by E. A. Copen
“Now jump!” I looked down. If he didn’t do it right now, he was going to hit the ground and become a Nate pancake.
Thankfully, I didn’t need to tell him that. He kicked away from the dragon’s body just in time and hit the ground rolling.
“Nate!” Emma ran over to kneel next to him. “Are you okay?”
He offered two tired thumbs up.
“Don’t celebrate yet,” Haru said, staggering toward them. His whole right side was wet and shining with blood.
“Where are the rest of the troops?” I flew a little higher. Khaleda, Everleigh, and her troops were still on the field, fighting off the last of the soldiers, but we were cut off from them by three Nightclaws. Even if the entire army turned and charged the Nightclaws, it wouldn’t matter. None of our weapons could harm them.
Thunk. Whistle. Boom. Ulmir must’ve found more grenades.
I glanced at Ulmir, who was backing toward us. At least none of our weapons can harm them on the outside. “Nate, ask Ulmir how many grenades he has left!”
Nate sat up and groaned. “Ulmir, how many grenades do you have?”
Ulmir shook his head. “Just a handful, but they’re just flashbangs. I used all the good ones.”
“Then let’s make them count,” I said. “Tell him to shove ‘em down the Nightclaw’s throats.”
Ulmir’s tired face lit up when Nate relayed my suggestion. “Might not kill ‘em, but it’ll hurt for sure!” He brought the grenade launcher around. “Give me a target!”
Remy picked up a stone and threw it at one of the Nightclaws. “Over here, asshole!”
It opened its mouth to snarl at her.
Thunk. Ulmir’s grenade slammed into the Nightclaw’s mouth, lodged in the back of the creature’s throat. It made a choking sound, then swallowed and stormed toward us, bladed arms spinning. It stopped suddenly a moment later, looked down, and then exploded into a gooey mess.
The other two Nightclaws screeched, turned, and fled at the sight of the third’s insides, scrambling back over the wall as quickly as they could move.
Everyone let out a victory cheer.
“How’d you know?” Nate asked me.
I shrugged. “They don’t like light. Honestly, that worked a lot better than I hoped it would.”
A loud horn sounded on the other side of the battlefield as the line broke and what was left of Mask’s soldiers retreated. Khaleda and Eveleigh’s forces chased them all the way to the edge of the narrow drawbridge but had to stop there because two more Nightclaws came out and held them back.
I let out a sigh of relief.
“We won!” Nate cheered.
“Not yet.” Remy sheathed her sword. “This was only the first battle. The palace will be much harder to take. We have to fight our way to the top of the tallest tower and keep Finn alive so he can use the stones there. Without him and those stones, this can’t work. That’s why he had to hang back.”
“You’re still going to raise some ghosts out here and send us into the city, right?” I gave the drawbridge an anxious look as it started to rise.
Remy nodded. “But first, let’s regroup with the others and head back to camp to tend to the wounded. Our fight against Mask is really only getting started.”
Chapter Fifteen
In the blue haze of pre-dawn, Remy moved among the dead and dying. She’d had no rest in the aftermath of the battle, choosing instead to visit the injured at camp and heal who she could. Her task complete, she returned to the field. Smoke rose from the ground where fiery arrows had set the ground alight the night before. The green command cloak she wore bore bloodstains and holes. Whenever she came on a fae still clinging to life, she knelt to assess their condition. Those she could save, she did, and she gave an end to the suffering for those she couldn’t.
Life after life, soldier after soldier, the strain of it siphoned away her resolve until all that was left of the strong battle queen from the night before was an exhausted and emotionally drained woman.
I wanted to hold her and tell her she didn’t have to. All those lives weren’t her responsibility. She could rest. But that wouldn’t be true, would it? She was the Summer Queen, even if she didn’t hold her castle, and even if Mask had turned her people against her, she had to look after them. Her people would always come first.
In a way, we were the same. I’d claimed responsibility for New Orleans when I became the Pale Horseman, and I’d given up my life to protect the people there, most of whom didn’t even know I existed. Being responsible was a thankless job, an exhausting job with no end except to pass along the mantle. It was a lot like being a parent, I supposed, though my experience with parenting was admittedly different from most.
