Riders (40 page)

Earned pride, Gideon. My pride is earned. You think you can defeat me with your sword and your one hand?

“Yes.” I lift my sword. “I don’t even think I need this,” I say, calling it back. “You’re just a giant lizard with wings. Except butt-ugly.”

Ra’om lowers his head and extends his long neck. I know what’s coming. It’s what I wanted.

Grabbing Bastian’s scales from my arm, I firm my grip on them—and
run
.

The fire comes like a wave and I keep running blindly through the flames. Run toward where I last saw him. Toward where I need him to still be.

Run.

Head down. Eyes closed. Feet digging.

When I’m through the fire, I’m almost at his lowered wing. I step on it and jump, throwing myself onto his neck as I whip the scales out, holding on to one end. The chain loops around Ra’om’s neck and locks. I jam my handless arm under it—then my face slams against dragon scales as Ra’om surges into the sky.

I grab the chain and hold on with everything I have as he shoots higher, higher, and my stomach isn’t with me anymore. It’s somewhere hundreds of feet below.

Ra’om makes a sharp turn and I twist, almost falling off. He makes another, trying to throw me. I hold on tight and catch a glimpse of the clearing far below. The cabins are just burning points. Ra’om thrashes and turns. Cold wind pushes against my face and my eyes water. His scales are smooth, impossible to hold on to, and I know I only have seconds.

I call my sword. I can’t reach Ra’om’s eyes and his scales are too thick where I am.

You should’ve thought of that beforehand.

He rolls into a shallow dive.

Do you remember, Gideon, sitting in the truck while your father fell? Do you remember how you felt as he looked at you in that last moment?

He levels his flight and banks to the left, and the mountainside shoots past, a blur of trees and snow and rock.

Do you remember how you felt when he struck the ground? How you felt as you stood over him, watching the blood pool in his ear and then spill onto those red bricks?

“I remember,” I say, adjusting my grip on the sword. “But you’re going to have to do better.”

I’ve forgiven myself. I know it wasn’t my fault.

Ra’om turns his head in surprise.

His eyes are close, but he’s given me a better option. A perfect angle into his ear canal. I reach out and drive my sword in, pushing until I can’t anymore.

His body goes slack beneath me, his wings lose their tension, and I’m floating for an instant. Then I’m falling.

Out of the sky, but I have no fear.

Riot finds me. He wraps around me and I fold in.

Then we fly as fire.

As one.

C
HAPTER
59

On the ground, I find Marcus and Jode waiting for me in front of the cabin where I spent the better part of the day tied to a chair. It’s the only cabin untouched by Ra’om’s fire.

Suarez is here too, and a handful of other people. They’ve been talking for half an hour. Or maybe an hour. It could be five minutes.

I tuned out after I asked about Texas, whose real name is Travis Low. He’s been airlifted to a hospital, but I’ve been assured he’s doing fine.

A Blackhawk helicopter sits in the distance and armored trucks make a line along the road. There are flares everywhere. People everywhere. Lights have been set up around the field. A light snow is falling.

It finally sinks in that it’s over. I’ll get to see my mom … Anna. I’ll get to go
home.

But Sebastian won’t.

Then I see Cordero and my mind empties of everything else.

She walks up with Major Robertson.

The expression on his face seems oddly informal and warm. I don’t like it. Then I look into the dark eyes of the woman I’ve spent the past hours with. Anger shoots through me—hot and sharp—and Riot snorts behind me.

“Steady, Riot,” Jode says, moving to my horse.

“This is Natalie Cordero,” Robertson says. “She’s with the Defense Intelligence Agency. The Kindred detained her at a nearby location.”

Cordero doesn’t offer her hand. “I’ve been investigating these kinds of matters for a long time, Private Blake,” she says simply. “This time, I got closer than I would have liked.”

I understand why they brought Cordero and me together now, rather than later. Clear the air. Right away before resentment can fester. But I’m not ready for this and I might never be. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to look at her without thinking of Malaphar. She must sense it, because she excuses herself and leaves with Robertson.

“Where’s Daryn?” I ask Marcus. I’ve been afraid to ask, I realize. Because if Daryn were here, then she’d be
here
. With us. With me.

