Boil (Salem's Revenge Book 2)

  I let out a high-pitched yelp and leap to my feet, scrubbing at my tongue, which feels numb, with my hand. When I realize my efforts are having no impact, I stop and withdraw my hand, only to find it glowing. In fact, my whole body is glowing slightly, pulsing with white light.

  And then, like a nightlight being switched off, it winks out and my skin returns to its normal chocolate-brown color.

  Weird. Even for the witch apocalypse that was weird.

  I gasp when I realize what’s even weirder. I’m standing. I look down at my knee, which I expect to be dark with early bruising, but it looks the same. When I flex my leg, it doesn’t so much as sting. And the rest of me—my shoulder, my chest, my cheek—are all free of scrapes and pain. It’s as if I wasn’t thrown through the air by a grenade blast at all. Like I imagined it.

  The light healed me, I realize with a start.

  But before I can think too much about it, a voice says, “You owe me, Rhett.”

  I whirl around to find Bil Nez standing ten feet away, his crossbow raised and aimed. But not at me. Past me, toward—I turn and glance behind me—Graves, who is groaning and trying to regain his feet.

  “Thank you,” I say, turning back. “You might’ve saved my life.”

  “Might’ve?” he says. “You couldn’t move. She could. There was no might’ve in the equation.”

  “How did you do the thing with the light?” I ask.

  His head cocks to the side. “You’re not making any sense. Maybe your life flashed before your eyes—I dunno.”

  “Was it a healing potion? Some kind of a spell you learned?” He did something to me. Something to heal me.

  He glares at me. “I’m not a warlock, dumb-dumb. I resist spells, not use them.”

  Right. Of course. Duh. Then who?

  Another groan from Graves.

  “What should we do about them?” Bil asks, gesturing with his crossbow.

  The End has caused me a lot of trouble recently, but I’m not really in the business of murder, particularly those who are helping in the fight against notorious witch gangs like the Hallucinators. “You work for New America. They work for New America. Don’t you communicate with them somehow?”

  Bil looks at me like I’m a kindergartner trying to learn to spell cat and getting it backwards. “Each group of New America witch hunters is separate. Different missions, different dynamics. We’re not some big, happy family. Me, I’m a solo artist. I avoid other witch hunters like the plague.”

  Okay then. “But shouldn’t we make sure they’re all right?” I don’t exactly have any affection for Graves or Silent or any of them really, but some of the other witch hunters in their group might be okay, assigned to The End by some oblivious general.

  “They can fend for themselves. Let’s get outta here.” Bil starts to back away, his crossbow never leaving Graves, who’s staggering slightly, one hand on his forehead and the other rubbing his back. The Silent Assassin is still down, not moving, but further down the street some of the other witch hunters are pulling themselves up. Injured, but not dead. At least not yet.

  Now that there seem to be enough of the witch hunters alive to pull themselves together and take care of those that are the most badly injured, I’m thinking Bil’s suggestion is a good one. Soon we could be outnumbered and then anything could hap—

  “Rhett Carter and Bil Nez!” Graves roars, cutting off my thoughts and surprising me with the strength of his voice. “I’ve got a bone to pick with you. And today’s a two for one special.”

  To him, the business of death and revenge is like going grocery shopping. “The sale’s over,” I say. “You’d be dead if not for us. Go tend to your hunters and we’ll call it even.” I start to back away, following Bil’s lead.

  “I don’t think so,” Graves says. Something pings off the ground at his feet, just the tinkle of metal on asphalt, like a dropped coin or…

  …the firing pin on a grenade.

  I realize too late that Eddie X’s last grenade, the one that fell to the street and rolled next to Graves, isn’t there, and Graves wasn’t rubbing his back, he was hiding it behind him. And now he’s pulled the pin out.

  He smiles. “Hey, Rhett. Where’s your dog? I’d have liked to have made it a three for one special. What’s that mutt’s name again?”

