“What?”
“When we got to the Keep and I found out about Julie, I walked up and slapped Aunt B in the face. In front of everyone.”
Holy crap. “Have you lost your mind?”
“You should’ve seen the look on her. It was worth it.” Andrea threw me a defiant glance. “Then her face went all psycho. The old bitch backhanded me. I don’t actually remember being hit. I just remember rolling down the stairs. I guess she knocked me off the landing. She is fucking strong.” A crazy light sparked in Andrea’s eyes. “I’d do it again. I’ll make it my mission in life to take her down.”
And people said I was nuts.
Andrea raised her hand. “This is the hand that slapped Aunt B.”
“Maybe you should have it gold-plated.”
“Here, you can touch it, since you’re my best friend.”
“Is your hand connected to your brain at all? Are you going to keep attacking her until she kills you?”
Andrea shrugged. “I might kill her instead.”
“And run the bouda clan?”
She blinked. “No.”
“And how do you think Raphael would take it? I know you still love him. You think he’ll be happy his mother is dead?”
Andrea let her breath out in a long sigh. “Listen, me and Raphael . . .”
“Your master plan has holes big enough to drive a truck through.”
“Now look, you . . .”
The trees ended abruptly as the road shot us into the center of the town. Words died on Andrea’s lips.
Bodies lay in the streets. Laborers. Mothers with their children. A group of men armed with crossbows, probably just passing through. A cop, a short blond woman, her uniform pristine, lying face down on the pavement two steps away from her police horse.
Oh my God . . . We drove through it all, surrounded by death on both sides, as if gliding through Armageddon.
On the far right, a man stumbled, walking through the street, with a lost look on his face, trying to come to terms with his world ending. A child cried in the distance, a thin uncertain sound.
This wasn’t just bad. It wasn’t just criminal, or cruel; it was so deeply inhuman, my mind had trouble comprehending it. I’ve seen death and mass murder, I’ve seen people slaughtered out of bloodlust, but this had no emotion behind it. Just a cold clinical calculation.
Another howl broke the silence. Closer this time and to the east. Andrea swiped the map off her lap. “They’re probably hitting Fayetteville Road. Turn left at the next intersection. Church Street.”
I made a hard left at the next intersection. In front of us a crumbling overpass barred the way. I steered the Jeep on the side, over the overgrown hill, praying the tires didn’t blow up, and rolled over the hill. The vehicle plunged down, its seat springs squeaked, and we landed back on the road. I stepped on the gas. The Jeep hurtled forward.
A subdivision popped up on our right side. I stared straight ahead. I’d seen as much of the dead as I could take. Now I just wanted to make some of my own.
The road veered left, cutting through a dense patch of forest. I took the turn. Something black and large lay in the road.
“Look out!” Andrea yelled.
I swerved, catching a glimpse of a massive equine body. A mad amber eye glared at nothing, now dull, from a head crowned with a single sharp horn.
The woods ended, jerked away suddenly like a green silk scarf pulled out of place. A ribbon of straight road unrolled in front of us, before diving into the woods again in the distance. On the left side, two giant open A-frames covered by tin roofs housed rows of flea market stalls. The stalls lay deserted. Half of their owners had fled. The few who remained sprawled in the dirt, their eyes dull and lifeless.
A group of riders emerged from the woods in the distance, pushing their horses hard. Behind them a pair of bays pulled a wagon. At least ten people. The forest on both sides of the road was too dense for the wagon to pass through. They were heading away from the magic and toward us, back into the blast zone.
I turned the Jeep sideways, blocking the road. Andrea eyed the nearest A-frame. It would give her a good vantage point. But the moment she started shooting, they’d turn back. We had to keep that cart from moving.
I held my hand out. “Give me a grenade.”
Andrea pulled open her backpack and slid a grenade into my palm. “Wait until they start shooting the Jeep. Boom comes first, shrapnel flies second. Count to ten before you run in there. And don’t blow the device up.”
“Yes, Mother. It’s not my first time.”
