Witch And Wizard: Fire Part 16

Somehow, in this brick-and-mortar palace lies a door to a room that is infinite. It's bigger than a ballroom, a foolball field, a mall. I cannot see the far end, and as I press my hand against the golden walls to test if they're real (they are), my synapses are overloaded and my brain can process only one thought: Beauty.

On the walls and the floor, stacked in piles and leaning against corners, is everything that's been taken away from us. I stumble forward, breathlessly trailing my fingers against harps, guitars, centuries-old paintings by true masters. Light seems to emanate from these objects, drawing me in. All the greatest art, the greatest books, the greatest films, the greatest music, is right here. Every last thing.

Well, almost.

The collection we saw in Mrs. Highsmith's apartment was just a tiny fraction of what's in this room. It must have been what she hid from him, what she salvaged. She needed to save it for the rest of the world when the iron grip of the New Order had eased.

The One steps beside me and puts his hand on my shoulder, interrupting my thoughts.

"This is the good life, child, the only life worth living." He turns me toward him, holds my face in his hands, his thumbs pressing into my forehead, and I flinch. "You are superior. You should live a superior life. Look what you can share with me." My eyes flit to the stacks of music, the amplifiers, the sleekest guitar I've ever seen.

His thumbs press harder, and his eyes are wild, desperate. "Just give me your Gift. Give it to me."

Chapter 64.

Wisty AS HIS TECHNICOLOR eyes bore into mine, I finally see what he's capable of. It'll never end; it'll never be enough. One man's ego will leach all the life, all the beauty, from the whole world.

I think of all he's promised me, every lie, but my mind latches on to one statement made at his weakest moment: You're doing it all wrong, Wisty. Backward, he had said before, when I'd tried to pulverize him. What did he mean?

"Give it to me!" he shrieks over and over, pressing, pressing. I try to twist away, but he clenches my temples even harder. I'd do anything to make him stop.

And then I understand.

If I can control electrical impulses of the brain can I just stop them, too? Can I shut them down? Can I kill someone? Just by concentrating on it?

Mrs. Highsmith said in no uncertain terms that I had to "deal with" The One.

Murder, she meant. A horrible, stifling guilt chokes me, but in that second, with The One's psychopathic eyes trained on me, I feel a lightning bolt strike between us. It lifts my feet right off the ground.

I don't know how I got here, or what to do.

But I don't know how to stop it either.

"No, Wisteria ," he gasps. "Not like that." His grip slides off, and he collapses to the floor. Panicked, I stand looking at his unconscious face, the white noise deafening in my ears.

I kneel down and slowly put my head on his chest, listening.

I'm shaking. I'm shaking and emotional and volatile, and I feel that familiar heat starting in my fingers. I stand up abruptly. I can't be here. Taking one last look around this paradise, I run past the artwork, past the guitars and sculptures with missing arms and noses, the girl on fire racing down the long, accusing hallway of mirrors.

Chapter 65.

Wisty I DON'T KNOW where I'm going, and I'm sobbing so hard I can barely see. I tear through the hall, down the stairs, into another hall of suites, not even feeling my legs carrying me.

And then I'm hit by a bus.

Well, that's what it feels like anyway.

Pearce has tackled me and rolled on top of me, and I hate myself for always finding him so attractive when I first see him. Luckily, every word that Pearce utters and every kid he tortures overrides that hormonal response to his bone structure pretty quickly.

"Is he dead?" Pearce shouts over me, eyes blazing. I stare into his face, unsure if he's hoping more for a yes or a no. He shakes my shoulders, slamming me into the floor. "Tell me, witch! Is he -?"

"No!" I yell back. "He's alive. He's still alive." I note his use of the word witch. "So you know that I'm "

Pearce laughs like I'm the stupidest person in the Overworld. "Ah, yes, the infamous Wisteria Allgood, wanted fugitive." He grips my hair, and I turn away from his touch. "Even without your precious red hair, I was on to you. That's the weakest attempt at a disguise I've ever seen. I should've killed you when I had the chance, should've slaughtered you like a pig on that filthy floor."

