Chapter 25. Jenny
Jenny
By the time we got home, Temple was barely conscious, and I’d been disconnected from my call with Ronnie.
The neighborhood was quiet. All of our rose bushes had been uprooted and destroyed.
The windows were cracked, and most of the front gutter was bent away from the roof.
Even the grass looked dull and sick, like it had gone weeks without a drop of rain.
A patch beside the front walk was burnt and blackened.
I didn’t see Alex or his thralls.
We parked on the street. I carried Temple from the back seat and set him in the grass. That seemed to help. He pressed his hands into the dirt, and I swear the grass grew a little, twining between his fingers.
“How is he?” asked Annette.
“Clammy. His pulse is racing and his breathing is ragged, but he’s alive. Give me your jacket.”
She didn’t argue. I rolled the leather coat into a pillow and placed it beneath his feet to elevate his legs.
Annette had her knife in one hand and her phone in the other. “The WiFi’s been down since shortly after the mice cast their fireball. I’m not getting anything from the cameras.”
“Come on,” I whispered. “You’re strong enough to pull through this. You’re Temple Finn, remember?” His breathing was shallow. I needed to get him inside, to warm him up and—
“Jenny.” Annette crouched beside me. “End of the world, remember?” Her words were gentle but firm.
If we didn’t stop Alex, we were all dead anyway. I squeezed Temple’s hand. “Don’t move. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“He’ll be all right,” said Annette.
I stood and sniffed the air, then listened. “Ronnie’s in the back parking lot. He’s not alone.”
I retrieved my sword and bow from the car. I nocked an arrow and strode around the house with Annette close behind.
Ronnie sagged against the side of his van, battered but conscious. Two of Alex’s thralls held him in place. Two more stood guard between him and us.
They were worse than Sage or even Morgan. Extra limbs stretched through holes in their clothing. Their bodies were thick and hunched. Their eyes watched all directions at once.
I stopped fifteen feet away. One coiled a tentacle around Ronnie’s neck. The threat was clear: if we crossed them, he died.
Ronnie’s face sagged with a mix of guilt and relief when he spotted the two of us. “I’m sorry. I tried—”
“Where’s Alex?” I asked.
“He got inside.”
“How?” asked Annette.
“It’s my fault.” He clenched his fists. “After I lost contact with you, I tried to stop him myself. I climbed onto the roof and nailed him with my sling. I’m pretty sure I broke his shoulder.
But he caught me with his tentacle and pulled me down.
He dragged me to the front door and said he’d kill me unless the house let him inside. ”
And of course the door had opened. This place protected the people who lived here. The house had given up its own security to save Ronnie’s life.
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “If Alex hadn’t gotten you, he’d have found another way in. He’s always been clever.” I handed my bow and arrow to Annette.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“Praying.” The last time I’d whispered this invocation to Artemis had been the last day the Council sent me to hunt. The day I killed Hope Lyons.
It was the day I’d understood what they turned me into. Not a hunter but a weapon.
I’d spent the next thirty-three years trying to atone for what I’d become.
ARE YOU READY TO ACCEPT YOUR TRUTH, HUNTER?
Artemis’s voice was both soothing and startling. I hadn’t even finished my prayer. “What truth is that?”
YOUR FEAR. A HUNTER CANNOT BE PREY TO FEAR.
Rude. I glanced at the shoggoth squad. They hadn’t moved. Whatever they’d expected, I doubted it included me setting my weapon aside and mumbling to myself. “I’m not afraid of them.”
NOT THEM, NO. YOU CAN’T FIGHT IF YOU’RE AFRAID OF YOUR OWN POWER, JENNIFER.
“Tell that to what’s left of the shoggoth at the Gauntlet,” I said.
YOUR IMPERTINENCE DOESN’T HIDE YOUR FEAR. NOT FROM ME.
Annette touched my arm. “Jenny? Are you still in there?”
I stepped forward. The tentacle around Ronnie’s neck tightened. He gasped for breath. I raised my hands. “I don’t want to kill them.”
Helping to kill the shoggoth was one thing, but these were children. They couldn’t have known what would happen when they got involved with Alex. They weren’t monsters. They were victims.
WOULD YOU DAMN THE WORLD TO SAVE THE LIVES OF FOUR CORRUPTED CHILDREN?
“Would you damn me to save the world?” I asked. “I believe in you, Artemis. I believe in your strength and your mercy. Help me save them all.”
Artemis’s strength flowed through my veins, replacing aches and stiffness with strength. I measured the distance between me and Ronnie, waved Annette back, and moved.
