyes and became instantly aware of the many spirits working for her, as their vision was hers. It was like looking at monitors in one of those big security rooms: There was the third floor stairwell. There Bennie crouched behind a crate, panting. There were Juan and Tee, backs flat against a pillar. Where was Nydia? A few crates away from Bennie, grasping her arm in pain.
Robbie rushed down the stairwell to the first floor. He hadn’t met any resistance yet, and Sierra was glad. She had a feeling she was about to have her hands full.
A tinge of panic sent her attention reeling back to the fifth floor just in time to see one of Robbie’s painted giants swing down on her from the rafters. The thing was tremendous, a gangly sprawl of clawed arms and legs, and just the sudden intensity of its presence threw Sierra backward. The demon landed in a crouch and sprang at her, painted claws reaching out.
Sierra almost floated back to her feet. She didn’t remember getting up — she was just up, and furious that she’d been startled. She swung a shimmering left hand, catching the haint across the face, and watched the foul thing sprawl backward.
WICK!
Her spirit voice had an even greater reach than her human one. It thundered out across the Brooklyn skyline, making Manhattan pause and wonder what was going on over there.
Come out!
The painted demon squirmed at her feet like a giant water bug. Sierra could feel that Wick was close, but it irritated her to no end that she could find everyone else in the building except him. Spirits raged and swirled inside her, hungry to find this arrogant human who’d enslaved so many of their own.
Something fluttered from a dark corner of the room — another shadow about to burst to life, surely. Sierra scowled, stepped heavily on the demon at her feet, and strutted toward the movement.
I’m coming for you, Wick.
A panicked strobe simmered across Sierra’s mind. She swung her attention out across the building tops, along narrow alleyways, and finally toward that familiar corner at the edge of her block. One of the painted throng haints stood perfectly still in the middle of the street, glaring with empty eyes toward her house.
Hurry, Robbie! Please …
She slipped back into her own consciousness just in time to see the flickering shadow scatter toward her. Another one was coming at her from behind; she could feel the monstrous vibrations of its attack. They were strong, these two. Wick must’ve been saving his most powerful demons for last. They would crush her between them, tear her to pieces, and leave her body scattered amidst the dusty crates, a macabre blurb in tomorrow’s obituaries.
No. They would not get what they wanted. Sierra sidestepped, and the demon behind her tumbled past. It was larger than she’d counted on, and one of its claws slashed across her face. Blood trickled down her cheek, and a wave of nausea sizzled up and down her body. Poison. The thing’s very touch was a sickness of the soul.
Woozy, Sierra stepped back a few paces as the other throng haint charged her. She caught a quick glimpse of Wick by the far wall, his eyes wide and desperate. Too many things were happening at once. She lashed out with her right hand, focusing all of the raging spirits inside her, and caught the demon haint full across the face as it rose toward her. The force of their collision sent both Sierra and the haint backward. She couldn’t even strike it without some of its foulness seeping into her, draining her life force. Spirits flurried around inside her to rejuvenate whatever damage had been done as she rose and took an uneasy step forward.
With Wick handled, the painted demons would be lifeless again. Simple. She took another step, firmer, and then broke into a run, gathering her swirling spirits as she went.
The last haint rose directly from the floor, a sudden tower of fury glaring down at her, heaving with sharp uneven breaths.
Sierra.
It was that same eerie cacophony of voices she’d heard in Flatbush and on the beach at Coney Island, the same foul stench. Behind the haint, Wick cowered, glaring out at Sierra.
“Don’t you see we want the same thing, Sierra?” he called.
“You killed Manny,” Sierra said, glaring back past the haint’s hulking form. “You destroyed my abuelo’s mind. Scattered the shadowshapers.”
Wick shook his head. “Your abuelo was responsible for the destruction of the shadowshapers. I’m trying to save them. You don’t understand any of this, Sierra. This is not your world.”
