Salem's Revenge Complete Boxed Set by David Estes
“Back off. They’re mine,” the leopard shrills.
Bil says, “You better not lay a single finger or claw on us. We are prized prisoners of the grand master of the Shifters herself, Flora. Long live the queen!”
The moment where I felt lucky to have Bil by my side passes with the speed of an express train.
The Pyro says, “We don’t have a master.”
The leopard says, “Flora’s not here, is she?”
Bil sucks in a breath as he realizes there’ll be no talking ourselves out of this situation. We’re trapped between razor-sharp fangs and third-degree burns.
That’s when the impossible happens. As I wait for the leopard to pounce on her prey (that’s us, in case you weren’t paying attention), thin red lines appear on her throat, slowly moving across, perfectly parallel. Her eyes go wide and her mouth fully opens and she gasps, her tongue flapping like a dog’s. Blood spurts from the wounds and she tries to clutch at her neck with her paws, but it’s far too late to stop the bleeding, which is like a high-pressure garden hose. Her powerful hind legs give out and she collapses, a mound of meat and fur in a growing pool of her own blood.
As if out of a hole in the air, a lion appears, the claws on his left front paw dripping blood, his face wearing a fierce expression of defiance. He roars, and though it seems impossible, I can recognize him even before Hex transforms back into himself, a seemingly mild-mannered German shepherd with more secrets than the CIA.
I’ve always wanted to have one of those slow-motion, jubilant animal/human reunions like you see in the movies, where the girl runs through a field of wildflowers and hugs her dog around the neck as he licks her face.
Unfortunately, we’re in a dark, dismal cave filled with fire-throwing Pyro witches, so my wish will have to remain a wish for now.
“Get them!” the Pyro shouts from behind. Blue-green fireballs arc through the tunnel, so numerous that dodging them will be impossible. One way or another, we’re going to burn.
Then there’s a flash of brown at one side, attaching itself to the wall and stretching across the passageway like a square of pizza dough pulled to its breaking point but still managing to hold. The fireballs stick to the barrier, which is dripping a thick, viscous substance resembling mud. I jump back as huge white eyes stare out from the side of it, just above a wide black mouth. “Grogg likes fire. Grogg feels warm and toasty. You run. We catch up.”
And despite my shock at seeing the traitorous little mud troll again, not to mention the fact that he’s helping us out of the very predicament he helped get us into, I run, chasing after Bil Nez, who’s galloping alongside Hex—whose eyes are like floodlights, illuminating the entire tunnel, and a tiny sprite of a girl, her hair flashing red.
“Chloe!” I shout, pulling astride. She beams at me, her smile like an upside-down rainbow missing all the colors except pink. Hex’s magical light casts a golden sheen on her freckles, which could easily be mistaken for gold coins, the leprechaun’s treasure.
“I did it,” she says, victorious. “I was scared but I did it anyway.”
Although I know we’re all still in danger, relief floods through me with each step. This poor tortured girl didn’t die because of what I asked her to do. She was strong. She was resilient. She was a survivor, and now we might survive because of her efforts. I’ll defend her to the death from this point forward, so long as she doesn’t try to force-feed slugs down my throat.
“You did it,” I echo. “I’m so proud of you.”
Bil Nez says, “Look!” and I notice a circle of light way up ahead, far beyond where even the light of Hex’s magical eyes can reach. Daylight floods into the tunnel like the brilliant beam of a lighthouse guiding a ship to safety.
We made it.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Rhett
While I sit by myself on the ground, my back against a wall, sharpening a sword that doesn’t need sharpening, the day is fading, as if the earth itself is grabbing the sun and pulling it down toward the horizon, where it will be gobbled up and digested. For some reason I get the sinking feeling that, after today, it will be dark forever.
