…and he rolls, faster than lightning, there and gone, my sword stabbing into the wood floor. He’s on me before I can draw my weapon back, pushing me down, shoving his sword at my neck.
For a moment I think he’ll do it.
Instead, he stops the tip just above my bare skin, sheened with sweat.
I can’t breathe, because his knees are on my chest and I’m shocked I almost won and afraid he might still kill me.
And then I see it in his eyes. Not anger or victory or anything that should be there.
What I see is fear.
~~~
I’m leaving. I’ve finally come to my senses. All of this “education,” all of this “training,” it’s not real. They’re ways of getting me to stay. Reasons to delay my departure. And the “field trips?” They’re meant to scare me into never leaving Mr. Jackson’s house. I could see it in the fear in Mr. Jackson’s eyes today when I almost beat him. He never intended me to get that strong, to get that close—and it scared the crap out of him.
The only thing I can’t get my mind around is why. Why does Mr. Jackson care? As a neighbor, he was nice enough, but it’s not like we were ever close. I never visited him or anything. The only thing I can think of is that perhaps he’s trying to replace his son—the warlock—with a human kid. Maybe he likes the feeling of having someone to protect. Or maybe he’s just a really nice guy who wants to help me stay alive.
Regardless, I’m not his burden—not anymore. I’m leaving today, when he least expects it, when he goes out for one of his so-called errands.
But first I need to get as much information as possible.
“Was your son involved?” I ask sharply when I see Mr. Jackson. I don’t know why it would matter one way or the other, but I can’t stop from asking. I expect him to close off again, but he doesn’t.
“With the attack?” Mr. Jackson says, raising his eyebrows. “I didn’t see him so I can’t be certain. But I hope he wasn’t, that he was better than all that.”
He’s not telling me everything. I can sense it in the dead quiet space after he closes his mouth. Not that I’m surprised. He’s been keeping things from me since the moment I met him. “And now?” I ask.
“He’s…”
“He’s what?” I push.
“Never mind,” Mr. Jackson says. “It’s not important.”
Everything is important when I’m about to be on my own. “Mr. Jackson,” I say, “what witch gang does your son belong to?”
“I told you, I haven’t seen him since before Salem’s Revenge.”
“That doesn’t mean you don’t know,” I say. Please don’t walk away, I think.
His gaze flits to the radio and then back to me. “Don’t judge him,” he says. Why would he say that? Unless…
“What gang?” I ask firmly.
Mr. Jackson fixes me with a heavy stare. “The Necros,” he says.
Chapter Eleven
Three months since Salem’s Revenge. Three months since the happiest time in my life was ripped away from me without remorse by the witch gangs.
Three months since Mr. Jackson started training me.
Three months since Mr. Jackson started lying to me.
He’s never wanted to follow the Necros to help me destroy them. Or at least that’s not his primary goal. He wants to follow them to find his son. And then what will he do? Who knows? Leave me to deal with them on my own, probably. While he goes and plays house with his kid, like everything is normal.
Enough.
I’ve had enough.
Of his lectures, of being his punching bag, of his lies.
I slip out through the backyard when Mr. Jackson is out.
As I pull myself over the rough wooden fence, I wonder whether I should have left a longer note:
Mr. Jackson,
I appreciate everything you did for me—saving my life, taking me in, training me, trying to help me—but it’s time I learned to survive in this world on my own. I know you were just trying to protect me, but sometimes a guy needs to stand on his own two feet. I hope you understand. Perhaps our paths will cross again one day, but if not, I hope you find your son and the life you want.
Your friend and student,
Rhett Carter
I skirt the edge of the fence, one of Mr. Jackson’s three magic-infused swords heavy where it’s strapped to my backpack. I needed a weapon and Mr. Jackson had three of them, so I figured I didn’t have much of a choice but to steal one of them. And it’s not even really stealing when, according to Mr. Jackson, he scavenged them off of dead witches. Making my way along the edge of the adjoining backyards, I’m anxious to get out of our neighborhood before Mr. Jackson returns.
