by Mia Strange
The magic had brought more than the car tonight. For a moment, for a single, breathtaking heartbeat, it had brought back Maddie. And then, like a whisper in the wind, she was gone.
We had named the car The Madison, in honor of the first Troupe member we lost. Maddie, the beautiful girl with white—blonde hair, had turned zombie. And whereas we didn’t put her in the show, we did try to save her. Dr. Dark, alchemist, sorcerer, leader, had tried. And failed.
Maddie had just turned nineteen when she died by our hands. She had made us promise to take her life rather than be left to live gray. And Troupe members never went back on our word. Not once, not ever.
I’d been only a year behind her, and now? Maddie was dead.
And it had been my fault.
Even though Dark disagreed, there were a handful of members who had never let me forget it. And one member, Turk, never would. And how could I blame him? We all loved Maddie. But Turk loved her most.
The Madison slowed and rolled forward. I held my breath, crouched low, and did my best to dodge the broken, bleeding fingernails on ragged gray hands that reached and clawed for me. I knew instinctively what was coming.
I dropped to the ground and rolled into the tiniest ball possible. The jets, mounted on either side of the car, burst loose with streams of hot, searing steam.
Deadly, burn your flesh off steam.
Some of the zombies began to melt, others trailed chunks of skin that sloughed off and slid to the ground in bubbling piles of stinking goo. Ugh. Zombies and hot steam did not mix, and I was reminded of the story of The Wicked Witch of the West. I prayed that the rotting dead all melted the same way. Just twice as fast.
The zombies crushed against each other in panic. One fell on top of me. She had once been a girl, small and petite, a lot like me. Her size made it easy to kick out at her with my booted foot, sending her rolling and rolling and rolling away.
If I wasn’t so terrified, I might have mourned for her, given her the moment of silence she deserved. Whatever happened to this girl, I was sure it was through no fault of her own.
But all I could do was fold in upon myself and stay crumpled on the ground while the steam shot above me. I tried to protect my bare arms and legs from the heat and ensuing burns. Still, if I had to choose, I’d take second and third degree burns any day over dying, turning gray, and rotting away.
Double iron doors slammed open, sounding like a clap of wicked thunder. A silver heat resistant tarp was thrown out to me. I covered myself in a cocoon of safety, just as the jets went into warp speed. The timing was good, but not perfect. My skin would be pink from the heat, but it sure beats bubbling blisters and third—degree burns.
Not to mention the whole chomp and chew party.
The hiss of arrows echoed through the night and the thump, thump, thump, of bodies falling shook the old crumbling pavement all around me.
Our crossbows had arrived.
High powered, laser sighted, accurate and lethal, the crossbows could drop a zombie, or a man, in under two seconds. The repeating feature kicked major zombie butt, too. We were all trained to use them, and we all used them well. But none of us, not even Dr. Dark, could use them like Pilot.
The thump, thump, thump continued in a foot—stompin’, bone—shakin’ rhythm I could dance to. A body dropped on me, trapping my legs. This one was bigger by far. I could barely move.
I heard the welcome tap of footsteps next to my head, and by the small, soft—footed sound, I knew it had to be Jin.
Tiny, light, and lethal, Jinghua “Jin” Sato was our youngest Troupe member. With a Japanese lineage, her history may have been darker than my own. She never talked about it— wouldn’t talk about it. And for Jin, that was a flippin’ miracle.
She wore her silky black hair in a high ponytail. She had more kills than all of us put together, could handle a mean can of spray paint, and at sixteen, she never stopped talking.
Really. Never.
I could picture Jin’s red silk, Converse high tops touching down softly, so graceful and elegant with each step. Too bad she was about to get zombie goo on those white sneaker toes.
“I’m here, Skye. Wow. You really stepped in it this time, ya know? You’re in big trouble, girl. Glad I’m not you right now. It would suck to be you.”
Yep. Jin, all right. She never hesitated to say exactly what was on her mind. With no filter, her thoughts sometimes popped from her mouth before it reached her brain. Like now.
“Not cheering me up, Jin,” I yelled from beneath the tarp. “I’m dying here.”
