by David Estes
We are human.
And we will survive, even amongst odds that stack themselves higher and higher against us. Or, as Chloe so honestly and bravely declared, we will die trying.
Chapter Thirty-One
Rhett
My respect for Cameron Hardy goes from ‘Nonexistent’ to a shoulder-shrugging ‘Eh’ when he doesn’t blink.
Although the pinprick of pain is clear in his eyes, the guy must have ice water in his veins, because he responds to the threat against his daughter—I’m still shocked he has a family at all—with an almost robotic precision, firing off orders like a sharpshooter’s bullets at clay disks.
“Seal off the entrances. No one shoots or makes a move on the police station without my orders. Get the rest of the crowd back, we will not make a spectacle of this. And for god’s sake, don’t let any of the magic-born anywhere near us.”
“They could help you with this, you know,” I say.
“We don’t need their kind of help,” Cameron retorts, and my respect for him goes back down a notch.
“Suit yourself,” I say. I’m about to walk away, to leave him to deal with the situation himself, when I see a woman approach, her cheeks tear-stained, her legs seeming to sag under the weight of her obviously pregnant belly. She practically collapses into Cameron’s arms, hanging from his neck.
This woman is his significant other, I realize, maybe even his wife. “My baby,” she wails, and I know she doesn’t mean the unborn one in her stomach. “My fault. I took my eyes off her for two seconds and then she was gone.”
“It will be okay,” Cameron says soothingly, rubbing her back. “We’ll work this out.” Despite the natural confidence his words always seem to carry, I can see the doubt in his eyes as they meet mine over her shoulder. He knows as well as I do that the Jones—both Arnold and Lindy—are too unpredictably dangerous, and by Cameron’s own definition, bat-crazy, to guarantee any sort of a peaceful outcome.
And though this is one of those situations that both Mr. Jackson and Laney would likely counsel me to walk away from, I can’t. It’s just not in me to walk away. Not when I can do something. “Let me help,” I say.
I can see him start to shake his head, too stubborn to accept help from someone who consorts with filthy magic-born, but then he stops and seems to mutter a curse under his breath. He nods, almost imperceptibly.
This is the point where I know I should make some sort of a deal—my help saving his daughter in exchange for maintaining the Alliance. It’s what a politician like Cameron Hardy would do. But I’m no politician and I have no desire to do anything that Cameron would do, especially not bartering over the life of a child. So I push the thought away and stride toward the police station, leaving Hardy to console his distraught wife.
“Let him through!” Cameron calls, which saves me from having to barge through the bulky guards who step in front of my path. As it is, they move out of my way at the last possible moment, like cats caught in the headlights of an approaching vehicle.
One of them, a guy who somehow manages to look uglier when he smiles than when he doesn’t, waves me inside the station. “Don’t get yourself killed,” he sneers, although his tone makes it sound as if he hopes that’s exactly what happens.
“Save her,” a voice pleads as I step inside. I turn back to find Cameron’s wife staring at me, her hands clasped together as if in prayer. “She’s all we’ve got.”
There’s no such thing as a kept promise these days, and I refuse to lie, so the best I can do is offer a nod of compassion and turn away to face the flickering murk. Lanterns are set up on a counter, casting inadequate orange light in a space that was once harshly lit by the dead fluorescent lights that still hover overhead, grimy with dust and age.
I make my way down the poorly lit halls, reading placards still fixed to the walls next to each door. There are interrogation rooms and visitation rooms and debriefing rooms and, finally, Stairs to Lock-Up. The moment I open the door, someone shouts, “I said visitation hours are OVER!” It’s Arnold Jones’s voice, and it’s followed by his wife’s hacking laugh. A girl whimpers, sending heat swarming in my head, which suddenly feels hot, as if with fever.
Although I’ve clearly never participated in a hostage negotiation before, either pre- or post-witch apocalypse, I know enough to say, “All we care about is the girl’s safety. You two can leave, unharmed, as long as you don’t take her with you.”