As I run on silent feet, I keep my head on a swivel, my ears perked like a rabbit to identify any danger before it’s too late. Just as I reach the first cross street and begin to check in both directions, I hear the scuff of feet.
Holy freaking—
I dive for the ground, my heart like a race horse’s hooves, my nerves an explosion of fear. Hand and elbows and knees and feet, I pull myself behind a thick bush, watching the street between the foliage.
Two, four, six young magic-born march past, wearing jeans and shorts and t-shirts, clothes so normal I’d think they were typical teenagers if not for the balls of fire grasped in each of their hands. Three guys, three girls. All Pyros. Wielders of fire magic.
My exhalations are like brass gongs, so loud in my ears that I’m sure they’ll hear me.
They stop. Look around. One of them says something and they all laugh. One of the girls winds up and throws a fireball at one of the houses, which promptly bursts into flame.
They all laugh again, and I wait for the screams.
The Pyros continue down the street, occasionally chucking fireballs at houses, too lazy to search for humans the old-fashioned way. To my relief, there are no screams, just the sickening sound of wood crackling and popping in the blaze.
I manage to slip past the Pyros who are terrorizing my neighborhood. I sneak along fences and behind foliage and between houses, many of which are burning. The smoke is thick and heavy and wants to get into my mouth, but I stay low, where the air is clear.
Without Mr. Jackson to guide me, I don’t know what I’m doing, where I’m going, just that I have to keep moving forward. I have to find some Necros, who will lead me to their lair, wherever that is. What I’ll do when I get there, I have no clue.
Kill the Reaper and avenge Beth, right? Xave, too, if the witches have already killed him. I mull over the possible reasons the Necros would’ve taken Xavier alive, when usually they deal only in the dead. Perhaps the recipe for one of their deadly brews calls for, among other things, bat wings, eye of newt, and hair from a parentless homosexual seventeen-year-old male. I'm hoping they just wanted a lock of his thick dark curls, and not a hand or a foot or worse.
I cringe at my own dark thoughts, but feel a smirk on my lips. It’s exactly the type of gruesome joke that Xave would’ve laughed at.
“But he’s dead,” I remind myself, forcing the hope away like a bad dream.
The world is eerily silent, even as I move into a commercial part of the city, which should be teeming with activity. Silent and empty.
Until a scream shatters the silence.
Instinctively I duck behind the corner of a building, trying to locate the source of the scream. It was distant and sharp and full of fear. The blood-curdling wail rips through the air once more, and my ears manage to hone in on its direction. A warehouse, once a beer distributor.
I know what Mr. Jackson would say. Observe but don’t get involved.
But Mr. Jackson’s not here anymore.
I sprint across the street on silent feet and duck into an alley next to the warehouse. Cries echo from within the sheet-metal walls. “No…no…please!” The words dissolve into another screech of agony.
The urge to cover my ears, to run away, to leave this place forever, grabs hold of me. I ball my fi
sts and ignore it, locating a fire escape leading to the second floor. I leap up and pull the metal ladder down, swiftly clambering to the platform at the top. A gray door leads inside.
High above the large interior of the warehouse, I take in the scene. Rows of large, black iron pots, steaming and smoking. From Mr. Jackson’s lessons, I identify it quickly: A Brewer’s lair.
A rope is dangling from the ceiling, ending in a net, which holds a person, who’s squirming and fighting to get loose. The net is hovering just above one of the pots, containing a thick black substance, brimming with bubbles that explode, spraying liquid upward. Each time a bubble explodes, the person—a boy—screams.
Where are the witches? Perhaps the Brewers have gone out to gather ingredients—as Mr. Jackson taught me, things like human eyelashes, wishbones, flower petals, and fresh hot blood—for whatever deadly concoctions are the soup of the day.
My eyes focus on the person caught in the net. A gasp rises in my throat. I know him. His eyes lock on mine. “Rhett?” he says, his voice coming out higher than I’ve ever heard before, laced with fear.
