Invisible

by Dawn Metcalf

  The wounded car gave a low, creaking moan.

  There was a scuffling sound in the distance punctuated by a shing and clang on the wind.

  “Help!” Joy shouted with what little breath she had. “Help me!”

  She shuddered as the car listed. The front wheels began to dip.

  There was a heavy thud against the back of the car and a tug that yanked the car slowly back onto the pavement. It evaporated suddenly when a crashing slam came down on the trunk, shaking the car as well as Joy’s teeth. She squeezed her eyes shut.

  She let go of her purse strap and fumbled for the lever, trying to push the seat back and give her elbow some room to move. Reaching behind, her fingers brushed the curved edge of the knob. She shifted her shoulders, twisting her spine expertly to gain another precious inch and tried again, using the side of her wrist to press down.

  The seat moved. Joy gasped and reached toward the back to pull her legs free, digging her hands into the exposed stuffing. She kicked hard against the door.

  Beyond the empty rear window, Joy saw the Red Knight fighting Ink.

  It wasn’t elegant or calculating—it was eager and brutal—but then Joy realized that this probably wasn’t any of the previous knights. This Red Knight charged his way forward, sweeping his great hammer through the air and shifting its trajectory to drive Ink back across the yellow-lined parking lot through lines of imported cars. Ink parried with slashes of his straight razor, its power throwing musical sparks when it struck. Hunched forward, the Red Knight lunged, driving Ink like a lion, but the Scribe was a squirrel, a monkey, a fish, nimbly skipping over obstacles and easily dodging the hammer as if skimming through the water.

  He’s here! Joy kept thinking as she struggled. He came!

  The Red Knight flung the hammer sideways, unearthing one of the security gate pylons that tumbled end over end, spilling great chunks of cement and soil. The shattered call box blew a geyser of fat sparks. Ink sprang over a Ford truck. The Red Knight pursued.

  Joy swallowed thickly. Ink was playing bait.

  She hauled herself forward, pulling her body through the cramped space between the front seats, using the lower edge of the rear window as a handhold to draw herself up and every bit of her body’s skill to contort around the wreckage. She gripped the soft cushions, tearing stuffing and stitches, leveraging herself on one elbow, clawing for the crumpled trunk. Her upper body strength was more than enough to pull her up and out. Joy lifted her shoulders and felt her foot tangle on her purse strap caught on the belt somewhere. She kicked desperately, scraping her ankle against the emergency brake. The car buckled under her efforts and let out a squeal.

  That was when the Red Knight saw her—half-in and half-out of the wreck—and that was the precise moment when Ink saw her, too.

  The knight swung in a tight circle, lifting the hammer in both hands, grunted and let go. The hammer flew toward her. Joy cringed and braced herself against the car.

  The hammer slammed into a ward and fell with an ominous clang on the ground.

  Joy stretched to look. But the ward hadn’t come from Ink.

  “Get out of the car!” screamed Stef, who stood sweaty and rumpled on the other side of the parking lot, hands outstretched and flattened before him as if pressed against a wall. There were symbols drawn along the length of his arms and below both eyes. His arms shook.

  Ink appeared beside the car, half crouched, having thrown himself through a breach somewhere near the ground. He exhaled as he slid to a halt, his eyes sharp as obsidian glass.

  The Red Knight howled and charged. Ink spun to his feet, but not in time to stop the bull-rush impact of the armored shoulder hitting the car’s left taillight, slamming the wreckage forward and over the edge.

  Joy felt the sickening tilt as her ankle caught in her purse strap. Ink dived beneath the car and stabbed his weapon upward, piercing the floor. The Kia pivoted on the axis, circling, dragging its wheels through the dirt, smashing its front wheel into the divider, wrapping the fender around a pylon and lodging its headlight on the cap. The car stopped, torqued clockwise, Ink buried beneath the muffler.

