Sacrifices

by Mercedes Lackey

  And why isn’t “Kenny” using his own name? The other Shadow Knights are.

  She didn’t have any answers. And looking at her friends, she was afraid to even ask the questions.

  SEVEN

  Spirit was still mulling over the problem when the Dance Committee met again on Wednesday. She hadn’t been able to talk to QUERCUS—the intraweb had been down again when she got back to her room Monday night, and it had stayed down all day Tuesday. She wasn’t even getting out of Endurance Riding by being on Dance Committee anymore. The class had been canceled until further notice, so nobody had to deal with it. Spirit was guessing it was because of the monster, but she didn’t know. For the first time, Oakhurst’s news blackout was more than a minor annoyance. If the monster was still out there—and hadn’t just vanished back to the same place things like the Wild Hunt had—it had to be attacking the local livestock. If it was … That would be proof, but proof of what even she wasn’t sure.

  Maybe proof that Merlin and the Grail Knights are somewhere nearby. Because whatever that thing is, it doesn’t seem to be a part of Breakthrough’s plans.

  At least today she didn’t have to deal with being at The Fortress. She guessed Mark Rider had really been annoyed with Teddy for bringing them all onto the site last week. This time nobody showed up to whisk them off anywhere, much to Kylee and Dylan’s disappointment, and they were meeting at the library.

  The Radial Association Library had been remodeled when it was turned from a house into a library, at least as far as knocking out some of the interior walls and turning doorways into archways. But it still wasn’t very big. The front room had the checkout desk and the low shelves that held the children’s books. The back room had tall metal shelving (antique, cast iron, and heavy) and a couple of battered wooden tables. The Radial committee were gathered around one of them. There was a huge goody basket on the table. Courtesy of Breakthrough. Of course. The Radial kids had already opened the basket and shared out the contents among themselves. The table was covered with cans of soda, cookies, cupcakes, candy bars … Chris sat down and grabbed two Cokes, passing one to Zoey.

  “Hey!” Erika said. “Those are ours!”

  “You wish,” Dylan sneered. He grabbed a Coke and plucked the gift card out of the nearly empty basket. “To the joint Radial-Oakhurst Spring Fling Dance Committee, with the best wishes of Breakthrough Design Systems,” he read out, sneering. “So it’s half ours—and you’re half thieves.”

  He skimmed the card back into the basket and grabbed a bag of chips and a handful of candy bars. He tossed them to Chris and Kylee and Maddie and Zoey, then grabbed an armful of sodas to pass around. He even gave Spirit one—not because he was suddenly her new best friend, but to irritate the Townies.

  “So anyway,” Brenda said, tossing her hair back and ostentatiously turning her back on the five from Oakhurst, “Dad was out at the Wolferman place all day dealing with County, and the Fire Marshall, and everyone. He said we were just lucky the fire didn’t spread to the DOT barn—it took out that whole patch of woods.”

  “The Wolferman place.” Wolfman.

  “Was— Was anyone hurt?” Spirit asked hoarsely. Kylee frowned at her in puzzlement.

  “Just the crazy old guy who lived there,” Juliette said dismissively. “He was probably the one who started it. He was an ex-con or something.”

  “Crispy critter,” Brett said, and snickered.

  “The Fire Marshall said it started because of candles,” Brenda said, happy to provide inside information. “Everybody knows the place hasn’t had electricity for years.”

  The fire was obviously the most interesting news right now, and nobody seemed in any hurry to get down to Dance Committee business. It had apparently started early yesterday morning and ripped through the entire house. By the time the Fire Department arrived, all they could do was keep it from spreading.

  Wolfman is dead, Spirit thought numbly, staring down at the unopened can of soda in her hands. Burke and I went to talk to him, and a few hours later there was a fire. She glanced at Zoey. Zoey was a Fire Witch. It was one of the more common Gifts—more than half the Oakhurst students had gifts from either the School of Fire or the School of Air. She didn’t think Zoey had set the fire at the Wolferman place, but any Fire Witch could have done it.

  Wolfman hadn’t had a chance.

