by Sevan Paris
The dragon flails and tries to yell—either in panic, anger, or both—but no sound comes out of its mouth. It tries to inhale, getting nothing for its trouble. Its eyes grow lazy, its limbs limp, and it plummets back to the Earth, in free fall.
I look at Ember, floating miles above Earth. Just like I knew it would, M’s forcefield trapped enough air for her to breathe before we headed up. “Now’s the time to back out,” I say. “We don’t have to—”
She kisses me. Long and hard.
When she pulls away, her eyes are lit, their color matching the sword humming in her right hand. “Come on,” she says. “Let’s make Fate our bitch.”
We fly back down.
The dragon falls in a leisurely spin, its eyes rolled deep in its sockets. I wait until its belly rolls into view and then we spot it: a bare patch of skin where scales should be covering its left breast.
I fly down next to it. Ember reaches out, and pulls herself closer to it by a scale. She climbs up its breast, raises her fiery sword—
And Ms. Mystick appears on the other side of the dragon, coming out of the clouds like an angry banshee. She rides the same circle of light, spinning its arcane hieroglyphics directly under her. An energy bolt lances from her fingertips and wraps around my midsection, shoving me away.
The world slows … my eyes lock with Ember’s for just a moment. Even with the fire dancing inside them, they seem calm. Like they’re saying, “It’s not your fault. You did all you could.”
And then she’s gone, out of sight.
The white energy arcing around me whispers, angrily, in a language I’ve never heard. Whatever propels it jerks me to a sudden stop, pinning me to an invisible wall. I try to fly, pushing one way and pulling another, but it’s no use. It just won’t budge.
“M!”
I have no idea. Can we talk about that kiss? We agreed you were going to consult me before fleeting attempts at fornication …
“Another time please?!” I wiggle right and left, desperate to break free before … “How far are we away from the ground?”
One mile. Even if Ember manages to slay the beast, she doesn’t have much time.
I fire a Grav Blast at Mystick’s energy. The whispery voice laughs at me. The arcing gets louder, thicker.
The energy just tripled in output. Our power seems to be feeding it.
I stop struggling and power down when a thought occurs to me. I reach into my pocket, fish out the necklace and clasp it around my neck.
What are you doing?
“Giving it something else chew on.” I power back up and point a fist at the sparking energy. Its whispery laugh ramps up to a scream right before my Grav Blast shatters it.
You used our Grav Blasts as a conduit to deliver the dampening properties of the amulet. I must admit, that was fairly ingenious. Especially for one so—
“Where are they?!”
Right below the cloud line. M outlines their silhouettes in blue.
I take off, back at them in an instant.
The dragon falls steadily, its back facing the ground. Ember clings to the thing’s chest. Mystick hovers directly above her. Ember is refusing to make the kill, knowing Mystick will just whisk her away to wherever once the deed is done. But just in case, Ember does have her sword raised above the bare patch. Raised and waiting …
For me.
Ember sees me out of the corner of her eye, flying toward her. She smiles and plunges the sword into the dragon’s chest. The dragon’s eyes snap open, fixing on Ember and Mystick. It screams and rolls, sending both of them in opposite directions.
Ember’s hand reaches into the blackness, grabbing mine. She spins herself onto my back and I slow to a hover, watching the dragon scream and writhe all the way down to the Tennessee River. Right before impact, it flickers into sparks and ash. Orange glowing dust mixes with the snow feathering through the night, twirls against the wind, and then meanders into Ember.
“Booya,” she says in a weak voice.
***
I land on the Michael Booth Bridge, setting Ember down beside me. It’s probably pushing 3 AM by now, so the bridge is deserted. “Are you okay?”
She nods and raises a finger, holding her other hand at her belly. “If I don’t throw up, I’ll be fine. But I should probably sit,” she barely manages to say before collapsing into the snow on her hip.
I’m not sure how much time we’ll have for sitting.
