Scorch

  Pip looked terrified. “You’re kidding, right?” he said in a high voice.

  “No. So hold on tight to those souls, okay?” she said gently, gesturing at his hands as he fumbled for the Vessel. “You don’t want to be the one responsible for obliterating someone’s right to an everlasting afterlife,” she finished, repeating word for word what Uncle Mort had once told her.

  “No way,” he said with a shudder.

  The shift only got bleaker from there. They’d just scythed out and landed in a classroom when Lex had to clap her hand over her mouth to keep from shrieking.

  Half a dozen kids her own age lay strewn across the floor, the tiles sticky with blood. Their still-alive peers were frozen in various stages of panic—some running toward the door, a couple on their cell phones, a few tending to the wounded.

  For the first time in a while on a shift, Lex felt well and truly sick. This was the part of the job she hated.

  Pip looked about ready to pass out too. And no wonder; this was a terrible scene for his first multiple. “How could someone do this?” he asked, looking away as Lex touched the arm of a girl who bore an unsettling resemblance to Elysia.

  “I don’t know,” Lex said. “Disturbed kids do disturbing things.”

  As her eyes fell upon a group of kids slumped over their desks, she swallowed. There it was—that enraged feeling again. That stinging at the bottom of her chest, rising. The one she had been trying so hard to suppress. Her hands grew hot—

  Not here, she told herself, wincing. Not now.

  They scythed again, landing in a hallway. Other Grim teams were farther down the hall, working on more targets. Lex bent down to touch her next target, a dark, good-looking boy crumpled next to his open locker, a chemistry book falling from his arms.

  “Lex,” she heard Pip breathe above her. He was staring down the hall. “The shooter—it’s not a kid, it’s a teacher!”

  Lex followed his gaze down a trail of bloody footprints to a thin, bedraggled woman with her hands in the air, one of them clutching a gun. A group of police officers surrounded her.

  “They got her,” Lex said, relieved. “It’s over.”

  Pip’s face was pale as he Culled. “I bet Zara’ll be paying her a visit.”

  Lex stared at the woman’s face. There wasn’t an ounce of remorse in it. It was fierce, frustrated; she was angry that she had gotten caught. She hadn’t finished yet.

  “I bet Zara will,” muttered Lex, her hands still tingling with heat.

  After that, they went for a while without talking, too deep in their own thoughts. It wasn’t until they landed in the midst of a drug raid that Pip finally spoke again. “Can I ask one more thing?”

  Lex tapped the target. “Okay.”

  “That!” Pip exclaimed, pointing at her quivering finger. “Those shocks you get when you Kill. What are they?”

  “You noticed them?”

  “How could I not?”

  Stupefied, Lex just stood there, her outstretched finger frozen over the bullet-ridden body as Pip Culled. Once he finished with the Vessel, they both scythed and ended up back at the Ghost Gum. Their shift was over.

  “Was I not supposed to notice?” Pip said, recoiling from the look on her face. “Okay, forget it. Bye!” He started to walk away.

  “Hang on a sec,” Lex said, yanking him back by the hood. “Let’s have a little chat.”

  “No!” he cried, wrestling free of her grip. And before Lex’s brain could catch up to her eyes, he jumped up to the first branch of the Ghost Gum, then swung up farther to the next and the next, until he was at least twenty feet up the tree.

  “Hey!” Lex squinted up at him. “Come down! You’re gonna get hurt!”

  “No I won’t. I can stay up here all day!” He perched precariously atop a thin branch, then fell backward until he was hanging upside down by his knees.

  “OMIGOD!” Lex shrieked. “Get down!”

  He folded his arms. “No way! You’re going to yell at me!”

  Lex heaved a knowing sigh. This wasn’t the first time her congeniality had to be bargained for, and she doubted it would be the last. “I’m not going to yell at you. Please come down.”

  Pip studied her, then expertly pounced down, branch by branch, until he sat atop a low-hanging limb a few feet off the ground. He reached for Lex’s hand and pulled her up next to him.

  Agitated, she brushed off her hoodie. “God, Pip. You half monkey?”

