CHAPTER 22
“When we get there, I’ll take care of whatever’s on the altar and do my best to disperse the cheerleaders,” Monica said, barely panting, even though we were flat-out sprinting down the bike trail beside the river.
We’d left the majorly sketchy side of town behind a few minutes ago and were getting close to the newly revitalized downtown area. The sounds of people drinking and eating and dancing at the nearby bars and River Market restaurants got louder with every second. The zombies certainly wouldn’t have any trouble finding fresh meat once they were out of their graves. We had to hurry.
“You and your zombie pet should probably take Aaron if he’s really channeling someone else’s magic.”
“I’m not a pet,” Cliff growled. “And he is channeling Jess’s magic.”
“So it’s still talking?”
“Monica, please.” I wished she wouldn’t take her anger at me out on Cliff, but there wasn’t time to have a heart-to-heart about it. “I believe Aaron is channeling Jess’s spirit. There’s no other explanation for how a guy with no history of even dabbling in the black arts worked all this big-time magic. Besides, Ethan said Jess was still unconscious, right?”
Monica had called Ethan to give him the 411 and ask him to bring help ASAP. He’d said he and one of Jess’s guards were on their way and they’d call for more backup en route. They’d seen no reason to leave more than two guards with Jess since she was still blacked out, hooked up to a dozen different machines, and on the verge of going into a coma, if the SA doctor’s speculation was correct.
Wouldn’t that be high irony after what she’d tried to do for Aaron?
“That still doesn’t prove anything,” Monica said. “I’ve never heard of a living person channeling another living person.”
“It’s because Aaron was terminally ill. That’s why-”
“Whatever. Let’s just get there and take care of this mess.” Monica cut across a patch of stiff dead grass, making me jealous of her shoes. The whole running-in-socks thing wasn’t working for me. Heck, the whole running thing wasn’t working for me. I could barely breathe. I had to start training harder. Or maybe sleeping more.
Or maybe figure out another way to feed my pet zombie.
Cliff was taking his share of my energy. I could feel it now, a subtle draw on my reserves that I normally wouldn’t even notice, but it made me worry if I’d be strong enough to take on Jess. Or Jess in Aaron, or whatever. I mean, I was a heck of a Settler, and we had the same witch blood, but she’d been training to use hers for years, and I knew next to nothing about real magic. Settler commands didn’t really count in my mind, since they were only useful with the dead.
It made me worry I was going to follow in poor Bobbie Jane’s footsteps, that I was getting ready to fight the fight I couldn’t win.
No, no way. My inner voice rebelled against the concept of failure, but the rest of me couldn’t quite get on board the positivity train. Positivity is difficult to achieve when it feels like your lungs are about to collapse.
“I may have to take care of Aaron alone. I think Megan’s going to be busy.” Cliff, like Monica, was not at all out of breath. But then, he didn’t need to breathe. Lucky. “There’s something unnatural about the circle.”
“Yeah? What?” Monica asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Cliff said defensively. “But Megan’s going to have to use her power, her full power, and she doesn’t have much practice. So I think the rest of us should just stay out of the way.”
“Stay out of the way?” Monica laughed. “And just let the zombies take over-”
“Megan’s going to stop them. If we just let her handle-”
“Megan already got herself kidnapped and nearly killed. By a cheerleader. Call me crazy, but I’m not going to trust her to ‘handle’ anything.”
Ouch. But she was right. I’d definitely had better days. Better weeks, for that matter.
“You’re going to have to trust her. You don’t have the power to-”
“Cliff, it’s okay,” I said, taking Cliff’s hand, knowing it would calm him the same way touching him calmed me. Unfortunately, Ethan picked that moment to pull up beside us. His Mini Cooper jumped the curb and rolled across the frozen grass with enough speed that for a second, I didn’t know if he was going to stop before he plowed right into me and Cliff.
I quickly dropped Cliff’s hand, but it was too late. Ethan’s ьberscowl as he and the man in the passenger’s seat jumped out of the car left no doubt that he’d witnessed what he saw as another sign of my betrayal. But he didn’t say a word about it. He didn’t even look at me as he and the tall black man-who looked vaguely familiar from SA headquarters in Little Rock-crossed the grass.
“This is Cruz. Cruz, Megan and Monica, the other Settlers,” Ethan said.
“And I’m Cliff,” Cliff said, reaching out to shake Cruz’s hand. Cruz nodded and clasped Cliff’s hand in his, thankfully not seeming to notice that Cliff was dead.
“Cliff?” Ethan asked, finally turning the full force of his glare in Cliff’s direction as he connected the dots. “You’re the guy from the other night. The zombie from my grandpa’s farm.”
“Unsettled. Not real fond of the zombie label,” Cliff said, glaring right back at Ethan.
