Witch And Wizard: Fire Part 5

Pearl looks mesmerized by the wolves, her small body literally shaking. "Stick with Mama May," I whisper. "Don't look back, just go!"

"Under the direct order of The One Who Is The One," a chubby recruit reads from a ledger, "the members of this household are to be placed under arrest for the despicable deeds of harboring high-risk fugitives and practicing those forbidden acts and readings a.s.sociated with what was formerly known as the Holiday, punishable by execution in Orderly Square."

The Needermans seem resigned through their tears. They knew this day would come.

"Nice tree," one soldier says flatly, sneering. "St.u.r.dy wood, pine. Should work nicely for your hanging gallows."

They lunge forward, and chaos erupts. The Needermans seem to have disappeared, and in their place is a frenzied group of scattering mice. Some of the soldiers are stomping at the floor, and one phobic guy is shrieking in fear.

Wisty winks at me, and in an instant I'm reminded that when it comes to morphing things, rodents are her specialty.

In the pandemonium, we're able to dart past the soldiers and up the crumbling staircase to the destroyed apartments above, h.e.l.l's beasts snapping at our heels. Frantic, dizzy, we circle up and up. I haven't considered what we'll do when we reach the top when the staircase just ends. The next floor is bombed out, and the only thing that stands between us and the b.l.o.o.d.y, snarling jaws of the wolves is a shattered window.

One of the men laughs as his wolf strains against the chains. "End of the line. Where else are you gonna go?"

"Now would be the time for a hawk spell," I say to Wisty.

This is when we'd typically morph smoothly into graceful winged creatures, taking flight and soaring above this red-bannered city, our pursuers nothing but tiny black smudges on the landscape below.

Yet here we still are. Human.

Wisty sighs in frustration. "My power's shorting out or something. It's like it works on other people but not on us."

Without a spell, without a choice, I tackle Wisty and together we tumble out of the fourth-story window, falling, falling And then a crushing thud.

Chapter 19.

Wisty WHIT AND I stand up, coughing, panting, and a little bruised but victorious.

I glance, bewildered, at the enormous pile of trash that broke our fall, and an old woman nods at me as she walks away down the demolished street, trying to look inconspicuous. A small sign of support and unity. We are not the only ones still battling this unjust system. The soldiers lean out the window, bellowing insults, but they can't get to us.

So why are these N.O. men grinning? I squint up at the window. They've got something small and angry squirming between them.

They've got Pearl Marie.

She struggles against them, her little face fierce with determination, but the men laugh, yanking her arms back and forth.

"You forgot your little pet," one jeers at us. "We could toss her down to you" - he dangles Pearl out the window as she screams - "but I think we'll just hang on to her for now. You know, for safekeeping."

"You didn't change her, too?" Whit whispers angrily at me.

"I thought I changed them all," I say, irritated. "There's no way I could've missed her!"

"She must've slipped out before then." Whit sighs. "She was terrified of those wolves. I told her to stick with Mama May and run. We'll have to find her after we've got our energy back and built up the Resistance forces."

He turns, and I look up to see Pearl's distraught face at the crumbling window, struggling against the pull of her captors.

"We're not just going to leave her," I demand. I can't believe what I'm hearing. Back in the days of the Resistance, we never would've left someone behind.

"What choice do we have?" Whit asks, his voice strained with emotion. "You know I care about that kid, Wist. It isn't safe here for you for us. I just got you back, and I'm not ready to lose you again."

Whit looks up at little Pearl Marie. "We'll come back for you!" he yells. "We promise. And we always keep our promises." I catch sight of her brave nod as the guards sweep her away - and swiftly down the stairwell, I'm a.s.suming, toward us.

Resentfully, I dash down the alley of rubble after my brother, mice fleeing in our path. After we've been running for what seems like forever, I turn to Whit, still angry. "That's not true, what you said," I tell him.

He looks at me, confused. "What's not true? I didn't say anything."

"That stuff you told Pearl Marie when we ran away like cowards, when we left her there at the mercy of those goons," I say bitterly. "You said we always keep our promises. Who have we made promises to, Whit? Celia. The Resistance kids. Mom and Dad."

Whit's face flushes, but he remains silent.

"A big help we've been to all of them, big brother. We shouldn't be making promises to anybody, not to a single soul, and especially not to that doomed little girl."

Chapter 20.

Wisty "GOT TO STOP. Going to barf," I wheeze.

I slow to a halt next to a closed fast-food joint, and my brother, who's way ahead, jogs back to me. It's almost nightfall, and we're not even out of the capital, but the plague has weakened me more than I want to admit.

