The leopard’s cry and the gorilla’s bellow fade quickly into the background as the ground disappears beneath our feet, replaced by nothing but blind, empty air, leaving the silence broken only by Bil’s long, echoing scream and my own gasp, which punches from my lungs like a heavyweight boxer’s knockout blow.
My arms windmill and I force my tired legs to bend, preparing for an impact that will surely shatter bones and tear tendons. An impact that will likely kill us both in a manner that’s only slightly better than being eaten alive by witches turned into beasts.
Time suspends itself in an invisible net of gloom, and then torpedoes forward with a vicious SLAP! that seems to hit my entire body at once, sending a shockwave of fresh pain through my every nerve, all the way to my extremities. But I don’t stop like I expect, my fall continues, much slower, as if I’ve hit so hard I’ve sunk into the ground itself, which gobbles me up, trying to swallow me in a cold, wet bath.
The sudden cold seems to reawaken my mind, and I realize how far off course I’ve let my thoughts run. Water. I’m in water. And although my ankle is throbbing so badly I think it might be sprained, overall I’m doing okay. And by okay I mean not dead. Except for the fact that I can’t breathe because I’m blindly sinking into an underground pool that may or may not have a bottom.
I thrust hard with my uninjured leg, an awkward half-frog kick that somehow manages to stop my descent. A few decent paddles with my arms and more frantic kicking and my head splutters out of the water. Nearby, Bil Nez coughs wetly. At least I hope it’s him and not some cave-dwelling demon with a bad cold whose skinny-dipping session we’ve disturbed with our unplanned cannonballs.
“Bil?” I say.
More coughing.
“You okay?”
“Swallowed too much water,” he coughs.
“I held my breath,” I say.
“Must’ve slipped my mind,” he grumbles.
Sounds echo down from above. “Yow ruined our game,” Flora yowls, like we’re a couple of sore loser children who just turned over a Monopoly game board and stomped off.
“Sorry,” I say, “self-preservation and all that.”
“How are we going to get yow out of there?” Flora says, almost to herself.
Bil whispers something smart, which is unusual for him. “The water has to come in somehow. And it probably leaves another way.” Which is obvious, although I have to admit the thought hadn’t yet crossed my mind.
I shout, “Wait just a minute and we’ll climb out. We can even climb right into your mouths if it’ll save us all a lot of trouble.” Under my breath, I hiss, “An underground stream, a…” I finally notice the way it seems to be pulling me in one direction, like there’s a— “…current.”
“Yeah,” Bil says. “Let it take us. It’s our only chance.”
“I’m sending Opie down,” Flora says. “He’s the best climber.” I’m pretty sure I don’t want to meet Opie, who I presume is the bone-crushing gorilla.
“We’ll have a bunch of bananas waiting for him,” I shout back, feeling Bil’s bobbing form bounce against me.
“Hang on,” Bil says, offering his arm.
Why oh why does every aspect of our escape seem to involve Bil Nez invading my personal space? I grab his arm and say, “Don’t try anything funny.”
He scoffs. “What kind of guy do you think I am?”
“The kind that likes to try funny stuff,” I say.
“It’s like you’re inside my head,” Bil jokes, just before muttering a curse. “End of the road.” I release his arm and feel around. A wall, whisper smooth, blocks our path. Which means the current is trying to suck us below the surface, into some kind of a natural, fully submerged pipe.
There’s a scraping sound from somewhere above us and then a hailstorm of rocks splash around us. One of them glances fiercely off my cheek. Freaking disrespecting gorilla!
“Like you said, Nez, we’ve got no choice,” I say. I am not hanging around for ape-man to pluck us out of the water in some nightmare version of bobbing for apples.
“Hyperventilate,” he says.
“Bil, we don’t have time to talk about how you’re feeling,” I say.
“No,” he says. “We have to hyperventilate ourselves if we’re going to make it. We used to do it when we were kids. Not the smartest thing to do, but we were stupid, always trying to see who could hold their breath the longest. If you breathe really fast and hard—short, sharp breaths—you’ll be able to hold your breath longer.”