  Joy kicked off her shoe and pulled her leg free, slithering out of the car as fast as she could, but red mail gauntlets appeared, gouging into the trunk, gripping with fierce effort as the Red Knight clawed after her. Joy scrambled back over the corrugated roof. Beneath the blood-colored faceplate came a hollow, feral snuffling—a grunting, animalistic need that made Joy’s primal instincts squeal. She stumbled, sliding backward, glyphs flaring on her skin.

  There was a flash. Then another. And another.

  Stef’s voice called, “Joy!”

  The car lurched. Joy grabbed the edge of a window. The Red Knight tightened his grip. She kicked him in the face. Her armor flared. The knight snorted.

  Ink appeared over his shoulder, yanked back the helmet and stabbed wickedly under the chin.

  A great gush of blood spewed across the trunk of the car, catching the edge of Joy’s bare foot and spraying over the side. She flailed. The Red Knight pitched forward, head loose, then pitched back, falling with a heavy thump on the ground. Ink leaped away, eyes following the knight as its body tumbled down the incline past the teetering car, grinding to a clunky stop by the lip of the stream. Cattails bent lazily under his outstretched arm.

  The car tipped. Joy stiffened. Ink offered her a hand and she took it. He quickly helped her down, and they retreated a few feet from the ruined, blood-spattered car.

  Joy stared at his fingers instead of staring at him. He was here—she could feel him—but it didn’t seem real. A tickling, trickling energy flowed up her leg, soothing and cool. She looked down and wiped her bloody bare foot in the grass.

  “I didn’t think you’d come,” she whispered. Ink said nothing and dropped her hand. She swallowed and twisted her fingers in the edge of her shirt. She couldn’t ask him the question she really wanted answered, so instead she asked, “How did you know?”

  Ink didn’t look at her, and she wondered if he was even willing to speak to her anymore. If he could stand to look at her after what she’d almost done.

  “I placed a mark on your phone,” he said. “I did not tell you, and when you exchanged it for a new one, I did not realize what had happened until...” Joy remembered his panic when she and Inq had returned from Mr. Vinh’s. Ink unfolded the wallet and blew on the blade; tiny droplets of blood dissolved in the wind. He placed the clean arrowhead inside the leather and folded it back into thirds.

  He’d killed again. For her. She tried to catch his eye.

  “It took some time to place the next one,” he said coolly. His face hardened; his voice flattened to match. “I heard your call and I answered.”

  She flushed, still running on adrenaline, fear and shame. The feeling wore Mrs. Reid’s face, and now Ink’s. “Why did you come?”

  Ink dug his heel in the dark, rich earth soaked in blood. “Because I promised that I would keep you safe from the Red Knight. I am bound by that promise, no matter what else has changed,” he said, turning aside. “I cannot lie. And I keep my promises.”

  Joy folded her arms, hurt.

  Stef was gaining ground, circling the parking lot, looking scared and sweaty and livid.

  “I will ask Inq to update your armor with the signatura for the next Red Knight,” he said. “And I will pay for it, since it was my actions here today that necessitated the change.” Ink wiped a hand against his hip. “I would not want you further indebted to your former employer.”

  Joy swallowed against the tightness in her throat. She wanted to scream at him. She wanted to ask if he’d bothered to find out what she’d done for the Bailiwick, for people like Ysabel. Would that have helped? What did he think of her now? Did it matter? He was there and she was here, and it felt like there were miles between them instead of
only a few feet. Joy felt awful and ashamed and guilty and scared. She wanted to beg him to look at her, to say something, to ask her why, to listen, to let her explain...

  Ink watched Stef dive past the pylon. “I will go now.”

  “Wait.” She had to say something. Find something to make him stay. He paused and she grabbed for the moment. “Why did the Red Knight go after you?”

  “Because I would not let him hurt you.”

  Joy tried to ignore the past tense in order to make her point. “Graus Claude said that the Red Knight has no interest in anyone other than its contracted target. He said that my friends and family would be safe,” Joy said. “Even so, he should have tried to kill me, not go chasing after you.” She twisted her fingers together. “But this one went after you with a vengeance. I saw it. He wanted to kill you. I could see it in the way he moved.”

