by Dima Zales
“Pick her up!” I hear Darian shout over the sounds of the massacre.
“Don’t touch me!” I yell, but it’s too late.
Giant green hands that belong either to the Hulk or the orc chieftain grab me by my waist and lift me into the air.
Felix slips out of my hold, and my captor savagely kicks his body, sending it crashing against the wall with a gut-wrenching crack.
Felix spits up blood, and his breathing becomes uneven, same as when he was stepped on—the cursed future and its fetish for patterns striking again.
“You bastard!” I yell at the orc, kicking and punching him as much as I can in my awkward position.
But I might as well be attacking the wall for all the good it does.
Why, oh why didn’t I keep that sword?
From my high perch in the air, I see that the battlefield is covered with orc remains, but Nero is already slow to the point where his end seems all but inevitable.
Spotting me, Darian aims, and a dart hits my shoulder.
I’m bodiless once more.
The chieftain tosses my limp body to the side and stomps toward Nero.
Darian takes off his mask.
Why did he knock me out? Did he not want me to hear his monologue or watch him and the chieftain kill Nero? Doesn’t he realize I might still hear those things in a vision?
More importantly, how do I stop this never-ending cycle of failures?
“You threatened a fellow Council member—and a seer at that,” Darian says again and pulls out the dagger. “Did you think there would be no consequences?”
The rest of the vision makes me feel like I’m stuck in the worst possible Groundhog Day.
Nero and the chieftain battle it out again; then the rest of the butchery proceeds as always before Nero loses his head in front of my eyes for the umpteenth time—which doesn’t make it any easier to witness.
I’m back in the real world.
Focusing, I eagerly await my return to Headspace so that I can attempt something else.
Anything else.
Using Felix as a shield is a good start. I can build on that.
Wait a sec. Why am I not in Headspace?
I focus.
Nothing happens.
I focus again.
Nada.
I try it again and again until, with a sinking feeling, I realize that the worst has happened.
I finally ran out of seer juice, so what happens next will be for the last time.
It will be for real.
Chapter Sixty-Six
Just in case, I desperately focus again.
Nothing.
And one more time.
Zilch.
Fine. If Headspace is outside my reach, I’ll just have to act in the real world.
Except I have no idea how to act or what to do. I need something completely random, but what?
Maybe Darian would get confused if I started to dance a jig or sing a song in the middle of all this, like a court jester?
Somehow, that ridiculous thought sparks an idea. A plan that has almost no chance of working—only I have nothing else.
The strong point of this idea is that it will give us a chance. In fact, “chance” is the key variable here, so maybe—
Darian shows up—just as in my visions.
He raises the gun.
I grab Felix and use him as a human shield yet again, then keep him upright just as I did in the last vision.
Nero starts ripping the orcs apart.
More orcs rush by without hurting me.
Propping Felix with my body as much as I can, I free up my right hand and sneak it into my pocket to fish out my phone.
It takes me a second to locate the contact I need, then a few more to type out a text with just one hand.
My message is blunt:
I’m calling in my favor. Darian is attacking us in the corridors by the JFK hub, and I need you to thwart him right now.
I click send and hold my breath.
The chances of—
My phone dings with a reply text.
It’s from the person I thought of when the word “jester” happened to pop into my head.
Chester, the man who sent a necromancer after me—and whom I’ve suspected every time something bad has happened to me since.
The last person I should bet my life on.
My eyes frantically skim over his reply:
As luck would have it, Bertie and I have just returned from our safari. We’re a couple of minutes away from your location, so be a dear and keep Darian alive for me in the meanwhile.
I reread the text, my head spinning.
“Bertie” is the lion he took on an airplane to Africa the other day. The chances that they happened to fly back from that trip today and at just the right time are staggeringly low, but hey, so is shuffling a deck of cards into new deck order, and Chester had done it easily.
This is what I was hoping for.
Chester hates Darian, so there was a chance his powers might put him where he needed to be in order to cause his nemesis the most damage. Sure enough, his probability manipulation mojo didn’t disappoint.
Then again, he could still get here too late to help us, the people his powers don’t care about.
Hoping my desperate gamble will actually pay off, I listen for any change in the carnage.
Nothing different is happening.
Nero is ripping into orc after orc, with blood splatter occasionally flying all the way to my location.
“Pick her up!” Darian shouts again.
Oh no. Chester is almost out of time.
“Please don’t kick my friend when you take me,” I say as the familiar green hands of the chieftain grab me by my waist and lift me into the air once again.
When Felix slips out of my grasp, the chieftain kicks him even harder than he did in my vision—perhaps to spite me.
My stomach twists as my friend smashes into the wall, then slides to the ground. He spits up even more blood than before, making me fear for his life, but to my relief, he keeps on breathing unevenly.
For now, at least.
“You will pay for that,” I snarl at the orc as he lifts me all the way up.
Just like in my vision, the battlefield is covered with orc remains, and Nero is already moving much slower than normal.
But something isn’t happening like in my vision this time.