Marcus runs a hand over his head and looks at me. “She’s gone.”

“We saw her last with Shadow.” Jode says, watching me closely. “Shadow wouldn’t settle. Daryn said she was going to walk her. Get her away from here to see if it would help … but she hasn’t come back.”

We look at each other, and the question is right there.

Will Daryn come back? Or did she just abandon Sebastian in that hellish world?

Is that it?

Is he gone?

Whatever Daryn’s done, or has to do, or will do, I can’t be angry with her. I’ve had the easy job. Slaying demons. She has the tough one. Following orders, even when it means hurting people you care about. She’s much stronger than I am. But I know her. I know that wherever she is, she’s suffering.

Someone comes up, wanting to look at my hand. At the place where my hand used to be attached to the rest of me. But Marcus snarls and the guy practically falls on his face as he rushes to leave.

He’s such an asshole, Marcus. It makes Jode shake his head. It makes me wish Bastian were here to say something Bastian-ish to Marcus.
Don’t throw stones at people who live in brick houses.

The three of us stand and talk as floodlights go up. As demon bodies are photographed, crated, and hauled away. We stand and watch the snow fall. Watch as it erases the evil that occurred here.

Suarez brings blankets. We throw them over our backs and search for things to say to each other, but no topic is safe. No topic helps us forget. But we try. We take turns making meaningless words, prolonging the moment. Stretching out
now,
because
later
is no good.
Later
will only be more of this—an accumulation of this feeling that none of us can escape.

We’re lost.

We have nowhere to go. Nothing to do without Daryn’s guidance.

Riot nudges me in the back. I turn and look at him. He’s been making my neck sweat with his hot breath. Melting snow into puddles at my feet. I look into his big amber eyes and wish he could fix this for me, too.

We stand around in our blankets and watch the snow, but Sebastian and Shadow never join us, and neither does Daryn.

Still, we stand.

None of us calls what we did a victory.

C
HAPTER
60

“We’ll be right back,” Anna says to me.

I look from her to Jode, whose arm is over her shoulder.

Jode.
And my
sister.

I still can’t wrap my head around it.

“Where are you going?” I ask her.

Anna rolls her eyes. “To get something to drink, Gideon. Relax. We’re not running away together.”

Jode just laughs at me. They round Freedom Hall, heading to a tent set up with refreshments and food.

My mom slips her arm through mine. “How are you doing with this?”

“Well,” I say. “On the one hand, I want to kick his ass. On the other hand—oh, wait. I only have one hand, so. I want to kick his ass.”

My mom shakes her head at me. She hates it when I pull that one—about my hand. But I use it all the time. It’s amazing how many expressions are based around hands.
I have to hand it to you. In good hands. Out of hand.
I notice them all now. I’m keeping a mental list so one day I can make Bas laugh. Someday it’ll happen.

“I meant how are you doing with this,” Mom says. Her eyes move to the group of soldiers standing a little way off.

The ceremony celebrating the newest graduates of RASP just concluded. Thirty-nine soldiers have donned the tan berets of the 75th Ranger Regiment for the first time. Private Marcus Walker finished at the top of the class.

Marcus looks about fifteen pounds lighter than he did a few months ago when he enlisted. He was always shredded, but now he’s ridiculous. I’m going to have to step up my workouts to keep us even.

“I’m good,” I answer. “My baby’s all grown up.”

She smiles and squeezes my arm. “It’s incredible that he did this, Gideon.”

In the beat of silence that follows I hear the words she doesn’t say:
for you.

I didn’t ask Marcus to enlist and become a Ranger. He and I never actually talked about
why
he did this, but it’s obvious. To me. To Jode … to everyone.

With a prosthetic left hand, finishing the course wasn’t an option for me. Supposedly I’ll be getting a mechanical hand soon, one that’s almost as agile and responsive as a real hand. When they find out you’re War, the government goes out of their way to keep you happy. But RASP and I weren’t meant to be. Plenty of guys who are Rangers become amputees. But amputees don’t become Rangers.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit part of me wants to be standing where Marcus is. Surrounded by other guys who went through the program. Who persevered together, and formed a bond because of it. But I have done that. It’s just that my own graduating class is much smaller.