Haru walked alongside her, one hand on his sword and the other leading his horse, his face set in stone. How many battlefields had he walked through that he could be so casual? Yes, he was War, but he was still as human as the rest of us. All the death and destruction, it must’ve affected him somehow.
Remy paused and raised her eyes to the white tower. I followed her gaze to the bulwarks where Mask stood, watching. The body he’d taken prior to our arrival was fae, someone Remy seemed to know. She hadn’t said who, but the look she gave him said she’d taken the betrayal personally. Mask peered down at her and raised his chin as if in challenge. Wind swept through the battlefield, carrying the smell of decay and viscera. Remy’s cloak lifted in its grip, pulled back toward the safety of our camp. She stayed firm and met Mask’s taunting gaze by slowly extending both hands in front of her and pressing her fingertips together.
The wind changed, swirling around her in an electrified tornadic storm. There was something magnetic about it, something that called to me, a song I couldn’t quite hear. The charged storm spread out, washing slowly over the battlefield in a crawling wave. All the while, Remy never moved her eyes away from Mask.
Ghosts rose, their thin wispy forms stretching as if they were waking from a long nap. Some of them were even more transparent than I was, while others were solid enough that it was clear even Mask could see them. He scanned the battlefield, watching them pop up here and there with a bored expression. There must’ve been hundreds of them who answered her call, far more than I expected. The sheer power Remy had used on that one spell must’ve been staggering.
“Father.” Her voice startled me in the silence. She turned to look at me, a dark sheen over her eyes, and held out a hand. “Take my hand.”
I swallowed and put my hand in hers. The electric shock crawled up my arm and over my body in twitching arms of lightning. I winced, expecting it to hurt, but all I felt was the sudden surge of power and a strange awareness of hundreds of eyes all on me. She’d just given me control over hundreds of ghosts at once.
A slow clap echoed from above—Mask’s sarcastic applause. He paused once he had our attention and lifted both hands in front of him. Black vines sprang from beneath the ground, rising as if he’d summoned them. One came up under Remy’s feet, forcing her to move or fall. The ground moved like water as the vines rose, shifting bodies without care for where they fell.
Then the bodies started twitching.
Haru drew his sword.
“Remy,” I said, trying to grab her hand. I missed because I was still a ghost, no matter how solid I seemed. “Get out of here. Now.”
She looked as if she wanted to stay for a moment, but as more and more bodies started moving, she must’ve realized I was right. With a boost from Haru, she mounted the horse and rode away, leaving us alone in a field of shuddering dead.
The body closest to me suddenly opened its eyes, except those were not fae eyes peering back at me. They were pure black. Black spikes suddenly erupted from the dead soldier’s ribcage, extending like spider legs to lift him from the ground. The soldier next to him rose, his body propelled by the same insect-like legs. One by one, all the dead rose with added appendages and black-hole eyes. Our fallen soldiers, Mask’s, fae, demons…it didn’t matter who or wh
at they’d been in life, Mask had raised them all to fight again, effectively doubling the strength of his army in one move.
I watched in horror. How did you beat someone who could use your own dead against you? We don’t have to win. All we have to do is get Finn to the top of that tower and give him the chance to use those stones. I looked up at Mask.
He smirked, lowered his hands, and turned away, disappearing into the palace.
Behind me, horns sounded as Remy and the others started reorganizing the army for another assault. For now, we had a job to do.
“This way.” I motioned for everyone to follow me and sped toward the moat.
At first, I was worried about how Haru would keep up. As ghosts, we could pass right through the undead Mask had raised, but he might have to fight his way through. I’d forgotten already this was Haru, the Red Horseman. He could fight his way through an army of undead monsters with one arm tied behind his back.
He sliced through arms, legs, and spider-like limbs as he ran, avoiding being grabbed by being the nimble little bastard he was. There wasn’t any trouble until we reached the edge of the moat.
