Dead Set

  “Leave her!” came a woman’s voice, cool and commanding. It echoed around the room, repeating the order until it finally faded, leaving a charged silence behind.

  “What are you doing, child?” came the commanding voice. Zoe didn’t want to stop and look, but she couldn’t help herself. She had to see the woman. Carefully, moving only a few inches at a time so she wouldn’t fall, she turned and looked down at Hecate. The queen was dressed in a long flowing gown of black and red. She wore a beautiful metal crown that looked to be made of silver wolf teeth.

  “What a brave girl you are,” said the queen. “And resourceful, too.” Her smile was like the night sky—cold, beautiful, infinitely deep. “No one has ever made it this far into my palace before. Do you know why?”

  Zoe didn’t want to answer, but couldn’t look away from the queen. “No,” she said.

  Hecate gave her a dazzling smile. “Because no one has ever dared to. But you did.” The queen approached the pile of junk. The wolves and human souls fell back, creating a lane for her to pass. “That’s why I like you. That’s why you and I can be friends. Because we dare. We do what these blackguards and minions wouldn’t dare dream of.”

  Zoe didn’t want to listen, didn’t want to talk to the queen. There was something in her voice, something seductive and compelling. Something hypnotic. “I could use someone brave and resourceful for a friend. But to be my friend, you will have to come down here and stand beside me.”

  “I . . .” Zoe said weakly, “I can’t.”

  “Of course you can, dear,” said the queen lightly. “Don’t worry about falling. My men will catch you.”

  “Catch me,” said Zoe. The words bounced around in her mind until she saw their true meaning. “Yes, you want to catch me. You want to use me to get back to the world.” She backed away, knelt on a filing cabinet, and started climbing again.

  “Nonsense. Did that fool Prosper tell you that? He was mad as a hatter,” said Queen Hecate. “That’s why I dismissed him.”

  Zoe’s was dizzy. It was hard to move forward. Each step she took, each handhold, was an effort. Even though the queen didn’t tell her to stop, the sound of her voice weighed Zoe down and made moving almost impossible. She said weakly, “I don’t believe you.”

  “One day, it will be my time to leave Iphigene, you know,” the queen said. Her tone was conversational. “When I do, a new queen will have to take my place. Until now, I haven’t seen anyone worthy of the title. But you could be that queen.”

  “No” was all Zoe could muster.

  “I have your brother and soon I’ll have your father,” said Hecate in a deadly tone. “My men are already on their way to arrest them.”

  Zoe ignored her. This angry Hecate was less hypnotic than the cajoling one, and easier to fight. Zoe’s head began to clear, so she climbed faster. She could see the edge of the giant mirror just a few yards above her.

  “I will not let you leave!” Hecate cried.

  Zoe paused, picked up a box of glass paperweights, and hurled it down to the floor. The box split open and sharp shards flew in all directions, forcing Hecate’s troops back.

  The queen turned and spoke to one of the wolf men. “Very well,” she said. “But only wound her.”

  An arrow sliced the air by Zoe’s head and embedded itself deep in the side of a heavy oak desk. She threw herself down behind the desk and looked for a way out.

  The edge of a nearby bookcase that was tall enough to hide behind. She put her shoulder into the side of the desk and pushed, feeling it slide slowly forward. Finally, it toppled down the mound, scattering Hecate’s men. Zoe ran the few steps to the bookcase and jumped on top as more arrows shot past her.

  From there she was up high enough, she thought, that if she kept low and crawled, the archers on the ground wouldn’t be able to get a good shot at her. She started forward on her belly. Arrows still flew at her, but they all landed too low or whizzed by overhead.

  “Enough,” said Hecate impatiently. The arrows stopped flying. “Come, my children. Feed. Fill your bellies.”

  Zoe heard an awful sound in the air above her. She looked up just in time to see a swarm of Hecate’s winged baby snakes swarming into the room and filling the space under the glass dome. Their high-pitched squeaks and chirps sounded even madder than before. The bats circled the dome once, twice, and then dove for her.