He’s right—I’ve heard something similar before. “Okay,” I say. “Go.”
I try to ignore the sound of the gorilla climbing down as I focus on my breathing. In out. In out. In out. Inoutinoutinoutinoutinout!
And then Bil’s pulling me under and together we’re kicking hard, scooping the water aside with our hands, feeling along the polished rock wall, which goes deeper and deeper until it vanishes before us.
The water seems to grab me and pull me into the tunnel, propelling me along faster and faster as I help with a steady kick that sends fireworks exploding through my injured ankle. I don’t know if my eyes are closed or open because I can’t see anything either way. The only thing to do is kick and pray our oxygen doesn’t run out.
Bil was right about the hyperventilating thing. Although instinctually I know I need to get to the surface as soon as possible and release my breath, my lungs are calm and serene, just existing, not screaming for breath like they normally do after twenty to thirty seconds underwater.
Unfortunately the trip is longer than half a minute, although I don’t know how much longer, as every second that passes could be ten seconds or even twenty; I wonder if this is how it would feel to be cast off from Earth, sentenced to float through the vast gravity-less vacuum of space until your oxygen runs out or you’re hit by a passing meteorite, whichever comes first.
Panic sets in even before my lungs start to burn. I kick harder and more frantically, and I feel as if I’m writhing rather than swimming, moving backward rather than forward. But I don’t stop trying, fighting through the water like it’s my archenemy, even when my lungs start to rebel. I’ve had friends who were swimmers tell me that when they’re in the water it’s like they’re at home, and they become one with the swimming pool.
This is nothing like that. This is not home and I feel like the water hates me as much as I hate it. My lungs spasm and I have to clamp my lips shut with all my force to keep them from opening and drinking a soggy breath.
I kick again and again and again as my chest heaves, bubbles slipping from my lips in short succession.
Done. I’m done.
In a last-ditch effort I change the trajectory of my thrusts and kick upwards, hoping to find a sliver of breathing space between the water and the silky tunnel ceiling.
Instead, my head bursts from the water, my stale held breath exploding from my lungs with a heaving gasp that seems to rip the very cells from my throat. My lungs burn and my head spins and I breathe and breathe and breathe air that should be dank and old and unsatisfying, but which instead tastes as sweet as sugar on my tongue. I could breathe it forever, and then a few more minutes after that.
Bil says, “You made that harder than it had to be.” It’s still too dark to see him, but it’s actually great to hear his voice, despite the fact that I was so focused on the simple act of breathing that I’d temporarily forgotten about him.
I keep breathing, treading water, wondering what he means.
“The tunnel ended a ways back,” he says. “Weren’t you feeling for the roof?”
God, I’m an idiot. This whole prisoner experience is turning into an episode of Why Laney Is Lucky to Be Alive, the new reality show that everyone will surely be talking about in the school cafeteria—once the witch apocalypse is over and there is a school to have a cafeteria in, of course.
I don’t respond, which seems to be the course of least humiliation at this point.
“Do you think the Shifter
gorilla can swim?” Bil asks, thankfully changing the subject to one that doesn’t involve dwelling on my stupidity.
“I’m not sticking around to find out,” I say, inching forward in the water, feeling for something I can climb up onto. The cold is seeping into my bones and I can’t spend much longer in the water. “You got a light?”
“Yeah,” Bil says, “you can help me retrieve it.”
I don’t have the slightest clue what he’s talking about, and given he’s already sniggering, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to find out.
Still laughing and barely able to get the words out, he says, “I shoved it up my butt and they must’ve missed it during the anal probe.”
I roll my eyes in the dark, which really kills the effect. “Hi-freakin’-larious,” I say.
“I thought so,” Bil says. “No light, sorry.”
“Try to find the edge,” I say.
“You’re the only one in the water,” Bil says, snorting.
