Chapter Forty-Five
Drop!
The word beamed from Nana Ama’s mind as clear as if it had been said out loud. I went down.
Nana Ama launched into the air and attacked Effie, who struggled to fight her off.
At the same time, Lyle lunged at Franco.
Simon bent down, crawling on the floor among the blossoming chaos of the room, before getting to his feet, slipping in his expensive shoes, and running out of the door.
Lyle grabbed the gun, forcing Franco to move the barrel in Effie’s direction.
They fought over the gun and it went off.
The bullet hit her in the side and she fell to the ground next to me.
I rolled over her, trying to keep her down.
The bullet was no more than a mosquito bite to Effie.
But my suddenly being on top of her disoriented her.
I felt the power of the adze flushing my system, Effie’s blood bolstering me enough to put up a fight.
But she was too strong for me, and she recovered, hitting me in the chest with hammer-like hands. I flew back into a wall. Plaster and rock rained over me. Nana Ama launched at Effie once again, pinning her to the floor.
Another shot went off wildly in the air. Franco cried out, no match for Lyle’s brute strength. Lyle knocked him out.
Below us, the abalsoms began to churn. And Luke began to convulse, the monster beginning to take over.
“Gotta get out,” he managed. “Get … her … out.”
Naira. That’s who he meant as he struggled against the monster trying to free itself. He looked at his unconscious girlfriend. The most innocent of us all.
“Get her out!” he howled.
The door from the cellar exploded, setting the horde of abalsoms free.
The first abalsom barreled toward me, and I grabbed its forearms, calling to my other nature.
It came to me naturally. My nails grew into sharp points and I swiped at the thing, gouging out a chunk of its neck.
Lyle and Sekou attempted to block the cellar to keep more abalsoms from entering and overpowering us.
But we all knew there were too many, much too many to take out at once.
I ripped the throat out of another and another while Lyle and Sekou did the best they could.
We were outnumbered.
Behind us, the fight between the sisters intensified and they flew at each other above our heads.
The air crackled with electricity as the two of them transformed into their full form.
Effie, fueled by more human blood and rage than Ama, was bigger, more monstrous, with razor fangs.
The cuffs were still on her leathery skin, the amulet still embedded in it.
And Ama with nothing at all but her smaller adze form.
Sekou and Lyle stopped and stared, the first time they’d seen an adze in full form.
They lunged at each other with such force that the whole foundation shook.
The impact blasted them apart and into walls that crumbled, causing huge chunks to rain down on us and on the abalsoms that piled in.
The large slabs of stone and wood fell off and onto some of the monsters trying to get at us as we retreated farther and farther back.
The ground below us was opening and some of the abalsoms fell through the jagged hole. Falling debris and bodies slammed into the exposed pipes. Something like a teakettle whistled, light and high-pitched. The exposed pipes had been punctured.
The abalsoms jumped on Franco like locusts. His screams were horrible and the mass over him writhed and undulated as they ripped him apart.
With epic strength, Ama sent Effie crashing down to the crumbling floor. Effie stopped cold, suddenly confused. Her head cocked to the side as if she were listening for something, receiving something. Then she looked where her abalsoms had gathered around her. All of them froze.
Together, they turned toward her with their horrible, ruined faces. They breathed in unison. Effie looked down at them, disbelief all over her face as her creations stood there, staring at her. Waiting for something.
She got to her feet, favoring her left side. “What are you doing?” she said to them. “Move! Attack them. Get her!” Effie pointed to Ama still hovering in the air, her powerful gaze locked on the abalsoms.
Collectively, their heads craned up and looked at Ama, but they made no moves to attack her.
“What are you doing?” Effie flicked a hand and sent a few of them flying. “What are you doing?” They slowly crawled toward Effie, disobeying her commands. She took a step back, unsure. “What? What? What?” she sputtered.
And then they attacked her, creating a pile of jerky bodies. They muffled her scream.
Luke wheezed, using the few seconds Ama had bought us. “Go!”
Hailey was fighting with him, begging him to come too. He pushed her away toward the closed door.
“Go!” he growled again, using his arms to pull himself toward the pulpy mess that had been Franco. “Go. Get Naira. Please, save yourselves.”