“You wish. Dying is easy. Facing Dark? After a screw—up like yours? Not so much.”
“Not helping.”
“Just saying.”
I heard the spray of aerosol and the explosion that followed. I felt the heat of flames through the protection of the tarp. I smelled the barbeque of zombie flesh and tried to hold my breath. Once again, I fought the urge to vomit.
“Flame on you stinking, rotting, corpses of walking death and doom.” Jin screeched the words into the night, and her high—pitched voice sliced into my throbbing head. I rubbed my pounding temples and squeezed my eyes shut. And here I thought I could do drama.
I knew Jin had her tagging gear out and was doing a little urban art on some zombie’s butt. She may be a gum—chewing, karaoke—addicted, never ending chattering maniac, but even with the really bad dialogue, she was one mean, lean, zombie exterminator. And I was glad she had my back. Or in this case, my tarp.
Working to pull my legs out from under the body that had fallen on me, I managed to crawl to the edge of the tarp. I lifted it an inch and peeked out. Blood ran into my eyes from the reopened head wound, but I could still make out little Jin as she kicked some serious gray ass.
The twerp was good. You wouldn’t get an argument from me. Plus, she did it laughing. I had to admit; at times like this I worried she liked the job a little too much. It wasn’t healthy. Was it? Still, she was a survivor. And in this world, at her age, that was something. And what did they say about loving your work? Oh yeah. You tend to live longer. You know. Less stress.
I watched her destroy a nasty looking zombie whose arm hung by a thread of flesh and sinew. Jin doubled over with laughter as her ebony ponytail swung back and forth. Her bubbly, lyrical laughter was contagious, and a smile tugged at my lips. Maybe I would live through this night after all.
With the help of a flare clamped between her teeth, Jin turned her cans of paint into flame—spewing weapons. The cargo pants she wore were laced with pocket after pocket, all lined with spray cans of paint in all sizes and colors. She wore a safari type vest, stuffed with more pockets and cans, over her sequined top. Her corset was still on, cinched tight around her impossibly tiny waist.
Jin, it seemed, had dressed in a hurry. Scarlet red glitter that she wore for our show was still sprinkled throughout her hair. She still had on full stage makeup. Her beautiful eyes, lined with kohl and more glitter, sparkled with delight as two more zombies caught fire. Jin’s bare arms sported an amazing array of henna—stained, urban inspired, ‘Trash Polka’ tattoos. The colorful, full sleeve tats told stories that only she knew. Stories she never shared until she brought them to life with her magic on stage.
Her last story was about a girl who had run away, and had regrets. The girl in Jin’s story died. I wasn’t going there. As cynical as I could be, I still believed in, ‘happily ever after.’ Had to. For Emma’s sake.
Jin’s ever present bracelet, the one with the black ant frozen forever in an oval of resin along with the lucky red berry, adorned her wrist. She never took the bracelet off. And she would kill anyone who tried. She had it on when Dr. Dark found her, hiding in a city tunnel, covered with blood and mud and nothing else. Jin had been freezing, starving, and damn near death. She’d been seven years old.
Arrows rained down from above, and I knew it had to be Pilot. I twisted around, and could see him positioned on top of The Madison. His black theatre cape flew
around him, and the steel buckles on his boots glistened in the moonlight.
But it was his weapon, the crossbow that he wielded like no one else could, that stood out the most. The weapon was a part of him now, embedded in an artificial arm that Dr. Dark had fashioned out of brass and steel and cogs and gears.
Dark had outdone himself. Pilot was a walking, talking, lethal weapon. A product born of a tragic accident, and yet a foreseeable one. The loss of Pilot’s arm was the price The Gov paid when they pressed a child into employment in the Ash Lands. Pilot lost his limb when he was ten. Now, ten years later, he had become a master of the weapon. And at times, when the magic ran wild, the weapon became a master of him.
But tonight?
I owed him my life.
Arrows continued to rain down from above, as Pilot covered Jin’s back and mine. Jin sprayed and torched with frightening, deadly accuracy. Together they were winning. Winning against impossible odds.
