I shoved up my sleeve to reach the glimmering spore glyph on my forearm. "Pull up your bandannas. It's time."
Once the others were ready, I drew from the glyph, filling my hand with a sleeping toxin. As we rounded the corner, I blew against my palm to spread the spores. Like starting a blaze from kindling.
Dozens of men guarded a gigantic tent. And they all wore . . .
Gas masks.
My invisible onslaught drifted harmlessly over them, carried off on the wind.
Tess gasped, muttering, "You can't put them to sleep."
"Keep it together!" Selena yanked down her bandanna, and the others did too.
Now what were we going to do? There was no reason for us--or the four soldiers we resembled--to be this far from the main camp.
"Gabriel, you'll have to talk to them," I whispered. "Tell them that Vincent sent for us."
He called to the guards, "Greetings!" He might as well have said, "Hail, fellow, well met!"
I inwardly groaned. Tess gasped again.
"Vincent summoned us."
A tall, lanky soldier, the apparent leader, said, "He told us he doesn't want to be disturbed." The man sounded creepy through his gas mask. "Not for any . . ." He trailed off, eyes going wide.
At Tess.
Her illusion flickered like an old TV, going from girl to burly soldier. Girl. Then soldier.
"Enemy in the camp!" one of the guards bellowed.
We whirled around and bolted. With yells, half of the men gave chase.
Gabriel spread his wings, snagging Selena.
"Don't take me first!" She flailed against his grip. "They're dead if we leave them!"
He shot into the air like a reverse bungee, arcing upward and away.
Tess and I kept running. Conjuring my powers on the move like this felt impossible. I needed time to concentrate and seed my arsenal. Or I needed the witch. . . .
If we could just buy time for Gabriel to return! The bluff dropped off at a sheer cliff, so I skirted the edge of it, heading down the mountain. "This way!" I cried, careening along a winding trail.
Down and down we went into a gully of rock, those guards right on our heels. At last, the gully opened up into an inlet, a sandy beach that led to the river's shore. The Priestess's domain.
--Terror from the abyss!--
Between breaths, Tess asked, "D-did you hear her, Evie?"
The guards barreled onto the beach, pinning us back against an Arcana. Would I rather be a captive of the Lovers? Or bet on the Priestess not to kill me if I trespassed into her element?
I'd choose the Lovers. "Stop, Tess. Don't go any closer to the shore--"
A huge splash sounded behind us. We twisted around.
Towering plumes of water burst from the surface. Like tentacles, they snaked across the sand.
To drag Tess and me down.
We ran toward the dumbstruck soldiers, but those tentacles focused on me. Wet pressure coiled around one of my boots! Caught!
Yank. I landed flat on my face, spitting a mouthful of sand, half-blinded by grit.
The thing jerked me toward the river, my body plowing the beach. I scrabbled for purchase, but the tentacle reeled me in like a fish.
Tess lunged forward to grab my hand. I stretched for her. Every time she got close, the tentacle snatched me back.
As if playing with us.
A girl's disembodied voice said, "Enemies almighty." Was the river speaking? "I thought you'd give me more sport than this, Empress."
Taunting me? On the heels of my failed rescue?
Fury banked inside me, like fuel--or bait--for the red witch. My glyphs stirred, my hair reddening. My claws dug into my palms until blood poured to seed my own soldiers.
I spat more sand. "Get out of the way, Tess!"
She scrambled back.
Vines erupted from the ground, shooting like rockets toward those tentacles. The ropes of green twined around each arm of water, choking them, forcing them to regrow.
Gabriel yelled from above. Returned!
But he couldn't get around the vine and water strikes to reach me and Tess.
Wherever the Priestess launched a water tentacle, my plants were ready to intercept and strangle. My arsenal fed from hers, fattening right before my eyes, seeping water.
When the tentacle around my ankle collapsed into a puddle, I levered myself to my feet. Vines flanked me, helping me stand.
"Come, Priestess, touch." I raised my palm, and three barbs appeared. "And pay my price!" I tossed the barbs into the air, and a thorn tornado spun to life.
The Priestess attacked once more, but the tornado sheared her water feelers down like a propeller. They grew slower, regenerating with difficulty. She was weakening!
