But I have to. We both have to. Because it was our trick, you see: shape-shifting of the highest order.
Pearce didn’t turn us to ash—we did it to ourselves. And now it’s time to return.
It isn’t easy to revert to my body, to this skinny, wounded assemblage of blood and guts. It takes power. It hurts.
But as I flex my restored limbs and straighten my spine, rising up from a pile of ash, I feel energized somehow. Stronger. Maybe it’s the look of joy on our parents’ faces as they rush to our sides. Or maybe it’s the look of shock on Pearce’s. The way his jaw falls wide open when we materialize in front of him again, smiling triumphantly at our illusion. He stumbles backward, knocking into one of the Horsemen, who reaches out an enormous arm and steadies him.
Enraged by our ruse, Pearce rewards the Horseman for his help by turning toward him and putting his hands on either side of his rough, chiseled face. At first it’s tender, almost like a caress—until the man’s skin begins to melt away.
The Horseman bears the agony without a sound. At first. But then he starts to scream. And soon he’s just a bare, eyeless skull with grinning, jagged teeth.
Just like the bad old days.
The other Horsemen let out frenzied cries of betrayal, and Pearce turns on them viciously. His voice booms across the square. “Enough!” he thunders. “You have served your purpose. I have no more need of you!”
Whit looks at me in astonishment. “He’s not going to—” he begins.
But Pearce’s voice cuts through the air again. “Devour them!” Pearce shrieks to Vander and his Lost Ones. “My Shadowland comrades, feast!”
The pandemonium is instantaneous and deafening. It’s the definition of all hell breaking loose. Whit and I watch, stunned, as the howling Undead turn and lurch toward the Horsemen, their terrible eyes glowing in anticipation of warm, red blood.
The Horsemen reach for their swords, their guns. They’re skilled at violence; they can trample a man to death without a second thought. But they have no idea how to kill the Undead.
A bullet can’t stop a corpse.
The Horsemen try to beat them back, but they’re outnumbered. It’s one thing to escape a single enemy—it’s another thing entirely to escape a starving, cunning swarm of them.
The air is pierced by screams. Something comes flying toward me and crashes down at my feet. I jump back in horror: it’s a Horseman’s boot, with a severed foot inside.
In little more than an instant, the Horsemen have lost a tenth of their men.
This is what will happen to the whole entire world if Whit and I can’t stop it.
I flex my fingers, and I can feel the M running hot. The crazy shape-shift should have drained all my power, but sharing my M with Whit has somehow made it stronger for both of us. It’s just a matter of the right moment to use it.
Cut off the head of the beast.
In the center of the mayhem, Pearce smiles cruelly. “Do you see what the Undead are capable of?” he asks us, his voice full of awe. “They’re like a plague of locusts. ‘They will cover the face of the ground so that it cannot be seen’—isn’t that in The Book of Truths?”
By now I’ve got a fireball burning behind my back. “I don’t remember that part,” I say. And then I launch it at Pearce’s chest.
He ducks, and it misses him just barely, exploding on the cobblestones and taking out another unlucky Horseman. I can’t say I feel too bad about that.
Pearce cackles. “Missed me, missed me, now you have to kiss me,” he says tauntingly.
“Kiss this,” I murmur. Another fireball hits Pearce in the shoulder, spinning him around like a left hook.
“Ow,” he says. But he’s grinning at me. “I always did love chaos,” he barks. “It’s so much more interesting than order.”
He still thinks this is a game.
But I’m deadly serious. When I look at him, my mind’s flooded with every terrible thing he did—each lie he whispered, every child he hurt, all the innocent lives he stole—and the fire burns so hot inside me that I feel like a shooting star. I feel like my fury could consume him.
Or consume us both.
My brother launches himself into the air, taking the shape of an enormous white bird that dive-bombs Pearce’s head, raking its talons along the side of Pearce’s skull and opening up deep, bloody gashes.