There's a huge neon sign blinking the One-Der Burger's logo: THE ONE IS FOREVER. CONSUME HAPPILY. I'm doubled over, but I turn to cough some phlegm in its direction.

Whit's eyes are full of concern. "You okay, sis? I'm fine stopping for the night. You're looking a little wrecked."

I shake my head. "I'll be okay. I just need to catch my breath. It'd be nice if we could just fly or something."

"Your M still acting up?" Whit's frowning at me.

I roll my eyes. "I know, okay? It was dumb to waste all that energy on a weak fire and Holiday lights so soon after being sick, and now my mojo's weak, and blah, blah, blah "

"No, that's not what I mean. I don't think it's the plague messing with your magic. It's happening to me now, too, and I had trouble with spells before, when you were still unconscious. It's the air out here or something that's blocking it."

"Huh," Is say, sitting down on the curb next to an appallingly expensive black car, its seats littered with One-Der Burger wrappers. "So we're in the middle of a capital crawling with Death Squad soldiers, The One Who Is The One has a price on our heads, and neither of us has any magic to help us out of this mess? Didn't you just whip up a whole Holiday feast and, like, cut down a tree with your arm?"

I mime a chopping action and accidentally hit the black car. The alarm goes off, its plaintive wail cutting into the still night air. My adrenaline surges, and we sprint over to hide behind the One-Der Burger Dumpster, but there's not a soul around to respond, and soon the repet.i.tive howl cuts off.

Whit shoots me an annoyed look and steps out from behind the Dumpster. Then he jumps right back into our conversation. "I felt strong in the Needermans' bas.e.m.e.nt, and I was okay if I stayed relatively close, but the farther away we get from that positive energy it's like a switch has been flipped and I'm about as powerful as a mosquito."

"Looks like our only chance is to get our power from other people," I say.

"What do you mean?" Whit's looking at me like I just read his mind, and he's not super comfortable with it. The blinking light from the One-Der Burger sign gives his face an eerie hue.

"Strength in numbers, right?" I touch Whit's arm, thinking aloud. "The only thing that beats One is two, and three, and four. You said we'd go back for Pearl once we built up the Resistance forces again. I vote we try to find Janine, Emmet, Sasha, Jamilla - everyone we can track down - to help out."

Whit shakes his head like he's about to deliver some really bad news. "They're all on the missing-persons list. Hewitt showed me a copy he'd somehow gotten hold of."

"So?" I challenge. I sound angrier than I mean to.

"So, that means there's no Resistance anymore." He's rubbing his forehead like he does when he's frustrated and upset. He looks me in the eyes, measuring his words. "It means they're probably all dead, Wist. We're all that's left."

My brother's trying to control his emotion, to keep his face strong. To anyone else he'd look calm, resigned. But I'm his sister, and I can hear that slight quiver in his voice; I can see the small twitch of muscles around his mouth. He's remembering them.

I know he's thinking of Janine and the way she took charge of the Resistance with unending compa.s.sion and capability after Margo was killed, sending in more and more rescue teams to get captured kids out of the prisons, even as the bombs rained down. Or maybe he's remembering the look she used to give him, the intimate, adoring gaze that he pretended never to notice but that we all could see as plain as day. He'd been the only one who could crack her sh.e.l.l. But maybe the New Order finally broke her.

Like me, Whit's probably thinking of Sasha with his dark curly hair, stubborn and strong-willed but with more revolutionary fight in him than anyone. Or of kind, levelheaded Emmet, the gentle giant who my brother knew would always have my back if he wasn't around, who said I looked awesome, even when I hacked off all my hair to stay off the radar.

I cross my arms and walk a couple of paces, thinking of my lost friends and feeling the bubble of grief well up and lodge itself in my throat.

Then I turn around. We owe them more than this. More than just letting them go.

"The One controls that list, right?" I ask. Whit nods. I'm anxious, talking faster and pacing the parking lot even though I'm dead tired from running all day. "Well, just because he doesn't know where they are doesn't mean they're not still alive."

Whit's brow crinkles as he considers this possibility. His face struggles between hope and defeat. "But if The One can't find them, how are we going to? They could be anywhere by now."

I think for a minute. "The last time we saw Emmet and Janine was in that underground steam pipe after Garfunkel's was blown up, before we got separated, right?" Whit shrugs, but I see the doubt on his face. "So we start looking by going back there. Maybe they turned it into the new Resistance HQ."