I laughed at her. "The earth went so long without water, Priestess. You must still be feeling it."
"Only for a time, my sister enemy." Her watery voice carried a melodic accent. "Ah, this rain, it falls without cease, no?"
The weary tentacles dropped, a last splash in the river. A final wave rippled. "We'll meet again, Empress." The surface settled to glass calm as the Priestess retreated.
Gabriel landed just outside my barbs, flaring his fangs, claws, and wings at our next threat.
The soldiers were slack-jawed, but their weapons stayed trained.
The red witch in me was unconcerned: Nothing that an old-fashioned thorn flaying can't take care of. I smiled at them, and knew it was a harrowing sight. Yes, gentlemen, you are all about to die.
"Behind me, Tess." When she crept to my back, I raised a hand to skin them alive--
That tall leader motioned for the others to lower their weapons. To me, he said, "C-can you kill the twins?"
9
"As a matter of fact, I'm on my way to do just that," I promised him. "Right after I descend on you like a scourge." The tornado tightened and vines snapped straight, poised to strike.
To his credit, the leader didn't lose control of his bladder. "I'm . . . my name is Franklin. We don't want to stop you. We want to help you."
Tess whispered, "We should listen to them."
Since my former plan had resulted in zero gain, I'd hear what this Franklin had to say. I inhaled for calm, exhaling. Again.
Bring it back, Eves. Muzzle the witch. "We'll discuss this," I told them, "once you take off your masks."
He nodded to his men, and one by one, they did. Franklin appeared to be in his late twenties, with black hair, wide-set brown eyes, and a gap in his front teeth.
When Gabriel sheathed his claws, I let my tornado slow, a compressed cyclone ringing our feet. "I'm surprised you would turn against your . . . leaders." I had a hard time assigning that word to the Lovers.
"Most of this army hates the Milovnicis, but they've got spies everywhere. Anyone suspected of stepping out of line gets executed, along with family and friends. Or worse, the general gives them to the twins."
If the Hierophant had manipulated his followers through mind control, the Milovnicis did it the old-fashioned way: tyranny.
I canted my head at Franklin. "Have you ever tried to kill the twins yourselves?"
"Yeah. I got this handpicked crew, and we're ready. But each time, weird stuff happens. You might have better luck at it since all of this"--he indicated us--"is, uh, weird."
"Tell me about Vincent and Violet," I said. "What weird stuff?"
"We think they can teleport. Like in the comics." Franklin must've expected us to laugh in his face.
We three Arcana listened intently. "Go on," I said with a glance at Tess. She shared that ability. In theory.
"A couple of weeks ago, we'd planned to assassinate Violet. Right before it was time, we got radioed that she was in the other camp. But I'd just seen her in ours."
No wonder Matthew had difficulty getting a bead on her!
How did one fight a teleporter? Of course they couldn't teleport if they were spore-drunk. "I can kill them," I told Franklin. "And I will. But Jack Deveaux is my first c
oncern."
He nodded. "We've got to hurry, then. The twins were raring to go."
"Violet is here?"
"I saw her in the tent just before Vincent ordered us to wear gas masks."
My barbs soared, tornadic once more. The soldiers stepped back.
Gabriel cocked his head. "It's true. I can hear the Lovers from here. Jack refuses to torture another prisoner, so they're going to torture him."
I started sprinting back to the camp, Gabriel and Tess behind me, my thorns and vines trailing them. The soldiers followed at a distance.
We reached the bluff where we first landed. Between breaths, I told Gabriel, "We have to get to him before--"
Jack's roar of pain sounded. Two yells joined it in chorus. The twins were mimicking him?
I turned to the angel with wide eyes. "What did they do?"
He stutter-stepped, putting the back of his arm against his mouth.
"What, Gabriel?"
He lowered his arm, revealing his pale face. "It's bad." He sounded like a doctor about to deliver a terminal prognosis. "Empress, they used a hot spoon to . . . to take out one of his eyes."
"WHAT?" I'd misheard--or Gabriel had. That couldn't have happened.
Another of Jack's bellows carried across the night.
