(Burn her! End her! Scream, you human filth, scream!)
The nightmares of what she took from their thoughts still haunt her restless sleep.
No, she wouldn’t cry for them—not a single tear. Their souls would move on, to another place, one she’d…
(seen before?)
Her voice never left her, not due to shock or traumatic stress disorder as her sister assumed. Speaking wasn’t a priority, not when her brain was full of so much noise. Pain and death and passion and torment and desire and always returning to a field, vibrantly green and soft to her bare feet. Surrounded by trees, like an oasis in a desert of sand.
They would always step from the trees, so many, like her. And though it was impossible, she felt two words in each beat of her heart at their sight.
My Children.
Their whispers were unmistakable. Mother. Mother. Mother.
She knows her children are calling her, their whispers growing louder with each passing moment. She has to go to them, to lead them, to show them the way. She doesn’t know how or why—only that she must.
Rain doesn’t touch her. Branches move aside for her. Even the wind seems to part around her, leaving the area beside her still and silent. Some of it she understands, but the rest is lost to her, like a recently forgotten memory. It’s like she’s waking up after a hundred years of sleep.
Trish spots a deer in the woods, alert and frozen, its black eyes watching her unfettered movement through the trees, its majestic antlers branching above the crown of its regal head. She can see its heart, beating firmly and proudly. She can see its soul, pure and white.
The deer is more than a deer. It’s a symbol of salvation.
A symbol she knows she must follow, even as it bounds away.
Every so often the beast stops and looks back at Trish, its chin raised. Rain pelts the buck’s face but it doesn’t blink.
They travel many miles together, the deer always leading. Twice she realizes there are humans nearby, camping in the woods, hiding, but she doesn’t disturb them.
At one point her stomach growls, but she tells it not to, so it stops. When her muscles begin to ache, she stops that, too. When breathing becomes too hard, she simply doesn’t breathe anymore. She allows her heart to keep beating, if only to remind her she’s alive.
Just as dawn breaks over the horizon, its orange glow chasing away the night, the deer leaps from the woods and disappears in a white beam of light.
A woman materializes from the early morning fog, crossing a patch of green grass wearing a shimmering white dress. Her blond hair cascades around her shoulders in silky waves. Her blue eyes sparkle like pale diamonds. Her pink lips don’t move as she speaks.
Mother, she says in Trish’s head.
My child, Trish remembers.
Chapter Eight
Rhett
I take a deep breath, turning the recording device over and over in my hands. The play button skims against my fingers with each turn, but I don’t push it.
Do I want to hear his voice again?
All orphans have two major hurdles to get over in their lives. Accepting that their biological parents are gone forever, and making peace with the idea that you’ve been abandoned. For years I denied myself that peace, making up stories of where they might be, off on wonderful adventures until the time when I was old enough for them to return and take me with them. But like all childhood fantasies, age and maturity destroyed them.
My parents would never return to get me, not from where they were. My parents were dead. I made peace with my life.
And now…
My father has suddenly reappeared, the same as Xave’s. Damn deadbeat warlock fathers.
Hex paws at my leg. “I know, boy. I’m a big chicken.” That earns me a smile.
I take another deep breath. Okay. I’m going to do this. I’m going to press play. I am.
My finger hovers over the button as I fight off the urge to chuck the device into the surrounding fields.
Press it, you wimp!
I press it and nothing happens.
Hex chuffs out a laugh. I didn’t press it hard enough.
One more time, I push the button. This time, the speaker crackles as it begins to play.
“My name is Martin Carter, and I’m your father,” the deep voice says. There’s a pause, and I close my eyes, trying to picture the beggar speaking. All I see is his mangled stump of a tongue wriggling in his mouth as he tries to form the words. It’s hard to believe the man in the recorder is the same person. The message continues. “My punishment wasn’t death. My punishment was to be cursed for life. Every second that I am close to you, my son, causes me excruciating pain, and brings me slightly closer to death. My curse is never being able to be with you again.”
I’ve heard all this before, from when Martin Carter played this very recording for me. The message concludes and I open my eyes and stare off into the distance, seeing nothing. I hate everything the message implies, because if it’s true, then my father is a warlock, just like the Reaper said. And if that’s true, then what else that the Reaper said is true? That the corpse-raising Necros are really the good guys, trying to help humans make peace with the witches? Impossible.
The recorder crackles again and I realize I haven’t pressed stop. I’m about to switch if off when the voice returns, even clearer and crisper than before.
“Rhett, I…I’m sorry for everything. This isn’t what I wanted for you. This life is hard…harder than it should be. If you’re getting this message then I’m probably dead and you’re alone. I can only hope that my old friend, Gary Jackson, managed to survive and is watching over you. He needs to keep both you and his own son, Xavier, safe.” Oh God. Mr. Jackson? His old friend? His son, Xavier? It can’t be true. “Jackson brought me this recorder so one day you can hear my voice, one day you can know the truth.
