The Children and the Blood (37 page)

He continued into the living room. Carter followed, glancing between the man and the open door.

“You’re being rather rude, Norman, just barging in here,” Elsa protested, rising from her seat.

“I just need to ask you something. I’m planning on bringing food to the senior center for the Fourth of July, and I was wondering if you would–”

“Norman!” Elsa cried.

He spun to face them, an old pistol clutched in his shaking hand.

Everyone in the room froze.

“Think about what you’re doing, buddy,” Bus said carefully.

“Shut up,” Norman snapped. He sidled between Elsa and the others, half-turning his head to the old woman as he continued. “I don’t know what they’ve told you, Elsa, but these people–”

He cut off, his hand jerking in alarm as the police scanner squawked. Ashe flinched at the motion, and then felt the blood drain from her face as the scratchy words filled the room.

“All available units, please respond. We have a report of a hostage situation at 1512 East Pine. At least four suspects, potentially armed, holding a seventy-year-old white female. Suspects are a white teenage female wanted for homicide in Montana, black male approximately fifty years old, white male approximately–”

“You son of a bitch,” Bus growled.

The gun twitched toward him.

“I’m taking her out of here,” Norman said, his voice trembling. “I’m not going to let you hurt her.”

“Norman…” Elsa started fearfully.

“Quiet.” The gun moved toward Ashe. “Get away from the door.”

Barely breathing, she slid from the hallway into the living room. Nervously, her eyes went to Carter, and she saw him nod slowly to the old woman.

Elsa slumped to the floor. Startled, Norman turned to her, taking his eyes from the room.

Bus slammed into him. Clutched in Norman’s hand, the weapon swung toward Spider and the girl hit the ground.

The pistol fired, the sound deafening in the crowded living room. Smashing his elbow into the man’s side, Bus sidestepped and then sent the weapon clattering to the floor.

Norman choked. Hand outstretched, he stumbled toward his pistol, and then froze when he saw Carter’s gun.

“Don’t,” Carter said quietly.

Scowling, Spider shoved up from the carpet and then crossed the room, retrieving the pistol while Bus patted Norman down.

Carter glanced to the kitchen window, his gun still leveled at the other man, and Ashe followed his gaze.

Her breath caught.

Four wizards stood outside the bar.

Panicked, she looked to Carter. His eyes narrowed and then he swore as the men started for Elsa’s house. “Go! Out the back. Now!”

Bus and Spider didn’t hesitate. Tossing the pistol behind the couch, Spider headed for the porch door and yanked it open. Taking Elsa’s hand, Bus hurried the old woman outside.

Ignoring Norman’s objections, Ashe rushed after them, Tala and Mischa on her heels.

“Mitzi!” Elsa cried.

With a fluid motion, Carter ripped open the basement door, and then strode across the room. Grabbing Norman by one arm, Carter spun him around, jabbed the muzzle of his gun into the man’s side and then forced him out onto the deck.

“What do you want?” Norman protested as Carter muscled him down the stairs. “Money? Just let Elsa go. Whatever you want–”

“Shut up,” Carter growled.

Unlatching the chain-link gate, Bus held it wide as the others hurried into the utility easement between the yards. Sirens shrieked in the distance, coming closer. Scooping the little dog into her arms, Elsa hesitated at the gate, her gaze going back to her house.

“Elsa…” Bus urged.

Clutching the animal, she left the yard.

“Which house is his?” Spider asked.

Norman made a protesting noise as Elsa pointed. “The blue one.”

Three houses down, Carter shoved open the gate in the tall wooden fence surrounding Norman’s property. “Go,” he told Elsa. “They’re after us, not you.”

Releasing Norman, he propelled him through the entrance after the old woman.

“Get her inside,” Carter ordered. “Keep her away from the windows and don’t answer the door for anyone. Her life depends on it.”

An explosion thundered from the yellow cottage, punctuated by the sound of shattering glass and wood. Elsa cried out and staggered back toward her home. Dumbstruck, Norman caught her.

Carter motioned the others to run. “Go!” he barked at Norman.

As she started after Spider, Ashe caught a glimpse of the old man hurrying a sobbing Elsa toward his house.