  Zoe stood and scrabbled up the pile of junk as quickly as she could. The giant mirror was just ahead. If she could reach it, she’d be close enough to the window that the bats and archers wouldn’t matter.

  When the first wave of snakes swarmed around her, they hit hard enough to knock her down. She had to grab the base of a withered old potted palm to keep from rolling over the side. The next swarm hit her just as she got to her feet. Zoe was ready this time and ducked, so she was able to take the blow and stay standing. She made it up the pile a few more feet before they hit her again. From where she stood, it was a straight line to the mirror. If she leaned forward far enough, she could almost touch it.

  This time when the swarm slammed into her, the snakes didn’t fly away. They dug in with their fangs and beat her with their wings. Zoe covered her face, trying to protect her eyes. She swung her free arm before her, trying to keep the snakes off as much as she could. She couldn’t breathe. It felt like she was drowning, drowning while being eaten alive. It took her a second to realize that the screams she heard were her own.

  Zoe fell to her knees as more snakes landed on her. She closed her eyes and crawled a few feet, using one hand to move and the other to cover her face. Every inch was agony. Covered with snakes, her arms felt like they weighed a hundred pounds each. Then her hand landed on something glassy. Zoe tilted her head up and opened one eye. Through the trembling mass of serpents, she saw the gold frame. With her free hand, she reached out, grabbed the edge of the mirror, and pulled herself up. When she stood, the snakes lifted off her as one.

  Her legs shook but the snakes were gone. Relief flooded through her. She looked down on the wolf men and humans below. I’m too close to the window to stop and they know it. She raised her bloody hands and gave them all the finger. It wasn’t until she lowered her hands that she saw Hecate, and by then, it was too late.

  In the split second before it happened, she remembered the first time she’d seen the queen. Zoe had known instantly that she was more than a simple ruler. She was a warrior. That’s why it was so frightening, though not at all surprising, to see Hecate aiming a longbow up at her.

  There was the slightest of sounds, as if someone had delicately plucked a string on a classical guitar. A second later, something slammed into Zoe’s chest. It didn’t feel like an arrow, what she imagined an arrow would feel like. It was more like being punched with a fist made of fire. When she raised her hands, however, she felt the arrow’s shaft buried deep in her chest. She looked down at Hecate and watched as a satisfied, feral smile split her face. The sight made Zoe’s head swim.

  She stumbled back, grabbing on to the mirror. One of her legs slid from beneath her and slammed into something. Zoe felt the junk mound move ominously. Boxes shifted and settled. Something cracked. She didn’t care. She slid down onto her belly as her vision collapsed into a long dark tunnel. From somewhere a million miles away, she heard Hecate scream “Don’t let her fall! I need her body!”

  Zoe tried to push herself back to her feet, but her bones had turned to rubber. She leaned back onto the boxes and felt them slide away from her. A roaring, crashing sound filled the room. It took her a second to realize that she’d started an avalanche. A whole section of the junk mountain was beginning to move. A fault line opened in a lower section, wobbled from side to side, and slammed into the mirror. She heard a scrape and a screech as it shifted and began to slide.

  Boxes cascaded around her and over her. The hand she’d been resting on the mirror was suddenly empty as the e
normous slab of silvered glass toppled forward.

  “No!” shrieked Hecate in a new voice, one more fearful than angry. “What have you done, child?”

  Zoe didn’t answer. She lay on her side, one hand on the arrow buried in her chest. Her arms and legs didn’t work anymore. She couldn’t see much more than gray outlines below. Each breath she took was harder than the last. Something wet sloshed around inside her, filling her lungs. Each breath hurt more than the one before. She couldn’t keep her eyes open. Zoe knew that she was dying and she was so tired, she was happy to just let it happen.

  At least I’ll be with Valentine and Dad, she thought.

  When the mirror hit the floor, it shattered with a sound like the earth bursting open, of the sky cracking. Everything shook, like all of creation was trying to rip itself apart from the inside.

  Light burst from beneath the shattered glass and wood. Even at the edge of death, the light was so bright that Zoe had to raise a hand to shield her eyes from it.

