I always find myself standing at the riverbank, half aware and exhausted, like I had to cut my way through a thousand-strong army to get there. I can’t understand why the river isn’t moving. It isn’t frozen, the water is just still — an artery blocked, a heart stopped. But I can still tread on the surface — like I’m walking on Jell-O, sinking a bit with each step. Less a river and more a carrion field, like the ones you read about in History class, like the crusades. Bodies, bodies everywhere, the crows turning above in the slate-dark sky as though they’re stuck on an axle. And the bodies are many, and for a second I think, They’re like the fruity chunks in the Jell-O mould, then I am ashamed. Their eyes follow me as I progress, faces contorted in death, arms reaching out, so much blind hope that maybe it’s just a dream. It occurs to me that I am not in my dream. I’m in theirs.
I stop walking, sinking, sinking. I look down. I realize the bodies are stuck in a spiral, a silent maelstrom, all being pulled into the place where I am sinking. An open mouth, inhaling them in. I look up at the crows stuck on their axle. And all at once the world explodes, sucking me into the undertow of a hungry breath —
Phae grabbed a handful of my jacket and yanked me back onto the sidewalk. I hadn’t processed that the traffic light was still red at Osborne and River and was about to get fatally intimate with the #16 bus.
“Yeah, that would’ve been cool. The Chosen One splattered at a crosswalk.” Barton was joking, of course, but Phae’s lips were pursed sourly.
“Sorry, sorry,” I mumbled. I looked around, a soft pinging noise in my head softening into the regular sounds of Osborne Village — honking horns, loud teenagers, the splash of tires intersecting with melting snowbanks. Yes. Yes this makes sense now. We’re going to Phae’s. I yawned, desperately trying to keep my eyes ahead and not meet Sil’s.
To say I was sleep-deprived was an understatement, and the rules of the waking world didn’t seem to apply to me anymore. Over the last few weeks, nightmares swirled around me constantly, the kind where I found myself questioning whether or not I was actually awake. At least there were buses and decent friends to remind you of the difference.
If I was going to be assaulted in my sleep, then I wouldn’t be caught dead dozing. This led me to spend more and more time in the summoning chamber with Sil, immersing myself in fire until my eyes were bloodshot and I reeked of smoke. Even my furry Yoda thought I was overdoing it.
“Well, at least you’re committed.” Sil rode in the basket underneath Barton’s wheelchair, out of sight but well within earshot. “But rest is as vital to your training as the training itself.” Easy for her to say, considering she spent about eighty percent of the day napping . . .
Phae, who was adjusting nicely to the concept of a talking fox, nodded solemnly as she linked her arm in mine. “If Sil is telling you to take it easy, then you should know better.” The white crossing-man flashed. I let Phae keep a hold of me as we moved on. I wasn’t about to shrug off support when I desperately needed it, even if I wasn’t asking.
We were headed to Phae’s parents’ house nestled in the narrow streets of residential Osborne Village, beyond the numerous boutiques and cafés that made the area a big people magnet, even in February. Thankfully the snow had been melting (definitely not a Winnipeg normality), making the sidewalks and streets passable for Barton and everyone’s mood lighter. Everyone’s except ours. I tried to keep positive, but as the snowdrifts shrank and the asphalt shone slick and black, it made my chest tighten. Time was running out.
“You’ve got the same look you used to get when your eye bugged you,” Phae said, snapping me out of my gloom.
“Phae, could you maybe not use eye and bugged in the same sentence?”
She rolled her black-coffee-cool, untroubled eyes, and we all kept walking. “So, Barton, are you going to tell Roan about what you found?”
I gaped at both them. “Am I out of the loop?”
Barton and Phae exchanged a meaningful glance, which annoyed me. “Well, you have been busy . . .” she said. I wanted to retort that I thought Barton was in charge of the intel, but I held my tongue. After all, I was the muscle of the (current) team, so I had more physical work to do. But I also thought I was sort of the de facto leader, and if the two of them had been hanging out alone together, that meant . . .
“Yeah, yeah.” I rubbed a hand hard over my face. I’d think about the implications of that later. “So what’s the dealio?”
“Oh man.” Barton shook his head; he was looking tired, too, but flushed in the determined manner of Indiana Jones knee-deep in a lost tomb. I envied him. “Where do I start?” He looked up at me. “Did that moth lady tell you anything about this Zabor thing? Its origin story?”
I huffed hair out of my eyes and tried in vain to tuck it behind an ear. (It was still too short to co-operate.) “I only remember bits and pieces, but nothing specific. Specifics don’t seem to be a Denizen strong suit.” I shot Sil a sharp look, but she had hopped out of Barton’s basket to pursue a mouthy grey squirrel.
The flurry of fox fur brought us up short. “Shouldn’t you . . . ?” Phae started, pointing.
