by David Estes
My world disappears into a dreamless sleep.
~~~
A heavy sound startles me awake. I try to open my eyes but they feel glued shut. I shift positions, my arms and legs as heavy as elephant limbs. Darkness swarms behind my eyelids and I blink rapidly to clear my blindness. Night is upon us. Nearby, I hear Rhett’s father’s labored breathing, ragged and shallow, his declining condition punctuated by the occasional wheeze and cough. I’m dying, he’d told me.
The noise, I remember, forcing my feet to the floor. “Bil!” I hiss, feeling around in the dark. The floor is empty.
Gone. He’s gone.
“Crap crap crap crap!” I whisper, finally identifying the sound as the slamming of a door. Bil’s fled the coop, and who knows what condition he’s in or what he plans to do. Worst case scenario is that he’s changed his mind about his mother and he wants to avenge her death by killing Rhett. Best case scenario is that he’ll run right to Rhett and tell him everything. I’m planning on telling him everything, too, but my approach might be a little softer than Bil’s. Rhett deserves to know, but the news has to be broken to him the right way, so he doesn’t go running off into the woods screaming, “Rain! I’m coming!”
I clomp through the foyer and race out into the cool night, which is surprisingly well lit by a sparkling blanket of stars and a bright half-mast moon. I immediately spy Bil standing on the sidewalk staring at the sky.
I approach slowly, on tiptoes, so as not to spook him. In the dark, I stub my toe on a rock and curse under my breath.
Bil whirls around, his eyes widening when he sees me, and then takes off, his legs flying as if borne on wings. Yeah, the wings of a cuckoo bird, I think to myself as I take off after him. Martin Carter has very little time left, which means I don’t have time for Bil’s shenanigans. I need to collar him as quickly as possible and get back to Rhett’s dad to find out what other way there is to remove his curse.
Bil Nez plots a steady course along main roads, occasionally making what seem to be random turns. I’m able to keep him in my sights, but can’t seem to gain on him, his strides long and consistent.
After what feels like a mile, my lungs are burning and my strides are shortening. He’s pulling away and I know I’m going to lose him. To add insult, we’ve now made so many turns that I know I’ll be hopelessly lost.
A dark shape materializes from between a couple of houses off to the right, dashing toward the street, its angle on a collision course with…
“Bil!” I shout, pushing what’s left in my lungs out into the night air.
If he hears me, he doesn’t react; if anything, he runs faster, pushing each stride harder and harder until—
The shape smashes into his legs, tripping him up and taking him down. He cries out in pain and surprise, skid-rolling to a stop on the pavement. Adrenaline pumping, I rush forward, drawing my Glock. There’s a dark lump on the road in front of Bil, not moving. Bil is breathing heavily, clutching his knee, which is wet with blood and…wait a minute…is that….mud?
The lump pulls itself to its feet. “Grogg?” I say.
“Master wants us to stop you. Master wants us to take your gun.” He rears an arm back and chucks a clump of mud in my direction, knocking the gun from my surprised hand.
What the hell? “Why would Martin Carter want my gun?” Nothing’s making sense.
“Master is no longer Martin Carter,” Grogg says.
My brain finally catches up to the situation when I hear the scrape of claws on the pavement behind me. Before I can turn, before I can register the nearness of the black, sinewy body, the panther is upon me, tackling me backwards.
When my head cracks off the road, all I see are stars stars stars slowly fading to black black black, deeper than the bottom of the sea.
Chapter Thirteen
Rhett
If this was the first battle, then I don’t want to see the war.
The Claires have arrived, sweeping over the battlefield, which used to be someone’s front lawn, a place where kids played catch with their dad, where birthday guests were greeted upon arrival, where mail carriers and FedEx drivers delivered letters and packages. Now it’s littered with corpses. The bloody, hulking form of a lion is surrounded by the bodies of witch hunters. Most of them lie still, but a few writhe and groan in agony. The Claires identify the injured and swiftly move in to tend to them. They leave the dead for the Necros, who pick through the carrion with practiced efficiency, carrying the raw materials they require for their dark magic to a central location.
