by David Estes
Laney’s too worried about the president’s view of her sister to realize the truth that’s about to be revealed. “She’s not a threat,” Laney says.
“Laney,” I say, but she doesn’t seem to register my voice.
“She’s just confused, trying to figure out who she is.”
“Laney,” I say again.
“She’s like your witch allies. She can help us.” Laney is pleading now, and I reach forward to grab her arm.
“Laney,” I say. She finally acknowledges me. “You won’t be able to reason with President Washington.”
Her frown stretches from chin to forehead, from cheek to cheek, and everything in between, every muscle in her face working in tandem. “Why not?” she asks.
“Because President Washington is a witch,” I say.
~~~
Laney is slumped in a red two-seater, with me beside her. Samsa fitted her with matching chains, and she didn’t even try to fight back, such was her shock at my revelation.
I sense that much more is about to be revealed, and we’re not going to like much of it.
The president sits across from us, a smug smile on her face. Grogg came in a moment earlier and served each of us hot tea, leaving the cups in front of us, their handles smeared with mud. Yum. He now stands in the corner, his mud-ball eyes rolling around and seeming to take everything in. Who’s behind the eyes? I wonder. Someone who would warn me about the president. Someone whom I wasn’t willing to listen to until it was too late.
“They tried to hide you from us for a long time, and then you showed up right on my doorstep,” President Washington says, smoothing out her skirt. As if we’re only here for a nice little tea party, she daintily plucks a teacup from the table and takes a small sip, closing her eyes. “Ahh. It’s good, even if you have to get a little dirty in the process.” She wipes a fleck of mud on a napkin. “Have some.”
“Oldest trick in the book,” I say. “Give me your cup and you can have mine.”
Next to me, Laney is silent, staring straight ahead as if in a fog.
“Tsk tsk,” the witch president clucks. “As if I would poison you when I could kill you in so many other creative ways.”
“Then why don’t you?” I say. It’s not that I want her to kill me, but I am curious why she hid her true self from me in the beginning. When we last met in this room, it would’ve been so easy for her to finish me then.
“Slight problem,” she says. “I need Laney’s help to get to her sister, and I can tell she’s the loyal type—even if I torture her she won’t help me.” Laney stares straight head, not even reacting to her name. “So I’ll need to torture you until she helps me.”
Laney’s head finally snaps to the side, her eyes boring into the witch’s. “Touch him and I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”
“A lovely thought, but that won’t be possible,” Washington says. “And you will help me. Once your friend starts screaming, you’ll jump to help me.”
“Rhett,” Laney says to me. “I’m sorry.”
“No,” I say. “There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
“I trusted her so blindly.”
“We were both blind,” I say.
“So touching,” the witch says, yawning. “And boring.”
I tear my gaze from Laney to once more face my enemy. “Torture me all you want, but neither Laney nor I will help you.”
“Rhett,” Laney says.
“No,” I say. “You won’t. She’s your sister. I can take it.”
“I know you can,” she says, and I think it’s the biggest compliment she’s ever given me. “But I don’t know if I can.”
The president cuts in again. “I have a feeling none of that will matter, because you’re both going to help me. You see, there’s still the matter of an itsy, bitsy, little curse.”
“What curse?” I ask, my chains clinking as I straighten up. But I know. Even as her lips curl into a smile that I want to tear from her face—I know. “My father?” I say.
“After I’d killed your mother, the filthy traitorous bitch”—I strain against the chains but they hold me tight—“I realized I needed a much worse punishment for any others who stood in my way.” She finishes her tea and starts on mine, licking her lips. Not poison, after all.
“So once I’d removed your father from his seat on the Council and secured a much more interesting replacement”—her eyes flick to Samsa, who smiles wickedly—“I cut out your father’s tongue. I still have it in a jar somewhere, would you like to see it?”
The chains are bruising my arms and legs and I try to relax, not letting her goad my already short temper to the surface. Anger is only helpful if controlled. “Maybe another time,” I say. “So you took his power of speech and then you cursed him.”
“Not in that order, but yes,” she says. “From what I hear, you’ve already met him.”
“We have,” I say.
“Ooh, that hurts. Being so close to you literally would’ve sucked years off of his life.”
“I didn’t know,” I say. “I won’t be seeing him again.” Keeping my face straight, I try to hide the pang of anger and hurt that hits me in the chest like a sledgehammer.
“What if you could?” the president says, her eyes narrowing slyly. “What if the curse could be lifted?”
I feel as if she’s dangling a worm in front of me…and I’m the fish. And yet, I have to rise to the bait. “You mean it’s not permanent?”
“Nothing is permanent,” the witch says, drinking the second teacup and picking up Laney’s, sniffing at it.
“Rhett,” Laney says, a warning.
“You could remove the curse,” I say.
“I can. Only the witch who cast the curse can lift it. And that witch is me.”
“Rhett,” Laney says again. “She’s messing with you. Even if she can remove the curse she’ll never do it.”