A bunch of masked orcs are supposed to show up from around the corner, but they don’t appear.
Instead of them, two completely new players show up.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
It’s Chester and his white lion.
Darian aims at me.
The lion leaps into the air and flies in an impossible-seeming arc.
Before Darian gets the chance to press the trigger, sharp lion teeth sink into his arm. He screams—and misses the moment when Chester closes the distance between them and steals his dagger.
Chester holds the weapon in his hand for a moment, as if weighing it. Then, with a nasty smile, he plunges it into Darian’s throat.
I almost clap. If the future wanted to have someone get stabbed in the throat today, it might as well be Darian.
“Nero,” Chester says loudly enough to be heard over Darian’s bloody gurgling and the sounds of Nero ripping orcs into pieces. “I know you wanted me to stay out of your sight, but Sasha summoned me to help.” He elbows dying Darian in the stomach and adds, “I’m afraid I’ll need to kill this Council member in order to save your life—the life of another Council member, I should add.”
“Save Sasha,” Nero barks. “And I’ll make sure you’re not only cleared of all blame, but also get back on the Council.”
“This truly is my lucky day,” Chester says and shouts something at his lion in an unfamiliar language.
Bertie lets go of Darian’s arm and rushes in Nero’s direction, attacking a small orc in his path.
Two of the orcs try to help, and instantly pa
y with their lives as Nero rips them into orc confetti.
“Move another inch, and I’ll kill this bitch,” the chieftain growls, shaking me in the air with such force my heart nearly flies out of my mouth.
Nero lifts his hands—and gets attacked by the surviving orcs.
In the corner of my vision, I spot something white streaking toward me through the blood and gore.
Grinning madly at the chieftain, Chester starts to also lift his hands, and on the way, his right hand grasps the dagger sticking out of Darian’s throat.
Before I can blink, Chester rips out the weapon and throws it—seemingly right at me.
The dagger flies in the most improbable curved arc, only to land in the chieftain’s right eye with a disgusting squelch.
Roaring in pain, the green giant throws me aside to clutch at the wound.
I hit the ground painfully, my breath knocked out by the impact.
Something large leaps over me, and I battle a surge of nausea to look up. I see the lion flying at the chieftain’s throat before his teeth sink into it with an obvious relish.
The sounds of orcs being torn apart by Nero reach my ears, followed by a less familiar smacking noise—probably Chester’s fists on orc flesh.
The chieftain grasps the lion by his sides and tries to rip him away.
Somehow, Bert manages to hang on, and the whole thing reminds me of a nature show where a particularly hungry pride of lions took down an elephant.
Sadly, though, this lion is alone, plus the chieftain might be stronger than an elephant. I doubt Bert can hold on for much longer.
I’m still out of breath from my fall, but I force myself to leap to my feet, ignoring an explosion of pain in my knee.
Remembering what he did countless times to Nero in my visions, and the way he hurt Felix for real, I grit my teeth, reach up, and yank the dagger out of the chieftain’s eye. He roars, and I channel the movie Psycho as I stab him in his one remaining eye.
His new roar is so loud my internal organs shrink in fear.
He swats at me.
I dodge the hit.
He swats again, and this time, his massive hand connects with my chest, the blow cracking something within me and sending me flying through the air.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
“I’m toast,” I have a chance to think.
Then I land in Nero’s blood-covered arms with a loud smack.
Whatever rib or internal organ I felt crack earlier sends angry pain signals to my brain.
Nero carefully puts me back on my feet by the wall—and I try not to vomit from the pain as I use my hand to steady myself.
Nero then rejoins Chester, and they brutally finish off the last of the orcs.
“Bert,” I croak, wiping a gallon of orc blood from my face.
Chester looks where his lion is still trying to hold on to the chieftain’s throat.
“Save him,” I rasp and slide by the wall to check on Felix.
Chester leaps for the chieftain. Over his shoulder, he says, “You might not want to see this.”
I focus on Felix as he suggests, then regret not also covering my ears. Whatever Chester does to the chieftain must be unspeakable. The orc screams over and over, like a thousand boars being barbequed alive.
Felix has a pulse, but I can tell he’s in bad shape. He’s going to need Isis, and quickly.
“Help me lift him,” I tell Nero, but when I look over to where he was, I find him kneeling in a pool of orc blood.
The chieftain howls one last time, then goes silent.
I see that Nero is still conscious, but I guess the blood loss and the tranquilizer have finally caught up with him because he doesn’t respond.
Ignoring the nauseating agony from my ribs, I shuffle over and rummage through Nero’s pockets for a phone.
The chieftain’s screams are replaced with the equally disturbing sound of a lion munching on something.
“You almost died,” Nero growls tiredly as I finally remove the phone from his pocket.
“Well, you actually died countless times in my visions even though you could’ve turned into a dragon and prevented it,” I reply in the same accusing tone as I locate Isis’s number and dial it.
She picks up right away. “Hello. To what do I owe—”
“Nero is hurt, and so is my friend Felix,” I say urgently. “Nero would like to procure your services.” I thrust the phone his way. “Tell her.”