  “Yes. He was not very good,” Ink admitted. “More brute force than experience.” He turned to face her but glanced away into the ruin of the parking lot rather than look into her eyes. “As soon as I appeared, he dropped the car and came after me. That does not align with his contractual obligations or his reputation.” Ink finally looked at her, but his eyes were not kind and his dimples were nowhere to be seen. “It was not until he saw you emerging from the vehicle that he refocused his attack.”

  A horrid chill crept up her sides. “So I should have stayed in the car?”

  “No,” Ink said. “I would guess that they are operating under old intelligence that I am bound to you for other reasons and not merely an impediment to success.”

  His voice was flat and matter-of-fact. Joy resisted biting back. Ink should know that she hadn’t meant to hurt him or Inq and she hadn’t done anything more to Monica’s scar—shouldn’t that count for something? Shouldn’t that help? Shouldn’t that prove something good about her? Even at that last moment just now, she hadn’t—she couldn’t—but now the Reids thought she’d attacked their daughter, and Ink thought that she’d purposefully risked his life and their worlds and everyone hated her.

  The thought struck her full in the face, hot and horrid: he hates me.

  She felt Stef’s hands grab her shoulders, but she didn’t turn around.

  “That’s it?” she said, her voice trembly and quiet. “That’s all?”

  Ink turned away, his fingers clenching into fists, the wallet chain swinging a silent metronome at his hip.

  He kicked the car. There was a sound of tearing metal, a lurch of its innards, and the car broke free, dragged by its own weight down the hillside, rolling over the body of the knight by the stream. Its tires hit the water with a splash and listed. Ink tossed Joy’s open purse at her feet.

  “I will keep you safe from the Red Knight,” he said as it hit the ground. “But that is all.” He glanced up for a moment. He looked hopeful, intense. “Joy...”

  Her heart lurched. “Ink?”

  He shook his head, his slicing voice barely a whisper on the wind. “Do not let me lose you.”

  Joy stepped forward, but Stef’s hands held her back. Ink flicked his wrist, slicing a clumsy tear in the world through which he made his silent escape. Stef hugged her shoulders tightly as Joy watched him go.

  FOURTEEN

  STEF’S FORK CHASED peas around his plate, making awkward scraping sounds that Joy felt in her teeth. They’d left the wreck, Stef had cancelled his plans and they’d stayed home and made lasagna with way too much cheese and not nearly enough sauce. Stef had boiled a bag of frozen peas to add some semblance of green. Mom had called, but Joy hadn’t said much. She didn’t know what to say besides “I love you.” The image of Mrs. Reid shielding her daughter with her body kept burning in the back of her mind.

  Stef’s overshirt hung unbuttoned over his inside-out tee, and Joy tapped the floor with the toes of her shoes. It was a lot like having dinner with Dad during the Year of Silence before the divorce went through, but it was Joy who was now feeling weepy and quiet and grim.

  “Eat,” Stef urged, pushing the bowl of peas toward her. Joy accepted it through a fog, scooping sad pebbly orbs onto her plate. She rubbed the bruises on her arm. Stef still had runes on his. He chewed and swallowed. “Want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  A tinkly silence resumed: plink, clink, scritch.

  “That’s why you needed the armor?”

  Joy swallowed peas. “Yes.”

  Scrape, clank, ping.

  “I can see why you and Dad are so close,” Stef said. “You’re a brilliant conversationalist.”

  Joy slammed down her fork. “Who’s the guy from the Carousel, Stef? The DJ from the Twixt? Because he said to say hi.”

  Unfazed, Stef shrugged and kept sawing at a stringy forkful of cooling cheese. “I don’t know,” he said. “Could be anyone. Probably an old client.”

  “Client?” Joy said. The word brought a rush of images: Graus Claude, the brownstone office, the files at Dover Mill. “You have clients?”