“Where’s your glider?” I asked.
Haru smirked and pulled a long, thin stick that had been tucked down the back of his clothes. “Don’t you worry about me.”
“I always knew you had a stick up your ass.”
He raised an eyebrow and pressed a button on the stick. Wings sprang open and a small tail unfolded, revealing his glider.
I shrugged. “So it’s a flying stick. You still had it tucked in your ass.”
Haru rolled his eyes and took a running jump off the edge, sailing down toward the spikes at the bottom of the moat. I worried he didn’t have enough height to get a good lift. Gliders were usually launched from a high place, weren’t they? Maybe his was enchanted, which I wouldn’t put past the Tengu. If they could forge soul-eating swords, why not an uncrashable glider? Haru’s glider swooped up at the last possible second and he sailed right into the hidden drainage pipe.
“Showoff,” I muttered and led the ghosts after him.
I remembered the pipe being a lot narrower than it was, or maybe it was just the fact that I didn’t have a physical body anymore that made it easier to navigate. Either way, it was much simpler to pass through the second time.
Haru folded up his glider and slid it down his collar. It was long enough it must’ve run down onto his pant leg too, but the damn thing seemed to disappear as soon as he got it folded up. Whatever magic he was using to keep it hidden, I needed to learn it. It’d be super handy for organizing the house.
“We’ll face resistance inside,” Haru said as we ran through the length of the pipe. “Or I will. I don’t know if Mask has defenses against ghosts.”
“No one has any idea of what’s going on inside Summer,” I said.
Mask had the whole city locked up tight. We’d been able to get a single spy onto a nearby hill to get a headcount, but it wasn’t accurate. At best, we could only account for about a third of all the Summer fae, and less than half of Winter. Mask had yet to field any of Winter’s soldiers, which would’ve been some of his best troops. I’d seen them fight, and they were badass. So, where were they? What was he waiting for?
We came to the metal grate Athdar had previously removed. It still hadn’t been replaced, so Haru slipped by it with ease. I guess when you’re a tentacle-headed jackass, you don’t have time to concern yourself with the sewer system of the city you’ve conquered.
Near the end of the pipe, I held up a hand, halting both Haru and the ghosts. Before we all just went streaming into the courtyard, I had to figure out what we were up against. I inched closer and leaned down to get a look. All I could see were feet and legs, bodies just standing there shoulder to shoulder. They were packed in so tight, Haru was going to have a hell of a time moving through them.
“Fae,” I whispered. “Packed in like sardines.”
“Armed?” Haru asked.
I shook my head. “Not that I can see.”
He frowned, and I agreed. It was weird to have a whole bunch of fae crammed into the courtyard like that but leave them unarmed. This was Mask we were dealing with, however. His goal wasn’t to hold onto Summer but to stop us. All he had to do to succeed was kill Finn, which was why our side had kept him out of sight so far. Khaleda had given Malphas strict orders not to let him show his face until we had the gate clear.
“Okay,” I said, “to open the gate, we need to get through the courtyard and head left. There’s a set of stairs that winds up past the old armory to a gatehouse. You go that way, Haru. I’ll take the ghosts straight there. If the fae give you any trouble…”
He nodded. “Cut them down.”
No one wanted to kill the fae inside the Summer Palace. They were just Mask’s unwilling pawns, after all, but we couldn’t save everyone.
I nodded and slipped through the grate at the opening with hundreds of ghosts at my back. It took me a moment to get my bearings and rise above the thick crowd of fae, but when I did, I stopped. If I’d had any blood, it would’ve chilled at what I saw.
Mask’s front lines, the fae packed into the courtyard so tight they looked like they could barely breathe? Women and children. He’d stacked some poorly fitting armor on them and given them broken swords so they’d look like soldiers, but they weren’t. I made a fist. We had to tell Remy and the others. If they broke down this gate, all they were going to see were enemies in armor. They’d cut through half of them before they even realized what they were doing.