  Just as Graves cocks his arm back, revealing the black explosive in his palm, I turn and start to run, watching as Bil does the same. I look back once and shout, “Hex!” to answer his question.

  All I see is the grenade spinning through the air, a black oval on a bright blue background. It’s coming too fast and I’m too slow and if it was a football I’d be on the perfect trajectory to catch it and trot into the end zone. But this is one football I don’t want to catch.

  My eyes widen and I try to stop, to turn back toward Graves, who will surely be out of range of his own grenade, but my momentum is too much, carrying me forward, and the weapon is arcing downward, right toward me, perhaps a second away from exploding and turning me into Rhett-goo.

  As if travelling through a wormhole from an alternate dimension, Hex appears in midair, his paws leading, his mouth open, his tongue out, and—

  He catches the grenade in his mouth, as if he’s just showing off, playing a fun game of Frisbee.

  Except in this case he gulps at the air and swallows the Frisbee. Only the Frisbee is a grenade. I finally skid to a stop, my eyes widening, my hand instinctively going to my mouth in horror.

  No, Hex. No.

  Hex lands beside me, his tail wagging, grinning devilishly.

  No. Bad, dog. Bad.

  “Oh Hex,” I say, feeling ill, not caring that I’m far too close to him for my own safety.

  He barks once and then it happens. His body bulges outward rapidly, like a limp balloon instantly going from deflated to filled with air. At the same time, his feet pop off the ground, shooting him up a few feet. He looks like a mini, dog-shaped blimp.

  He coughs and smoke pours from his ears and nose, and then a spout of flames erupt from his mouth, narrowly missing me. He burps and the air rushes from him, returning his body to normal size and his feet to the ground.

  I crouch down and he runs up, licking me with a tongue that’s black with ash. “Good dog,” I say, scratching him under the chin, not caring that he’s smearing blackened saliva all over my face. “Best dog.”

  “Rhett,” Bil says, putting a hand on my shoulder. “We can all hug and cry later. Now we’d better get outta here before Graves finds something else to blow up.”

  Graves glares at us as we take off, Bil’s crossbow trained on him the whole time, so he doesn’t try anything stupid.

  And I can’t wipe the smile off my face, even as I realize that I’ve never felt so whole or had so much energy in my entire life.

  As my fists pump on either side, I barely notice a white pulsing sheen on my skin.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Laney

  I think about what Xave told me for a long time as I try to fall asleep. The sounds of his gentle exhalations, just a few feet away, surround me, so even, so heavy, so human. Until now, I’ve never really considered what it would be like to be magic-born. I’ve been so angry—at my parents for wanting to kill me, at Trish for not talking, at the Reaper and Xavier for hurting Rhett, at Rhett for wanting revenge—that I’ve never really tried to put myself in anyone else’s shoes.

  What would it be like to have the ability to do something but not be able to use your talents? Is that what it’s like for Xavier? He sees a corpse and can’t help but want to reanimate it? Like when I used to see a guitar and want nothing more than to strum it, to hear the gentle vibrations of the strings.

  I shake my head. What am I talking about? These people…these witches and warlocks…destroyed everything. They tore down the world and NOW they want to build it back up? Screw them. They can’t have it both ways.

  I realize my teeth are aching from gritting them so hard. My jaw, too. I try to relax an
d think. What can I do?

  The question swirls a million times, a mind-tornado, as I finally drift off to sleep.

  ~~~

  Trish reaches for me, her hand pulsing with ethereal white light. She looks older, more than just a child, gloriously beautiful, like how I would expect an angel to look.

  Her expression is older, too, wiser. The slightest of smiles paints her pink lips, which look softer than clouds.

  “See,” she says, and although her message is as cryptic as ever, for once I understand. I see. A vision flashes before my eyes. Fire and stone and smoke and screams. Mostly, screams.

  The dying.

  Witches killing. Warlocks killing. Humans dying.

  But no, I’m wrong. As the smoke clears, I see the truth Trish is trying to convey. Yes, humans are dying, but not just them. The magic-born, too. Witches are broken and bleeding next to humans who are crumpled and twisted. Their screams flow together, joining, a symphony of pain.

  A white, pulsing hand passes across my vision and the horrific scene vanishes.

  “See?” Trish says again, and this time it’s a question.

  My lips feel cracked, my throat tight, but I manage to croak out a single word. “Yes,” I say.

  My sister smiles, and the white around her, within her, brightens, pulsing and pulsing and reaching a crescendo of light, blinding me.

  The dream fades to the oblivion of deep sleep.