Todd Logue. The bully has been reduced to a whimpering prisoner.
“Please, Rhett,” he says. “Please help me.”
He’s never helped me before. He’s only hurt me, tried to make me feel like I’m nothing. He’s built himself up a hundred times over at the expense of others, like me.
“I’ll get you out of here,” I say, my voice echoing.
“She’s still here,” he blubbers, a mess of tears.
“Who?” I say, but then I see her, moving gracefully across the warehouse. She’s wearing a white coat, like a doctor, and blue scrubs. Her eyes are fixed on me.
I could probably slip out, fade into the shadows, and sneak away from the warehouse…but I don’t. For the first time since training with Mr. Jackson, I feel the full force of the rage that seems to simmer below the surface of my skin, boil up, overflow, surging through my muscles and mind and heart.
I leap off the scaffolding to the ground level, pull out my sword—even as the startled witch is frantically spooning a reddish, blood-like liquid from another pot into some kind of delivery device—and stab her in the heart. She spills the substance all over herself, mingling it with the blood pouring from her chest, until I can’t tell the two apart. Her skin erupts with green, exploding boils that burn my skin as they splatter me with acid as hot as pan-fried oil. Chest heaving, I relish the death and pain and hunger.
For just a moment, I feel more powerful than I’ve ever felt.
And then I collapse in a heap, like a cookie crushed in a too-eager child’s fist.
It was self-defense, but it still feels like murder.
The worst part is, I didn’t even hesitate, didn’t even consider whether I should kill her.
Wouldn’t Mr. Jackson be proud?
I’m drawn out of my dark thoughts by another of Todd’s screams. I look up to find him staring down at me, his eyes wide, his hands clutching at the net, which has broken open at the bottom, the ropes scorched and burnt by the acid pluming upward. His dirty jeans and Polo shirt are full of holes, revealing red burn marks on his skin.
“Help!” he yells.
I rush to the cauldron and try to push it over, to move it, to get it out from underneath him, but, whether held by magic or sheer weight, it doesn’t budge. Scanning the warehouse, I consider my options. Then I see it. A rolling staircase, used for reaching items high on the warehouse shelves. I sprint to the contraption and push it toward where Todd is suspended above the deadly cauldron.
Oh no. He’s only hanging on by one hand, the net ripping as the noxious brew eats away at its fraying filaments. There’s no way I’ll make it all the way back to him.
I give the staircase a hard shove, letting it roll as far toward Todd as possible while I race to catch up, climbing the steps while it’s still in motion, reaching the top, leaping toward the net while slashing at the rope tethering it to the ceiling.
The rope breaks and I grab the net, using my forward motion to carry it away from the cauldron, surprised at how light the net is with Todd’s weight inside it.
Todd’s scream cuts through the air, cut off sharply when I hear a massive splash and hiss. He couldn’t hang on long enough for me to save him.
PART TWO: THE WITCH HUNTER
Chapter Twelve
Three months later
The Necros trail is dead, no pun intended. My latest excursion to relocate the gang of dead-raisers that have been moving northeast ever since I stumbled upon them was another epic fail. It’s like they’ve vanished into thin air. As I return to the cabin I’ve been squatting in for a few days, I ponder everything I’ve been through to get here.
I’ve passed through big cities—Atlanta, Nashville, Charleston—once teeming with people, working and raising families and trying to find an elusive thing called happiness. Cities that are now empty and shattered, places of glass- and rubble-strewn streets, corpses and scavengers, witch gangs and witch hunters, great violence. Dead places, void of life.
And I’ve been through small towns, once friendly and quaint, now barren ghost towns, where folks who are unlucky enough to still be alive will shoot you rather than invite you inside for a cup of coffee and something to eat.
The roads and highways I’ve travelled are littered with broken down cars and the unburied and forgotten bodies of those trying to flee the unfleeable.
