The Song of Glory and Ghost

  “Fool,” Magyamitl muttered. “Who are you to offer me forgiveness?”

  “I am Glory Hallelujah,” Glory said. “And what I offer is damnation.”

  Magyamitl snarled. “Your blade is made of time. You can slice me, but I will come together again.”

  “Not if you can’t find the pieces,” Glory said.

  Sam was on his feet, pressed back into the corner, trying to stay out of the way while frantically reloading his bow. He watched the kneeling demon pull the bent arrows from her eyes and drop them on the floor.

  Now. The command came up Sam’s left arm from Cindy. Strike.

  Kill, Speck said.

  Sam dropped the crossbow onto his feet. He saw Glory swing her blade and he saw the Tzitzimitl tear a doorway in the air and raise it like a shield. Glory’s blow vanished into it, and the demon lashed out with her wings.

  Cindy and Speck tugged Sam forward—one step and a leap. Speck slammed his right fist into the monster’s ribs. Cindy crunched his knuckles into the side of her feathered head.

  Magyamitl spun, sinking her teeth into Sam’s left arm, grabbing at his throat with taloned hands.

  Glory vanished. Where she had just been, Sam saw only ripples.

  While teeth tore into Cindy’s scales and claws punctured the skin on his neck, time seemed to slow for Sam, as well. He wondered if he was nothing but an underwater smoke sculpture to Glory right now. He didn’t wonder long.

  The air in the room throbbed and Magyamitl shrieked. One black wing fluttered freely across and slapped onto the floor.

  Glory threw Sam to the ground and vanished into her own accelerated time.

  But not for long.

  Sam rolled away, rattling as the gaping head and the collapsing remainders of the body rained down around him.

  Glory reappeared, breathing hard, her hair mostly torn loose from her ponytail. Bloody claw marks ran down her cheek onto her neck.

  She nudged the pieces of still moving Tzitzimime with her toe, and then kicked them away from one another.

  Brushing back her hair, she looked down at Sam. “Thanks for that. She surprised me.”

  Glory refocused on the room. The taller boy was crouching in terror beside the body of his mother. Five dead old women lay in a heap by the door and one across from the baby’s barrel. Fluttering pieces of Tzitzimime carpeted the floor. A pot was boiling on the fire. Glory tiptoed across to young Manuelito, but the boy turned his face away, burying it in his mother’s sleeve.

  “Now what?” Sam asked.

  Glory sighed. “Now we leave.”

  “But we can’t leave them.” Sam looked at Manuelito and Peter. “The whole point was a rescue.”

  “The whole point was prevention.” Glory pushed back her hair. “Peter kept his heart. I will return to finish his anointing as a time-walker. And I can’t do that yet. I don’t know how. It has to be an old me. Then Peter grows up in foster care all over the southwest before assuming his role and authority throughout all the centuries he is meant to tend.” Glory looked at Sam. “We have to go. Now that this has happened. I might be here again soon, and then one of me would die.”

  “Right. Okay.” Sam understood. Kind of. But he didn’t like it. Crossing the room, he bent over Peter. The dumpling-faced boy smiled at him and kicked, but his cheeks were tear-streaked. Sam carefully reached into the barrel end with Speck, and wiped Peter’s soft cheeks with his thumb.

  “Hey, Pete,” Sam said. And he tried to smile at his happy friend—a baby unaware that his mother would never sing to him again in this life, unaware that there was nothing in this room or that house or that moment to smile and kick about. Hot sadness boiled up in Sam even though he tried to choke it off. Quickly wiping his own eyes on Speck’s back, he sniffed twice and steadied his breathing.

  “I’m sorry about your mom,” he whispered, and wiped his eyes again, and bit his lip and looked away. “I’m sorry about a lot of things.” And then he smiled back at the baby, and he gripped his tiny feet. “But I’m glad you’re still here.”

  Peter kicked. And laughed.