I stand at the front door, wondering when the nightmare will end.
“You did well,” Mr. Jackson says, stepping around the dead lion that could almost be sleeping on the front steps.
“I was taught by the best,” I say sardonically. I’m really not in the mood for false compliments and words of wisdom.
Mr. Jackson stands beside me, looking out into the gathering dusk. “We lost twelve Necros,” he says.
I frown, throwing him a sideways looks. He doesn’t turn, just keeps scanning the area. When I look back to the front lawn, I’m surprised because I finally see them. Forms shrouded by thick black-hooded cloaks lie amongst the dead witch hunters and Reanimates. Strange I didn’t notice them before. I guess sometimes you only see what you want to see, and I wanted to believe that the humans took the brunt of the casualties; that, by sustaining more deaths than the magic-born, we’d somehow proven the wrongness of the magic-born’s very existence on this planet.
And I’m the one who’s supposed to be the poster child for peace between us.
What a hypocrite I am, even still. After all the good I’ve seen the magic-born do, am I still so intolerant as to believe we’d be better off without any of them?
Yes. The answer is yes.
But when Mr. Jackson’s gaze finally twists back to meet mine, all I see is an aging man who’s got Xave’s serious brown eyes and thick lips, a man who saved my life in so many ways, a man who’s done all the wrong things for all the right reasons. I see someone who’s as human as they come. (Well, at least if you ignore the whole Reanimating the dead thing.)
I can change the way I think. I can. And if someone as pigheaded as me can do it, then so can the rest of the humans—or at least most of them. Maybe peace between us isn’t possible, but maybe it is. I’m damn well not going to give up hope now, not after everything we’ve been through to make it this far.
“Did you search the house?” Mr. Jackson says, snapping my attention back to the bloody situation we find ourselves in.
I search his eyes for the humanness I saw a moment ago, but find only dark pits of violence.
“No,” I say. “Well, not the top floor anyway. I killed two Mediums and everything went quiet so I came outside to check on everyone.”
“The Shifters have allied themselves with the Mediums. What we need to know is which other witch gangs have joined them. Follow me,” he says, brushing past my shoulder.
Despite the waning daylight, it’s already brighter inside than it was when I first entered the house. It’s like the spirits of the dead were summoned from a black hole, dragging a portion of it with them, and now they, and their darkness, have returned to wherever they belong. Good freaking riddance. If I never see another poltergeist again, I’ll die a happy man.
Mr. Jackson picks his way through the debris caused by the vengeful spirits. Lamps are toppled over, their shattered bulbs scattered across the floor. Furniture is overturned, cracked and splintered. Knick-knacks and keepsakes are strewn haphazardly under our feet. Framed photos of a smiling, happy family and their golden retriever are cracked and hanging crookedly, if they’re still hanging at all.
Mr. Jackson picks one photo up and stares at it speculatively. “The most violent poltergeists are those that have the strongest emotional connection with the place they’re haunting,” he says, as if reciting from The Guide to All Things Paranormal.
I vaguely remember him telling me something simi
lar when he taught me about Mediums. “So you’re saying the ghosts were this family?”
“Probably,” he says, which, of course, means all the happy, smiling people in the photo are dead. “And others who occupied this house before them. They were only trying to protect it from outsiders.”
Almost reverently, he props the frame against the wall, and moves further inside. In the living room he hmms at the dead Medium with the roly-poly eyes; as we traipse through the kitchen he stops briefly to mmm at the Medium with the tongue-ears and teeth-face, whose head is now separated from her body, already gathering dust on the linoleum floor.
He opens the door to the basement with a creak.
The first thing that hits me is the stench. Death and decay. Rotten flesh and spilt blood. I turn away and press my palm to the wall, steadying myself and my traitorous stomach. I don’t vomit, which seems impossible. The impossible is made possible by experience, and I’ve experienced enough violence and death to build an iron fortress around myself.