I take a deep breath and resist the urge to find a rock to throw at him. “You could have told me earlier,” I say, making my way toward his voice. My feet scrape the bottom but find purchase, and I slog my way through knee-deep water to a rounded lip.
“Here,” Bil says, and I feel a hand brush against my arm. I grab it, and Bil hauls me onto shore like he’s landing a giant fish.
“Thanks,” I say. I collapse in a heap, my saturated clothes feeling like a sagging second skin. It feels even colder out of the water.
“No problem,” he says, and he almost sounds like a normal guy. “Of course now you owe me about three kisses.” Or not.
“Has hell frozen over?” I ask innocently.
“It’s only fair,” Bil says. “I’ve helped you at least three times today, so I deserve a reward.”
“One, I’ve helped you just as many times…”
“Yeah, you pushed me off a cliff into freezing cold water,” Bil interjects. “Thanks for that.”
“It worked, didn’t it? Would you rather have played the What’s For Dinner? game with Flora and her collection of Furries?”
“What’s a Furry?” Bil asks.
I punch his hand—hard—when it scurries like a tarantula onto my leg. He says “Ow!” and I say, “You haven’t heard of them? They’re humans who would rather be animals. They dress up like them and go to conventions and stuff. It’s pretty funny.”
“Not so funny when the Furries try to eat you alive,” Bil comments. “What’s number two?”
“Huh?”
“You said ‘one’ earlier and then I interrupted you. What’s two?”
Right. The three kisses thing. “Right. Two, why would you want me to kiss you? You don’t even like me and I like you even less.”
Bil laughs. “No one would ever accuse you of being a liar,” he says. “I mostly just say stuff like that because I know I’ll get a reaction from you. I would never really try anything, because I know Rhett would beat the crap out of me.”
“Wrong,” I say. “First I would beat the crap out of you, and then Rhett would. A double whammy.”
Bil chuckles and silence falls for a moment, but then he says the last thing I could’ve possibly expected. “Is there ever a chance we could be friends?”
It’s my turn to laugh. Not because it’s impossible, but because, at this particular second, it almost feels like we are friends. But I’m not about to tell him that. Instead I say, “Crazier things have happened.”
I can sense his smile in the dark, because I’m smiling, too. A shiver runs through me and I cross off Having A Moment With Bil Nez While Soaked To The Skin In The Shifters’ Lair from my list of Weirdest Things I’d Rather Not Do.
As we sit, dripping and shivering in the dark, Bil says, “How are we going to get out of here?”
I push to my feet and say, “By taking one squishy footstep at a time.” Of course, I can barely feel my toes, but I’m hoping a little movement will get the blood flowing again. “Here.” Bil takes my offered hand and I drag him to his feet.
When I try to pull away, he holds on tight. “We’ll have to hold hands so one of us doesn’t fall down a cliff,” Bil says. When I try to pull away again, he adds, “Seriously. I’m not just messing around this time. Hold my hand, I promise not to make a big thing out of it.”
I know he’s right, and although a few weeks ago holding his hand would’ve repulsed me, it’s not so bad now. It’s comforting, in a way. Not in a romantic way—I’d rather kiss Hex than Bil Nez—but in a brotherly way. As if all our fighting has been because we’re more alike than we might think or want to admit.
Pulling him behind me and feeling ahead with my free hand, I lead him carefully across a gentle rise, the unnaturally slick terrain climbing steeply before levelling off. When my fingers brush against a barrier, I stop. “A wall,” I whisper. “I’ll try to find a way out.” I head left, feeling along the wall, squishing far too loudly for comfort with each step. If there’s a Shifter anywhere nearby, surely their super hearing will pick up our movements and our great escape will be stopped before it ever really gets started.
For several suction-cup steps, my fingers run along the wall, but then it disappears, my hand batting at open air. “This way,” I say, squeezing into a tight crease in the wall, which I hope will lead us somewhere useful and Shifter-less, preferably to a way out of the caves. What I wouldn’t give to see real daylight again, not the imitation stuff filtered in through the cracks in the cave ceiling.