I waved her off. “Nah. Let her be a wild animal for once. Maybe killing something will mellow her out.” I acted casual, but I hoped she’d be back soon. She seemed to be doing okay as long as she didn’t use her powers. I hoped mine were useful enough now that she wouldn’t have to. I’d brought her along for this specific reason, though — so she could enjoy herself. And do something other than badger me.
The pause had allowed Barton to shuffle through his backpack and produce the book he’d been studying doggedly. The book, he told us, had belonged to my granddad, Aaron and Arnas’s father, who, according to Rebecca Allen, had been an influential neutralizer — a Rabbit that could perform the Rituals of Ancient, talk with the spirits, and open portals.
“Portals to where?” I asked.
“I’m getting to that,” Barton muttered.
This was the province of the Rabbits; only they could tune into the earth and open gateways or channel Ancient in ways that other Families couldn’t — they weren’t just nervous game, after all. This explained Arnas’s former abilities; he struck me as a guy who couldn’t summon a sock from a dryer, but what did I know?
“Well, that narrows it down to who can reverse the severing ritual.” I folded my arms. “So what does this have to do with Zabor?”
Without a word, Phae took up Barton’s wheelchair when we reached a particularly icy stretch, and we continued onward. It was a familiar, affectionate gesture. And for some reason my stomach did a backflip and my face went red. Yep, they definitely have a thing. Now I felt really left out.
Just as the queasiness set in, Sil appeared at my side and filled the sudden void. I even forgave the faint bloodstains smearing her jaws, the ghost of the squirrel’s corpse still lingering in her smile. Circle of life, I guess. Just like teenage relationships. It wasn’t like these two were a bad match, but I’d never heard Phae once express any interest in boys. She was too focused on prep studies to care, and she was a notorious scoffer at high school romance in general. I guess semi-apocalypses brought people together. I didn’t think it’d be important, but my chest buzzed.
“. . . at the beginning of time. Hey, Earth to Roan?”
“Hmm?” Oh. How long had he been talking? “Can you repeat that last part?”
Barton exhaled loudly and started again. “Okay. So let me break down the mythology. Ancient equals the consciousness of the world — where things come from when they’re born-slash-created and where they return when they die. A big recycling plant. It’s treated like a living thing but is also the cradle of creation as well as the underworld. Comprende?”
I rolled my eyes. “I could have told you that, dude.”
“Anyway, Ancient used to speak and be independent, but about a thousand years ago, it just stopped. Radio silence. And over time, the Denizens’ abilities and powers started to lessen. Like, a thousand years ago, Zabor wouldn’t be a problem. But she only popped up recently.”
“How recent?”
“Around about the time when Lord Selkirk, the Scottish guy who settled the Red River Valley, showed up. The First Nations peoples tried to warn the settlers about the malevolent spirit that had been causing terrible floods and eating anyone who went near the river. Of course, the regular folk thought it was either superstition, sacrilege, or raving, so they went on their merry way. That’s when the Denizens realized it was Zabor.”
Barton turned a page in the book in his lap. “And she’s notorious. She isn’t some random bogeysnake bent on causing havoc for the sake of havoc. She was around at what the Denizens call the Narrative, or the beginning times, back when they were all animals, and humans were barely a sparkle in Ancient’s brain-eye. They call her a Celestial Darkling. The story goes that she was born out of a giant emptiness caused by three dying stars, which also made her brothers, Balaghast and Kirkald.”
We rounded a corner and were within spitting distance of Phae’s. The air was comfortable, but a chill zigzagged through my marrow regardless. “There are more like her?”
“Yep, and the three of them embody this bigger, ultimate darkling. So basically the Three Muskefears fell to Earth and tried to eat Ancient, gain its power, and bend creation to their will. They’re pretty much pure darkness. Separate they’re terrible, yeah, but together they’re the end of the world.”
I shook my head, tightening my arms to my chest. “Man. And one would just have to turn up in Winnipeg, wouldn’t it?”
Barton was thoroughly enjoying himself. “See, that’s the kicker. Ancient forged three seals — or ‘targes,’ that’s what the text calls them — that could imprison all of them in this place called . . . wait for it . . . the Bloodlands.”
Phae’s mouth twisted. “No, that doesn’t sound morbid at all.”
“Sounds like a hot vacation spot,” I said. In my reckoning, that made three planes of existence in the Denizen world: our reality, the Veil, and now this Bloodlands place. “So Ancient put them away for good, saved the world, et cetera?”
“No, no, Ancient made the targes. It was the Denizens that managed to put them all away. It takes the power of the Five Families to activate the targe. That’s why —”
“We need a Denizen from each of the Families to close the door on her.” Relief washed over me.