Pearce falters as the blood runs down his face. How fortunate that half-Undead wizards feel pain just like everybody else! Pearce wipes the gore from his eyes and flings bright-red splatters to the ground. In the air, my brother turns and wheels, his great wings shining in the sun. Then he tucks them in as he plummets down behind Pearce, slamming into him from behind.
Pearce is flung forward to his hands and knees. I aim another burning sphere that connects with the side of his head. I swear I can hear a crunching sound—as if, by the time it reached him, my flames had become solid as stones.
Pearce struggles to stand. Just as he gets nearly vertical, my brother the bird crashes into him again. This time I know I hear a crunching sound.
I’m floating up in the air now, sparks showering off me. Pearce falls down, tears flowing down his cheeks and blood streaming from his wounds. He summons another wave of invisible heat, but I can sense it now, and I move out of its way.
All around us the Undead keep howling, and I pray there are enough Horsemen for them to eat so they don’t start coming for us. Not until we finish with Pearce.
The magic’s running through me stronger than I’ve ever felt it before. And I wonder if Aunt Bea was right—that power willingly given away returns in greater force, exactly when you need it most.
My brother and I come at Pearce from all sides, flame and feathers and fury. “Surrender now,” I shout.
Pearce is pale from blood loss, from using his dark powers, but he shakes his head defiantly. “You’ll have to kill me,” he says.
From the mouth of the bird comes my brother’s voice. “Gladly.”
Chapter 76
Wisty
I SEND STREAMS of searing magic Pearce’s way and he doesn’t block them anymore. He cringes, cowering against the ground, but for some reason he doesn’t try to flee.
It’s almost as if he really wants to die.
Whit lands beside me, then flashes back to human form. He’s breathing hard, but I sense his power’s not exhausted yet. We look at each other—at our parents, at Janine—and we grimly nod. We’re ready. Time to end this thing. We’re going to set this City free.
The next second, we’re both running toward Pearce, me with fire and Whit with fists. Until something… crazy happens. Something unimaginable. And it stops us in our tracks.
Pearce’s crumpled body begins to shudder and convulse, as if something’s tearing him up from the inside. And then, like lava bursting from a volcano, a brilliant red cascade of sparks shoots out from his chest. The sparks turn yellow, then white—and there’s a great hissing sound as the sparks begin to come together. First, they form the shape of a torso… and then limbs.…
We watch, stunned, as the magic light coalesces into the spirit of a man.
A man with a familiar, cruel face and the Technicolor eyes that have haunted my dreams since the day I last saw them.
The dreadful spirit stares down at the broken, weeping body of Pearce below him. Then it turns its terrible gaze on us. “My son was always such a disappointment,” says none other than—honestly it feels like my mind’s melting to even think it—The One Who Is The One.
I can barely form the words. “But I—I killed you,” I stammer.
The One smiles. “You killed my body, witch,” he allows. His voice doesn’t come from the spirit’s glowing mouth; it comes from inside my mind, and I feel each of his words like a hammer in my brain. “So I used my boy’s.” He glances down at Pearce again. “I had higher hopes for it than it—than he—delivered.” He hovers menacingly above his sobbing son, oblivious to the battle between the Horsemen and the Lost that
rages all around him. “I was tired of waiting. Stuck inside the last shred of his soul. Held tight like a captive.”
Whit gasps. “You’re the Lost One he shared his soul with!”
This… creature disgusts me almost more than he terrifies me. “Like a parasite,” I hiss. “A tapeworm.”
The One’s light flares alarmingly. “Call it what you will. I thought I could trust him to carry out my bidding. I believed I could count on him to destroy you. But when I realized that he could not, my strategy changed.” He pauses, his attention shifting upward. “In Shadowland, I grew unused to sunshine,” he says—as if he’s just making conversation. But then he turns his face to the sky, which immediately darkens. Clouds rush in overhead, great gray billows like the toxic smoke of the Underworld. The temperature drops immediately.