“That’s the thanks I get for trying to keep you alive, Your Highness.”
I slipped out of the Jeep and dashed down through the undergrowth on the right side of the road. Andrea leaped six feet in the air, caught the edge of the tin roof, and pulled herself up.
Twigs and branches slapped me. I kept moving, light on my toes. If Curran had been there, he would’ve chewed me out for making more noise than a drunken hippo in a china shop, but with the thudding of hooves the riders wouldn’t hear me. Ahead the ground leveled off, the undergrowth of fuzzy pines thick enough to provide good cover but thin enough to power through in a hurry. About a hundred yards from the Jeep. Far enough. I dropped into a crouch.
The lead horseman rode past us and stopped a dozen yards ahead. The rest of the riders halted, forming two loose lines along the road, staggering themselves to minimize the target area. The cart came to a stop with a creak right across from me. A large canvas bundle bulged in the middle of it, secured with ropes. Wooden partitions protected the device from the back and front. Perfect.
“Miss Cray,” the lead rider said. “Please remove the obstruction.”
A woman rode up to the leader. “Sir?”
“Ride down to the vehicle, shift it into neutral, and push it off the road. Burgess, go with her. Santos, cover them. If things look suspicious, shout.”
The three riders advanced toward the Jeep, two ahead, one lagging behind, his rifle ready. I waited until they cleared half of the stretch, pulled the firing pin, and lobbed the grenade behind the cart. The metal clanged on the asphalt two hundred feet away from the cart. Far enough. Heads turned. I dropped down and pressed into the forest floor.
The explosion shook the trees. Horses shied, panicking. The device showed no intention of exploding.
“Protect the machine!” the leader screamed. “Form—” His head jerked. Andrea’s bullet took him in the back of the skull and came out just under his eyes, disintegrating his face into a mush of bone and bloody flesh.
Shots rang out like firecrackers popping—they fired blindly to the front and to the back. I charged through the pines. They were packed too densely for the saber. I drew a throwing knife. Another rider dropped, cut down by Andrea’s shot.
A rider loomed. I jerked him out of the saddle, stabbed him in the kidney, grabbed a woman off a horse, slit her throat, and pulled another man out of the saddle. The black barrel of a .45 glared at me. I shied left. The gun barked. Heat grazed my shoulder. I stabbed him through the heart.
The cart driver snapped the reins, turning the cart around. The horses neighed and plowed through the brush, skirting the crater left by the grenade. The cart hurtled back down the road, out of the blast zone and into the magic, heading away from the Jeep. The remaining riders chased it. Damn it.
A huge gray lion leaped out of the woods, barring the cart’s path, standing almost as tall as the horses. The great mouth gaped and a deafening roar shook the trees. The horses reared in sheer terror. The driver surged up and slumped over, as a red wound from Andrea’s rifle blossomed in the back of his head.
The lion morphed, his fur melting, and Curran grabbed the loose reins with his human arm, calming the horses.
Shapeshifters spilled from the woods, swarming the riders. “Alive,” I yelled. “We need at least one alive!”
TWO MEN AND A WOMAN KNELT ON THE GROUND, their hands on the back of their heads. Around us an empty fiel
d stretched. The blast zone lay just a few yards away, behind the tattered ribbon of the crumbling highway.
The boudas circled the captives like sharks. They wanted blood. I wanted blood.
Curran reached down and picked up the larger of the men by his throat. The man dropped his hands, letting his arms hang limp by his sides. Curran brought his face up close and peered into the man’s eyes. The man shivered.
“Why?”
“Why not?” the smaller of the men said.
He didn’t look like a monster. He looked perfectly ordinary, just like the hundreds of people on the street. Wheat-colored hair. Clear blue eyes.
“You killed the entire town,” I said. “There are dead children lying in the street.”
He looked at me. His face was calm, almost serene. “We simply turned the tables.”
“How did these dead children hurt you? Enlighten me.”
