Laney nods in understanding. “Weapons.”
“Magical weapons,” I clarify. “Which is exactly what I’ll need to take on the Reaper and his Necros.”
“Exactly what we’ll need,” she says, kicking a stone down the road. It skips once, takes a big hop, and then clanks off the side of an abandoned Honda.
I look at her but she keeps staring straight ahead, so I don’t make a big deal out of it.
Scuff, scuff, scrape, Hex barks at a scrap of exploded rubber tire, and the sun glows red on the western horizon.
We’ve probably put five miles between us and Washington, Pennsylvania, and we’re all tired, so as we approach an eighteen-wheeled tractor trailer on the highway shoulder, I motion our group to a stop. The broad side of the truck is painted with a logo of a black and white splotched cow. “Hager’s Fine Dairy Products, since 1943,” is stenciled beneath the painted cow. “This will be as good a place to sleep as any,” I say.
I motion for Laney to go around one side with her shotgun, while I head around the other side. Simultaneously, we yank open the doors to the cab, each of us recoiling at the smell that wafts out, permeating our nostrils. Dried brown gore is crusted to the seats, the dash, and the windows. Thankfully, there are no bodies or bones.
Tugging the top of my shirt over my nose and mouth, I say, “Necros,” disgustedly, because who else would’ve taken the dead bodies from the truck? Good Samaritans trying to help a fellow human being? Riiiight. Not these days. A kind soul looking to give someone a proper burial, whisper a few words, maybe light a candle or two? Ha! Funerals are as extinct as the dinosaurs. Survival is the only thing that matters. And death has become so commonplace that it’s like watching a speed limit sign fly by on the highway.
We slam the doors on the odor and head back to the rear. Together, we shove the gate up, letting the force of the push roll it all the way into the roof. A thin beam of dying orange sunlight finds its way into the cargo space.
“Blech. Great idea, fearless leader,” Laney says, pinching her nose. If anything, the stench is even worse back here, thick and heavy with rotten eggs and rancid milk. Happily, Hex immediately jumps up to investigate.
“You have a better idea?” I say.
Laney looks up and down the highway. There’s not another vehicle in sight. “After sleeping in there, the Necros will be able to smell us coming.”
I don’t doubt she’s right, so I don’t respond, just follow Hex, who—tail wagging—has discovered a crate of smashed, rotten eggs, and seems to be soaking up every last odor into his high-powered smell-buds.
I watch as he makes his way toward the front of the compartment, where it gets darker and darker, more hidden from the minimal outside light provided by dusk. Hex’s body starts to glow, brighter and brighter, until it’s casting a decent circle of light on a relatively blank corner, scattered with empty milk crates. For the most part, the truck’s been scavenged, leaving only the damaged products to fester for the last six months.
Turning back, I help pull Trish into the cargo space and then Laney, who surprisingly accepts my offered hand.
They follow Hex, crunching brittle egg shells under their feet, while I grab the strap and tug the cargo door closed with a rattling crash. When I catch up, Laney has already positioned three upside-down milk crates around Hex, who’s lying in a heap on the floor, the light emanating from his fur transformed in a way I’ve never seen before.
I shake my head and take a seat next to Laney.
“It’s almost like camping,” Laney says, smirking, pretending to warm her hands on the virtual fire that is my dog, red and orange flames licking around his sides and over his ears. I lean forward, and, feeling no heat, run my hand along Hex’s back, through the “flames,” which are almost like projected images.
Maybe you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but sometimes an old dog can teach itself new tricks.
“Shame we don’t have any marshmallows,” I say, retracting my hand and staring into the Hex-fire.
The thought of food makes my stomach growl, and I think Laney’s, too, as the both of us rummage through our packs at the same time. We eat from our measly supplies in silence, lost in our own thoughts. Even Trish eats without painting any invisible messages about death and destruction. Hex snores softly, his fiery chest rising and falling hypnotically.