Tentacles whipped toward me. I drew my blade and severed three in a single swing. A fourth looped around my left forearm. I braced myself and pulled. The kid stumbled forward, and I landed a solid punch in the center of what remained of their face.
I moved in and severed the tentacle around Ronnie’s throat, then put him behind me and faced the thralls. All this in the span of two heartbeats.
They attacked again. I was careful not to kill the kids. I was less careful about broken bones or crushed tentacles.
“Holy shit,” Ronnie said, moments later. He stepped carefully around the fallen thralls. “You were holding back when you and I fought.”
Artemis sighed. YOU’RE STILL HOLDING BACK.
I ignored her the best I could and checked Ronnie’s injuries. His face was bruised and bloody, and he favored his left leg when he walked. His shirt was torn, revealing more bruising and swelling along the ribs. “Anything broken or bleeding?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “What happened at the Gauntlet? Where’s Temple? Is he—”
“He’s alive but down for now.” I sheathed my sword and took my bow and arrow back from Annette.
“Welcome back, Hunter,” she said dryly.
“Shut up.”
“Ms. Winter?” Ronnie sounded more uncomfortable than I’d ever heard him. “While they were holding me, I got to thinking. I had an idea. It’s a bad idea, but . . .”
“Go on,” I said.
“If Alex sacrifices this place, it’s game over. End of the world.” He swallowed and asked, “What happens if we destroy it first?”
My fingers twitched toward my sword. This was our home. “What?”
He hunched his shoulders and looked away. “Alex can’t sacrifice something that’s already dead, right?”
Annette raised an eyebrow. “And how exactly would you suggest we destroy Second Life Books and Gifts? Your little katana wouldn’t even scratch the paint.”
Ronnie opened the van’s passenger door. After digging through the glove box, he pulled out a four-foot-long olive-green pipe that couldn’t possibly have fit in there. “This is the Kensington Family Rocket Launcher.”
Annette looked at the rocket launcher, then at her Bowie knife, then back at the rocket launcher. I’d never seen her look simultaneously annoyed and envious before.
“No,” I said.
“It would stop him, though,” Ronnie pressed. “Wouldn’t it?”
My fists clenched. “Maybe.”
“My grandson is in that house,” said Annette.
“And even if we got Morgan and Sage out, destroying this place would probably kill Temple.”
Ronnie tried again, displaying impressive determination and a complete lack of self-preservation. “Wouldn’t he rather die knowing the world wasn’t going to end?”
Annette folded her arms. “Keep pushing, and I’m going to stow that rocket launcher somewhere very uncomfortable.”
There had to be a better way. “Hold on to the rocket launcher in case another shoggoth shows up, but blowing up our house is a last resort.” I started toward the door. “You two stay with Temple while I try to take Alex down.”
“Bullshit,” said Annette. “I tried going after Alex alone, and you saw what happened.”
“I love you, but you’re no Hunter of Artemis,” I said. “I’m the one he hates. And I know him better than anyone.”
“That was more than thirty years ago,” Annette argued. “People change. They grow up and get jobs and have midlife crises and sprout tentacles.”
“It’s my nightmare we’re trying to stop.” Ronnie slung the rocket launcher over his arm. “I deserve to be part of this.”
I considered punching them both out and leaving them with Temple. From the set of Annette’s jaw and the way the corner of her mouth rose, she knew exactly what I was thinking. Just like she knew I’d never be able to make myself do it.
I threw up my hands in exasperation and headed for the front door.
The air on the porch stank of blood and otherworldly death, like someone had taken the stench of the shoggoth-infected kids and mixed it with gunpowder and partially clotted blood.
The door swung open before I could touch it.
Alex Barclay stood just inside our doorway. He leaned against the wall, legs crossed at the ankles, his arm and tentacle folded over his chest. I was certain he’d worked to find just the right pose to project an air of cool control.
Sunglasses hid his eyes. His chest was bare, revealing the old scars on the left side of his torso. The tentacle grew from the stump of his arm. The skin there was red and scabby.
Seeing him was like getting punched in the stomach by a troll hopped up on diamond dust. The changes were difficult to look at, but seeing the echoes of the boy I remembered was worse.
We’d fought and laughed and raged together.
On one memorable occasion, we’d gotten miserably drunk together.
More than anything, I wanted to reach into this thing he’d become and pull out my friend.
Instead, I squared my shoulders and pursed my lips at the raw, red skin near his tentacle. “I’ve got an ointment that will help with that.”
He chuckled, and the sound was so familiar, my heart hurt. “I’ve missed the way you joke to cover your fear.”
“I’ve missed you, Alex.” I’d missed all of them, more than I’d let myself admit. “Any fear I’m feeling is for you. Look at yourself.”