“And,” Phae put in helpfully, “a Rabbit can open the Bloodgate, which is the doorway we need to open to send Zabor back to her cage — once we use the targe on her, anyway.”
“Okay!” I felt brightness lift me out of my sleepless stupor. “So then, all we need is to get us one of these targe thingies, find a Rabbit who can do the thing, and try to recruit a Seal and an Owl. Then we’re done!” Saying it made me feel like we were bearing down on the finish line, even though reality told me to grip myself. At least a big part of the enormous puzzle had been filled in.
And then a big piece fell under the sofa, and we were back to nearly square one. “Well. Sort of,” Barton sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose. We were at Phae’s now, but we were heading round the back. A pathway had been carefully dug in the snow, and plywood laid down, which made getting Barton to the backyard so much easier. I’d never seen this set-up here before, which just confirmed that Phae and Barton had been spending far more time together than I’d originally thought.
“The targe.” Phae picked up where Barton had left off. “It’s what kept Zabor imprisoned. But she somehow managed to break free of it and come through an open gateway between our world and the Bloodlands. When the Denizens found out she was here, they tried to send her back, but they weren’t able to. Not without the targe.”
I could see where this was going. “We don’t know where the targe is, do we?”
“You think if the Denizens did, they would’ve dealt with this themselves by now, instead of leaving it to a handful of teenagers, hm?” Sil picked a fine time to add some much-needed — and long overdue — commentary. She shook herself out.
I gritted my teeth, holding myself back from punting her clear across the yard. “And you didn’t tell me this stuff sooner, why?”
Sil snuffed. “You didn’t ask.”
Fury trembled through my bones until I buried my face in my hands and muffled a scream. Heat surged out through my boots and the snow around my feet evaporated. Phae yelped.
“Hey, chill!” Barton held his hands up, signing peace. “Like literally.”
I huffed, the breath cloud in front of me as good as seething dragon smoke. “Whatever. We still don’t know where this targe thing is. Unless you’re sitting on that info, too?” I glared at her, but she didn’t seem to notice. “So I guess the next step is finding it and shoving it right back down Zabor’s gullet.” I ground my fist into my palm, trying to affect ruthless courage, but as soon as I said “gullet,” the dream-jaws and their whirlpool of death flooded my spirit eye. I had only seen shadows of Zabor in my nightmares, but I doubt the image of me shoving anything at her was a plausible one.
“Easier said than done,” Sil confirmed, loping ahead of us as we came into the yard.
Phae’s house was the only sanctuary we had. It was private, quiet, and safe from the scrutiny of our parents, other Denizens, and the river hunters. We were headed for the shed in the back — Phae’s mom’s old studio. She did all kinds of art, spending hours on huge installations, but since they’d done an addition on the house last spring, she was able to move her artistic operations back into the house. She’d given Phae the space to use for whatever she needed: studying, working . . . facilitating meetings of the Secret Demon Hunting Squad that her best friend coerced her into . . .
There were four Deer lying around the shed now, each at one of the four corners. The fifth was a thick-coated young one nosing around nearby. The four does raised their heads as one as we appeared.
Normally I would have been content to stop and watch them, afraid I’d spook them altogether, breaking the spell. But Phae kept up the approach, pushing Barton and navigating the bumps of the plywood path as if they weren’t there at all. Sil went for the baby, which made me give a strangled cry.
“Tch!” I sucked on my teeth. “Sil!”
Her ears pricked straight up, and she swivelled her head in my direction. Her pupils were small, and she looked entirely like the carnivore she was. The look passed. She trotted over, panting.
“I don’t need you going for the full woodland buffet, all right? A squirrel’s enough!” She had the grace to look abashed.
“I wasn’t going to eat it, you silly pup!” she barked back, as Phae dug in her pocket for the key to the shed.
“What’s with the entourage?” I whispered loudly, which made them all tilt their heads at me inquisitively, some having been nosing around in the exposed, semifrozen grass and munching away like we were no more than curious talking shrubs.
“Protection, I think,” Phae replied. “This is Geneve’s family. I think they still feel a connection to her through me. Or they’re just loyal.”
I glanced over at the grey-brown bodies, hooves tucked neatly under them, faces impassive. There was no tension for them here; I’d never seen a Deer so at ease around humans before. I couldn’t tell the difference between the lot of them, either, or even pick out familiar features from that day in the Assiniboine Forest when everything changed for Phae. At least they still had her back, despite the fact their grandmother had given her life to pass her power on to Phae.
“Do your parents mind?” I looked over at the big kitchen window facing the backyard. The curtains were drawn. I hadn’t seen Phae’s parents at all recently, come to think of it.
A shadow passed over Phae’s face as her long black hair fell in front of it. She finally had the key, the lock undone and hanging from the latch. But she didn’t go in.