  “I climb stuff,” he said, as if this weren’t obvious. “Fire escapes, trees, parking garages, whatever I can find.”

  Lex was amazed. “I had no idea. Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

  “No one asked!”

  “Not every bit of information has to be obtained through questioning, you know.” She sighed and looked up through the branches to the weird little nest sitting atop them. “Okay, the deal with my shocks . . .”

  She trailed off as she stared up at the tree.

  “What?” said Pip.

  Her mouth had gone dry. She turned to him. “Can you climb all the way up to that nest?”

  “Yeah.” He frowned. “Why?”

  “The note, Pip.”

  “What, the key to the dead? You think it’s up there?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, grinning. “Let’s find out.”

  “Okay!” Pip leaped up through the branches as if they were a flight of stairs. As he neared the top, where the limbs were thinner, the entire frame of the tree swayed, but he took no notice. Finally he reached the messy tangle of twigs and reached inside.

  “Anything?” Lex demanded once he’d landed back on the ground.

  He held out his hand. In it lay a flat white object carved from what looked like ivory. It was a rectangle, maybe three inches long and an inch wide, with a small protuberance sticking out of the middle, like a handle.

  Lex’s eyes could not have been any larger. “You think this is it?”

  Pip looked confused. “I don’t know. Doesn’t look like a key.”

  “No, it doesn’t. But it’s something.” She took the white thing from his hand and flashed him a big smile, her stomach settling for the first time in days. “Thanks, Pip.”

  “You’re welcome.” They began walking back to the Bank. “And about the shocks, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t—”

  “Oh, they’re no big deal,” said Lex, waving her hand distractedly as she stared at the strange carving. “I just get them when I Kill. They come from a weird overdose of Killing power that I have for some reason.”

  “Because you’re Mort’s niece, right?”

  “Huh?” She looked up. “What are you talking about?”

  “Isn’t that why the Seniors hate you? Because the Terms of Execution say that blood relations of Grims can’t become Grims?”

  She grabbed him, digging her nails into his arm. “What?”

  “Ow!” He winced. “It mutates the powers or something, like inbreeding!”

  “Who told you that?”

  “I overheard some Seniors talking in the hub!”

  Livid, Lex reached into her pockets and practically threw him the Vessels she had stored there. “Deposit these,” she said, her hands shaking. “I have to go.”

  “Sorry! I didn’t know it was a secret!”

  Lex gritted her teeth as she stalked off in the direction of Uncle Mort’s house. “Neither did I.”

  8

  “How could you not tell me?”

  Lex barged into the living room to find her uncle doing some routine maintenance on the jellyfish tank, Driggs eating Oreos and reading, and neither of them expecting the Category 5 hurricane that had just blown in through the front door.

  “You lied to me!” she yelled, her hands growing hot for the umpteenth time that day. They were balled so tightly, her knuckles were cracking.

  Uncle Mort took off the special lenses he used to inspect the tank. “You’re going to have to be more specific. What did I lie to you about this time??
??

  “Why I’m not supposed to be here. That family members aren’t allowed to be Grims.”

  “Ah.” He looked away guiltily.

  “I’ve asked you billions of times why people keep saying I never should have come to Croak. Every time, you’ve said the same thing: because I’m your niece, and that’s all. Is that really all?”

  “No.”

  Lex resisted the urge to give her uncle a healthy shove into the venomous jellyfish tank. “Then tell me why the townspeople hate me!”

  He heaved a resigned sigh. “Because you and I are more closely related than any Grim has ever been to any other Grim.”

  Lex took a shallow breath. “How is that possible?”

  He took off his gloves and sank into an armchair. “Well, remember, active Grims can’t have children. Fertility is adversely affected by the proximity to the ether, to Elixir, and all sorts of other components—plus, the Grimsphere is no place to raise a family, even if women could conceive here.”

  Lex snuck a glance at Driggs, but Uncle Mort caught her. “That doesn’t mean you get a free pass to ride the baloney pony whenever you want to. Got it?”

  Lex looked away. Driggs buried his face back in his book, his ears purple.