  ~~~

  I awake when the light gets so bright that it penetrates my closed eyelids, as if the dream has chased me into real life.

  I squint, trying to keep it out, wondering why I feel like I’ve only slept an hour, more exhausted than I’ve felt in a long time.

  When I open my eyes I know immediately that something’s not right, because there’s darkness all around me, on the edges of my vision, and yet it’s like I’m looking into the sun in the middle, the light so blinding I have to shield my eyes with my hands. And when I part my lips to shout to those still sleeping around me, ignorant to my plight, the light pours into my mouth, stifling my voice.

  Another dream, I realize, pinching myself, surprised I’m still able to see my thumb and forefinger squeezing the skin of my arm in the dark. I barely feel the pinch, like it’s nothing more than a soft touch, even though I’m squeezing as hard as I can. The effects of the dream?

  Where is the light coming from?

  A sliver of white light shoots down my arm to my fingers and then back again, like a laser beam.

  The voice, just a whisper but so unexpected that it makes me flinch, shatters the silence. Find him.

  I twist my head around, trying to see who spoke, who’s awake. From the glow emanating from MY FREAKING SKIN, I can see that the rest of the Necros are sleeping deeply, despite the fact that it’s dark and they should be getting up, preparing for another long trek south. Weird. It takes me a moment to realize both that the whisper was in my head, and that I know whose voice it was.

  Trish’s.

  The whisper comes again, and this time I don’t startle, although I’m just as freaked out by it. Find him, it repeats. Let the light guide you.

  Even as I grab my pack and clamber to my feet, I marvel at the fact that none of my rushed movements seem to make the slightest sound. On impossibly silent footsteps, I steal from the Necro camp, wondering whether the compulsion I’m feeling now is similar to what Xavier and the other Necros feel when they see a dead body:

  Like I can’t not listen to it.

  Chapter Twenty

  Rhett

  I used to think the heart of the world was in its inhabitants. In people, in their traditions, in their good deeds and strong wills. Now I know that’s not true, for the heart of the world has been lost to humankind for a long time, closed off and encased in stone. A hard and stubborn thing that’s unwilling to share what it feels, what it hears, and what it sees with those who live on its flanks. The End is proof of that.

  Why Graves would immediately try to kill us, no questions asked, after we saved his skin, I’ll never understand. My only explanation is that he either has an empty cavity in his chest where his heart used to be, or the heart that is there has been turned to stone. It’s the last time I’ll help him and his group.

  We’ve been running for an hour, getting as far away from The End as we can before nightfall. Bil and I are side by side, while Hex trails along behind us. Hex started as the leader, but kept farting clouds of smoke in our faces, so we politely asked him to stay back a ways. I’m hoping the smoke-farts won’t become a chronic condition of him eating the grenade.

  When we reach an intersection in the highway, I start to turn left, while Bil continues straight ahead. We crash into each other, tangling in an awkward embrace where we both sort of hold each other up. “Learn how to run straight, Rhett,” Bil says in between breaths. We’re both good runners these days, but we’re also both breathing heavily at this point.

  “I was turning,” I say.

  “New Washington is that way,” Bil says. “I’m the one who’s been there, remember?”

  Although logically I know that getting to New America is the right move, it wasn’t my brain that commanded my legs to turn left. It was something else.

  “I want to go this way,” I say, gesturing left. Do I really? Why did I even say that?