“I think her parents are scared,” said Barton. “There usually aren’t Deer at all in this neighbourhood. But they’ve been showing up more and more every day. They just stare at the house for hours. I think it freaks them out a bit.”
“Yeah, but, I mean . . . they’re harmless unless you’re really attached to your garden . . .”
Barton frowned. “You know Mr. and Mrs. Das are deeply spiritual people, Roan. And Deer can mean a lot of things. Deception. A curse. Death.”
Well, thanks for making me look like the worst friend ever, I wanted to say, but I just looked down. I had never taken the Dases to be so devout that they’d do anything rash, or maybe see more into Phae’s new life than other parents, but I felt abashed and sorted the snow with the toe of my boot.
“Pitā tried to get rid of them one morning,” Phae said, her voice low and guarded at the mention of her father. “I had to stop him. Then more Deer came. They think I’m in danger.”
I could see the scene clearly, a standoff in the pre-dawn snow between a frightened teenager and her confused father, a small herd of Phae’s new kin watching silently. I imagined Phae’s hair climbing into sparkling blue antlers in front of her father. Had she just demonstrated Geneve’s gift, or had she done something she regretted? I wasn’t about to ask. I let the closed curtains speak for themselves.
The shed door swung inward, Barton wheeled past us. The Deer all looked up at Phae — eyes wet and questioning. I couldn’t blame the Deer for being here to protect Phae; in light of what I’d just heard, I was glad she had them. We were all in danger. It wouldn’t be long now.
Phae forced a smile. She was getting as good at it as I used to be. “My parents are just like anyone else’s right now. Everyone is afraid for their daughters now that so many of them are showing up dead on the riverbanks. I’m no redhead, but I just . . . I had to show them that they shouldn’t worry.” She looked down at her smooth hands as if they were someone else’s. “Now they don’t know what to think of me. My mom’s gone off to the West Coast for an art showing. Pitā stayed behind, but I rarely see him — he’s always taking extra call shifts. Maybe it’s better that way, for now.”
I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath until we went inside and shut the door. I pulled Phae to me. How could anyone be afraid of such a strong person? “They’re afraid because they love you.” I said the words with such force that Phae looked up at me, startled, cedar eyes clear. “You have to know that. You have to always remember that. Okay?” I had her by both shoulders now, my reassurance turning more into begging. It was all I could offer. She had joined me in this crazy mission with no thought of what it would do to her life. Barton had done the same. No. I wouldn’t let anything touch either of them.
Phae smiled, hands on mine, and I let her go.
I tried to diffuse the sombre mood. “Whew, cozy digs, Phae! Did you redecorate?” There were throws and cushions on the floor, a few space heaters humming their ancient electric spell to keep the cold out, and a single window letting in the afternoon light. I unzipped my jacket, and Barton shed his, his shirt momentarily sticking to it and riding up. The scar that the river hunters had left shone pink and white against his brown skin.
He caught me looking and grinned. “It’s okay. Makes me look tough now. Next time they won’t be so lucky.”
I smiled back. “Yeah.”
Phae was settling in on the floor, and Barton passed her his books from the basket on his wheelchair. I frowned. “The river hunters. They’ve been pretty quiet lately. No more dead girls or random attacks. It’s wishful thinking they’ve given up, but . . .”
“It’s just a clenched fist winding back for the KO.” Barton shook his head. “They might be planning something. Or their semicomatose mother is. When the Denizens tried to subdue her the first time, they were pretty much facing total decimation. She could’ve just ended it there and then. But just when Zabor was about to wipe the last of them out, a Fox came forward and made the deal with her.”
“The deal?” I looked around, suddenly remembering Sil — she was snuffling about in the shadows, just on the outskirts of our conversation. I wondered suddenly what would happen to her when Cecelia finally slipped away. Would she disappear?
I swallowed a knot in my throat. I watched the fire-coloured creature — fierce and powerful with a body of fragile bones easily crushed. I didn’t know what I’d do without Sil, though I knew exactly where I’d be. Double-dead. She was busy kneading a particularly lumpy scatter pillow, a look of amusement dancing in her golden eyes as they met mine.
“It’s always a Fox,” she said, “trying to talk the world out of ending.”
I twisted towards Barton. “Think I can talk Zabor out of killing everything inside the Perimeter Highway?”
He rolled his eyes. I turned back to Sil. “Didn’t think so. So what were the details of this deal. Any loopholes?”
“It was made so Zabor would stop her rampage, and in fact protect the people of the Red River Valley from the flood waters. But in exchange for sparing them, each year she wanted the blood of the Denizens’ children. One a year. Sometimes more. She’s powerful and fickle and has the upper hand. She made this the stipulation so that the Denizens would always be reminded of their shame. Reminded that they couldn’t stop her.” Barton grew quiet then and looked down at his jeans pinned back at the knee. His own reminder that some Denizens weren’t prepared to give their children up. But there were dozens more who felt they had no choice.