He raised his chin. “Before the Shift, our society functioned, because to gain power, you had to work. Success was paved with labor. You had to use your mind and your hands to climb the ladder, so you could live the American dream: work hard, earn money, live better than your parents. But now, in this new world, brains and hard work count for nothing, if you have no magic. Your future is determined by pure accident of birth: if you’re born with magic, you can rise to the very top with no effort. The safeguards that were meant to keep the dangerous and unbalanced from gaining power have failed. Anyone can be in charge now. They don’t have to go to the right college, they don’t have to learn the rules, they don’t have to prove that they are good enough to be welcomed in the circles of power. All they have to do is be born with magic. Well, I have no magic. Not a drop. Why should I be disadvantaged? Why should I suffer in your world?” He smiled. “We don’t want to kill anyone. All we want is a chance to have the same opportunities as everyone else. To restore order and structure to the society. Those who can’t survive in our world, well, they are regrettable casualties.”
The boudas snarled in unison.
A woman walked out from behind the brush bordering the road. Her dirty dress waved about her, like a grimy flag. She came toward us, wiping her nose with a dirty hand. One of the wolves detached from the pack and moved to flank her.
I leaned closer. “One of your people attacked my office and tried to kill a child. My child. She had done nothing to you. Is she also a regrettable casualty?”
The man nodded. “It’s tragic. But look at it from my point of view: your child will grow up and prosper, while me and my children will be forced to struggle. She is no better than me. Why should your child take my spot under the sun?”
Nothing I could say would penetrate his skull, but I couldn’t help myself. “That’s nice. They taught you very well. But in the end, you’re scum. A common thug might murder a man for money, but you murdered dozens out of selfish hope. This better life you’re hoping to get for yourself will never happen, or you would be living it already, magic or not. You can’t think for yourself. You want an excuse for your failure and so you found someone to blame. If you survived, you would always be dirt, ground under someone else’s boot.”
The man raised his face. “Say what you want. I know my cause is just. You didn’t stop us. You just delayed the inevitable.”
He didn’t do it because his religion told him to murder people. He didn’t do it because he couldn’t control himself. He did it out of pure selfish greed, and he didn’t feel the least bit upset by it. I’d rather take on a demonic horde any day.
The woman reached us. She was past thirty, maybe thirtyfive. I looked into her eyes and saw nothing. A painful empty void. She wasn’t a threat. She was a victim.
The woman stopped and looked at us. “Is it them?” she asked. Her voice was hoarse. “Is it them who did it?”
“Yes,” Curran told her.
She sniffed. Her gaze fixed on the three people kneeling in the dirt. “I want a turn.”
Andrea stepped close to her.
“They killed Lance,” she said. “They killed my babies. My whole family is dead. I want a turn.”
Andrea put a hand on her arm. “Ma’am . . .”
“You give me my turn!” The woman’s voice broke into a sob. She clamped her hand on Andrea’s fingers, trying to wrench them open. “I’ve got nothing left, you hear! Nothing. My whole life’s gone. You let me at these sonsabitches, you—”
Curran walked over to her. She went quiet.
“If you wait,” he said, “I promise you’ll get your turn.”
She sniffed again.
“Come on,” Andrea told her, leading her to the side gently. “Come with me.”
“Where were you taking the device?” Jim asked.
The smaller of the men raised his head. “We’ll tell you nothing. We are not afraid of death.”
Curran glanced at the boudas. A large spotted hyena moved forward, her strides slow and deliberate. Jezebel. She dipped her head and stared at the three captives with unblinking predatory focus. She would kill them. We wouldn’t get much out of whoever she attacked. She needed to avenge Joey. After she was done, nothing would be left of them.
I wanted to join her. I wanted to hurt them. I wanted to mince them to pieces, slice by slice, and watch them suffer. But if we didn’t squeeze every drop of information out of them now, I’d have to look at more dead bodies.
No. No, this ended now. They might not be afraid of death, but they were terrified of magic, of being enslaved by those who wielded it. They’d given me all the ingredients for their own personal nightmare.