And they were doing it all for me. Tears once again pressed behind my eyes as I watched the fight, a fight I couldn’t begin to take part in.
“Let The Bone Man out, Skye,” Jin yelled down to me as she took great pleasure in spraying a zombie with cobalt paint in the eyes. Her torch followed and his head exploded in flames.
“Who?” I yelled back to her, hoping to feign insanity. Or at the very least, memory loss.
“Cute, Skye.” She waved her torch at the mouth of the morgue. “Let him out. Raise your invisible magic gate thingy.”
Thingy? “Look. He’s got Phil with him.”
“So?”
“So, you might get him mixed up with the bad Zoms.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No.”
“He is a bad guy. Correction. A bad dead guy. That has major B O. And he bites. And do not even get me started on his complexion. Come on, it doesn’t get much worse than that.”
And The Bone Man thought I hated on Phil. I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, but he’s our bad dead guy.”
I watched as she took out two disgusting zombies at once, igniting a flame from a can of KRYLON, named, ‘Pretty in Pink.’ I’d bet a ride back home in The Madison that Jin had a can with Phil’s name on it.
The color burst forward with fire riding the stream. The zombie burst into a giant fireball which spread to another then another then another. It looked like dominos of the flaming dead. I had to admit, it was damn impressive.
And that’s why, until this was over, I wasn’t going to let Jin anywhere near Phil.
Jin didn’t think about collateral damage. She wouldn’t care if our good—bad Zombie Phil got in the way. She didn’t care that he was from Missouri. She’d paint him in primary colors, spray a heart on his ass, and light him up faster than I could say, well, wait!
“The Bone Man, Skye.”
“Ah, let me think, Jin. No.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Jin spun to face me, one hand on her hip, a lit flare in the other. Paint dripped from her fingertips. She ignored the threat behind her. Thank God, Pilot continued to pummel the dead around us with arrows.
“You’re sitting there, hiding under a tarp, saying you’re dying, a bit dramatic I think by the way—”
“Jin. First, not even sitting up, and second, you have no idea what—”
“And,” she cut me off because that’s just what Jin does. She bent and snapped her fingers in front of my nose to make sure she had my attention. “And, you’re worrying about Zombie Phil? Are you kidding me, Skye? You’ve lost your mind. I don’t need to tell you that worrying about Zombie Phil is,” she clamped the flare in her teeth and painted invisible quotes in the air, “a dead end.”
Her words were muffled with the flare clenched in her mouth, still I caught the drift. I hate it when she goes for the invisible quotes. Annoying didn’t begin to cover it.
I gasped as a particularly gruesome rotting corpse came up behind her. I pointed, but Jin was so focused on me and her rant that— oh. I didn’t need to worry.
Jin flipped a can of hunter green out of a pocket so fast it was a blur. She twirled it, sprayed it over her shoulder, turned, kicked out the knees of the zombie with a sickening crunch, and topped off the show with flames. The blaze, tinged with green, was nothing short of precision awesomeness.
“Wow,” I squeaked.
“New move,” said Jin as she turned back to me. She blew at the end of her can like she had fired a vintage six shooter. “I call it High Noon, baby. Picked it up from watching an old movie reel. Called, High Noon.”
She laughed, spun the can and holstered it back into a pocket.
“Now. Where were we? Oh yeah. You.” Jin pointed a paint covered finger at me. “You have a crush on Zombie Phil. And, Skye?” She tossed her black ponytail from side to side, showing me that, punk urban girl, attitude of hers. “I have to tell you. That’s just messed up.”
I sighed and pulled the tarp back over my head.
I wasn’t giving up. I just didn’t have the energy to deal with a sixteen —year —old from the planet KRYLON.
Besides, we’d won.
I knew, because in that moment, that split—second I tucked my head under the tarp and darkness settled around me, I felt the magic.
Powerful.
All consuming.
Angry.
I felt the magic of Dr. Dark.
10
Vibrations crawled through the cracked pavement. The tremors stopped short, and then rose to the surface in the form of fluid, floating magic.