I hadn’t heard Phae move across the tiny shed to Barton, but there she was, sleek as a shadow and suddenly kneeling in front of him, face frank and stern as ever. But the edges of it softened, and her hair began to move of its own accord, climbing her head and twining in a pronged, delicate dance. Blue static weaved in and out of the strands, but she did not touch Barton. Her body was stiff with the powerless desire to heal what couldn’t be healed. So she laid her head upon his legs, knowing that touching him would do no more good than she’d already tried.
“We’ll find a way.” She spoke with clear determination.
I looked away. My chest got tight again, and my exhausted eyes darted to Sil. There was pity in her stare as her ears flicked.
“There’s always a way,” she said.
“. . . So, that led me to wonder, since Geneve passed her power on to me, maybe another Rabbit could give their power to Barton.”
It was just after sunset as we made our way back from Phae’s, the powdery fingers of dusk streaking everything with colour. The street lights had come on well before sunset, and the wind kicked snow up in their halos. The three of us had clung together as long as we could throughout the day, but I couldn’t stay away from Cecelia’s place forever. As much as I wanted to. Deedee’s worry-texts were blowing up my phone, and not in a pop-song way.
“I dunno, that Deer had to sort of, um, die for that to go through. Right?” I looked to Sil for reassurance. She was trotting openly beside us as we made our way up the Osborne Bridge and to my bus stop. I’d had to retire my bike after my ill-fated encounter with Arnas. I dared any of the curious passersby to make a comment as I walked stiffly beside her, but we were met with stares and the occasional tripping sidestep as people tried to avoid her. God, what is it going to take to show everyone in this city there is something weird going on right in front of them?
No one volunteered to answer my question about the open possibility of sacrificing some hapless flufftail, taking his powers, and letting Barton devour them, tribal-heart-eating-ritual style. We may have been moonlighting as a fringe secret society, but we weren’t at the sacrificing part just yet.
Sil stopped just as we passed the Roslyn building and the bridge started over the river. Her nose was in the air, seeking.
“What’s wrong?” I hissed. We were leading the pack with Phae and Barton a bit behind us; I’d wanted to give them some space. I hadn’t wanted to so blatantly walk over the river that wanted to eat me, but there was no way around that in this city.
“I can’t tell,” Sil murmured, still sniffing as we came to the middle of the bridge, the Assiniboine as still as death underneath us.
The Manitoba Legislature loomed nearby, and I’d fixed my gaze on it just as Sil barked “Wait!” and I lurched to a stop, looking around. Phae and Barton came up short behind us as I wheeled my bag around, grabbing the hilt of the garnet blade. I didn’t draw it yet — not with a crowd on all sides.
“What is it?” Barton asked in a tight tone, as though the wrong words would set off a bomb.
The street lights flickered above us. I was the first to see it, even though I didn’t know I had. A black shape parted from the sky above the dome of the legislative building, heading straight for us with grim intent. It banked towards the river, momentarily vanishing in the darkened treeline. “What —” I muttered, but Sil snarled, “Owl!” just as a torrent of screeching wings barrelled into me, sending me flying from the sidewalk and smashing into the concrete partition just separating the bridge’s north- and southbound lanes.
Breath knocked out of me and head ringing, I summoned enough sense to get out of the road and scramble onto the partition just as a sedan swerved to avoid me. The slick roads didn’t work in the driver’s favour, sending him careening into a van that braked hard and swung straight for Phae and Barton.
“NO!” I screamed, reaching. All I saw was a bank of flame, and all I felt was the white pain that came after a claw as big as my face snagged my outstretched arm and threw me backwards into traffic. This time I bounced off a windshield, and was stopped only by the railing on the opposite side of the bridge.
Everything hurt, no big shocker. I was surprised my body hadn’t just burst open like a garbage bag of vegetable soup. But I was coming back to with a strange awareness as I tried to remember that getting up and getting away was the goal. No. Before that. Phae. Barton. Sil.
Panicked drivers had stopped the flow of traffic in light of the teenager being thrown around the bridge like a badminton birdie, and I felt someone’s hands on me, saw a troubled man’s face as he searched my bloody one for signs of life. He was saying something, maybe asking me if I knew my name, but it was behind a curtain of nonsound, of a pinging alarm. You look so worried about me, I thought. But I’m the least of your problems.
My blood surged like lava, and the nonhuman part of me wrenched my body back into motion. I grabbed my pedestrian saviour around the middle and tackled him backwards as the flurry of murderous feathers descended once more. I got the guy to his feet.