Sounds of battle had erupted on the other side of the door. Remy, Khaleda, and Everleigh had renewed their attack, and this time, they faced an even more difficult task of taking both the field and the city in one go. The sooner we could get the drawbridge down, the fewer people we would lose. But the minute it came down, all the innocents in the courtyard would get slaughtered.
“God,” said Haru, pushing through the crowd. Not one of them responded as he pushed their shoulders. They just stared ahead, their eyes fixed on the gate. “This is sick.”
“We can’t let our people kill women and children,” I said.
“That’s exactly what’s going to happen if you open the gates now.” He snapped his fingers in front of one girl’s face. “But Mask’s hold on them is too complete. It’s not something we can break, not before everyone out there is slaughtered.”
I looked around and tried to imagine the carnage I had seen in the empty field here. It would break Remy to have to kill children, but I couldn’t just call off our mission either.
“Do you like what I’ve done with the place?” Mask shouted down at us from the wall above. “If you like that, then you’ll love this. Soldiers, kill the Horseman.”
Every head in the courtyard turned to face Haru. Tiny fingers grabbed his clothes and limbs and pulled. He gritted his teeth and drew his sword.
“Haru, don’t!” I called, but I was too late.
Haru swung his sword at one of the children, attempting to cut him. It came down, stopping just short of slicing into him. Masamune! Haru carried two swords, but only Masamune would refuse to cut innocents. He must’ve drawn that one instead of the other. Lucky break for the fae, but not so much for Haru.
He drew a fist back and punched, but he didn’t have enough room to get a good swing, nor to kick. The fae pressed in, and soon he disappeared underfoot, shouting for help.
I didn’t know what to do. I had an army of ghosts at my command, but none of us could save him, could we? I had to try. “Help the Horseman!”
The ghosts sped to Haru’s aid, but as I expected, all the clawing, swinging, and biting in the world from a bunch of ghosts wouldn’t free him. None of them were strong enough. We needed bodies.
There are bodies all around us, I realized. Jean had possessed a body before, so why couldn’t we? It was a long shot since I didn’t know if it’d work, and Jean hadn’t exactly been graceful once he took it over, but it was a better p
lan than what we had.
“New plan!” I shouted. “Every ghost grab a body!”
I sped into the pile of fae attacking Haru and grabbed the first body I encountered belonging to a young boy with pointed ears.
Jean was right about one thing. Possessing a body wasn’t easy. It took me two tries to actually gain control, and when I did, it wasn’t as much like controlling a puppet as I hoped. It was more like trying to wrestle an angry pitbull. The body I was in fought me, another consciousness trying to push me out. But that consciousness didn’t belong to the boy; I’d recognize the greasy slime of Mask anywhere. I had to use all my willpower to push him out, and keep him out. Even when I did, the boy made no attempt to take his body back over. I got the sense that he was asleep, or maybe comatose like the people on Earth had been. Maybe New Orleans had just been a test run. I shivered and focused on controlling the boy’s limbs.
Too-small hands waved in front of my face. I willed them to grasp the tiny scrap of red fabric below me. It turned out to be a loose scrap, already torn away. I went to my knees and felt around. My hand eventually closed on Haru’s hair. I grabbed a fistful of it and lifted his head from the ground. “Haru?”
He was bloody and bruised, but he still managed to open one eye.
“It’s Lazarus. I’m going to get you out of here. Then I want you to run for the gate and get it open.”
He wheezed as someone punched him in the back. “The kids…”
“My ghost pals are possessing them. Or trying to.” I looked around. Maybe a quarter of them had been successful so far. The rest were just swarming around the group, trying to find a body still. “We’ll try to move them, but you’ve got to focus on the mission. Finn can’t use the stones until we open the gate. I’m going to pull you up on three. You ready?”
He nodded. At least, I thought it was a nod.
“One…two…” On three I grabbed him by the head and helped him to his feet as best I could. As soon as he was up, I turned to the nearest attacking kid and kicked him back. The ghosts that had been successful in possessing a body joined me, kicking, punching and pushing the others back way from Haru enough that he could stand. We formed a protective ring around him and escorted him to the bottom of the stone stairs.