  16

  Island War

  WHEN SAM AND GLORY STEPPED OUT ONTO THE BLACK LAVA-ROCK hilltop and into the cold Seattle air, they both smelled of blood, smoke, and rot beyond rot. Every dripping, fluttering, oozing piece of the Tzitzimime had been collected and mixed up between four blankets. Then—along with a torch—Sam and Glory had lugged the blankets up through the roof and into the darkness. Sam left Glory curled up on the ground, and then he carried each of the blankets as far in each direction as it took to make the snakes nervous in his arms. There he would set his burden down, and there he would set the blanket on fire.

  Four great fires. And while the flames rose over Sam’s head and smoked enough for a forest, the pile of Tzitzi-pieces that was left when the blankets had burned never seemed to get smaller. All four fires burned bright and tall. When Sam finally helped Glory to her feet and asked if she could take them back, the four fires still towered, showing no signs of dying. Ever.

  When Sam and Glory stepped out onto that black lava-rock hilltop and into the cold Seattle air, they both stopped, and they stared at an empty spot where the motorcycle and Samra should have been.

  “Great,” Sam said. “Now what?”

  Glory looked at him, and she smiled. With one big looping motion she swung the hourglass around herself and Sam.

  “Once I’ve done something,” she said. “It gets a lot easier. I promise.”

  A glass cylinder formed quickly around the two of them and a blade remained between Glory’s hourglass and the wall. With a tug, she set the cylinder spinning.

  “You know what?” Sam asked.

  “Probably,” said Glory.

  “We smell awful,” Sam said.

  “Agreed,” Glory replied. “Perfect for close quarters.”

  They both watched as time raced backward outside the glass—clouds snapping, blizzard growing and then shrinking and then growing. Nighttime. Then the sunset reversed and the sun rose and disappeared. Nighttime again.”

  “Wow,” Sam said. “How long were we gone?”

  Glory yawned and leaned her head against Sam’s shoulder.

  “Here she is,” Sam said. “Feckless girl.”

  Glory laughed. “What does that even mean?”

  Sam didn’t answer. He and Glory both watched Samra and the motorcycle bounce up the hill backward until it stopped back on its spot.

  Glory collapsed the glass, and she and Sam both stepped into the air beside the bike.

  Samra yelped and jumped off the seat. The motorcycle engine was still running.

  “Thank God you’re back! Where did you come from?”

  “That would take a lot of explaining,” Sam said, and he slid onto the seat. “We’ll tell you later.”

  Samra jumped into the sidecar.

  Glory looked at the watch on Sam’s belt. It was pointing across the water through the blizzard toward Seattle.

  “Is he here?” she asked.

  “Or he’s left a door open to here,” Sam said. “You ready?”

  Glory slid onto the seat behind him and hooked her arm around his waist. She didn’t have to say anything more.

  Sam pointed the bike down the lava slope straight at the water, and he opened up the throttle.

  THE VULTURE STOOD AT A WINDOW WITH HIS LONG ARMS crossed. Behind him, cold wind flapped tablecloths and tumbled trash through the empty restaurant. A wall of snow was crawling toward the city from across the water. Hundreds of flashing lights crowded the streets by the docks, accompanied by a chorus of screaming sirens.

  His plague had begun, but he was restless. Miracle had vanished from his maps.

  And since that disappearance, Mrs. Dervish had not stopped poring over both hides. She was hunched over beside the Vulture, whispering worry to herself.

  “Dervish,” the Vulture said. He saw no sign of the mothers anywhere in the sky. They should have opened more storms by now.
They should have been cutting down lives in the streets by the thousands.

  More than likely, they were on Miracle’s heels, wherever he had gone.

  “Here!” Mrs. Dervish gasped in excitement, tapping the map. “He’s back! On the water. Moving toward his island. Hit them now, William!”

  The Vulture pulled on his beard. “And your mothers? Where have they gotten to?”

  “What?” Mrs. Dervish scanned the map and then looked up out of the windows.

  “If we want to reopen a doorway to the island, we will need to return to the darkness and do it ourselves.”

  “They must be here somewhere.”

  The Vulture turned on his boot heel and began to stride around the restaurant, stepping over bodies and chairs, but keeping his eyes on the windows.

  “Bring the maps!” he bellowed.

