Red Queen

by Christopher Pike

  But with pain screaming up my elbow into my brain and blood flying through the air, I felt far from lucky. He paused to survey the damage he’d done. God, how I hated his guts right then, so much so that I wanted to see them spilled over the floor.

  “Lara’s never going to know her mother,” he said, completing his earlier remark.

  He resumed circling. Now he came at me from my right because he no longer feared that arm. His approach was sound. I was bleeding heavily, the warm liquid seeping down my arm and spilling onto the staff, making my grip slippery.

  I kept waiting for my healing gene to activate but then I realized the ability needed my attention to work. If I could have a brief break, sit and close my eyes for two minutes, focus on the wound, I could probably stop the bleeding.

  But he wasn’t going to give me that break. His pursuit was relentless. He came over the top again with his sword. I repelled him, but then he stabbed straight at me, several times in quick succession, and I had to dodge left and right, back and forth. He came close to driving me out of the circle. Behind me, I heard Susan clapping, the bitch.

  The contest was only a few minutes old when I began to recognize Russell’s strategy. He was staying constantly on the offensive. My initial kick had broken his ribs, but it had cost me more than it was worth—because it had warned him how dangerous I was if I was given a chance to think, to recover. If I’d been smart, I would never have let him know at the start how strong I was. Now he was wary. Now he wasn’t going to give me a chance to breathe.

  He swung for my legs again. I tried something different. Planting my staff in the floor, I used it like a small tree to block his blow. The tactic surprised him and I saw an opening. I kicked with my right leg at his left knee. He saw the blow coming. At the last instant he backed up. But my foot caught his kneecap and again I heard a crack.

  I had torn cartilage, maybe even severed a ligament. But I was inexperienced. I should have capitalized on my good fortune rather than celebrate it. I should have struck again, immediately. That had been the whole point of Kendor’s story about Caesar. In battle, if you have the advantage, take it, even if it means you have to be brutal. While sitting beside the desert lake with Kendor, I wondered if he had foreseen this precise moment and had been trying to warn me.

  Russell took advantage of my hesitation. Showing a level of swiftness he had never revealed before, he spun a full three hundred and sixty degrees on his uninjured leg and tried to decapitate me with a sword that almost turned invisible with speed.

  I blocked his blow. It took both my arms and my heels dug in to stop the sword from slicing through my neck but I did it. In the process I lost the little finger on my left hand, plus another chunk of flesh. The red tissue fell to the floor as my blood gushed in the air.

  Again, I heard Susan clap.

  Again, Russell began to circle.

  The floor was soaked in blood. I could no longer trust my grip. I wanted to call time-out to take off my shoes, to put my finger back on, to heal. My staff was slippery at both ends. I was afraid to swing it at full strength. How did I know it wouldn’t fly out of my hands?

  Then I saw him smile, reading my thoughts, counting on the fact that I would stay on the defensive. I realized as clear as the blood running down both my arms that only a bold move could save me. But first I had to be sure of one thing.

  “You couldn’t do this if you cared,” I whispered.

  He nodded faintly. “I never did, Jessica.”

  I took a long step back, to the edge of the circle, and gripped as best I could the end of the staff. I swung it at him. He blocked the blow. I swung again and again, he kept blocking me. I didn’t care—I was going to use all six feet of my weapon, and I wasn’t going to let him rest even if I was desperate to stop. I hacked at him like he was an attacking lion, my breath on fire, and chased him around the circle.

  Then I made a mistake. Or else fate did.

  I slipped. I slipped on my own blood.

  I didn’t fall to the floor but I lost my balance and suddenly my staff was way out of position and I was wide open to attack. Again, Russell showed his age and experience. He didn’t go nuts and try to chop me in two. But he did make a calculated thrust into my stomach. The blade went all the way through me. It poked out my back.

  He withdrew the sword and took a step back.

  It was the first pause he had taken.

  He waited for me to fall.