When we’ve finished our supper, I steel myself for the conversation that I’m one hundred percent positive Laney doesn’t want to have. As if sensing what I’m about to say, Laney slides her crate closer to her sister and puts her arm around her protectively.
I sigh.
“Don’t say it,” Laney says.
I raise an eyebrow.
“Don’t ask it.” Laney’s glare is dark and heavy and flickering with orange and red light.
I stay silent.
A few minutes go by, and then it’s Laney’s turn to sigh, much heavier than I did. “Okay, fine, you win. I’ll talk.”
“Your sister is a…” I’m afraid to ask the question, especially when her shotgun is at her feet, easily within reach.
Laney’s expression is cut from stone, and for a second I think she might just grab her shotgun and start blasting away. But then I detect a slight quiver in her cheek, there for a moment and then gone. She speaks in a monotone voice, a practiced tone meant to hide emotions.
“I didn’t shoot my parents,” she says.
My lips part. Not what I expected her to say. Is she lying, just trying to change the subject again, distract me from her sister?
“But I thought they were witches…”
“They were.”
“And that they tried to kill you and your sister…”
“Just me. Not my sister.”
Something cracks in me and a deep, deep sorrow balloons in my chest. I understand. Do I understand? “They tried to kill you because you were—”
“A disappointment,” she says, hot-iron-tipped anger sneaking into her voice. “A human. Filthy and weak and worthless to them.”
“Hey, watch what you say about humans. It just so happens that I’m proud to be one,” I say, a lame attempt at humor.
I don’t even get a sarcastic “Ha ha,” out of her; she just starts gritting her teeth. “When Salem’s Revenge struck, I was getting a drink of water. I did see them standing at my bedroom door, holding fireballs. There was a look in their eyes, violent and malicious, something I’d never seen in either of them before. I freaked. I ran down the hall and locked myself in their room.”
A trickle of sweat meanders from her temple to her cheek. She pauses, chokes down a swallow.
“They pounded on the door, their fists breaking through the wood, consuming it in a burst of flame, fire seeming to surround them, like it was a part of them.”
I’ve seen Pyros in action before, and my heart sped up just watching them. I can’t imagine having my parents come after me like that.
“I did grab my father’s shotgun, the one he kept near the bed for protection, which I know now was just a front. He never needed protecting. Neither of them did.”
I frown. “But you said you didn’t shoot them,” I say, confused. So far the story isn’t that different than the first one she told me.
“I—I—” Her voice falters for the first time and she seems to shrink before me.
“It’s okay,” I say. “Take your time.”
She manages a weak, appreciative smile and glances at Trish, who looks wide-eyed and innocent, just a little girl again, not some all-powerful, missile-destr—
“I couldn’t,” Laney bursts out. She’s breathless, gulping at the air, and…is that moisture in her eyes? She wipes at her face with the back of her hand and the tears are gone and her eyes are clear and her mouth is a snarl. “My finger was on the trigger, but I couldn’t pull it. I was too weak, too chicken. But I’m not anymore.”
That’s an understatement, I think to myself. “No, you’re not,” I say. “Then how…”
&nbs
p; “Trish screamed,” Laney says, and I feel a rush of blood in my head as the final piece locks into place.
“She saved you,” I say. She killed your parents.
“Their fires went out, blood leaked from their noses and mouths and ears…and then they died.”
“Holy…”
“Yeah,” Laney says. “That about sums it up. Except what Trish can do, there’s nothing holy about it. It comes from a completely other place.”
I can’t believe she’d say such a thing with her sister listening, but Trish, as usual, doesn’t react, just yawns and slides to the floor, curling up next to Hex, closing her eyes.
“Your sister’s a…W-I-T-C-H?” I say, spelling it out, confirming my understanding.
“She’s not human,” Laney says, “is she? And she knows how to spell, you know.”
I shake my head. “And you think witches get their powers from…”
“Hell,” Laney says. “Satan, the Devil, Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness. They are the epitome of EVIL with a capital E-V-I-L.”