  NEVERLAND WAS AS FULL OF LAUGHTER AND SHOUTING AS IT was of snow. The Lost Boys and their new allies had successfully repelled the first invasion of leviathans. A dozen serpents under twenty feet in length had been killed in the harbor and four over thirty feet had been killed trying to reach the house. There were molten spark ripples from their blasts all over the windows. Tiago and Simon had accounted for the largest beasts themselves.

  Despite the initial victory, the island was still on high alert. The truly massive monsters had not yet made any attempts, but they were out there, circling.

  Millie was grateful, relieved, and still very disturbed. But she was also refusing to cook any of the beast meat at all. Absolutely not, and the suggestion was not even funny. Which just meant that she was still worried about Sam and Glory and Peter. The time for laughter would come after their return.

  She was peeling carrots when Sam and Glory walked into the kitchen, and she nicked her knuckle with the peeler, but she really didn’t care. She would have laughed and cried and thrown her arms around her brother and yelled for all the fools down studying the dead serpents to get up to the house immediately . . . but then she saw the look on his face. She still hugged him.

  “Peter’s safe,” Sam said. “But we’re not done, and the boys can’t know. I’m not taking them. I’m just here to get my guns.”

  “Why?” Millie asked. “Sam, does it have to be now?”

  “Yes,” Sam said. “It does.” And he hugged her again. Then Glory hugged her, too, which wasn’t normal. Millie didn’t say a word about how either of them smelled because it was obvious that both of them weren’t sure they would ever be coming back.

  There were many things that Millie wanted to say. She wanted to beg Sam to stay. She wanted to ring the dinner cowbell and summon all the boys to stop him. But wants were not what controlled Millie Miracle, and they never had been.

  “Can you really do it alone?” Millie asked her brother. “Can you stop him?”

  Sam didn’t answer. He didn’t know. He looked down at the watch and chain pointing into the air off of his belt loop.

  “I can reach him, Millie. He’s attacking. I have to try.”

  “Then get your guns,” she said. “And then get him.” Sam backed out of the kitchen toward his room. But this was one of those moments that Millie knew might be the last of its kind. “Sam,” she said. “I’m proud of you. No matter what. Thank you for making that easy.”

  Sam gave his sister another hug. And he ran.

  “Glory,” Millie said.

  Glory stepped forward. “Yeah?”

  “Take some muffins.”

  “Oh, yes please.” Glory laughed. “Take care of these idiots for me while we’re gone.”

  WHEN SAM AND GLORY JOGGED DOWN THE OUTSIDE OF THE island, away from the harbor and toward where they had hidden the motorcycle, Sam had his guns on, and they were both inhaling apple muffins in the fast-falling snow.

  And Samra Finn was wedged deep inside the sidecar, ready for a fight. She looked at them both.

  “I’m not getting out of this thing.”

  “Do we really need the bike?” Glory asked.

  Sam focused his attention on Samra. “Listen, I’m not playing games. If you get out, I’ll give you an apple muffin. If you stay in, I’ll give you a muffin anyway, and then I will take you to a place where you have a very good chance of being torn apart by skin-walkers.”

  “I’m staying,” Samra said.

  Sam’s watch was floating above his thigh, tugging forward. He checked both guns, and then propped his crossbow across the handlebars.

  “Keep your blade ready.”

  “Okay,” Glory said. “Do a loop out there so we can make sure we know where it’s pointing.”

  “Where are we going?” Samra asked. “I know you aren’t serious about the skin-walkers.”

  “I’m dead serious,” Sam said. “Have a muffin. We’re following this watch.”

  He handed a muffin to her, popped another one into his mouth, shook the snow off his face, and kick-started the bike, immediately throttling forward to the water’s edge.

  “Hold on!” Glory yelled. She slid her right hand up in front of Sam’s face—fingers spread, glassy black palm flattened. Her hand was trembling. Sand trickled down, streaming over Sam’s leg.

  “He’s messing with time?” Sam asked. He looked back at Glory and then out over the gray water beneath the storm. “And he knows where we are.”

  Sam’s watch suddenly jerked to the side, pointing down the beach.

  A blast of warm wind parted the snowstorm, and one hundred yards from the motorcycle, a dark arch opened over the shallow water.

  Heavy, snarling animal shapes tumbled out in twos and threes, splashing onto the shore.

  From where she was gripping the left handlebar, Cindy knew what she was seeing.