Suddenly, the pile of abalsoms blew apart, revealing Effie in the middle, her arms outstretched.
The bodies went flying every which way, and we had to take cover to avoid being hit by them.
Effie shot up, bloodied and with murder in her eyes.
Ama had turned her creations against her.
She barreled into Ama and drove her into the chandelier hanging from the ceiling.
The ancient pieces swayed precariously, then dropped like deadweight, and we scrambled to take cover from the flying shards and metal pieces.
The abalsoms regained their footing, coming now at anything that was living, no longer controlled by either sister. They were in a free-for-all and they wanted blood.
The sisters ripped and snarled at each other, battling, rolling around intertwined as each fought to gain the upper hand.
I yelled for the others to get out. I had to figure out another way to help my grandmother, but there was nothing I could see. I couldn’t even see her.
And there was no opening for us to get through the abalsoms.
Sekou screamed over the roar of zombies and the sounds of the battle above us, “Hailey, you got any more juice in that thing? Just like last night!”
Yes! The whistle. That could buy us a little bit of time to get everyone out.
Hailey stood up, taking in a deep breath. We all put our hands over our ears. She pulled out the cylinder, shook it hard, and pressed the button.
In the crumbling house the sound was louder, reverberating against the weak and porous walls.
The abalsoms dropped to the ground writhing, screaming.
Some fell back through the huge hole in the floor, crashing into the exposed pipes below.
Fumes of gas began wafting up from it and we started to cough.
My grandmother and Effie broke apart. Effie roared, her hands flying to her ears. Nana Ama bared her teeth and went after her sister. They flew up into the second floor.
Lyle picked up Naira from the floor, threw the front door open, and went through. But I wasn’t going to leave my grandmother. No way. I wouldn’t leave her, not when she’d come back for me.
Luke had found a lighter, golden cased and bloodied, in Franco’s pocket. I knew what he meant to do. I tried to tell him to stop. To wait because my grandmother was still in here. Somewhere upstairs where I could hear her and Effie still going at it.
Luke flicked it open. “Tell Naira I love her,” he said as Sekou pulled me toward the front door.
“No. Let me go. We can’t leave her. Not here,” I cried. I tried to pull myself away from him, but he was unbelievably strong, even for me.
Lyle had returned for Hailey, who refused to let go of her brother’s hand. “No, Luke! Not when I’ve just found you again,” she said. “You can beat this. You can.”
But he couldn’t. He knew it. I knew it. We all did. Even Hailey. This was Luke’s last stand. A way to absolve himself of the things he’d done these past weeks under Effie’s control.
“Too late for me,” he panted out. “I feel her will running through me. I’ll be like them soon. I … can’t.”
Lyle yanked hard on Hailey, just as Luke managed to slip his hand from hers. They ran out the door.
Nana Ama reappeared. She held Effie in her claws and was about to rip her throat out. Nana looked at me. Looked at Luke and what he held and at the abalsoms once again emerging through the broken floorboards. My grandmother understood.
“Let her go, Nana! Please,” I begged, my hands reaching out to her. Sekou flung me over his shoulder and ran toward the door.
“Nana!” I screamed once more.
But she’d already turned, tossing an unmoving Effie and lowering herself to face the horde of abalsoms advancing on us.
For a suspended second, our eyes locked—mine terrified and pleading with her not to stay, Ama’s full of fire and fury—I saw the entire world of my people, Nyame, and his kingdom Above in her eyes.
I saw the strongest person I’d ever known and would ever know in my long, long life.
I tried to change into my form, to break free and snatch her before Luke lit the fire. But I couldn’t concentrate. My adze self would not come.
We jumped over the threshold onto the brittle porch that nearly caved in from our weight.
The legion of abalsoms swarmed Ama.
We hit the last step, onto the path, then began running over the uneven dirt away from the house. Luke flicked the lighter, but it failed to produce a flame.
Effie bellowed, “No!” and I could feel the anger, the fear, the hate coiling like vipers all around us. She tried to escape through the door, but Ama tackled her and held her down as the abalsoms swarmed around them.
The lighter finally flicked. And then with a spark and a whoosh, the flames caught on the gas fumes. Then I heard the swell of abalsom screams as the fire spread like the hollowing, consuming them all.