“I can only hope that he and his allies manage to stop Salem’s Revenge from happening. But if the Council hasn’t killed me yet, and the witch apocalypse moves forward, know that with every waking moment I wish I could be with you. Your mother, she…she loved you very much. They”—his voice cracks slightly and I blink away the tears that spring up—“took her from me, from both of us. She wanted a better world for you and they killed her for it. I was so scared of the sadness that I let anger consume me, Rhett. I wanted revenge and now the Council has imprisoned me. They’ve delivered the one curse they knew would hurt the most. It was her idea. The Head of the Council. Only her twisted mind could come up with such a curse.”
There’s a loud crackle and the sounds of footsteps approaching. “Rhett, I—someone’s coming. I love you very much and I’ll try to finish this message later.” There’s more static and a loud clatter as I assume he hides the device somewhere. I can still hear the footsteps growing louder and louder until they stop. Silence falls. I listen intently. Is that it? Is that the end of the recording?
No. I hear it. Someone breathing. “Martin Carter,” a woman’s voice, sharper than a knife, says. “You are free to go. Your curse will follow you for all eternity and to the ends of the earth. It’s been determined by the Council that death would be too kind a punishment for treason. Go and do no harm.”
“Go to hell,” my father says.
The woman laughs. “All you had to do was walk out that door,” she says. “But you had to open your big mouth. We’ll let you go in a few days, after you’ve had some time to heal. We’ll make a big deal out of it, fake an execution, the whole song and dance.”
“Go. To. Hell,” my father repeats.
“Consider those your last words. Hold him still.”
There’s a scuffling sound and although I know what’s coming next, I grip the recorder with both hands, willing the message to stop. Willing my father’s message to me to continue, for him to tell me more about how my mother loved me.
But no force of will can change the past.
His screams rip through the speaker as they cut out h
is tongue.
~~~
At first I wanted to destroy the recording device, to smash it to tiny bits, beyond recovery. As if that would change the past, remove the curse on my father, give him back his voice, save my mother’s life. So instead I place the recorder out of reach, so I won’t be tempted to destroy my father’s last words to me. His only words to me.
All I want is a do over. Was there ever hope for our family? Did we ever have a chance for a normal life, in a different world free of magic and those that wield it?
I know the only answer is no.
I sit on the porch for hours, long enough for the sun to rise high in the sky and for Hex to get bored with chasing butterflies and flop down in the shade for a nap. My stomach is rumbling and aching and my mouth is dry, but all that just seems so unimportant after what I heard.
I should be looking for Laney. I should want to run away with her and Trish and find a safe place to try to be happy for as long as we survive. But I can’t bring my feet to move, as if they’re made of stone.
I can’t do what my heart wants to do because I have a responsibility to be better. Whatever force or higher power or random genetic mutation gave me the ability to Resist magic also gave me the obligation to protect those who can’t defend themselves.
I finally stand, a lightness coming over me, because I finally know exactly what I have to do.
Taking a step forward, I move into the sunlight, sighing as the warmth hits my skin.
The arrow is past me before I can register the whizzing sound that it makes as it flies through the air. A moment after it embeds itself in the front door, I dive for cover. Someone’s trying to kill me!
Staying low, I see the next arrow coming, but then it stops in midair, spins around, and whizzes back in the direction it came from. Hex barks gleefully, wagging his tail. Good boy, I think.
“Ah!” a voice yells from somewhere in the high-grassed field. “Holy freaking…you almost killed me with that thing!”
And although I wish I don’t, I know that voice.
Bil Nez steps out from the grass, his hands over his head, one of them holding a crossbow.
“’Sup, Rhett?”
Chapter Nine
Laney
Just before the tree crashes through the cabin roof, I sense it coming and dive to the side, rolling hard on my shoulder, barely hanging onto my gun. Chunks of tree bark rain over me, some getting in my mouth and eyes, and leaves and branches scrape my skin.
The orange morning sky looms over me, far too beautiful for the situation.
I stay low, not moving, hoping the magic-born will move on, assuming they’ve already killed me. At the same time I wonder which gang I’m facing. I’ve never heard of witches throwing tree trunks around like toothpicks.
Everything’s quiet for a few long moments, before there’s an ear-numbing BOOM! and the wall explodes inward, showering me with wood chips as a huge black ball flies overhead, punching through the wall behind me. Not a ball—a cannonball. It’s a straight through-’n-through, like a bullet hitting you in the abdomen and exiting through your lower back. Only it’s not a bullet, it’s a cannonball, and it’s just ripped right through a log cabin.
I know immediately which magic-borns I’m facing, and it does little for my confidence. Slammers. I’ve seen the enormous, giant-like witches and warlocks before, on the streets of Morgantown, West Virginia, outside of the restaurant Trish and I were hiding in. They pound their fists together and cannonballs shoot from their hands, destroying everything in their path without discrimination.
Not the version of witches kids used to dress up as for Halloween.
And I’m in their path.
There’s another boom and the door shatters as if it’s moth-eaten fabric. As another cannonball flies past, the doorknob rolls to my feet. My mind races as I wait for the next blast. If I run I’ll be cut down like a hare facing a shotgun. If I stay I’ll be killed by a cannonball or the resulting shrapnel. I have no choice but to fight.