“But your sister isn’t evil,” I say, realizing what I’m arguing for only after the words spill from my mouth. If her sister—a witch—isn’t evil, then that means not all witches are evil, just like Mr. Jackson said. Could he have been right? Is there hope for his son? I bite my tongue.
“I never said she was,” Laney retorts with a scowl. “Just that her powers come from somewhere—something—evil. She gets to choose whether to use them for good or evil.”
My whole body feels numb, like I’ve eaten some weird anesthetic plant. I’ve never met a witch I didn’t have a strong desire to kill. Trish’s…I almost spit the word out in my mind…kind killed my family and probably my best friend and the love of my life. I hate them. All of them. Don’t I?
But as I watch the cherubic, if somewhat strange, child sleeping next to my dog, I can’t find even an ounce of hatred toward her. Although most of the time she doesn’t seem at all like a child, when she was flipping through the photo album I could almost sense that she wanted to be a child again, but that the world wouldn’t let her. And she saved her sister’s life from her parents, and then all of our lives from the missile. All she did was scream and…
“No,” I say. “It can’t be both ways. They can’t be evil but able to do good, too.”
Laney’s eyes seem to catch on fire, but she’s just angled her head, catching the reflection of Hex’s faux-fiery body. “Trish. Isn’t. Evil,” she says.
“That’s not what I’m saying,” I say quickly. “I’m saying that she’s not evil and her powers don’t come from evil. Wherever they come from, she can use them for good or evil. But how does she harness it?”
“What are you saying?” Laney’s voice is a low growl.
What am I saying? “Just that having Trish with us is a risk.” I hate that I sound like Mr. Jackson, making statements of cruel and indifferent logic. I hate it, but that doesn’t stop me from saying it.
“So…what—you want to drop her off in a ditch somewhere? Leave her to the mercy of the other witch gangs?” Her tone’s gone from fiercely defensive to sarcastic and incredulous in an instant.
“No. I’m just wondering how she controls it.”
“Controls what?” Laney asks, tucking a leg under her butt.
“Her powers. We all heard her scream. I mean, it was crazy-loud, right? Why didn’t it kill us when it blew up the missile? And why didn’t it kill you when she saved you from your parents?” The questions are coming faster and faster, piling up haphazardly, like spare parts in a junkyard.
Laney shakes her head. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”
Her question takes me by surprise. I’m used to questioning things and finding out answers. But she’s right. What difference does it make except that Trish is somehow able to control who or what she destroys with her power-scream? Could she ever hurt us by accident? Maybe, but so far the tiny nine-year-old seems to have complete control of her abilities. The bigger question is…
“What gang does she belong to?” I ask.
Laney’s eyes darken. “No gang,” she says.
That’s not the way my world works. Every witch has a gang, a group with a similar skillset, whether they hang out with their kind or not. “Sure she does. Witches gravitate toward those they can relate to.” Mr. Jackson’s words, not mine, but I believe them.
Laney scoffs. “That’s like saying just because someone has a hook for a hand that they’re a pirate. My sister doesn’t have a gang. We’re her gang.”
She’s missing the point. “I just mean that it would help to understand her powers. Mr. Jackson taught me a lot about the various gangs, and if I could identify what she is…”
“She’s not some subject to be investigated,” Laney says hotly. “And maybe she doesn’t fit into one of Mr. Jackson’s”—she exaggerates the name with her flippant tone and a roll of her eyes—“neat little categories.”
“Sorry, I—”
“No, you’re not thinking, are you? You’re assuming, and we all know what assuming does.”
Yeah, makes an ass out of you and me. “Sorry. Just sorry,” I say. “Thanks for telling me the truth. And I’m sorry you had to go through all that.”
“Yeah,” she says, which I think is the closest thing I’m going to get to her accepting my apology, as she turns away and joins her sister on the floor. Almost as an afterthought, she flips back over and says, “There are always shades of gray.”