Or maybe I’m just in a particularly awful mood. Normally I could get Laney, Hex, or even Bil to help cheer me up, but they’re still not back from whatever hare-brained adventure they decided to go on. Which scares me a whole lot. I expect this kind of thing from Bil, but not Hex or Laney. Surely if they were perfectly fine, sitting around with my father drinking coffee and discussing the finer details of his curse and how it might be lifted, they would’ve at least tried to get me a message that they’re okay.
Which means they’re probably not okay. Which makes me feel helpless and alone, like my chest is full of sharp-clawed mice, stealing my breath and tearing at my heart. I can’t lose any of them. It’s simply not an option.
And yet there’s nothing I can do, right? Nothing except continue on with the magic-born and do our best to protect Cameron Hardy and his human followers as they try to win the who-can-be-eaten-alive-by-a-deadly-animal-first race.
I’m so deep in my own dark thoughts that the Reaper’s throat-clearing cough startles me with a visible jerk.
I sigh when I see him, because I can’t even think about him as my old neighbor and mentor, Mr. Jackson. Nor can I see him as my once friend and trusted advisor. Because he’s not. He’s fully and completely THE REAPER, in all capital letters, his eyes glittering darkly, as menacing as twin storm clouds, his expression full of violence, his very presence looming, like a threat. He’s garbed in his usual long, black-hooded cloak, except now it’s adorned with a thick black-leather belt strung with all manner of gleaming steel weapons. Dual swords hang at opposing angles, crossing in the middle, so familiar, reminding me of when I stole my very first magged up witch hunting sword from Mr. Jackson’s trio. It was the first sword I ever killed a witch with, too, in a failed attempt to save the quarterback from my football team, the same guy who’d tormented me from the moment I met him. The sudden wave of brutal nostalgia hits me sharply, and I grip my own sword more tightly, until my knuckles turn red and then white.
“Are you prepared?” the Reaper asks, his weapons clanking as he lowers himself next to me. He rests his elbows on his knees, a few inches above his heavy black boots
I know he’s not asking if my bag is packed and my weapons clean and sharp. “I learned from the best,” I say.
“I’m sorry, Rhett,” he says, and he becomes Mr. Jackson again, the man I once trusted.
“For what?” I say, sincerely curious. He’s not a man who apologizes much. Does he mean for the past, the present, or the future? All three, I suspect.
“I’ve made too many mistakes,” he says.
“We all have,” I say evenly, straightening one leg.
“No, I’m talking about specific mistakes. Mistakes with your family.”
My eyes snap to his, but he’s looking away. I follow his stare all the way to Xave, who’s directing the other Necros in their preparations. They’re controlling their army of Reanimates as best they can, gathering them into rows, like macabre toy soldiers. Some of them aren’t cooperating, lashing out viciously at their masters, and the Necros are forced to chain them together. Once Xave told me that the more powerful the Necro sorcerer, the more obedient the Reanimate is when it’s finally raised. He never says, “brought back to life,” to describe what he does anymore. After his failure with Beth I think he realized that he’s not the life giver he hoped he would be.
My gaze returns to Mr. Jackson and I say, “My mother was dead, you thought my father was, too, and you tried to protect me as best as you could. Let it go.” I’m not sure if I really mean it, but I can’t have the leader of the Necros, the Reaper himself, distracted with guilt during what might turn out to be the most pivotal battle of the witch apocalypse.
“No,” he says, finally looking me in the eye. What I see there startles me. Not guilt or denial or hesitation; rather, it’s revelation that I see, the w
“No,” I reply. “Later.”
Mr. Jackson shakes his head. “You need to know before you see the Resistor again.”
The Resistor? I know he doesn’t mean Bil Nez, which leaves Flora’s well-built weapon/shield, the dark-skinned girl who annihilated the Reaper’s Reanimates using Laney’s magical bullets during our brief meeting. Does he know something about her that I don’t? I say nothing, waiting for him to continue.
“She’s your sister, Rhett,” he says, and the words feel like lightning strikes, pummeling me from above. She’s not. He’s lying. Even as I think it, I know I’m only lying to myself. Mr. Jackson has no reason to lie—not anymore—his web of secrets and deceit stripped bare by the same war that’s changed us all.
