(Skeleton Key) Into Elurien (13 page)

“Dude, I don’t have any tuna. Get lost.”

I stepped out onto Main Street and ducked for cover as I caught sight of a pair of winged soldiers walking around the corner of a cross-street. One squinted in our direction, attention caught by the racket, and started coming our way.

I scooped Tomie up and carried him as quickly as I could out the far end of the alley. He purred and rubbed against my jaw until we reached the bookstore. The rear door stood open, and the store and the apartment above were empty. At least that was a relief. No bodies. But the Snows wouldn’t have left Tomie to fend for himself. I wouldn’t grieve yet, but I doubted they’d be back.

I fed the cat and left the open bag where he could reach it. He was obviously lonely, but I had somewhere to be, and I was already late.

I stroked a hand over the cat’s fluffy coat. He ignored me as he chowed down on his kibble.

By the time I got to town hall, the lights were on inside. Someone was screaming.

“No,” I whispered, and I ran in spite of the pain that shot up my ankle.

Shut up, you’re not broken,
I ordered. My ankle didn’t comply, but I felt a little better.

I reached the sidewalk as the front doors burst open. A group of townspeople rushed out, prodded at swordpoint by a dozen soldiers. And then came Verelle, looking fresh and clean and perfect as though she hadn’t been roused from sleep.

Maybe she hadn’t. Maybe such a massive spark required no rest to keep burning.

I dove for the bushes.

“Is that all of them?” Verelle asked.

“We’re still making our sweep,” said a soldier, and I shivered at the sharp, crystalline tones of his voice. I hadn’t realized her creations could talk. Or think.

“Finish it. I want all of them here.”

She turned to the group. None dared to move with all of those swords pointed at them. Verelle motioned for a shotgun that one of the soldiers held, and she examined it carefully.

“You,” she said. Jimmy looked up. “What is this? It killed one of my protectors.”

He said nothing.

“Come here.”

A soldier prodded Jimmy’s back hard with his sword tip. Jimmy winced and stepped forward. Verelle handed him the gun.

“Shoot her,” I whispered. But he was frozen, looking into her eyes.

“Show me how it works,” she ordered. At the snap of her fingers, the soldiers brought Mrs. Perry onto the steps. “Kill her.”

Jimmy blinked hard and shook his head. “I won’t.”

“I’ll let you all go. If you don’t, you die here.”

Mrs. Perry’s eyes grew wide. “Please,” she said. “I have children. I’m educated, useful. Please.”

Verelle smirked. “Come, young man. A demonstration, and you’re free to play your little games and defy me another day. You came here to kill. Do it, and go.”

She’s enjoying this.
It shouldn’t have surprised me after what Zinian had told me, but seeing it was different. The sweat beading Jimmy’s brow pleased her. Her eyes glowed as they took in the tremble in his hands. A musical laugh spilled from her lips as he raised the gun and lowered it.

Verelle’s head tilted to one side, and her bright hair spilled over one shoulder, reflecting the moonlight. “She’s going to die either way. I’m sure she’d like to die a hero.”

Mrs. Perry whimpered.

I took a mental count of the townspeople. There had been more, I was sure of it.

Jimmy continued to hesitate. “This isn’t how it’s done,” he said.

“No?” Verelle sounded genuinely interested, but I caught a hint of amusement. “So breaking in to assassinate good folk is fine, but making criminals pay for their crimes isn’t? I’m afraid your world befuddles me terribly. Kill her now.”

Jimmy raised the gun and pointed it at Mrs. Perry.

Then he turned, quick as a lightning strike, toward Verelle.

She was ready for him. She raised a hand as he pulled the trigger. The gun went off with a deafening roar, but it was Jimmy who fell, soaking the concrete with his blood. I choked back a scream. Another flick of Verelle’s fingers, and the others all fell to the ground, writhing, bleeding from their mouths and eyes.

Her eyes flashed as she turned to the brick building behind her. A shot rang out from a window, and she deflected another bullet.

“Six more in the building,” she said. “Five men and another woman. Finish them quickly. These people bore me. No mind for games, any of them.”

