“Crush him,” Matthew murmured. “Weight of Sins.”
A haze erupted around her, ripples of energy seeming to flow out from her, bombarding Death.
He laughed. “I’d have to consider my deeds sinful for you to have power over me, Calanthe.” He lopped off her arm with one of his swords, while his other arced around for her neck. Slice.
I gazed away, my eyes watering.
Matthew squeezed my hand. “She fears him no more.”
Across the field, Joules howled with grief, retreating as Ogen gave chase.
Leaving Death alone with his kill.
When he turned toward his red-eyed steed, awaiting not far from our secret spot, I glimpsed Death’s face for the first time.
Surprise rocked me. Death was the most beautiful boy I had ever imagined.
Looking to be no more than twenty years old, he was tall and broad-shouldered with a breathtaking face. I imagined some might describe his features as noble. His eyes glittered like . . . stars.
How could someone so evil look so divine?
He jammed his battered helmet onto the saddle pommel, and exhaled a gust of breath. Every line in his bearing screamed weariness.
Yet then he stilled, craning his neck to look directly at Matthew. “I’ve been around long enough to sense your unblinking gaze, Fool.” His voice was a harsh rasp. “You allowed her to see me at play? Perhaps I won’t kill you last after all.”
Then his attention turned on me. “Don’t worry, Empress, Matto remembers his debts. He’ll show you to me as well.” His accent sounded Eastern European, or maybe Russian? “I’ll watch all your battles and discover your cunning tricks. After tonight, I’ll whisper in your mind more freely than any of the Arcana.”
I was speechless, still awestruck by his face.
Which seemed to take him aback. “Are you weak? Our game is no fun if you’re weak. Are you faint of heart and short of courage?”
Matthew squeezed my hand, prompting me to croak, “No.” It sounded like a question.
Death narrowed those glittering eyes. “I’ve waited endless years to battle you again. Will you not face me?”
Face him? What was I supposed to “battle” him with?
Behind him, that field might as well have been a lunar landscape for all the plants that grew. Should I attack an armored knight with my thorn claws?
Just as he’d once said, I did have life in my blood. But even if I had time to grow seeds, garden plants couldn’t withstand those swords.
How much blood would it take to grow an acorn into a formidable ally?
“Remember, Empress,” he said. “Death always defeats life. It might take time, but I will always win.” As he mounted that mighty steed, he pinned me with his hypnotic gaze. “When your blood bathes my sword, I’ll drink it just to mock you. . . .”
I woke with a gasp, back at the McMansion.
Matthew looked groggy, slow to come out of his vision.
“What the hell, kid?!” We’d not only witnessed a murder, we’d talked with the killer! “Wake up.” I shook his shoulder. He seemed a hundred times more exhausted than before he’d slept. “Why does Death expect me to face him?”
He ran his hand over his forehead. “The ancient battles must be fought, the markings earned, the bad cards defeated.”
My senses were on high alert after that disturbing vision, my patience at an all-time low. Striving for an even tone, I said, “Why must they be fought? Maybe we have—oh, I don’t know—enough on our plates after the Flash!”
“The battles begin at the End,” he said yet again.
“The Flash marked the beginning?” Right when the voices kicked up. Had the apocalypse awakened the Arcana? I swallowed. Or vice versa? “What caused the Flash, Matthew?”
“Sun.”
I exhaled in relief. Okay, a solar flare made sense. Then I remembered . . . “Isn’t there a Sun Card?”
Shrug.
Patience, Evie. “Is the Sun good or bad?”
“The sun is a star.”
And wasn’t there a Star Card too? Moving on . . . “How did Death see us?”
“Old. Knows my glimpse.”
“How old is he?”
“Really.”
“Matthew!” I rose, pacing.
“Twenty-one centuries or so.”
“Twenty-one! Is he immortal?”
Another shrug. “Just hasn’t been killed in a while.”
Back and forth I paced. “But he knows you. Are you . . . his age?”
With a roll of his eyes, Matthew informed me, “I’m sixteen.”
