The Rift (13 page)

Vero’s blade fell directly into Dek’s head and
continued into his chest. She lifted her weapon and flung the
twitching body off into some bushes. Dully, somewhere, her mind
registered that she’d just taken a life.

“
Stay away from them,” she screamed
at Jed and charged.

He dodged her first swing, close enough that
her blade touched the fabric of his shirt. His sword trembled as he
attempted a counter. She slapped the flat of the blade away with
her bare hand and kicked him in the side. He spun and tumbled into
some playground equipment.

Vero advanced on him, her feet leaving spots of
blackened grass. “Give up. You want to live? Take off the soul
armor.”

Jed smirked. “Who said I’d
surrendered?”

He crouched then leaped skyward, Vero following
on his heels. As the air whipped around her, she felt that bubbling
from earlier in the day, that heat like lava pouring into her axe,
telling her to just flick the blade toward him.

She obeyed.

A sizzling ball of fire launched at Jed. It hit
and exploded with a pop, flaming streaks falling to the ground like
the trails of a spent firework.

He lost control and tumbled head over heels
onto the roof of a nearby house. Vero landed hard on his chest. The
roof crumpled and the two fell into the living room, Jed landing
hard on a piano.

“
Off of me!” Jed bellowed, swinging
his sword.

She swiped it aside. She struck back and
planted her blade in his shoulder. He stabbed out again, weaker.
Her counter removed his arm at the elbow.

The fire inside cried for vengeance. This man
had murdered its last master. She brought down the axe, again and
again. Flames licked up a nearby bookshelf.

Vero stood back, the wrath of Diotein
expended.

“
Did you feel that?” he
rasped.

“
The fire?” she asked.

He turned his head to the side, as though
looking at something. In the dancing yellow and orange light, he
seemed to be grinning. “No, the rift. It’s open. I feel it. A
breeze from Ruach. Someone steps through. They’re coming, little
girl. They’re coming for your world. You picked the wrong side.” He
stopped breathing, that grin frozen on his bloody face.

For a moment, Vero’s fire faltered. And she
saw, really saw, what she’d done. An arm lay across the room. A leg
stayed on by a flap of skin. Blood flowed from the corpse. Smoke
and flames filled the room. They emboldened her, strengthened her,
and kept her from falling to the ground and crying.

One final task. She felt Jed’s thigh, the place
where his soul armor had glowed. She fumbled with a hot metal band.
It would be quicker to remove the entire leg. The thought sickened
her. She finally found a latch then slid the band off the leg,
taking both it and the sword.

Vero punched open the front door and walked
onto the street, axe over her shoulder, flames licking up and down
her body.

Vero staggered over the threshold of her
home.

“
¿Dios mío, mija qué te pasó?” her
mom yelled, jumping off the couch.

She didn’t want to deal with that woman’s
hysterics right now. She wanted to shower, to clean herself—she
felt so dirty—and try to sleep. The strength from her soul armor
was gone. Now, with its act of violence finished, Diotein had
abandoned her to the aftermath.

“
Accidente,” Vero
mumbled.

No, that was wrong. She wasn’t supposed to have
been in the accident. After the fight, she and Gloria had jumped
away from the scene, depositing Dek’s body—minus the soul armor—in
the flames of the gas station, just before the fire department
arrived. They stashed all the weapons in Pieter’s car and drove
away so that hopefully no one would connect her with the girl in
the Britney Spears mask at the Trex station. Pieter had called 911
and gone to the hospital to get treated for the cut from Jed. And
now she’d screwed up the story.

“
You’re covered in blood!” her mom
said. “I’m calling an ambulance.”

Vero glanced around the room. No sisters. Good.
They must be working late. “Not… my blood,” she said. “I’m fine.
Just rattled.”

“
Not your blood? What
happened?”

Vero set her backpack on the floor. Luckily,
her mom didn’t ask about the weird bulge sticking out the top: the
towel-covered handle of her axe. That had seemed like the least
conspicuous way to transport it.

“
It’s Pieter’s…” Jed’s blood. Jed,
whom she’d killed. “It’s Pieter. He got cut up from some glass.
He’s in the hospital. Nothing serious.”

“
Oh, my baby girl,” her mom said.
She embraced her daughter.

Vero squirmed free. Soot and blood smeared all
over her mom. The soul armor protected her clothing from burning,
but it didn’t keep it clean. The mask, too, was now a black mess.
Now her mom was stained, too.

“
I’m fine,” Vero said.

“
I… why didn’t you call
me?”

To keep her mom out of this, to avoid that
smothering comfort. Vero looked up and did her best to become her
usual, cheery self. “It was no big deal. I’m just shaken up. A
friend gave me a ride. But I really need to shower,
okay?”

“
Vero…” Her mom tried to hug her
again. Vero slipped away into her bedroom.

She shut the door and removed the axe from her
backpack. The blade was a bit cleaner than the blackened
handle—they’d used some bottled water and grass to remove the
blood. But at the moment, it looked hideous. She hid it under a
pile of debris in her closet and shoved her armband into her sock
drawer.

Vero went into the bathroom and let her hair
down. It would take some serious work to get… tonight… out of that
hair, to return it to the hair of a pretty senior with a popular
boyfriend. Kristin and Carrie would laugh about the accident to
cheer her up. Her sisters would sympathize for a few days then
start cracking jokes. Her mom would stay worried for the next ten
years.

She stepped into the shower and let the warm
water wash over her. They’d won, right? Jed was dead. The bodies
were disposed of. Let the police figure out who the charred
skeletons belonged to. The fight itself had only lasted a few
minutes, mostly in a dark, empty park. As far as they knew, no one
had seen them except maybe while they were in the air. And if
anyone had witnessed them jumping, what then? Would the
neighborhood report flying bandits? Even if someone had photos,
they were wearing masks.