But that doesn’t mean I want to go down there.
Mr. Jackson, on the other hand, tromps down the steps as if he’s just heading below to change a light bulb or reset a circuit breaker. When he stomps back up a few minutes later, his face is grim, even for him.
He shakes his head at the question in my eyes. None of the kids we heard screaming survived. “Are you going to…?” The question falls from my lips like a drop of blood from a bitten tongue. Are you going to Reanimate them?
He shakes his head again, and I let out a sigh of relief. Even though they’re already dead, even though nothing I can do will save them, for some reason the thought of them walking again, snarling at our enemies with bloodthirsty mouths and deadly eyes, is too much for me to bear right now. “We’re not heartless, you know,” Mr. Jackson says, most likely because he sees the relief on my face.
I stare at him, wondering how this man always seems to know me so well when I don’t know him at all. From years of secretly watching me, I guess. “I know,” I say, meaning it. “But you’ve made it hard for me to realize that,” I add.
Despite the atrocities we’ve witnessed today, the Reaper laughs. “I can’t argue with that.”
“Why’d you do it?” I ask, my mind churning up bitter memories of when this all started. “You could’ve left my foster sister—Jasmine—out of it. You didn’t have to take her body all those months ago.”
“We were desperate for bodies,” the Reaper explains. “Especially the young ones that could be Reanimated quickly, and I never thought you’d see her.”
“That’s a crap answer,” I say.
“Yet it’s the truth,” he says.
I won’t ask about Beth, because I already know that was all Xave. He wanted to perfect her. Instead he ruined her forever.
“And my mother?” I ask, anger creeping into my voice. “You brought her in like a caged animal. She was naked. She was vicious. She looked like a monster. How did you think that would help?”
He looks away, saying nothing.
“Tell me,” I say between clamped teeth. “Make me understand.”
“I can’t,” he says. “You’ll never understand unless you feel what Necros’ feel.”
“What? You thought seeing my mother like—like—that—would make me appreciate your magic?” I scoff, a knife of incredulity and mocking stabbing at him with each word.
“I regret it,” he says. “I wanted to shock you into despair, so you would give up and remain pliable until the end of the war.”
“You wanted to keep me locked up?”
“Yes,” he says. “For your own safety. I made a promise to your father and I was willing to do anything to keep it.”
Leaving me feeling unsatisfied, he moves back into the living area and toward the staircase, the tails of his cloak trailing behind him.
The basement door beckons me, creaking slightly, wavering in a deft breeze that slithers through the house. Waving me over. Come, it says. Come bear witness to my secrets. Come join in my pain.
I won’t bear witness, because I already feel its pain. The children who spent their final hours in this godforsaken basement never had a chance. I feel awful and full of regret. Regret that I didn’t appreciate my own childhood as much as I should have. Growing up, I always felt angry and alone, crying myself to sleep at night because of the unfairness of life, because I didn’t have a father or a mother, because I was destined to be cast aside like the dirty laundry. Now I realize how spoiled I’ve been. The children of this age had but a slice of childhood, cut way too short by a violent world where they’ve known only fear, pain, and ultimately, almost as a relief, death.
The broken generation.
After a moment’s pause for a deep breath, I reluctantly follow Mr. Jackson. As he starts up the stairs, I ask, “If you were so close with my father, why didn’t he ever find you and tell you he was still alive?”
Mr. Jackson stops midway to the second floor. He doesn’t look back. “I was always close to you,” he says. “He had to stay away from both of us to survive.”
He raises a foot to climb the next step, but stops when I say, “He could’ve sent a letter. Hell, we don’t live in the Stone Ages—he could’ve sent a freaking e-mail.”
Mr. Jackson says nothing, just continues his ascent.
Anger swirls inside me and I can’t even figure out who I’m angry at. Mr. Jackson, for his lies and half-truths and cryptic non-answers? My father, for never trying to get word to Mr. Jackson or me that he was still alive, leaving me believing I’d been abandoned from the beginning? Or am I just angry at myself for not being able to forgive and forget and move on?
