These Vengeful Souls

by Tarun Shanker

  Emily pulled the three of us up into the air and over the five-foot gap down to the barge below. Behind us, Miss Rao and Miss Chen made the leap, propelled by a heavy gust of wind.

  Mr. Seward, however, followed as well. More tendrils of water rose up around the barges, some battering our bodies like quick punches and others attempting to drag us into the water. Miss Chen and Emily did their best to divert the attacks as we hopped from boat to boat, heading ever closer to Traitors’ Gate. Crates toppled around us, leaks sprang up and swung at us, and suddenly the air was full of fire. We coughed through the smoke and dodged the growing flames, desperately looking for the source.

  On the next barge, Mr. Jarsdel was waiting for us.

  Rose waved to him for help. “Mr. Jarsdel, please—”

  “You won’t manipulate me again!” he cut her off.

  A blast of fire erupted from his palms, giving us the choice of staying put and burning or jumping into the water and drowning. The former seemed slightly more manageable, so I pushed Rose behind me, but before the flames hit, a third option presented itself. From an adjacent barge, Emily redirected Mr. Seward’s water attacks in front of us, blocking the blast of fire, the steam hissing inches from my face.

  Before Mr. Jarsdel could attack again, Miss Chen broke a mast above him. Using his hands like twin rockets, he thrust himself off the barge and retreated onto the roof of a low dockside warehouse.

  Rose and I hopped across two more barges and a rowboat and rejoined the others at the end of the wharf. Traitors’ Gate loomed ahead like a beacon.

  “Ev! Mr. Jarsdel hates me! He wants to kill me!” Rose gasped. She had a giddy grin on her face. “My power must wear off!”

  “Rose, I’m happy for you,” I said, feeling a blast of heat come far too close to my head. I pulled her forward. “But we might want to survive this to tell Catherine.”

  “Yes, that,” Rose said.

  “Keep running, charmer,” Miss Rao said.

  That’s when I noticed how windy it had gotten. The smoke from the burning boats swirled around us at Miss Rao’s command, giving us the perfect cover to escape. We pounded toward the tower, wayward shots of fire and desperate tendrils of water flying into our path, but we pushed forward, refusing to let the plan go even more astray. We had to sneak in and address the rest of the Society before they attack—

  A blast of electricity struck me before we could reach the entrance. It burned my chest and knocked me flat on my back on the stone wharf. Miss Rao was on her knees next to me, blood dripping from two spikes embedded in her chest. Lanterns and dimly lit faces dotted the top of the tower’s outer walls. I made out the face of our electricity-producing friend. The other Society members were already awake and ready. And they weren’t going to give us a chance to sway them.

  Acid and electricity assaulted us from the front while smoke and needles came from behind. But Miss Rao’s winds were stronger and more concentrated now, encircling us like a protective shield.

  I set my hands on her shoulder and took deep breaths, attempting to heal both our wounds as quickly as possible. She wrenched out the spikes and climbed to her feet, the winds growing stronger, sweeping up the renewed fire attacks from Mr. Jarsdel and the surges of water from Mr. Seward. Miss Chen, Emily, Rose, and I were trying to catch our breaths in the safety of the hurricane’s eye, but its sheer power kept stealing them away.

  “Do you still plan to sneak in and talk to them?” Miss Rao asked.

  Her face showed no smile, but I could sense the sarcasm.

  “Sneak? No. Are we still breaking in? Yes. If you can move this to the west, we are going to link arms and move with it.” Everyone did so, forming a circle. The wind was roaring around us, and I shouted to be heard. “Miss Chen, break the gate when you can see it, and we will get inside as planned. Go!”

  Miss Rao nodded tightly, and I held her arm, hoping my healing was at full capacity. We began to move, step by step, to the lip of the wharf, while the attacks rained down above us. Miss Rao gritted her teeth as fire and acid joined the storm, and Miss Chen grunted as stray drops fell on her shoulder. Without a free hand, I pressed my back into hers, healing the burning wound quickly and pushing her into view of the wooden gate.

  “And what about when we get inside?” Rose yelled. “How will I get them to listen to me long enough to stop them from killing us. We have certainly lost the element of surprise.”