  “Had. Yeah,” he said and waved the fork at the long lines of glyphs drawn in marker from elbow to wrist. “Most wizards need ingredients of power.” He poked his skin with the butter knife. “Mine’s built-in, remember? Blood, tears, hair, skin. I learned enough on my own so I could freelance now and again, but when I signed on for my apprenticeship, my Master didn’t like it.”

  Joy sputtered, “Your ‘Master’?”

  “Don’t act all Voldemort.” Stef spoke around another mouthful of lasagna. “I’m an apprentice. He’s the master, hence the title.”

  Joy twisted her fingers in her napkin, ignoring her plate. “And your clients?”

  Stef sawed more forcefully. “A few charms and potions here and there,” he said. “Nothing major. It paid the bills, which is not something to sneeze at.” He sighed and put down his fork, scrubbing his mouth with his napkin. “Speaking of which, I can’t believe you wrecked the car.”

  “I didn’t wreck the car,” Joy said. “It was wrecked while I was in it. By someone other than me—literally Other Than me!” She’d been avoiding thinking about how she’d been trapped inside and nearly crushed to death and drowned; there were certain things like near-death experiences, Ink’s dismissal and the look on Mrs. Reid’s face that her brain didn’t need to dwell on right now. “Besides,” she said. “Better a used hunk of scrap metal than me.”

  “Is that the argument you plan to use with Dad?” Stef asked. “Or will that come after the story about how you lost your summer job?”

  Joy winced. Everything in her life felt somehow too big and too small at the same time: real-life problems felt bloated in comparison and a totaled car ranked low on the totem pole of her life right now. The Reids thought she’d done something terrible, Monica was still in the hospital, Ink felt betrayed by her but was bound by his promise and she was out both friends and jobs while the Red Knight was out there trying to find new ways to kill her before Graus Claude could rescind the order.

  “I was kinda hoping to avoid telling him as long as humanly possible,” Joy said.

  “Ah, avoidance. Very wise,” Stef said, piling utensils on his plate. “Remember—one conniption fit at a time.”

  Joy picked at her plate, watching Stef clear his place. “Are you going to tell me how you made a ward back there?”

  Stef scraped his plate into the trash. “No.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s not my design—it’s my Master’s. That’s how wizardry works,” he said. “Consider it patented material.”

  She ate more peas.

  Stef turned on the water, washing the last smear of marinara off the plate. “Well, lucky for you, it’s over now. No more knights in bloody armor, no more Twixt and a last gasp of debt-filled summer stretching out before you.”

  There was a sharp knock at the door and they both looked up
. Stef shut off the water and Joy stood, feeling tingly right down to her toes. He glanced a question at her. She shrugged as she walked over to the door and peered through the peephole.

  The heart-shaped face on the other side of the lens didn’t look happy.

  “I’m not in the mood,” Joy said.

  “Open the door.”

  Joy sighed and opened the door.

  Inq strode in.

  Stef nearly tripped over his shoes backing into the counter. Inq ignored him.

  “Sit,” she ordered. Resigned, Joy sat. Inq pushed back her chin, inspecting her neck. Glyphs flared gold in response to her touch. Stef choked out a word.

  “You—”

  “Quiet,” Inq said. Stef froze. “You’ll need to break the mark—” she pressed her forefinger hard into Joy’s flesh “—here. I have the new one ready when you are.” She pulled a slip of paper out of the pocket of her sleek black leather jacket. “Ink gave this to me and said to get here ASAP.”

  Joy swallowed. “I’ll need a mirror.”

  “Just draw the blade across the skin,” Inq said with a humorless smile. “It’s like slitting your own throat. I’d be happy to help.”

  “Okay,” Stef said, “this is officially no longer dinner conversation.” There was no salt on the table, but Stef pointed with his butter knife. “You. Out.”

  Inq sized up Stef in one long, drawling glance. “Does he come with a leash?” she asked.

  Joy lowered her chin. “Stop.”

  “Pity,” Inq said. “It’d suit him.”

  Stef glared. “Not my kink.”

  “Enough,” Joy said, getting up. “She’s here to help.” Joy looked between the two of them. “Sort of.”