She swept into the town hall, skirts trailing behind her.

My entire body trembled, and my breath came in gasps when I remembered to take them. I sat in the shelter of the bushes with my head between my knees until my heart stopped pounding and the silent, panicked tears that wetted my cheeks slowed.

Rushing over there wouldn’t help the people at the bottom of the steps. They already lay still, every one of them, and I had no desire to find out exactly what she’d done.

I couldn’t make sense of anything, and I couldn’t go back and face the people at the school. Not yet. I needed room to think.

Tomie greeted me with a soft mew when I dragged myself into the apartment above the bookshop.

I dropped my bag to the floor and crawled into the double bed in the corner. But comfortable as it was, and reassuring as Tomie’s purrs were when he curled up at my feet, my racing thoughts wouldn’t let me sleep.

What happened?

Well, they’d gone in not knowing what they were facing.

So what more do I know now?

She could kill with magic. That wasn’t a surprise. And she kept people alive as long as they interested her. Something I’d known, but understood better now.

How did she know about the other people? She hadn’t just known where they were. She’d known everything but their names—and maybe she knew those, but didn’t care.

She must have sensed them in the building somehow… But then why didn’t she know I was there? I’d been right beside the steps, watching everything, terrified and trying not to scream.

I rolled over, and a disgruntled cat crept up to sleep on the pillow above my head.

Jimmy had known who was missing. She’d known to prepare for an attack from behind because he knew it was coming. She was ready when he turned the gun on her, because she knew he was going to do it. But he hadn’t known about me, so neither had she.

She’d read his mind.

I shuddered and curled into a ball.

I need my friends. I need advice. I need…
I sighed. I just needed them period. Especially Zinian. He’d help me think of a plan. Obviously Verelle’s powers were different here, but we’d come up with something together.

I sat up and went to get more pills for my throbbing ankle. As I picked up my bag, Verelle’s old book slipped to the floor.

If I couldn’t sleep, I could study the enemy. The copy of the Verhumn in the library had told stories about Verelle at the back. I’d read all night if it could give me some insight.

I searched the kitchen cupboards by the moonlight that shone through the window and found a trio of candles and a few matches. I stayed well away from the windows to hide the light that might give me away. Curled up in a big armchair with a glass of water on the table beside me, I flipped to the back of the book.

And found nothing about Verelle.

I looked more closely. No pages were missing, but this version ended far earlier than the one in the library. A sense of cool calm settled over me as I realized that the book I held was older than I’d realized.

Older than Verelle, or at least close to it.

Old enough that she hadn’t influenced human beliefs and history yet.

I sipped my water and flipped to the beginning again. Hadn’t I thought that what I read in the library seemed off?

There.

And in those days the monsters roamed the land, living as animals, without understanding. The humans came among them, living in peace, sharing the words of the Mother.

The later version had spoken of the humans’ duty to subdue the beasts and rule over them. A small change in the words, and worlds of difference in meaning.

I rubbed the thin, powdery paper between my fingers as I wondered how she’d done it. Verelle had gained power through her magic, no question. But the people hadn’t seen her just as a queen or a leader. She’d been the closest thing they had to an earthly god. Generations had been raised believing what she wanted them to believe, because she’d been around early enough to influence the words they believed to be divinely inspired.

Her power had been absolute, because who would defy the will of the Mother? And Verelle had made sure she was their goddess’ beloved mouthpiece.

I dove into the old book. It looked fairly standard, from what I knew about religious texts. Little about monsters after that first entry, other than metaphorical mentions. Perhaps the original author had considered that subject closed. I did find admonitions against killing, praise for peaceful behaviours, and warnings that deeds returned to their doers tenfold.

I wondered how heavily Verelle had managed to edit all of those commandments.

Sleep finally caught up with me. My mind became fuzzy, my eyelids heavy. I curled up with the old book clutched in my hands and let myself drift off.

My last thought as sleep overcame me was that I wished I had more help, but even without it, I’d see that Verelle paid for her deceit and her crimes. If Zinian couldn’t be here to finish his work, I’d do it for him.

Somehow.