I looked to Curran. He raised his hand. Jezebel halted. She didn’t want to, but she stopped.
I turned to Jim. “Which one of them is the least valuable?”
He glanced at the smaller man. “He probably knows the most.”
I stopped before the larger man. “We’ll start with him, then.” Anticipation of the terror was always worse. I wanted the smaller man to stew in his fear a bit.
The captive stared at me. “What are you going to do to me?”
“You think we’re abominations.” I pricked my palm with the point of my throwing knife. A drop of red swelled. I squeezed my hand, letting the drop grow. “Let me show you just how abominable magic can be.”
I thrust my hand at the larger man’s forehead. My blood connected with his skin, and I whispered a single power word. “Amehe.” Obey.
It hurt. Dear gods, it hurt, it hurt like a sonovabitch, but I didn’t care. Julie in a hospital bed, Ascanio torn and broken, Joey dead, corpses in the streets, children in their best clothes lying in the dirt, looking at the sky with dead eyes . . . They would never rise again. They would never walk, never laugh, never be. The rage inside me was boiling over.
The man froze, the line of magic between him and me taut with power. I’d promised myself I’d never do this again, but some promises had to be broken.
“Rise,” I told him.
He stood up.
“What did you do to him?” the female Keeper cried out, her voice squeaking.
Curran was watching me, his face unreadable like a slab of stone.
“Rope.” I gave the man a mental push. Sweat broke out on my hairline. The magic drain crushed me. It felt like I was dragging a chain with an anchor on the end of it.
Slowly he walked to the cart, untied the knots, and pulled the rope from the device. I pointed to the ringleader. “Tie him.”
Jim grabbed the ringleader’s wrists and pulled him up. The larger man looped the rope around the man’s waist.
“There is nothing you can do to me,” the ringleader said. The Keeper woman watched us with open horror.
I picked up the other end and showed it to the larger man. “Hold.”
He clamped it.
I glanced at the shapeshifters. “He’ll need help.”
Jezebel shed her fur and took the end of the rope. Good. The change would tire her out. She was strung out too high. She needed to burn off some of that edge.
“Give me room.”
The shapeshifters parted. The ringleader stood by himself.
I took a deep breath. “Ahissa.” Flee.
The shock of the power word nearly took me to my knees.
The ringleader screamed, a sharp high-pitched shriek full of animalistic, mind-numbing fear, and ran. On the left, one of the boudas dashed away in panic, caught by the edge of the magic.
The rope snapped taut. The man fell and clawed the dirt, kicking, trying to swim away through solid ground. His larger friend held him, a blank expression on his face. The ringleader raked the soil, again and again, trying to get away, howling in hysterical frenzy. The shapeshifters watched him with stone faces.
“How long does it last?” Curran asked.
“Another fifteen seconds or so.”
Moments stretched by. Finally the man stopped digging, his screams fading to weak hysterical sobs, echoed by the woman crying behind me. His fingers were bloody stumps, his nails torn off. I closed the distance between us and leaned over him. He looked up, slowly, his eyes brimming with echoes of panic.
“I bet the people of Palmetto would’ve screamed too, if you had given them a chance,” I said softly. “What do you say we do it again? I bet I can turn your hair gray before lunch.”
The man scrambled away from me and sprang to his feet. He managed a good sprint for about three yards and then the rope jerked him down. Jezebel gripped it and pulled him back, dragging him across the ground.
“No!” the man wailed. “I’ll tell you anything, anything!”
Didn’t take much after all. I braced myself and let out another power word. “Dair.” Release.
The larger man sagged on the ground, his mind suddenly free. For a second he just sat there, a sad, abandoned expression on his face, and then he collapsed, curling into a ball, and bawled like a lost child.
“They’re all yours,” I said to Jim, and forced myself to walk to the Jeep. Every step took an effort. Someone had filled my shoes with lead while I wasn’t looking.
Magic Slays kd-5 Page 24
