Alight (39 page)

I pull the bracelet off Beckett’s limp arm, slide my own hand through the opening. When the ring is almost to my elbow, something contracts, squeezes. The bracelet clings firmly on my arm. Its lethal point is just behind my wrist.

If only I knew how to make the damn thing fire.

I kneel by Barkah’s side. “Can you move?”

His middle eye is a mangled, horrible sight. The other two green eyes blink, look at me, show recognition.

He tries to put the rod into the barrel, winces. I set my shovel down, take the musket and do it for him. He hands me a bullet. I pack that down as well, slide the rod into its holding slot, then hand the musket back.

I hold my left hand in front of him, palm up. I point to him, then place my right pointer and middle finger on the upturned palm. I bounce them, doing my best impression of a Springer’s hop.

“Move,”
I say. “Can you
move
?”

“Move,”
he answers. He understands.
“Hem, move.”

Shovel in one hand, I reach under Barkah with the other and struggle to lift his weight. The alien makes sharp grunts of pain. The blast threw him hard into that tree, maybe broke things inside him.

I have to get the prince to safety—but I also have to find O’Malley.

From behind us, another flash of white lights up the fog. How many Grownups are out here? The enemy seems to be everywhere; the jungle is made of them.

We stay in the underbrush, move parallel to the path. Dragging the heavy Springer along with me, I am not the wind anymore. I am
noise
…I am a
target
…

Then in front of us, a dead Springer, stomach sliced open, splashes of blue blood and yellowish innards strewn about the wet vines and dead leaves. I recognize the curve of the mouth:
Rekis
.

Barkah lets out a mournful groan. The sound is heartbreaking.

He points just past the body, at Rekis’s musket. The hammer in the middle, it’s cocked back. It’s loaded.

Noise from behind us: human shouts and calls, bodies moving through the mist. I recognize one of the voices—Coyotl.

Barkah gently pushes me away. He stands on his own two legs, points to me, points to Rekis’s musket.

I have the bracelet, but I don’t know how to use it. I drop the shovel and pick up the gun.

Barkah takes one experimental hop forward. His body shudders in pain, but he pushes past it, takes a second hop.

“Hem, move.”

He wants to run. He wants to hide. That’s the smart thing to do. Just as I need him to end this war before it starts, he needs me to make it out of here alive. The two of us fleeing into the jungle is the smart thing.

But I will not leave O’Malley.

I wave a hand in the direction of the trail.

“Go,” I say. “Move. Escape.”

His two remaining eyes show despair. He doesn’t want to leave me, but he is in no shape to fight.

A rustling to our right. Our muskets rise up instantly, aim at a shaking bush—Lahfah hops out from behind the dark leaves.

I point at him, then at Barkah.

“Get him out of here,” I say quietly to Lahfah. “Move.”

Maybe he understands me, or maybe he just wants to get his prince clear. Lahfah pulls at Barkah, urging him down the trail.

I turn and run into the mist, toward the danger, toward O’Malley. My body feels electric, on edge.

I hear voices. I slide to my right, into the underbrush, crouch between two wide, curving leaves that cover me completely. A small gap between them lets me see down the trail. Moonlit mist surrounds me. This is the perfect spot. The shadows are my friends.

“She killed Beckett!” A Grownup man’s voice. I hear him, but can’t quite see him. “And Visca! She cut off Visca’s damn
head
! I’m going to kill that little bitch!”

Something about that voice is familiar, but I can’t place it. Another voice answers, one I know by heart, one that makes every inch of me crawl with fear.

“Farrar, don’t you dare.”

That voice…
Matilda
.

She was on the lumpy ship with Bello. She’s
here
. She’s come for me, to erase me.

“Hurt her, and you
die,
” she says. Her voice is coming closer. “Or I’ll make sure your shell dies. I’ll watch you wither away to nothing. Find out if there are any more hopping vermin around here, kill them, then catch her.”

I hear footsteps squish in mud, hear small branches crack and snap—they are coming closer.

Even if they’re old and slow, they’re still faster than the wounded Barkah and Lahfah—if I let Matilda and Farrar pass by, they will quickly catch up to the Springers.

Coming down the trail, through the mist, I see a Grownup. A little shorter than I am, moving with painful, jerky motions: it is Matilda.

And with her, taller,
thicker,
old and wrinkled but made of solid muscle—that has to be Farrar.

They both wear masks and the suits of thin, shiny metal. Like the one I just killed.
Visca
…I killed Grownup Visca.

Farrar comes first, a few steps ahead of Matilda. He wears a bracelet on his extended arm, sweeps it left, then right, then straight down the trail. He doesn’t see me. In seconds he will pass by me.

I can end this,
all
of it, right now. I can shoot him with the musket at close range, drop him.

And then I must kill Matilda.

The musket will be empty. I can use the wide, flat end…I can swing it hard, smash it into her face, knock her down…then I will cave in her skull.

For El-Saffani. For Beckett. For Coyotl. For Muller. For Latu. For Visca. For Harris. For Bello. For Yong.

Matilda is my enemy…kill her, and I will be forever free.

She
deserves
to die, deserves it for the thousands of humans she has murdered, for her slaughter of
millions
of Springers, for the culture she tried to destroy, for the ship she transformed into a nightmare, and for the enormous city she turned into cinders.

Farrar and Matilda creep closer.