"Why didn't you?" I challenge, fury building at remembering my humiliation in the barracks. "You were afraid of me, admit it."

"I didn't think you were worth it. But don't worry." His face is inches from mine, and his words drip with hatred. "I won't miss my chance this time. Believe me when I say that I want you dead even more than The One wants your Gift."

"The feeling is mutual, Pearce," I say, and he smirks.

"Glad we got to have a little foreplay first, though. Did it turn you on, Ms. Allgood? Did you find it hot?"

"That wasn't my idea of hot but this is!" Flames erupt from my body as if I'm doused in gasoline. I burn brightly, consumed with fury for this waste of a human being.

I shove him off me and scramble to hold him down, my fire licking at his face. He doesn't seem to be burning. He's not even sweating. I press in and Pearce rolls away, leaping up. I scramble after him to try to fight, but he's physically stronger than I am and he s.n.a.t.c.hes my arm away.

And in that stunned moment, I realize my fire is having absolutely no effect. He's immune. He lunges in and grips my forehead, ready to melt my skull.

The brief second of contact is all I need.

Energy explodes between us, and I can instantly feel Pearce's synapses begin to shut down. His eyes roll back into his head, and foam starts to form at his mouth.

I'm killing him. Tears rush down my cheeks. He's evil, I remind myself. He's a s.a.d.i.s.t who wants you dead.

The door to the exit stairwell slams open, and as if in slow motion, I watch Byron running down the hall, his mouth frozen in one long O. Pearce's hand is still on my head. Byron has seen him liquefy a hundred kids' faces.

He thinks Pearce is killing me.

I put my hand up to flag him, but it's too late. Byron crashes into Pearce, and the connection is lost.

I snap out of my trance and rush over to Byron. He's still shouting furiously, and he doesn't let Pearce up like I expect him to - instead he punches him in the face over and over. I touch his shoulder, and his fist stops in midair.

"It's over, B. He's not getting up for a while." He looks at me, confused and emotional, like a little kid. He peers at his b.l.o.o.d.y fingers and doesn't seem to understand how they got that way.

"Come on," I say gently. "We have to go." He nods and we take off again, leaving Pearce bruised but breathing, slumped in a corner.

"I'm sorry, Wist," Byron says when we're beyond the compound. "I didn't understand what you were doing. That you were" - he looks away, swallowing -"going to kill him." He takes my hand. "I wouldn't have stopped you if I knew."

I shake my head. "I don't know if I could've finished it anyway. But we're in serious trouble now regardless."

Byron raises an eyebrow, questioning.

"Remember what happened at the music festival when I directed my energy through you?"

He nods. He'll never forget that.

"Well I think I just made Pearce a whole lot stronger."

Chapter 66.

Whit WE RUN THROUGH the bone forest in single file, and even Feffer doesn't whine or make a sound. Celia swears the river can't be far, but as the air gets thinner and harder to breathe, I'm not sure we'll make it. Skeletons creak all around us, and arms seemingly come to life and reach for our bodies, wanting to absorb our life.

Even the trees are instruments of death.

There is sweat on my brow; I think I'm running a fever. My breath comes in short sips, and I can feel the magic seeping right out of me, draining my body.

Suddenly there's a spark flying off my fingertip, like I'm about to short-circuit or something. It's almost like my power is reacting to other forces here, all buzzing in this spot somehow, like too many wires plugged into one outlet.

The Shadowland seems to spiral as I hallucinate. I think I see a man's face in my vibrating vision - a face with sharp, jutting cheekbones and cruel eyes. Almost like The One's but older. Warped. But when I blink it's only a tree skull, laughing at me. I'm losing my mind.

As if sensing my weakness, one of the younger Resistance kids catches up to me at the front, his skin sallow and his eyes ringed with dark circles. He's around twelve and has two even smaller children in tow.