“Get out of here!” I shouted, shoving him back towards the Shell station. Cars honked, people screamed, LED cellphone screens flashed as the unhelpful uploaded the scene to Everywhere On The Internet. Could they see the thing coming after me, or was I the spectacle? I ducked, my pursuer now hidden in the darkened sky somewhere, waiting to strike again. I stumbled into the street, weaving through the stopped cars. “Phae! Sil!” I screamed over the din. The wall of fire I’d seen was now just a bundle of flames coming from the hood of the crashed van, front end crumpled into a light post, my friends not readily visible.
But there was another light, fingers of crackling blue coming from behind the van. I slipped as I rounded the crash, praying for a bloodless outcome on the other side.
Barton’s wheelchair was overturned but not crumpled. Phae looked at me, appropriately a deer in the headlights. She was crouched over an unfamiliar body under the bent but wrenched-open passenger door. Probably the driver. She took her hands off him, and the obvious head and neck injury he’d suffered seemed to be knitting itself right again under her shaking hands. I fell to my knees at her side as Barton plucked away his busted glasses and rubbed his eyes.
“Couldn’t have taken the flash off, huh, Phae?” he coughed.
Sil was sniffing the body. “He’ll live. Leave him. We must get out of here. The Owl won’t be satisfied until he takes out his mark.” I didn’t need to meet her eyes to know it was me. This was getting old already.
I ignored Sil and stared at the side of the van that faced us. “Phae . . . what did you do?” The van’s exterior was bent around us in an embrace. It was like it’d crashed sidelong into a steel sphere. Or a crackling blue one . . .
“I just —” She was still shaking, rubbing her hands on her thighs as though they’d fallen asleep. “I couldn’t help it. I just wanted to stop the van.”
“With a force field?” I cried. “Since when can you make force fields?” Phae just shrugged. What answer did I expect? “You guys have to get out of here.” I righted Barton’s wheelchair, and we helped him into it. “Get off the river. Go back to Phae’s place. Lie low.”
Phae grabbed my arm in a vise grip. “You’re coming with us.”
I put my hand over hers. “I’ll follow you,” I lied. “Just get to the other side of the bridge, okay? I’ll be right behind you.”
She touched my face, and I felt the blood leaking from my head recede back into its rightful place, the gashes on my arm closing up and starting to scar. Sure, she could heal me, but as long as I was near her she was a target, and so was Barton. The only one here with literal firepower to fight back was me.
I broke our staring contest to look over at Barton, who nodded at me. I glanced down at Sil. “Besides, I’m not alone. I’ve got a bona fide firefox. It’ll be easy.” Sil looked dubious but said nothing about the last time she had used her powers. I turned back to Phae and Barton. “Go on, before the crowd thins out. I’ll see you soon.”
Phae hesitated.
“Go!” I barked and, as she retreated, I looked back out onto the bridge from behind the van, stepping over the extremely-lucky-to-be-passed-out driver. Sil and I searched the skies — evening was settling fast, creating thousands of places the monster could be hiding.
“So what’re we dealing with here, chief?”
Sil’s fur rippled. “A Therion. A powerful Denizen that can take on the Ancient form of the Families.”
“Sounds pleasant,” I sighed. Though my adrenaline was still pumping, I had the presence of mind to look down at my arm, the slash marks huge under my ruined coat sleeve. Definitely not your average city owl.
“Yes. And if it dares to attack you out in the open, then it’s gone rogue. Direct conflict is against their code of non-interference. It may be working for Zabor.”
“Oh good. Well, whatever it is, it sucks as usual. So what’s the plan?”
A growl rumbled through Sil’s small body like a thunderstorm, and before I could ask, I felt the tiny hairs on my arms rippling to gooseflesh. I caught it, too: a familiar scent, faint but menacing, cutting through the breeze like ozone. We both knew it was coming.
“We flush it out into the open,” she snarled. “We kill it.”
Sirens were fast approaching as the first responders pulled up from River Avenue. I crouched down, trying to keep out of sight. We needed to act fast before more people got injured. “Look, I’m all for killing river hunters and their pissy mom, but that’s a person we’re talking about, aren’t we? We are not killing other Denizens!”
“It means to kill you, Roan! Now it’s time to put your training into action. There are greater things at stake than the life of one villain.”
I froze, heart pounding. “But . . . but there are so many people around —”
“Who will die if you do nothing. Hide here, and the Therion will just start killing anyone in its path.” Aren’t you responsible for enough deaths already?
I knew she’d never say that, but the accusation still sprang to mind. I turned my head, watching the movement of bystanders and evacuating pedestrians as though I was floating above it all.
“Now it’s your turn,” I said.
“What?” Sil half barked.
I smiled, but I was less than thrilled, trying to keep my head. “Go and find Phae and Barton. Make sure they’re safe. And get as far away from here as you can.”
