Black Knight (40 page)

“I killed Nordra, now what do you want?” I ask, acting bored.

“Throw down your weapons.”

“In exchange for what?”

She strokes Sam’s hair, trying to mock both of us. But the gesture is wasted on me since all she has to brush his locks with is a crusty stump.

“In exchange for Sam’s life and your boyfriend’s life. Drop your machete into the lava. We wouldn’t want it to suddenly fly off the floor and hurt someone, would we?”

“Don’t do it, Jessie,” Sam calls.

“She slit Chad’s throat by the wall,” I say.

Sam sighs. “She’s going to slit mine. You know you can’t bargain with a monster like her.” He adds, “Where’s Kyle?”

“Dead,” I say.

“Nordra?” Sam asks.

I nod. Better Viper think Kyle’s no longer in the picture.

“Sam’s wrong,” Viper interrupts. “I am here to bargain. I want off this island as much as you do, Jessica.”

“I’m sure you do,” I reply. “But since the rules of the Field say there can be only one winner, I can’t see us forming a partnership.”

Using her stump, Viper points to the petroglyphs on the wall behind her. “Tell me what these mean.”

I take a step forward. “I can’t.”

“They must mean something!” Viper cries, sounding like she’s trying to convince herself. “You speak to the Council. You know Cleo. She must have told you a secret way off this island.”

There’s no question Viper is under immense strain and handling it badly. She looks and sounds nothing like the ruthless girl Cleo described or the lava-spewing creature who attacked us by the hot springs. She keeps putting her stump to her forehead as if trying to halt a pressure that’s building inside.

“There’s no secret,” I say. “The last one left alive wins and is allowed to leave the island. You’ve known that since the moment you arrived here. What I don’t get is why you suddenly want to change the rules.”

“Don’t come any closer!” she warns, pressing her knife deep into Sam’s throat. She’s already broken his skin and I see blood spilling over her blade.

I take a step closer. “Why are you afraid to fight me one-on-one?”

“Back up or I’ll kill both of your boys!”

I take another step toward her and chuckle. “Go ahead and try. I’ll kill you before you can finish with the first one.”

Viper is scared but still shrewd. She’s not going to fall for a simple bluff. Her eyes fall on Marc, who floats on the surface of the stream beneath the heel of her foot.

“You forget how well I know you,” Viper says, changing her tone. “I have to kill only one to destroy you.” She pauses. “Dump your weapons in the lava. Now.”

“No!” Sam hisses.

I shrug as I toss the machete I used to decapitate Jelanda in the lava. The wood ignites in a line of fire before sinking beneath the somber surface.

“It doesn’t matter. I only need my hands to kill you,” I say.

“Your knives, too, both of them,” Viper orders.

I hate giving up my knives. Whether using my mind or my hands, I had hoped to plant one between her eyes. She must have seen them on me back at the wall.

I toss Ora’s favorite blades into the lava.

I sneer. “What’s next? Want me to strip down?”

Viper hardens her voice despite the fact that sweat drips from her face. Her eyes meet mine through the red steam. Her knife hand continues to tremble; if she presses any harder, she’ll open Sam’s jugular.

“Last chance,” she tells me. “What are the secrets of this cave and that wall out there?”

“I have no idea,” I say.

“Die, you bitch!” Sam cries as he suddenly rams an elbow into Viper’s gut, causing her to double up, and spins away from her knife. His neck bleeds freely but he’s full of fire and ready to fight. Rather than retreat to my side for support, he stands over her slight figure with arms and hands outstretched, ready to strangle the breath from her body.

Off balance, with the wind knocked out of her, Viper struggles to stand upright. For a moment I see a chance to take her out. But Sam’s blow has forced her to release her hold on Marc, who floats over the top of the stream toward the spot where the water disappears beneath the wall. It’s obvious the water that keeps him afloat has only appeared for a brief stretch and that it’s about to return to its natural state as an underground stream.

And that it’s going to take Marc with it.

I want to rush Viper. Like Sam, I want to rip off her head. Instead, I have to race toward the other side of the cavern to catch Marc. But out of the corner of my eye, I see everything that happens.