  “We’ve got a lot of stuff to cover today,” Maddie said, interrupting the gossip ruthlessly. She took out her spiral notebook (with the Oakhurst coat of arms printed on the front, naturally) and opened it to a blank page. “Especially the song list for—”

  Suddenly the front of the building … exploded. Wind attack! Spirit thought automatically. In that instant she was grateful to Ms. Groves for teaching them things they thought they had no possible use for. She might not have any magic of her own, but Spirit knew every Gift and every spell any of the Schools could wield.

  Shadow Knights! But why here?

  Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. The windows, the door, the front wall itself sprayed across the floor into the back room, all reduced to tiny fragments. She winced and ducked—the air was full of blowing debris; it was like being an a wind tunnel. Oh my god there were people in the front room.…

  The Radial kids were frozen in their chairs. The Oakhurst kids were up and moving.

  Maddie screamed.

  The figure striding through the hole that had been the front wall of the library was twelve feet tall, wore gleaming black armor, and had glowing red eyes. Spirit stared at it for a stunned moment because it seemed so familiar. Then she placed it: it was straight out of Rise of the Black Dragon. She’d seen it over at The Fortress last week when the others had been playing the new game.

  An illusion. It has to be. But the damage the Shadow Knight could do was very real.

  The assessment had taken her mere seconds, but it was long enough for a second and third armored figure to join the first. The door—there has to be a back door— Spirit thought frantically.

  “Get up! Come on! Move!” she screamed. They’ll never cover this up.… she thought inanely. Her ears were still ringing from the blast; she could hardly hear herself. Chris was standing next to her. She shoved him so hard he staggered into the table. “Get them!”

  The Radial kids were finally starting to move. At least Juliette and Kennedy were. The others were still staring at the impossible—unbelievable—sight. Spirit grabbed the person nearest to her—it happened to be Dylan—and started dragging him toward the back of the room. There was a back door—she remembered now she’d seen it the other night when Muirin had parked in the library parking lot.

  Spirit felt as if her mind were racing, as if she wasn’t thinking, but remembering things she already knew. Maddie was a Water Witch, Kylee an Energy Mage, Zoey a Fire Witch, Dylan a Jaunting Mage, and Chris a Weather Witch. If they wanted to fight back, the only one whose Gift would be much use was Kylee’s.

  The wind was rising. She tripped over flying books, staggering sideways as much as forward. There was so much dust in the wind she couldn’t see where she was going, and its howl was so loud she couldn’t hear anything else. One of the Shadow Knight illusions picked up a chunk of debris and threw it; it struck the side of the arch and fell to the ground, sucked into the back room by the inexorable force of the wind. If the wind got strong enough, it would pin them against the walls, and they’d be battered to death by flying furniture. It was already swirling around the inside of the building like a tornado.

  Like a tornado …

  “Oh god!” Spirit cried.

  She heard a ripping sound, saw light where there shouldn’t be light as the roof tore away and walls collapsed. The floor shook. She didn’t dare look back. She’d gotten to the door. She slammed her body against the crash bar with all her strength.

  The door was locked.

  She tried to turn back, tried to call for help, but there were people behind her, pushing her against the door. “It’s locked! It’
s locked!” she screamed as she clawed her way through them going back the other way.

  The front of the library was gone. Its ceiling and most of the front porch had been flung into the back room. She saw Zoey struggle out from under the fallen table, only to be struck and buried by a falling bookshelf. Zoey screamed. If the table hadn’t still been half on top of her, she would have been killed instantly.

  The room exploded into flame as Zoey panicked and lashed out with her Gift. Anything burnable carried by the mage-born cyclone sparked and sizzled; water droplets spattered Spirit’s skin as windborne snow melted in the onrush of heat.

  Kylee knocked Spirit sprawling as she ran past her toward their armored attackers. She held up her hands; Spirit felt a pang of vertigo, as if she was trapped in a plummeting elevator, as Kylee used her Gift to suck all the energy out of the room. The fire died. Even the wind died. The sudden silence was deafening.

  “Come on!” Dylan screamed. Spirit dragged herself to her feet and staggered toward the back door—or where it had been. It was gone, and she didn’t care how as she slipped and skidded on the steps. They were covered with fresh snow. The day had been clear a moment before. Now they were trapped in a blizzard.