Gabriel flinched. "And again."
The earth seemed to go atilt. No, no, no. Not happening. My claws shredded my palms, blood pouring.
"He's blind," Gabriel murmured in a daze. "They laugh. It's done. They've left him for now."
I'd . . . failed.
I'd failed Jack. Rose stalks burst forth all around me. The ground began to move, roots growing, like snakes roiling beneath the surface.
The red witch ached to make her enemies pay! To rain down thorns and poison on the Lovers and every soul in this camp.
But what I really wanted was not to have failed Jack.
Why hadn't I moved faster? Fought the Priestess faster? Why had I run from the soldiers instead of taking bullets?
I imagined Jack's pain and shrieked my fury. When the twins were removing his second eye, he would have known he was about to be blinded forever. And he'd been helpless to stop the mutilation.
A hot spoon.
I felt like my heart had stopped. My world had. . . .
Through the chaos of my mind, a memory whispered. Something Matthew had said.
I pushed aside fantasies--of forcing Vincent and Violet to gouge out each other's eyes, to wear each other's scalps--and focused on that one fragile sprout of a memory pushing through to the surface.
A breath left me.
I wanted not to have failed Jack?
I turned to Tess, my lips curling as vines surrounded the unsuspecting girl. I strode up to her, my thorns enveloping the two of us. "You have work to do, World." I stabbed my claws into her shoulders.
She gave a cry. "Evie?"
From behind me, Gabriel growled, "Unhand her, Empress." But he could never breach the barbs.
Tonight, Matthew had said, "Sometimes the world spins in reverse. Sometimes battles do too." He'd meant the World Card could spin in reverse.
She could make time do the same.
"Please d-don't hurt me!"
"You know what you have to do, Tess. I won't inject you with poison, if you let the carousel spin and turn back time."
Her jaw slackened. "I don't have my staff to ground me!"
I'd seen her carrying one months ago. "Oh, I'll ground you."
"Each second I go back drains me of life. I don't know how to prevent that. It c-could destroy me."
Merciless, I tightened my claws in her flesh. "Then we'd better hurry."
10
I stared into Tess's dark blue eyes as her power began to manifest.
Her skin heated beneath my hands, and a dull buzz sounded. A breeze blew in a circle around us. From my thorns? No, the current of air flowed clockwise.
Her power stoked, the heat from her body increasing till it scalded me. But I refused to release my hold. The buzz grew in volume. Louder. Louder.
Our hair was dragged straight upward. When her body started levitating, I sank my claws deeper. If I hadn't been here to anchor her, would she have floated away?
The noise had gotten so loud her ears bled. Wet warmth slicked down my neck as well.
Suddenly Tess threw back her head and screamed. I could perceive the earth--or our existence or reality or something--stilling for one airless instant . . . before grinding into motion. The wrong way.
We were rotating backward! The World Card, Quintessence herself, was making time flow in reverse.
First rotation. Below us came a splash as the Priestess first attacked. The leftover arsenal I'd used against her began to vanish--but within Tess's circle, I remained the same, wet and bloodied.
Tess met my gaze. Her skin paled, her cheeks thinning.
Second rotation. Previous versions of me and Tess fled from the soldiers through the rock gully.
Beneath my claws, she was shedding weight at an alarming rate. "Please, Empress." The whites of her eyes were red, vessels blown. From pressure?
Jack's own eyes were gone. Brutally stolen. So I clawed her harder.
Third rotation. The soldiers had just begun giving chase.
Tess's breathing grew labored. Her face was haggard, her cheekbones jutting sharply. Patches of her raised mane of hair came out, long sections plucked away into the ether.
Fourth rotation. Four disguised Arcana meandered through the camp, almost at the twins' tent.
Tess's sunken red eyes pleaded. She looked like one of my famine victims from a past game. Brittle. Dying.
Her arms deflated in my grip, my bloody claws scraping over bone. Scrape, scrape . . .
Would I kill this girl to save Jack's sight? "Not yet, Tess! Not yet!"
Fifth rotation. Still disguised, Gabriel and an earlier version of Tess landed on this bluff, meeting up with Selena and the earlier version of me. The beginning of our mission.