She was silent. She didn’t beg me to let her stay, to fight by my side. She knew that this was my fight, and that I’d need to get used to it before this ended. She whined nonetheless, paws hesitating on the pavement. I didn’t look at her. Then, in one fluid movement, she turned tail and ran off.
I sighed. I half wished she hadn’t gone, but what was done was done. I took stock: My bag was lost somewhere in the chaos of the bridge, and with it the garnet blade I’d come to rely on. Not like this thing would stay still long enough for some hack-and-slash. I just needed . . .
I looked up at the street lights. They were flickering again, and I followed the trail of lights all the way down the south side of Osborne Street. Light standards with traffic signals blinked out first. Then the building floodlights, then street lights, pops and showers of glass preceding the darkness. I stumbled up and checked out the north side. The lights were going out, too, extinguishing towards me. Time slowed. It knew where I was. The final light standard was just above my head, warm and persistent. Warm. I closed my eyes, reaching for it without the intention of touching it at all, just holding that warmth within me. Kindling it into something greater.
I felt the glass snick past my hand, through my blunted hair, bouncing off my shoulders. But I didn’t need the glass. Just the spark that followed, the one that touched my hand and set me on fire.
And in the light of the flames, the darkness split aside to reveal the Owl hurtling talons-first at me. I sprang up on the bridge rail and met it. My quarry howled in a voice of startled rage and pain as the flames climbed up the outstretched leg I clamped on to. The fire is in the dance, Cecelia whispered to me from her letters, and I twisted around, all elegance while vaulting onto the wreckage of the van and hurling the Owl headfirst into the concrete partition where I’d been only minutes ago. Another thought: Imitation is the sincerest form of revenge.
The flames had welled up my arm and stayed there, the heart of them cool and calming against my skin as the van toppled, and I leapt onto the hood of a nearby Honda Civic like I was playing hopscotch. One foot stayed firmly planted on the roof and ready to spring. The street went quiet, and I wondered how long it’d take before the video went viral on YouTube.
Enough of that, though. The Owl’s dark body shimmered like a mirage. Sil was gone. She’d keep my friends safe. She trusted me, and I her.
I raised my flaming arm-lance. Time to show the haters what they were up against.
The Owl gathered itself up, trying to find its feet. I hadn’t yet seen its eyes, but its head, which had gone almost all the way around with the impact, swivelled back and pierced me with an unforgiving glare. It stretched out its burned leg, which steamed in the cold as it shed feathers more like scales. The looming, six-foot Owl stretched out its enormous wings, pulling arms out of them with the sound of bones breaking and viscera slopping to the ground at its feet. I didn’t think the bird suit was more than just a bad Owl mind-trick, until human hands tore the wide Owl face away with a sucking exhale, tossing it aside with the rest of the ripped-up bird body newly disposed of on the asphalt.
I swallowed my gorge, but disgust was quickly replaced with fury. I was staring down my paparazzi, the one who’d caught me over the body of the first dead girl — silver eyes and all.
“You.”
He only smiled, and moved to raise his hands . . .
“STOP!” came a booming cry over a loudspeaker. Cops. I glanced sideways, resisting the urge to stand down obediently. I saw raised guns and frightened people. Sigh. Talk about a pile-on.
“Put down your weapons immediately and put your hands in the air! We will come to you.”
I lifted an eyebrow. Weapon? Maybe they thought my arm was a flame-thrower. But come on, they couldn’t think I was the guilty one here. Hadn’t they just seen birdbrain strip down in the middle of the street? I didn’t want anyone else getting hurt, but I wasn’t about to back down. I hoped that if I ignored the cops, they’d go away.
My adversary, meanwhile, seemed pretty amused with this turn of events. “Don’t you just hate it when the rabble gets uppity?” He had an educated, arrogant voice that I immediately hated. Scottish, maybe, but I wasn’t in the mindset to trace accents. And he was talking to me as though we were buds. Those piercing eyes sparkled for a moment above his well-formed cheekbones. I clucked. Gimme a break.
“Yeah, well, best-laid plans and all that,” I shouted back, trying to match his casual air. “Why don’t we take this party elsewhere? Or better yet, you go back to roost under the bridge you came from. Wouldn’t want to ruffle any more feathers.” I brandished my arm, the shrugging motion causing the flames to leap from shoulder to shoulder, hand to hand, as though I was shuffling a deck of cards Gambit-style.
His hands dropped to waist level: Was he conceding defeat? Doubtful. “Your concern is touching, truly,” he admitted dryly, hand to his heart. “But I must apologize. Tight schedule.”
The feathers and gore at his feet shed only moments ago lifted from the ground, changing to the consistency of ash as they swirled around him. Another Owl illusion? I kept my face blank as I checked my senses: Sil had taught me to close myself off from the psyche-infiltration the bird-baddies were known for, but you could always feel the prodding. I had felt it with that cop, Seneca, but now . . .
