by Holly Hook
I gulped. We were headed there. We might find out how the story ended.
A horrible thought hit. Both of Xavier's parents could be Shadow Wraiths and I might have met them already. "Infernal Dimension?" Our teachers had never said anything about that.
"Think of the scary place mentioned in a lot of religions," Xavier said. He continued to stare into the water. "Where do you think that idea came from?"
"I'm sorry about your parents."
"Thanks."
"And that you got stuck with your grandfather."
Xavier shrugged. "Someone had to take the burden of the family honor. With Mom gone, it's just me and my sister now. She's thirteen and too young to bind to anyone. I guess Leon's going to put all this on her next." He faced me. "If we survive the ATC building, we've got to get her away from him. I don't want him laying a hand on her."
"As in?"
Xavier lifted his palm like he wanted to slap me and held it there.
"So he's a hitter."
He nodded. "I have scars from when...never mind."
"From when what?" I was getting too nosy.
Xavier was looking away from me again, putting his wall back up. There was still something that was off the discussion table so I changed the subject.
"So, how do we get in?" I asked.
Xavier and I were in the same boat more than I'd imagined. In fact, we were on the same little sinking raft. Xavier had the torment of both parents missing, a sister to protect, and a sword hanging over his own life. He stood up and kicked a pebble into the water, which skipped and sank somewhere close to the opposite shore.
"I don't know," he said. "But I do know that slaying a demon is a way to restore lost honor. In the Mage world, if you do that, people forget that you ever screwed up in the first place."
"But running in and trying to kill Thoreau without thinking about it first will get us both killed."
"I know it will," Xavier said. "It helps that we're bonded but neither of us have been fighting that long. All the War Mages I know slayed their first demon when they were older. Like, at least ten years older."
I could see what was going on here. "Your grandfather is trying to make you rush into this," I said. "He's left it the only way you can get off his hit list. Don't do it." I wanted to rush in there as much as Xavier did but I also wasn't stupid. I thought. Trying to stab Thoreau hadn't been the brightest thing in the world. And he was some demon lord, something even worse than Allunna.
"I know he is," Xavier said. "He sure hasn't tried to rescue my parents. What if they're in the Infernal Dimension?"
It was my turn to stand back up. "Is that where he puts his prisoners?"
"Well, if I were him, that skyscraper wouldn't be enough to hold in a bunch of Abnormals. I'd want to stash my prisoners in a way worse place."
"Then I'm with you and we have to get in there." The thought of Dad being there struck terror through me. "But I don't know how."
"I've looked for maps of the ATC building. They don't exist," Xavier said. "My parents went in blind. We need someone who can go in and tell us the exact layout of the place before we move. Someone with an eye for detail. Do you know anybody like that?"
Chapter Eight
Four hours later, I knocked on Janine's apartment door.
The sun had gone back in, hiding behind the clouds and making it almost bearable for me to be out in the open. I still wore the black blouse and it helped some, too, but I vowed to get more sunglasses as soon as I could get away with it. The light still hurt my eyes and I'd walked with the fake cane all the way there.
I was kind of relieved that Janine's apartment was on the opposite side of the bridge as the ATC building. Now that I knew I could end up in there, I wanted to be as far away from it as I could get.
And if I did go in there, I would have to kill. I might even have to kill Normals. I’d come close already and when I went back, I’d become the horrible monster everyone said I was. I’d never be able to return to a Normal life again.
Janine came to the door with a slow shuffle, like she wasn't sure what to expect on the other end and not liking the stuff going through her head. Bad sign. I shared a glance with Xavier and he shook his head. We might have to barge in.
The door creaked open a little and one brown eye peeked out at us.
And the door shut.
“Janine,” I said. “It's me. Rosyln. It's okay.”
She was standing on the other side of the door because I didn't hear her footsteps moving away. I could smell a bit of metallic adrenaline through the bottom. She was terrified.
I knocked again. “I just want to talk to you, Janine.” I kept my voice low. A kid was crying in an apartment downstairs. Most people weren't home yet from work from the sounds of things but I couldn't take more risks than I needed. I waited for the sound of her dialing a phone but she wasn't doing that. The thought had crossed my mind. Janine could be Hannah all over again.
“Who's that guy with you?” she asked as the door came back open.
Oh. “Xavier.” I said. “He's okay and not with the authorities. Can we come in?"”
“Okay," Janine said, opening the door a couple of feet.
I was shocked. We both stepped into the impossibly clean apartment. It was quiet.
“I was so scared they took you away,” Janine said. She wouldn't back away from me almost like she was too afraid to let me further in. “Why didn't you just tell me the truth about your migraines? I wouldn't have taken the long way to your house yesterday if I knew.”
Her gaze darted to Xavier. She was trying to recognize if this was the guy she'd seen yesterday with me.
“Did anyone come here looking for me?” I asked.
Janine shook her head. “I didn't go to school today. I figured since people had seen you hanging out with me that the authorities would want to talk to me there. Maisha said there were officers talking to the principal this morning and they were bothering Coach Lancey, too.”