  Her body began to fill with a strange warmth and she found that she could breathe again. The dull pain in the center of her chest began to fade. When she touched the arrow, it crumbled in her hand. Through her closed lids, the light that filled the room faded, drawing in on itself until it was a floating ball of burning gold. Zoe opened her eyes.

  Rising slowly from the floor of the auditorium, from the middle of the broken mirror, was the stolen sun. It moved slowly, elegantly, rumbling and sizzling, filling the room with a brilliant healing light. Zoe pushed herself into a sitting position and touched the skin between her breasts. Though the front of her shirt was damp with her blood, the arrow wound was gone.

  “No! I beat you! You’re mine!”

  Zoe looked down and saw Hecate shrieking at the burning star floating just a few feet over her head. Around the queen, her wolf men ran from the light, bursting into flames as they went. The floor was already covered with them. Hecate’s snakes sizzled like sparklers, floating in the air like thousands of fireflies, before falling to the ground at the queen’s feet.

  “You’re mine!” Hecate screamed. She had been looking at the sun, but now turned her gaze on Zoe. “You’re all mine.” Hecate’s face went soft and the bones seemed to shift under her flesh. Her hair and dress were already beginning to smolder. She paid no attention to any of this as the human part of her melted away like candle wax, leaving only the snarling she-wolf behind. Hecate’s dress was burning now and the flames spread quickly over the fabric and onto her coarse black fur. Burning, she leaped from the floor onto the boxes and desks and began to climb.

  Zoe fell back against a card catalog. Looking around, she saw that there were enough boxes to reach the window. Still weak, she began to climb. She’d only gone a few feet when she felt a blistering heat rising behind her.

  Hecate stepped onto the platform just below Zoe. The queen was a pillar of pure flame now, and the furniture that was nearest to her immediately began to smoke and smolder. Hecate reached up, but Zoe pressed herself into the wall. It was so hot that she was afraid of her own clothes bursting into flame. The queen braced herself to climb onto Zoe’s level, but as she moved to rise up, her leg collapsed. She lunged at Zoe with both arms and froze in place. Her ashen body wouldn’t move. Not much more now than a statue of orange-blue flame, she raised her burning snout in the air and let out one last long and ferocious howl. Then her body caved in on itself, crumbing and drifting away to the floor in a cloud of burning ash. Zoe lay still, unable to think or move.

  Silently the sun rose, swelling as it went. When it reached the ceiling, it was as big as the glass dome. It burst through without slowing, gliding away, growing larger and more dazzling by the second. Zoe looked up at the window. Outside, the moonlit sky gave way to a deep blue.

  She climbed up to the window and pushed it open. Swinging her feet over the sill, she dropped onto a fire escape. Leaning against the railing, she looked down on Iphigene, seeing it lit up like it had been on that one perfect day she had spent with her father. The air felt lighter, the atmosphere clearer. She could feel it. Some powerful spell had definitely been broken. Souls poured from the restaurants and bars, out of the alleys and backstreets. They ran past the boardwalk and onto the beach to watch the sun rise over the city.

  Zoe rested on the metal steps and watched the city come to life. She stayed there a long time, just breathing. When she was ready, she got up and went down the fire escape to the street below.

  Whatever the sun had done to her back in the auditorium, she sensed that it was still doing it. She felt stronger with each step she took, not at all tired. The dozens of little bat bites were healing, though the marks were still visible. She was glad of that and secretly hoped that some would scar over. She didn’t want to have gone through all this without something to keep so that when she was back in the world, no one, not even she, could tell her that it had all been a dream.

  People streamed out of City Hall. Papers, uniforms, and broken glass were scattered among piles of ashes where more of Hecate’s guards had met the sunlight. Just inside the front doors, she spotted a belt that held some old prison keys. She retraced her steps to the staircase by the auditorium. Downstairs, she released Valentine and the other prisoners. The ones who could run took off for the stairs. Zoe and Valentine were the last to leave. She held on to her brother’s shoulder as he hobbled up the stairs on his bent leg.