I look up. Ms. Mystick hovers back to the bridge on her circle of light and lands beside us.
A few moments pass. Ember shuffles in the snow, trying to get to her feet. I pull her up and she leans on me, head swaying a little.
Mystick smiles, approvingly. “Fighting until the last.”
“Obi?” I say. “What did you do to him?”
She slightly purses her lips. “Nothing.”
I tilt my head.
“It was quicker to find out what you were doing by examining the contents of the pestle than by … questioning him,” Mystick says. “His pride will be the only thing injured when he wakes.”
Another silence. I think about how fast I can get Ember out of here. I think about all of the things I’ve heard Ms. Mystick can do. And then I think about all of the things I’ve seen her do. The falling snow pit-pats onto the bridge … my hand tightens at Ember’s side.
“Don’t do this,” I say. “Ember’s proven herself.”
“It wasn’t Ember’s intentions that were called into question, as much as her ability to communicate those intentions. Now, ironically, it’s been her fear that I would take the power from her that’s forced my hand. She’s just too much of a loose cannon.”
“Don’t make this about me.” Ember steps away, keeping most of her weight on her left leg. “You’ve always wanted to take this power away, without giving me a choice, a say in who gets it. That’s not fair to Eldritch. To what he wanted.”
“Are we talking about Eldritch or are we talking about you?” Mystick says. Unlike Ember, her breath somehow doesn’t frost into the cold.
“There’s no difference. Eldritch picked me.” Ember limps closer to Mystick. I hope she doesn’t fall over.
Mystick looks away. “Perhaps, but …”
“No,” Ember straightens. “You listen. You want me? Fine, we can’t stop you. But you can’t stop me either.”
Mystick’s eyes narrow. “What do you—”
Ember’s sword hums to life in her hand. She collapses to her knees and holds the tip of the burning blade inches from her throat, chin thrusted out.
Mystick’s hands fall from her hips, closing her cloak.
“Can’t risk it, can you?” Ember says. “ ‘Macabre grows stronger while our numbers grow weaker.’ That’s what you said in Obi’s shop. You may be able to do something to me before this thing goes into my throat. But I’ll find a way to end myself eventually—before you get this power out of me. I guaran-damn-tee it.”
I step forward, about to say something—anything—that would end this insanity. But seeing Mystick’s shoulders sag, just slightly, stops me.
Mystick raises her palm. “Okay, Ember. You’ve made your point. We’ll do it your way, but on one condition: We meet regularly, in a neutral place, to discuss your progress in finding a new Sayer. If you don’t agree to those terms, you might as well open your throat right here on the bridge. Because I’ll chain your soul to mine if that’s what it takes to protect the Magicks inside you. From Macabre or from yourself.”
The three of us stare at each other.
Ember nods and the sword winks out of existence.
“So that’s it?” I say. “It’s that easy?”
Mystick arches an eyebrow at me. “On the contrary, I would say the situation has grown increasingly complicated.”
I tense, not sure if I want to hear the answer to my next question, but I have to ask: “Why didn’t you come after me on the night of the whole Deathbot thing?”
She smiles. “Honestly, I was too tired
. I had already gone weeks without rest, looking for Macabre. But I did have reason to question Liberty’s motivations for going after you and said as much. He told me I was no longer part of HEROES the following morning.” Mystick looks past me. “It made my meeting with Silver Sentinel somewhat awkward this morning, but we got past it.” I turn and follow her eyes to Ember. She leans on the bridge railing, staring at the river.
“So does this mean we’re … allies? United, common enemy and all that?”
“I wouldn’t say HEROES is my enemy. Let’s just say a friend of Ember’s is somebody I can use to my advantage if need be.”
“That’s not even a little like an ally.”
Yet, it repeatedly seems to be the closest thing we manage to find.