My wish fades as the tight nook dead ends. “Back,” I hiss. “Nowhere to go.”
Bil starts to jimmy his way out, sliding against the rock walls, but then he freezes when a voice rings out clearly. “Flora and her stupid games,” the she-leopard says, her high-pitched voice as shrill as a blown whistle. Crap. There must be another entrance—and therefore another exit. Somehow we missed it when I went left instead of right, although the inadvertent error might’ve just saved our lives, as long as our sogginess is enough to mask our smell from the animals prowling through the caves.
“Shut yer trap,” a gruff voice retorts, trailing off into a series of apish grunts. Awesome. Today just gets better and better. The gorilla and the leopard are searching for us. Every heartbeat sounds like a boxer hitting a punching bag in my chest, and I swear the Shifters will be able to hear it from a mile away. My lungs tighten as I try to breathe as quietly as possible.
“Oh, I see. I didn’t realize you were Master’s little pet monkey,” the leopard says. “Do you do tricks for her? Let me see one and I’ll give you a banana.”
The gorilla’s answering snarl is every bit as terrifying as the leopard’s growl. For a second I think we might get lucky and they’ll kill each other, leaving the exit wide open, but then the gorilla says, “Save it for the humans, kitten. Once we’re finished with them, I’ll gladly crush your spine.”
Lovely. Of all the magic-born gangs I’ve come across over the last six months, the Shifters are the ones who can’t even seem to get along amongst their own kind, much less with anyone else. In some ways I think that only makes them all the more volatile and deadly.
“I’ll be waiting,” the leopard croons. “The humans aren’t here. We have to split up.”
“Gladly,” the gorilla responds, and their voices trail off again, disappearing into the dark.
Once more, we’re safe, although I’ve got a feeling that’s not going to last. We can’t hide in this nook forever.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Rhett
All I want to do is sit here in misery, dwelling on Tara’s great and mysterious revelation about my father’s curse, but I can’t even get five minutes to feel sorry for myself any more.
“Does the great and powerful witch hunter need a tissue?” Angelique says, startling me from behind.
I don’t look up. Maybe if I pretend not to hear her, she’ll go away. Fat chance.
“Why so sad, Rhett Carter?” she says, sitting across from me, her second-skin red dress someh
ow managing not to burst at the seams. Evidently she’s not in mourning for her sisters anymore.
“Yeah, life sucks sometimes,” she says, although I don’t say anything to prompt it. “Get over it.”
I finally look up and take in her angry, but beautiful expression, which only infuriates me more. “Like you did?” I scoff. “Should I shove a dagger into my stomach and hope a Claire comes along to patch me back up? Or maybe I should just sacrifice myself so the Necros have another foot soldier for their army. So many options, I just can’t decide which one to take.”
Angelique raises her perfectly plucked eyebrows, which seem to pull the corners of her delicate lips into a hint of a smile. Great, even when I’m trying to insult her, I’ve amused her.
“No,” she says. “You should be angry. Anger is better than sadness every time. At least anger will get you off your ass so you can do something. I let my misery guide that blade into my skin. But now I’m angry. Now I’m ready to collect on the deaths of my sister-witches. Someone will pay.”
“Newsflash, President Washington is already dead. We killed all those loyal to her, too. There’s no one left to punish.” My words come out scathing, like hot coals, but Angelique doesn’t react at all, as if she’s become completely immune to the power of words.
“There’s always someone to punish,” she says.
I’m about to respond, but a commotion in the distance stops me, turns my head. “What?” I murmur, my errant thought drifting through my lips.
There are a handful of Necros walking solemnly toward camp, their faces shrouded. But they’re not what draws my eyebrows into a tight, narrow V. It’s the hundreds of others marching behind them. The others are clearly not Necros, but they’re also not human. I scan the crowd, connecting what I see with what Mr. Jackson taught me all those months ago and what I’ve experienced in the days since.
A handful of Spellcasters carry thin, reed-like wands at their sides, staring straight ahead.