“It is my world!” Sierra’s voice reverberated down alleyways and out toward the sea. Each of the myriad swirling spirits inside her spoke the words too. “And you tried to take it from me. Tried to tear my own heritage away.”
Wick raised his eyebrows. “I see your old grandmother passed on her magic.”
Around her, the spirit music began to swell.
Loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo …
The spirits were calling her — a harmonious battle cry. She felt them gathering their strength inside her, felt each passing second crystallize into a map of strategic striking points wrapping around Wick’s body.
Saaaaaayraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh …
They had always been calling her. She’d been too scared to realize it at first, and then too confused. Now she knew. It wasn’t her abuela the spirits were summoning. It was her, Sierra, the new Lucera, heir to the legacy of shadowshapers.
At a signal from Wick, the haint tensed and planted one clawed foot onto the ground to steady itself for a lunge. For Sierra, time slowed. The spiritual power inside of her burned so intensely, she felt that if she simply burst forward, she could plow through the haint and obliterate Wick. Scatter him into some molecular puree across the wall.
But that didn’t seem right. This was time for precision.
The throng haint swung its long, spiny arm toward her.
Sierra pitched forward into its body, hands first.
The thing let out a bellow of surprise, but quickly regained its composure and brought claws down on her back with devastating speed. She felt them — its blows thunderous jolts along her spine — but not enough to slow her down. She kept pushing, her hands enmeshed in the haint’s horrible rubbery flesh, the stench of death and fresh paint suffocating her. Every cell of her body begged to let go, but the battle-hungry spirits inside of her were not about to quit. Neither was she.
Mama Carmen’s poem surfaced in Sierra’s mind. “See my enemies fall,” she whispered. The throng haint bellowed again, this time from pain. Mouths opened and closed all across its painted form. Sierra felt its solidity beginning to give way between her fingers, felt the twisted sorcery that held it together loosen. A stream of some foul liquid trickled down from the thing’s mouth. When its blows weakened, Sierra knew that it wouldn’t be long. She dug her feet in and pressed forward. Wick still stood just behind his haint, staring in horror as his creation came apart before his very eyes.
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO …
She was the shimmering culmination of all her ancestors’ strife, joyfulness, and struggle. She was a radiant child of spir
it. She was a hundred different souls vibrating within a single living body. “My spirit voice calls …” she whispered.
SAAAAAAYYYYYYRRR …
“And the energy surges …” Sierra took a deep breath, steadied herself, and then heaved forward one final time, releasing a tiny, furious fraction of that pent-up spiritual rage. “Like a thousand suns!”
AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
And the throng haint gave way around her, splattered back across Wick and the far wall in a thick coat of nastiness.
Sierra stumbled forward, startled by the sudden emptiness. Several trembling shadows scattered off into the night. She spat at them and turned to Wick. He crouched against the wall, covered head to toe in thick, murky haint ichor.
“It started as fascination,” he stammered. “It was an act of l-love. To spread the knowledge. Knowledge of the tradition. It’s what your grandfather wanted to … to spre —”
“Don’t talk about my grandfather,” Sierra growled.
“Sierra.” He raised a shivering hand. “I just want to — to — to explain …”
“I don’t want your explanations.” Sierra closed her eyes for a second and immediately heard her mother screaming again. She slid her spirit vision along the streets till she found hers, watched in horror as María Santiago and Uncle Neville came tearing out of the brownstone and ran down the dark sidewalk. Two throng haints lurched out the door a second later, galloping after them at full speed.
Then a great wall of swirling colors flooded forward from the far end of the block. Robbie was a tiny dreadlocked general beneath the Technicolor onslaught of painted warriors, the old guitar-playing skeleton and the Manny dragon rearing above him. María and Neville fled toward them, the demon haints only a few feet behind.
With a terrific smashing, the two forces collided, and María and Neville disappeared in the chaos.
Sierra whirled on Wick, her every muscle aching to crush his windpipe.
Shadowshaper Page 20
