Salem's Revenge Complete Boxed Set (67 page)

Rhett

I
awake from a sweet dream to a light, shining through the skin of the tent. Sometime during the night, the game of Twister Laney and I were playing ended and we secured our own territories amongst the mess of blankets.

I can tell it’s still night, the light too dim to be dawn.

Although I’m hesitant to leave Laney alone, Hex is here. And he’s as dependable as a Swiss-made clock. I slip out from the tent to investigate the light.

The Claire stands twenty feet away, just waiting patiently. She knew I would come. In fact, I realize with a start that it wasn’t the light that woke me, but a voice in my head.
Awake, young witch hunter.

It seems weird that she’d use the term “young” to refer to me, when she appears to be only a teenager herself; and yet, she has an aura of wisdom about her, like she’s seen it all in her time.

As I approach the girl, I recognize her as the one who stepped forward to save the red Changeling’s life. A piece of knowledge seems to appear in my head, almost as if it’s been put there. “You know my father,” I say, wondering even as I say it how I know.

Yes
, she says in my head.
We have been allies for many years.

“I failed him,” I say, easily falling back into that pit of self-loathing that Laney helped me climb out of. “With President Washington dead, there’s no way to remove the curse on my father.”

No
, she says.
You have been deceived.

“What?” I say. I feel my legs buckling, but I don’t try to stop it. I fall to my knees in front of her. “Please explain,” I say. There’s desperation in my voice, but I don’t care. Standing before this wise old witch in the body of an eighteen-year-old, I feel no shame.

There is another way to remove the curse. All shall be revealed in time.

A flower of hope blooms in my chest, but just as quickly it dies. “I’m not going to like the other way of removing the curse, am I?” I say.

The Claire’s glowing white dress seems to shimmer as she glides over to me.
Nothing that is worth it will ever be easy
, she says.
But you have our Mother’s blessings. She loved you and Laney very much. Do not waste her love.

“I won’t,” I promise her.

She floats away, her light getting dimmer and dimmer until it vanishes into the night.

With legs like lead, I drag myself back to the tent and collapse next to Laney. She stirs in her sleep, wrapping an arm around my chest, so warm and strong.

I don’t know what tomorrow may bring, but I know with Laney and Hex at my side, it’ll be another day worth living.

Nearby New America

W
hen the monstrous brown bear stands on his hind legs, he towers over Flora.

She’s quite enjoying Og’s pathetic attempt at salvaging his pride.

“Yow have something for me?” she says, trying to see past his impressive girth.

Og’s voice is as rough as gravel. “Yeah,” the bear grunts. “A small token to pledge my allegiance to you.” He steps aside and Flora’s eyes light up. A small child, long bark-brown hair dusting his eyes. His arms and legs are bound by tight ropes that have painted angry red circles around his wrists and ankles. His cheeks are tear-stained and dirty.

“Come to me, child,” Flora hisses, and one of her lieutenants, a vicious cheetah, nudges the boy forward. A fresh flow of tears begins and the child whimpers. To Og, Flora says, “Leave us.”

Og stares at her with huge black eyes. “Does this mean—”

“Silence!” she roars. “I’ll let you know my decision in the morning.”

She’s been using that very same line again and again.
Let them sweat
, she thinks. Not that long ago the Shifters had lost faith in her, made her an outcast, sought new leadership. And now…

Now she’s their queen. No one else could’ve played President Washington against Rhett Carter with such poetic grace. No one else could’ve masterminded the destruction of the most powerful Head of the Witch Council the magic community has ever seen.

Only her.

And now they bow before her and offer her gifts and compliments and their service. Let them beg. Let them humble themselves.

And then let them destroy the humans and any who stand by them.

She knows she won’t refuse the help of a single Shifter. She’ll need them all to realize the goal she’s had for as long as she can remember:

Human extinction.