Even as I reach the cabin, I realize my jaw is aching. I’ve been gritting my teeth. Dammit. I can’t stop thinking about losing the Necros’ trail. My dog, Hex, and I have followed the band of Necro scouts all the way to West Virginia. Up until now, following the Necros was easy. The black-hooded witches and warls were confident, arrogant, never considering the fact that someone might be tailing them. There were a lot of them, although I probably could have killed them off one by one if I picked my opportunities. But that’s not what I want to do. I want to follow them to wherever it is they’re taking the corpses.
Occasionally they got into skirmishes with other witch gangs who were trying to control the cities, but each time they escaped with minimal loss of gang members. Along the way they collected as many dead bodies as they could, loading them into the trailer of an eighteen-wheeler, stacking them like old hardbacks in a used bookstore. According to Mr. Jackson, Necros are like ants, everyone working for the good of the gang, everyone bringing their spoils back to some kind of central hub.
Necros specialize in the dead, Mr. Jackson constantly reminded me, as if to prepare me for the likelihood that Xave and Beth were already gone.
But they’re not, I kept saying, until one day I stopped lying to myself.
Now I tell myself that being dead in this world is the best thing my friends could be. The jury’s still out on whether that’s just another lie I tell myself to sleep at night.
Without Hex, the cabin is empty and hollow inside. My dog disappeared somewhere along the way today, as he does. But I know he’ll be back, like always.
I curl up on the musty couch and close my eyes, pondering my options. For the first time in months, my path isn’t clear. There’s nothing guiding me forward. Not Mr. Jackson. Not the Necros. It’s just me and Hex. Could we stay here? Could living be enough?
There’s a big lump in my throat and a bigger one in my chest. Because I know.
Revenge is all I have left.
But I could stay here for a few more days, right? At least until I choose what direction to go in? There’s no harm in resting for a while, is there?
Those questions are still bouncing around in my head when the cabin door crashes inward. My eyes flash open, expecting to see my crazy dog, but instead finding a red-haired witch with two fists crackling with electricity.
I stop, drop and roll. It’s what every kid learns to do in school when the fireman comes in and talks to your class in second grade. Except that’s for fire.
And this isn’t exactly fire.
Blue li
ghtning streaks over me, crackling into a moose head on the log-cabin wall and jarring it loose. Singed and smoking, the giant, antlered hunter’s trophy swings back and forth and then falls.
I raise my arm to protect my head from the falling antlers, but another jagged arc of electricity blasts them out of the air. They erupt into flame, bouncing off the wall and lighting the couch on fire. The couch I was sitting on not two minutes ago, trying to enjoy a rare chance to watch a movie I pillaged months ago from a smashed-open rental machine.
My brain is already processing the information at hand, transferring the knowledge to my hands and feet, kicking them into gear before I can fully comprehend what I’m dealing with.
Keep moving. That’s a rule. To stop is to die.
I roll onto my back and snap my legs forward, regaining my feet in one swift motion. My hands are grabbing at the magicked-up throwing stars in my belt, which are laced with some kind of potion. They cost me about ten cases of instant noodles that I scavenged from a burned out minimart on a highway near Knoxville. The seller, an odd character named Tillman Huckle, drives a hard bargain.
The witch is moving, too, her long, unnaturally red hair flashing as she runs with graceful strides that don’t seem to touch the floorboards. Raising a pale-white hand, she shoots another jagged, blue lightning bolt in my direction. I duck hard to the left and flick my wrist, the throwing star spinning away like a boomerang, right into the path of the—
She abruptly changes direction and the sharp, metal star misses her, imbedding itself in the log cabin wall.
I’m about to chuck another one when she stops. Her mouth curls into a red-lipped smile, her green eyes seeming to cut almost through me. My heart begins to race.
I feel unnerved.
She’s wearing a red, lacey dress that’s more like lingerie. A gown that’s meant to attract attention. Ultra sexy. An odd thing for a witch to wear. She winks at me and my heart skips a beat. It never does that.