Lindy laughs again. “Arnie, I think it’s that Carter kid who screwed us over. How about that?”
“Arnie” echoes her amusement with a chuckle of his own. “I think you’re right. I think things are looking up for us.” Their words are filled with undisguised sarcasm. If these two were a candy, they would definitely be Goobers.
“You want me?” I say. “You’ve got me. Send the kid out and I’ll be your hostage.” The idea sounded better in my head, but now that I’ve offered, I can’t take it back.
“Pass,” Lindy says. “Cameron Hardy don’t give two craps about you. He’ll mow the three of us down like ’coons in the yard if we don’t have his daughter. Ain’t that right, sweetie?” A choked sob rises up the stairwell.
“I’m coming down,” I say, starting down. “My hands are empty.” It’s the truth, although I’ve got enough weaponry hanging from my belt to take out an entire magic-born gang.
“Stay back,” Arnold says, and I detect a hint of fear in his voice, which rises sharply. “Don’t push us. I’ll shoot her in the head if I have to.”
“You won’t,” I say, praying I’m right and he’s bluffing. “Then you won’t have any leverage. You’ll be killed immediately, if not by me then by the dozens of pissed off people outside.”
As I round the bend in the stairs, I freeze. Arnold and Lindy are ducking in the doorway at the bottom, using a tiny girl as a human shield. Her face is snotty and wet and she clutches a raggedy teddy bear tight to her chest, hugging herself. Arnold’s gun is jammed into the back of the girl’s head, and given the way his hand is shaking, I fear he might accidentally pull the trigger.
Instead, he raises it and points it at me. “You’re right,” he says. “We can’t kill her—at least, not yet. But I can kill you.”
There’s a moment just before he pulls the trigger where his mouth opens slightly and his eyes widen and the deranged fury in his face seems to bulge outward, as if he’s playing host to an alien parasite silently infecting the entirety of the human race. And in that moment, I notice the one crucial mistake that he’s made, my eyes zeroing in on the minute detail like a sniper on a target.
The trigger is purple.
Even as he squeezes the trigger, I throw my mind outwards, Resisting the magged up bullet before it even leaves the barrel, thrusting it backwards into the firing mechanism. There’s a flash of fiery light and Arnold’s hand snaps back, the smoking gun sailing end over end and smashing into Lindy’s face. And as Arnold howls, clutching his hand, the bones of which are surely shattered, Lindy falls back, blood leaking from her nose and over her wide-open lips. And the girl, who likely has more brains than either of her two captors, dashes forward, scampering up the steps where I usher her past me to safety.
Though I’ve failed to save humans—including children—so many times before, this time I succeed, and I can’t help the swell of pride that fills me from top to bottom. I descend the steps with forced slowness, drawing out the moment of victory. As I approach the damaged duo, I draw my sword. “Get back in the cell,” I say. “Both of you.”
“You filthy witch-lover,” Lindy spits out, dabbing at her bloody face with her fingers. “You deserve to die, just like the rest of them.”
“Lindy,” Arnold says gruffly, “shut yer mouth or I’ll shut it fer you.” He grabs her arm and pulls her toward the open jail cell behind them. At least one of them realizes what I’m able to do with this sword. She doesn’t listen, clawing at his arms and trying to fight him off to get to me. I almost wish she’d manage it, but somehow her
husband is able to drag her into the cell, throwing her to the floor. Without being asked, he pulls the door shut with a heavy clang, the lock clicking into place.
Although I may be rather foolish sometimes, I’m no fool. “The keys,” I say.
“Come and get ’em,” Lindy growls from the floor.
Arnold, however, doesn’t seem to concur with his wife’s idea, as he extracts a ring of keys from his pocket and chucks them through the bars, in a move I suspect he may regret later on. The tip of my sword may turn out to be a better option than his wife. As if to prove my suspicion, Lindy howls and throws herself at her husband, clawing at his eyes. As he tries to hold her off, she bites his arm like a rabid beast. Blood soaking her lips and tongue, she screams, “You idiot! You weak, pathetic moron! I’ll kill you for that! I’ll kill you!”