  Uncle Mort stared them both down, then continued. “Once a Grim woman retires and her memory is wiped, of course, she’s free to procreate with as much vim and vigor as she pleases. But her offspring—and this is doubly true if the father is a Grim as well—are ineligible to become Grims, even if they exhibit the delinquent characteristics. The Terms just play it safe and take it one step further, prohibiting any blood relatives of Grims to become Grims themselves.”

  “Why?”

  “The results would be too unpredictable to properly manage. It’s widely believed that second-generation Grims would have more power, possess more innate Killing or Culling potential than regular Grims who have no connection to any Grims before them.”

  “That’s precisely what I am!” Lex pointed to herself. “I have more power, I possess more potential, and I’m the one who sent the Grimsphere up shit creek without a paddle, all because you thought it might be a fun little science experiment to see what kind of Frankensteinian monster I might turn out to be!”

  “Well, when you put it that way, of course it sounds terrible.”

  “So you knew all this would happen!” she shouted, throwing up her hands. “You knew I’d turn out to have too much power for my own good. You knew I would be able to Damn!” Her voice was getting screechy. “Hell, maybe you even knew that Zara would come after me and kill Cordy in the process!”

  Uncle Mort glared at her. “Lex, if you think for a second that I meant for any harm to come to your sister, then you better get out of my sight before I do something I’ll regret.”

  “Doesn’t make a difference now, does it? She’s dead!”

  He took one glance at her overheating hands and pointed to her room. “Go discharge, Lex. Now.”

  Lex almost fought him on this, but he was right; she was about to erupt. So she fled to her room, the house shaking as she slammed the door.

  Minutes later she emerged and tossed a singed pillow to the floor. “Happy?” she muttered, her eyes downcast.

  Uncle Mort raised an eyebrow. “What took you so long?”

  Her eyes stayed glued to the floor. “Nothing.”

  He studied her for a moment more, then sighed. “Look, you’re right. I should have caught the warning signs with Zara. And trust me, I’ll never forgive myself for failing Cordy like I did. But one thing I don’t regret—and never will—is my decision to bring you here as a Grim.”

  Lex let out a breath, her anger melting. As whacked out as her uncle was, he loved her. He respected her, for some reason. And strangest of all, he believed in her—and not just in a schmaltzy Hallmark card way. The man legitimately believed that Lex would do great things.

  But what were they supposed to be?

  “I don’t get it,” she said finally, at a loss. “Why take the risk? Why violate the Terms like that, especially with everyone so opposed to it?”

  He moved closer. “Because I saw potential in you,” he said. “I’ve seen it for years, ever since you were young. And I thought that the Grim you could one day become outweighed any risks.” He looked her in the eye. “I still do.”

  Lex slumped. “Even after all the horrible stuff I’ve done?”

  “Especially after all the horrible stuff you’ve done.”

  That odd glint shone in his eye again, his scar even more pronounced in the orange light of the setting sun streaming through the windows.

  “Something’s up, isn’t it?” Lex said quietly. “Me, Zara, Damning, Loopholes, Norwood—it can’t just be a coincidence that all this is exploding at the same time after years of Grimsphere utopia. Something’s happening. Or is about to happen. Isn’t it?”

  His smile gave nothing away. “Something is always about to happen, Lex.”

  She looked away, irritated that he was dodging her questions yet again. “Do you think I’m the Last?” she heard herself ask.

  He gave her an odd look. “Huh?”

  “That’s what the townspeople said at the meeting.”

  Uncle Mort smirked. “The legendary Last, right under my nose. Wouldn’t that be something?”

  After a beat of silence, he headed toward the basement. “You two have fun catching up. Oh, and say hi to the camera!”

  He waved at the small black bubble on the ceiling, then left. Lex just stared after him, still fuming.

  “Um, sweetums?” Driggs piped up.

  Lex blew a sweaty clump of hair off her forehead. “What did you just call me?”

  He sank further under her glower. “I just—ow!” He reeled as Lex plunged into the couch.

  “You never told me,” she said through clenched teeth. “About any of this. And don’t play the oblivious card,” she said when he began to protest. “Because you knew—along with every other citizen in this town—who I was and that Uncle Mort breached every Term in the book when he brought me here.”