Then he turns back to us. “Much better,” he says. He gestures to his son, who slowly lifts himself up—or maybe is lifted up—from the ground. Pearce stands before us, enveloped in the harsh, cold light of his father’s ghostly power. His shoulders are shaking. He looks scared and broken.
Like a little boy whose daddy never loved him.
“We are connected, you see, but now I am in charge,” The One says. His voice inside my head grows louder. “And I will have my revenge. It has been a long time in coming.”
The sky goes all the way to black now, ripped through by lightning. In the brilliant flashes, the half-eaten corpses of the Horsemen stand out in sharp relief against the cobblestones.
“How nice to see that my Undead friends are having a picnic,” The One says, and his laughter slices through my thoughts like a blade.
Then the air fills with a terrible roaring, and Pearce straightens up, as if he’s been yanked by puppet strings, and he begins stalking toward us, the spirit of his father glowing around him like a hellish aura.
I can’t tell where Pearce ends and his father begins. Their hands reach out for us, burning with blue incandescence. They’re pulling me forward, as if by a new and irresistible gravitational force.
I send a stream of white-hot fire toward this half-human, half-Undead monster, but it has no effect. Pearce’s lips move quickly as he recites a dark spell. His phantom father grows larger and larger. His cold light is swallowing up everything.
They advance, and I am sucked toward them. My limbs are burning and frozen at the same time. My legs move me forward even when I want them to stop—they don’t even seem to belong to me anymore. I feel my arms opening against my will, as if I’m welcoming death’s oblivion.
I hear my mother screaming.
I feel The One’s words inside my head, and I wonder if Whit hears them, too.
Life ends, but death does not. Just surrender. Give yourself over to eternity.
I don’t know why I can barely breathe. I open my mouth as wide as it can go, trying to draw oxygen into my lungs. I try to summon my M again, but it’s not coming—
The light from The One is blinding.
I feel the monster’s touch, and a devastating pain shoots through me. I don’t know if I’m being ripped to shreds or if it just feels like it. I don’t know who I’m fighting. I don’t know anything anymore.
My eyesight begins to blur and everything wavers in front of me.
I can’t breathe at all now. My mind feels like it’s shutting down.
There’s that small voice inside me again. This time it doesn’t encourage me, though. This time it says, So this is what dying’s like.
And no, I don’t see a white, reassuring light. My life doesn’t flash before my eyes. I see only fire. I feel only fear. I hear the sounds of battle, and above it all, the screams of my parents as they’re forced to watch me be killed. This time it’s not a trick. This time it’s for real.
Pearce is whispering something, but I don’t know what it is. The One is laughing, a sound like screeching hellhounds.
Then suddenly, like a curtain pulled across my face, the numbness comes. It’s almost a relief. I’m going to die.
I am actually going to die.
I fall down to the ground, gasping. And that’s when I see the dark shape racing toward us, shrieking madly, brandishing a terrible, shining sword.
It’s a demon from hell, coming for me. And I welcome it.
Chapter 77
Wisty
BUT JUST BEFORE it reaches me, the demon swerves off course and races toward the mighty monster that is Pearce and The One.
“You said you wouldn’t hurt her!” it’s screaming. “You promised!”
The bright sword swings down in a crazy flash of metal, and Pearce’s right hand, severed in an instant, crashes to the ground. Its fingers still twitch, as if grasping for something to hold on to.
Pearce arches his back and howls toward the black sky. The One’s spirit roils and darkens.
The shadowy figure turns to me, smiling triumphantly. I cannot believe it. It’s not a demon—it’s Byron Swain.
Then a sudden blow from Pearce’s other hand knocks Byron to the ground. He lands hard on the cobblestones, and I scream, “Byron, run!”
Pearce staggers forward, blood pouring from his stump. The One’s spirit burns blistering hot, then icy cold.
“You will pay for that, you stinking, rat-faced traitor.”
I don’t even know who says it—The One or Pearce. But what does it matter? They both want to kill us. All of us.
