Chapter 90
The citrus and pearl dust scented woman threw her arms out in front of her. She flinched, expecting to be swallowed whole.
The musician’s melancholy tenor rang in the darkness. The pure gong of his voice shoved at the horror. But without the twin blade of the woman’s soprano, the song wasn’t enough.
When the woman had dived into the darkness, she’d expected to find her brother. She hadn’t thought she’d see the boy covered in blood and gore.
It had startled her so much she’d lost the purity of her song.
This was the woman’s greatest weakness. She was loyal to her own detriment. Once she gave her loyalty, nothing could make her withdraw it. She cared too much. The caring made her hesitate. It made her stumble. It distracted her.
As soon as her song faltered, the musician knew what had caused it. The boy.
The musician thrust a water spear at the horror, but it was swallowed before it fully formed.
“Lia!” The boy dove for her, springing across the shadowed concrete. He rammed into her, right before the horror’s mouth closed. The boy and the woman flipped through the air. He gathered darkness around them.
They slammed into the ground. The wind dragged across the rough pavement. It burned as the concrete peeled skin from the boy’s back. He wrapped himself around the woman and held her as they skidded wildly.
Outside the boy’s darkness, the musician sang his cosmic song. He shot geysers at the horror and danced out of its reach. He searched the darkness for his sister, but she was shielded in the boy’s night.
Across from him, the solange-eyed one spun in a whirlwind of fiery blades.
Once, the wind had traveled through a termite mound as tall as a house.
It had heard a human say there were millions of termites inside.
It didn’t know what “million” was. It wanted to find out.
“Million” was like sand on a beach. “Million” was all the hair on a lion’s back.
“Million” was the endless fall of larvae from the horror’s belly.
The solange-eyed one fought, but could he fight a million forevers? The larva wouldn’t stop.
Smiths didn’t grow tired. The wind had watched them through the millennia. When they reached physical exhaustion, their battle spirit took over. They fought with a berserker’s single-mindedness. They never flagged. Never fatigued. The more exhausted a man should be, the more dangerous they became.
The solange-eyed one was more Smith than any Smith the wind had ever seen.
Maybe he would fight forever.
Could a body continue fighting, or would it combust when the spirit had burned out?
The wind didn’t know.
It hiccupped as the boy tucked the woman against him. They skidded to a halt, thumping against a brick wall. The boy’s darkness hid them from the horror.
The woman shuddered. She pulled in great gasps of air. She was spread over the boy like the sea over the sand.
He looked up at her, his green eyes shining with laughter. “You brought the puppy?”
A tiny white head poked out of her shirt collar. It sniffed at the blood and gore covering him, then it ducked back under her shirt.
“Jacob . . . what’s your middle name?”
“Alvin,” he said, shrugging because he’d always hated it.
“Jacob Alvin Ward, don’t you lecture me. You’re covered in blood. Can’t you take care of yourself—?”
He reached up, gripped her face, and pulled her down to him. He kissed her, tasting the sea-salt flavor of her lips and the promise of sunshine. His hands curled through her silky hair, dragging her against him as he kissed her. It was a fierce, ferocious, I-love-you kiss.
When the woman pulled away, she’d forgotten what she was about to say.
Outside the boy’s darkness, the horror shrieked, and the musician shouted, “Ha!” Then, “Lia! Need your help out here!”
She glanced over her shoulder. The boy’s arms tightened on her back. They were still sprawled on the ground, a tangle of legs and arms. The woman, her puppy, and the boy.
“Do you have a plan?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Don’t die.”
She snorted delicately. Then grinned.
He reached up and brushed a bloody hand across her cheek. His eyes softened. He loved her. The wind knew it. It had known it for a long time now. It had probably known it before the boy knew it, although the boy was entitled to his secrets too.
“I know this isn’t a great time,” the boy said, his voice as soft as a kiss, “but I wanted you to know, I lov—”
The woman pressed her hands to the boy’s lips. She shook her head. “Don’t say it.”
The boy gave her a questioning look.
“Don’t say it until I can say it back.”
He smiled against her fingers. His warm breath was gentle against her skin. “Why can’t you say it back now?”
She shook her head and glanced over her shoulder again at her brother.
“—Lia! Come on!”