  Below us, the great gate splintered and cracked apart to form a small hole. Miss Chen concentrated hard on the wooden columns and iron bars in the center, ignoring the fire licking at us through Miss Rao’s winds.

  “I know how,” I said, following the streaks of fire up to its source. “Emily, the moment Miss Chen is through, can you grab Mr. Jarsdel and keep him pinned him to the ground?”

  She strained to see through the congested whirlwind and the darkness along the wall, but his flames made him easy to find. “Yes, there he is!”

  “Good,” I said. “He will use his blinding powers to break free. Everyone else, be ready to shut your eyes!”

  Miss Chen pushed harder now, the metal cracking and exploding like dry twigs. We inched closer to the edge.

  “Now, Emily!” Miss Chen shouted.

  Mr. Jarsdel’s fire blasts disappeared and his body crashed to the ground next to our circle. I shut my eyes, trusting in Emily. She huffed out a heavy breath and groaned with effort as she held him in place. Even through the roar of the winds and attacks, I could hear Mr. Jarsdel screaming and straining on the other side to be freed.

  A few seconds later, a bright light flashed beyond my eyelids. I opened my eyes to peer through the whirlwind, finding the assault had stopped. Mr. Jarsdel had blinded everyone attacking us.

  Emily yelped in shock. “Evelyn? Where are you?”

  “I’m here,” I said, taking her hand. “Your sight will heal in a minute or two. You did it perfectly. Just hold on; we’re going to jump.”

  The arched entrance sat a few feet below the tower wharf. Miss Rao kept her fierce winds shielding us, while we hopped down over the edge, landing gently in the cold, dark water. I tugged at Emily’s arm as we clambered over the broken remains of Traitors’ Gate and up a set of stairs.

  At last, we were in the Tower of London, huddled in the outer ward, the street between the inner and outer walls. Miss Rao shrouded us in fog and Miss Chen glanced at a few lanterns above, shattering and extinguishing the only sources of light. The defenders panicked.

  “Dammit, they’re inside!”

  “I still can’t bloody see!”

  “Find them!”

  Cursing and shuffling echoed down from the battlements as the Society scrambled to turn their attention to the inside to find us. Which is when we decided to make their task a little easier.

  “Rose, ready?” I asked.

  She took a deep breath. “Yes.”

  I grasped her hand and held it tight.

  “My name is Rosamund Wyndham!” she shouted. “We aren’t here to hurt any of you, I promise.”

  The booming voice echoed off the walls as the defenders hushed one another and searched for the source. As a precaution, I prodded Miss Rao and Miss Chen forward and pulled Rose and Emily farther down the passage.

  “Captain Goode admitted he is threatening some of you and your families, forcing you to stay under his command. But if we all work together and stop him tonight, there will be no one to enforce those punishments.”

  We continued farther down the street. The sounds of footsteps above us followed. “Those of you voluntarily helping him for more power, you are only giving him more control over your life. There will be a day when you’ll receive an order that hurts someone you love, and you will be powerless to do anything about it.”

  I turned us back around toward where we started, right outside Traitors’ Gate. The fog surrounding us slowly began to dissipate, and the clouds shifted as the moonlight revealed the tower walls, the battlements, and the faces of our Society of
Aberrations allies or enemies. Some of them blinked rapidly, their sight restored, looking as if they were coming out of a dream. They stared down at us, deciding our fates. My nerves were on edge, and I felt naked when the fog cleared.

  “Please help us against him. So we can all go home. So we can all be safe.”

  For a moment, no one moved on either side. We waited in complete silence, my gaze shifting between indecipherable faces and landing on Eliza, floating above us. I pleaded with my eyes, and she turned her gaze to her fellow members, judging their reactions to Rose’s proposal.

  “No!” Emily whispered suddenly, looking around in an absolute panic. “Evelyn, something’s here!”

  A pair of yellow eyes flickered in the darkness. I pulled Emily behind me with one hand and reached for my dagger fan with the other, ready to deal with the threat. But a winged woman was already in front of me, her warm breath on my face.