I step over them and take up a sleeping position on the opposite side of my dog, pushing in close to share his body heat. Though I can hear Hex’s heavy breathing as he sleeps, his firelight dims, becoming nothing more than glowing embers in the dark.
I don’t know what to do. I never expected to have a witch travelling with me, never in a million years. But this is different, right? She’s just a kid, powerful yeah, but on my side, helping me. She saved us.
Despite the many questions still running amok in my mind, weariness takes me and the world fades into nothing.
Chapter Thirty-Six
It’s like our conversation last night never happened, which I think is what both of us want.
Laney is back to her normal, steel-like, feisty self—“Get your ass in gear, Carter, daylight’s burning!”—and I’m, well, back to focusing on my mission of revenge. So what if I’m travelling with a witch and her sister, right? Said witch is a child and she saved my life, so maybe she’s not like the other witches I’ve met, even if her powers come from the depths of hell, like Laney suggested last night. But every time I look around, I see Trish watching me, even more so than usual. Creepy kid, I think.
I take a deep swallow of water and try to ignore her stare.
“Carter! You need someone to hold your hand or what? You move slower than my grandma, and she’s been dead for ten years.” My head snaps around to find Laney, hands on hips, staring me down.
I fake a smile. “We should check Huckle’s box o’ fun first,” I say. “Divvy up whatever’s inside. Could be useful.”
Laney’s eyes light up. “I got first dibs,” she says, elbowing me aside as I throw open the box.
“Sure,” I say.
She rummages through the container, says “Sick!” and pulls out the Glock, the one with magged-up bullets that Huckle showed us before the missile strike. Shoving it in her waistband, she removes a box of ammunition, which she sticks in her pack.
“Your pick next,” she says, smiling wide with satisfaction.
I lean over the box, which rests on the edge of the truck bed. There are a number of knives and short blades, each of which are surely tipped with cursed or otherwise magged-up steel. I take one, the longest and sharpest, and shove it into a leather holster next to my throwing stars. Reach in again…
“Not so fast,” Laney says, pushing in. “Me again.”
“Since you asked so nicely,” I say, waving her forward.
“Grenades!” Laney says, holding up a brown, egg-shaped dev
ice.
“Not just any grenades,” I say, peeling a Post-it note off the back. I read Huckle’s shaky child-like handwriting: “Not for use in small spaces. Beware of early detonation.”
“Sounds right up my alley,” Laney says, gingerly placing one in her pack. She reaches for another.
“Not so fast,” I say, mimicking her voice and words. “Me again.”
“Ha ha, Carter,” she says, but steps aside and waves me forward.
I snatch the last two grenades, one in each hand, wondering what type of magic is inside of them.
“Cheater,” she says, but she’s smiling. Probably because she was going to do the same thing, I think.
We continue on like that for ten minutes, taking turns in a somewhat pushing and shoving and cheating kind of way, until every last throwing knife, explosive, and club is accounted for. It’s like Christmas for witch hunters. There’s even a cool black collar for Hex with another Post-it. “Even an awesome dog like yours might need some extra protection,” I read, before fitting the collar to Hex’s neck. Hex swipes a tongue at me appreciatively.
When we finally leave, the miles pour over us like waves, pounding on our muscles and our hearts. The morning is uneventful, save for when we break for a quick lunch and Trish starts drawing again, this time in the dirt on the highway shoulder. But all she writes is Yes about a dozen times.
Laney shrugs and winks as if to say, Told you so.
Morning rolls into afternoon with our footsteps and heartbeats keeping time. The afternoon starts personal. “Tell me about Beth,” Laney says.
I frown, my chest automatically constricting at hearing her name. “Why?”
“You’re on a mission that’s taken you across hundreds of miles and pitted you against some of the nastiest witches in the world. And it’s all to get revenge because they probably killed this girl of yours? She must be something special.” Laney’s got a bounce in her step, like she’s enjoying being the one asking the questions, turning last night’s tables, so to speak.
“I’m doing it for my best friend, too,” I correct.
“Okay, so tell me about both of them,” she says.