"No more!" I screamed.
As if at the end of a car wreck, the spinning abruptly . . . stopped. Tess's head lolled, the remains of her hair hanging over her face.
The earth righted itself in fitful movements, seeming to gasp from exertion. With a shudder, the rotation ground forward once more.
Those earlier versions of me and Tess disappeared--leaving us, two girls aware of the near future, but physically changed. I'd been drained of power, with no arsenal to show for it.
And Tess . . . I released her arms, catching her as she collapsed, unconscious. Her now baggy clothing swallowed her emaciated body. Her teeth chattered, and she shivered for warmth. Would she survive?
"What the hell, Evie?" Selena cried.
She and Gabriel would have no idea why Tess was in this condition. For them, only an instant had passed.
"She used her power?" Gabriel demanded, his disguise faltering.
"Just take her back! Get her warm, and help her. Make sure she survives."
"I go anon." He cradled her slight weight and took to the sky.
As her illusion faded to nothing, Selena narrowed her gaze. "You and Tess don't have disguises. You're bleeding and soaking wet. Portal to another dimension? Or did you go back in time?"
"Violet is here. We have to save Jack in the next few minutes or he loses his eyes--"
"How many minutes?" Selena was already hastening toward the camp. She fiddled with a hi-tech sports watch on her sling arm.
I scrambled to catch up. "Enough time for Tess and me to run to the water's edge, then fight off the Priestess."
Selena raised her brows at that. Then she returned her concentration to the mission. "We'll say four minutes of running. How long did you and the Priestess tussle?"
Tussle? "I have no idea. Three minutes? Thirty?"
"I'm giving us eleven minutes total." Selena clicked the timer on. "Which tent is J.D. in? Without Gabriel--"
"I know which one."
"We don't have disguise
s!"
"No soldiers are out." I led Selena into the ghost-town camp.
When we passed the hobbled woman, I pressed my forefinger to my lips. After a heartbeat's hesitation, she nodded.
Selena and I continued on, picking up speed as we turned the corner.
"That's the tent."
She slowed. "The one heavily guarded by guys in gas masks?"
"Just keep running!" I passed her.
"This is suicide!" But she sped up.
"Do you want to save Jack or not?" I asked when we were side by side.
"Damn it, Evie!"
"Take off your sling and go all-out Arcana. Even without your bow, you can still look weird. Like you once told me: sell it, sister, or we are dead." I acted on that advice, calling forth my body vine.
It budded from the shimmering glyph over my nape. No more delicate ivy; this time I made it into a thornless rose stalk. Recalling Matthew's mention of a crown, I let it coil around my head, oversize leaves pointing up like arches. In lieu of a dozen stars, I fashioned twelve blooms to garnish it.
Roses were the red witch's flower.
My flower.
Selena tore off her sling and tossed it away. Her every footfall jostled that arm, but she gritted her teeth and withstood the agony.
For Jack, Selena Lua could do anything.
She began to glow, her skin the luminous red of a hunter's moon. Her silvery hair danced all around her head like gossamer moonbeams, an awing sight.
"Okay, Archer, how about hammering these guys with some doubt?" One of her powers as the Moon Card.
"It's not that easy." Her eyes darted. "I can't laser-focus it."
Another power secret? "Oh, that reminds me. I think the twins can teleport."
"Son of a bitch!" She glanced at my face. "Your glyphs are dim. Can you fumigate their tent?"
"I might've blown my wad against the Priestess." So much for conserving.
Selena scowled. "I'm going forward, even against teleporters."
"Like I'm not?"
When the soldiers caught sight of us, they aimed their guns, eyes going wide at Selena's appearance, not to mention mine.
We stopped in front of the detail. Selena had once told me that the Empress of Old was "slithery and creepy and sexy." I took a precious instant to catch my breath. "We're here to deliver you from the twins," I said in a throaty voice as petals wafted down from my wild reddened hair. "Step aside, and I'll rip their heads from their bodies. Your army will be freed."
The men gazed from me to Selena. We both wore expressions of otherworldly malice.
"It takes creatures like us--to destroy creatures like them. Let us do our jobs, soldiers. Just walk away."