I stay so very still.

I am the wind…I am death…

Five steps away.

My musket’s hammer is already cocked. I silently raise the barrel, aim it to my left. I won’t even have to extend it past the leaf: Farrar will move right past me.

Three steps.

I put my finger on the trigger.

One step.

On my right, the big leaf rustles, splashing me with beaded rainwater as it is pushed aside.

The red-eyed, masked face of a Grownup is only inches away. How could I have not heard it coming? It is the biggest Grownup I have ever seen, with wide shoulders and huge muscles stretching out the gnarled black skin.

Then I realize how it snuck up on me.

It’s
Bishop.

A flash of black smashes into my face.

As I fall, I see the two moons high above—one blue, one maroon—and then nothing.

I
wake.

My head pounds and throbs. Feels like it’s full of jagged rocks, grinding against each other.

I’m on my back. Lights above blind me. I blink madly. I try to raise a hand to block the lights, but I can’t move.

“She’s coming to.”

That voice…the hiss of a Grownup, a woman, but so familiar. I almost recognize it.

“Thank you,” says a second voice, one that is unmistakable and full of the promise of death—
Matilda
.

She has me. Panic bites deep. I struggle to push it back, to stay in control.

I can see a little now. The lights above are embedded in a carved ceiling. I’m indoors. I try to sit up, but something cool, solid and curved pins my wrists, my waist, my ankles.

White fabric to my left, to my right.

I’m in a coffin.

I yank and twist and lurch. I’ve broken bars like these before, and I’m much stronger than I was then. I pull until the coffin shakes with my effort, until my bones feel like they are going to break…

Something is different.

These bars, they’re smooth, not rough against my skin. They aren’t rusted…they’re
new
.

My arms give out in mid-pull, as if my muscles, bones and skin realized escape is impossible before my brain does.

I lie there, chest heaving, not knowing what comes next.

A head leans in, silhouetted by the bright light. A Grownup. Wrinkled, charcoal skin covered by a mask. Through that mask, I see one bulging red eye, and a white patch where the other eye used to be.

“Hello, pretty girl,” Matilda says.

I can’t move. Death stares down at me.

She turns, looks somewhere to her left. “Lower the sides of the husk. I want to get a good look at her.”

A buzz, then a soft clacking sound. All four sides of the coffin slide down and away. On my left, Matilda, and just past her, a closed golden coffin—it’s been polished until the carvings gleam with a lifelike vibrance. On my right, a waist-high, curved, red metal wall with that strange symbol engraved on it in black.

I’m in the Observatory.

Farther down on my right, two wrinkled Grownups—wearing the same metal-and-mask array as Matilda—are standing on the pedestal platform. One is tall and thin. The other is the shortest I have seen yet; by height alone, I know it is the Grownup version of Gaston.

I look past my bound feet, knowing what I will see—the big, black X, shackles and crown dangling. Behind the X, the mural of an old man, a younger man driving a knife through his chest.

Everything is clean. All the dust is gone.

Where is O’Malley? Did he escape? I hope Barkah and Lahfah got away.

Somewhere behind me, I hear a voice I know all too well.

“You have what you wanted,” Aramovsky says. “Now give me what I need.”

My body surges, thrums with sudden, blind hope.

“Aramovsky, kill her! Get me out of here!”

I thrash at my restraints with newfound strength. He has to strike fast…how many circle-stars did he bring with him? He…

Wait…what did he say?

Matilda continues to stare down at me. I hear footsteps, then I see him, Aramovsky, standing beside her, my spear in his hand.

He is wearing red robes, just like those of the torturers carved into the Observatory walls.

My body starts to shake. I struggle to breathe. Why is he standing with her? Why isn’t he
fighting
her?

Matilda reaches up a wrinkled, old arm and rests her hand on Aramovsky’s red-robed shoulder.

“You’re lucky, boy,” she says. “You lured my shell away from the others, but she was almost killed by that disgusting vermin army.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Bello didn’t just give Aramovsky the secret of the symbols so he could take over as leader—she told him where to send me.

He gave me up to Matilda.

“We didn’t know there were so many of them,” he says. “If you had grabbed her at the gate, like you were supposed to, she wouldn’t have been at risk.” He tilts his head toward me. “Besides—she looks fine.”

Matilda adjusts her mask, as if the fit bothers her.

“She looks
filthy
. But we did run late. Sometimes old bodies do not react as quickly as one would like. At any rate, a deal is a deal.” She looks off to her left. “Bring them.”

I hear heavy footsteps approaching. I crane my head up to see—it’s Coyotl, young and strong and smiling, carrying a large, carved box.

I feel heavier, like I’m sinking into this coffin, like I’m drowning in darkness. Coyotl has been overwritten—same as Bello, same as Beckett. Coyotl walks and talks and looks like my friend, the one who taught me how to sharpen the spear, but my friend is gone forever.

He sets the box down on my thighs.

“See, Matilda?” he says. “I told you she was in good shape.”

A whining tone to his voice. He is desperate to please her, but Matilda is far from pleased.

“
Your
body has far less damage, Uriah,” she says to him. “Look at her. She hasn’t fixed anything. Some of those scars are never going to come out.”

Coyotl shrugs. “You might have to hose her down first. All that camouflage on her face…somehow she fooled herself into thinking she’s a knight.”