She sounded like her mind was elsewhere. Those people felt like they were in a different world now. “I wanted to make sure,” I said.
Janine backed into the coffee table as the jazz switched to a new song, one I recognized. “I don't know if they're still going to come here. I won't tell them anything.”
“You...won't?”
She glared at me. “What kind of friend do you think I am?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I've just had...people betray me in the past. I have to be careful.”
“Anyway, you've only been going to this school for three months,” Janine said. “Not a lot of people know much about you. Maisha pretended she had no idea where you might be when they asked her.” She glanced behind her like she wasn't sure if someone were hiding in one of the back rooms.
I lowered my voice and remembered that the door was only three feet behind me and that the apartment building had four doors and a basement. Xavier pulled closer to me as well. Janine swallowed. Her nerves were not going away. In fact, her scent was getting stronger. Her gaze flicked to the door behind me and back to the hallway behind her.
I caught the first whiff of cologne and I seized Janine's arm, running for the door.
"Ouch!" she shouted, but I was already yanking the door open and pulling her through. Feet shuffled and a sense of dread bloomed behind me like a giant, black flower. Xavier was right behind me, pushing me through the door. A flare of heat followed as Janine and I toppled into the hallway. Magenta light exploded.
I turned and let go of Janine's arm, letting her bolt down the stairs to the next floor. She stopped in a faint square of sunlight and pressed against the wall.
"Run," I yelled at her.
But she didn't. I had no time to force her to go.
Xavier faced the open apartment door and I raised the cane, which instantly lost its disguise and turned back into the stained sword. It was even worse now, covered in black sludge from the banshee but it was just as sharp as ever.
A Shadow
Wraith oozed out of the apartment door where we'd been three seconds before. The cologne smell--the same type Thoreau had slathered on himself yesterday--oozed out with it. Despair smelled like a rich man. It was fitting. He was somewhere in there, ordering his minions to destroy us.
Xavier's fist was closed, glowing with magenta fire. Some of his power flowed into me, down my arm and into the sword. The flames erupted again, hot and lighting the entire hall in magenta. Janine yelled something. The Shadow Wraith grew taller as it emerged all the way into the hall.
Xavier threw the fireball and I stabbed. My sword contacted the solid chest of the Shadow Wraith that wasn't really there and the creature's black robe caught fire, which spread across the fabric, hungry. The Wraith groaned, the same mournful sound I'd heard last night, and melted into the floor like the wicked witch of the West. Magenta flame still danced on the shrinking black puddle as it vanished into the carpet, melting down towards the depths.
A second Shadow Wraith bled out after the first, growing into the same space. I swung before it could emerge all the way into the hall and my sword struck it in the side, which also felt solid. I fought to stay up and not collapse into tears. My father might be one of these things very soon if one had touched him. There was no way Xavier and I could get up to the top floor of the ATC building, let alone into the Infernal Dimension. Everyone hated us. It was impossible...
"There's ten of them!" Janine shouted. "Get out of there!"
The second Wraith followed the path of the first, melting into the floor and vanishing, only to have a third and a fourth push against each other and make their way out at the same time. The cologne smell got stronger. Even if we dispatched all these Wraiths we had the big guy at the end to deal with.
"Let's go!" Xavier shouted.
I took one last swing at the closest Wraith, which caught fire like the others, and followed Xavier and Janine in bolting down the stairs. I smelled smoke. Real smoke, not Xavier's scent. Something other than a Wraith had caught fire.
Thoreau might even be setting the place on fire.
Janine was the first to bolt out into the open, shoving open the door and screaming for help. There was no one in the apartment parking lot but some birds that took off into flight. Janine waved her arms at the cars passing on the street, but none stopped.
And the clouds had thinned, leaving the pale sun to start burning my face.
"Help!" she shouted again, running towards a van that was slowly rolling past. Even it kept going, leaving us to deal with the terrors inside.
I checked behind us. Smoke was billowing out of the building right now, so thick that I couldn't tell if there were Shadow Wraiths mixed in with it.
"There are people in there!" Janine shouted.
The other entrance to the building was smoke free. I darted for it, sword in hand. I didn't care that people might see this. A little kid was in there somewhere. I couldn't let people burn to death if I could help it.
And Xavier and I might have caused this. We'd set the Shadow Wraiths on fire.
"Alyssa!" Xavier shouted. "Don't go in without me."
He joined me at the other door, which was clear. I yanked it open and smelled the smoke from here, even though the hallway was clear. No one was panicking and scrambling to get out. It was up to us.
"Stay close," Xavier said, pressing against me. "Thoreau set this fire to lure us back in. My magic doesn't start fires."
That was a relief. Sort of. I banged on the first door and screamed "Fire!" before moving on to the next.
The door opened behind us but Xavier and I were already banging on the other doors, yelling the same thing. An old man answered us on the last door before we even got there. His hearing was better than most.
"Get out!" Xavier shouted to a mother with two little kids.
