Witch & Wizard (12 page)

I glared down at him. “No. You can’t come. I hate your guts.”

He sat up on his haunches, beady black eyes boring into mine. “You did this to me.”

Sasha looked impressed. “You taught a weasel to speak?!”

“I was human,” said Byron. “And
she
is a witch.”

Sasha looked even more impressed.

“And don’t you forget it,” I said proudly. “Feffer? Meet Byron Traitor Suck-up. You may eat him.”

BUT FEFFER DIDN’T HAVE A CHANCE to find out what weasel tasted like. Because just then we all spotted the first thing other than ourselves that we’d ever seen in the Shadowland, and it was, in fact, a bunch of shadows.

They were distant and flickered out of sight as soon as we looked directly at them, but there was no question we didn’t want to get any closer.

Celia, Susan, and Sasha immediately put their fingers to their mouths, telling us to be quiet, and then—as Susan and Celia just kind of faded into the gray—Sasha did that little commando gesture indicating we should follow him.

With the weasel clinging to my pants leg and shaking like one of those toys that vibrate when you pull their tails, we fell into line behind him and jogged along his string toward what I prayed would be our escape.

“Sasha,” I panted after we’d been running for a minute or so, “did it just get really cold in here or what?”

“It’s the Lost Ones. Among other things, they absorb the heat of the living.”

“So,” I said, an uncomfortable realization dawning on me, “does that mean… they’re close?”

“No more talking” was all he said.

But then he stopped. He was holding the end of the string. And there was no portal there.

“Something broke the string,” he said, fear flickering in his brilliant eyes.

From behind us, a chorus of moans added an ugly exclamation point to his statement.

Then Sasha shook his head like a swimmer trying to get water out of his ears and took off into the fog.

Byron, scared past coherent speech, chattered nonsense as we followed. I felt the cold on my back getting more and more intense.

And then I did something incredibly stupid: I looked back over my shoulder.

Twenty or more shadows—crooked, tall, short, bent, hobbling, but all supernaturally fast—were chasing after us. Just yards behind us now.

They were indistinct, flickering, inconstant, but one of them loomed up and, with the most horrible, ravenous, yellow eyes, seemed to
see
me.

And then I did something even more stupid: I stopped and screamed.

Whit immediately scooped me up and raced after Sasha. I couldn’t stop myself from yelling, and the boys seemed to know it. They didn’t even try to shush me. I guess they knew the game was up—either Sasha would guide us to the portal in time or he wouldn’t.

And then we’d find out exactly what it was the Lost Ones did to people.

“OKAY,” SASHA SAID, stopping suddenly. “Brace yourselves.”

My heart leaped. Bracing, I could handle. Getting mauled by soul-eating shadow creatures, not so much.

But where was the portal? All I saw was more fog. Was the portal here? Where?

Just then Feffer—who was, sweet dog, running tail guard several yards behind us—whimpered piteously.

“Feffer!” I stopped my own whimpering and yelled as the dog, unable to control herself, raced past toward a patch of fog that, I suddenly noticed, seemed to be rotating like a sideways whirlpool. She was bleeding. Badly. It looked as if something had gashed her left side with a garden rake. And the fright in her eyes—she looked more like a terrified puppy than a former New Order hellhound.

But before I could even think to reach out to comfort her, she was past me and leaping into the swirling vapor. And she was gone.

“That’s our portal,” said Sasha. “You two next. And be careful,” he said. “Freeland can be pretty wild.”

Wild, I could also handle—I’d have happily signed up for a deep-jungle camping trip with a pack of hungry jaguars. Anything but this nightmare scene. But I couldn’t joke about it to Sasha. For one thing, my teeth were chattering too hard to talk.

We were suddenly confronted with a cold so intense it burned—and it was coming from
in front
of us.

One of the Lost Ones had somehow gotten in between us and the portal.

Maybe if pain, hatred, and suffering were mixed in equal parts, somehow given shape, and dipped in black paint, you’d come close to what we saw now. Although there was something disturbingly, hauntingly human about its shadow-filled face. There was no skin, just sort of a flickering, shadowy surface where you would expect to see a forehead, cheeks, nose… and then there were the eyes. No pupils. Just slits, yellow-orange, flickering like torches you’d see on the walls of hell.

