Year One (24 page)

The dolls: six human dolls and one four-legged.

With the black beating against her, the white pulsing inside her, the absolute silence of air gone bitter-thick and still, she knew.

And grieved.

To test, power to power, she lifted a hand, pressed her light to the dark, felt the shock as it all but licked greedily at her palm.

“We need to go back,” she said with absolute calm. “There are things I need.” Max was one of them.

“Good idea!” Shaun took a step back, but froze at the sound of thrashing.

“Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, that's a
bear
.” Kim took a stumbling step back.

“Something's wrong with it,” Eddie stated. He unstrapped the rifle from his back as Joe stopped quivering and growled low.

The bear twitched and convulsed as it plodded forward. Its eyes gleaming a sick yellow as it snapped at the air.

“You're not supposed to run.” With a shaking hand, Shaun gripped Kim's arm. “Don't run, or he might chase you. And he's faster. Maybe just back up slow, give him room, but stick together so we look bigger. It's a black bear, and they're not aggressive, but this one…”

“It's not right.” Eddie breathed slow. “Is anyone else packing?”

“I am.” Kim fumbled to get the gun from her hip.

“Shaun's right about not running. Let's try the backing up. Nice and easy,” Eddie added. The bear reared onto its hind legs, roaring.

“Shit. Shit. That didn't work.”

“It's infected. You have to kill it. Shoot it,” Lana ordered, throwing out sharp power.

The first shot struck its chest. It screamed, dropped to all fours, and charged.

Shots—the rifle, the handgun—blasted. Lana pressed a hand to her belly, drew on what she'd been given, and hurled a jagged sphere of light.

The bear howled, letting out a cry of pain that tore through the air as its front legs crumpled. With pity, Lana saw its eyes go blank—not with death, not yet, but with fear.

Then Eddie ended it.

“Back to the house,” Lana ordered. “Everyone back to the house. There may be more.” Going with instinct, she threw out a hand, setting the hanging symbols ablaze. “Hurry.”

“Eric and Allegra,” Kim managed as they ran through the wet snow. “They might still be out here. We need to find them, get them inside.”

“Eric and Allegra did that. Hurry,” Lana repeated.

As they broke into the clearing around the house, Eric and Allegra stood on the path, their hands linked.

“You've spoiled our surprise.” Allegra tossed back her hair, smiled.

“You held back on us.” Panic skidded down Lana's spine. She didn't have to test power to power here, not when she felt it churning.

She needed Max. They all needed Max.

“I didn't want to brag.” On a laugh, Allegra tipped her head to Eric's shoulder. The flirty, female gesture in contrast with the cold pleasure on her face. “It was so much fun to watch you play with your inferior talents while ours grew bigger, darker, sweeter. Now.”

She circled a finger in the air and ringed them all in a circle of black fire. “We'll just wait here for the last of our happy group to get home.”

Lana held up a hand as Kim raised her gun. “It won't get through the circle, and may hit one of us.”

“You're so clever. We'll sacrifice you last.” His face flushed with power and glee, both deathly dark, Eric smiled. “Max is first.”

Everything inside Lana feared, everything inside her sickened as she met Eric's gaze and saw his glee.

“He's your brother.”

“Fuck a brother.” With a flick of his fingers, he shot darts of black light toward the sky. “All my life he's come first, and I was supposed to just follow along behind him, never quite measuring up. The good son, the dean's list, the important writer. The power. I'm so much more than he is now. And he thinks he can lecture
me
? Teach
me
? Train
me
?”

He shot out a hand, tossed an oily black bolt at a pine at the edge of the forest. It cleaved in two, and the jagged halves smoldering in the blackened snow.

“He thinks his soft, white, weak power can measure to mine?”

“He—he's gone to the dark side.” Shaun stuttered it out. “Like, like Anakin Skywalker.”

Mouth curling into a sneer, Eric flicked a black dart at the fire ring. “God, you're such a fucking geek.”

“This isn't you, Eric.”

He turned that sneer on Lana, then looked at his hand. Now something black and sinuous curled around his arm. When he lifted it, crows streamed over the sky, began to circle.