In usual Rhett-fashion, I pretend my anger doesn’t exist so I don’t have to deal with it, and climb the steps.
I find Mr. Jackson in one of the bedrooms. He’s standing in the doorway not moving. Not speaking.
My height allows me to see over his shoulder, my muscles immediately tensing at the sight.
An old woman—no, not old, ancient—her skin so wrinkly it’s like a piece of paper that’s been balled up and unfolded a million times, sits in a rocking chair. In her brown-spotted hands she holds a pair of knitting needles. A pink spool of yarn rests in her lap. Her fingers work the needles slowly but deliberately, each stitch bringing her closer to making what appears to be a child’s winter hat.
Instinctively I know she’s a Medium, and yet her eyes aren’t rolling into her head and her nostrils are free of licking tongues. Not a single ghost or ghoul haunts the room.
“Winter will be here soon,” she says absently, her eyes never leaving the knitting needles, which continue to click and clack against each other. “The children will need warm hats.”
“The children are dead,” Mr. Jackson says coldly.
“Yes,” the Medium says. “I sensed it when they passed. But not every child is dead. The ones left will need what I can offer.”
“Why did you stop the haunting when your sisters died?” Mr. Jackson asks.
She finally raises her chin, and her swollen, cataract-peppered eyes make me want to look away. “I never started the haunting,” she says. “I was too old to fight back, and anyway, what would be the point? They’d only kill me and then none of the children would have warm heads.”
“You frustrate me, woman,” the Reaper says, his sword shrieking out of its scabbard as he strides forward. The tip is at her throat a second later and I find myself holding my breath. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the pent-up violence stored inside my old mentor. “The truth: Who else is allied with the Shifters? Choose your words carefully.”
“I know nothing,” she says.
I see Mr. Jackson’s grip tighten on his sword in preparation, but I’m already moving forward, grabbing his arm, shouting, “No!”
He whirls on me, his expression devoid of compassion, devoid of humanity. “You would spare her?” he says, and I can almost see the faces of his dead Necros reflected in his eyes.
/> I take a deep breath. If I’m to truly become tolerant of the magic-born, to truly seek peace between them and humankind, at some point I have to take the first step. Maybe this is that time. Maybe this is that step.
I nod. “If she’s telling the truth, she’s not the enemy any more than you or I are,” I say.
“She’s dangerous,” he says, his eyes flicking to my hand on his arm, as if considering how to most easily dislodge it.
“She’s an old woman,” I say.
“Technically, you’re both right,” the woman interjects unhelpfully. “I’m older than dirt but that only makes me all the more dangerous. The older the Medium, the older the spirits she can conjure. And everyone knows old spirits are the grumpiest.”
Mr. Jackson’s eyes meet mine, and I see his resolve fade. His grip slackens. It wasn’t me that convinced him not to kill her. She did that with her honesty.
“Your sisters and their allies killed twelve of my people,” he says.
“I’m sorry for that,” she says, returning to her knitting. “But they weren’t my sisters or my allies. Well, one was a first cousin but the other wasn’t even distantly related. She was from Kentucky, or ’Tucky as she liked to say. She wasn’t a big fan of humans, as you might’ve already guessed. Something about them bullying her as a kid, or some such nonsense. I tried to tell her that magic-born are just as cruel as humans, but that didn’t deter her anger. That lady was a troubled soul if I ever saw one. We can only hope that no Medium ever tries to bring her spirit back—God help us all!”
I’m fighting off laughter, and I can tell Mr. Jackson is too. Either this old woman is a damn good actress or she was really being forced into helping the Shifters. “Will you help us?” I ask.
She eyes me with interest, and I force myself to hold her stare. “My name’s Mags. You seem like a good boy,” she says. “You’re a Resistor, aren’t you? Rhett Carter, right?”
My eyebrows go up. “Yes. I am.”
She nods. “The other Resistor, the girl, is confused.”