A
week passed
, and our world grew smaller.

The people who had been sheltering at the church moved down to the school when they heard about that group’s loss, and I joined them rather than keeping my cozy shelter above the bookstore. I’d spent years trying to escape these people, but we’d all be better off if we stuck together now. We spread out from the gym and set up camp in the classrooms, packed in tight, making the best of it.

Anything we needed from outside came at a steep price. A run to the hardware store netted us sleeping bags and camp stoves, but cost us several people who were hauled away by the soldiers, screaming. We cleaned out McMurtry’s Grocery after the school cafeteria’s supplies ran out, a successful mission carried out under the cover of night. But McMurtry’s was a small store. The food we scraped together didn’t last long, and the only other grocery store was too far to risk the journey.

Even if we got there, Verelle would starve us out eventually. She seemed content to leave us to our sad little fortress, only terrorizing those who dared leave in search of the supplies that kept us alive. But we would end up submitting to her out of need or dying in our defiance.

I didn’t like to think of what might be happening to the people who had already been taken.

We lost people almost every night, though not to the soldiers. They never said goodbye, but slipped out and went to join Verelle’s faithful. I wondered what it cost them to be warm and fed.

As for me, I gave my report on the town hall incident, then rested and let my leg heal. Once I was back on my feet I helped with the children, who were having a hard time dealing with the strange situation. I told them stories about friendly monsters when the school’s shadows frightened them, and silly tales about dragons slaying arrogant magical knights who spoke a lot like Verelle.

At least the children accepted stories about monsters. In spite of the undeniable evidence of Verelle’s unearthly powers, the adults in town clearly thought I was crazy when I tried to talk about how the monsters had overthrown her in another world. I learned to keep quiet, but their disbelief grated on me.

It was a Tuesday evening—or I guessed it was, I’d lost track without my planner—when my turn came to help with a supply run. Gus Hodder, the owner of the larger grocery store, had made a brave journey home to get his van. Though we knew the noise would draw the soldiers’ attention, the people heading out were well armed and thought it worth the risk. Visions of non-perishable food items danced in everyone’s heads, mine included, and I felt healed enough to go.

Six of us piled into the back of the white van—enough to load it, but not so many that we wouldn’t have room to pack the thing with food, medicine, and whatever else we found. We didn’t speak as the van bumped over freshly potholed roads. The soft purr of its engine seemed loud enough to wake those who had already died, and certainly enough to catch a sentry’s attention, but we made it to the Sav-Mor without encountering a single soldier.

We hustled out and entered through the door beside the loading bay. Without overhead lights, the storage room was a black maze of boxes and plastic-wrapped pallets where anything might be lurking. There was a time when I might have been afraid of hidden monsters. Now, I couldn’t think of anything that would be more welcome. Even a ghost or two wouldn’t have bothered me.

There were worse things outside.

We did our work quickly, following silent orders, taking what our mission leader pointed out with the beam of his flashlight. Soon enough we were back in the van. I sat in the front with Gus and a skinny kid named Stan.

“That was too easy,” someone muttered, and my heart skipped a beat.

I hadn’t left all of my superstitions behind.

A block later, something slammed into us from outside. The vehicle rocked to one side. Gus hit the gas, any hope of getting to the school unnoticed forgotten, and the van roared toward safety.

We were almost there when a second hit came, harder. The next few seconds passed in a rush that seemed to last forever as the van tipped, flipped, and slid on its side. Someone cried out in the back, barely audible over the crashing of boxes and clang of cans.

We came to a stop. Silence followed.

“We have to get out of here,” someone groaned.

“No,” I said, and shifted against the tight seatbelt that kept me from breathing properly. “They’re out there, waiting for us.”

“So we stay here forever?”

I had no answer for that. We were screwed either way, and whoever was out there knew it.

Those of us in the front seats released our seatbelts and arranged ourselves so we weren’t stepping on each other too much. Those in the back managed as well as they could in the mess. Tim Nippard had a broken arm, and Sadie Mercer had been knocked out. They needed to get to the school. Sadie’s kids would be waiting.