Patience! “Then tell me when you two met.”
“Twenty-one centuries ago.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “You’re killing me, kid.”
He shot to his feet, clamping my shoulders. “Never kill you!”
“It’s just a figure of speech, Matthew.” I eased out of his grip.
“Oh.” He sank back on the bed. “I’ve seen the games, the past. I’ve seen Death. In some ways, I’m wise,” he said, looking anything but.
“Crazy like a fox,” I murmured. “Okay, so say I have to fight in some kind of supernatural ‘ancient battle.’ What’s the purpose? What do we get if we win?”
My mind raced as I imagined what kind of prize might be equal to the risk. Maybe there was a protected haven on earth, one that still had rain and greenery?
Death was some kind of otherworldly knight; did he possess an untouched fortress somewhere? Then I remembered his plane of unbroken black, cluttered with ruins. Not precisely where I’d choose to live.
Maybe there was some way to go back in time and stop the apocalypse! Hadn’t Gran believed I was going to save the world? I needed to know the stakes.
My heart dropped when Matthew said, “If you win, you get to . . . live.”
“So there’s no way to improve our lot? Just more danger and worry heaped on my shoulders?”
“Danger! And worry!”
“No. I refuse this. I didn’t sign up for this shit! I never opted in. But I sure as hell can opt out.”
“No refusal. You are Arcana. Learn your powers. Use them.”
“Nuh-uh, I’m a girl with no dog in this fight,” I assured him. “I’ll raise a white flag, seek a truce. You can help me with Death, since you know him.”
“I’m in his pocket, so he’s in my eyes.”
“And that means what ?”
Matthew nodded. “No truce. No peace. He is Death. He knows one thing—killing.”
“Then I’ll run.” Was that what my life would be like from now on? Fleeing from an armored serial killer, always looking over my shoulder, dreading his approach? How long could I keep that up?
With a shiver, I thought of Matthew’s eulogy for Calanthe.
She fears him no more. . . .
Chapter 33
DAY 242 A.F.
TENNESSEE-ALABAMA BORDER
“I doan like the feel of this,” Jackson muttered, clenching the van’s steering wheel, squinting to see the road. Only now he wasn’t peering through an ash storm . . .
Fog blanketed us. The mountains flanking the interstate were bathed in it.
I hadn’t seen fog since before the Flash. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only weather change we were contending with. Over the last six days since we’d rescued Matthew, the temperatures had dropped to nearly freezing.
The windstorms had grown less frequent, but when they hit, they were fierce.
Biting winds in the Deep South—in May? Seeing our breaths smoke put all of us on edge. For all we knew, the entire earth was about to freeze over in a new ice age.
I had only my hoodie, Jackson a thin leather jacket, and Matthew? A sleeping bag. Selena, of course, had her all-weather-performance clothes.
From her position in shotgun, she studied our map. “We’re going the right way, J.D. Maybe the fog’s throwing you.”
Each day, Jackson and Selena took the front seats, sticking Matthew and me in the back with their motorcycles. Like luggage.
Matthew was currently lying on a sleeping bag on the floor, whistling the Star Wars theme song, completely oblivious to our disquiet.
“The tank’s teetering on E,” Jackson said. “That map doan show any towns for miles. It was rural here.”
“The map’s old,” Selena said. “There could be strip malls just ahead. And I guarantee you that we’ll find more gas than we did in the places we’ve already passed.”
After Matthew’s rescue, we’d decided to go north into Tennessee before heading east to North Carolina. Backtracking south along the same desolate—and supply-free—highway in Alabama wasn’t an option.
We had only a few energy bars left between us. Water was getting scarce.
Though we had officially deviated from that big army’s swath of destruction, we still hadn’t found any food in this area.
What had we found? More Bagmen. We’d see them crawling along the side of the road, reaching for our van.
“We can always use the gas from the bikes,” Selena suggested.
Jackson shook his head. “Wouldn’t get us ten miles in this thing. Besides, we got to conserve those tanks.”