I know Laney’s right, but what if I had something she needed. What if I could dangle my own piece of bait. “We’ll help you get Laney’s sister, and I’ll fight for you.”
“No!” Laney says. “Rhett, no! She’s tricking you. She’s controlling you.”
I can’t look at Laney, because I’m worried that if I see her expression, her disappointment, that I’ll give away my lie. “Do we have a deal?” I say, not blinking.
President Washington raises both eyebrows, her eyes dancing from me to Laney and then back to me. “Yes,” she says.
In a single gulp, she drains the third and final teacup.
~~~
Being manhandled by Samsa is even less fun than it sounds. Pushing us roughly from behind, we’re forced to traipse across the White House lawn to a doorway hidden under a removable flap of turf. From there, he shoves us down the steps, our chains clinking. With a firm boot to the back, we’re thrown into an empty cell. The red magged-up bars spring into place almost immediately, with nothing more than a muttered incantation by the giant. Samsa laughs a deep-throated laugh and wishes us a good night.
Chapter Forty-Three
Laney
“This is horse manure,” I say, from the other side of the cell. Bright red magical bars cast a fiery reflection on the floor between us, making the distance look even more un-crossable. At least they didn’t separate us.
“Laney, I—”
“I’m not finished,” I say, cutting him off. “I know my sister’s a witch, and that you probably don’t trust her, but I didn’t think you’d give her up like that.”
“Let me exp—”
“And I get that you want to be able to see your father, but do you really think that witch will remove the curse? Hellllll no. Hell no.” I take a deep breath, fighting off the urge to punch the stone wall. No sense in breaking my own hand.
“Finished?” Rhett asks.
I want to say no and launch into another tirade, but I know I should listen. Rhett and I have come a long way together, and even if I don’t agree with his actions, I should give him a chance. I
nod once.
“First, I’m sorry for surprising you like that, there really wasn’t time to discuss my plan with you.” Does he have to sound so damn politically correct all the time? I bite my tongue and keep listening. “Second, I’m not going to give that evil witch anything she doesn’t already have.” Now I’m really listening, leaning forward.
“Explain,” I say.
“Your sister and the Changelings are already coming right to New Washington, without us doing anything to draw them in. I mean, they attacked the border and then ran off. Clearly they were testing the defenses and sending her a message by putting Trish’s face on everyone. Your sister and the president must have a past. She’s got President Washington scared enough to enlist our help.”
It makes sense, but… “They can’t have a past,” I say. “She was just a kid before, growing up in what seemed like a normal house, in what seemed like a normal family. There’s no way she could’ve ever met the president.”
“Hmm,” Rhett says. “Then either we’re missing something or President Washington is simply afraid of the power Trish wields. That would make sense, too.”
“Maybe,” I say. “You also said you’d fight for her. Was that bullcrap, too?”
“No,” Rhett says. “But I might not only fight for her.” His grin is orange under the glow of the bars. “I might fight for both sides or all three sides, or however many there are.”
“Now you sound like the Necros,” I point out. “Kill everyone to save everyone.”
“Maybe Xave and the Reaper weren’t so far off the mark. They were fighting against New America, after all, and New America is being controlled by a witch in human clothing. If there’s a huge battle, there’s nothing to stop me from fighting against any witches who seem to be trying to kill humans.”
“Use your Resistor powers, you mean?” I say, seeing his point. Being cooped up in a cell or getting tortured certainly won’t do us any good. “Okay. How can I help?”
“You’ve got to pretend, too. When Trish comes—and I believe she will come—you’ve got to try to lure her in, act as if you’re helping New America, cooperating. But then, when President Washington least expects it…”
“We take her out,” I finish.
“But alive,” Rhett says. “We need her alive so she can remove my father’s curse.”
“Right,” Laney says. “We bind her, make her drink a hundred cups of muddy tea, force her to bend to our will, and then we take her out.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Rhett says.
~~~
When we get tired of scheming and I’m bored with counting the stones in the cell, and it feels like night has surely fallen, I finally forgive Rhett for scaring me and crabwalk over to him. If he’s surprised, he doesn’t show it, lifting a strong arm so I can curl up close to him. Although I still get the thrill of the newness of our closeness—the racing heart, the tingles on my skin—it feels so comfortable that it could be the thousandth time we’ve done this, rather than the second.
“I know you think I’m a tough girl,” I say, “but you may want to reconsider the whole hanging out in a prison cell thing. This is two dates now.”
Rhett rests his chin on my head. “The first one didn’t count,” he says. “We weren’t even together then. We were in different cells.”
Pulling his arms tighter around me, I say, “You’re right. This is much better.”
Feeling warm and protected, I allow myself to drift away into sleep.
Something prowls the night, hungry and violent, desiring power and flesh and blood. It’s been behind me for hours, seeming to feed off my strength, growing stronger and faster as I grow weaker. My feet want to stop, but I push on, running for my very life.
When I have nothing left and my legs turn to rubber, I stumble and collapse, rolling over to face my attacker.
It glides forward on silent feet, moving into the moonlight.
No—it can’t be. It can’t.