“It is. Finally, it is, and I have what should've always been mine. Humanity's dead. I'm standing on its rotting corpse, and
am
. We are,” he said, turning to Allegra. “We are what lives now.”

“Thrives and takes. Whatever we want. Whoever we want.” Leaning into Eric, Allegra rubbed her cheek to his. “Maybe we should keep one for a pet.”

“You're sick, man.” Eddie gripped Joe's collar to keep him close. “You're way sick.”

“Maybe him,” Allegra considered. “After we roast his dog on a spit.”

“Let's do one now. Our rule-making hero's taking too long. Let's just do one now, have some fun. You pick, baby.”

“Hmm.” Allegra stepped forward, pale hair streaming behind her as she strolled around the circle. “It's hard to choose. They're all so
boring
. Except her.” She stopped in front of Lana. “But she needs to be last—her and that bitch she's growing inside her. She needs to see the rest die.”

“I thought you were just a little stupid.”

Off balance for a moment, Allegra blinked at Lana. “What?”

“You heard me.” Whatever it takes, Lana thought, she'd protect her child. So she smiled dismissively. “A little stupid, a lot whiny, and mostly useless. I can see I underestimated you. You're really stupid, whiny, and useless. I'm not sure what that makes Eric, as you've been able to use sex and some clumsy power to pull him in with you.”

“A man,” Kim said from behind Lana. “A man who loses his shit over a pair of tits. Sorry, guys, but we've got a case in point here.”

As she stood, legs spread, Allegra's hair began to fly in a rising wind. “You have no idea what I am, how long what's in me has waited for this day. But you'll know, before I rip that wriggling mass of cells out of you, you'll know. You'll see.”

Allegra spread her arms, and they became wings, pale as her hair, with edges toothed and keen. She rose up on them, spun. In the whirl of wind, smoke rose from the flames.

“There she is!” On a laugh, Eric lifted his arms. His wings were black, oily like the bolt, gleaming in the haze.

“What are they?” Shaun choked out. “What are they?”

“Death. The dark. Desolation,” Lana murmured. And arrogant, she thought.

While they, like their crows, circled, Lana drew on what she was, what she had, prayed it would be enough.

“When I say run, run. To the house.”

“We're trapped here,” Shaun began.

“We won't be.”

She cast out her light, beat it against the circling dark. Cracked it. “Run,” she snapped, shattering it.

She dug for more, hurled it upward. She heard a sound, like the sizzle of bacon in a hot skillet, a roar of pain and insult, as she ran with the others.

Those bolts rained down from the sky, turning the house into an inferno. The heat, the blast, knocked her back. Before she could push herself up, one of Allegra's singed wings swooped down. Desperate, Lana gripped it, twisted it, even as the teeth pierced and bit into her hands. Beyond pain, she heaved up power. Eric leaped to gather Allegra to him, pulling her clear.

Eddie yanked Lana to her feet. “Max, Max and Poe. They're coming. We've got to run for it.”

She heard gunshots, ran in a blind haze with blood dripping from her hands. She saw Kim stop, try to pull a stumbling Shaun upright, and fire, fire, fire with one hand. With horror, Lana saw that singed, mangled wing slice down toward Kim. As Lana fought to find enough to defend, Shaun shoved Kim away. The jagged teeth tore through him, face, throat, chest, gut.

Whirling, Allegra let out a cry of triumph as life spilled out of him.

“No, no, no.” Kim crawled through the blood, already a pool of it. “Shaun!”

“He's gone.” Choking it out, Eddie dragged Kim away, down the muddy, slushy mire of the road as Max drove up.

“In the car. Everybody.” As he shouted, Max pressed his hands
up, fighting to create a shield. Teeth clenched, Poe stood beside the car, firing a long gun. “In the car.”

“Not without you.” Sheet white, shivering, Lana yanked her arm from Eddie's grip. “Never without you. They're strong, Max. More than either of us can stop alone. Eric…”

“I know. I need you to get in the car.” Sweat rolled down his face as he strained to protect his family. “It won't be without me, but we need to move fast.”

“We'll move faster together.”

“Eric.” His arms trembled, his muscles screamed, but Max held the shield.

“Look what she did.” Allegra turned her face into Eric's shoulder. “She hurt me, Eric. She has to pay.”