I pressed my face to the dirty windshield. The moon wasn’t as bright as it had been weeks before, but I made out the shapes of two soldiers pacing around, waiting for us. I took a deep breath.

“I’m going to distract them,” I said. “Someone else needs to come. We’ll split up, take them in different directions. The rest of you can carry Sadie to the school. Who’s coming?”

“Guess that’ll be me.” Gus handed the store and van keys to Stan. “Hope to see you all at the school, but just in case.” He pushed my door open, and we climbed out.

The soldiers gave us time to hit the ground running.
Decent of them
, I thought, and wondered whether they shared Verelle’s love of cruel games or were just following orders. Gus took off down the street, away from the school, one soldier behind him. I dashed for the park.

No footsteps behind me. I ran into an alley, where wings would be useless, and stopped to see if my soldier was going to try to cut me off. A trash can hit the ground behind me, and I continued forward. Beyond the end of the alley, the thick trees of the park beckoned, promising at least the illusion of safety. If I could make it to the creek and into a drainage culvert, I might lose him.

If.

I ran. The sneakers I’d found in a school locker slapped the ground, echoing like gunshots. Thirty paces to the woods. Twenty. Ten.

My ankle went out from under me as a familiar sharp pain shot up my leg.

I cried out in surprise as much as pain as I hit the ground. Gravel tore into my palms and ground into the knees of my pants. I turned to see eight winged soldiers approaching slowly, swords drawn.

I didn’t know which had started the pursuit, so I spoke to all of them.

“Had to call in reinforcements to deal with one little girl?”

Their blank, beautiful faces didn’t register understanding or irritation. They stepped closer, circling around me.

I tried to stand, and my ankle buckled again. One of the soldiers raised his sword.

Heavy footsteps approached, accompanied by a roar that shook my bones. I gasped and curled into a ball on the ground, making myself as small as possible as the clash of weapons rang out above me.

Someone kicked me, and I looked up long enough to see that the way to the park was clear. I dragged myself to the edge of the trees and turned back. The scene was chaotic and the street dark, but I would have recognized my rescuers anywhere.

Auphel stood with a soldier pinned under her foot. She brought her axe down, cleaving his torso neatly in half, and swung at another who ran at her from the side. His sword caught her arm as he ducked under the axe, and she roared in pain. A moment later his throat was in her hand, and his neck snapped. Zinian and Jaid each took down two soldiers with swords and claws, then turned to finish the others. One took off into the air, and Zinian followed. The feathered body hit the ground with a sick thud a moment later, gutted and bleeding.

Zinian landed, and all three turned to me. Jaid’s wide eyes took in the buildings that faced the park as she caught her breath. Her tail swished madly, and her hair stood on end. “Are there more?”

I stood and leaned my weight on my good ankle. “More around. I think that’s all for that bunch. Where… How…” I stopped to take a breath, and let out a short, shocked laugh. “It’s really good to see you guys.”

My heart swelled as I drank in the glorious sight of monsters in Fairbrook. I hadn’t let myself fully understand how much I’d missed them until I had them back.

My dear Auphel. The fearsome and loyal Jaid, on my side at last. And Zinian…
God
. Had I really thought I could keep myself from falling for this strange, beautiful person?

Zinian looked me over, taking in my obvious injury. He didn’t smile, but his relief was clear in his eyes. “The where and the how can wait. Verelle might not know exactly what happened, but she’ll know someone killed her soldiers. Where can we go and be hidden?”

“We’re all taking shelter at the school. It’s a few blocks away, though. Auphel, are you okay?”

The ogress nodded, but held her arm out. Blood flowed freely from her wound. “I should wrap this so I don’t leave a trail.”

Jaid removed her sash and bandaged Auphel’s arm. The ogress winced as Jaid pulled it tight, but didn’t complain.

“Better to get away from here,” Jaid said, and nudged a body with her foot. “I’m guessing by the fact that they’re not disappearing that Verelle is here and alive?”

“Very much so,” I said. I explained what I understood of the situation as we walked, speaking quietly. Zinian’s arm around my waist and his body pressed against mine felt so good that they almost made it worth getting attacked and almost killed.