  “Yes, I knew!” he cried, checking his stitches to make sure they hadn’t popped. “Christ, Lex! Why don’t you just whip out the waterboard while you’re at it?” He raised an eyebrow. “That is . . . if you’re into that sort of thing?”

  “Wow, Driggs. Wow.”

  “Okay, yes, we all knew. But you gotta understand, Mort swore us to secrecy. The Seniors were half in awe, half scared of you as it was, and the Juniors—well, to be honest, we were just curious about how it would play out. Plus, Mort didn’t think it would be healthy, you know? Thought you might get a big head if you came in here thinking you were better than everyone.” He grinned. “Too bad you did anyway.”

  She ignored this. “I still knew I was different.”

  “He was just trying to protect you.”

  “I think I’ve earned the right to be told these things. Especially since it’s my life we’re talking about here. You of all people should have been the first to enlighten me.”

  “I know, I know. I’m sorry. Let me make it up to you.” He pulled a book out from beneath the couch cushion and pointed at a marked page. “Here. Took me all day to find it.”

  Lex took it from him and read:

  THE WRONG BOOK IS A STORIED TOME,

  YET NONE KNOW WHERE IT MAKES ITS HOME.

  FOOLS HAVE SOUGHT IT, MAD WITH LUST,

  ALL UPTURNING NAUGHT BUT DUST.

  She looked at Driggs. “That’s encouraging.”

  “Keep going.”

  A THOUSAND PAGES THICK AT LEAST,

  ITS SCRIBE SIX HUNDRED YEARS DECEASED.

  SABLE LEATHER MAKES ITS SKIN;

  APT GARB FOR A WEALTH OF SIN.

  THE BEST OF GROTTON’S TRICKS INSIDE:

  PLOTS AND PLOYS AND SNARES PRESIDE,

  DARK DESIGNS OFT PUSHED ASIDE,

  ALL POWERS OF DEATH IN ONE COLLIDE.

  FOR IF YOUR GOAL BE RULE WORLDWIDE,
>
  THE WRONG BOOK’S SECRETS SHALL PROVIDE.

  Driggs shoved an Oreo into his mouth. “Intense, huh?”

  Lex nodded, then grinned. She’d almost forgotten. “I found something too.”

  Driggs’s crumb-filled mouth fell open as she dropped the key onto the book. “You’re kidding me.”

  She told him about the Ghost Gum, how the surprisingly agile Pip had bounded up to the nest to retrieve their prize. “Weird-looking thing, huh?” she said. “Ever seen anything like this?”

  “Nope,” he admitted, examining it. “We should show Mort, though. Maybe he—”

  “I have a better idea,” she said, yanking him up from the couch. “Field trip.”

  “Ow!” He clutched his chest as she shoved him toward the door. “You know, I never noticed how endearing you get when you torture people. The way your nostrils flare—it’s just darling.”

  “Thank you.”

  They marched outside to the end of the driveway. “Cabin time,” Lex said with a mischievous grin. “Let’s open that sucker up.”

  “Don’t the words ‘force field of unimaginable pain’ mean anything to you?” he asked as they walked.

  “Decent band name, maybe.”

  “I’m just saying. What makes you think you can get through when Mort and I couldn’t?”

  “Well, I’m the closest thing there is to a second-generation Grim, right? I’m all special and superpowery—maybe I can get past.”

  “You can’t see it, because I’m somewhat doubled over in pain, but I just rolled my eyes. Hard.”

  “Noted.”

  They walked for about fifteen minutes through a series of small hills and valleys until the paved street petered out into a dirt road. Soon they reached a small bridge spanning a bubbly stream.

  “I never knew this was here,” said Lex.

  “It’s not exactly a stop on the Croak trolley tour,” Driggs replied. “This is the Sticks River.”

  The name even fit the bridge, which was made from thousands of little twigs all tied together to form its shape, as if it were built by an especially industrious colony of beavers. The wood crackled underfoot as Lex and Driggs crossed and arrived at the edge of the forest. The path extended into the trees by way of a small, dark opening.