They ran down the easement and skirted the opening to the street. Police sirens blared in the neighborhood behind them, joined by the howl of fire engines racing to the scene. Darting across the road, they cut through the space between two houses and swiftly scaled the fence separating the yards.

“Split up,” Carter said, pausing for the dogs to leap the barrier. “Head for Pepper.”

Spider jerked her chin at Ashe, and then clicked her tongue at Mischa before taking off. Ashe followed, looking back to see Carter and Bus disappear around the corner with Tala.

She ran after the other girl, dodging between the houses and parked cars lining the streets. From one road to the next, they emerged into a business district, but Spider didn’t slow, veering between two buildings and then across the parking lot behind them. A gap in the fence cordoning off the lot gave them entrance to the next street, and a space in the row of office buildings that followed let them into the alleys behind.

Heart pounding, Ashe glanced back as they dashed between the brick buildings. The sirens were growing fainter, trapped by the need to check the neighborhood before moving on. Smoke from Elsa’s house billowed into the sky, but the clouds were growing thinner with every moment. Mischa panted heavily at her side, and the sound of her own breathing drowned the rush of traffic in the streets.

Spider raced around the corner, Ashe on her heels.

Energy slammed into her, propelling her back into a dumpster, and Mischa yelped as she crashed down beside her. Gunshots rang out, the bullets pelting the brick walls.

Dizzily, Ashe pushed up from the concrete, blood dripping down her face. Darkness swirled across her vision and then pulled away.

A wizard had Spider by the throat. His other hand gripping the girl’s wrist and his knee crushing her chest, he pinned her to the ground, and as she fired desperately at his defenses, his mouth curved into a smile.

Magic rose around him. Above him.

And swung down.

Ashe screamed at the fires inside.

White heat turned the air to flame as it raced over her body, her arms, her hands. Ripping past Spider, the magic slammed the wizard and threw him backward. Shoving to her feet, Ashe strode down the alley, her eyes locked on the man.

Burned and bleeding, he tried to rise.

Fire met him.

He couldn’t even scream. Flames tore into him, raking his body till only a blackened corpse dropped to the ground.

Trembling, she lowered her arm.

A click sounded behind her.

She stopped breathing. Slowly, she turned around.

Her gun aimed at Ashe’s chest, Spider stared. The girl’s face was bloodless. Her hands shook. Red marks from the wizard’s grip shone brightly against the pale skin of her throat.

But her expression never wavered.

“Spider…”

The girl made a warning noise, the weapon twitching in her hand. Wordlessly, she backed away, not taking her eyes from Ashe. Reaching for Mischa, she fumbled till she found a grip on the dog’s collar and then tugged the limping animal with her.

At the corner of the alley, she paused, and Ashe could read the threat in her eyes. Her fingers tightening on the gun, Spider watched her a moment more, and then disappeared behind the corner of the building. Her footsteps pounded on the pavement as she raced away.

Ashe blinked.

She…

A shiver shook her.

Spider just…

In dazed incredulity, her gaze dropped to the concrete. The blackened corpse waited by her feet and she flinched, backing away.

They’d left. Spider. But with her went Carter. Bus. Jericho and Magnolia and Peony and Belle and…

Ashe gasped as names tumbled through her head like pebbles preceding an avalanche.

It’d happened. It’d finally happened. Every safe person, every safe place had evaporated in a heartbeat, and in their place, the whole great world opened like a maw, full of nothing but emptiness and waiting to swallow her whole.

Because of what she was. Because everything about her had always been a lie.

A choked sound escaped her. Unsteadily, she turned, her feet leading her away from the body and the direction Spider had gone. She trembled as she reached the end of the alley, the broad street suddenly seeming a thousand times more threatening than before.

Nervously, she started across the road. Her feet moved faster. Faster. Air grated on her lungs as she ran.

Wizards would be coming. And with them, the Blood.

The city blurred. Alleys sped by, broken by parking lots and main thoroughfares. Racing past a busy street, she darted around the buildings on the opposite side and then skidded to a stop. A steep embankment rose like a wall before her, topped by train tracks. Frantically, she cast a glance back to the traffic and then rushed for the slope, pulling herself up by tree roots and scrabbling at the shale from the railroad. She dashed over the tracks and then slid down from the rise, her hands scraping on the gravel as she tried to control her fall.