Byron flinches in fear. He’s trying to get to his feet, and he’s brandishing his sword, like he expects his luck to hold. But he knows as well as I do the extent of these wizards’ powers.
Which means he must know he’s going to die.
“Byron,” I scream again. I can finally move again, but alone I’m too weak to help him. I can’t even turn him into a weasel that would be smart enough to run away.
Quickly I grab my brother’s hand, and together we stagger toward Byron. We lift him up and hold him, swaying, between us. He’s badly hurt: his skin is burned from The One’s cold fire, and he’s bleeding. He must have had to fight his way through the Undead to get to us. It’s a miracle he even made it.
The One’s voice resounds. “I will kill all of you together!”
And that’s when it hits me. When I realize exactly what I need to do. “Mom! Dad! Janine!” I scream. “Come here!”
My mom’s eyes spark in fear. Janine hesitates, and doubt crosses my father’s face. They know I don’t have the powers to face The One. Each of them must be wondering, What can I possibly do? They just have to trust that I’m not asking them to die with me.
They have to believe that I know what I’m doing.
Because I think—I think—I do.
I once channeled my magic through Byron and it grew stronger. It’s like Aunt Bea said: Power willingly shared can grow even stronger. Power given is power gained.
You just have to trust me, I think at my parents. Trust me, trust me, trust me.
I send it out like a prayer.
And then, as if they can indeed hear my thoughts, they run forward, until they’re standing by my side. I can almost hear their hearts pounding. Mom takes my hand; Dad takes hers; Janine grasps Whit’s. And here we are: six people trying to stop the end of the world.
Remember, only love.
“Take us all at once,” I shout to The One—to Pearce. “We’ll make it easy for you!”
“As you wish!” roars the monster.
The One’s outlines blur. Pearce’s face goes dark with rage.
But I’m not afraid. I can feel the energy around us changing. It’s even bigger than the six of us, and for a second, I’m at a loss—what strange and mighty magic do I feel?
And then Whit says, awed, “Look!”
We turn toward the square, toward the carnage of the Horsemen. There aren’t any left that I can see. Not alive, anyway. But the Undead haven’t turned on us yet, because striding into the square is an army of kids.
Led by the blond-haired, gray-eyed girl who we told how to kill the Undead.
Shockingly fearless, this mob of kids rushes toward the Undead, their arms outstretched. I close my eyes; I can’t bear to see them die.
Soon I hear the screaming, and I’d give anything to make it stop.
But then Whit gives a shout of triumph. “They’re doing it,” he cries.
And I look, and I see that it’s the Undead who are screaming. Who are running. Fleeing. Who are being destroyed by love, by children.
The One howls in rage, his spirit rocking skyward. Pearce is dragged into the air with him and hangs like a rag doll in midair.
“My brothers, retreat!” shouts The One. And he points a giant glowing arm at the center of the square, where the tiles were laid in the shape of a many-rayed sun. There’s a terrible shattering, cracking sound, and then the porcelain sun breaks open, disintegrating, and its pieces plunge down into what is now a huge black hole in the earth.
Ashen smoke billows out from it, and I smell the cold rot of Shadowland.
But instead of more Lost Ones crawling out of the hole, the Lost are diving in, returning to the nightmarish land where they cannot be killed.
Chapter 78
Wisty
THE KIDS IN the square cheer, but for us, the fight’s far from over. The One’s blazing ghost sinks back down to face us, and Pearce drops to the ground with him.
“They will be back later,” The One says. “With reinforcements. No need to worry, however.…” He smiles. “You’ll be dead by then.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” I challenge. I squeeze the hands of Byron and my mother, and I can feel the power coursing through us.
We are juiced, we are electric, we are freaking radioactive.
Goaded by his father, Pearce suddenly lunges, grabbing for Byron’s face like he’s going to melt his skin off. But Whit blocks it, smashing his big arm down like a gate in front of the wizard. The One, though unable to break his connection to Pearce, veers to send a stream of blue fire at me from his fingertips.
It bounces away, as if there’s a force field around us.