I wanted nothing more than to scream, but I was now officially paralyzed by the frozen air and my terror.

I squinted my eyes against the cold and watched helplessly as other Lost Ones moved in around us. We were surrounded.

Then—and I don’t know where he got the strength or courage—Sasha stepped toward the one directly in front of the portal, ignoring its clicking finger-claws and looking into its deathly yellow eyes.

“You got us,” he said. “But you’ll want me to explain this to you.” He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “It’s a map. With it, I can show you where to find a portal—not like this one, which won’t work for your kind—that can take you out of the Shadowland. A way back home.”

Somehow the horrible creature seemed to understand and appreciate what Sasha was saying.

And then, with a masterful flourish, Sasha crumpled the paper and threw it to the ground, causing the creature to leap after it with an earsplitting shriek of anger.

And then Sasha fairly tackled Whit and me into the portal, and the three of us plunged through, Byron Hateful Suck-up Weasel clinging to my pants leg with all four paws, the insufferable little creep.

There was an electric, tingly feeling that got stronger and stronger until my body began to shake like I was being tossed around in the back of a horse-drawn cart barreling down a cobblestone road at fifty miles an hour.

And then, suddenly, we were through—and
outside,
it seemed. The initial sensation was of wind—and it felt amazing, as if it were the first fresh air that had touched my skin in years.

I got my balance, then stopped in shock and looked around. “Oh. My. God.”

WE STOOD ON A DRY, rubble-covered hillside. There wasn’t much to it, but the sun was up and the sky was blue. After those horrifying minutes in the Shadowland, I was quite simply shocked by how beautiful the real world was.

“Those Lost-One things are looking to get out of the Shadowland, huh?” Whit asked Sasha as we dusted ourselves off.

“Yeah, they say that’s why they glom on to humans so hard. They want us to help them find a way out. And when that doesn’t work—which it never does—they settle for stealing your warmth and eating your flesh.”

“But you gave them the map. Does that mean they can now find their own way into the real world?” asked Whit.

“Well, (A) I don’t think they can read, (B) I’m not sure they could survive in the real world—I sure hope not—and (C) it wasn’t a map, it was just a list of things I had to do once I got back to base.”

“So you just made all that up on the spot, and fooled those things so we could escape?”

He shrugged and was going to say something, but just then there was a high-pitched whine in the air.

“Incoming!” yelled Sasha, and slammed into me, knocking me down. I hit the ground hard, the air whooshing out of me.

I gasped like a fish on land as a piercing, whistling sound filled my ears, impossibly loud.

Then,
boom!
Make that
BOOM!
I squeezed my eyes shut as the ground shook like an earthquake. Sasha tightened his hold on me, covering my head with his hands. I kind of liked him already.

BOOM!
More earthshaking explosions, more trembling, more dust and mud and rubble raining down on our heads.

“Wisty!” Whit yelled.

I wheezed and gasped. “Whit! Feffer!” I choked out. I couldn’t see very much because of the smoke and dust everywhere.

It felt like ages, but the trembling finally calmed, and Sasha’s weight slowly moved off me. A minute later, it was over. Whatever it was.

“Whew!” Sasha said, grinning. His face was covered with thick dust, except for his mouth and eyes. He reminded me of a freaky circus clown. I guessed I probably looked the same. “Sorry,” he told me cheerfully. “Didn’t mean to squish you like that.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ve been squished by worse.”

I struggled to sit up, feeling Byron Hateful Suck-up coiled around my neck like a traitorous mink stole. Blinking grit out of my eyes, coughing, shaking off the dust, I looked around.

“What just happened?” I asked, finally seeing Whit. And then Feffer. And Celia.

“Bomb,” Sasha said, standing up and slapping off the dirt. “Everyone okay? I guess we must have stepped out into a war zone. Easy to do.” It sounded like this was about as ordinary as making a wrong turn en route to the nearest doughnut shop.

Looking around, I saw half-destroyed buildings on what once must have been a normal city block. Craters in the street were big enough to hold trucks. Rubble and dust were everywhere. Twisted metal, broken glass, electric wires, and chunks of cement made a dangerous carpet under our feet.