It's not likely, but it's possible, right?

"All right, Captain Wisteria. If you say we'll find 'em, I guess we'll find 'em." Whit punches me playfully, but I know he's trying to downplay just how much this outcome matters. "Vive la Resistance!" He does an energetic lap around the parking lot, ready to sprint to the steam pipe right now.

"Only, Whit?" I call after him.

"Yeah?"

"I'm not quite ready for another all-night journey through the lion's den of the New Order just yet. I think I'll take you up on that offer to find someplace to sleep first."

Whit bangs on the side of the Dumpster. The mealy, gag-inducing stench of rotting meat is wafting over. Oh no. I am so not going to - "Got a better idea?" my know-it-all brother asks.

He plants his hand and vaults his legs over in a graceful move even I have to admire. Whit has always been athletic, but in the weeks we were apart, he must've been training on his own nonstop. He's gotten, as Celia would say, "seriously ripped."

I scramble in after him. As much as I don't want to lay my head to rest among the sc.r.a.ps of the New Order citizenry's garbage, it's strangely fitting, actually. Kinda poetic.

It's also sheltered. And out of the way. And, as my brother has already discovered, full of food. Well, if you can call "food" a quarter pound of deep-fried meat that consists of the body parts of hundreds of different animals and is now discarded in a crumpled bag in the bottom of a Dumpster.

Whit sees my expression and shrugs. "I'm starving," he says, chomping off a chunk of a half-eaten One-Der Biggie Burger. Three words: Dis. Gust. Ing.

My stomach complains loudly and Whit grins, holding the bag out to me. "Happy Holiday," my brother says, mouth full. Reluctantly I reach into the sack.

But the only thing left in this bag is a kid's plastic action figure of The One, bald head shining in the weak light of the Dumpster.

My temper simmers, and I melt The One down to nothing in my hand.

"Whoa," says Whit. "You've got some mojo in you after all."

I shake my head. "That's not mojo. That's just pure hatred."

Chapter 21.

Whit "WHIT, BABY? CAN you hear me?"

I wake - or think I wake - to the sweetest voice I've ever heard.

Her face - her perfect, beautiful face - is just inches from mine, and I swear, if my heart stopped beating right now, I'd die happy. Her long dark curls frame her face, and she's looking into my eyes in that calm, unself-conscious way that always did me in. I hold my breath and inhale her scent.

If this is a dream, I never want to wake up.

"Celes, is that really you? I so want it to be you." Chasing Celia's image has gotten me into trouble before, and Wisty's convinced it's The One trying to manipulate me. If so, I have to admit, he's using the right angle. Celia's the one thing I can't say no to. I'd probably run into a snarling pile of zombie wolves if she asked me to.

Celia surveys the Dumpster. "Nice digs you got here, baby. A little fancier than the Shadowland, I'll give you that, but I have to say, you smell worse than a herd of Lost Ones." She wriggles her nose in mock disgust.

I grin. That's my girl.

I reach out to touch her face, her smooth, soft skin, and she turns her cheek, mimes kissing my hand even though it's only air. My heart aches. She's never felt more real, but moments like this don't last very long.

"Oh! I almost forgot!" Celia reaches into her pocket. "I brought you a present for the Holiday," she says, and smiles in that way of hers - shyly - that brings back a rush of memories so potent I almost can't take it: the first time she placed her hand in mine, her slender fingers so warm; her face when I scored the winning touchdown; the day she first introduced me as her boyfriend; the first time I saw her, as a ghost, after she disappeared.

She places the object in my hand, and I can actually feel it. It's a fountain pen - sleek, shiny, perfectly crafted - just like Celia. I've never used one of these, but I can't wait to try it.

"Celia, it's this is beautiful," I say, turning over the pen in my hands.

She smiles, pleased. "It's not as old-school as it seems. Really. You can write with it anywhere, on any surface, and it'll record your words wherever you want. You can write your story, no matter where The One forces you to run."

"I'll write your story, too," I vow.

But suddenly Celia's eyes look far away, like she's reading from a letter. "And, Whit? There's something else I have for you. A message. From your parents."

My heart seizes up. If my parents can still contact us through Celia, if we can still communicate, it's as if they're not really gone. "My parents? You've seen them?" I manage.

"Your dad said to remind you: You and Wisty need to share your Gifts if you're going to get anywhere. And your mom said to be brave, and not to be afraid to let go." Celia smiles sadly. "But you and I both know you're not very good at letting go, right, baby?"

The air around her is cold, way colder than it should be.