The boy screams as she throws herself on him.

~~~ * ~~~

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Book Three of Salem’s Revenge

David Estes

A nightmare awakens,

Opening one bruised eye.

Although they scream, it doesn’t listen,

Doesn’t care,

Doesn’t feel,

Doesn’t hate nor love.

Only takes.

And because it breathes fire, the world will burn.

Burn
, Rhett Carter

Rhett

H
e returns, screaming and bloody, half-dragging himself through the gate.

The witch hunter scout had been missing for thirty-six hours, and already the other witch hunters had begun playing a macabre game of Guess The Death where they’d place bets—mostly risking cigarettes and packs of beef jerky—on how the scout had been killed. As it turns out, the few optimists in the bunch who predicted he would return under his own power took the entire pot.

When they roused me from a fitful sleep to let me know the scout had been spotted on the outskirts of our perimeter, I immediately warned them not to go to help him. Cruel, but necessary. The scout’s return could be a trap—a way to lure more of us out to our demise. So we all watched in horror as he fought for every inch, painting a streaky red trail in his wake. Floss, the leader of the witch hunters, was bouncing her knee the entire time, as if barely restraining herself from running to his aid.

He made it. Somehow, someway, he made it through the gates on his own, and if there was a trap, it failed. A few of the Clairvoyants, or Claires, that I’d summoned begin tending to his wounds—not with bandages and ointments and medicines, but with magic—laying their hands upon his head and murmuring in a language that I can only describe as
elfish
. Their laughs carry on the wind like running water whenever I tell them that.

Up close, the scout’s wounds are numerous and serious. In another life I wouldn’t have been able to look at them. Unlike my best friend, Xavier Jackson, who lived for the goriest parts of horror movies, I was the one who’d look away and say, “Let me know when the zombie stops gnawing on her brains.” But now the bloody evidence of unrestrained violence lying on the ground before me is just another day at the office.

Returning my attention to the injured scout, I inspect the damage. One leg is bent awkwardly in the wrong direction, a sharp splinter of bone protruding from his flesh, sticky with rust-colored blood. What appear to be bite marks from an enormous jaw wrap around his bare abdomen, raw and enflamed and leaking something green and infected-looking. There are scratches on one side of his face—well,
claw marks
would be a more accurate description—running from chin to forehead, having apparently slashed through one of his eyes, which is now curiously missing, as if it’s been plucked from the socket. He’s missing one arm, lopped off just below the shoulder, which now ends in a stump, severed veins hanging like thick threads.

My expert medical conclusion: this dude should be dead.

Instead, he appears to be in excruciating agony, his body writhing as if wracked with seizures, his face feverish and sweaty, and his lone remaining eye bulging with strain, as if something is trying to push it right out of his skull.

“He is already gone,” one of the Claires says, surprisingly speaking aloud, removing her glowing hands from his forehead. “There is nothing we can do.” She has shiny black hair and deeply dark skin, her eyes as fathomless as ebony, glittering with specks of light, as if radiating the very stars themselves.

I don’t understand. I’ve seen them heal those on the verge of death before. I’m about to ask, but she has already read the question in my mind.
Someone wanted him to make it back here alive
, she says in my head.

“Who?” I speak aloud, getting a few strange looks from the other witch hunters, who are clearly only privy to my side of the conversation.

The Claire turns away, her eyes raking over the scout’s wounds. Of course, the answer’s obvious. “The Shifters,” I murmur.

“Those damn evil beasts,” Floss mutters under her breath. More colorful curses follow, basically promising death to each and every member of the witch gang known as the Shifters, who carry, among other powers, the ability to transform into animal form. Their leader, Flora the black panther, has been running them wild around our borders ever since we defeated her arch nemesis, the General known to humans as President Washington. With nothing to keep Flora in check, she’s already killed four of our witch hunters. This poor guy will make five.

But he’s not quite dead yet. His mouth opens and closes, gasping like a fish out of water, and his chest heaves. Sharp, raspy breaths scrape from his throat and between his chapped, blood-crusted lips. “Flora,” he says.

The collective group gathered to watch this grisly spectacle seem to lean in as one, breaths held, hands clasped tightly together, as if in expectation of some terrible news.

The scout’s eye suddenly sharpens and seems to focus, and his body ceases to convulse. “The Shifters will devour your wretched flesh and feast on your unworthy souls. At long last, the Earth shall be cleansed of human excrement.” The final message delivered, his eye rolls back in his head and his spine arches before collapsing back to the ground, unmoving.

The scout is dead.

“Well that was fun,” I say.

Laney

Two days later

T