Sam has definitely caught Viper by surprise and it looks like he stands an excellent chance of killing her. She’s only a few feet away and has only one working hand. But I should know better. Viper’s never used her hands to torment us, not without telekinetic sparks flying through her fingers.

Sam takes a bold step forward before suddenly becoming aware of a thin but bathtub-size-wide sheet of lava slowly rising from a molten pond on his left. I say slowly because it takes far longer to stand than the sheet of lava Viper drenched Ora with the last time we fought her. Indeed, I feel the sight has Sam hypnotized. He’s close to Viper. He needs to kill her before . . .

The lava suddenly flies toward Sam, drenching him from head to toe. In an instant he’s transformed into a human torch. He opens his mouth to scream but inhales lava and his throat swells like a balloon. His skin drips off like melting wax, changing to black ash before dripping to the floor, and I’m bitterly reminded of the way Russ died last month.

Nothing could be worse.

But again, I’m given no chance to grieve.

Somehow I manage to catch Marc and pull the top half of his body out of the icy water and into my lap. He’s not breathing! Why isn’t he breathing? His skin is so cold. But before I can warm him up, even give him mouth to mouth, Viper stalks toward me.

Li continues to stand uselessly. Granted, Li’s psychologically shorted out but I wish she could at least wake up long enough to give Viper a kick in the ass and knock her in the water.

Li does nothing and Viper keeps coming.

Viper stands over me and nods at Marc’s frozen body.

“I’m not the one who put him in the water,” she says.

“Who did?” I ask.

“Sam told me he crawled in before I arrived.” Viper shrugs. “That poison makes a person so hot they’ll do anything to cool off.”

“You’re lucky you were able to find it on this island.”

“I heard stories about the Field growing up. I knew where to look.”

“Like I said, you’re a lucky girl.”

Viper stares down at me. “I was sure you’d put up more of a fight. I had no idea the loss of Romeo would take the heart out of you.”

I stare back at her. “Marc knew what he was doing when he climbed in the freezing water. And I know how to kill you with a mere flick of my wrist.”

Viper feigns amazement. “Pray tell, Syn Killer.”

“Funny you should bring Syn up. I took her down the same way I’ll take you down.”

“How?”

“With knowledge. You’re sweating, your hands are shaking, your eyes are bloodshot. You’re a mess.”

Viper fumes. “I was strong enough to fry Sam and I’m strong enough to defeat you! You coward—sitting there holding your dead lover like he’s going to save your ass! You make me sick!”

I smile. “In a way I’m the one who made you sick. When I chopped off your left hand.”

Viper hesitates. “Huh?”

“You honestly don’t know why you’re falling apart, do you?”

“I’m not falling apart.”

“It started when you lost your bracelet. It was right in front of you. You picked up your hand but left it for me to find.” I pull the red bracelet from my pocket. “That was a mistake.”

She hesitates. “That thing is useless.”

“When I told you I didn’t know any secrets about the wall, I lied. I know a few. One is that it makes this island a pretty weird place. A place where we can’t even walk around and kill each other unless a piece of the wall is in contact with our skin.” I show her the dark stone on the inner lining of her bracelet. “Be honest with me, Viper. I’ll bet that since you lost this little piece of rock you’ve been stumbling around in a daze.”

She sucks in a breath. “You’re babbling.”

“I’m being insightful. I don’t know what this rock and that wall are made out of, but the material has a powerful effect on our minds. I even suspect that wearing a piece of this rock next to where the veins in our wrist pump our blood around and around every few minutes synchronizes our mind and body with our bracelet.”

“You’re making this up!” Viper cries.

I continue in a calm voice. “Not at all. To test my theory, I tried your bracelet on my right wrist for a few minutes and got a whopping headache. That tells me these bracelets are like dog tags. Once one’s been made for you, it’s personal and without it you’re bound to get lost.”

Viper loses it; she screams. “You’re full of shit! I’m still here!”

“Not for long,” I say casually as I toss her bracelet into a pond of lava six feet off to my left. The red plastic flares as it ignites and begins to melt before sinking from view.

Viper tries to inhale but gags as if she’s got a rock stuck in her windpipe. Her black eyes bulge and she shuffles backward like a broken robot. Then she raises both her arms above her head and dances like a demented marionette before crumbling to the floor. Dead.