“Whatever Sasha needs,” Nero says dazedly into the phone. “Emergency rates apply.”
I put the phone back to my ear as Isis says, “How badly is Felix hurt?”
I quickly tell her what happened and what he looks like to me.
“What about Nero?” she asks.
I detail his poor condition.
“Okay, I’m going to text you an address of a hospital near where you are.”
Nero’s phone dings with a text.
“Take Felix to the hospital, and a vampire friend of mine will make sure they put him on life support as soon as you arrive,” she says. “Then take Nero to the basement in your work building, and I’ll meet you there.”
“Our work building? Why would—” I stop because the line goes dead.
Chester and the lion pass by me, covered in even more orc juices than Nero.
They walk up to Darian’s body. Chester speaks that language again, and I manage to look away just before the munching sounds begin anew.
I know that Darian totally deserved what he got, and that lions aren’t vegans, but I’ll still need therapy if I dwell on this too much. So instead, I busy myself by texting Thalia to make sure she’s waiting to pick us up.
To my relief, she is.
Then I call Pada to have him and his cleanup crew come deal with the bloody mess around us.
“We’re done,” Chester says, walking over with the lion. “What do we do now?”
“Can you lift Felix very gently, and I’ll take care of Nero?” I say.
Chester does as I ask, but Nero doesn’t take my outstretched hand. Bleeding profusely, he staggers to his feet, refusing to lean on me.
He does, however, lean on Bert’s head, and we trudge through the corridors at a glacial pace.
My ribs are screaming bloody murder, but I feel like I’ve gotten away pretty much scot-free. Nero, however, seems on the verge of passing out, and Felix’s breathing is barely audible as Chester carries him.
“Can you use your luck to help Felix survive?” I ask Chester.
He winks at me. “I don’t like carrying corpses, so if there’s any chance that he’ll survive, he will.”
We walk for another minute, and though it could be just wishful thinking, Felix’s breathing slightly improves.
“Are there limits to your power?” I ask Chester when we reach the door leading out to the airport proper. “Like, can you keep using it on Felix but also do that trick you used to get the lion on the plane? Make it so that no one looks at our bloody clothes and the lion?”
“Limits?” Chester takes in everyone’s bloody state, then looks at his lion again. “I can do what you say and still have plenty left over.” Grinning, he adds, “It’s a shame, though. I almost want to know what the TSA would think of this.”
“We don’t have time for any delays,” I say, on the off chance he’s actually curious enough to allow TSA to spot us.
“I wasn’t going to do it anyway,” he says, looking at the lion. “They’d want to hurt Bertie if they saw him.”
With that, we enter the airport.
Though it’s a normal, fairly crowded day, not a single person looks our way—not even a woman with a Cognizant aura.
What I wouldn’t give for this aspect of Chester’s power. If I could control attention in this way, I could make whole elephants—or tanks—appear and disappear under people’s noses.
The limo is waiting for us as soon as we get outside.
Ignoring Nero’s protestations and the yelps of pain from my ribs, I he
lp him get inside. Thalia gets out to help, and Chester settles Felix on the seat opposite Nero.
Once Felix is secured, the lion waltzes into the car, perches on an empty seat, and licks his blood-covered paws.
“It’s better if I drive,” Chester says to Thalia after I briefly introduce them.
She shakes her head.
“Let him,” I say. “He’s a probability manipulator. He can probably make it so there are more green lights in our path.”
Thalia nods reluctantly, then walks over to Felix and sits in such a way that she can make sure he stays put and doesn’t move around.
I sit next to Nero and cradle his head on my lap.
According to my phone’s GPS, the drive to the hospital is supposed to be twenty minutes without traffic—but there’s always traffic here, and today it’s bad.
I stroke Nero’s hair, and he closes his eyes, the pained expression on his face easing. His various wounds are bleeding, though, so I tell Chester to floor it.
The limo torpedoes forward, and I very quickly regret my words.
To call Chester’s driving reckless would do a disservice to regular reckless driving. The insane speed with which we zoom through the traffic is closer to the suicidal side of the driving spectrum. Yet we’re fine—by which I mean we’re on the verge of an accident every single second, but through “luck,” the collisions do not occur. Oh, and as I predicted, when there are street lights in our path, they turn green every single time.
Ten minutes later, Chester pulls up to the ER entrance.
“Watch them,” I tell Thalia, nodding at Nero and the lion.
Chester and I drag Felix out of the car, and a pale woman with a Cognizant aura approaches with a stretcher.
Moving with super-speed and using her glamour when she needs to, Isis’s vampire friend gets Felix instantly admitted into the ER and hooked up to all the equipment, plus a morphine drip.
“I could just give him some blood,” she says as Felix’s irregular heartbeat shows up on the monitor.
“No,” I say swiftly. It’s bad enough I already have one friend in rehab thanks to a similar situation. “Can you please just observe him and only use your blood as a last resort?”