Speaking of cops. “Drop your weapons, or we will open fire!” Damn, the rabble were agitated. Something bad was about to happen, and bullets were no mean thing to avoid, either. I wasn’t made of Kevlar.
I couldn’t help but bark out a laugh, though. “Ha! Oh man. It’s a firearm,” I waved it around, the irony almost too good.
The Owl’s face had dropped to implacability. He was done with the banter. So was I. I took a defensive stance, ready for whatever he was about to throw at me in the middle of his char-cyclone as it sped up. I could hear the fuzz shouting again, locked and loaded as they were, and was prepping to jump back behind the Honda, but my sharp-eyed compadre swept his hand towards the police, sending a massive gust of ash right for them. I was nearly caught in it, too, bracing myself in a crouch on the car roof. Through a gravelly sheet of black, I saw the assembled crowd — police, pedestrians, et al — suspended mid-air, contorted and unable to land, tangled in the ashy threads of the Owl’s former body. The lines cut into their throats, choking them to silence and paralyzing them.
I let out a guttural howl, which should’ve been a dignified Stop it, you giant assface! but the fire had exploded inside, and I rushed him like a comet. I slammed into him — or what I thought was him. I was suddenly careening around his body, trapped in the vortex of wind that he still controlled. Whipping me aside into an abandoned Lincoln, he came at me full force, face contorted in vicious delight.
I rolled just as his hand, now a bladed talon, cut through the hood. “This is just what I needed!” he cried gleefully, whirling and striking blows that seemed almost too easy to deflect. “We should’ve done this ages ago.”
White-hot rage couldn’t begin to describe the fire as it blazed higher in me. I felt like I was slipping out of control again as I grabbed his temples and slammed my head into his. That sent him reeling, enough for me to conjure the blaze back into my hands, hurling what felt like molten lava after him. The vortex whipped back up, pulling him out of the way as the railing behind him melted, the hot remains dumped into the river.
The adrenaline pumped through me with the beat of the drum — one, two — and then I crumpled, strings cut. The fire had gone out and blood whooshed behind my eyes. I threw up. I’d reached too far. I wiped my mouth with a shaking hand and saw my dumbfounded contender staring at me with renewed interest — maybe even respect. He cracked a genuinely pleased smile.
“Well, well.” The smile gave in to pain. The head-butt had left a massive burn scar over his entire forehead, part of his eye. His talon hand reached to it dumbly, then recoiled, the disbelief palpable. “You bloody, fiery bitch.”
“Yeah, yeah, big words,” I panted, the frozen air cutting into me now that I’d lost the heat that kept me moving. I tried to get to my feet but that wasn’t happening.
“Here, let me help.” I heard him above me before the claw clamped around my throat, lifting me from the ground and squeezing at the tender windpipe beneath. He brought me close to his face, and all I could smell was burning flesh and hair.
I must’ve smiled, because his fury grew. “Yes, it is funny, isn’t it? No juice left and you’ve lost the whip-hand. For a second I thought you had a chance. Now I see you’re just a stupid child with power you can’t even control.”
Maybe it was the tunnel vision coming on, but I could’ve sworn I heard more voices than just his in my head. I coughed, weakly scrabbling at his claw. He liked that. He carried me farther into the street, where I could get a better view of the bystanders still trapped mid-air. Without the street lights I couldn’t see much, but my waning spirit eye told me that these victims were awake and aware — I could even pick out their disappointment in me. Heroes fall fast around here.
“You will be an example, Roan Harken,” said the thousand voices, “of the courage it takes to dig your grave and lie still in it.”
I may have been weak and hanging a foot off the ground in his horrible Owl hand, but I had enough left to reel back and kick him in the leg I’d already burned. He stumbled, concentration broken, and I heard shrieking as bodies thumped to the ground. The threads were cut, the people free. At least I could do that.
The talon’s grip tightened, and I found myself smashed into multiple cars with the precision and rage of a whack-a-mole mallet. Maybe your senses level-up before death, but I could’ve sworn I felt blood escaping from the bones in my skull.
The Owl brought me up to his face again, eyes slanting at sharp angles, feathers growing out of his skin like blades. I felt the sweeping air, the beat of wings. We both lifted away from the ground, and he floated down to the broken bridge railing. He turned me around, shifting the talons to the back of my neck as he hung me over the now open river.
“The debt will be paid,” he — they — whispered, “for the good of all, at the hand of Eli Rathgar and his ancestors. Tell it to your forebears in the land of the dead.”
As I dropped, limp and broken, I thought of my parents. I wondered if I’d see them immediately, if they were waiting on the other side. All I saw now was the black of the sky, and I forgot to take my last breath. The water was hungry as it sucked me down.