I snatch the keys from the floor and turn away, leaving the lovebirds to settle their differences in the same manner typically used by the unwitting stars of the reality TV shows that no longer exist.
Arnold’s plea seems to fall on deaf ears, echoing behind me amidst screams and shouts that sound more animal than human. Their punishment is each other, for as long as it lasts.
~~~
Hardy’s daughter is in the loving embrace of her parents when I exit the police station. Dusk’s shadowy arms have fallen, surrounding everything as if to join in the reunion. Although I didn’t exactly expect cheers and shouts of adoration and the desire to marry me and have my babies, I also didn’t expect the stunned silence I arrive to. Not even a jeer or a taunt or a whispered “witch-lover” greet me as I approach the happy, reunited family.
Just silence. It takes me a moment to realize what it is that’s written all over the blank faces of the largest group of humans I’ve seen since Salem’s Revenge wiped out the majority of the population. Confusion. Uncertainty. In what? The decision to leave? The desire to hate me for not hating the magic-born?
Cameron releases his daughter from his embrace, and stands to meet me. “Thank you,” he says quickly, as if the words are so painful to say that he can’t bear to linger on them. “The Jones?”
“They’re not your problem anymore,” I say. “At least not if you’re still planning to leave.”
I’m surprised when he smiles, although I’m not sure what it means. “This doesn’t change anything, you know,” he says, looking almost amused.
“No?” I say.
“No. But thank you,” he says again, this time more slowly, meaningfully.
“I didn’t do it for you. I did it because it was the right thing.”
“Which is exactly why we’re leaving,” he says. “Because it’s the right thing.” The sincerity in his voice surprises me, because it’s the first time I’ve heard it, as if all his pomp and false confidence has been stripped away, giving me a rare glimpse of the real man beneath the carefully pressed shirts and polished shoes.
And though I hate how political Cameron Hardy is, and how he’s always thinking two moves ahead, and how I really, truly feel he’s making a major mistake, I can’t fault him for doing what he thinks is right.
“Good luck to you,” I say as I back away.
“Wait,” he says, and I stop. The amusement washed from his face, he leans in, lowering his voice. “You could’ve forced me to agree to whatever you wanted. Why didn’t you? That’s what I would’ve done.”
“Because that’s exactly why we’re different,” I say, turning away, leaving him to ponder my words—although I don’t expect him to give them more than a minute’s consideration.
It doesn’t matter anyway. Just as he’s giving us no choice as to whether the humans leave or stay, we won’t let him choose whether the Alliance is upheld.
As I walk away I remember a lesson my last foster mother taught me:
Sometimes we create monsters for the very purpose of hiding the fact that we’re no better than monsters ourselves.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Grogg
Grogg is fast like the wind. No, fast like lightning. No, no, that’s not right at all. Grogg is fast like the lightning carried by the wind. Yes. That is good.
Grogg’s thoughts run rampant as his legs churn so quickly they’re like a blur, drawing the attention of nesting birds and scavenging animals throughout the forest. His smell confuses them, but he’s gone again so quickly that they discard his very presence as a strange anomaly, not to be repeated.
“Grogg must go around some things,” the mud troll says to himself, remembering Laney’s orders. “If faster to go around, then we go around.” He takes one step to the side to avoid a large tree trunk that he would normally climb all the way to the highest boughs before making his way down the opposite side. Funny, he thinks, leaving the tree in his wake. This is better.
It gets dark quickly, but that is no problem for Grogg. Seeing in the dark is the same as seeing in the light. His eyes just see things. Dark doesn’t dim and light doesn’t bright. He mutters those seven words seven times, like a chant, passing the time.
