It grew louder and faster. We rose and eased closer to the pool house windows to peer out at the night. By the glow of lightning, we saw a sheet of ice spreading across the landscape like a horrific wind—heading for us.
TING TING TING TING—
“Run!” Lark screamed. With Tee in her arms, she sprinted across the pool house, Circe and me rushing after them.
“Lark, get Tee out of here!” Oh, God, Aric was outside. “Aric!” I chanced a glance over my shoulder.
Ice crystals fanned out over the windows, fracturing the glass. They coated the floor, freezing even the salt water of the pool. Circe’s beakers cracked, flames extinguished.
Tee cried as we sprinted up the stairs and barreled through the doorway. I threw vines at the door, slamming it behind us. As we backed away, frost radiated outward from the center. The stalks of green withered and fell to the floor, shattering.
Ignoring the pain, I threw more vines to create a barricade against the cold, until it stopped the onslaught at last. “Aric! Where are you?”
My knees weakened when I saw him speeding down the hall toward us.
“Sievā.” He took Tee from Lark, holding him close. “It’s okay, son. It’s okay.” Tee sniffled but calmed somewhat.
I clutched Aric’s arm, and he pulled me against him. What if Circe had been asleep by the pool? She would be dead right now. “What was that?”
“I don’t know. A freak weather front of some sort.”
Between breaths, Lark said, “Cyclops was out on patrol. He froze solid. I felt it. Nobody could survive that.” Her eyes turned red as she communed with another scout. “But now, the freeze is gone. It came as quick as a breeze and left just as fast.”
This apocalypse just kept on giving! “He’ll recover, right?” Cyclops was one of Lark’s familiars, should live as long as she did.
“Yeah. But if that freeze had hit the menagerie dead-on, I would’ve lost every animal in there.”
Had Aric shared a look over my shoulder with Circe?
She murmured, “The gods vent their wrath.” Just as Matthew had warned.
Aric exhaled a breath. “I’ll call the others and warn them to stay on guard.”
Lark sputtered, “Wait, you think that’s gonna happen again?”
He nodded.
“Then it’s game over, cats. Humanity’s days are numbered. . . .”
32
The Hunter
Day 867 A.F.
Some sound awakened me, and I shot upright in my bunk, fresh from a dream about Evie. I’d been having a lot of them in the two months since we’d talked.
I rubbed a hand over my face and glanced around the room. All the guys were sleeping, present and accounted for.
Today had been busy. Kentarch had used his abilities to teleport more stuff from the castle, including a ton of baby supplies. We now had a playpen set up for Tee and formula stockpiled.
Were Domīnija and I scheming to protect Evie from herself?
De tout coeur. Wholeheartedly. When Richter attacked the castle, we’d make sure she was safe with Tee at this hangar.
Across the room, Kentarch rolled over in his bunk, and again, always uncomfortable. Sometimes he would sleep-teleport, disappearing from his bed without waking. Maybe he traveled to Issa’s grave. Or the spot where they’d first met.
He ached for something out of reach, which I understood. I missed Evie so bad, I thought I’d lose my mind—
“Kos? Do you read me? Please reply.”
Had I heard a woman’s voice on the radio? I tossed on more clothes and hurried to the station in the office. I snatched up the transmitter and pressed the button. “Hey, you there?”
“Who the fuck are you?” the woman said.
What a greeting. “Name’s Jack Deveaux.”
A laugh. “Kos found you! I’ll be damned. I’m Brunhilda, the Battle-Ax. And yes, that’s meant in all senses of the term. You can call me Brun.”
“I saw you on the list of potential pages.” She was the fierce leader of a California biker gang and a metal-worker who’d forged a garrison out of steel. Stiff competition.
“Okay, put me out of my misery. Did Kos confirm you as the last Sword?”
“Non. Not before she . . . passed away.”
“Say again?”
“She died of plague.” I explained how the Pentacles had betrayed the Swords and how I’d found Kos in that cell.
Brun exhaled over the transmission. “The Noodler’s gonna take this bad. He’s one of the last four potentials still alive.”
I’d seen him on the list too. “Why do they call him the Noodler?”
“Because he used to noodle. You know, sticking his bare hands into underwater hidey-holes for fish. He founded a colony of folks in Missouri who harvest reptiles and creepy-crawlies. It’s good eating, if you’re hungry enough.”
“You said there’re four potentials still alive. Who’s the other one?”
“Gator Bait in central Florida. She put together a fort in the middle of an alligator farm. Alligators fared okay in the Flash, and they also make great guardgators. It’s not often you can eat your own security system.”
“What does she feed them?” The tour guides in Louisiana once used chickens. Not a lot of chickens left.
“Bagmen. Win-win.”
“At least they’re good for something.” If Sol and I got our way, we planned to deanimate them all across the world. As his abilities grew, he’d figured out how to tap a new level of his rays to render a zombie to dust, but so far only one at a time, and in close contact. His goal was to shine that ray over the entire globe.
“So we’ll never know which one of us is the Page.” Brun sighed. “I take it the Pentacles got what was coming to them?”
“They did. Which leaves the Wands.”
“Heard anything about them?”
The Swords had binders of information about the Majors, but nothing new that Domīnija hadn’t already shared. Yet their notes about the Wands had been interesting. “According to accounts from survivors out in the Ash, the entire suit is female. Folks say they appear, watch major events unfold, then disappear. They’re also known as the Stix.” When Evie and the others had felt as if someone was watching, had they been right?
“Yeah, Kos mentioned something about that. Was hoping you’d learned more.”
“Rumors held they were buying women.” Two marauders had considered selling Evie to the Stix.
“They are. Buying them, freeing them, and punishing the sellers.”
“Good for them.” Maybe the Wands were respectable like the Swords.
“Hey, weren’t you riding with a bunch of Majors?”
“Got some here with me right now,” I said, not ready to elaborate.
The guys and I were doing okay, all things considered. Mornings we holed up in the library to study everything from military strategy to architecture and engineering. I might not be as accomplished as the Swords, but I could try to earn the name, and the world would need builders once the apocalypse ended.
I’d learned a lot about construction from Fort Arcana, and I had a knack for it, but I set myself to the task of learning even more.