  Blood poured from my front like a faucet. I felt a warm river slide down my lower back. A puddle formed at my feet and turned my white Nikes red. The blood pulsed onto the floor, in rhythm with my heart, and each squirt brought a deeper wave of dizziness. I blinked and for an instant there were three Russells. It was strange, I thought, how in the background I still saw only one Susan.

  I felt her cold eyes on me. She leaned forward, mildly curious how I would choose to spend the last seconds of my life. Yet, like in the morgue—when her eyes had met mine and I knew she knew I was alive—I felt she wanted to tell me something.

  Then I realized she already had.

  Her lecture about the fire of life in the solar plexus.

  The Agni, the Chi, the sun god Ra.

  That magical fire, smoldering inside, waiting to be activated in the right circumstance, and in the proper way, if I just knew how. Of course I already knew the secret. I had done it before to stay alive. I could do it again, to heal myself, after I had dealt with my foe.

  There was a reason she had given Russell first choice.

  She had known he would take the sword.

  Any sane person would have.

  Except for a wizard. A wizard needed his staff.

  To burn. And what was a wizard but a male witch?

  As Russell waited for me to drop my staff and topple to the floor and die, I focused on my solar plexus. Letting my rage over his betrayal consume me, I felt the fire I had experienced in the morgue reignite. But this time it didn’t stop at the tips of my fingers. It traveled up my arms and lit the top of my staff, and the flame that burst from the tip was as red as my blood and as hot as a dragon’s breath.

  Too late, Russell realized his mistake. He should never have given me a chance to rest. I saw his thoughts flicker behind his eyes. He knew he couldn’t allow me to bring the flame to him. He had to kill me, immediately, to put it out. There was no other way.

  He rushed toward me with his sword.

  He planned to run me through.

  I raised the staff. He ran into the fire. It struck him in the heart, and it spread, as if fed by my blood on the floor. The red fluid seemed to change to gasoline and the flame that hit his chest expanded from the floor like a sphere born of a hellish curse.

  He shuddered and dropped his sword. For a moment it was as if someone had blasted him with steam, but it was smoke. His hands began to blister, swelling into grotesque puffy appendages that exploded with scalding blood. Then another layer formed, but this one was not filled with liquid. Instead, it turned hard and black and crusty.

  His hair caught fire. Screaming, he raised his arms to try to bat out the flames, but the fire took his clothes. The horror of his living cremation forced him to shut his eyes but that didn’t help. His eyebrows, his eyelashes, his eyelids—they all burned away. For several agonizing seconds his eyeballs were exposed and it seemed as if they stared at Susan and he saw her for what she really was. Even as his flesh melted, his expression twisted in horrifying recognition, and I could have sworn he wasn’t seeing her any longer, or any kind of woman, but something else.

  Tilting her head back, Susan closed her eyes and smiled.

  Her expression was blissful. His pain fed her bliss.

  Finally, Russell screamed one last time and crumpled to the floor and I was able to close my own eyes and think of the night I met him, and how beautiful his body had been. For some reason my hatred was gone. Perhaps his agony had burned it away. I was able to recall how he had held me naked in his hotel room, when we had k
issed and touched beneath the glow of the Strip.

  I realized I was no longer bleeding. Finally, I was healing, even my severed finger. Yet I sobbed, feeling warm tears flow over my vanishing wounds. I opened my eyes and saw a pile of black ash in the center of the floor. At some point Susan must have gotten up. She stood across from me and stared down at what was left of Russell.

  “He was a traitor,” she said flatly.

  “What?” I gasped. “He tried to kill me.”

  Susan shook her head. “Then he was a coward as well. I had already heard from my people that he was reluctant to give up your location in that meat locker. And they had to kill the two men who were guarding the place. Russell refused to.”

  “So this was all just a game to you?” I felt sick. I had killed an innocent man, and a friend.

  “A test and a lesson, Jessica. You passed the test when you invoked the fire. But you might want to consider tonight’s lesson when it comes to your boyfriend and daughter.”

  “Meaning?” I demanded.