"We're dying, aren't we?" The older kid looks at me with frank accusation, and I must seem bewildered. "The Shadowland is where the dead go, so we're about to die."

I close my eyes and try to get my composure together enough to rea.s.sure this kid, beaten by the world but surviving, and am unsure of what to say, how to tell him we'll get out of here, when I don't know for sure. "What's your name, kid?"

"Ragan," he says gruffly, a tuft of sandy-blond hair falling in his eyes. "Bennett Ragan."

"We're not dying, Ragan." Yet, at least. "The air here is just making us weak."

"Listen, I've been taking care of these two for a long time," he says, scowling. He grips the younger boys' hands in his. "I just want you guys to be honest with me."

As we near the edge of the forest, I'm feeling stronger again, less drugged. More optimistic. I put my hand on his shoulder. "I promise, if things get really bad, I'll give you a heads-up." Ragan nods, looking skeptical, and shuffles back to the end of the line.

As light finally breaks through the trees of the bone forest, we stumble out onto a barren, rocky landscape with steep cliffs. We come to a clearing, a hilltop on the lip of what looks like a huge basin. What I see inside it sweeps my breath away for a moment.

In the valley below there are thousands of people, some flickering in and out of view, some with a dull half glow like Celia's.

Every single one of them is dead.

"This is the end of the world, Whit," Celia says. "I mean that literally. Your world ends right here. There, another world begins."

I start to race down the slope. If we're this close to so many dead people, the river can't be far.

And neither can my parents.

The rest of the Resistance follows me, rus.h.i.+ng through the eerily lush green field toward our salvation.

"Wait!" Celia shouts, her voice trembling. "Not that way!" She turns and points at the path behind us. "They're coming," she whispers.

And then I see them, tearing over the hillside, teeth bared. Not dogs, exactly, or even wolves. Beasts.

Spirit-suckers - nonhuman Lost Ones. Flesh-eating fiends with the body of a beast and the mind of a demon.

I turn to Ragan. "I promised you I'd tell you if it was bad. Well, we're there. It's really, really bad. Run!"

But there's no time - they're already upon us.

Celia crashes into two of them, her bright light exploding against their evil, but though she's unharmed, they aren't afraid of her. They plow through her like air, and one seizes a kid from behind, snarling and thras.h.i.+ng. Celia is pleading in anguish, clawing at the animal's rank, rotting fur from behind, but she's too late.

A scream rips through the air, and I whip around to see a wolf tearing into Janine's shoulder. I run for her, but Feffer beats me there, lunging at the creature and distracting it from its feast. Feffer is no match for the beast, and she yips in pain as the soul-sucker bites at her legs and locks its jaws on her throat.

Wisty loved that dog.

I grab the closest object I can find - a bone - and rush toward them, arms raised. I strike a blow at the soul-sucker and it releases Feffer, lurching instead for me, its yellow eyes cold and calculating. It snaps at me with those long jaws, rows of teeth glistening, but I show no mercy, bas.h.i.+ng the monster again and again as it roars at me furiously, until finally it collapses.

I kneel down to Janine's crumpled form and turn her over. She blinks up at me. Still breathing.

"Hey," I say, emotion warping my voice.

"Hey," she responds with a weak smile. "Good to see you."

I open up her s.h.i.+rt over her right shoulder, and she winces. The bite is a nasty gash, and the flesh there is shredded. But she'll live.

While war between man and beast rages all around us, I try to find calm to repair the damage. I put my hands on Janine's bloodied shoulder and wait for the power to surge through me, but my magic is only a flicker, the healing energy totally drained.

I drape Janine's arm around my neck and look around wildly for help, but most of the Resistance fighters are still engaged in to-the-death combat, and those who have managed to kill a soul-sucker or escape are far too weak now to help channel my power. Things are getting desperate.

We really are in h.e.l.l.

Chapter 67.

Wisty THE STREETS ARE eerily quiet and free of guards as Byron and I sprint away from the palace. It's looking like a clean getaway, which is just about the only lucky thing that's happened to me in the last year.