Jumping up, I pull Marc the rest of the way out of the stream and begin mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. But he doesn’t respond; he doesn’t start breathing. Putting my ear to his chest, I listen for a heartbeat but there’s nothing. I finally sit back and cry.

Li touches my shoulder. “I can help,” she says.

“Go away.”

“Jessie, I can save him. I have my powers back.”

I turn and give her a long look.

She just said more words than she’s said all day.

“Why are they back?” I ask.

“Lula is inside me again. I can heal.”

I gesture to Marc’s dead body. “Do what you can.”

Li searches the area. “I need to study the poison she put inside him. Where’s the knife she stabbed him with?”

“There,” I say, pointing to the knife that spilled from Viper’s belt when she dropped dead.

Li picks it up and kneels beside me, staring down at Marc’s peaceful face. She reaches for my hand. “Our power will be greater if we work together like we did before,” she says.

I stare at her and in an instant I understand everything.

Absolutely everything.

Every piece of the puzzle suddenly fits together and I see a face.

The face of my true enemy.

Since arriving at the Field, I kept checking my own cards but never the dealer’s. That’s why Russ came to me when I contacted the wall. It’s what he tried to teach me over a game of red queen. Of course Russ loved me. Like Jimmy and Cleo, he was desperate for me to survive the Field.

Yet there are more important things in life than survival.

There’s what’s right and wrong; and then there’s love.

Love. Love. Love.

Despite what I know, I decide not to change my bet.

I offer Li my hand. She takes it, squeezing it hard.

The physical contact links me to Li in a profound way. It’s like two wires have been crossed; I can feel her body almost as well as I feel my own. Her touch reminds me of a trick Syn taught me while she grilled me on how to mimic another person’s appearance. If you can touch the one you need to copy, Syn had told me, you can copy them so perfectly even another witch will have trouble telling you from the real thing.

If nothing else, Syn has been an excellent teacher.

“Let’s close our eyes and concentrate on saving Marc,” Li says.

I close my eyes. I know what comes next.

Li doesn’t surround us with white light.

Nor does Li invoke her sister.

Instead, she tries to stab me in the lower back with Viper’s poisonous knife. She aims for my kidneys, with good reason. The kidneys filter a person’s blood and if she were to shred them, and fill them with poison, then I’d start to burn immediately, much worse than Marc. And the pain would be unbearable.

But I catch Li by the wrist before she can touch me.

I open my eyes and stare at her. “I don’t blame you,” I say.

Her face twists into that of a rabid animal and she fights me, struggling with all her strength to force the tip of the blade into my body. But her effort is wasted on me and I finally tire of her futile attempt and snap her wrist, breaking the bone. Viper’s knife falls from Li’s grasp and bounces on the floor.

Li stares down at the knife as if it were more important to her than her broken wrist. She reaches for it again but before she can get to it I pick it up and slide it in the back of my belt. Li crumples as if shot.

“I honestly want to help you,” I say.

She stares at me with hollow eyes, empty eyes.

“Is Kyle dead?” she whispers.

“Yes,” I lie. “You don’t have to think about Kyle any more. Do you hear me, Li? He no longer has any power over you.”

Li is a mass of confusion. She keeps blinking, looking around in short jerky movements, avoiding my eyes.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to . . . ,” she begins, before breaking off into sounds that can only be described as psychotic babbling.

I want to pat her on the back, embrace her, tell her it’s not her fault. But I suspect if I so much as touch her she’ll scream bloody murder. Her programming runs deep.

I speak gently. “Li. Listen to me. You don’t know what to do and that’s understandable. You’ve been subjected to a terrible form of psychic attack. But the person who attacked you can no longer harm you. You no longer need to listen to what he told you to do. You’re free now, do you understand?”

“Free?” The word seems to catch in her throat and in her brain and at last she looks in my direction. “Free?”

I smile warmly, feeling a wave of relief.

I reach out and squeeze her hand.

“Yes, you’re free to do whatever you want,” I say.

Li recoils in horror, jumps to her feet, stares at her hands as if they’re soaked in blood, then stares at me as if I’m the one who forced her to commit the bloodshed. She moves so fast, like a witch, probably as fast as her sister in witch world, and I’m not given a chance to stop her, to save her.