When he stomps through a creek, the water splashes all around him, swirling away a layer of mud, which clouds the clear spring. “Grogg changes water to mud!” he cries to himself. “Bow before our muddy feet!” He chuckles to himself at his silliness, coughing up a baseball-sized mud ball that he immediately breaks into two pieces and stuffs into his ears.
Eventually he passes from the cover of the forest and onto a long stretch of flat land coated with a fur of long, dry grass. He’s not sure whether it’s faster to go around or through, so he defaults to through, relishing the crack and shish of the dead brown stalks under his trod. Some of them stick to him, getting sucked in by his mud, and then more, until he thinks the crows circling overhead might mistake him for a scarecrow.
He wants to stop and test his theory, but Laney’s command to Run! rings in his ears, urging him onward. Grogg knows he’s done bad things, even if he didn’t feel he had a choice at the time. He doesn’t want redemption—he needs it. If he doesn’t find Rhett and warn him, surely Grogg will lose his moistness and return to the earth, becoming nothing more than hard-packed dirt laced with jagged cracks of failure.
He knows he’s soulless, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to live.
As he emerges from the field covered in hay, he clings to a single thought, seeming to hover always a step ahead of him:
Redemption is life.
And he won’t stop until he catches it.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Laney
Following the magic-born from a distance is like tracking a herd of buffalo. In a word: easy. The heavy footprints of the larger beasts sink a foot into the earth, and as they pass through the forest they devastate the foliage, uprooting bushes, shattering entire tree trunks which now lay scattered and broken like toothpicks, destroying the homes of the real animals who likely live here.
Hopefully Grogg is well ahead of the army. Hell, I hope Grogg has already made it to Alliance to warn Rhett. With any luck the humans and our magic-born allies are already preparing for war, all hands on deck, strategizing and gathering along the perimeter. The makeshift fence won’t hold up for long against the powerful enemy we’re facing, but maybe it will provide the opportunity to kill enough magic-born to give us a chance.
As Hex, snout to the ground like a vacuum cleaner, leads us after our quarry, I’m practically itching for the battle ahead. With any luck I’ll have the chance to personally shove a magged up knife between Flora’s shoulder blades before she can so much as threaten to lick my toes.
When we reach a stream so muddy it’s as if Grogg has recently bathed in it, Bil says, “Laney,” and I say, “What?” and we all plod through the knee-deep—or in Chloe’s case, hip-deep—stream.
“I’m worried what will happen when we get there,” Bil says.
Although I keep walking, I acknowledge Bil’s statement with a quick glance in his direction. I know what he means, but I really don’t want to talk about it rig
ht now, so I deflect him by saying, “We’re all worried. But as my Grams used to say, ‘Worry ain’t solved so much as the easiest problem.’”
“That’s not what I mean,” Bil says. Chloe’s staring at us, frowning, as if trying to decipher what this conversation is really about.
“I know,” I say.
“I need help.”
“Not exactly breaking news,” I say, clearly meaning it as a joke, but not even getting a wry smile from Bil. He really is freaked out right now. “Look, I’m not your counselor, I don’t have the right words.”
“All I need is to know everything will be fine,” he says. “That the other part of me—the dark part—won’t destroy everything.”
An unexpected burst of anger vomits from my mouth, my words hurling out like lit sticks of dynamite. “Screw the other part of you, Bil! It’s not you—never was. You’re the guy next to me, who I used to hate, but who I can now gladly call my friend, even if you annoy the crap out of me sometimes—or most of the time.” Although I feel like I’m doing much worse than a licensed psychiatrist would do, my words somehow manage to drag the edges of Bil’s lips into a smile. Encouraged by his reaction, I soldier on. “That so-called ‘dark’ part of you that keeps stealing time and memories? Whatever it is, it doesn’t control you. You control it. And if I so much as get the feeling that the bastard is knocking on your mind, I’m going to scream him away. I won’t leave you, Bil, no matter what. I won’t let you do anything you don’t want to do. Okay?”