Five of us were there at the beginning.

Now we’re only three.

I can’t dwell on that right now, though. Not today. Maybe I’m not directly honoring my dad’s memory, but it’s better this way. Marcus isn’t just doing this for my dad and me. He’s doing this for himself too. It’s a pretty awesome trifecta.

“He’s done good,” I say.

Mom nods and squeezes my arm. “You all have.”

As I watch, Marcus shakes Colonel Nellis’s hand. Then they both look to me and snap a salute, which I return.

Mom wanders away to talk to some of the other parents. I watch her approach an older couple and introduce herself as Gideon Blake
and
Marcus Walker’s mother. That’s a first, but not surprising. Marcus and my mom had a bond from day one. She loved him about as quickly as I hated him—in the beginning.

Mom didn’t ask a single question when I brought both him and Jode back to Half Moon Bay with me, straight from Wyoming. She’d just lined us up and asked us what we liked to eat. Then she’d broken up the chores between us. Laundry, trash, dishwasher. Like,
Fall in, children. You can either belong here or you can belong here. And by the way, I’m choosing for you.

Greatest woman in the world. Well. Right at the top.

The three of us spent the first few weeks on self-imposed lockdown. We played a million hours of video games. We ate a hundred of Mrs. C’s olallieberry pies. We started praying together, for Bas. I taught Jode and Marcus how to surf, while I figured out how to surf with one hand.

Jode hit on Anna. Anna hit on Jode. They both drove me crazy.

And Mom took care of us all.

After a couple of months, Jode shipped back to Oxford but Marcus stayed behind. One of the things I learned about him is that he grew up in foster homes. Lots of kids have great foster families, but he wasn’t one of them. He struck out on his own as soon as he turned eighteen, which was right before everything started happening. He didn’t say so, but my sense is that things went from bad to worse pretty quickly.

I still don’t know how he died. Why he was beaten to death. Someday that story will come out. I hope it will. But I’m okay either way. Whatever he wants is good with me.

Jode, Marcus, and me—we haven’t told anyone what happened. Before we left Wyoming, we signed contracts. We promised we’d never talk about the Kindred, or the key, or Jotunheimen, or any of it. We were given a cover story to explain how I lost my hand and how the three of us met.

The cover story goes like this: I can’t tell you anything.

It’s been effective.

I don’t like keeping the truth from Anna and my mom, but it’s not like I want to talk about what happened, either. That would only make it worse. Sharper. More real, the fact that two of us are gone.

Sebastian should be here. He’d be so proud, seeing Marcus do this.

So would Daryn. I think she’d also be proud of me.

I watch as Marcus hugs the guys in his class, as they take pictures and laugh, commiserating over their last weeks together. He’s congratulating them, but he’s also saying good-bye, even though no one else knows it. Tomorrow, the rest of the class will report to one of the Ranger Battalions, but he won’t.

He’ll be reassigned immediately to a newly formed regiment of the US military. A unit specializing in occult warfare, about as classified as you can get. Pretty small. Comprised of Suarez, Low, and myself. And a few other soldiers who were there in Wyoming. We report directly to Cordero, who’s turned out to be pretty cool. She doesn’t wear any perfume anymore. I think she does that for me.

We even have a British liaison if we need him. It takes some pull to get Jode out here—Oxford’s pretty clingy about its students—but Cordero’s up to the task. She got him here for this.

It’s been half a year now, just about. And I feel different. I’ve gotten closure on my dad. I’m definitely carrying around less anger. But there’s a new gap inside me. There are more people to miss. New images to try to unsee.

Bas, on the brink of death. Sacrificing himself to push Samrael into that spectral hell.

And Daryn. Wedged right next to me around our stone circle in Jotunheimen, her cheeks gold with firelight. Daryn a hundred other ways. Memories of her blurring with dreams of her, and yeah. She was right. We made some unwanted history. It’s all I have left of her.

Jode comes back with a bottle of water. He twists the cap off and hands it to me.