  It was slow going, but they made their way down the boardwalk, neither of them talking because there was nothing to say right then. Things were changing quickly in the city, as if its residents had been poised to move for a thousand years.

  Buses were already lining up to take souls to . . . well, Zoe thought, wherever it was souls went to from here. She looked at Valentine and a smile spread across both of their faces. She knew what he was thinking, that wherever the buses were going, it was somewhere else, somewhere new. An adventure. And it was no one’s choice but his own whether to get on or not. Valentine asked her what had happened back at City Hall and Zoe told him. He nodded as she talked. When she was done, he just laughed, leaned over, and kissed the top of her head.

  It took them an hour of wandering through the crush of excited souls to find their father. He grinned happily when he saw Zoe and took her in his arms. “I take it back,” he said. “The last time I said I didn’t want to see you for fifty years, it was just practice. But I’ll mean it the next time.” He let go of her and looked at the sun, shielding his eyes with one hand. “I don’t know what just happened or how, but I have a feeling you had something to do with it,” he said fondly.

  “Hecate’s dead,” she said.

  Her father’s eyes widened.

  “You did that?”

  “No. The sun did. All I did was find the sun.”

  “That’s my girl,” he said, and pulled her to him.

  She took Valentine’s hand and pulled him forward. “This is the friend I told you about. The one who helped me.”

  Zoe’s father smiled at the boy and took him into a big bear hug, saying, “Thank you for taking care of my little girl.” Zoe saw Valentine stiffen the same way he had when she’d first touched him. Then she saw him relax just a little and tentatively put a hand on his father’s back.

  “There’s something you should know, Dad. A secret,” she said. Valentine’s body grew rigid again and he took an awkward step back from them, but she grabbed his hand and held him there.

  “You said you wouldn’t tell,” Valentine said through clenched teeth.

  “The secret is stupid. Look,” she said, pointing at the buses, “everyone is moving on. You have to, too.”

  “I can’t,” said Valentine. “Look at me.” He pulled her hand, but Zoe held him tight.

  “What is this, Zoe? What’s going on?” asked their father.

  “Dad, you two don’t know each other, but this is Valentine, your son.”

&n
bsp; Zoe’s father stared at her with a blank, uncomprehending look. He turned to the boy as if hoping for some kind of explanation, but Valentine kept his head low in his torn coat collar. “Trust me, Dad. I’ve known him all my life, but I didn’t know who he was until I came here.” She looked at Valentine. “You can be mad at me for telling.” She turned to her father. “You can be mad at me for not telling, but there’s no way I was leaving here without you two meeting.” She let go of her brother’s hand. To her relief, he didn’t try to run away. “Valentine, say hello to Dad. Dad, say hello to Valentine.”

  Their father stared at the boy. “Valentine?” He turned to Zoe. “How is this possible?”

  She nodded at Valentine. “He can tell you. He’s smart.”

  Their father put his hands on both their shoulders. “I’m lost here,” he said. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “I can explain it, if you like,” said Valentine quietly. He stared down at the ground. “Will you be getting on one of the buses?”

  “Yeah,” said their father. “I suppose I will.”

  Valentine nodded. “Maybe we could ride together,” he said. “If you want, I can tell you as we go.”

  “I’d like that.”

  From out of the crowd, Caroline appeared. Like the others, she looked a little dazed by the sunlight, but she was smiling. “There you all are,” she said merrily. “Isn’t it a lovely day?” She looked up at the sun, squinted, and looked away. “I need to practice what one does and doesn’t do on sunny days, I think.” She touched Zoe’s shoulder. “I’ve been sent to fetch you, dear.”

  “Fetch me for what?” asked Zoe.

  Caroline cocked her head slightly. “There’s a bus waiting for you,” she said. “It’s time for all little living girls to go home.”

  Zoe looked at Valentine and her father. “She’s right, Zoe,” her father said. While keeping one arm out so that Valentine could lean on him, he took Zoe’s hand and they followed Caroline to the last bus in the row. The door hissed open as they approached. Gently, but firmly, Caroline urged Zoe up to the bottom step of the bus.