  “Why?” Bil asks. Now he’s looking at me like I’m the one who’s crazy.

  “Why not?” I say. I sound like a freaking idiot, but I don’t know what else to say.

  “Are you feeling alright?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Because I saw something,” Bil says, looking away, as if refusing to meet my eyes.

  A knot forms in my stomach. “Really? What?”

  Bil pokes a stone with his foot. Hex stands ten feet away, waiting for us to decide on the direction. Lazy curls of smoke waft around him. His battle against grenade indigestion continues. “Just after I shot that witch…”

  “Twice,” I say, trying to get a laugh.

  His lip quirks, but that’s all. “Yeah,” he says. “Well, I saw this strange light.”

  And that’s all he says. He finally looks at me, his eyebrows raised, as if expecting me to fill in the blanks.

  Well, I won’t. Not when he flat-out lied to me about not seeing the light before. “You said you didn’t see anything,” I say.

  He throws up his hands. “Sorry, I—I thought it was my screwed up mind playing tricks on me again. Sometimes it’s easier for me to just pretend that I’m a normal guy.”

  What am I supposed to tell him? You know that light you saw, Bil? It’s inside me now. I don’t know what it is or where it came from, but I can feel it pulsing in my chest, right alongside the beating of my heart. And you know what? It’s the light that made me turn left, not my brain. The light is controlling me. Weird, huh? We’re still friends, right?

  I don’t say any of that. I say nothing, just meet his eyes, unblinking.

  After a few minutes of our silent staring competition, he says, “We’ll go left,” and then veers away, settling into a brisk walk, his strides long and measured, his crossbow bouncing against his back.

  And for the first time in a long time, I feel one thing for Bil Nez:

  Gratitude.

  ~~~

  As we get further away from the main road and late afternoon stretches to dusk, I get more and more nervous. This is all on me. Well, me and the strange light I know is inside me, guiding me. When we make yet another turn, this time onto what’s little more than an overgrown dirt track, I have the urge to drop to my knees and scream at the sky.

  But I don’t. More accurately, I can’t. My legs won’t let me, which is really starting to scare me. I’m not in control of anything right now, and that’s really freaky. The light could’ve been sent from a witch, who’s looking to bag a couple of witch hunters and a magic dog to experiment on. That doesn’t make sense though. I’m a Resistor, surely if this was a witch’s spell I could fight it off. Unless
my body doesn’t want to fight it off. For the hundredth time, I lock my jaw and try to push all of my thoughts against the light, trying to take control of it, or at least understand its motives. Also for the hundredth time, all I get for my efforts is a throbbing headache, which disappears within seconds.

  So I just shrug at Bil and Hex, who seem willing to let me do the leading, and push through the branches stretching across the path.

  When the path ends in a small clearing, my legs decide to stop. There’s nothing around us except trees.

  “Uh…” Bil says.

  Hex barks.

  I feel a mutiny approaching.

  I sit down. Well, more accurately, the light sits me down.

  “I guess I could use a break, too,” Bil says, flopping down next to me. “Especially since we’ve obviously arrived at our destination.” The sarcasm is heavy in his tone.

  Hex rolls onto his back, his legs in the air, pining for a belly rub. Bil fulfills his request, scratching behind each leg, which seems to be an obvious attempt to form an alliance against me. I don’t bother to warn him that Hex’s grenade-gas might not be finished yet. Scratch at your own risk, buddy, I think.

  “I don’t know why we’re here,” I blurt out.

  Bil stops scratching, which makes Hex whine. You can scratch and talk at the same time, he seems to say.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t,” I say. “The light you saw came inside me and now it’s…guiding me. I don’t know how else to explain it, only that my feet know where to go without me thinking about it.”

  “You’re right,” Bil says. “We’d never have found this awesome clearing in the middle of nowhere without you.” He says it with a smile, like he’s joking, but I can sense a simmering frustration behind his jovial demeanor.

  I sigh. Why can’t I fight this light and how’d it get inside me in the first place?