I don’t say anything, not one damn word. Nothing I can come up with in my head seems to do justice to the outrage I feel, which is laced with sadness at yet another person from my past I never got to know in the way I should’ve been able to. Perhaps if I had my old laptop, or my journal, I could write something meaningful, something that would help ease the strain on my brain, but I haven’t written anything in days now.
Mr. Jackson seems taken aback by my silence, as if he was expecting me to scream and yell and maybe even attack him, but he manages to regroup and gather his own words, which he always selects as carefully as a surgeon choosing his scalpels. “She was two years older than you. For her safety, your father had already hidden her away in foster care when your mother was murdered. He’d planned to recover her once the danger had passed. Martin—your father—had already asked me to keep an eye on her whenever I was able, and I continued to do so after he was gone, just like I did with you. She was as strong and resilient as your mother had been, but more feisty and quick to anger. She got into trouble at school and fell in with the wrong crowd, earning expulsion from two different schools for participating in brutal schoolyard fights. The foster family she was assigned to did what they could for her, but she didn’t make their lives easy.”
He pauses, as if giving me a chance to comment or ask a question, but I remain silent. “Eventually, not long before Salem’s Revenge, she ran away from her foster home,” he says grimly. “I was loathe to leave you to look for her, but you seemed okay, your life as stable and happy as I’d ever seen it. I searched for several months, tracking her through various halfway houses across four states, until the trail ran dry. She’d disappeared like a ghost in the night.”
Finally, my brain begins to work again. “How long have you known she’s a Resistor?” I ask, the question seeming to create a barrier between us. The answer is extremely important to me, I realize.
“As long as you,” Mr. Jackson says. “The night she gave us the ultimatum on behalf of the Shifters.”
I breathe deeply. I can live with that. If he’d known earlier I’d consider challenging him to the witch apocalypse version of a duel right here, right now. One more crucial question. “Why didn’t you tell me until now?”
He blinks, but doesn’t look away. “I was scared of your reaction. I didn’t want to lose the thin thread of trust we’d been building.”
I’ve heard enough of his lies at this point to know when he’s telling the truth. And he is. And I understand, even if I wish he would’ve just been honest from the start. The urge to harbor a grudge is there, but I ignore it. He told me now, and that’s all that matters.
“What’s her name?” I ask.
“Rain,” he says.
“That’s pretty,” I say. Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that she’s working with the enemy. Defending the enemy. Although the impending battle would’ve been easier if I didn’t know about my sister, I’m glad he told me now and not after I’d done something I might regret. At least now I can go into the situation with my eyes open. “Thanks,” I say.
He’s clearly surprised, his eyes widening, but he tries to hide it. “You’re welcome. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “I have no clue.”
All I know is that my life feels like a giant April Fool’s Joke most of the time. Either that or a mysterious box that has something different in it every time you open it.
~~~
My plan is a stupid one. I’d thought I’d go for a walk to clear my head, and then I thought I’d steer myself toward The Exchange to wish Cameron Hardy and the rest of them luck on their upcoming journey.
But when I try to approach the area, which is bustling with activity and preparations, four guys cut me off. They’re not huge, but they look scrappy, like they’ve been in more than their share of fights, and not just after the world went to hell in a cauldron. They’re scarred and scab-knuckled and I can almost see the chips on their shoulders, which they carry like burdens of honor.
One of them levels a revolver at my head while the others circle around me.
“Whoa, hold up,” I say. “I’m not here for trouble.”
“Well trouble’s what you got,” the leader says, eyeing me beneath dark brows. “Mr. Hardy instructed us to apprehend any non-human attempting to cross into our territory. Anyone who resists should be shot.”
“Your territory?” I say. “You have no territory.”
“You can take that up with Mr. Hardy.”
He’s already got henchmen. I gotta hand it to Cameron, he moves fast when he wants something. “I’m not a non-human,” I point out.