  Spirit tried to count—who was here, who was still inside? There were twelve Committee members, plus whoever else had been in the library. She saw Brett and Juliette ahead of her, but the snow was so thick she wasn’t sure where the rest of the Townies were. She was here, and so was Dylan—

  “Chris!” Dylan shouted, and ran back up the stairs.

  “Stay here!” Spirit shouted to the others, and followed him.

  The momentary calm was over. As she neared the door, she was hit by a blast of wind; she staggered, gripping the door frame to drag herself back into the building again. Books and pieces of wreckage slammed into the walls, making thudding sounds audible even over the howl of the vortex. She held up her hands to protect her face. The floor beneath her thrummed; the whole building creaked and shivered as if it was going to come down at any moment—or take off.

  Near the center of the room, Chris was trying to lift the bookshelf off of Zoey, wincing and ducking as flying debris struck him. Dylan was dragging at Chris’s arm, trying to get him to leave—Spirit could tell Dylan was Jaunting everything he could to keep it from hitting the two of them—the three of them. She lurched forward—there was a calm spot in the center of the ring of wind—and grabbed Chris.

  “It’s a storm! Chris! Stop the storm!” He stared at her, wild-eyed, then nodded. She only hoped his Gift was strong enough to do it.

  Where’s Kylee?

  Kylee was standing in the wreckage of the outer room, facing down one of the Shadow Knights. The monstrous armored figure wavered as she sucked enough energy from it to make the illusion start to break up. Then it reached out and swatted Kylee—or seemed to—sending her flying. Kylee hit the wall of wind behind her as if it were an actual wall, but fell through it an instant later to land sprawling on the floor.

  Spirit ran toward her, staggering as she entered the tornado again. Kylee was already up before Spirit got halfway across the room. She was bleeding from a dozen minor injuries, and beneath the blood, her face was a mask of rage. Suddenly Spirit was as afraid of Kylee as she was of the Shadow Knights. The power of an Energy Mage could kill: they manipulated energy—including life energy. Kylee started forward, clearly intending to renew her attack on the Shadow Knight.

  “No!” Spirit screamed.

  She didn’t dare touch Kylee. The air around Kylee was so cold it smoked; she was drawing the energy out of everything around her, and if Spirit touched her she’d be dead instantly.

  But before Kylee could reach the doorway, it burst into flame.

  This wasn’t the panic-stricken lashing out of a half-trained teenaged Fire Witch. This was fully controlled power. The sudden blast of furnace heat made Spirit stagger backward. The fire was licking over the walls, sucked along them by the vortex—in a moment everything in the room would be on fire.

  “Stop it!” Spirit shouted, gasping for breath. She knew she couldn’t make herself heard over the noise, but Kylee glanced toward her, lips drawn back in a fierce smile. She nodded as if she understood.

  Spirit looked around wildly. Brett and Juliette were outside—who was still in here?

  There.

  She saw two figures huddled in the corner—Kennedy and Brenda. She ran to them. When she tried to pull Kennedy to her feet, Kennedy fought her.

  “You’re going to die!” Spirit screamed into her face. She couldn’t hear the sound of her own voice over the roar of the wind and the fire. Despite all Kylee could do, the fire was gaining. “You’re going to die if you don’t move!” She grabbed Kennedy and threw her as hard as she could. She was stronger than she’d been a few months ago. Kennedy went sprawling. She skidded through a puddle of water. Everything here that wasn’t burning or covered in ice was soaking wet.

  Brenda grabbed Spirit’s arm and used it to pull herself to her feet. Her eyes were wild with panic. “Please,” she said. Spirit read the word from her lips. She dragged Brenda to the doorway and just shoved. Brenda went sprawling down the stairs. Spirit turned back. Kennedy saw her and scrabbled for the doorway.

  Two more safe. Out of how many?

  The room was filled with fog now, as fire and ice clashed and filled the room with blowing, billowing steam. The flames turned the steam clouds red and gold. Spirit couldn’t see anything. Not Kylee. Not Dylan or Chris. She groped back to where she’d seen Zoey, moving by touch.