She’s so small and wearing all white, her blond hair adorned with flowers and leaves. Her blue eyes seem to sparkle in the starlight, an ethereal shimmering fountain.
“Trish?” I say.
I do not come for you, she says, and I realize her voice is only in my head, as if I’m wearing ear buds and she’s speaking through an iPod. I come for the witch.
The footsteps are heavy behind me and I turn, trying to push to my feet but finding no strength to support me. President Washington approaches, flanked by the giant, Samsa, and the thin, tall wizard, Charles Gordon.
An eye for an eye, Trish says, and at first I begin to object, but then I see the expression on the president’s face. Trish is speaking in all of our heads at once.
“You will always die,” the president says in response. She raises a hand…
And Trish opens her mouth and begins to scream.
~~~
I wake up trembling and panting although I’m not cold or short of breath.
Rhett startles from his own sleep and his arms surround me, hugging me from behind. “You’re okay,” he says. “I’m here.”
“A dream,” I breathe.
“Seems like it was more of a nightmare.” One of his hands strokes my hair, so gentle for such a big guy who used to play football and now hunts witches. It feels wonderful and I almost feel guilty. Beth had to die so he could stroke my hair. The thought makes me shiver even more.
“It was,” I say. “Trish was there. And the president. They were going to kill each other.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Rhett says.
“It might.”
Both of Rhett’s arms drop to my waist and he spins me around onto his lap, drawing me exquisitely close, his lips pressing against mine and drinking the breath from me. I take it right back, my hands hungry on his shoulders and chest, and finally settling on his neck, where I force him closer still.
The seconds turn to minutes and the minutes to longer, as we share a memory not even the witch-president can steal away from us. The moment might last forever if not for the hair-raising voice that screeches suddenly through the silence.
“Soo sweeeet. Soo lovelyyy!”
Our lips rip apart and we untangle ourselves, scrambling to our feet and backing away from the bars, from where the voice came. The voice is horridly familiar, and the dark shape that races across the open space is an evil I hoped I’d never lay eyes on again.
“Show yourself, Flora!” Rhett demands.
The laugh that follows sounds like two cats fighting, filled with violence and annoyance. “Yow have never had the right to tell me what to do,” the leader of the Shifters says, slinking into view.
The panther-like black cat stalks past the bars, her tail switching from side to side like a whip. There’s nothing of the human-featured witch from which she shapeshifted. Other than the ability to speak, she’s all animal, which might actually be an improvement on her previous self.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she says. “Yow were having such fun.”
The thought of the Shifter hungrily watching us kiss makes me slightly nauseous. “So you’re working for President Washington now?” Rhett says. “Which side are you on, Flora? Seems to change by the day.”
“No side,” Flora says. “My side. Whoever pays the bestest. Whoever provides the most human fleshhh.”
Now I wish Rhett wouldn’t have asked. I have to swallow heavily to fight back the bile. How many of the citizens of New America have gone missing, supposedly “killed” by magic-born while on duty at the border or out scavenging? How many were bound and taken to Flora to be her playthings? My hatred for President Washington grows with each passing second.
“Lovely,” I say, trying to steer the conversation into something that might be useful. “So the president is a Shifter, too?” I know the answer is no, but I’m willing to act like an idiot to get some answers.
More maniacal laughter from Flora. Her claws come out and she sharpens them on the glowing red bars, which spit spar
ks into the cell. “Stupid girl,” she says, coughing. Dropping to all fours again, she coughs and chokes, coughs and chokes, until a thick, slimy ball of fur vomits from her mouth. “Hate that part,” she mutters. “Guess there’s no harm in yow knowing what yow’re up against, considering yow’ll be dead soooon. The president is a General.”
I look at Rhett, who knows most everything there is to know about the various witch gangs. His face is blank. Apparently Mr. Jackson’s school of witch hunting skipped the chapter on Generals.
“What’s a General?” Rhett asks.
“Yow don’t know?” Flora’s voice is incredulous. “I thought yow would, considering yowr father is one.”
“My father?” Rhett says, unable to hide his astonishment. We’ve wondered what his magical specialization was, but resigned ourselves to the fact that we may never know.
“Yesss. Generals are able to practice every kind of magic. Proficient in everything—expert in nothing. They are very rare.”
Interesting. Rhett seems to be thinking the same thing, his hand raised to rub his scruffy chin. “So my father and the president are in the same gang?” Rhett asks.
Another high-pitched screeching laugh. “The same gang? They hate each other. Generals are loners by definition.”
Surprisingly, the panther is a wealth of information, and Rhett seems determined to take advantage. “Why didn’t President Washington kill me earlier?” he asks. “Before I knew what I was. Before Salem’s Return began.”
“Stupid boy and stupid girl are meant for each other,” Flora screeches drily. She reaches a clawed paw through the bars, trying to squirm inside our cell. My body tenses as it appears she might be able to get through, but then the width of her panther-hips stops her. “Just want a quick taste and then I’ll leave,” she says, determination on her face as she continues to wriggle.