Before I can lose my nerve, I stand amidst the rubble, shredded wood sticking to my clothes, leaves in my mouth, taking in the scene before me.
My jaw drops open. Three mountains loom over me, their fists the size of basketballs, their muscles bulging from their arms and legs, their heads the size of mini-Coopers. A witch—her enormous breasts bulging against her tank top—and two warlocks with thick beards and shaved heads covered in dark tattoos.
I’m dead meat, but I won’t go down without company. Before they can even think about pounding their godforsaken fists together, I raise my Glock and aim it at one of their heads, hoping the cursed bullets are potent enough to take down elephant-size targets.
When I pull the trigger, the sound it makes is like a peashooter compared to the raucous booms their fists made a few moments prior. Worse, the poof of purple mist seems to have zero effect on the warlock, as if his skin swallowed the bullets whole.
He laughs loudly, his fists parting, preparing to slam together. My breath catches and I prepare to dive for cover…but then…
His laugh is cut off sharply as his cheeks bulge outwards, turning bright purple. His companions stare at him, their huge eyes even huger.
And then his head explodes. Chunks of torn flesh, brain matter, and unidentifiable ichor splash against the other two Slammers, coating them in a vomit-inducing slime.
The two remaining Slammers’ focus returns to me. “Oops?” I say.
They roar and I raise my Glock once more, squeezing the trigger again and again and again, in rapid succession. The slam of their fists drowns out the sound of my tiny weapon. Purple smoke fills the air, full of sparks and black shadows, until my enemies are completely invisible to me.
I keep waiting for the impact, for a cannonball to rip through me, ending everything I’ve fought for, but it never comes. The booms continue and I keep pulling the trigger until I figure out that my magged-up bullets are destroying the cannonballs before they can get to me, and the cannonballs are protecting the Slammers from my bullets. I continue firing, wondering how long the stalemate will last, vaguely recognizing that there’s only one set of booms now, as if I’ve killed one of the Slammers or one of them has…
Moved.
The stark realization hits me a second too late, as my body is grabbed by thick fingers, lifting me upward, knocking the wind out of my lungs and my Glock from my hands. The gun clatters to the cabin floor beneath me, growing smaller as the Slammer lifts me above her head. Looking down I get an unfortunate bird’s eye view of her ample cleavage, and I almost wish she’d kill me faster.
Run, Trish, I think. Whatever you are, whatever you have to do—do it. Be who you are. Become what you have to become. And as the witch laughs, her mouth wide and red, my biggest regret is that the one time Rhett and I kissed I had to pretend it didn’t mean anything.
It’s when I’m about to close my eyes and hope for a painless end that I see it.
In any other time, in any other life, I’d do a double take, blink my eyes, assume I was seeing things. But after all I’ve seen I know it’s real.
A skeleton carrying a long silver knife sprints through the woods, right toward us. And behind it are hundreds more skeletons, charging in its wake.
“Boners!” I shout.
~~~
I’m falling, the world spinning around me in a dizzying spiral.
I cover my head and bear the brunt of the impact on my right shoulder, which screams with pain. No time for that. No time. The skeleton warriors are swarming over the cabin debris, their feet clacking across the wood, their—
BOOM BOOM BOOM!
The giant witches are doing what they do best: slamming their fists together to create magic. Cannonballs speed past me and smash through the attackers, splitting bones and cracking skulls. White bone fragments scatter around me like kindling under a woodsman’s axe.
But the Boners keep coming, leaping over their fallen brothers and sisters, screaming silently from their
lipless maws. Carrying swords and chains and tire irons.
I see the shadows of the Slammers as they back away, retreating from the tide of the raised dead. Lying on my back, gritting my teeth at the sharp pain in my shoulder, I feel helpless as one of the Boners sprints toward me. But if this is the end, I’m going down fighting.
Ignoring the pain, I push to my feet, looking for a weapon, grabbing the first long, hard object I can find. A leg bone. It’ll have to do.
The skeleton warrior approaches, waving a club over its head, prepared to smash it into my skull…
And I swing my leg bone…
The force of my swing spins me in a complete circle, missing its mark as the Boner dodges and…runs past me?
I watch as it continues onward, joining a dozen of its kind that manage to avoid the Slammers’ cannonballs and leap on one of them, the massive warlock. I have to look away as they claw and beat and stab his face, his chest, his stomach.
There’s a loud boom and a crash and when I look back the warlock is on the ground, covered in bone shrapnel, a gaping hole in his chest. My head jerks back toward the witch with the breasts that would make Dolly Parton jealous, shocked to realize that she just shot her companion in order to kill a few of the Boners.
The skeletons continue to push toward her, mindless drones without fear. Each cannonball blast destroys dozens of the warriors, until I finally see a distinct decrease in their numbers. She’s winning.
And if she wins, she’ll come for me next.
The word RUN! hammers in my skull, and I know that’s the smart thing, but I’ve never been much of a runner. Why run and get all sweaty and short of breath when you can just throw a punch and stay right where you are?
The ache in my shoulder having become a dull throb, I push through the wreckage of the cabin, looking for it. Brown and white and wood and bones and—