  Susan brushed flakes of ash from her hospital scrubs. “Frank will take you back to your hotel. Tomorrow night, in witch world, he’ll call and pick you up and we’ll meet again. If you like, you can have James come. I’m sure he’d love to see Lara.” She paused. “But bring one member of the Tar’s Council and you’ll all burn.”

  Frank appeared then. He came through the door as if called, although I hadn’t seen her signal for him. This time he didn’t carry Lara, but a small boy. The child was dressed in a gray sweat suit and looked about five years old. A handsome child, he had long, dark hair and black eyes rimmed with a haunting yellow glow that made them look like twin suns that had been eclipsed by black holes. The child had a twin, for I was sure I had seen him before.

  A four-foot tail coiled out the rear of his spine, wrapping around his waist. It tapered into a sharp tip that reminded me of a scorpion’s stinger. Instinctively, I knew it was poisonous.

  The child leaped into Susan’s arms. She smiled.

  “Mommy!” Whip cried.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  BACK AT THE MGM, I slipped into my empty bed and woke up eight hours later beside Jimmy. It was Monday morning, of course, although I felt as if I’d been in Las Vegas a week.

  Susan had sworn Russell was a traitor, which made me confident he had remained loyal to the Tar. It also made me anxious to talk to Russ. If he was alive, damnit. This two-world thing was killing me, because I didn’t even know if he had been killed in the real world.

  But Jimmy immediately started bombarding me with questions about what had happened during my “missing day.” I begged for a chance to run over and see Russ—alone—but he put his foot down.

  “No,” Jimmy said. “I’m going with you.”

  The rest of the gang was still present: Debbie, Ted, Alex, and her new boyfriend, Al. I had told them I had won a bonus package that allowed us to stay for free—meals included—at the hotel for five days. Of course I was paying for everything with my bag of cash. They had gone along with the lie because they wanted to, although Alex wasn’t so easily placated. Before I could get out the door with Jimmy, she pulled me aside.

  “I don’t know you,” she said.

  I lowered my head. “I know.”

  “Since you disappeared that night, you’ve changed,” she said. “It’s only because you’ve had Jimmy with you that I’ve let it go on so long. But it ends today, and before this day is over, you’re going to tell me everything that’s going on.”

  “Agreed.” I hugged her. “But I have to warn you—you’re not going to believe a word of it.”

  “I will if it’s the truth,” she replied.

  “Jimmy said the same thing yesterday and ended up cursing me.”

  Alex glanced to where Jimmy was waiting to leave with me. “Why do you have to rush out right now?” she asked.

  “I have to see Russ.”

  “And you’re bringing Jimmy with you?”

  “Jealousy’s no longer an issue.”

  “I doubt Jimmy feels that way.”

  I kissed Alex’s cheek. “Later, I promise, we’ll talk. I have to go now.”

  Soon Jimmy and I were in a cab, heading to the Mandalay Bay, when I suddenly changed my mind and told the driver to go to the Bellagio.

  “What’s at the Bellagio?” Jimmy asked.

  “We might have a tail on us,” I whispered, in case our driver was a Lapra. “Besides, we’re not going to the Mandalay Bay. I want to go to the new address my father gave me.”

  “No. I want to meet this Russ,” Jimmy insisted.

  “You will. Later.”

  He studied me. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

  I sighed. “I had a rough night.”

  We went through the same routine as before. We entered the Bellagio at the front and caught another taxi at the back. We did this twice more before I felt comfortable enough to go to a house my father had rented that morning. He had already left the condo behind.

  My dad was having breakfast with Whip when we arrived. The boy gave Jimmy and me surprise hugs when he saw us, before my father sent him to watch TV in the other room.

  My father’s ashen expression said it all, I didn’t need to ask. But Jimmy insisted upon an explanation, and it was not long before I learned what had happened to Russ—in the real world.

  For some unknown reason, a fire had broken out on the floor of his hotel. Six suites had been damaged and a dozen occupants had been injured, with one death. According to my father, there was no doubt Russ was dead. His body had already been identified.