Athletic fields stretched in front of her, with office buildings covered in security cameras on their far end. A soccer team played to her left, their shouts punctuating the noise of traffic from beyond the railroad.

Swallowing hard, she glanced to her right. A wall of scraggly brush and a chain-link fence separated the field from the rear of a cemetery.

She took off.

Her scraped hands stung as she jumped the fence, but she ignored them. Heart pounding, she dropped down amid the bushes and trees, and checked around warily. No shouts rose. Even the traffic sounded distant here. At the heart of the cemetery, a line of cars waited by a maroon pavilion on a hill, the late afternoon light silhouetting the figures within.

She hesitated, watching them. They were too far away to make out any details, which meant she would be indistinct as well. Biting her lip, she edged around the graveyard, sticking to the brush and ducking deeper into the foliage when she reached the cemetery’s adjacent side.

The well-tended lawns of a massive office complex lay beyond the trees. Cameras watched from the enormous buildings dotting the grassy swaths, while gardeners riding noisy lawnmowers carved checkerboard paths through the fields.

Behind the cover of the brush, she sank to the ground. The sun would set soon. In the darkness, it’d be easier to cross that vast space.

And go somewhere.

Her eyes stung. The vast, unknown sprawl of the city seemed to contract around her, drawing in upon places she could no longer go. Places where her friends would shoot her if she came close.

Sniffling, she struggled to push the thought away. Reaching up gingerly, she touched the cut on her forehead and then flinched when it stung. She’d hit something besides the dumpster when she fell, but unlike the gunshot wound all those weeks ago, the gash hadn’t healed and she had no idea why.

She pulled up her knees and hugged them to her chest. The fires gave way, crushing down into nothing with more ease than ever before.

Fires. But more like energy now than flame. Like light as much as heat.

And by her command, by her thought alone, they’d burned that wizard alive.

Shivering, she swallowed down the memory. She didn’t know if she’d meant to kill him. She didn’t know if it mattered. He was still dead.

She was still responsible.

But he’d been about to kill Spider. He’d worked for the men who murdered her family. He’d been after her.

And she’d just killed him. Like the men in the forest, and the way she wanted to kill the Blood wizard.

If she still could.

Closing her eyes tightly, she fought back the tears. Everything wasn’t lost. The Hunters might be gone, but she could go after him on her own. After all, the Blood wizard was in this city somewhere, and now he knew she was here too. He’d come looking.

And maybe she’d see him first.

Drawing a ragged breath, she rested her aching head on her knees and tried desperately to believe the words. To believe she hadn’t lost everything along with her friends.

It wasn’t easy.

In the cemetery, cars pulled away from the pavilion and wound their way down the hill. Minutes drifted past, and then three gravediggers climbed the slope and set to work atop the rise.

“You know, if you’re going to hide, you might want to try not running away in a straight line.”

Her breath caught and she looked up to see Spider watching her through the branches.

“Though, as covers go,” the girl continued, her voice slightly raspy from the bruises around her throat, “it’s not bad.”

She glanced to the trees, but Ashe could hear the double meaning in her words. Returning her gaze to Ashe, Spider studied her briefly, and then pushed aside the branches and slid into the small hollow between the bushes. She held back the tree limbs for Mischa to follow, and then lowered herself to the ground as Mischa limped over to lay at Ashe’s side.

Spider said nothing, watching the dog.

“So what are you?” she asked finally.

“Wizard,” Ashe answered quietly.

“How’d you get past them?” She jerked her chin at Mischa.

“I don’t know.”

Spider’s eyes narrowed. Ashe looked away.

“I’m sorry I lied to you,” she told Spider.

The girl paused. “You were pretty convincing.”

Ashe exhaled, struggling to know what to say. “I wasn’t… I’m not…” She stopped and took a deep breath. “I didn’t know what I was. Not until you told me about the wizards after what happened at Shen’s.”

“Why didn’t you do anything?” Spider asked, anger breaking through her calm for the first time. “You could’ve saved her! You–”