hey move with balletic grace, their heels narrowly skimming the bed of rose petals spread across the area they’ve decided to occupy while in New Washington. Although they appear human to the naked eye, they’re not. It’s not just their unnatural beauty, nor their profound wisdom. It’s something
more
.

Something about the way they carry themselves, about the way their skin seems to glow under the height of the noonday sun. Something enigmatic. Like Trish was, even at only nine years old. These are her Children, as weird as that sounds. She was their Mother, having been reborn in this time, continuing the series of reincarnations available only to the Clairvoyants.

They’re witches, all of them.

I’ve been watching the Claires all day. I cringe each time they laugh, grit my teeth when they frolic in the grass, and clench my fists when they bite down on shiny red apples.

Because Trish isn’t amongst them. My sister is gone, having sacrificed herself to save
my
life only a week ago on this very lawn. The stretch of verdant grass leading up to the destroyed White House has become the temporary home of the Clairvoyants, as if they wish to honor my sister—who they call “Mother”—by settling atop her hallowed ground.

And yet they’re
laughing
. They’re
enjoying
themselves. They’re eating and drinking and playing as if the world is still turning, as if the seasons are still changing, as if life can just go on even after a soul as pure as Trish has left the earth’s flanks.

Of course, they’re right.

Of course, I hate them for it.

I squeeze my eyes shut so hard it starts to give me a headache. A voice says,
Have peace
, and although I hear it as clearly in my head as if it was spoken directly into my ears, I know it wasn’t.

My eyes flash open and she’s there. With long white hair and even longer limbs, she’s what my now-dead Uncle Willy—God rest his bald-headed soul—would’ve called a tall drink of water. She’s beautiful in an unachievable kind of way. She’s an airbrushed model without the airbrushing. Her eyes are as blue as the ocean and more piercing than twin daggers. It’s hard to tell if she reflects the sun or the sun reflects her.

“Peace is for idiots,” I say, which is the obvious response. I’d have spoken it directly into her mind, like she did to me, except I don’t have freaky mind-invading abilities like she does.

Like my sister did.

Peace is what your sister would choose
, she says.

My magged-up Glock with infinite ammo weighs heavy in its holster. It doesn’t seem to want peace, not when there are evil hordes of magic-born to be killed—present company excluded, of course.

I say nothing, going back to my cringing/teeth-grinding/fist-clenching.

Why are you here?
she asks.

“Here as in New Washington, or here as in Earth?” I say, avoiding the question.

She offers a sparkling smile. Huh. I didn’t expect a timeless, ageless witch to get my humor.
Here
, she says, sounding as patient as a psychiatrist in my mind. With thin, delicate arms extended, she motions toward her witchy sisters. My dead sister’s Children.

“I—I—”

God. Rhett would love to see my words stuck in my mouth once in a while. Hell, he would pay to see it. I vow to never tell him about this particular conversation.

The words do not exist until you speak them
, the Claire says.

I know she’s right, as usual. It’s like the words are trapped in my heart, bits and pieces of letters trying to take shape into something meaningful, but always ending up in piles of meaningless garble.

Trying to exercise a smidgen of the same patience as her, I change the subject. “What’s your name?” I ask.

Her long white dress swirls around her bare feet when she curtsies.
In this life, I am Tara
, she says.

In this life
. Meaning that in her past lives she was someone else, a completely different person. And suddenly the words that didn’t exist, the words I’ve been avoiding, take perfect shape in my heart, shooting through an artery, into my throat, over my tongue, and out my mouth. “Will Trish remember me when she’s reborn?” I ask.

Dead silence hammers in my temple as Tara studies me curiously. Since I’ve learned that Clairvoyants are the only magic-born to reincarnate, I’ve been reluctant to believe it, even for my sister. But that’s not true. I’ve tricked myself. Over the last six months I’ve seen so many unbelievable things, so many impossible things, that the idea of my sister
not
reincarnating is almost less believable than the alternative. Oh how my world has changed.

Eventually she’ll remember all things
, she says. Her words are slow and careful, as if chosen with the expert eye of an art connoisseur selecting the next pieces to buy for her collection. Her words imply more than they say.

“But I won’t be her sister anymore,” I say, understanding.

Tara shakes her head.
Not in the way you want
, she says.

I know exactly what she means. Trish won’t care about me. She won’t love me. At least, not like she loves her Children. She won’t even be Trish anymore, taking on some other name that won’t suit her at all.

“When?” I ask.

I can feel Tara’s warm mind-fingers massaging my brain to get to the true meaning of my question: When will Trish be reborn?

Not even her Children know
, she says.

“Yeah, but what’s your best guess? A month? A year? A decade? A century? What’s the average?” I realize I’ve raised my voice. The other Claires are looking. Staring. I stare right back.

When it’s her time again
, Tara says, making me want to scream.

I don’t. I turn on my heels and stomp away as ungracefully as a charging buffalo.

It sucks being human sometimes.