  Chris had his jacket off, using it to protect his hands as he and Dylan struggled to lift the bookshelf off Zoey and the table. We’re all going to die right here, Spirit thought, in a moment of shocking clarity. The words in her mind seemed to come from outside herself. She couldn’t imagine leaving Zoey here. And they couldn’t move the bookshelf. It was too heavy to move. Zoey was trapped. But we don’t have to move the bookshelf …

  “Dylan!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Use your power!”

  “Too heavy!” he shouted.

  “No! Jaunt Zoey!” She didn’t know the limits of Dylan’s ability to Jaunt, or how much he could carry. From the despairing look on his face, he didn’t think he could do this. “Dylan!” Spirit shouted again.

  Suddenly time seemed to slow. Even through her pain and panic, Spirit felt an uprush of … something. It was like when she’d faced the Wild Hunt, like the night of the bonfire—she felt as if she was a conduit, a pipeline for a force so powerful she had no name for it. She reached down and gripped Dylan’s shoulder. If the power was real, she willed it into him.

  He stared up at her, white-faced, and reached for Zoey’s hand.

  The two of them vanished. Mist skirled into the place they’d been.

  Chris lurched to his feet, gasping for air. “Tornado—” he said.

  Suddenly the fire flared brighter. In seconds the temperature skyrocketed, baking away the fog. Kylee staggered toward them, beating at her burning clothes.

  “Run!” she screamed.

  The three of them reached the door together. Kylee vaulted the stairs, landing in a snowdrift and rolling—her skin was steaming from the energy she’d sucked away from the fire. Chris and Spirit skidded out after her.

  An instant later, the building exploded.

  They would all have been caught in the fireball, but it didn’t swell outward the way it should have. It tried to, but before it could, it was sucked skyward, into the twisting black vortex of the monster tornado filling half the sky.

  In a moment the funnel would drop down, and Radial would be gone.

  “I can’t— I can’t—” Chris gasped, staring skyward in horror.

  “You have to!” Spirit cried. She clutched at Chris’s arm, desperately reaching for the power she’d felt before. From me to you, she thought dazedly.

  Chris flung his head back and sank to his knees in the snow. There was a moment where everything was balanced on
a knife edge. Spirit clenched her fists, willing Chris to succeed.

  Then the wind dropped, going from gale to breeze to stillness in a matter of heartbeats. The temperature began to rise. The black whirlpool of clouds overhead stopped spinning and began to break up.

  Chris began to laugh with sheer relief.

  Spirit staggered to her feet and looked around. The parking lot was filled with drifts of rapidly melting snow. Dylan was curled up on his side, groaning and gagging. Zoey lay beside him weeping and clutching at her leg. Maddie stood in the middle of the parking lot, staring at the charred wreckage of the library with wide eyes. Juliette and Brett were nearby, also on their feet. Brenda and Veronica were with them. Veronica was crying; Brenda just looked stunned. Kennedy was standing at the far end of the lot, her back to everyone.

  There were one or two other people standing in the street. Spirit couldn’t tell whether they’d been inside the library or not.

  “Where are Bella and Erika?” Spirit said slowly.

  Juliette began to laugh hysterically. She jammed her fist into her mouth. Her twin put his arms around her. Her yelps of hysterical laughter turned to sobs.

  Oh no. No!

  In the distance, Spirit could hear the wail of sirens. The Fire Department would be here in seconds—and probably Breakthrough too.

  “Listen,” she said—not just to the Radial kids, but to everyone, “whatever you saw, whatever you think you saw, don’t tell anyone. Especially anyone from Breakthrough. Stay away from them. Just— Stay away.”

  The others stared back at her silently, their faces blank with shock. Then Spirit saw Brenda’s eyes fill with determination. “That’s right,” Brenda said loudly. “We don’t know what happened. Kennedy! Get over here!”

  Kennedy turned around. Brenda called her again and she began to walk toward them. Brenda stared into Spirit’s eyes. Spirit tried to will belief. Acceptance. I don’t have time to explain, I can’t explain, but please please please believe me and do what I say.

  “We don’t know what happened in there,” Brenda repeated when Kennedy reached her. “We were inside the library. Then we were outside. That’s all we know.”