“I don’t care what you’re fond of.” Ethan stepped closer to Cliff, looking ready to smash the shorter guy’s face in. “I don’t know what you are, or why you’re here, but-”
“He’s here to help me,” I said, stepping in between them. “He’s a seer and he’s not going back to his grave until we get all this black magic under control.”
“He’s a zombie, Megan,” Ethan repeated, looking me straight in the eye, the expression on his face leaving no doubt as to what he really wanted to say. Fortunately for me, he was too well mannered to call me a disgusting zombie-kissing cheater in front of Monica or Cruz. Still, the look connected like a sucker punch to the gut, taking the last of my breath away.
“Dude’s a zombie?” Cruz asked, sounding surprised but not hostile. “What kind of zombie? I’ve never seen-”
“It’s not going to matter what kind of zombie if we don’t get down there,” Cliff said, pointing toward a bunch of flickering lights about a half mile away. “They’re starting the spell-can’t you feel it?”
And I could, like a hundred little needles scraping against my skin, promising pain and pleasure all at the same time. I closed my eyes and shuddered, not liking the churning deep in my bones one bit. I could feel the black magic calling to me, calling to the dark part of my power I’d finally set free up on the roof. It wanted to be free again, wanted to join in the-
“Then let’s go,” Monica said, snapping me out of my daze. God, I had to focus. And keep a tight rein on my power. No matter what Cliff said, I knew letting the “other” part of me out to play would be a very bad idea. “Where’s the rest of our backup?”
??
?Cruz is it.” Ethan stepped away from Cliff, but the angry buzz of energy between the two remained. “With the crisis in Carol, SA refused to send anyone until a disturbance down here is confirmed. Barker and Smythe are waiting for a call from Cruz.”
“I’ve got my cell,” Cruz said, his friendly face offering reassurance I wished I could cling to. “As soon as I see a circle or an Out-of-Grave Phenomenon, I’ll be on the horn. You’ve got my word.”
“By then it will be too late,” I said, despair blooming in my chest.
“What about Kitty?” Monica asked, the anxiety clear in her voice as well. “Surely she’d be able to see that-”
“I couldn’t get Kitty on the phone. We’re it,” Ethan said with a note of finality that put an end to any further discussion.
“Okay then,” Monica said, getting her all-business face on. “Then let’s get moving.” She headed off the trail and down the snow-dusted hill, taking a straight shot toward a circle of candles burning beneath the bridge. “Megan and her zombie can come in from the south and the three of us take the north?”
“Sounds good,” Ethan said. “Wait for a signal, Megan. With only four of us, we’ll be better off if we surprise them and attack all at once.”
“Okay, be careful.”
“Yeah, you too,” Ethan said before he, Cruz, and Monica veered north and Cliff and I veered south. His chilly tone made it pretty clear he hated my guts and didn’t care if I was careful.
Still, I turned to look over my shoulder as Cliff and I hurried toward the riverbank, unable to keep from trying to catch Ethan’s eye one last time. My heart did a celebratory touchdown dance when he turned around at the exact same moment, a worried look on his face.
He cared! He still cared!
Ethan turned back around fast, but I’d already learned what I needed to know. We still had a chance. If we could make it through tonight, maybe I could make him understand, and he’d forgive me and we’d-
“Get down!” Cliff tackled me to the ground, pressing his hand over my mouth as we rolled. Thank God my shoulder was feeling the tiniest bit better, or there was no way I would have been able to keep from screaming and we would have been spotted for sure.
Or maybe not. The girls huddled in the darkness a few feet away sounded pretty freaked out. They might not have noticed if we’d walked right into the middle of their circle and set up a picnic.
“Are you sure you’re okay, Aaron?” Lee Chin’s voice was shaking, but at least she wasn’t crying, not like several of the others. Poor cheerleaders. Apparently evil witchery just wasn’t as much fun as they’d thought it would be.
“Just shut up and light the altar. Hurry.” Aaron sounded… so not right, kind of like a cross between a tracheotomy patient and a gargling donkey.
“Aaron, I think you should go to the doctor. There’s so much blood and your head looks-” Dana’s words ended in a strangled sound as Aaron’s hand reached out and latched around her throat.
“Don’t think. Light. The altar. Now.”
“I’m out of here,” Felicity said, backing away from the clutch of shadows. “This isn’t what-”
“Leave and you die,” Aaron said, the chilling note in his voice enough to freeze Felicity in her tracks. “Get in position and light the altar. There are Settlers on the way. They’ll escape the binding spell under the bridge sooner or later. We have to be ready.”
Crap! The candles under the bridge were a trap. Anyone who got close to them would be stuck there. I started to get up, to try to warn Ethan and Monica and Cruz before it was too late, but Cliff grabbed my hand and shook his head, pointing back toward the coven. Reluctantly, I relaxed back onto the ground. He was right. Shutting down this spell was my first priority.