It was a mad dash. People were running over from the other side of the building, racing up the basement steps with their shirts over their faces. A young guy with sleep in his eyes pushed past me, ignoring the fact that I now held an undisguised sword. The air was hazy here now. Sirens wailed. The fire department was coming. Janine had gotten someone to call. There might still be people trapped on the other side of the building...
Xavier seemed to know what I was thinking. He seized my arm as I eyed the basement steps. The basement must cut across to the other side, the side that was on fire. The air was already acrid as the flames spread. I could hear wood popping and crackling even from here. Someone else screamed for help.
"People are still trapped."
"We can't save them," Xavier told me. "The fire will kill us too. Thoreau must still be over there."
A demon wouldn't be bothered by fire. Someone--a woman--screamed for help again. The old man shuffled out, unable to hear her. I was the only one who could.
"We have to try." I would go the rest of my life wondering if I could have done something. I couldn't live with that. If it were me, I would want someone to try. "We can break down a wall!"
The woman screamed again. She was coming from the right, in the direction of an open door that the mother and her kids had left. The sirens got closer. They'd never get her out in time. The air was bluish and Xavier coughed. Our lives were bound to each other. If I died, he died and vice versa.
I darted into the mother's apartment.
The woman's screams got louder. She was on the other side of this apartment. The crackling got louder and I ran into the bathroom.
"I'm trapped!" she shouted.
"She's on the other side of this wall," Xavier said, pointing to the bathtub. "We can break it down. Stand back."
I didn't. I kicked the wall, putting a hole in it. My foot ached and I sent another kick. Xavier's hand glowed with magenta again but no power surged through me. He was saving it all to use his magic.
The hole got bigger with each kick that I did, but it wasn't enough. The woman was getting quieter now, her pleas to be rescued weaker. She was running out of time.
I stood back and let Xavier throw the fireball.
The wall imploded in a flash of light. Smoke poured into the bathroom and I coughed. This could kill me. Dad had always warned me that fire could destroy us. It filled the space, making me crawl towards the floor. The crackling got louder, almost deafening. This woman's apartment must be across from where Janine's was.
Xavier held his breath and dove in.
"Come on," he said, pulling out a coughing young woman in a white T-shirt and jeans from her own bathroom. She couldn't be more than eighteen or nineteen. A woman on her own. She leaned against Xavier and gagged. I forced myself up. The smoke was spreading fast. The sirens outside got deafening, then went silent.
We toppled out of the apartment and the woman stumbled and pulled out of Xavier's grasp, landing against the wall and coughing. She was okay. I thought. The smoke clung to her clothes, masking her scent.
"We have to go," Xavier told me as if this were normal business. "We need to leave right now. We left a hole for--"
"I was hoping you'd do that."
We both whirled around.
Thoreau stood in the doorway of the mom's apartment, arms folded over his chest and sunglasses trained on us.
Chapter Nine
I couldn't say anything. All Xavier and I could do was stand there.
I remembered that War Magic could slay demons, but this was an ancient demon baron standing here. I knew that underneath those sunglasses were eyes of pure black, eyes like Allunna's. His cologne smell that he no doubt used to cover his stench from people like me filled the air, almost as strong as the smoke that billowed out behind him. There was also a faint sense of dread not related to the fire. The Shadow Wraiths were behind him.
I held up the sword and pointed it at his heart. If demons had hearts.
The woman coughed again. Thoreau glanced at her like she was a fly on the wall. I knew what would happen. He wouldn't let her live to tell anyone that the mayor was a monster. We were all in danger here.
&nbs
p; "I suggest it's time for both of you to surrender and come with me," Thoreau said. "We wouldn't want a bunch of firefighters to die in a sudden and tragic building collapse, would we?"
I wished the woman would run, but she was still busy sucking down air and leaning against the wall. I wondered if she could even see Thoreau at all.
"Why?" I asked. "What's in it for us?"
"She has a good question," Xavier said. Next to me, hatred burned in his eyes. The violet in them was stronger than ever, his magic crackling and ready for use. I could feel it just standing next to him. Revenge burned.
And with it, hope.
Thoreau looked between us in turn. "Together, you are strong," he said. "But you can be stronger." He turned all his attention to me. "You are more powerful than you think, Alyssa. You don't know much about your family, do you?"
"My family?" I asked. Of course I didn't know much--about my Mom's side--but that was none of Thoreau's business. Besides, they were as Normal as they could get. They'd even vote for him. And Thoreau kept trying to get me turned into a Shadow Wraith. He obviously didn't care and this whole thing was a trap.
Thoreau chuckled. His voice was deep, like a dark pit that was full of monsters at the bottom.
My sword caught purple fire and I lunged.
This time the sword punctured his stony chest and Thoreau took a couple steps back and I jammed the blade further, cracking bones and forcing Thoreau to gasp. A line of black demon blood ran down from his mouth and he grabbed at the sword in actual pain. The stench followed. Xavier threw another fireball, which caught Thoreau's suit. Purple flames danced over the front and joined the black blood leaking out around his suit.