I noted the tense set of his shoulders, the clench of his jaw. He was weighed down with so much responsibility. I wished I could help in some way. I might not be able to—but Matthew could.
As Jackson and Selena debated routes, I rearranged our box of weapons and empty gallon jugs in the back so I could lay out my sleeping bag next to Matthew’s. I dropped down beside him, curling up for warmth. The back of the van was drafty.
We faced each other, whisper-distance away. “Matthew, talk to me,” I murmured. “Are we going the right way? Will we find food soon? Give me something we can use.”
Jackson and Selena had no idea what kind of resource they possessed, still treating him like an idiot.
Like a fool.
Matthew glared. “They don’t deserve it,” he snapped under his breath, sounding more like a sixteen-year-old boy than a visionary. Then he started back up with the Star Wars theme.
Whistling sucked.
And there went Selena, turning on that grating industrial rock. He whistled louder; Selena cranked the volume.
If there were any more tension in this van, it would explode. The four of us had about hit our limit of each other.
Jackson had taken an instant dislike to Matthew, scowling whenever the boy clasped my hand in his as we walked, calling him bon à rien at every opportunity.
On the surface, Selena appeared to ignore Matthew completely, but when she thought no one was watching, she studied the boy with an alarming intensity.
The vision Matthew had sent me of her still gave me chills. But he didn’t seem to fear her in the least, which made me feel better.
I’d forced myself to put all my worry—and jealousy—over Jackson and Selena on the back burner, focusing my attention on Matthew. I believed he was without continuous care for the first time in his life—and he was struggling.
Most of the time, he didn’t appear to be experiencing our reality. He talked to himself, giving a stray laugh here and there. He slept fitfully, no doubt overwhelmed with those visions of his.
He’d shown me one battle. I’d never asked for a repeat.
Whenever we could talk without Jackson and Selena overhearing, I’d been delving about the Arcana. I’d found out that the Fool could see not only the futures of others but also their pasts and presents. I’d learned that there were many more kids like us. But not what our purpose was.
If we were all in some kind of war with alliances and battles, then what had started the fight? I knew this was life-or-death—I’d seen Calanthe beheaded—but had other kids already died?
Had Joules and Gabriel survived that night?
Basically, Matthew had revealed just enough information to make me want to pull my hair out. A typical conversation:
“How many Arcana are there?”
“Cards?”
“Yes, cards.”
A firm nod. “Arcana.”
“Okay, then. So what came first—the kids or the cards?”
His answer: “Gods.”
I could almost think he was doing it on purpose just to frustrate me, except that he got exasperated with me—as if he were trying to teach me a new language and I kept forgetting how to say “the.”
I reached for his forehead now, smoothing away that mop of hair. “Matthew, let’s hold off on the whistling for a bit.”
He drew a deeper breath, his expression defiant.
“Pretty please?”
He glowered, but did go quiet.
A relief. Ideally, I wanted us to be so quiet that Jackson and Selena forgot we were here.
“Empress fears Dee-vee-oh and Luna will throw me away.”
“What? No way.” I might have had a brief worry a couple of days ago when I’d heard Jackson tell Selena, “That boy can’t fight, hunt, keep watch—or shut up. He’s a resource-suck.” Just what he called me. “He’s always hungry. We’re burning through any food we find.”
Selena had replied, “But Evie likes him so much, J.D. Surely you can see how strongly she feels about him.”
My attachment to Matthew wasn’t like that at all—and she knew it—but I couldn’t contradict her without outing myself as an eavesdropper.
Then Selena had added, “Why don’t you tell her that we’ll keep him along, but only if she agrees to head back to my place. Otherwise, we’ll be forced to cut the deadweight.”
Selena, you snake in the ash.
Yet Jackson had told her, “I’ll think about it.” How much sway did she hold over him?
Deciding there was no chance the two up front could hear us over that music, I whispered, “Matthew, can Selena literally bring doubt?”
“She’s the Moon.” He began staring at one of his hands, turning it this way and that, seeming to examine every contour. Which usually meant he was done with a subject.