“Perhaps. But that’s all we have for the moment. And considering Tommy is still recovering in the hospital from your altercation earlier, I think it’s better than it could be.” The light disc thingy forms under Mystick’s feet. “Tell Ember I’ll call on her after she has a chance to rest.” With a rush of air, Mystick flies off, the disc fading into the night.
I walk over to Ember. “How are you feeling?”
She looks at me, and tucks some bright red hair behind an ear. “I’m still not entirely sure if I’m going to throw up, but I’m okay. That was …”
“Yeah.”
“We almost …”
“Yeah.”
“But you never gave up. On yourself. On me.”
If it makes a difference, I gave up on the both of you long ago.
“I’ve had a lot of practice in the not-believing-what-others-say category.”
“Yeah, same here. But still, it starts to wear you down after a while. Even with everything I said, everything I did, I started to wonder …”
She looks back at the water.
“Ember, I don’t know Macabre. And there is still a lot I don’t know about your world, but be careful. Guys like him don’t give up. And they make things personal in the worst way.”
She reaches into the pocket of her hoodie and pulls out another piece of chalk. “I’m going to stay with Obi for a while. Until this blows over a little. If you want to …” she places the chalk in my hand, not knowing what else to say. She looks me in the eyes and pulls my face to hers. Our lips touch tenderly, the only heat on the snowy bridge.
Ember pulls away before I do and gives me a grin. The lonely kind of grin that you give other people to make it seem like everything is okay. And then she limps away, into the cold, pulling up her hood.
EPILOGUE
“Casa?” I say into his apartment.
He’s not here, Gabe. The only thing I’m detecting is the wretched apparition upstairs.
“That’s the person I really wanted to speak with anyway.” I close the door behind me and turn on the light so that I don’t trip over the jungle of book stacks in the living room. Casa could give Rock Creek Bookstore a run for its money.
Void knows why.
I walk up the creaking stairs, in the direction of Pink’s bedroom. She stayed with me the night we broke into The Bend, but has been here with Casa ever since. He had an extra bedroom anyway, so it kind of worked out. Well, it at least worked out as good as it could have, given that HEROES now hated her almost as much as they hated me.
“So you think Ms. Mysick’s powers—that the Magicks in general—are somehow connected to us?”
Not us directly, but the radiation indicates someone like us. Or to be even more specific: someone like I used to be.
I stop, near the last step. “You think another one of your race—somebody else who was bored like you—created … Magick?”
Essentially. But not here—on another world or maybe even another dimension. And if such an affected being managed to find his way here, either through a natural portal or on artificial one, and then was killed …
“But someone from your race couldn’t have caused this. Everything works differently. They kill each other—the Sayers—and somehow manage to take their powers. Powers that work off just saying words. That’s nothing like Supers.”
Supers’ powers don’t work like that simply because I didn’t want them to—not because I was incapable of making them do so. These abilities—these ‘Magickal’ powers—work very similar to the abilities I personally had after The Accession. My species’ understanding of the inter-workings of existence was second nature at that point. If I wanted something to happen, Gabe, simply saying it aloud was generally all it took.
I sigh and marvel—not for the first time—at the stupid amount of power M had before he was sent here.
And the point of the cosmic game my kind played with one another was, ultimately, to have the creatures in our planetary sandboxes outlive those of our peers. These Sayers killing others like themselves to gain better access to their abilities today—it may have started as some form of evolutionary experiment.
I lower my voice to a whisper to keep Pink from hearing me. “But what about the ‘odd’ energy? Wouldn’t you have been able to recognize something from your own race?”
Not if another member of my race created it and then kept it hidden.
“…. Does this change anything?”
It might later. I suspect there is more to this than we’ve witnessed thus far. We should be ready to encounter something more … relatable in the future. And furthermore, we may be able to get Ember to help us with finding Maul, given the nature of those inter-galactic portals in Old Prose.
“She has enough problems, M.”
So did I, and yet we helped her anyway.