A stream of white, iridescent sparkles seeped under the tarp and engulfed me in the first burst of warmth I’d felt all night. The heat, like a rare splash of sunshine, like hands warming over an open flame, felt like heaven. Let’s face it, I didn’t know what heaven should feel like, but if I did, I thought heaven should feel like this. Exactly.
This was the magic of Dr. Dark.
His magic wove underneath my clothes, investigating every cut, scrape and bruise. It massaged my battered ribs with invisible fingertips, and skimmed my head where fresh blood seeped from the reopened gash. It tsk, tsk, tsked, at my quarter—sized bald spot on my scalp. It crept under my goggles and circled my swollen eye. The magic settled on my lips, gently caressing the split on the bottom, lingering on the tender, ripped flesh.
And finally. Finally. The bleeding stopped.
My entire body hummed with the invasion of Dr. Dark’s magic. Droplets of sweat formed between my breasts, and I gasped as some of the pain drifted away, replaced by something else. Something raw and powerful. Dr. Dark, the alchemist, the magic man, had let the healing begin.
I shoved the goggles from my face and moaned with relief. I would live. I would. Not sure I deserved it, but still. “Thanks Dark,” I whispered. “Thanks. I’ll make it up to you. To the Troupe. I will. Promise. I—”
“Skye? You okay under there? You’re talking to yourself. Not the best sign, sister. Anything you wanta share?”
Jin. How had I forgotten she was standing right above me? Here I was, moaning and whispering about Dark like, well, like I couldn’t live without him. And maybe I couldn’t. There was such raw truth in that private thought that more heat climbed into my already flushed cheeks. Well, hell. This was embarrassing.
I willed myself to shrug it off, calm down and just breathe.
It was time to wrap up this disaster of a night and go home. I rolled over and peeked out from under the tarp once more. With the attacking zombies now beaten back, Jin yanked the tarp, threw it backwards, and reached down to help me into a sitting position. To say she was not nearly as gentle with me as The Bone Man had been, was the understatement of the century.
“Jin,” I gasped as she pulled me up and crouched beside me. Oh ouch. Damn it. Make that two centuries. “Shit! Jin.”
“What now, Skye?”
What now? What now? “Careful, Jin.”
“Because?”
She wasn’t paying attention to me. Not really.
Jin was being Jin. The great distracted one.
“Hello? Jin?” I waved a hand in front of her eyes. “Knifed, beaten, maybe dying here. Remember?” I didn’t think I was anymore, but still, Jin didn’t know that.
“Stop whining. You’ve been saved. Pull up your big girl panties and quit distracting me.”
Whining? Distracting? What about the zombies? Now that’s a distra— wait. Pull up my what?
“Jin. What the fuc—”
“Shh.” She bent, put her index finger to my lips and crouched lower, balancing herself with her palm pressed flat on the muddy pavement. “Look.” Jin picked up a can of KRYLON labeled Luscious Lavender, and pointed toward a bank of swirling fog just ahead of us.
Together we watched as the chilling wall of mist and steam twisted and turned. Suddenly, like curtains on our stage, the fog parted. The melted streetlights hissed from pools of liquid metal. They roared to life once more. Light from the smoldering puddles shown full and bright. For the first time tonight, the dark shadows drew back onto themselves, and all but disappeared.
From deep silhouette, the unforgettable image of Dr. Dark slowly emerged.
With thick clouds of vapors floating around his boots, I swear, it looked like he was walking on air. Maybe he was. With Dark, anything was possible.
Wow.
What a performance.
This entrance was worthy of the best kind of theatre. Theatre like ours. Born of smoke and mirrors, sleight of hand, illusion and magic— real magic, Dr. Dark had once again shown us how it was done. All that was missing were our trumpets.
Head bowed in deep concentration, Dark’s black lacquer cane with the copper head of a Great Dane for a handle, was gripped tightly in one gloved hand. His brass and gold pocket watch, an elaborate piece from the Victorian era, hung from a long, twisted chain coated with decades of patina. The watch dangled from his other hand, swinging back and forth, back and forth, in a steady, mesmerizing rhythm.