The gas station… she tried not to think about
that one. The police wouldn’t look for her, right? From the
reports, they’d think it was a suicide, right? That she’d died in
the blaze. The only problem was that the body they dropped in the
flames, Dek’s, was male.

Vero washed the muck down the drain until the
water ran clear. She stayed under the warm stream and ran fingers
through her hair.

They’re coming, little girl.
They’re coming for your world. You’ve picked the wrong
side.

What now? She didn’t want to ask that question.
Jed and Dek were gone. Everything was fixed. Everything would be
fine…

The water went cold. Vero turned it off and
started drying herself. On the floor lay a messy pile of blood and
soot: her clothes. They were trash now. Vero wrapped a couple
towels around herself and wished the hot water had lasted longer.
She opened the door.

Her mom waited in the doorway.
“Vero…”

“
Mom, I’m…”

“
Yeah?”

She leaned into her mom’s arms and stayed
there. Tears came to her eyes. Mom might be an overbearing, loud
pain. She might be someone Vero never wanted her friends to meet.
But her mom loved her. With only a handful of memories of Dad, the
woman holding her was the only parent she had.

“
You want to talk about
it?”

She clutched her mom and held tight. Yes, she
did want to talk about it. But not at the cost of the scrutiny and
gossip of her whole family. Not at the cost of her mom and sisters
ending up involved in this thing.

“
Just a little accident,” Vero
said. “I just need some rest.”

Her mom gave a knowing nod. “Okay, okay. Get
your sleep.”

And despite wishing she’d been born in a family
like Neil’s, despite that she lived in the ghetto of SLO, she
didn’t want to let go. She dug her fingers into her mom’s
back.

Vero leaped.

Axe at her side, she chased a form fleeing
through the air, ready to swing up and launch a fireball. Somehow,
she knew that’s what was supposed to happen, as though it had
already happened. That fleeing form would die. She would swing, and
he would die.

Only this time, nothing happened. Jed turned in
midair. Their weapons clashed. Diotein shattered in her hands. And
Dek—who she remembered being dead—jumped from behind to attack her.
They both smashed into her, and the three fell tumbling to the
ground.

Where were the others? Where were Pieter and
Neil and Gloria? Was Pieter injured? Was he whole?

Jed sat on top of her, smirking. With her
strength, she should have been able to push him off; he felt like a
boulder. He just sat there, grinning and grinning and
grinning.

“
More are coming, little girl. The
rift is open. Can you taste the breeze from Ruach?”

Dek lifted his mace and smashed in her skull.
The scene went dark.

And she heard snoring, Bella’s loud snoring.
Was she dead, alive? Sleeping, awake? She turned over.

A dark park—it seemed somehow
familiar—surrounded her. Jed fell from the starless night sky.
Diotein was whole and in her hands again.

She threw her weapon to the ground and ran. She
just needed to get away, needed escape, needed freedom. But no
matter where she ran, Jed followed just behind, his sword ready.
She stumbled over dark roots and bushes.

Something exploded behind her, illuminating the
park like day. Bushes went from black to green; trees burst from
barren darkness into pink and purple blossoms. Playground equipment
flashed to playful crimson and sapphire. The burst knocked Vero
onto her face.

She flipped over and prepared for Jed to pounce
on her. A blazing white light floated between them, edges moving
like the swells of the ocean. Jed dissolved as he touched it. That
light washed away guilt, washed away fear.

A single word filled the air:
“Continue.”

She stayed on her back, staring into the white
form. The sound of Bella’s snoring returned, followed by the feel
of a tightly wrapped sheet. The park faded, and Vero opened her
eyes to see her room.

Only, the form remained. It floated just above
her bed, unearthly and beautiful. The backdrop of her room, unlike
the park, remained dark except for a slight red tinge from Bella’s
alarm clock. As in the dream, it gave her a sense of wholeness and
comfort, though fear crept in at seeing something so alien floating
in her room.

Her reflexes activated her soul armor. She
jolted fully awake, and the light vanished into a faint afterimage.
It had to have been some trick of her brain, a leftover from the
nightmare. Perhaps a trick of the eye, like floaters when you press
on closed eyelids. She released her armor.

But it had felt so real. The memory gave her a
funny sensation, an ache, a yearning to see it again. She could
have stared at it for hours. The sight of it had banished the guilt
and pain of just a few hours ago.

Vero’s heart hammered. Fully awake, she felt a
clarity that she hadn’t experienced since the night with James.
Fear had clouded her choices about Ruach. Now she didn’t feel that
fear. And one thing was clear: All their talk about escaping after
eliminating Jed and Dek was an excuse, an excuse to hide Ruach from
the rest of the world, to try and preserve their lives as they
were. That was impossible, especially now that she’d killed. No,
she couldn’t rewind time.

What now? That question had seemed too
terrifying to ask just a few hours ago. Continue? No, they weren’t
warriors, weren’t heroes. But they couldn’t just hide either.
They’d tried that, and they’d been found. It would happen again.
Those soul armors drew trouble.

But as more Ruachians came through, her home
would become a battle zone, and people would die. She had to
prevent that. The best way? Give the soul armors to the government
and let them handle it. They were way more equipped than four high
school kids. Who knew what that would do to her life and her
family, but she had no better options. In a way, it was
courageous.

Vero sighed and rolled onto her side. So much
for sleep.

Vero knocked on Pieter’s door. Gunshots echoed
from inside.

“
Come in,” Pieter
called.

Vero opened the door and watched a body fly
across the TV.