  KILL. She threw the thought at Sam as loudly as she knew how, but the boy was stunned. He did nothing.

  Pink! Cindy tried to reach the snake in Sam’s other hand with her command. Yee naaldlooshii! KILL.

  Strike, Speck replied. Die!

  Even before Sam could process what was happening, he felt the hot anger pulse in his arms, and Speck and Cindy were jerking the handlebars toward the dark arch.

  “Sam!” Glory yelled.

  Cindy let out the clutch. Speck opened the throttle. Flinging rocks from the back tire, the motorcycle launched forward.

  The animal shapes all turned—dozens already on the shore.

  “Shoot!” Samra yelled. “Shoot them!” Rising up in the sidecar, she grabbed the crossbow off the handlebars.

  Glory raised her right hand, and black sand leapt out of it in a snapping, snow-eating tornado. As they approached the snarling animals, Glory swung her enormous whip across the beach, sending the beasts tumbling into the shallows. But all of them rose up again quickly, most in the shapes of men and women, and all of them furious.

  Glory focused her storm whip on the arch itself, but as the bike rocketed past the teeming entrance, pulsing darts and sizzling arrows roared out of its mouth in a swarm.

  Samra returned fire. “Go behind it!” she yelled. “Flank them!”

  Sam heard gunfire from the island above them and he looked up at the house. Tiago and Simon were leaping down rocks. Jude and Barto and Leviathan Finn were all firing. More of Finn’s gang were coming into view.

  Sam forced the bike out into the water, between two sheets of spray. Glory slammed her storm down in a boiling splash, and leaned over, slowing the surface with her touch.

  With gunfire and shouts and roaring behind them, Sam looped the bike out and around behind the dark archway.

  Sam blinked away stinging snowflakes. “Can you close it?” he yelled over his shoulder.

  “Or open another one!” Samra yelled. “Right in front of that one. Send them all back into the heat!”

  “That I can do!” Glory laughed. “Get in there closer.”

  Sam accelerated. Glory lifted her hand from the surface, and with a long skipping blast of sand the surface of the water slowed in a straight and narrow path in front of them.

  ??
?It worked!” Glory shouted. “Stay on that!” Grabbing Sam’s shoulders, she stood up on the foot pegs, and leaning forward over him, she raised her right hand.

  The black sand leapt up into an enormous, seething cloud, shaped like a reaper’s blade, high above Sam’s head.

  “Look out!” Samra screamed.

  Most of the invaders were hurling darts of fire up at the Lost Boys on the island, but a huge, scabby bear had waded out into the water. With a roar like thunder, he swung his paw.

  Cindy and Speck both let go of the handlebars.

  Five burning yellow claws hissed across the water as fast as fired lightning. Two bolts hissed off the waves, skipping away. One exploded in the bike’s gauges, between the handlebars, spraying glass and sparks and metal into Sam’s face.

  Speck snatched the fourth as it hit Sam in the chest.

  Cindy struck the fifth just in front of Glory’s face. The bolt punched through Sam’s palm and tore out the back of his hand and Cindy’s head before kissing Glory with a burn between the eyebrows.

  Sam’s left arm dropped to his side, limp and flapping, speared with the burning claw. Sam slumped forward, and began to fall off the bike.

  The bear raised his other paw.

  “No!” Samra emptied her crossbow into the bear’s chest.

  Glory grabbed onto Sam, holding him up with her left hand.

  Speck grabbed the throttle and began to steer.

  But the snake drifted off the path Glory had made.

  The motorcycle skipped across the liquid. And then wallowed.

  And then sank.

  GLORY SHUT HER EYES AND EXHALED. IN ANY MOMENT, SHE had as much time as she needed. And in this moment, she needed a lot of time.

  As the chaotic world around her slowed, a single heartbeat slammed through her veins and into her eardrums in a long painful crash—like a piano falling down stairs. And during that one beat, her mind raced for miles . . .

  Cindy had just saved her life. And she had died because of it. She had to be dead. The bolt went through her head right in front of Glory’s eyes. Sam would lose his left arm. Or maybe Glory could take him back in time and Manuelito could get him a new one. A nicer one.