Again.

“But how did you get here?” I asked.

Jaid clucked her tongue. “Zinian nearly lost his mind when you disappeared and Verelle didn’t come back. Grys believed that Verelle was either dead or had reappeared somewhere else.”

“But you disagreed?” I asked Zinian.

“I didn’t know. That was the problem. I wasn’t willing to let it go until we were sure she wasn’t here with you. Verelle is clever, and knows how to control magic. I thought she might have found a way to stay if she wanted to.”

“Guess you were right,” Auphel said glumly.

“But I had the key,” I said. “Until I lost it.”

Jaid’s whiskers twitched. “It turns out that the spark is a myth, as many of us suspected. We haven’t found a monster who’s gifted with magic as Verelle is, but then, not many humans were, either. Creating another key was a matter of finding the right information, equipment, and materials. It’s not the same as yours, but it worked.”

“It took far too much time, though,” Zinian added. “I didn’t think we’d find you alive.”

“I was going to comment on your impressive timing,” I said, “but I think it moves more slowly here.”

“Oh, good,” Auphel said. “Maybe we’ll get back before Grys notices we’re gone.”

I smiled at her. “I appreciate you all coming.”

Jaid grunted. “I couldn’t let Zinian pursue his obsessions without me. And when Auphel found out, there was no stopping her.”

“I don’t like this place,” Auphel whispered. She knocked into a pile of crates and scrambled to catch them before they toppled. “It smells funny.”

We approached the rear doors of the school. I didn’t want to cause panic in the school, but felt certain that we needed all the help we could get. Between my friends and the townspeople, we could handle Verelle.

I couldn’t wait to show them all how entirely not-crazy I was.

The others hung back as I knocked. Mr. Hicks from the tourism hut opened the door.

“Did the others make it?” I asked.

“All but Gus. He’s not with you?”

“No. But I found some help.” I hesitated for a moment. “Bring a few of the leaders. No one who’s easily spooked. I have a secret weapon, but we’ll want to keep it quiet for now.” I wouldn’t force my friends to sleep in the school, but an introduction or two would warm people to the idea of our odd saviours and allow the townspeople to help plan our attack.

Mr. Hicks gave me a suspicious look, but let me take the door and headed off toward the teachers’ lounge. I motioned for my friends to come in.

“It smells worse in here,” Auphel grumbled. “Like humans, but dirtier.”

She sat on the stairway beside the door and picked at her bandage.

“How will they react to us?” Zinian asked. “I don’t expect we—”

A scream interrupted him.

“Maybe not so good,” I admitted.

The scream had come from Mr. Hicks. He’d brought a dozen people with him—not all leaders, but likely all curious. A woman grabbed the child who had accompanied her and sprinted off down the hall. My mother stood with a pale face, trembling.

Perfect.

“It’s fine!” I yelled. “These are the monsters I told you about. They’re here to help us!”

Someone sobbed at the back of the crowd. Auphel stepped deeper into the shadows.

I gritted my teeth and reminded myself that I’d been scared at first, too. “Listen to me. You have nothing to be afraid of.”

“This is the end times,” an old woman moaned. One of the church ladies who had been friends with my gran, but I couldn’t remember her name now. “Angels and devils and monsters!” Her fingers scrabbled at her throat as though searching for pearls to clutch.

“Shut up,” I ordered. She gasped. “You’re all acting like these guys are worse than the ones who are trying to kill us. They’ve taken Verelle down before, and now they’re willing to help us. Are you going to let them come in?”

No one moved.

“You see, Hazel,” Mr. Hicks said, having regained a little of his composure, “we don’t know them. And maybe they’re helpful as you say, but we have the children to think of. And we don’t want to draw more attention. We’ll have to talk it over.”

I glanced at Jaid, who rolled her eyes. I couldn’t have agreed more.

“Fine,” I said. “It’s probably better if you just let us handle it. Verelle will be gone before you know it, and you can start rebuilding before the tourists descend. But I need you to promise that you’ll stay put. No one leaves the building for any reason until we come to get you. Clear?”

Mr. Hicks nodded.