“I just can’t. I want to say it when I’m free. When I can say it and mean it. I wouldn’t mean it now. Not when my own father wants me dead. Not when it’s wrong for a principal and an heir to—”
He reached up and touched her cheek, laughter lining his mouth. “Not mean it?” He shook his head. “You’re always lying, Lia.”
“I am not—”
“You are. That’s okay. I can wait to say it. I have all the time in the world.”
“Lia—!”
She glanced again at her brother. He was pinned beneath the horror’s mass.
The boy’s laughter faded. His green eyes turned from spring leaf green to dusky meadow. “Stay close to me.”
The woman looked like she wanted to argue, but then she nodded. They jumped up. The boy swept the curtain of his darkness aside.
They blasted the horror—the woman with her sharp-siren voice; the boy with a wave of diamond-bright air.
Instead of shrinking back, the horror grew.
“How . . .?” The boy gasped, stumbling under its mass.
Then, from the edge of the Silencer’s field, the cruel one laughed.
“Oh, great,” the citrus and pearl dust scented woman said. “Who invited him?”
“Take note!” the cruel one shouted. “The false Smith cannot stand against my creature! Tonight, you die. Tonight, I take the crown!”
He shoved a barrage of hate and cruelty toward the solange-eyed one. It was too much, even for a Smith. The million larvae, the horror’s darkness, and the cruel one’s spikes buried the solange-eyed one.
The cruel one laughed, and behind him, his father fed the horror. It foamed outward, frothing and seeping.
The musician fell. The horror rolled over him.
“Ragnor!” the woman cried.
The boy sprinted for the musician, shoving darkness in front of him.
The wave swallowed the boy.
The woman screamed. The sound of her voice could make a being’s ears bleed.
The cruel one turned. His eyes widened when he saw her. She’d dropped her illusions. She wasn’t wearing a Bard costume anymore.
“Celia,” the cruel one said. He was surprised and pleased, like a cat that had found a mouse it thought dead suddenly caught in its trap.
He laughed and shoved a wall of poisoned metal spikes at her.
She shot a wall of water at the spikes. They flew through the waves.
She gasped and dropped to the ground. The spikes flew over her.
“I get to kill a Smith and a Bard tonight!” the cruel one yelled. “Your father promised my sister the heir. I must correct his oversight and make certain she gets him.”
The woman crawled across the concrete. She aimed toward the black mass. The musician was there. The boy was there. Had he shielded them in his darkness?
Where was the solange-eyed one? The larvae had formed a thick, sticky, oozing cocoon around him. Were they devouring him?
Boy? the wind called. Boy?
The horror expanded. The wind shuddered.
The woman’s knees bled as she hurriedly crawled toward the darkness. The puppy whimpered in her shirt.
“Celia!” the cruel one taunted. “Will you die on your knees? Fitting, for a woman like you.”
She gritted her teeth and threw a bladed whirlpool at the cruel one.
He laughed, and the horror ate the whirlpool, growing larger.
“Your anger feeds it,” the cruel one’s father called.
The woman’s face paled. Her pulse fluttered. She was bleeding. How had that happened? Blood was gushing from her side. The woman didn’t have blood to lose. She had to be careful. She always had to be careful.
Her breath came in a great gasp, and she swayed dizzily. She pressed her hand to the wound and conjured stitches to hold her skin together.
She twisted her hand, creating a water shield.
The cruel one grinned. “I must admit, I was sad when I thought your brother had killed you. I’d always wanted to do it myself. But now . . . this is better.”
He glanced at the cocoon of larvae. Where was the solange-eyed one?
“This is better,” he said. Then he twisted his hands and flung a mountain of writhing, devouring, venomous insects at the woman. They would sting her, then they would consume her.
The wind screamed weakly.
Where was the boy?
The woman conjured, strengthening her shield of water.
It wasn’t enough. The first insects leaked through. The black mass of them rushed at her bloody side. She screamed and swept them away with water.
The wind cried, Boy! Boy!
But it couldn’t touch the horror that surrounded him. The horror would consume it.
“Jacob,” the woman gasped. “Jacob!”
She reached up with a bloody hand and gripped the crystal necklace at her throat. “Jacob! Please!”
Suddenly, the darkness was filled with a brilliant white light.
It flashed and roared, blinding everyone.
The woman gasped.
The cruel one and his father stumbled back, shouting. They covered their eyes.
The horror bellowed in agony.
The wind screamed in tandem with the bright light’s roar.
It wasn’t the boy.
It was the trickster.