  “The authorities say he died in his sleep,” my father said.

  “That’s not what happened,” I whispered.

  My father turned to Jimmy. “May I speak to my daughter alone?” he asked.

  Jimmy shook his head. “I’m tired of you guys and all your secrets. I want to know why this guy’s dead. Weren’t the bunch of you just meeting with that Council of yours?”

  I was tired of lying. My father gestured for me to remain silent but I ignored him. “My father, Russ, and I did meet with the Council. Then I went with Russell—Russ—to talk to the Lapras.”

  Jimmy frowned. “Why?”

  “To see Lara,” I said, knowing what was coming next. Jimmy looked ready to explode.

  “So it’s okay for you to talk to them in witch world about your daughter but it’s not okay for me to talk to them in this world about my son?” he asked.

  “Lara’s your daughter too,” I said.

  Jimmy waved an annoyed hand. “I feel like Alex. Like I don’t know you. Or maybe that’s not true. Maybe it’s the other ‘witch world Jessica’ I don’t know.”

  “Please, Jimmy, I was there when Russ died.” My voice cracked. “He died because of me.”

  “Why?” Jimmy asked.

  “How?” my father asked.

  “I killed him,” I said. “I invoked the fire.”

  “Did they penetrate his disguise?” my father asked.

  “Hell. They knew it all along,” I said.

  My father was stunned. “It makes sense, I suppose.”

  I felt like screaming. “It does? He’s sound asleep in his bed in this world. How did the fire I created in witch world creep into his hotel in this world?”

  “I explained how the events in both worlds run parallel,” my father said. “They influence each other. But what happens in one world doesn’t have to perfectly match what happens in the other world.”

  I felt a headache coming on. “Just when I think I have it all figured out, I lose my grip,” I muttered.

  My father was sympathetic. He hugged me, stroked my head. But I was having trouble crying. Nothing seemed real anymore. Yet my lack of tears didn’t mean my pain was any less. I kept thinking of Russ’s handsome face melting, his final scream.

  If I was confused, Jimmy was walking into walls.

  “Please, would someone tell me what happened last night,” he
pleaded. “In both worlds. Then show me how I can tape them together.”

  Before I could respond, my father’s cell rang. It was the Council. They wanted to talk to us, to all three of us. My father protested but Cleo came on the line and said Jimmy was to be included in the discussion. It was like she had been in our room, a minute before, listening to his complaints.

  While Whip continued to enjoy cartoons in his bedroom, my father hooked up a special gadget to his cell to keep our signal from being intercepted. Once the connection was made, we could hear everyone clearly. The Council wanted a thorough account of the previous night.

  I gave it to them. They listened without interrupting until I reached the point when Russell died, and Susan made her dire warning, and Whip appeared.

  No one on the Council seemed to care how Russ had perished in this world, although I assumed they knew the facts. When I was finished, Cleo spoke.

  “The loss of Russ is a terrible blow. He was a great man and a dear friend. It’s important, Jessie, that you understand that he gave up his life to protect you. The only reason he subjected you to such an intense battle was so this woman would see you as worthy of being Lara’s mother.”

  “He pushed me to the edge,” I said, not wanting to say more in front of Jimmy. “I was lucky to get out of there in one piece.”

  “I trained Russ how to fight,” Kendor said. “If he had truly wanted to kill you, he would have done so at the start, before you had a chance to awaken the fire.”

  “Unfortunately, we’ll have to mourn Russ later,” Cleo said. “We must move forward. For now, Jessie, you’ll accept Susan’s offer and seclude yourself with Lara. Since she’s willing to let you have visitors, it’s possible Jimmy can act as a spy for us, if he so desires.”

  “How?” I asked. “Jimmy’s not awake to witch world.”

  “James is,” Cleo said. “They can work separately, and yet as a team.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “Jimmy can make up his own mind,” Cleo said. “Without Russ, we’ll need some way to contact you.”

  “I’m happy to volunteer as a spy,” Jimmy said. “On one condition. That I be put through the death process.”