“She'll pay. They'll all pay.”

“Eric, you have to stop. Why are you doing this?”

“Because I can! Because your rules don't apply anymore.” He hurled bolts against the shield. “Because your time is over, and mine's finally here. Because it fucking feels good!”

“You're twisting what's in you. You—”

“Oh, shut the fuck up and die!”

The blast knocked Max back against the hood of the car, bloodied his nose. With his ears ringing, he looked at his brother's face, saw only hate and greed.

He made his choice.

“Poe, behind the wheel. Lana, in the back. I can't hold it much longer.” He inched toward the passenger side and got in, keeping his gaze locked with Eric's.

In the back, Lana held up her bloodied hands while Kim wept.

“Lana, you need to help Poe. Poe, reverse, and fast. Just go. Lana, keep us on the road.”

They would never outrun what was coming, she thought. Eric and Allegra whirled together, forces joined. The wind shook the car
and, around it, the ground began to crack. On the hill the house blazed. They had only to fire the car the same way, to push through Max's shield and send a black lightning bolt streaking toward the car.

Lana pressed one torn hand to her belly, praying for her child, and turned her other raised hand to guide the car as Poe shot backward at a crazed speed.

“I'm sorry, Max,” she murmured.

“So am I. God, so am I.”

As they whipped past the propane truck, Max dropped the shield, throwing that power and all he had toward the tank. It met the bolts Eric hurled.

In an instant, Lana saw the shock and alarm on Eric's face, then the explosion spewed fire, metal into the air. She heard screams, terrible, terrible screams, through the rocking blast.

“Turn around as soon as you can.” Max stared straight ahead. “Head into the village. We can't leave Flynn there, or anyone who's with him. If they survive that, they'll go after whoever's handy.”

“She killed Shaun. They killed Shaun. He pushed me out of the way, and they killed him. He never hurt anyone, and they killed him.”

Eddie hugged Kim close as Poe managed a three-point turn at a pull off. “Dude was a hero. A fricking hero.”

Joe laid his head in Eddie's lap, let out a mournful howl.

“Lana's hands are bleeding pretty bad.” Poe kept the wheel in a vise grip. “We should have something back there to bind them up.”

“She tried to kill the baby. I couldn't let her. I can stop the bleeding.” Lana pressed her palms together, closed her eyes. Opened them again when she felt Max's hand cover hers.

He stared into her eyes, his own filled with grief, with guilt, with unspeakable sorrow.

“You saved us,” she told him.

“I lost him. How could I have looked at him and not have seen I'd already lost him?”

“You loved him.”

“What I loved died with the rise of the dark. What I loved … the Doom killed. The baby? Is the baby all right?”

“She's fine. I'd know.”

“She?”

“Allegra thought so. Seemed to know, and I feel it.”

“I guess congratulations.” Kim knuckled tears away. “She wanted to kill you and the baby most. Eric wanted to kill Max most. The rest of us were just entertainment. And we'd all be dead, all of us, if it wasn't for Lana, and for Max.”

“Sorry, man, about your brother. But…” Eddie wiped at his own tears. “I hate that we had to leave Shaun back there that way.”

“He was a hero.” Exhausted, Lana let her head drop back. “The light will take him. I … know it will. He won't be alone. He gave his life for a friend. He won't be alone.”

“We weren't fast enough. We have to learn to be faster, to be more.” Max opened his window, leaning out to look back. “Nothing's following that I can see or sense. But there'll be more like them. We need another vehicle, and supplies. Weapons.”

“We got another SUV going,” Poe told them, “but we left it after Shaun— When he called us on the walkie, we left it and came back as fast as we could. Goddamn it.” Tears, rage, and grief glimmered in his eyes. He punched a fist to the wheel. “Goddamn it.”

As they drove into the village, Flynn and his wolf walked out to stand in the middle of the street.

Max got out.

“We need supplies, another vehicle, and you and whoever else is here need to come with us. There are dark forces that may come here.”

“We have protection here.”

“Not enough. My wife was injured,” Max began.

Flynn's gaze flicked away, settling on Lana as she climbed out of the backseat. His gaze stayed locked on her as he walked forward and gently took Lana's hands.