  “I’m sorry,” she said as her claws sank into my chest. “We have orders.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  IT FELT HOT. As if five holes had burned right through me at once. I stumbled forward, swinging at her in desperation as I felt her other hand wrap around my throat. I didn’t have the leverage to push her away, but fortunately, Emily didn’t seem to have the same problem. With a scream, she flung the woman up over the stone wall and out of the castle.

  As I coughed and tried to catch my breath, chaos broke out all around us.

  Miss Chen and Rose spun around to give me support, leaving their backs open to a blast of fire. Miss Rao roused her heavy winds to shield us, but a man moving in bursts of speed slipped through and tackled her to the ground. And as Emily turned to help her, my animalistic attacker returned with her wings spread, swooping down like a bird of prey. All I could do was wheeze out a pitiful warning.

  “Watch out—”

  A miraculous blur knocked her out of the sky. She crashed to the ground with Eliza on top of her, keeping her pinned. The earth rumbled violently underneath us. A massive rock wall sprang up around us, shielding Miss Chen and Rose from Mr. Jarsdel’s blast. Emily wrenched Miss Rao’s attacker off and threw him at Mr. Jarsdel. Vines slithered out of the ground like snakes, trapping all three attackers to the ground.

  Oliver’s friends. Thank God. I caught a glimpse of Eliza taking off toward a burning rooftop before a blast of electricity forced us to take cover under an archway.

  “Rose, get in the center,” I said. “Emily, up here with me. Miss Chen, Miss Rao, you watch the back. We need to help them.”

  “Can you even move?” Miss Chen asked.

  Right, those stab wounds. I pressed my chest gently and felt a shock of pain course through me. Yes, very much still stabbed. But the fact that I’d forgotten about the injury for a moment had to be a good sign.

  And there was no time to catch our breath. The rest of the Society members were picking sides. And there seemed to be plenty more still too scared to join us, judging from the fact that acid was melting through the archway. That was also on fire. And not at all suitable cover.

  “Yes, it’ll heal,” I said, my eyes darting around, watching for movement on the battlements. “Remember the plan!”

  I led the group forward out of the archway, toward the burning rooftop, hoping we’d find allies there. Beyond that, it was nearly impossible to know who was on our side, and no one was taking the time to hand us cards declaring their intentions. We marched down the outer ward street, keeping behind walls, staying out of sight of the White Tower, watching for attacks from the enemies above us.

  A line of spikes flew at our heads first, and Emily flung them into a wall. Behind us, Miss Rao’s winds did the same to acid, the stones sizzling. Another bolt of electricity lit up the passage, a streak headed straight for me, and Emily diverted it to the rooftop where the spikes had come from, earning an explosion and a yelp.

  Sounds of other roof skirmishes echoed off the walls as we neared the burning rooftop. Rocks and vines and smoke spilled over the edges and then Shirin herself. The earth rose up to catch her, but the massive man with the powerful jumping ability pursued her, leaping off the roof, aiming his landing right where she lay.

  And he hovered in midair helplessly. Emily floated him to the ground, and Shirin opened up the earth to swallow him up to his shoulders, leaving him stuck.

  The street led us into a small square, where Shirin’s friends were working together with other converts. Eliza plucked the metalcovered man from the battlements and dropped him over a pile of vines for George to ensnare. An older woman dressed in shawls and surrounded by ravens ordered the birds to swoop down at a long-haired man, whose hair moved to his every whim. He clutched a fistful that twined itself into a thick rope and swatted at the birds, but while he was distracted, an agile, strangely flexible man wrestled him to the ground and held him there until the ground opened up and trapped him there.

  At the sight, I felt a little glimmer of hope. There were people fighting against Captain Goode. And we were winning. I couldn’t help but imagine what was happening in the White Tower. Captain Goode did not want to leave the safety of it to join the fight. He was likely too scared of what we might do to him if he wasn’t hiding behind his hostages. Stay safe, Sebastian. Hold on, Mr. Kent. Just a little while longer. We’re coming.

  “Miss Rao, catch,” Miss Chen said as I heard something crumble behind us.

  The winds picked up, rushing over our heads, throwing the acid woman into the square, where the vines restrained her.

  “Well, that’s a terrible power,” Miss Chen said, glancing at the man’s flailing hair. “Not jealous of that one.”