“Not according to the official determination made by—”
“Let me guess…Mr. Hardy,” I say drily.
“Give the kid a prize,” the guy says.
“You’re not going to shoot me.”
“If you resist, I will,” the guy says. When he chambers the first bullet with a loud gear-grinding click, I start to take him seriously.
Well, I could probably fight my way through them if I had to, but I’m not sure that would garner the kind of trust I’m eventually hoping for. “Take me to Cameron,” I say.
“You mean—”
“Yes, I mean Mr. Hardy, his lordship, his grace, his infiniteness.”
The guy throws me an unimpressed sneer, his teeth yellow and lined with black tar stains. “Pack him up,” he commands, like I’m someone’s Amazon.com order and about to be shipped cross country.
Two guys grab me roughly from behind, securing my arms, while the third unfastens my belt, which is full of weapons. Little do they know I could disarm their little quartet using only my legs in about three seconds flat. If I wanted to. Which I don’t, I continue to remind myself. “None of those better be missing when you give it back to me,” I say.
“You’re assuming you’ll be getting your weapons back,” the leader says, winking.
“Yes. I am.” Dealing with halfwits is one of the aspects of being a witch hunter that Mr. Jackson most definitely did not cover during training. As they shuffle me forward toward the edge of The Exchange, I grit my teeth and squeeze my fists and determinedly do my best to cooperate.
At least until I realize where they’re taking me. “Wait a sec,” I say. “You’re not seriously moving me to the police station.”
“Orders,” Halfwit #1 says.
I stop abruptly, jamming my heel down on Halfwit #2’s foot while immediately kicking back with the other foot. Halfwit #3’s groan is enough to know I’ve made contact with the desired target.
My hands free, I launch a haymaker punch at the leader’s head as he frantically brings his gun around. He squeezes the trigger the moment my fist impacts his jaw, but the shot goes high and wild, his weapon frisbeeing from his hand and skittering across the police station parking lot. The fourth guy practically tosses me my weapons when I sweep his legs out from under him. My sword is out in an instant, and the four injured guys don’t even try to go for their weapons.
Crap. A crowd is already gathering, drawn by the gunshot and commotion. Like I sa
“He’s killing humans!” someone shouts. “The Resistor is killing humans!”
“No, I’m not,” I say. “I’m just…” Roughing them up a little? Giving them an old-fashioned beat down? Teaching them some manners? Somehow I don’t think any of the above answers will temper the animosity that seems to radiate from the crowd like angry red heatwaves.
They don’t even seem to hear me, pushing closer, brandishing nasty words and makeshift weapons, like wooden spoons and pots. Awesome. The great witch hunter, Rhett Carter, will have a tombstone that says Didn’t know his father. Didn’t know his mother. Didn’t even know his big sister. Tragically killed by a mob wielding cooking utensils.
“Wait!” an annoyingly familiar and commanding voice shouts.
Slick-Prick himself weaves his way through the crowd amidst a smattering of applause. When Cameron Hardy reaches me, he says, “What can we do for you?” in a tone that makes it sound more like “Why the hell are you here and when are you leaving?”
“Just wanted to wish you good luck,” I say, which sounds so stupid outside of my head I wish I would’ve practiced it a few times before making the decision to come over here and actually say it.
“Thank you,” Cameron says, raising his voice, as if speaking to a child.
“Your men tried to take me in there,” I add, pointing to the police station, in all of its broken-windowed, missing-doored glory.
“My apologies, they were only following—”
“Orders, I know,” I say. “They told me. Perhaps you should be more specific with your orders next time.”
Always the politician, Cameron smiles broadly and says, “Thanks for the advice. I’ll do that. Now if that’s everything, we’ve got a lot to—”
This time it’s not me that cuts him off. It’s a shout from the police station, deep-throated and angry. All heads, including my own, turn in the direction of the bellow, just in time to see a heavy-footed man thunder through the entrance. His face is flushed and his eyes are panicked. “He made me give him my gun,” he says, directing the information toward Cameron.