“Fine—fine, I’ll ask.” I stop at Pink’s bedroom door and knock.
Nothing but the sounds of echoing voices playing on the television …
I open the door, and there she is: a pink, cloud-like tweenager hovering above a bed topped with a black comforter. Moving boxes surround the bed, some of their contents spread across the floor like opened Christmas presents. Mostly DVDs, knick knacks. There aren’t any dolls, games, or stuffed animals—the stuff you’d expect to find from someone her age. Or at least the age she appears.
The night she stayed at my house, she changed while she slept. Into a woman in her early twenties. Which meant she looks this young on purpose. I’ve been waiting, giving her the room she needs to bring this up on her own, but given what happened with Lancaster, the waiting may need to come to an end.
She looks at me with her round face. “So, did you like, save the world or something?”
I sit on the bed. “Or something. But everything is how it should be.”
She makes a noise, like air blowing from pursed lips.
I turn and look at her. “What?”
“Nothing. Forget it. I hate you, that’s all.”
“Why? I—do I deserve that? I came here to check on you.”
“No, you came here to say everything was okay.”
“I don’t—”
“Do you remember what you said in the bookstore? Specifically?”
“That you can’t just …” the words die on my lips.
“ ‘… ride around in somebody’s body whenever you like,’ ” she finishes for me.
My face burns.
“Yeah, now you get it.”
We stare at the television in silence for a few minutes. Finally I say, “You can’t possess people anymore.”
More silence is her only response.
“Pink, I-I’m sorry, I …”
“And it’s your fault. So now that we have that settled, think you can shut up now?” She stares at the television.
I rub the bridge of my nose, stand up, and turn off the television.
“Hey!”
“Now that I have your attention, let me say I’m sorry—”
“I don’t want to hear ‘I’m sorry.’ It doesn’t make what you did go away.”
“Well … did you ever start to think that maybe, just maybe, what I said—what I did—was the right thing to do?”
Her hea
d turns away slightly, but she keeps her eyes on me. Eyes filled with hate and anger.
“You’re not—I don’t think you’re very responsible with this thing.”
“Don’t talk to me like that. I may look like a kid, but—”
“But you don’t have to, right?”
“What?”
“I saw you when you were sleeping. You were older. Which means you look like this intentionally. Why?”
She drifts toward the window. “This—forget this. I’m outta here.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s good. Just going to rush out. Instead of dealing with the truth.”
She rushes back, pink misty body enveloping me—making me flinch.
“No! I’m rushing out of here, Gabe, instead of dealing with YOU! Can you even imagine what it’s like?” She looks at the television. “Not being able to touch anything?”—she looks back at me—“Anyone? To have the most suckiest experience turn you into something like this, and then-then things just get epically worse from there?”
Now THAT is the correct use of ‘epic.’
I close my eyes for a moment. Not now M, please. “I don’t know what your situation is, Pink. But I get that it sucks. Mine sucks too.”
“Don’t you DARE compare us!” her voice echoes around me. “My life is nothing like yours! It’s—even before I was like I am now … it …” Her eyes squint, like she’s holding back tears. She begins to shift—from the tweenager wearing the Brittany Spears t-shirt—into the woman that I saw that night after The Bend.
All I can do is silently move my mouth like an idiot.
Confused, she looks at her hands and then faces her reflection in the dresser’s mirror. Pink’s round face is replaced with longer features, her button nose becomes slightly clipped, and her eyes lose all innocence. She turns on me with those same eyes—now hardened with loss and pain. “Now I can’t even …” she pauses briefly before bolting through the window, into the night.
An invisible weight presses on my chest. I’ve never felt as rotten—as absolutely horrible—as I do right now. I look around the room, desperately—as if I’m trying to find something that will make me feel better.
All I find is today’s Prosian, spread out on the floor. There is an article about how great Liberty is and about how bad I am. It’s written by Lisa Lancaster and beside it are some notes in Casa’s handwriting.
