Lead Demon

If We Perish, Let Us Perish

Something clanked beneath Jarrett’s coat as Seven stepped away.

“What’s that?” Seven asked, pulled from his thoughts.

“Something I picked up,” he said.

Jarrett pulled the object from inside his pocket. Seven gasped and stepped back. It was the jar the necromancer had held, the one with the flickering flame.

“Why—”

“I thought it might come in handy,” Jarrett said.

The twins stepped forward, peering over Jarrett’s shoulder silently. But Seven wasn’t watching them. He couldn’t take his eyes off the jar.

At first, he thought it was badly scratched, but the more he stared at it, the more the markings that flickered in the sun and from the inner fire became, well, if not legible, at least uniform. Definitely symbols. Harsh and angular. They seemed to whisper in his head, like reading a foreign language he could almost place. The weight of a void, the dark center of a star, the raging heat of space, consuming, consuming...

“What?” Jarrett asked.

Seven looked up. He didn’t realize he’d been moving his lips.

“Can you read them?” Dreya asked.

Seven stepped back and looked away. “No. I just... No.”

He caught the twins looking at Jarrett. He caught Jarrett’s furrowed brow. He caught the slightly stronger glow coming from within the jar. Or maybe it was just the sun.

“It sounded like you were reading it,” Jarrett ventured.

“No. I was just making it up.”

Jarrett’s next words were slow. Confused. “Are you—”

“We should be moving,” Dreya interrupted.

Jarrett seemed to snap back to reality. He looked to Dreya, shoving the jar back inside his pocket.

The moment it was hidden, the whispers in Seven’s mind quieted. He hadn’t even realized they were still there.

“Are you recharged?” Jarrett asked.

“Not fully,” she said. “But we do not have time to waste. Especially if you are carrying that.”

“Where are we going?” Seven asked. Jarrett was still looking at him curiously, like he wanted to ask him a thousand questions. Questions, he knew, that had nothing to do with the symbol-covered jar.

“Outer Chicago,” Jarrett replied. His words were still guarded.

Seven looked to Dreya. He could feel the warmth of Jarrett’s gaze. It lingered in his chest, thawing the cold places. And sending a dozen more questions racing through his brain.

“Why?” he asked.

Dreya sighed. She kept looking to the horizon, to the way they’d come from. “Outer Chicago is safe. Mostly.”

Did she mean that he would be safe there? Or that keeping him there would make it safe for others? Either way, Seven knew he didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t turn them down even if he wanted to. But the truth was, he didn’t want to fight them, and not just because of Jarrett. Seven had planned to spend the rest of his short life wandering between outposts, fighting the undead until he died for a cause. But now, knowing that he was a danger to those around him...

Or were they just bringing him back so they could experiment on him? He looked from Jarrett to Dreya to her silent brother, Devon. Seven wanted to believe they were on his side. He couldn’t afford that luxury.

The truth was, though, it didn’t matter what their motives were: he had one of his own. He didn’t have anyone left to fight for, but what he did have was an ax to grind. If what was happening to him—the strangeness of Water, the attraction of the Kin—could be used against the Howls, he would embrace it. If only so he could use it against those who had destroyed his life.

“Let’s go, then,” he said. He opened to Water. Memories flooded to the surface—Derek, curling into flame; his bedroom, dripping blood—but he was ready for them. He grappled them down with a well-practiced hand. “But I’m not letting you drag me there.”

“He has spark,” Jarrett mused.

“And you have no tact,” Dreya replied.

She opened to Water. Devon opened at the same time. He felt the twins wrap their power around Jarrett, the barest flicker of blue in the sun.

Jarrett just chuckled and leaped over the building, swan-diving into the lake. Dreya followed close behind.

Devon, however, stood there for a moment, hands crossed at his chest and his eyebrows furrowed.

“You still hear them, don’t you?” His voice was gruffer than Seven expected.

“Who?”

“The dead.”

Seven’s blood went cold. He could only nod.

“I hear them, too. Every day. Sometimes, I wonder if I’m even me anymore. Or just all the dead I carry around.”

Devon shook his head, then tightened the scarf around his face and leaped into the water.

Seven walked over to the edge. Stared down into the waves. They were already jetting off, cutting beneath the waves like spears of light. Devon’s words lingered, curled around the base of his skull. The last thing he wondered before jumping in was if Jarrett and the rest would save him, or if they’d just be three more names on the list of the dead he carried on his soul.

It was late  afternoon by the time they reached the shores of Outer Chicago. The water grew shallower, until they were able to trudge up through the waves toward the shore. The lake lapped at the highway stretching before them, slowly eating at the asphalt, turning it to sand and stone. He wondered if the destruction had been intentional—some necromancer trying to drown the whole city—or if it was just the Earth rebelling, eating itself alive to escape the madness magic had wrought. The aftershocks of the Resurrection had struck deep, and humans weren’t the only ones to receive the blowback.

Dreya slumped heavily against Jarrett as they made their way into the sprawling suburb. She had used the last of her magic to drain the water from their clothes. Devon held her hand.

Both of them were crying.

Gray clouds streaked through the slate blue sky, and the horizon was heavy with the promise of rain. Seven glanced up and shuddered. Late December in the Midwest and still no snow—another reminder of how much they’d f****d everything up. The summer had been unbearably hot and dry, and it seemed to be continuing into the winter here, too.

If the servants of the Dark Lady didn’t kill them all, then Mother Nature would pick up the slack.