  I wasn’t either until I realized where his hair was going.

  “Miss Chen, the hair.”

  “Yes, I’ll focus on the hairy man while there’s an electric woman lurking in the shadows,” she said, her back turned as she searched the rooftops. “There!”

  Miss Chen exploded something behind me, and I felt the winds of Miss Rao throwing the electric woman into the square, where the hair crept through George’s vines. The strands slipped into the metal man’s hand, which rendered it into steel. Cords of steel that whipped up, cutting through the vines and rocks, freeing the prisoners, and wrapping around the raven woman’s neck.

  “Miss Chen!” Rose called.

  Miss Chen finally turned around as a scream got her attention. “Oh.”

  Acid and lightning flew at us and veered into a tower as Emily and Miss Rao shielded us. The raven woman was lifted up high into the air, gasping for breath in the moonlight, her birds frantically fluttering around her. The steel cord snapped under Miss Chen’s gaze, and Eliza swooped in to catch her.

  And crashed on the ground in front of us.

  Emily swept them behind us, and I knelt down to heal them. Bruised and bloody from the fall but nothing serious. Until Eliza stubbornly rose to her feet and tried to set off again. Nothing happened. She frowned in confusion and looked to the raven woman, who was watching her ravens abandon her. Then we both looked up to see Shirin, busy with shielding George, being caught by the leg from behind and flung over the wall into the inner ward.

  “Remove the traitors’ powers!” someone yelled.

  Dammit. That’s what they were doing. Putting them in view of the White Tower, where Captain Goode could see them and shut them off. Maybe he wasn’t hiding. Maybe he knew the outcome, and it was in his favor.

  “It appears they have a plan, too,” I said.

  And like that, the battle shifted. A group of five more emerged from the battlements to the north and strode down to the passageway to join the others. An ear-shattering scream came from one of them, tearing up the rocky street and knocking us back into the wall. In our daze, we found them raining everything they could down upon us. Electricity, acid, water, smoke, and steel.

  Miss Rao responded by sending back the strongest winds she could. The air screamed, and I could barely hear my own thoughts as she and Emily pushed the Society’s ow
n attacks back on them. But nothing seemed to land. A man in the front had his hands out, encircling his group with a sort of shield blocking everything that came at them. They marched toward us, against Miss Rao’s wind, as if they were taking a pleasant stroll through Hyde Park.

  Some of their attacks, however, got through our defenses. I straightened up to guard my friends the best I could. I felt the sting of electricity hitting my cheek, the burn of the acid through my dress, even the lash of the steel hair cutting my arm.

  “I’d rather have died at Captain Goode’s house,” Miss Chen yelled. “At least it wouldn’t have been due to such a pathetic power!”

  And that’s when I noticed there was someone at the back of their group. Someone who hadn’t used his power on us yet. Someone who had been up close to do it at Captain Goode’s.

  “Miss Chen, I have a terrible idea,” I yelled. “Do you remember that man in the back?”

  Miss Chen squinted through all the chaos, trying to place him. Her eyes widened in realization. “This is the least terrible of all your terrible ideas.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Miss Kane, as soon I remove that dark-haired man’s shirt,” Miss Chen yelled, “please throw him into his companions, one by one.”

  “All right,” Emily said, as if that were a perfectly normal request.

  I watched the metal man kneel down and shift the rocky street to steel, a path headed straight under us. As the electric girl took aim at the trail, I found it harder to swallow down my panic. “Miss Chen, they … are about to electrocute us.”

  Mr. Dunn’s shirt ripped off, followed by the sleeves of the electric woman. They paused in shock, and Emily used the man like a billiard ball, tossing him against the others in turn. She knocked him into the electric woman first, and then Mr. Seward, Mr. Shaw, and the others as Miss Chen ripped their shirt sleeves and trouser legs open, revealing their limbs to be paralyzed by Mr. Dunn’s touch. They had nowhere to run, the small shield their only sanctuary.

  Not one minute later, as Miss Rao’s wind died down, the bruised Mr. Dunn was the only one standing. Mainly because Emily was holding him up. A strange silence fell upon the castle. By instinct, my body braced itself for the next attack, but there wasn’t one. They remained on the ground, unmoving.