“Who’s bombing us?” I asked, trembling all over. So was Byron—the varmint was now riding on my shoulder, clinging to my hair. “Get
off,
” I told him.

“The New Order does bombings every day,” Sasha explained. “They know some of us kids are squatting here, so they run air strikes. Then they come looking for us.” He shook the hair out of his eyes. “Keeps you on your toes, right?”

“Yeah, nothing like a little shock and awe,” Whit said in disbelief.

Sasha turned serious. “We’ve gotta get you to safety right away, guys.”

“Wait,” I said. “Whit and I need to look for our parents. We’ll go it alone. I mean, we’re thankful and everything.”

Celia’s and Sasha’s eyes met and, for once, Sasha’s face wasn’t so sunny and open. “Um,” he said, “we should talk about that, Red.”

I glared at Sasha, and my brother spoke up. “Not a nickname she likes. Just FYI.”

“The thing is,” said Sasha slowly, “it’s not safe, or very smart, for you to go off on your own.” He took off his ball cap and twisted it in his hands. His thick, jet-black hair fell forward over his eyes. “Sorry about that, Freckles.”

“NOT FRECKLES EITHER,” suggested Whit. “Or Carrottop.”

“Okay,” I said. “We have to find my mother and father.
That’s
our mission,” I stated very clearly. “Family first.”

Celia stepped closer to me and put out her hand. I felt a wispy breeze touch my hair and saw the sympathy in her eyes. “Wisty, just listen. Please.”

Sasha sighed, then gestured at everything around us. “Look at this screwed-up place. This is what most of the city looks like. The N.O. is taking over ‘worthy’ communities and shaping everything in its image. The rest, they’re just… razing. Like, totaling out of existence.”

“Yeah, I’m all sad about that too. It’s awful. I get it. But what’s that got to do with our mom and dad?”

“Read my lips, friend: things are
bad
all over,” he continued. “I don’t have any idea where your ’rents might be held, or if they’re even… alive.” The last word was a whisper.

I stared at him, feeling the blood drain from my face.

“Celia, you saved us. If you could get us out of prison, why can’t you help us find our parents? They’re alive. I’m sure of it.”

Whit stared at Celia, clearly agreeing that I was onto something. A pained expression came over her face, but she didn’t respond to what I’d said.

“Look,” said Sasha, glancing awkwardly at Celia. I couldn’t read his meaning. “Let’s just get to safety. We can figure out your next steps when we’re in Freeland.”

I’d had enough of the sympathy game. Folding my arms across my chest, I stomped my foot like that two-year-old in the shopping mall. “I am not moving one inch until someone gives me a satisfactory answer.”

“Wisty,” Celia hissed with urgency, “it’s really dangerous here. There’s stuff worse than bombs, if you can imagine something more terrible than being blown up. We don’t know where your parents are yet. And you can’t save them anyway…
if you’re dead.
”

“STOP RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE, kids. Let me see some ID.
Now!
”

There were about a dozen of them—make that eleven—all males, probably late teens to midtwenties, big boys with big muscles.

I stepped forward. “Mind if I ask who
you
are, before we show you anything? This is a dangerous part of town, y’know.”

The spokesman for the muscled boys looked to be in his early twenties. He was standing on the balls of his feet, ready to start some trouble, I figured.

“You should know who we are. New Order. The Citizen Patrol. We’re looking for Strays and Wanteds. Need IDs from all of you. It’s the law, friend.”

Wisty had moved up alongside me. “Maybe we’d like to see
your
IDs,” she said. “Friend.”

Meanwhile, a crowd of maybe fifty or sixty “citizens” was forming. Not good.

“Let me take care of this,” I said. “Okay?”

Wisty shrugged. “Sure.”

“Why don’t we all just walk away and
stay
friends?” I said to the group leader. I was hoping to continue talking, but he already had a metal baton out. The crowd was still growing, and getting noisy.

“Citizen Patrol, my butt. More like the Aspiring Dictators’ After-School Club,” said Wisty, ever the diplomat. “Look at you overgrown goons. Pathetic.”