“So what’s the plan?” Cliff whispered, so close to my ear it felt like he was speaking directly into my mind.
The plan. Okay, we needed a plan. Too bad it was so hard to think with the smell wafting from the altar. It wasn’t even lit yet, but already I could feel the dark power of the herbs sliding across my skin, calling to me, making me want to join the circle and dance until the dead beneath us rose from their mass grave.
I shook my head, forcing away the seductive voice in my head, praying Cliff wouldn’t feel my weakness. “Wait until the altar’s lit and they step back, then rush the center and grab the ingredients and scatter them in the river. I’ll take care of Aaron,” I whispered.
“You’re going to have to use your power on him again, your full power, I’m not sure how, but I know it’s the only way to avoid using that spell I-”
“Right,” I said, still unwilling to even think about that just yet, but knowing better than to argue with Cliff. He’d been right too many times for me to doubt him. If he said I needed to use my full power, I would, but only as a very last resort. “But we’ll both have to be fast. We can’t let them start chanting or we’ll be trapped outside the circle.”
“Everyone take your blade and cut your right hand.” Aaron took a long, liquid breath as Felicity flicked her lighter open and touched it to the altar, sending the herbs flaring to life. “Now repeat after me.”
Crap! They were starting the chant. We had to move. “Come on, hurry.”
“No, wait,” Cliff said. “Something’s not right, something’s-”
“There’s no time.” I was on my feet and running toward the circle before Cliff could mutter another word of protest.
“Drop the knives,” I yelled as I breached the edge of the circle, knocking Dana to the ground as I rushed toward Aaron, only stopping when I saw the size of the huge knife in his hands. Yikes. Severely wrecked by his fall from the roof or not, he could still do some damage with a weapon like that.
“Oh. My. God. This is so precious.” Blood bubbled from a hole in the side of Aaron’s neck as he made a sound that vaguely resembled laughter.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the grossest thing about the dude. Now that the fire was lit, I could see that the back of his head was smashed flat, and shiny gray stuff was dripping down his neck into the collar of his shirt. His eyes, once a gorgeous shade of blue, were now cloudy and shot through with red, and his mouth was filled with blood that leaked down the sides of his lips every time he spoke. He was, in short, one of the scariest freaking things I’d ever seen, especially when he smiled.
“You’re here to save the day.” His grin faded a watt or two. “I can’t believe you figured out where we were so quickly. I’d be impressed if I didn’t hate you.”
“The feeling’s mutual.” I gave him my full attention when it became clear the rest of the girls weren’t making any move toward me or the altar.
The altar that Cliff was supposed to be dismantling even as I spoke. Gah! Where was he? It was like he’d just disappeared, which did not give me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside or lend me much confidence about telling Aaron to surrender. Still, I tried to make my voice as scary as possible when I issued my ultimatum. “You’ve
got one chance to stop this. Put the knife down and turn yourself in to SA custody.”
“Or what?” Aaron took a menacing step forward, but I didn’t flinch.
“Or you’re going to die for real this time,” I said.
“Because you’re going to kill me? You, Megan Berry, Miss ‘I can’t kill these bugs for science class, will you please do it for me’?” He laughed again, but this time the giggle sounded way too familiar, sending a chill down my spine. “I’m impressed. You’ve become so dark. Guess that witch blood is working for you. If you’d discovered it sooner, maybe we could have been friends for real.”
It was crazy, but the look in Aaron’s eyes, the sound of his laugh, the way his voice floated up at the end of his sentences-he just didn’t seem like Aaron anymore. He seemed like-I mean, I’d rationally known he could be channeling Jess’s spirit and her magic, but I hadn’t expected… I hadn’t really thought…
“Jess?” I asked, my freaked-outed-ness clear in my high, thin voice.
“Jess? Oh no! Jess, is that you in Aaron’s body?” Aaron’s hands flew to his ravaged face and his eyes grew wide with fake shock before narrowing in hatred. “Yes, it is. I got stuck here when you killed him, you bitch. He was channeling my spirit to raise the living Undead. When you pushed him off the roof, I was trapped inside his body! A freaking dead body! And, unlike you, I don’t get off on dead guys.”
“But I-”
“You pushed Aaron off the roof?” Lee Chin asked, horror clear in her voice.
“You killed Aaron?” Kate and Kimberly breathed at the exact same time.
The tide was turning, and not in my favor. I had to talk fast.
“No, I didn’t. Aaron was trying to kill me. I was only defending myself. He’s the one responsible for his own death.” I turned back to Jess/Aaron. “Just like your mother would have been responsible for her death, if she had even died,” I said, gambling that what Aaron had said about Jess’s mother not being dead was the truth.